Tuesday, May 29, 2007

She's here, and a little toot

Thats right the newest member of our family is now at home with us.
But it meant another early start for Anya and I on Sunday morning, I was up at 4am! yes you did read that right!!!! and after getting the last bits and pieces done I got Anya up just after 5am so we could leave in plenty of time to get to the train station.

If you haven't experienced the TranzScenic train trip, I have to say go do it! Its fantastic! Well worth the money and a very nice way to take in the countryside without the stress of driving. And since the train tracks and road part company occassionally there are times that you actually see parts of the country that you wouldn't see if you were driving. Took a few photos during the trip but haven't downloaded them yet but when I get a moment I will try and share some here.


Anya tried to wait patiently for Chris and Dannielle to get to the Blenheim train station, but with every camper that went past was, is that Daddy? No its not, where's Daddy and Dannielle? Now imagine this every few minutes. So needless to say when they did arrive she greeted them bouncing up and down with sheer excitement.

I have to say she's not too bad at all, yes definitely in need of a good hard clean, some new gas lines just to be on the safe side and a few little tarting up bits and pieces done but otherwise she's absolutely perfect for us. And yes, I have driven her. From Blenheim to Kaikoura, even over the Awatere Road Rail bridge. If you know that bridge at all its not a terribly smooth few minutes and one I refuse to cross if the train is on the top tier, thankfully it wasn't at the time, so I didn't have irate drivers behind me.


They are building another bridge to take the road traffic off the bottom of the current bridge so as soon as they get that finished no more noisy, Oh lordy there is a train on top of me, only just wide enough bridge to cross!




Now I mentioned I had a little toot to share also, each month I go to camera club in the hopes of getting a placing. And you know at the beginning of this month I was able to tell you I broke the Honours drought right? Well since next Monday which would normally be camera club night is a public holiday here in New Zealand the meeting was held last night.
And I can say the honours drought is well and truly broken! I received another honours in the Open category with this photo entitled Attitude.




And the following image gained an acceptance. Entered in the Digitally projected/edited category and entitled Daisy Blue.


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Friday, May 25, 2007

5.30am start required!

Uhhh who in their right mind is willingly awake at 5.30 in the morning?

Okay so you know I don't do mornings well! So I made very sure I got first dibs on the shower this morning so that I did actually stand a chance of being awake enough to herd the kiddos into the van to drive into the airport! No I wasn't planning on getting the kiddos to drive, though they both would tell you they know how to drive! But that is a whole different story which if I remember will answer one day, but for now its why were we up at such a horrendous time of the morning and driving to the airport?

Well the answer is simple its so that Chris and Dannielle could catch a flight to Auckland to go pick our new girl up! Apparently a good clear flight that the D girl absolutely loved, yabbered the whole way apparently! Tee hee that would have been a sight to see, her yapping the whole way up there with not even a biscuit to keep her quiet for a few seconds! She is definitely a chatterbox!

The guy from the yard picked them both up at the airport and took them back to meet our newest family member, and Chris's words exactly to describe her! "She needs a dang good clean!"

Mmmm might have to invite Mum P round to help us with that project, see she loves cleaning, which is more than okay by me but you see I am not that much of a clean freak and it bugs the boogies out of Chris that I am not. Okay so if its icky enough for Chris to have an ick at, then it will probably bug me too, so I will clean it, though probably not quite to the standard that his Mum would! So there is a project we can do together, clean the new girl up!

There will no doubt be other bits that I will do to her, like quite possibly get rid of the icky poo blue curtains! Blue is so not my colour, well not the dark and dreary blue anyway. And I am sure there are other bits that I can add to make her right homely!

So today Chris and the D girl are in Auckland, I think there were plans to perhaps go somewhere like Kelly Tarltons (though Chris was shocked at the price to get in there!) which the D girl will absolutely adore! And then head off down the island heading for Wellington.

Now obviously being a racing snail and all he is not going to make it to Wellington tonight! So somewhere mid way tonight, then onto Levin for dinner with Sarah and David on Saturday then tootle on from there after dinner to Wellywood! And since he has to be at the Ferry terminal by 7.30 me thinks perhaps it will be somewhere very very close to there!

Oh and Anya and I will have another horrendously early start Sunday morning, we are going to catch the train from Chch to Blenheim to meet the by then probably weary travellers and see our new beastie for ourselves. I will at last get a chance to drive her then, as we make our way back home later that day.

Yeah okay so its a fairly hurried trip, but we plan on a longer holiday in her later so we can go with it this time in anticipation of a longer or slightly more relaxed trip next time.
We do have to after all be home in time for Anya's big performance! Can't have one of the stars late for their own show now can we? More on that next time though!

Saturday, May 19, 2007

We have a new member of the family!

She's currently waiting in Auckland for us to pick her up which will be happening late next week.

It took a bit to get all the ducks in a line this morning but at last it happened.
Here she is our new girl! Chris is really out numbered now with all the girls in the house! Or out of the house in some cases!

Inside looking back
Inside looking forward
The stove and fridge next to the back door.

Friday, May 18, 2007

And another shout out!

I can finally annouce that I was asked to be Chick of the Month over at TheDigiChick.

I was so honoured to be asked and now can share the pages with you. Do you know how hard it has been to not share these before now! I nearly mucked up a couple of times but caught myself in the nick of time!

I want to say thank you so very much to Sinead, who is the editor of the newsletter and did such an amazing job of making my pages shine!

so with out further ado here are the pages, if you want to leave me some loving here is the link to my gallery at TheDigiChick. You will find all credits here also, so if you see something that you simply can't live without you know where to go to find out who the designer is!


http://www.thedigichick.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=7950


Chris



be you tiful



Live Love and poke tongues!



Precious Jewel

I got some tootin' to do!

Its been rather an amazing couple of weeks, you know how some times things just kinda all line up and work so nicely together?
All the ducks in a row thing, well my ducks have definitely been all lined up nicely and now I get the pleasure of sharing the news.


First up I got picked up by Up2Scrap (New Zealands Scrapping magazine) again, with this page created using some of Lisa Whitneys fantastic designs and a template created by myself with some help from my dear friend the ever so clever Dawn Moore.





Okay so its really quite exciting to see something you have created published in a magazine, and getting to tell a designer that you were published using their designs well that just rocks! Now if you are lucky like me and get to tell your awesome super boss that you got published using her designs well that is just icing on the proverbial cake!

Now I got to do a little shopping thanks to Lisa, what can I say but thank you girl, YOU ROCK!!!!


So last weekend as we all know it was Mothers Day here, as well as in most other parts of the world, though I do believe in England that they had already celebrated that holiday! Well anyway it was also Scrap Artist's second birthday and as part of the celebrations they were having a cyber crop where you could join in the fun challenges and maybe even win some prizes, well I love scrappin' as you know so how could I resist?

Now do you remember the first page I shared in the previous post? Well that wee beauty won me an Honourable Mention in the "What ScrapArtist means to me." challenge! Wooohooo, my poor friend and neighbour Justine was here visiting with me when I found out this pretty cool news, poor girl her ears were ringing still later that afternoon. Okay so a hooot and a holler in a small space does kinda ring round a bit! It also won me a wee shopping spree in the Scrap Artist shoppe, so needless to say you are gonna be seeing yet more pages out of me in the not so distant future.



Okay so did I share the fact that we are in the process of building a new garage? Anyone who knows us well, know that we have more than a few cars or motorbikes that are part of our family at any particular point in time, and recently we have had to ask Chris' Mum if we could park a bike and the side car at her house since our poor double garage was quite simply put at groaning point and was threatening to explode if we tried to add anything else in it! Now I know its not just our council here that is struggling with processing times for building permits and the like but when you decide you need or want something like this, you usually hope you can get it completed fairly quickly! Alas that is not the case so far. Hopefully by mid July we will be underway.

And now we are in the process of finding the perfect motorhome to add to our family, so that the human elements to the family can get away on shortish holidays every now and then. Will keep you posted on the developments with this.

Monday, May 14, 2007

Ooooh have I been having some fun this weekend ...

Now first up if you haven't already gone and checked out the amazing kit the designers at ScrapArtist are giving away to celebrate their second birthday then you really do need to!






theres the link to the store, then go have a look for the In Vogue kit! The designers there are truly the most amazingly talented ladies and so very generous! The kit is only up for this weekend though so don't dilly daddle and go grab it!



Here's a page I created using this kit solely!







And here is another using bits and pieces from it ...



Alphas – Alpha Chips, Buttons – In Vogue, Stitched Star – Altered Elements, Hand Stitching (lines) and Button Stitches (created using Hand Stitches) – Ultimate Stitches Vol. 2

Lisa Whitney @ ScrapArtist

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Paper – Gridlock Neutrals & Label – Don’t Label Me

Lauren Reid @ ScrapArtist

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Hook and Eye, Fastener & Safety Pin – In Vogue Kit, Textured Edge overlay

Linda Gil Billdal @ ScrapArtist

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Messy Circle Stitches

Kim Christensen @ ScrapArtist



And this next one was a Scraplift of myself. I had created a page similar to this, same title, similar journalling, etc in paper ages ago, and as part of a challenge over at 123 Scrap decided to redo this digi.




I had to remove this page because its going to be published in the Aug/Sept issue of Ready, Set, Create an online magazine.


Okay first up let me say this page is in no way meant to be offensive to anyone!

It is simply me expressing myself, and making a statement about myself, it's not about anyone else! Its purely about me!

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Banner – Altered Elements – Inky Edges (NEW!), Paper - Be my valentine, Stitching – Ultimate Stitching Vol 1, Alpha Chip Bits (bottom)

All by Lisa Whitney @ ScrapArtist

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Stamp & Staples – Fair Trade kit by Nancie Rowe Janitz

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Cardboard Edge overlay & Torn Notepaper – Bleu (slightly altered) –

Linda Gil Billdal @ ScrapArtist

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Butterfly – Charmed kit – Amber Clegg @ ScrapArtist

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Newspaper Arrow – Creating Beauty Freebie – Weeds and Wildflowers

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Gems – Gem Squares – Rachel Solenberg @ thedigichick

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Painted Stamped Alphas – Cheryl Peacock

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Fonts – Rage Italic & Susie’s Hand

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Journalling reads


okay so I get more than a bit bugged when skinny girls tell me what I should be wearing to hide my ample butt! I mean who says they have half a clue about what I like to wear and what fits my lifestyle. Just leave off will ya! Flirty skirts and heels don’t work when you are runnin’ after kiddos!

Tuesday, May 08, 2007

Promised Pages

Well a couple anyways to tide you over till I can get back here and load up some more!

Have got lots achieved tonight, got rid of the icky little snot catcher mouse in our pantry! Dunged out a whole rubbish bag full of crud from said pantry and started on a second! boy does the pantry sure look clean now. Chris was thrilled at my sheer ruthlessness! Now to just run that same ruthlessness through my office!



Created using –Paper & Swirl Doodles – A Beautiful Mess
Cardboard piece – Ripped Cardboard
Stitching – Ultimate Stitches Vol 1
Doodle Flower – Painted Doodle Flowers

All by Lisa Whitney @ ScrapArtist

Fonts - Porcelain & Garamond






My husband under the Eiffel Tower in February.
Its hard to be understood when you speak no French and your Driver doesn't speak/understand English to ask to stop for a photo (in this case away from the Tower) 1 minute stopped underneath the Tower is all they had quick photo op, horns screaming in the background at their taxi parked in the road! Then off again to try and get to the airport before their plane left.

None the less a very cool photo op to have gotten!

Elements by Lisa Whitney @ ScrapArtist Journal Box template, ripped cardboard, stitching (ultimate stitching vol 1), outline alphas (chalked full of fun kit)
Papers – Sue Cummings (brown and dirty paper pack) (background and fill for alphas)
Font - Garamond


And last but by no means least a huge achievement for my wee girl! And yes before you ask I do have photos that include her face, but I love this photo it just kinda screams look at what I have done and had to use it first. But will scrap the others or at least some of them soon!




Paper (recoloured) – Sue Cummings (colorwash brown and dirty)
Paper Curl – Anna Aspnes @ Designer Digitals (paper curls vol 2)
Frame - Lucie Goikoetxea aka LemonaidLucy
Swing Stamp – Katie Pertiet @ Designer Digitals (Defining Moment)

but for now I am off to catch some zzzzz's before morning strikes yet again! And another busy day begins!

Okay so obviously I need to make time each few days

to come here and actually post something! Very naughty of me not posting sooner!

Life seems to be running on fast forward at the moment, I think its time to slow it down!

Okay in the news from here, the first bit of awesome news comes from last night. There has been a bit of a drought going on here, not weather wise unfortunately but last night at Camera club the drought broke!

See the drought I am talking about was the honours award drought! Well last night that kinda broke! With this image bringing home an honours award for me.


titled - The Hat
The section it won in was Blue, so photographs had to depict blue however you chose. And let me tell you there were some amazingly awesome entries so I am thrilled that mine picked up an honours amongst some very tough competition!
Now I have playcentre duty this morning so I need to be off here and doing stuff, I will come back and post those layouts I promised you last time and haven't got round to. If not today then tommorrow! In the mean time have a good one and we will catch you on the flip side.
Oh and Steph, CONGRATULATIONS girl for joining me in the honours club last night!