What have I been up to?

It's been a very busy time for me. It's Masters time. Scrapbooking Memories have their annual Masters call. I have 5 projects to do by the 18th July, so I've been busy, up to my neck in scrapbooking products. Haven't seen a great deal of the outside world because of this. Out of 1000's and 1000's of entries, they will select a shortlist of just 100 and then pick 10 from that. So fingers crossed. I'd just be happy to make the shortlist. I can't share any of the work I've been doing for the Masters. You'll have to wait.

I have however been distracted by bloody Facebook. Man that becomes addictive. On Facebook I have a fairy with superpowers at level 5, which means I have created my own fairy garden. Earning lots of gold and therefore diamonds. I also have a net worth of $249,000,000 and in that I own a seaplane sailboat, a tiger and a white tiger, a panda, Oldway Mansion and a 10 carot diamond.

I've discovered that I am the Greek God Poseidon, which means I am a very gentle peace loving person but pushed too far I can be as vicious as a hurricane. PSML so watch out!!

I've also discovered that the Grease character I am is "Rizzo", which says that I'm always up to something and I should tone things down a bit. Ha Ha Ha!!!

The disney princess I am is Belle, which means I am the people princess, able to identify with all those around you. You are brave, independent and harbor no ill will towards any human beings or inanimate objects. Your level of compassion for others allows you to see beyond their physical exterior to the inner beauty within. Your true love, albeit hunky, will only reveal himself in due time. ROFLMAO

I also get my daily dose of horoscope and tarot reading. Not to mention sending and receiving ridiculous little but fun time wasters to all my friends on facebook. Some I've discovered from my high school days. See what I mean, a timewaster.

What else. Oh yeah! I've coloured my hair - purple. Needed a winter pick me up.

Micayla's teacher and friend Melinda through the Artypants team had her baby. A boy Andrew Bradley born 9 pound on Saturday 21st. We went to meet him this morning and took some photos of the kids holding him. He cried on Bailey.



My camera has gone to heaven. We have decided rather than spend lots of money getting it fixed (would most likely spend at least a third of what the camera is worth to fix it) we would buy a new one. I've been wanting to upgrade because my Panasonic is just not able to do what I want from it anymore. I have my eye on a Canon EOS 40D digital SLR. I can't wait to get my hands on it. So now is the time to do it. Have borrowed my Mother In Law's camera to tide me over for now. It's the same as mine but a newer model so I know how to use it. I feel like I've lost my right arm.

I've decided not to submit the layout I did at the retreat of Bec's scrapped face to the Masters so I am going to share it below. It's called "Becky scrapped" you just can't see the word scrapped, it's on the arrow.



This is a layout I've done for the monthly challenge I've set on the Artypants forum. Each month I will set a new challenge and this month is a sketch challenge. This is the sample I produced for it. So click here to go on over to the Artypants forum and check it out. Prizes available too.

See the Bombers fly Up Up.....

Go Bombers!!!

We watched Essendon take the Eagles down from the Medallion Club at Telstra Dome last night. It was the first time the kids have seen a live game of football. What a great first game for them to see. It was very exciting watching Essendon play a great game of football. Although, I'm not sure the kids would say the same. Bailey was bored and went a bit ferel jumping on and kicking seats. We soon stopped that. Then I watched him staring at the roof, I think he was counting the lights. Micayla just wanted to wave the flag and we had to let her know when Essendon got a goal, cause she wasn't watching the inbetween bits, but she was booing when The Eagles were kicking for goal. If she heard a roar from us and the crowd, she'd ask if Essendon got a goal, but it was some mid field excitement. Especially when Matthew Lloyd took an awesome mark right in front of goal.


It looks empty all around us but that's cause we were there a bit earlier. It soon filled up all around us.

Check out Bailey's little flag to Micayla's. That was all that he wanted. When we got to the car park all he had in his hand was the stick. He'd lost the flag part somewhere on the stairs on the way down to the car. We were in the car park when he realised and was bawling his little eyes out. Thankfully for another nice Essendon supporter, he'd found it and gave it back to Bailey.

When the game was over we sang and danced to the Essendon theme song. And of course we had to do the traditional hang the scarf out the car window all the way home.

Here are some photos of the on field action.



I've woken up this morning with a sore throat and Micayla hasn't taken off her Essendon scarf.

Helping to find a home

Our cousins need to find a home for their dog. I'm helping her put a call out there to find Murray a home. If you can help that would be awesome. He is a gorgeous little Jack Russell. All the details are on Laura's blog. Click here to find out why he needs a new home.

Lochsport Queens Birthday Weekend

It always amazes me that just when I think I've taken all the photos I can take of doing the same things at Lochsport, we always manage to find different ones to take.

On another trip to Lochsport with Scott, Tania, Marty and Julie and all the kids, we went out motorbike riding again. This time we went to a spot they found with jumps last time we were there. I lied on the ground just off to the side of the jump to get some shots of the boys having their fun.

These first 2 photos are of Adrian



And this photo is of Marty



And this one is of Scott



Of course Micayla's little 50 is not powerful enough for her to jump. She's now asking for a bigger bike so she can try it. We do need to get her one though, she has outgrown the 50. Adrian is searching the net as I type for a new one for her.



Bailey having a go. He is doing really well, considering he can't put his feet on the ground. Adrian runs along behind him to catch him when he stops.



Then Adrian takes him on his KTM.



This is Marty and Adrian. Tan and I call this their 'having a moment' shot.



This is all 3 of them coming over the jump together. You can just see Adrian if you look hard enough, he's the dot at the back amongst all the bush. I was hoping they would be closer together and have more 'action' in the shot. The jump wasn't 'safe' enough for them to jump together.



It was a nice relaxing weekend as usual. On the Saturday, Julie, Tania and I went for a walk to the supermarket for some supplies. It's a half hour walk one way. We decided to go via the pub to use the toilet. (We couldn't use the one back at the house cause Scott was putting in a new one). We ended up sitting by the open fire with 'a' drink before the half hour walk back to the house. We could've stayed there all afternoon, but we figured we'd better get back considering Tania had her families lunch that she'd just bought at the shop and it was already 1.15pm. At least Adrian already had our kids fed by the time I got back.

The following day, after the bike ride, we sent the boys down to the surf beach with all the kids. Julie and I were going for another walk and Tania was going to the beach with the boys. That was until she heard we were going to stop by the pub for another quite drink. We ended up having 2 while sitting on the lounge in the window watching the sunset over the water. Then went via the bottle shop, bought the boys another slab, carried it on my shoulder to the fish and chip shop to buy dinner and then organised for one of the boys to pick us up (Thanks Scott). In the meantime, the boys were back at the house showering all the kids and getting them into their pj's ready for bed. Well done boys! We thought that they may not be too happy about having to come out and get us, so we made a bit of a joke about it. We were sitting in the gutter at the fish and chip shop pretending to be a bit drunk and drinking their beer. I don't think they saw the funny side of it like we did, pmsl.

The kids are getting older and more capable so we thought it was time they pulled their weight, LOL. We were putting them into slave labour and they did the dishes for us some of the weekend, while we sat back and relaxed with full tummies. They earned themselves some decent pocket money at the end of the weekend for doing it though. Now we know we are onto a good thing and we are going to milk it everytime we go away for as long as we can.

Another Year Another Birthday

Last Monday (2nd June) was my birthday. On the Saturday night prior we went to Sophia's with friends for dinner. That place is so busy and noisy. The food was great though. I really enjoyed my meal and Adrian's steak melted in your mouth. My parents visited on Sunday for lunch and they gave me a gorgeous gold watch with bling on it.

I had to wait until Adrian came home from work on the Monday night before I could get my presents. We always like to do it together and he left mega early that day for work. Bailey gave me a black handbag with bling on it. I knew I was getting this though. Adrian took the kids shopping a few weeks prior while I was out for the day. When I got home Bailey said as I walked in the door "you're not allowed to see your bag Mum." So that gave away that surprise. Then a couple of days later we were talking about it at the dinner table and Micayla said "at least you don't know what colour it is." Then Bailey pipes up and says "it's black" So cute, he is so innocent. One day he'll learn to keep a secret.

Micayla gave me a set of clear tiny alpha stamps for scrapbooking, but they disguised them in a box with a rock that goes in the fish tank covered in lots of paper. The stamps were tucked down the side. At first I thought 'great, Adrian's bought me a rock for his fish tank'. Bailey didn't know what else I was getting cause he chose not to go shopping with them, but he did help them wrap the presents the night before my birthday and he was telling me I was getting a rock, but I didn't quite get that. Adrian gave me this gorgeous 9 carot gold anklet with hearts dangling from it. Can't wait till summer so it can actually be seen.

Adrian's parents came later that night and gave me a photo album. We had cake, which the kids insisted we have. Adrian nearly wasn't going to get me a cake until the kids started crying and said we have to sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles, so off he trotted down to the shops. I was lucky and I feel very spoilt.

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!!!