Artypants Retreat

***Warning - this is a long post***

What can I say, What an awesome time!!!

I picked Mel up and met Tania at her place and loaded up Tania's 4 wheel drive with all our stuff. Mostly scrapping stuff. Her car was chocca's. We arrived at the retreat at about 4.30pm after we stopped off at the bottle shop for some travellers.

We stayed at Camp Manyung. What a great place. We didn't have to go anywhere. Our rooms were all connected to the kitchen, meals and scraproom. It was warm and cosy, the bunks were quite large and comfortable and the service was mighty fine. We had the most delicious meals delivered to us and taken away when we were done. I even went back for seconds on the fish, and I don't do fish. We had so much food I was full all the time, but still kept eating it cause it was there and it was sooo yummy. Came home a couple of kilos heavier.

These are the pics in the scrap room, except Judy is missing. I think she was outside enjoying the sunshine reading a magazine.

Jodie warming up on the first night when we were still trying to work out how the heater works.

It took me a while to get started, not churning out much in the way of layouts at all. I think from the time I got there until 3.00am I was lucky to get 3 layouts finished. Was a bit dissappointed in myself for that lousy effort. But I soon made up for it with a total of 15 layouts completed over the whole weekend. I took along 20 layouts I had planned for and only expecting to get about 7 done. Check out the slide show below for all the pics of the layouts I did. There is one missing because I've decided to use it for my Masters entry and can't share that one for now. Also the one called 'Move Over Micayla' is one we did in a 'Musical Scraps' challenge. This is where all of us sat around the one table, did a little bit to a layout and passed it on. So this layout is actually not one of mine, but bits of about 12 other people.

There was lots of drinking as well as the eating and lots and lots of laughing. Judy and Jodie provided us all with 'Artybucks'. Throughout the weekend we collected 'Artybucks' for completing challenges etc and the one with the most at the end of the weekend one a prize. The Artypants police were out in force, taking away our 'Artybucks'. Judy and Jodie played good cop, bad cop and boy was Judy a bad cop. She took away my Artybucks for speeding when I went running through the room. She wouldn't even let us talk during our musical scraps session and kept taking away our bucks. Jodie on the other had was giving them back to us for things she liked us doing to our pages. But revenge was sweet when Bec and I took our turn in being the Arty Police. Mind you the Arty Police were very corruptable.

Jenny and Bec left the room and Bec came back in with her face painted yellow. Then I decided to add some pink swirls, then it was on for all. We all had a go a 'scrapping' Bec's face. This then became another challenge when a few of us decided to scrap the same photo of Bec's scrapped face. This is the layout I can't share yet. Jodie is going to set up a gallery on the forum where all the retreat photos and layouts will be shared so you can see what others have done.

We had a lucky dip. This was full of scrapping goodies and Artybucks. But we could only fish out the lucky dip from shredded paper using a claw, not your own hand.

There was a set of questions people had to answer. They were really difficult questions about each member of the Artypants team. People had to bribe us for the answers. I managed to score a 7 minute massage from Laura (thanks Laura) and a nice long foot massage from Lyn, awesome Lyn, thanks. I did wash my feet first though. Mel and Tania were getting my drinks for me. The one with the most correct answers won a prize. But Suzanne had the right idea. She made up her own answers (all completely wrong of course - and funny). She managed to get a prize for it at the end and didn't have to bribe anyone. Others had to beware though, she was charging people Artybuck for answers (wrong answers) and others were falling for it. PMSL.

On the Saturday night we weren't allowed to get into our PJ's until Bec said so. She then made it a challenge that we had to get into our PJ's in the dark in 2 minutes. The problem for me was I shared a room with Bec and Jodie, so Judy was the one who set our challenge. We had to change into our PJ's, change our beds around and get up onto the top bunk, in the dark all in 2 minutes. 'Bitch Judy' LOL. Well we were cackling so hard, it's amazing we were able to do it. Well actually Bec didn't. Jodie and I did it in plenty of time cause we were neat and had everything folded and in their place so we could easily find our stuff in the dark. But Bec, nooooo..... I had to even cheat and turn the light on for her and only then she only just got her pajama pants on. She's cackling "I can't find my pj's" and Jodie and I are cackling trying to get up on the top bunk. We were the only ones who failed.

Here is a photo of us all in our pj's. You may notice I am wearing penis' on my head. Anyone who did something 'dicky' had to wear them on their head until someone else did something 'dicky'. They were flashing and went floppy. I seemed to have them on my head a lot. PMSL.

Each day we voted for our favourite layouts. Saturday morning we voted for Friday nights and Saturday evening we voted for Saturday's day layouts, then Saturday night was done on Sunday. My 'Snow Much Fun' layout was voted most favourite for the Saturday night. Suzi won the 'Queen of the Crop' for having won the most favourite layouts. Others, especially Tania were chuffed just to have someone vote for their layout. So everybody was happy.

It was such a fabulous weekend and can't wait for the next one. Thank you to Judy and Jodie for doing such an awesome job organising this fantastic event. Bring on the next one!!!

In an Nutshell

Adrian has been away this weekend on a bike ride in the high country with the boys. I've had a pretty quite weekend. I didn't even use the time to do scrapping; can you believe that??? I am going on a scrapping retreat next weekend so I'll be scrapping to my hearts content. Leaving Adrian with the kids for the weekend. Yay!!! 6 sleeps to go (as at Saturday 17th). So I've been using this time to get all my photos and papers and embellishments all organised in pockets in my work in progress folder. I have 20 layouts planned to do. I bet I only come back with about 7 done.

Apart from that, I went to Melinda's baby shower. Melinda is (was) Micayla's teacher at school until about 2 weeks ago. She is also my bosses daughter/sister; not that I'd call them bosses, they are friends who cheer you up when you think nothing can. (Judy and Jodie from Artypants, daughter and sister). We had fun. I won a block of chocolate, which I'm about to go and devour in front of a chic flick with a glass of wine. We had to name the adults to the babies of animals, ie. what's the adult of kitten. Has anyone ever heard of a polliwog? Well it's actually a tadpole, a baby frog. There you go, now your that little bit smarter for reading this blog. Well I must be smarter than I thought cause I won it. YAY!!! But the chocolate will only go to my hips and make me sick because of the dairy that's in it but "who cares!!!!" I will in the morning. Can you tell I'm waffling. I've had a couple of glasses of red wine. LOL. We also played Baby Sharades. Bec and I had to act out Glenn (Melinda's husband) in the delivery room. God I felt like an idiot. Should've done it now after a couple of glasses of wine.

Before going to the Baby shower I slept in until around 10.30am when Micayla decided to bring me breakfast in bed. She made me vegemite toast and coffee. The consequence of that was I walked out to a kitchen that was totally trashed. Micayla had also made her own and Bailey's breakfast.

After I left the baby shower I called past a friends house. I left there without Micayla. They had friends coming over and their daughter was going to be bored with no kids to play with, so they asked if Micayla would like to stay over and keep Paige occupied. Of course they were both very excited about that; so that just left Bailey and I alone. I didn't feel like dinner so I had nothing and Bailey just felt like Wheetbix. (He loves his Wheetbix). So I thought. What the hell! It's probably healthier than chips and nuggets anyway, so that's what he got for tea. It was also so much easier for me. LOL! Am I a lazy mum or what???? Earlier he wanted soup. When I asked him if he still wanted soup, he said "No, I might not have the soup now." How cute. Sounds like a little adult at 4.

He played Wow Wow Wubbzy on the computer while I pottered around the house, and then he watched Garfield in my warm bed. He came out and told me when that was fninished and now he's in bed and fast asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. He's such a dream.

That's probably enough of my waffling about a weekend full of not much at all. Except for the excitement of the baby shower. So on that note. I'm going to bed with my wine, chocolate and chic flick.

Good Night!!!

P.S. The Artypants Forum is up and running again. Completely safe from Hackers now. So get on over and start chatting.

My Mothers Day

My Mother's Day started on Thursday morning when I had morning tea with Bailey at Kinda. He had spent the morning making scones for me.




And then we did some dancing together before he gave me my presents he'd made in Kinda.



The little blurb on the bottom of the place mat says:

"We play cars together. She likes to read a long book.

I love mummy a lot. She's 28 years old."

LOL, I love the age he has me at. I knew I was getting the coffee mug cause he told me the day he painted it after I picked him up. He's not very good at keeping secrets. LOL

Then on Mother's Day, the kids were itching to give me my presents. First Bailey came in wanting to give me his presents but Micayla wasn't up yet so he had to wait. Then they both came running into our room asking if they could give me my presents but it was too early so we sent them away so we could sleep some more. The next time they came in we let them give me the presents.

Bailey gave me a photo frame. He bought this at the Mother's Day stall at the Kinda. He didn't know what he was giving me cause they only got to choose presents that were already wrapped. I was dissappointed in this because I wanted him to give me something he'd chosen himself. So on Mother's Day morning it was as much as a surprise to him as it was to me. At least he couldn't let the secret out beforehand.



Micayla puts a lot of thought into buying presents. She always looks for something you'd really like or would use. She bought me this really cool little keychain. It's called "Trolleybux". The little disk is the size of a $2 coin for the shopping trolley. I love it, it says "Yummy Mummy" on it. Way better than the Coles one I had on there.





They made me breakfast in bed, which we all had together and stayed in bed until 10.30am. Of course I had to use the placemat and had coffee in my new mug. Adrian thought he'd test out room service and left the trays at the bedroom door ready for collection. Funny that, they were still sitting there much later. LOL

We took a few family snaps before we went along to Adrian's parents for lunch of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Yummy!!!




Bailey took along his "Baby Steam Engine" and after lunch he steamed it up with Opa. They also got out the steam roller and steamed them up too. The kids were having fun playing with these. I was going to upload video of this but it didn't work.


The cord Micayla is holding is attached to the steering wheel and she can control where it goes by turning a handle on the end of the cord, which in turn, turns the steering wheel.



Bailey was having fun with his dog. He wanted to take 'Monty' to Oma's for lunch and he was dragging the dog up and down the driveway. Monty really cops a battering from Bailey sometimes. But they are great mates!

Picture to Page

Saturday 3rd and 4th of May was the Picture to Page show in Burwood. I worked on the Artypants stand with Judy, Jodie and Bec. It was lots of fun. Very successful weekend for Artypants. And I had a ball running around checking out the different stalls getting lots of fantastic new ideas and goodies. I was very excited with all these new ideas going through my head, so keep an eye out on the class timetables over the coming months for some new fabulous classes.

This is Bec and Jodie on the stand

Laura popped in to say Hello, she's talking to Judy. It was her birthday the next day, so Happy Birthday for last Sunday the 4th Laura.

I also got to catch up with my friend Simmi. She had her stand there with all her ribbons from her online store The Ribbon Palace. It was great to see her again.

Don't forget!

The Princess Castle mini book class is on this Saturday morning (the 10th) at 10.30am, be sure to book in for this one. Only 2 days away, so get in quick.

See post below for sample pic.

June Timetable is also available instore NOW!