Before I leave!!!

Just thought I would add some more of my scrapbook pages before our big trip overseas again!! Yes…we leave New Zealand at 11.30pm tomorrow night and arrive in Shanghai at 7.30 am. This will be a 3 days stopover on our trip to England to see Daniel and Marysia. I plan on keeping you all up to date on my blog rather than Facebook…well I plan on it but it all depends on when and if I can get free wireless! The bags are packed and I just need to do a bit more housework tomorrow. The scrapbook room is tidy and everything put away awaiting our return at the end of July. Then it will be a very busy work room as I will have tons of photos to scrap!!! So here are the latest pages anyway…enjoy

Some more inspiration – My latest pages

Our Wednesday morning scrapbooking is going well. We manage to create 3 pages each time we are together and we also eat way too much food. I am sure the extra 5 kilos I am carrying around at the moment comes from our Wednesdays. it’s like a party each week! But I love scrapbooking. If I do a layout that I really love I will do it again with different papers. It will usually end up in a different album anyway so you would probably never see the pages together. I purchased a kit called ‘Sidewalks’ from ‘October Afternoon’ and have made lots of pages from the fabulous paper already. I have also used up nearly all of another kit called ‘Life is good’ from ‘Echo Park’. ‘Everyday Enchartment’ from ‘Stampin Up’ has also been a favourite of mine. Those kits are well worth buying! I leave my new pages on display to admire until I take a photo and file them away into the correct album. If you like scrapbooking I hope my pages can inspire you too 🙂

One layout – four times

I found this neat layout titled patchwork so decided to give it a try. I loved it! So I did it four times with different papers and photos. This is a great thing to do especially if the photos are going into different albums. What do you think?

Some more pages!!

I just realised that I have loaded up my latest pages but forgot to load up the pages before them. So I will now update my blog with them….and you will have heaps to look at and be inspired by 🙂 My next post won’t be scrapbook pages….okay 🙂

A sample of my latest pages

Our Welcome On Wednesday (WOW) scrapbooking and card making mornings are well on the way for this year. We usually have 4 of us here each Wednesday but have actually had 6 ladies a couple of times. It is such a lot of fun and even though we only get 2 pages done each week, we all enjoy being together and the bonus of creating beautiful pages. I love scrapbooking! I also love looking through my finished albums. So as you can imagine everywhere I go I take my camera with me. I can’t miss another scrapbook opportunity, even though I still have heaps of photos waiting to be scrapped! I hope my pages will inspire you to create some for yourself. I certainly don’t mind you copying my pages….I also get ideas from other pages I see and love…enjoy 🙂

Just wondering?

Does anybody ever read my blog????

Lately I have stopped writing on my Facebook profile and the only person who noticed is D1. I thought that I would just write on my blog but wondered if I am just writing into nothingness? I guess I can still share my thoughts , dreams and my everyday life and leave it at that, but I did think that this is a great way to link up with family and friends. Perhaps there are only a few of us really that use their computer on a daily basis?

I do have an amazing life! We live in a fantastic house. It isn’t perfect but it is ours and as I always say, it is a work in progress. I don’t think it will ever be finished. We have been painting the outside walls for approximately 10 years! Each summer we try to do just a little. Enough to make a difference but not too much to make us sick of the job. You see the whole outside of the house was sprayed with a product called ‘Rhino Coat’ and man is it hard to get off. We have to use heat guns and scrapers and it is a very slow job! Today we painted the last of the back wall…yay!!!! I did one very silly thing and painted one whole area in white, which I thought was topcoat. I did say to Robin that is was drying a bit dull too! It wasn’t until I was nearly finished when I  looked at the bucket of paint and found that it was UNDERCOAT! I know…you would think I would have checked that out properly before I started. Normally I would have! Today, I was pretty upset before we started. Robin had plans to build the base for his new water tank! I wanted to finish the painting so we could get the big planks of wood off our conservatory roof! These were used to stand on so we didn’t break the Novalight roofing, but they also made a horrible noise all night long when the wind blew…and they kept me awake at night. I wanted them down! So being grumpy at the thought of possibly another week of broken sleep, I got determined to get up on THAT ROOF and paint the wall myself! Did you know that I hate getting up on the roof? Well I do and even worse is getting back onto the ladder to get down! I guess that somehow I worked myself up so much that checking the label on the paint bucket was the last of my thoughts! Although I did think I had checked that it was topcoat. So after finishing the layer of undercoat over the first topcoat…I had to do another layer of topcoat paint to finish the wall off. Thankfully Robin felt sorry for me and he left the water tank for another day and helped to finish the painting. The planks of wood are now off the roof, stored in the back shed, and the wall is finished!

We now have to finish the front of the house and then it will be painted all around. Maybe this summer?

After that it will be the flat (which is connected to our house), we will need to paint it the same colour as the house….so we actually have another whole house to paint! I guess that by the time we finish the flat we will need to start all over again….what a lovely thought…NOT! At least the preparation time won’t be quite as painful as this time 🙂

Yesterday it rained all day so I decided to do some sewing. I cut out and sewed at whole patchwork area to make a single bedspread. I am thinking of giving it to C6 to put on her bed at University Hall next year. I just have to get some more material to finish it off. I will post a photo as soon as I can. I also managed to do a little internet shopping! Just as well it’s pay week! I love www.simonsaysstamp.com as they have set postage prices unlike many other American internet shops. I just have to be patient until my little package arrives. Hopefully it won’t take too long as I have ordered some Christmas papers to make my Christmas Cards with.

Tonight is Sunday and I love our Sunday night dinners! Tonight we had 10 of us….well 11 but Jess was a little late. A couple of months ago we decided to have family dinner get togethers and have it at different places each week. It was our turn tonight and we had Chinese takeaways! We all put in towards the meal and the person whose place it is at gets to chose the type of takeaway! Last week we had fish and chips at Mum and dads place. The week before it was Indian at Judy and Lens!

Right..time to sign off and get myself ready for another busy week! Robin is already in bed. He and Jordan leave for work at 7.30am. C5 is working at the hospital 3-11pm tomorrow and C6 has her first exam! I have to get to church to set up for mainly music…and catch up with the washing and housework…fun fun fun. I also have to start my J100 readings. 5 to read before Thursday night homegroup. This week I plan to be much better organised! PRAY for me PLEASE…I am such a time waster 🙂

Australian Holiday Sept-Oct 2011

I have just got back home from 15 days in Australia. C1 was going to the Formula 1 car races in Singapore and D1 suggested that I go over to keep her company. Booked a 5 day holiday and then my work said that I needed to take 10 days off in a row…immediately. I didn’t argue! Phoned and changed the flights and ended up with a 15 day holiday. The first 3 days we stayed in Sydney and then we all flew up to Brisbane for 6 days! Stayed at the Hilton and lived the hard life….NOT!!! Visited Australia Zoo, Dreamworld, Southbank Beach and did some shopping….and lots of swimming in the lovely warm hotel pool! Back to Sydney and stayed for the last 4 days..home on the 15th day away! C1 and D1 always spoil me with a wonderful experience every time I stay with them!! And…I just love seeing G1 and G3! My 2 lovely grand daughters. Also spent some time with C4 and D3. They are both doing very well in Sydney and as newly weds…well they haven’t been married for a year yet. I managed to do 15 scrapbook pages using the valuable time every evening. Funny how I manage to get pages done while away on holiday, but not while at home! Darn housework and the busyness of life! Makes me want to quit work and spend more time doing crafts…that I love doing….life is too short…but I do need the money to spend on crafts as well…so I will continue to work!

 

My latest pages and my new Scrapbook room

So now I have started to set up the new room, and it has been so much fun! I am very spoilt! I didn’t realise just how much scrapbook supplies I have, but I LOVE them all! I thought I would share a few more photos with you. Some of the room and others of my latest pages. I hope you enjoy looking and get inspired to create your own pages

Guess what I have been up to???

Well….apart from the usual, housework, mothering, work, along with Stamping and Scrapbooking… I have had the sewing machine out and I have been doing some Patchwork!!!! Yes….I can’t believe it! I haven’t done any patchwork since I was a young thing! Mothers Day was the instigator. I decided to make something for Mum for Mothers Day and just loved the pillows I made so much that I didn’t want to give them away…so I had to make more for me. 3 for Mum and 5 for me!!! That was because I ran out of the material I was using for Mums ones. The ones I kept match our fireplace lounge really well, and I didn’t even think about that when I brought the material. It was such a good bargain I just brought it. I wasn’t even that keen on the patterns but they look great made up. I have now purchased some more material. I’m not sure what I’m going to make yet….but I am hoping for some inspiration. I have found so many neat patterns on the net….so now it’s a matter of just getting into it!!! If I can find time to do that! Life is just too busy! And I still want to find time for scrapbooking….my main passion 🙂

Have a look at what I created and see what you think???

And…yes, I have found some time to scrap

I thought I would just show off some of my latest pages before I head off to Ben’s wedding and Sydney after that. My daughter in law loves to do scrapbooking too and I usually achieve a page a night while staying with her. I’m not sure if we will manage it this time as we are flying to Brisbane for a long weekend over my 2 week holiday. Should be lots of photo opportunities anyway. I have finally made my Stampin Up order for the quarter as well, so will have some lovely new product to work with. Let’s hope it all arrives before I fly out!