Friday, December 31, 2010

He has his tools, I have mine!

This is from our "Christmas in July" weekend in Tootgarook this year. A friend of mine has a holiday home there and a bunch of us go for a crafting weekend. Much food (for this read chocolate and other sweet goodies) is taken and consumed along with a little alcohol. Takeaways or eating out are the order of the day as we don't want to waste precious time cooking and cleaning up. Every surface is covered with all manner of crafter equipment and completed projects (growing as the weekend progresses). This year I managed to get quite a few Christmas cards made.
The poor old car groans when I pack up to go, taking everything apart from the kitchen sink, I have a large estate car (wagon for the non British readers) and every available bit of space is used, just as well I don't have to bring anyone else with me!

Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Brisbane

This layout is from a trip to Queensland a couple of years back where we spent the day exploring Brisbane. It was winter time so the weather wasn't particularly warm, the previous day Kevin and Holly had braved White Water World, I had stayed fully clothed and just photographed the day, well someone has to, don't they!

Sunday, December 26, 2010

Holly


Here are two layouts of Holly at very different ages. What an angelic little face the top one is, where has that little girl gone? Now a very "grumpy teenager"!
Girly Girl -I just loved this paper as soon as I saw it and sought out a photo that would suit it, this layout went off to my Mum for her album. the photo was taken when Holly was eight by a friend of Mum's in their back garden.
School Camp layout - Holly had a fantastic time trying things she would never normally get to do, she thoroughly enjoyed the whole week, especially the evenings where everyone gathered together for supper, chatting about their day.

Girly Girl:
Paper - Prima
Chipboard Title - Scrapware

School Camp:
Rub On - Kaiser craft
Rhinestone flourish - Prima
Overlay - Daisy D's
Camp sticker - Jolees
Laughter phrase - Sara Books Hot of the Press
Journalling square - Bella Scrapbooking
Small tag - Old one from my stash

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Christmas Gift bags




This is one of the reasons I have been so slow to post, I made about 25 of these bags for various friends and colleagues. Inside there were separate bags of home baked shortbread, gingerbread men and yummy fudge.

The main tag is the Top Note die from Stampin Up, scalloped circle also Stampin Up
Leaves, Berries, Holly, Swirl - Sizzix dies
Border punches various designs all EK Success
Greeting Circles - Craftwork Cards (a UK based company)
Embossing Folders - Cuttlebug

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

A post at last!

Hold your breath, it's a new post! I have been busy making Xmas cards, pressies and such like and also scrapping but never seem to have the time to get it on the blog.

This was my birthday bash back in March, I thought as it will soon be birthday time again, I had better do this one first. Look at the dessert plate to share, truly scrumptious.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Photos


Here are a couple of the photos Holly has taken recently, in the first one you can see Holly's camera reflected in the centre of the bubble. In the second one Holly has edited the background to black and white making the bubbles really stand out

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Designer pad

Here are the dogs, looking happy on a walk with Holly and pausing to catch their breath. The band around Caramel's nose is to stop her pulling when she is being walked, for a small dog she certainly has the strength to drag you along without it.
Here is the flash new kennel Kevin has built them, Holly has even stuck up photos inside to make them feel at home. Don't you love the wood shingles on the roof?
Here is Caramel given Kevin's handywork the once over to see if it meets her exacting standards, she obviously approves because she has been spending a lot of time in it.

Thursday, August 12, 2010

Check out my other blog

I have just posted a layout on my other blog, check it out here

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Oops, she's done it again!!!!!!!!!

For those of you who read my blog regularly (hopefully at least 5 of you) you will know that my oldest daughter is accident prone. Well today she decided she would make some delightful goodies for me to take away on a girls weekend I am off on tomorrow - she loves to cook. I had left the house to go to a meeting for work, had just arrived when I got the phone call "Mum, I have sliced through my finger can you come home please". Suffice to say, I dropped everything and headed back to be met at the door by Lauren, with said finger clad in paper towel. I took a quick look, fat and bone were showing so I looked away again just as quick. We went straight off to the Doctor where she had several stitches to close up the gash caused by a blender. This is the girl who is studying for a Uni degree in science but doesn't have the common sense to turn the blender off before she put her fingers in to clean out the sticky mixture. Don't worry girls the bloody mixture has been thrown away and I have cracked the whip and she is now back in the kitchen baking afresh so we won't miss out.



Lauren, bandaged finger and the offending blender.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Kevin's 50th birthday

For Kevin's birthday we went up to Melbourne and looked around an old ship ( for that read, three bored females on the top deck looking at the goings on in the docks while Kevin toured every part of the ship in great detail). Mind you, seeing the tall ship dock, take on board passengers and leave again ( yes, he was that long) was quite entertaining. Then after that, we went for lunch, now the day was starting to improve. Then joy of joys it was the railway museum in the afternoon. However, we females bore this all with fortitude and a ready smile because it was after all his day. Love you sweetheart!!

Saturday, July 17, 2010

Great Ocean Road

Apologies for wonky picture taking!
Here is a three page layout of our trip (minus children) down the Great Ocean Road last November. I couldn't get everything I wanted on just two pages. We had a great time, relaxing over breakfast, reading the paper without someone saying "can we go now", strolling unhurried down the beach enjoying the scenery. Ahh Bliss!!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Young man

Here is my Grandad as a very young man. He was born and brought up in Cornwall, England and was one of 17 children although only 13 survived childhood. His Father was a contractor on the building of the Great Western Railway and many of the children were born at various stations along the railway route.

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Cherised

Here is another black and white photo layout of my grandparents. The photo was probably taken on one of my Grandad's visits home from working in the Middle East. As well as the Dam I mentioned earlier, I have since found out he also worked in Iraq and some of the other Gulf States on the oil pipe laying contracts and on the Takoradi Harbour in Ghana.

The paper is My Minds Eye - So Sophie

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Happy Birthday Lauren

Lauren has reached the grand old age of 22 today. She has recovered from her accident but has had one injury after another ever since, which is depressing her. Instead of training on the bike and running she is now concentrating on building up some of her weaker muscles in the hope that this will prevent further injury. I certainly hope so. She starts her Uni exams this Thursday, she was supposed to have taken them in June but they allowed her to delay because of the headaches she was suffering after the accident which prevented her from studying.

Now a layout for you, this is my mother at about 8 or 9, I am not sure, which is why I have left the tag unfinished. Hopefully when Mum looks at the blog entry she will be able to tell me.


Stamps:
Leaves - Papetrey Ink
Script and grid - Kaisercraft
Flowers - Stampin Up
Frame - Prima

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

When I think of my Grandad

This is my Grandad when he was much younger, as I mentioned earlier he travelled throughout the Middle East, working on big projects like the Aswan Dam in Egypt, he was a project manager for a big earthworks company in England. As a child my Mum remembers getting photos of her Dad standing at a foreign land mark holding a big board with Happy Birthday Hazel written on it for her birthday. She loved it when he came home because he would stay for several weeks before having to return. It is funny what you remember as a child, because of all the things we did together, the places we went etc, it is his pipe smoking that immediately springs to mind when I think of him. Another thing I remember is my Grandad showing me a picture of himself on a camel in front of the Sphinx, what I wouldn't give to scrap that photo, unfortunately no one knows where it is now.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Baby Face

Having done a few layouts of Kevin as a child, I decided to do one of me with my Grandad. As the final grandchild I was spoiled rotten by my Maternal Grandparents. I spent a lot of time with them as a child because my Mum worked but I loved going to their house. My Nanna was a great cook, as well as seamstress for my dolls cloths and a fantastic story teller. My Grandad had travelled extensively in the Far East and had lots of little treasures dotted round the house that I loved to play with.

Friday, May 14, 2010

Daughter

This is another layout with inspiration from Ingvild, this time in the form of one of her sketches. There is always such attention to detail in Ingvild's layouts which I have tried to emulate here, different from my normal style but it does you good to go out of your comfort zone every now and then.

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Inspiration by Ingvild

Today's inspiration came from a sketch by Ingvild Bolme - she of the most fantastically detailed scrapbooking I have ever seen. Here is the link http://www.ingvildbolme.com/2010/05/palette-4-from-color-room.html
This is Holly at 3, showing who ever was watching (we were in a restaurant at the time) just how princess's curtsey. Don't you just love their confidence at that age?

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Ten things you never knew.

Christine very kindly awarded me this award a week or so back and I have been having trouble thinking of ten things to tell you about me that you don't already know.

Well here goes:
1. I met my husband on a blind date, we have now been together 34 years.
2. I always wanted a horse when I was growing up
3. My daughter had a horse when she was growing up and I saw all the hard work it took and I am now glad my parents didn't give in to my whim.
4. I rode a tandem in a local carnival procession
5. I used to swim for my school in competitions ( I now hate swimming)
6. I have the actor Rob Lowe on home video as his son and mine were at a Thomas the Tank Engine day in Hampshire, England.
7. I won the Victoria Sponge cookery competition at my secondary school. I haven't cooked one since, how could I top that?
8. My one and only rock concert was to see Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Staduim, London.
9. I came to paper crafting when I was doing an interior design course and was sent to my local stamp shop for paint and a stamp to make my own curtain material. The rest as they say is history.
10. I have lead a very uneventful life because I can't think of a tenth thing to tell you.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Exercise is bad for your health!!!!!!!!!


I hope all you Mum's out there are enjoying your day, I had a less than happy Mother's day Eve when I was phoned at approx 9.30am to say Lauren had been taken to hospital by ambulance having come off her bike, hang on, I hear you say, am I having a "deja vu" moment, I am sure I have read something on this blog about a bike accident before, the answer is yes you have, it was my husband that time. Beware People, bike riding is not conducive to good health, despite what the "experts" may tell you.
Apparently Lauren had been riding down the 1 in 20 on the Dandenongs and had to break suddenly (amnesia is keeping Lauren from remembering why) and the next thing she remembers is waking up on the tarmac and wondering where she, the ambulance was called by her training companions. Thankfully her skin wounds are superficial but she took a nasty bang to her head and the base of her spine - I think she must have somersaulted off the front of the bike, hit her head first and flipped onto her back. After initially arriving at the hospital seeming fairly compos mentis, she then became agitated and confused so they rushed her off for a head CT, thankfully that came back clear. Her main worry was, how is my bike (shades of her Father) and I should be revising for a big test at Uni on Tuesday.The Doctor kept her in hospital all day for observation, during which she slept most of the time, but she was let out last night. Today, she is nursing a very sore head and her neck is very stiff. The Doctor was lovely and he has written a letter to the Uni saying she won't be able to take the test as she will have trouble concentrating and the headaches are likely to persist for some time.

Backpacking visitor

One of Lauren's old junior school friends has been travelling and has reached these shores, having travelled down the coast from Cairns, reached Melbourne on Monday. She saw Lauren at Uni on Tuesday and had dinner with her on Wednesday reminiscing about old times and catching up on what friends were doing now. Then on Friday Emily and her fellow backpacker Emma came to see me. I picked them up from the station and then went for coffee and a long chat and then at their request we toured some wineries. In one, the girl who served us had been to New Zealand (their next stop) and was telling them all the best places to go. The girls flew out to NZ yesterday and then last stop on their tour is Chile.
After the wineries we came home had dinner, chatting all the while and then it was off to the station for their trip back and an early night in readiness for the dawn flight. I was a little apprehensive, having not seen Emily for about four years and not really having time for any meaningful conversation since the girls parted after junior school and went to different secondary schools eight years ago, that we would struggle to find things to say, but no, it was like old times and there was barely a silent moment all day. Emily showed me pictures of girls I last saw when they were ten/eleven, needless to say I barely recognised them, Lauren however hasn't changed very much at all.
Sadly I didn't have the girls altogether to take a photo, so this one is just Emily and Holly.

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Six of Six - Yay I made it!!!


More hubby pics, the bottom one with two of his three sisters and his Dad and the top one, such a cute pic, I have no idea what he was up to, but whatever it was, he was prepared.

Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Five of six


Sorry for the tardiness of this post, Christine prompted me for falling behind on my promise. Here are some B & W photos of my husband as a child. His Mum gave them to me many years ago and I am only just getting around to scrapping them. I have gone for a more clean and simple look as the photos are small and I didn't want to overwhelm them.

Sunday, April 11, 2010

Four of six - Easter Egg Hunt

The search is on, with Holly locating the "loot" on the back of the car
This blur was me capturing the bun fight that ensued when the girls realised there was still an egg somewhere in the doona (duvet) cover.

It's not just birds who leave eggs in trees, so does the Easter bunny.


The girls with their cache of eggs, Holly looks like the cat who got the cream! For Lauren most of the fun was in the hunt, she only kept a few eggs for herself and gave the rest to Holly. Kevin mucked up one of the clues by coming across the eggs I had hidden in his shed and eating them before the girls could find them!!








Saturday, April 10, 2010

Three of six

Here are some of the little Easter pressies I made for friends, a simple milk carton box template was used and I added a tiled roof (with the aid of a scallop border punch) and gable ends.

Friday, April 9, 2010

Two of six




Sorry about the wonky photography..again! I love this paper, so elegant.
The first one is very old friend I made in year one, on her wedding day, the next, Lauren posing in a new hat and matching gloves thinking she was the bees knees, and last me with my Dad. Sadly he passed away in 1999 and not a day goes by where I don't think about him. Nicknamed Uncle Chuckles by a family friend because of his ability to find so much in life amusing, his passing has left a big hole in our lives.


Welcome new follower

Just a short post to say Hi to my new follower Sandie (are you a card maker, scrapper or both?), having reached the heady heights of four followers I am feeling very flattered. I am sure you have all seen those blogs with hundreds of followers, but I prefer quality of quantity (ha ha, who am I kidding, oh to be a blogging celebrity).Welcome to my little part of cyberspace.

One of six - Just for you Christine




Here are the last of my Basic Grey Origins layouts. I still have paper left though, so you never know!
When out with friends last night I foolishly mentioned that having not blogged for so long I would upload six in quick succession, hence the title. I had a great time, stamping (not much) chatting ( a lot) and eating (more than I should have)...yes you have guessed it - chocolate goodies. We had a new addition to our regular little band, Christine's son Ethan, who is a delight. He quietly got on with his own cardmaking and the inking of his own arms - very attractive, and then gave us a little show and tell of all the cards he had made over the last few days, what a prolific little creative talent he is. That boy and his charm will go far.


Saturday, April 3, 2010

Don't faint - it's a new post!!


Two cards for you today, both made solely with Paper Trey ink stamps and coloured with copics.
I thought it was about time I put something else up!!
Kevin is feeling a lot better now, although sleeping is still a big problem, he just can't get in a position where it doesn't hurt. He is still too sore to return to work just yet. Lauren managed to fall off her bike too, during the recent wet weather on a tram track in Melbourne. Huge bruise on her leg and hurt her knee so badly she was unable to walk without pain for a week, so came home to be nursed and fed. She is also much better now and back at Uni.
I have organised an egg hunt for this weekend - Lauren's request (how old is she?) with written clues just to add to the fun (again Lauren's request). Pictures will appear later.
Have a great Easter.

Friday, February 19, 2010

He's home

I went up to visit Kevin with the girls on Tuesday afternoon, we arrived there about 4.45 and were just walking in from the carpark when my phone rang. It was the hospital asking what time I was getting there because Kevin was waiting in the transit lounge to go home. "Why is he going home" I asked" he is still in so much pain". The lady on the other end didn't know (she was just admin staff), she assumed I had been phoned when the ward discharged him as he had been sitting waiting for me since ten in the morning. But no one had phoned, so poor old Kevin was sitting there all day waiting for us to arrive. He had no phone as I had taken it home to recharge and buy him some more credit.
Apparently they got him up first thing in the morning and told him if he could stand, he could go home because they were desperate for beds, he said he didn't feel well enough to go, but to no avail. He went to the bathroom and by the time he got back, they had changed the sheets and the next patient was just getting into his bed. They hadn't even given him time to clear his personal possessions. The journey home was very painful for him, especially as it was rush hour and it was stop/start most of the way.
They have sent him home with plenty of pills, but it is the facilities he is missing more, getting in and out of bed takes ages because he is having to support his own body, whereas in the hospital the bed rasied him up electrically. He is being very stoic about it though and not complaining but I can see the pain on his face.
We have had plenty of calls and emails from his cycling club friends wishing him well, one email in particular was very funny, although Kevin didn't appreciate it too much when I read it out because laughing and broken ribs are not a match made in heaven.
Of course the first thing he did when he got home was look at his bike and it is more damaged than first appeared to the untrained eye (i.e. mine) so he has been mentally totting up how much it is all going to cost to fix, a depressing thought!!

Monday, February 15, 2010


Well here he is, thankfully without the neck brace. It turns out that the company the hospital outsources the xray reporting to, had lost Kevin's scans and xrays and that is why we waited so long. We have a the radiographer at the hospital to thank for finally getting to the truth. She refused to be fobbed off by the company and pestered them for ages until they admitted they had lost them and made them search through until they found them and then do the report immediately. The good news - the spine, pelvis and ankle are fine, but he has 3 broken ribs (each broken in two places - he obviously doesn't believe in doing things by halves), a broken shoulder and a punctured lung, plus some nasty abrasions.

He is likely to remain in hospital for a while yet as he can hardly move without extreme pain, just as well the bed raises electrically but even that he has to do in small increments because it hurts too much. I know he must be feeling bad because he still has the cream egg I brought him yesterday untouched. If you know Kevin, you would appreciate just how bad he must be feeling to be off his chocolate!!

He was complaining of being unable to shave, I would have offered but I fear I would have just added to his list of injuries.

The bike came out of the accident relatively unscathed, apart from mangled handle bars. When we came back from the hospital today, one of Lauren's lovely friends had left us a big dish of pasta bake that she had made for our dinner. What a sweetie!

Disaster strikes

My husband Kevin had an accident on his bike during a race on Saturday, he is currently in The Royal Melbourne Hospital awaiting results from scans and xrays.

He has broken ribs, a punctured lung and broken shoulder, they are playing it safe and he is still wearing a neck brace because of possible spinal injuries although we think this unlikely as he can move his arms and legs. There is also the slight possibility of a broken pelvis and ankle, again we think this unlikely because he can move without pain.

Despite the fact he went in to hospital at 5.45pm on Saturday and had his scans and xrays about 10pm he is still as I type this at 10.30am Monday waiting for the results, which I think is appalling. I have had various reasons/excuses - too many traumas, computers not working, skeleton staff because of the weekend - for the delay, but I think it is totally unacceptable.

I will keep you posted.

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

More school layouts



Here are the other two Origin's layouts I promised you. To answer your question Christine, yes I did use most of it, so I went out and bought more!!
During her junior years Lauren's reports were peppered with comment like "must learn to moderate her views in light of discussion", "needs to be more appreciative of the contribution of others". Lauren always saw things in black and white and it was her way or the highway. As I said in the previous post she was always loud, she was also forthright, she did learn that others sometimes have something valueable to add but she didn't suffer fools gladly and her inability to hold back on her own views did lead to her have the unenviable title in her year book when leaving secondary school as - Person with least tact. It makes a mother proud!!!

The double layout is of my younger daughter Holly when she left her junior school in England to move here. This layout uses the PaperTrey Ink stamp set - Friends til the end. Holly was a much more easy going character who didn't make waves, which made the end of year reports a little less "interesting" to read.