Snip, Snap, Crop

It's been a busy weekend both scrapbooking and around home. Paving has been on the agenda for a number of weeks and still will be for a few more no doubt. I now have my under-cover clothesline in place and I can walk to that and hang clothes out on fully paved ground. Yay! The funny thing is that now it is spring I probably won't need to use it that much. Never mind, better late than never. I know I will feel the legs tomorrow as our backyard is over five levels and today I spent my time carting paving sand over four of those levels, using a bucket because we cannot get the wheelbarrow up the nine steps when it is full. Good thing I'm off to the Chiropractor tomorrow, he'll sort me out and I won't be able to walk on Tuesday with all the extra sore spots I'll have. I have had a fun time at the Heaven-Sent Animal Kingdom Cybercrop too. Our challenges were: 1. Make a layout with an animal photo as the main feature. 2. Use a "Party chick" image on a layout...

It's my first Friday night in ages where I have not headed out anywhere or held a crop. I'm not quite sure what to do with myself. I've had my cry watching a recorded version of Extreme Makeover - Home Edition on W on Foxtel...... Don't think I have ever watched that show without welling up. I just find it amazing the things that they create in 7 days for these families. God has given those guys, and all those volunteers that they round up, some truly amazing talent with the ideas that they have. Well school holidays start today in Adelaide and boy are my boys ready for them. They have been a nightmare this week with the tired and grumpy attitudes. Even my sister noticed tonight at their piano lessons that they were not their usual perky selves. I give them until Tuesday to recover and then they will be rejuvenated and ready to get going again. What am I up to this weekend? Well, I really need to do my layout for puzzlesketches blog this weekend along with a cybercrop a...

Yet again it is almost midnight and here I am still tapping keys. One of these days I will teach myself to get to bed early. Well, I have to say that the Melvin Tix show was excellent. After the kids complained about going all morning cos it would be boring, the first thing they said at the end was "that was great" " heaps of fun".... Go figure! It is essentially a show teaching the children about the various sections of an orchestra. Each section plays a little of the style of their instrument and you hear all of the sizes of the instruments from that section also. Melvin then tells a story which includes the instruments coming in at varying stages to show how the music can help convey the story. He observes when the children are getting restless and then makes everyone stand up and teaches us how to conduct the orchestra. He explains how to make them play louder and softer, faster and slower etc. He then sits them down again and plays a variety of short tunes on v...

It's my regular Friday night fortnightly crop tonight so trying to tidy up today. Have done the clothes sorting and floor washing and just sorting some magazines and books. Got busy and listed a lot of my card making books on ebay, so if you are looking for some, go and check them out. One of these days I will learn not to buy any more books because I never use them, I'm always finding my own designs to work with or visiting my favourite Page Maps site. Another crop tomorrow night too so if you can't make tonight I still have a couple of spots free for tomorrow night. We are off to see Melvin Tix tomorrow afternoon with the boys. This should be interesting as I had never heard of him before, but this is what his website says: "Petter Vabog has been playing an instrument since the age of 6. First he played the recorder and at the age of 9 he started playing the alto horn in Sandefjord Boy´s Band, a wind orchestra. He ended up playing the French Horn. For 2 years he was...

It's been a busy week! School photo day today, diabetes clinic with Mitchell yesterday and Monday and Tuesday was chasing computer parts and having the computer fixed. Kids are happy now they have their computer fixed to play their games on. The monitor died last week so I bought a new one then that one was flashing black too. It ended up the graphics card had died and needed replacing. Our household seems to one of those rare ones where it seems to be me who does the computer issue solving. One of these days I must actually go and do a course to find out what to do without researching! I was going to do that BC but never quite made it - I gave birth to triplets instead! Today I have stopped procrastinating and completed - well nearly completed my DT work for November. Can't show you yet of course cos then it wouldn't be a surprise when it went up at Heaven-Sent. Might just sneak a view of one of them though. I needed the cards to be ready for the scrapbooking day we are ho...

Sunday again so soon and here I am feeling like I have achieved nothing. I forgot all about the Cybercrop at Scrapwitch this weekend so didn't join in until about 11.30am this morning. That being said I only managed to get two layouts done and then it was into getting dinner and watching Dancing with the stars. Figured I better do a quick entry on here and then start typing up some instructions for those lovely Christmas cards that we plan to make in a few weeks time. Jill has had some nasty challenges at Scrapwitch today..... as always she comes up with some beauties. I'm also still doing the personal challenge of completing 20 layouts before buying any more products. I thought I was doing great but when I count up I've only done 12.... Plenty more stash to go though so I won't have any problem achieving it. Well here are my layouts from today. 1. To complete a layout with NO straight edges on photos, background or anywhere. 2. A layout that has SIX inchies as decorati...

Over at Heaven-Sent this week, Ingeborg has challenged us to start taking a photo daily representing and reminding ourselves of our daily rituals and habits. I know many of the well known scrapbookers do this to remind others of what our daily lives were like but it has not been something I have taken to much in the past. It has really made me think about what some of those daily things are that I take for granted and what to photograph. This is todays image of Keelan's Pj's on the floor in the family room. I just cannot convince him to get dressed in his room and leave the pj's there so this sight greets me every morning when I get back from school. Can anyone else relate? I have done a small amount of scrapping today but I have been working on the same mini album for the past three visits to craft where I go every second Thursday. You would think that I would get it out and finish off in my spare time wouldn't you.... but I just can't be bothered. Maybe next tim...

Where is the week going? I have spent the morning at the school and the rest of the day running errands. Swimming lessons are then the big killer at the end of the day because it makes for a late dinner and such. Do you know how hard it is to get three positions in swimming lessons at the same time or as close as possible to each other when they are almost all in the same class level? It's always the bane of my life...... getting spots for triplets at anything. Have been busy - sort of, making Christmas cards for our scrapbook day on the 11th of October. I can give you a sneak preview.... but better watch out the "boss" doesn't catch me...

We have had a busy but quiet weekend and Bruce enjoyed his Father's day by hiring a jackhammer to bust through some concrete to pour yet some more concrete in a hole to put in a clothesline post. The Adelaide Crows lost so it was a good therapy for him. Very little time for craft this weekend as the carpet was laid in Mitchell's new bedroom and I shifted furniture and sorted toys. Today the kids were off school for a "show day" to enable them to go to the Royal Adelaide Show if they wished and we had the funds. Unfortunately it wasn't to be though and the computer was more exciting. Keelan wanted to make a clock with my scrapbooking stuff so we started it yesterday and finished it today to allow the paint ample time to dry. He did really well and I only had to help him with cutting the ribbon to size and laying the tape for the ribbon. He did all the colour choosing and decoration and I also helped a little to get the rub-ons on because his hand got too sore. Here...

Well I guess you could call it a toy, it is at least something to play with. I finally bought the Cricut Design Studio software and it arrived and was installed today. I didn't have a huge chance to play with it but I did give it a quick go just with a few words. I must admit I had a look at a few blogs afterwards and realised how creative some people have become using just the basic cartridge and the DS software. I'm dreaming of the hours that I can find just to sit and play! The only problem being that I can't install it on my laptop because it is not compatible with Vista 64 bit so had to put it on the XP system and that is the computer that the kids and DH use so guess I will be a little limited in my play time. I completed a digi layout last night of my Dad for Brigitte's competition at Heaven-Sent. It uses the My Dad Page Pak from Cottage Arts. Yes, I know I don't do digi much these days but I should pull my software out and play with that too a little more.

Here is a layout I completed for a new blog: http://puzzlesketches.blogspot.com/ If you like it, please drop by the blog and vote for it in the poll on the right in the next 48 hours. It is listed as Melissa - Timeless elegance. I also managed to finish my layouts for the cybercrop at Heaven-Sent. This was challenge 3 a sketch challenge from Pagemaps - one of my favourite sites. I have been lucky enough in the past to design some cards for Becky to put in her newsletter. Challenge 4 was a quote challenge and as soon as I saw the quote about vases I recalled a number of photos which came from my Mum's house after she died, with images of beautiful flowers arranged for Church ceremonies. I chose four of these for my layout. The quote reads: · God loved the flowers and invented soil. Man loved the flowers and invented vases. ~Variation of a saying by Jacques Deval (God loved the birds and invented trees. Man loved the birds and invented cages.) Heaven-Sent Scrapbooking - Competition...