Found My Mojo today....

Well looks like I have finally found some Mojo....I got 3 Design Team challenges done for over at Hybrid today. The first one was a pretty basic one from Toni which was to scrap about Back To School.You can do the LO on your kids, your job, or memories of your own school days:

The next one was from Maria which was to use up your scrap's At least 4 different kind's of paper's layered, 2 different kinds of alphas, 2 lots of bling or pearls and rhinestones and2 photo's of something that you can't get by without:

...and the final challenge I did for Feb was from Ann which was do a LayOut One photo of something you love, use 2 embellishments that you love to use (remember only two types of embellishments but you can use as many of the two types as you like, add some hand journalling and bling.....colour choice is up to you...you can use pp...lace....ribbons as back ground.

Finally the Silent Auction in aid of the Victorian Bushfire Appeal is under way over at Hybrid and there is some great stuff up for auction so go on head over there and have a look ....you can find the link on the side of my blog....

Major Mojo Block!!!

Talk about having a MAJOR Mojo block this past week!!! It really was the last thing I needed....I had a LO to get done and what I was seeing and what I wanted the LO to look like were two completely different things!!! I FINALLY got some Mojo flowing about 2 hours ago and got my LO up in the gallery at Hybrid with a couple of hours to spare!!! The challenge this week was "What did you Survive" and I ended up changing my mind several times and eventually came up with this LO...

Today has been a rather busy one for me...I had to do some running around for Kerry getting stuff to take up to him in April, I finally sold our old white station wagon, I bought a new lounge/sofa bed for the family room as the old futon lounge is going to a new home next week, went to the dentist and did some grocery shopping!!!

We have a long weekend here in WA this weekend so I am hoping that the Mojo will keep flowing as I need to finish my DT monthly challenge LO's which have to be up by midnight tomorrow. Fortunately I have these laid out so it is now only a matter of sticking them all together....Kaitlyn has a couple of play dates so she will be occupied...I may also end up taking her to the beach dependant on the weather.....

A mixed bunch today

Well today has been pretty much your average day.....HOWEVER..... Today is the first day of Lent, also known as Ash Wednesday on the Church Calendar, and I was so very proud to watch Kaitlyn do a reading at the Liturgy of the Word service this morning. She walked up to the podium, opened her order of service and then proceeded to do her reading without looking at it once!! Yup she had memorized the whole thing!!!!

Today I also received the photos of Kaitlyn taken for her dance concer last year and let me tell you it is hard to remember she was only JUST 7 at the time they were taken!!! Here take a look at a few of them.....

See I told you she looked gorgeous!!! Not that I would be biased or anything.....well OK yeah I am biased but I am allowed to be......you can be sure that these photos will be turning up in some LO's very, very soon!!!

Have you ever gotten the muchies and maybe fancied a bit of chocolate cake???. The following recipe was posted over at Hybrid Designs Forum recently by "rainbowdolphin".

DANGEROUS 5 Minute Chocolate Mug Cake
4 tablespoons flour
4 tablespoons sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa
1 egg
3 tablespoons milk
3 tablespoons oil
3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)
A small splash of vanilla extract
1 large coffee mug

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well.

Add the egg and mix thoroughly. Pour in the milk and oil and mix well.

Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts. The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.EAT! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world? Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

I have to admit that I have yet to make it as I haven't had the urge for cake but I have got the recipe on the fridge!!!

Well thats it for today folks so wherever you may be take care...........

Time to Dig Deep and other musings

Take the time to have a read of the above message folk......yup the Crew over at Hybrid (you can find the link on the side of my blog) have decided to pitch in and help out...lots of GREAT goodies have been donated and will be up for grabs so go on over and have a look and make a bid. I'm also going to post the above ad on the side of my blog and you can just click on that as well to take you to the Hybrid Forum.

As for me well my MOJO (scrapping juices) has been on the low side this week...I only managed to get 3 of the 4 Cyber Crop layouts done....apologies to Maria for not getting hers done...but no matter what I tried the MOJO wouldn't flow!!! Heres the three I did manage to get done....

People often ask me how do you do scrapbooking??? The thing with scrapbooking is that there is no right or wrong way to scrap. Each scrapper has their own style but most are open to trying something new. I look at some of my earlier attempts at scrapping and I shudder with horror but I still keep those earlier layouts as they show my progression within this hobby. The other thing I like about scrapping is that it doesn't HAVE to be chronological. In other words unlike a photo album where you try to get some sort of time continuity happening you don't have to do that with scrapping. For example the album I have done of Kaitlyn jumps all over the place time wise. One page may be of her as a newborn and the next as a 7 year old.

The other side of scrapping is what is called OTP, or Off The Page. With OTP it is literally that. You aren't scrapping on a 12 x 12 inch square of paper but you are scrapping an object. It could be a cup, photoframe, a mini album the list is endless...heres a couple of OTP items I have done.......





This one is a Kaisercraft Tag holder that I painted and papered....yeah I know I have to finish the tags but you get the idea......



...and this one is a plaque which sits on a small easel that I picked up from Ikea. So the possibilities are endless....lets not forget a few blog posts ago I showed you a computer I had scrapped recently!!!!








Other non scrap news this week is that Kaitlyn and I are set to go to Tuvalu in April to see Kerry. Tickets and everything have been comfirmed etc so we are now counting down to take off!!!! Kaitlyn has well and truley settled in to her new school and is enjoying it immensly. She has also started dancing again and is now doing five classes a week. Hip Hop, Jazz Ballet, Jazz Acrobatics, Classical Ballet and a private lesson learning a dance which will be performed at their end of year concert in November. How she does it or where she gets the energy from beats me but she loves to dance and so far so good.....and yes she is sleeping well at night. Well speaking of sleep time for me to hit the hay.......

Scrappers Rock

WOW!!! Scrappers really do rock!!! If you haven't already go and check out Sarah Gladmans blog!!! She is behind the The Memory Gifts Project for those affected by the Victorian Bushfires. At this point in time she has 10,000 , yes you read that right, 10,000 LO's promised to her which means EVERY family affected WILL receive an album. No one will miss out...so go girls and keep scrapping....

Blasted alarms and other stuff

Blasted alarm didn't go off this morning...someone should blow alarm clocks up...don't know why but it didn't...anyways I didn't get out of bed until 8-15am this morning which is really late for me!! So it was a mad dash to get Kaitlyn fed, dressed and out the door for school but she made it in time as her school is only 2 mins away by car!!! Speaking of school Kaitlyn started at a new school this year. Since she was 3yo she has been going to our local Montessori school which Kerry and I think is a great way of educating your children....however due to multiple reasons we felt that we should look at putting her into a different school for this year. So Star of the Sea was the school we chose and she is LOVING it!!! Heres a couple of pictures of her in her summer uniforms:

The last photo of her shoes and socks she insisted that I take to show Daddy what her new shoes looked like!!!

Ok Hybrid Designs (you can find the link on the side of my blog) are holding a Silent Auction in aid of the Victorian Bushfires Appeal. All things going well it will be held on the 28th Feb. So if you want to pick up some really good stuff/bargains at auction it might just be worth your while popping in to have a look.....I'll keep you updated on whats happening as soon as I get some more details from Mel the wonderful owner of Hybrid.....

Which leads me to my latest efforts in the Survivor competition being held over at Hybrid at the moment. We had to make a postcard to send home so here is mine:

Challenge 4 has just been posted and I have just about finished this one so once it is done I will post it here....

Well not long now until Kaitlyn and I take off into the big blue yonder again to go and see Kerry all the way up in Tuvalu...16 days of almost total isolation on a tropical island followed by 7 days in Fiji with Kerry and Kaitlyn!!! Kaitlyn is a brilliant traveller taking it all in her stride including a 6 hour delay on one of our flights last time we went overseas!! Mind you she had her first plane trip at 9 weeks of age and we drove from Cairns in FNQ to Perth in WA when she was a newborn due to a change in posting so travelling is nothing new to her. She is quite happy to go on a plane by herself to go and see Nanny in Tasmania which she normally does once a year...in fact she is starting to do so much travelling that we have enrolled her in the Virgin Blue Velocity Program and she is quite chuffed with the fact that she has her OWN card with HER name on it and she can earn points to buy "stuff" with!!

Anyway folks thats enough of my ramblings, things to do and people to see today...have a good one!!!

Gone Pink

Well I finally got around to adding a music player to the blog...and I have gone PINK!! Well I have a bit of a thing for Pink at the moment...so be warned lots of Pink in the playlist...you can of course always hit the stop button......

Quality time pt 2

.....Well I am up and about after getting Kaitlyn to school so I thought I should continue from where I left off last night....

While we were in Bunbury we also spent time at the beach.....me taking lots of photos, and I mean LOTS, I took over 100 photos in just over and hour at one stage!!!! Kerry and Kaitlyn played in the surf and some of the photos I got of the two of them will make perfect photos for LO's. For Kaitlyn it was a completely new experience as she had never played in surf like this before but with her Dad, her Rock of Gibraltar in more ways than one, to hold onto it was great fun and she had a ball actually they both did....Have a look.....

Then of course when at the beach there is always the inevitable sand castle building....

...and of course not trip to the beach is complete without an icecream...

...so you see it doesn't take much to acheive quality time....it's not how much money you spend or going to fancy places...... it's seizing the moment and making the most of what you have....

Quality Time.....

People often talk about spending quality time together.....but it's not until you are in the situation where your partner works away that you become very aware of making every moment count. Kerry is currently working overseas for the next two years so while he was home over the Christmas period we made the most of every moment and even managed to have a small family holiday in Bunbury which is about a 2 hour drive south of where we live in WA. We planned nothing in advance apart from the motel booking so once we got there we went to the Tourist Bureau and got pamphlets and then each day we decided on what we would like to do. However high on the to do list for Kerry and Kaitlyn was to take advantage of the HUGE spa bath in our motel room!!! It was nothing to have 2-3 spas a day!!! On our last night the three of us were in the spa and I poured a whole bottle of bubble bath into the spa...you can imagine the result....we ended up having a huge bubble fight and by the time we finished it looked as though it had snowed in the bathroom....but it was quality time.....

We did a few 'touristy' thinks such as visiting the Big Swamp Wildlife Park which was pretty awesome especially the walk through averies!! the birds will actually come down onto you and eat from your hands...one of them Kaitlyn named Bossy because he kept trying to scare the other birds off and trying to eat her lackey in her hair!!!

We also visited Donnybrook....an area famous for their fruit and went and walked around the Old Goldfields Orchard and Cider Factory. We got to walk through an apple orchard and view the original mine shaft there...we also spent a LOT of time just sitting by the lakes edge talking and taking photos. Kaitlyn is a budding photographer and she is a quick learner. So much so in fact that she has mastered using our new camers....this is one of her photos........ again it was quality time

Well it's late people so I think I will continue this tomorrow sometime.....

Help Make memories

Ok I have just heard about a great appeal that has been started to help the Bushfire Victims rebuild their memories....basically scrappers are being asked to create simple blank LO's that will be distributed to households who have lost everything so they can start to rebuild lost memories. For more info on this project go to Leonardos Apprentice http://sares1911.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/what-a-week/ or you can just click on the link under the "My Blog list" section. Even if you can only do one page it will help rebuild one memory.....

Lotsa Scrappin'g going on!!!

Hybrid Designs are currently running a "survivor" style competition. If you click on the Icon to the right of my blog it will take you to the forum. So I have been busy scrapping amongst other things I have scrapped a computer as one of the challenges!!!!

Then of course there were other pages to scrap such as shown below:

Trying to remember.....

You know things have been pretty hectic over the last 2 months that I really don't know where to start.....so I guess Christmas would be a good place. Kaitlyn and I headed down to Tassie to spend Christmas with my family as Kerry wasn't able to come home for Christmas. Needless to say Kaitlyn was devestated that her Daddy wouldn't be there for Christmas so she fired off an email to Santa telling him that she didn't want any presents she just wanted her Dad for Christmas. Anyway Christmas Eve we were at my brother Patricks house when Patrick came inside at about 8-30pm and said "Kaitlyn there is someone at the door to see you" so Kaitlyn walked outside and lo and behold look who was there....Santa!!!

Kaitlyn was stunned and in a very small voice said "Hello Santa".

Santa showed Kaitlyn a piece of paper he was holding and she was surprised to see that it was the email she had sent him.

Santa then said to her "Is it true you don't want any presents for Christmas?" She replied "I only want my Daddy for Christmas" Santa then said well I think you had better come with me .....

Santa took Kaitlyn to the Hadspen Fire Tender in which he had arrived in and opened the back door. Kaitlyn just stood there and looked for about 10 seconds before screaming at the top of he lungs "MY DADDY IS HOME FOR CHRISTMAS"

Needless to say there were lots of tears, even "Santa" said that when he read Kaitlyns email he had to do something....and of course Kaitlyn didn't let go of her Dad all night!!!

Kerry and I would like to thank my brother Patrick who as Chief of the Hadspen Volunteer Fire Brigade was instrumental in the delivery of Santa and Daddy on Christmas Eve. Second the volunteers of the Hadspen Brigade who without their help this wouldn't have happened thankyou very much....and finally to Santa himself, you know who you are, for making a little girls Christmas Wish come true.

Now while I am talking about Firies the bushfires in Victoria continue to rage....so if you have a few spare dollars please dig deep....a lot of money has been raised but more will be needed

I've been AWOL

Ok Ok OK so I have been AWOL for a little while.....well maybe a medium while....OK OK OK Maria and Toni stop poking me....I have been AWOL for simply ages!!! So over the next few days I am going to endevour to bring my blog back up to date and fill you in on all that has been happening the past couple of months.....












Foremost in my thoughts at the moment are the people of Victoria here in Australia who have been to hell and back with bushfires raging out of control. At the time of writing this 173 people have been confirmed killed as a result and Authorities tell us that is likely to go OVER the 200 mark!!! This is the worst tragedy to hit Australia in peacetime. Fires are still raging and it is thought that most have been deliberately lit!! Personally I think hanging is too good for whoever started them. Instead they should be tied to a tree in the middle of the fire and told "You started it....you blow it out"



If you can help the Australia Red Cross says the best way to do so is to give money which can be spent at local businesses in affected areas to help out the victims. If you want to donate you can call the Red Cross on 1800 811 700 and make a donation or you can do it securely online by going here: https://www.redcross.org.au/Donations/onlineDonations.asp . There are other appeals out there but this is one of the the main ones. Kudos must also go to all the BIG business' such as banks etc, who have donated.....



However thumbs down to the Federal Govt for only putting in $10 million. When ordinary Australians can raise just on $10 million in a day just through donations alone it has to make you wonder.....and how does the Federal Govt. justify in giving millions of dollars in Overseas Aid when our own people so desperately need help??? Charity begins at home Mr Rudd $10 million is not going to go very far in rebuilding these towns where there is nothing left. Simple maths over 750 homes have been lost due to the fires and yes many will be insured...but many won't...if to rebuild each home is on average $175000 that $10 million is only going to build around 57 homes let alone rebuild anything else....



Ok so thats the end of my rant for now......