Great Weekend ... AND Beginning

Oh my..... I had a really great weekend. I haven't been so fulfilled for a long time... pathetic huh?

On Saturday, I went to Ruey's for a crop session with Shirley and Ruey . It was sooooooo fun. We laughed so much but we still churned out 1 layout per person, which really surprised me. I have never completed a layout cropping with Ruey, cos we would chat and laugh alot too! Maybe 3 heads are better than 2.

BUT IT IS!

Anyway, here it is. I like it very much myself. I'm going to look for the EK Success foam squares from now on. They are so firm, so great for 'popping' 3D objects..... my craze right now... hehehe.

This second layout.... I actually completed it in an hour and a bit. I've never been so productive ... EVER! And this is after coming home from the crop.... late at night! I was tired after dinner, so I had a quick snooze on the couch.... woke up and started doing this. I'm surprise myself sometimes. LOL......

Princess Gorgeous - Ellen used to call herself Princess Gorgeous when she was younger. She actually came up with that herself. We used to call her Princess... and sometimes other people call her gorgeous. This was a typical conversation then....

Hubby : "Are you gorgeous?"

Her : "yes" (nodding)

Hubby : "Are you my princess?"

Her : "No, I'm Princess Gorgeous."

Anyway, this was Saturday.

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Sunday. We decided to take the kids to an Indoor Aquatic Centre to make up for missing their swimming lessons. This centre has many pools including a kiddy pool, and also what the kids love the most... a wave pool. This has got to be the coolest and the most popular for everyone. Waves go off every 1/2 hour, for a few minutes. And kids of all ages (including adults) just LOVE this. We hung around for about 2 hours... then left to take a drive to a god-forsaken land, Narre Warren....... where Krispy Kreme decided to open their flagship store in Melbourne. OK, Americans reading this, I kid you not. This store has been open for 1 month. Every single day, the queue hasn't gotten any shorter. The in-store wait is on an average 45 minutes to be served, the drive-thru (YES, IT HAS A FRIGGIN DRIVE THRU!! FOR DONUTS!!!!!!) is approximately 1/2 hour. An average person takes out 2-4 dozens. And you know what?? It's freakin' WINTER in Melbourne right now! People are queueing outside the restaurant to buy donuts!! I swear if we were at war, people would think twice queueing for food ration, but they probably wouldn't hesitate to queue for THESE donuts. But I still love 'em .... .... bwahahaha ..... and we bought extras for friends, who came around in the evening to have coffee and donuts with us! It was such a great evening spent.

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Monday. Ruey, Shirley and I went Scrapbook shop hopping. The Scrapbook Scene's owner, Janet is such a gorgeous lady. Sooooo nice to chat with. Great stuff in her shop too. Melbourne scrappers need to check out her store ...

The Scrapbook Scene ~ 435 Highbury Road, Burwood East

The next scrap shop we went to wasn't too flash. It was having a 20% storewide sale but nothin' orgasmic. They said they were making room for "new" products .... but their "new" products were CHA Summer 05 and CHA Winter 05 products!!! We just looked at each other and giggled.

I got home to another piece of wonderful news. I'm going to be published again! WOW!! Twice within in a week! This time, it is Scrapbook Creations. YAY!!!!

All right, it's getting late. I had better go. My cuppa tea is calling me. :) Later!

You've been tagged! ... not 1 but 2...

I've been tagged ..... by Miss Petite-29-turning-30 Ishirlz . So I'm fulfilling my tag duty... :)

Four Jobs I’ve Had:

1. Secretary/Personal Assistant
2. Travel Consultant
3. Program Executive (Over-glamourous title for sales)
4. Project Executive

Four Movies I Can Watch Over And Over :

1. Grease
2. Love Actually
3. Sleepless in Seattle
4. When Harry Met Sally
5. You've Got Mail
6. Finding Nemo
7. Ocean's Eleven

(did you say 4....? Only 4? ... that's hard....)


Four TV Shows I Love To Watch :

1. CSI (all of them)
2. Commander in Chief
3. NCIS
4. House
5. Desperate Housewives

(again 4 is hard....)


Four Important things to me :

1. Scrapbooking
2. Computer with Broadband
3. TV with Digital Foxtel
4. My own bathroom

Four Tunes That Play In My Head :
....
....
....
I give up..... I don't sing in my head. I sing with the radio when it's on.


Favorite Food Dishes :

1. Sushi/sashimi
2. Fresh seafood
3. Curry Chicken
4. Beef Brisket Noodles

Four Websites I Visit Daily :

1. Moms 4 Moms
2. Online Scrap shops
3. eBay
4. misc forums

Four Scrap companies I like:

1. Fancy Pants
2. Autumn Leaves
3. 7Gypsies
4. Heidi Swapp

Four Favorite Colours:

1. White
2. Black
3. Cream
4. Chocolate

Oh... what the heck... I'll do the other tag as well.....


1. How old are you? 36

2. How many kids do you have if any? A 4-year-old daughter and a 3-year-old son

3. Are you married, single, divorced, widow? Married

4. What is your occupation? Kids and scrapbooking.... they OCCUPY me all the time. That's the definition of "occupation"... isn't it?

5. What are your passions? Scrapbooking.... and food.

6. Are you a dreamer or a dream seeker? Usually a dreamer.

7. Are you happy with the way you life has turned out? When I'm in a grateful mode and counting my blessings, yes.

8. Are you a scrapper and if so how many hours a week do you scrap? Yes. ... Do I have to count?? Oohh... Does staring at my stash count? Err... probably 28-30 hours a week... roughly?

9. What do you want to do before you die? Travel to Europe with my husband without our children.

10. What is your favorite food? Fresh seafood.

11. What is the food you hate the most? Capsicums and olives.

12. What is the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to you?
Do I really have to? Elastic of my undies snapped .... and I was wearing a skirt. This happened when I was 10? 11? Scarred for life.

13. What is the happiest day of your life thus far? The day I married the man I moved my life to Australia for.

14. Are you a neat freak? Pfftt... hardly ever.


These are 4 scrappers I'm tagging..... *ducks*

1. Nicole Rayner
2. Marieke Broekman
3. Leenie (from EB)
4. Aida (from M4M)

Have fun, girls!

Layouts .... a few

Sunshine - this is a kit challenge on M4M. 10 of us were issued identical kits for us to work with. A challenge this was for me.... Chatterbox papers are not my forte.

Our Family Begins Today - my 2nd layout for the Everyday Moments Competition.

Not Happy Mom! - This is another photo swap I did for Clara. Pic is of her hubby and daughter. I just had to make fun of their funny faces.

My O is for Observe .... for the ABC album

Pizzaz! - This is the 1st photo swap for Clara... of her daughter.... such a cutie pie. I had wanted to spell the title Pizazz! Somehow my bird brain wasn't quite right that day and I stuck down the wrong alphas. Luckily, this an informal slang.... hence a few different spellings are acceptable. phew... Oh... and I LOVE how this turned out.

Cool - a Desiree McClellan inspired layout.

I'll be PUBBED!!

Far out! The last time I blogged was on the 14th?? Where did all the time go?

So many challenges, so many layouts to be done. OK, OK.... I'm not a highly productive scrapper. 4-5 layouts in a week is MAJOR to me... so don't you go pfftt on me.

Did a few layouts lately that I'm very happy with. But there's this particular one, I think it pretty much summed up how I felt at that time. Take a look at this.....

Title : Any Secret?

Journaling:

Month after month, I keep wondering what the magazine editors are looking for when publishing layouts.
Is it style?
Is it design?
Is it theme?
I really don’t know.
Perhaps Alissa Camahort is right … “The way we distinguish ourselves is by showing our individuality”
I will scrap the way I do….
Not because I want to follow a trend, not because they have an ideal that I should follow
But because I am not an engineered product, I am ME.

I submitted this layout to a magazine and within a few days, I got a rejection email. A REJECTION EMAIL!!! I have NEVER heard back from any magazine - PERIOD. Success or failure, I have never heard back from them! I thought .... Gee, this must have hit a nerve! Perhaps it was politically wrong, perhaps it was too rebellious for them, perhaps... perhaps... perhaps.... LOL. Again, I can only .... guess .... right? I had a good giggle out of this...

That happened a week ago.

OK, NOW FOR A REAL TOOT!

Yesterday, I got an email from another magazine editor. They have picked me for a segment in their mag, to introduce scrappers who haven't been published before. They selected two pieces of my work. One of them, a canvas that I did for a friend's teenage daughter, one that I had already given away as a birthday present. HEE HEE.... I had to ring my friend to borrow that canvas for a few weeks. Luckily they were happy to oblige.

SO.... I'M GETTING PUBBED!!!! Yeeeeeeee-ha!

OK, time to settle down. Let's post some work for you to see.... at least I hope they explain what I've been doing lately?

**again i'm having trouble uploading pics... aaarrrrgggghhhhh ... will post again later**

I know, I know.... I just blogged twice in one day. But there was a technical fault (which I still haven't figured out), that forbade me to upload a very precious photo in my last post. So I'll post it here. Remember how I said, the kids will have as much fun with the box their toys came in as they would with the toy?

I rest my case.

Ruey and I met with Shirley (Ishirlz), and Jane Fitchett on Sunday. We had a fabulous shopping time at Paper Squared (Paper2) which is the BIGGEST scrapbook store we have seen by far and they are situated in Mornington, a seaside town 1 hour from Melbourne city, and that is 1.5 hours from me. Ruey and I chalked up enough dollars to get a loyalty card for a 10% off our next purchase. SHOCKING! But we bought the loveliest stuff....

Then we went to lunch at a little cafe, where we exchanged scrapbooking albums and looked at each other's wonderful work. I swear, none of those photos you see online did justice to the real piece of work. These ladies are freakishly talented and creative. Since Shirley posted a photo without herself, I'll post one with her in it. Just ignoring the fugly canvas of the sail ship, Shirley is too petite, too cute (believe me, petite she is, Jane and Ruey have bent their knees in that pic... LOL!).. I mean look at the 2 pony tails!! Aren't they just cute??

Anyways... I told Ruey, I HAVE to have a crop with these wonderful ladies. Just to be working next to them, see how they transform photos into beautiful layouts, and how their minds work, would be a treat. Besides, I am on a shopping ban now (for 1 week) .... soon after I preorder my Technique Tuesdays stamps and tiles .... I have to scrap. I said, everytime I think I want to shop, I will scrap a page. Geez... this would be a very productive week! Bwahahaha....

ooops... I better go scrap a page now...

Party or no party... that is the question. Or is it?

I drafted this post last week.... and couldn't get another photo in! Does anyone know why??? So this post is a little out-dated. Sorry.....

I did some layouts for the HMITM challenge #4 - Stickers and the Aussie Dares - How Dare You Challenge #1.

FACETS OF ME - I had exactly 50 stickers ..... and struggled so hard to get there. It is not very visible, but I actually sanded all the white parts of the photo. Probably a good idea to do it on a dark background rather than a white...DUH!!!!

This is for the Aussie Dares - How Dare You challenge. Title is - How Dare You get lashes like that. I always tell everyone when they comment about my son's lashes... that he was born a 31-week premmie. And he did not have ANY eyelashes. Seriously, not one lash. Then they just grew with a vengeance. I posted this layout on another website too... one girl actually commented that the swishes I cut out from the Urban Lily papers, actually resemble lashes! I'm like... "Oh, yeah... it didn't even occur to me!".

If you are wondering what he was doing when I shot this photo, he was watching Cars (the new animation movie) on the computer. He LOVES cars. In fact, trains, motorbikes, buses, trucks, .... any automobile. He is always kept entertained in car journeys.... just by looking out of the window. Lately, when we drive in the evening, he will look for the moon, and follows it. If we turn a corner and he "loses" the moon, he starts questioning, "Where's the moon, Mummy?" When it's a cloudy day and he can't see the moon, he will stalk the clouds. What simple pleasures .....

We celebrated our kids' birthday last Saturday. I attempted to bake my own cakes rather than spending nearly a hundred dollars on them (if not more). This is how they turned out.

One for Ellen, one for Phaedon. I am cheap. The most expensive ingredients are the strawberries. I bought a 1kg White Mud Cake mix from Susie Q, a specialised cake decorating place for $5.25, and that made the 2 cakes. Other ingredients - eggs, water, vegetable oil and white chocolate melts. Iced them with chocolate ganache, and decorated with strawberries! Voila!

Method? COMPLETELY idiot-proof. They couldn't have made this any easier.

You know, I'm never a big fan of big birthday parties for children. My children are just as excited with just candles on a cake, a Happy Birthday song, hip hip hurrays, candles-blowing, and they are off to play. Anything else.... it's for the parents. Remember the Mastercard TV commercial? The kid playing with the box that her toy came in - priceless? It's the same analogy. The bottom line is, the kids will have as much fun having a HUGE and ELABORATE party as they would having a small one. They just want the cake and some presents. If they start complaining about a small party and few presents, you need to start asking what you have taught this kid.