Week of Christmas and New Year's

Christmas - A very quiet Christmas Day we had. We practically watched TV all day!!! LITERALLY!! We started the day with kids opening presents, then clearing up all the rubbish from opening presents, and then we started watching... Ellen's High School Musical DVD, Lifestyle Food Channel for a few hours and then, I embarked on my quest - catching up with Brothers & Sisters. I stopped watching the series from Season 2 Ep 5 ... I think being busy and all, so it was a massive catchup - 12 episodes of S2 and 10 episodes of S3! My eyes were popping out of the socket by 2am in the morning.

Oh.... what did I get for Christmas? I guess my Cuttlebug is my Christmas present! I gave Peter a voucher to go for a Barista class. He loves making coffee and takes great pride in it. I think the course which will certify him as a qualified barista will make him happy. Ellen got a VTech TV Learning game, Phaedon got a bike. There are lots of other little presents but I won't go into details. Overall, we are all very lucky.

Boxing Day - we went to Big W wanting to buy a BBQ that was on sale. Tried 5 different stores (by phone) before we found a unit available. It's not that we don't have a BBQ. In fact, we have 2 - a Weber Kettle as well as a Souvlaki grill type of BBQ. But those are charcoal BBQs and we wanted a gas one for 2 reasons. In summer, we often get fire ban days where we can't light a fire, BBQs included. Secondly, very often we just want to quickly grill some meats to get the chargrilled taste (and marks), instead of having to pan fry them inside the house, causing lots of smoke and smell, not to mention the 2 hours needed to set up the fire. Peter and I spent the evening setting up the BBQ while getting bitten alive by mosquitos.

27th - we went for a drive to Geelong with Peter's cousin, Ange and her hubby and kids. There was lots of traffic going up to Geelong, and the beach was actually quite filthy for some reason. But we certainly got a good tan that day, and some gas-baggin' amongst relatives!

28th - got invited to Cath and Jason's for lunch, and of course a swim in their pool. Kids had an absolute ball!

30th - invited Ruey, Joseph over for an impromptu BBQ to test our new toy. Ruey jumped on the opportunity so she didn't have to cook! (I would too, lol.) So we just quickly went out to buy some lamb chops and cutlets and some chicken, came home and marinated them. I made a mango salad and a kumato and bocconcini side dish. All the food got polished!!!! Gotta love people who love to eat. If you haven't seen a kumato, it is a tomato variety that has a purplish black skin and just INCREDIBLY sweet as a tomato. The actual variety is called Russian Black tomato, and Woolworths has patented the name Kumato. The only way to savour this variety, is to eat it raw in salads, and spare the dressing. Just lightly salt it, and drizzle some good quality olive oil. We served ours with a bocconcini and basil leaves, salt and olive oil. YUM-MO....

31st - went to Jenny and Lyndon's for a NYE party cum farewell dinner for Lyndon who is going to Singapore to work for 2 years. I am insanely jealous... wishing Peter had such an opportunity so we can go back to Singapore for a while. Sigh.... 

1st Jan 2009, 0149 hrs - HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!! I know, not everyone has celebrated New Year's yet due to time difference, but we have. It's 2009! I'm going to be 39 in about 2 weeks' time! What do I wish for? mmm.... good health to everyone, be thankful and be grateful for what (and whom) you have and happiness will follow you. I wish to speak to Vickie more often and hope to break the ice a little bit more. I also wish for Ellen and Phaedon to have a fantastic year at school, and Peter to have another great year with EMC (hopefully a promotion with a raise!!!). Hope everyone is coping with the economic downturn. And I can't wait for May/June when we move into our new house!

That's all for now. Good Cheers!!!!

Love... mich

Bug. Nice. Handbags.

It has been a really busy week, making the last of Christmas cards, gifts, wrapping presents, catching up with people to drop off those presents ... etc etc etc, not to mention last week of school, kids haircuts, grocery shopping before people buy the last loaf of bread and the last bottle of milk like there's no tomorrow?

I was given the heads up by Ruey last Friday, that the Lincraft store at Epping has a very special on Cuttlebugs. They are (probably were, don't know if they are still) selling the Cuttlebug machines for $64.50. That is 50% off the RRP!! I couldn't believe my ears. I woke up on Saturday morning and told Peter that I 'need' to go to Lincraft at Epping, cos they are selling the diecut and embossing machine, the one I borrowed from Ruey (had to use laymen terms) at half price, so I want to get one. He just went.... "OK." I did a virtual "phew" in my head, and rang up the store to reserve one unit. So I'm now, albeit a bit behind everyone else, the proud owner of a new Cuttlebug machine!! :D :D :D  I asked the store assistant why they were on sale and she told me that they had some flooding in the warehouse, and the instruction manuals were all soaked and impossible to open, so they had to throw them all out. But the machines and boxes were all intact! I figured, I know how to operate this little tool, especially after playing with it for more than a few times. There couldn't be a better deal!

 

Last night during dinner, Ellen spoke about writing another letter to Santa. It's like the "final one". In this letter, she said "but I can't write that I've been good, because I did a time-out today." I couldn't help but giggle inside. She was behaving badly at the supermarket during the day so she copped a time-out when we got home. If only she had considered the consequences like she did when she wrote the letter, it would have saved all the misery and frustration. I am a relatively strict mother, I like my children to be raised with awareness and consideration. I don't like to excuse them for any misbehaviour just because other people say "they are just kids". They should start learning from young to be considerate to other people, and to be aware of their surroundings. It's called R-E-S-P-E-C-T. I am a strong believer in what you do affect how other people react. It's no use being oblivious to your surroundings or people's feelings, do something stupid and then apologise. Apologies don't and never change the fact that something has been done, and it's out there and you can never take it back. I like them to take pride in being "nice first", and being "nice back" will come naturally. Even if whom you were being nice to did not reciprocate, you come out the better person out of the situation.

On a lighter note, Ruey came around yesterday, so we could swap pressies for the kids and have lunch. While she was here, I had to ask this guru how she would gift wrap these babies... 

I bought these Fluff purses when I was in Singapore back in May. They are the cutest brand of girls' accessories, I promise you. From small to big coin purses, wallets, handbags, totes, laptop bags, key chains, luggage tags... the range is enough to let you hangout in the shop and imagine yourself turning into a diva. I don't know if they are available in Australia, but if you ever see them, you'll drool over them too. And these in particular, are relatively big purses (the size of CDs) and odd-shaped. So we started getting paper and tools out, (when I was supposed to be packing things away) and began making something. We had quite a bit of fun figuring out how to make them, experimenting a score line here, testing with a fold there... and Ruey ended up with this cutesy ... 

and me with this....

.... HANDBAGS TO FIT THE PURSES!!! LOL .... it was the most impromptu and fun scrapping session we have ever had! And look, we used up some old stash again!! BG Blush, and remember those Queen & Co felt lacy thingies???? YES, I still have lots of them!!! hahaha... These handbags with the real purses are gifts for 2 teenage girls. I usually put in more effort when gift-wrapping their pressies because I'm known to them for doing fancy gift wrapping. And they will usually keep the gift wrap or packaging too! On top of those purses, I also got them a top each, which I put into one of these box-in-a-bag things I made. 

I didn't get a chance to take any photos of the christmas cards I made this year cos they were like fresh bread in a bakery - out of the oven and out the door! Mind you, it's not because they were in hot demand, but I was running really late. I just like that analogy, makes me feel a bit better.... bwahahaha.....

To those who wrote a letter to Santa, thank you for joining in my fun, I will be sending you something in the mail. hehehe... there were only 4 people who emailed me their letters, so I guess all of them deserve some kindness from me just for humouring me. LOL...

And I would like to say a big thank you to anyone who is still reading my blog, and a bigger thank you to those who left comments. I haven't been very good this year in keeping my blog updated regularly, but that will be one of my 2009 New Year's resolution - to blog at least once a week. 

Until next week, I wish everyone and their families a Wonderful and Merry Christmas. Eat, drink, laugh and be merry!

xxxooo .... mich 

Sunny Boys. Wedding. Goodie Boxes.

It has been crazy. I don't know where my time has gone since my last blog post. We are 1 week to Christmas!!!!!!!

I promised to show pics of the gifts we gave to the teachers at school and kinder. They each received a post-it note pad and a sunny boy filled with Maltesers. 

The sunny boy idea came from Ruey. She made some for Creative Cardmaking magazine in Issue 14 or 15, using lovely patterned papers. I just tweaked it and made them using the KI Memories Sheers. Because they are plastic, the stickiest DST still didn't hold them down, hence the blanket stitching. You like?  :)

We attended a civil wedding, between Peter's cousin, Theo and his lovely new wife, Marina. It was held at the wedding registry at the Old Treasury Building. The ceremony is simple and to the point, the way I think all weddings should be. The bottom line, you love each other and want to be with each other. The ceremony is to formalise this union, and you have your loved ones there to witness it. It is so black and white. Don't people realise that when big weddings come into play, people turn ugly, relationships are strained, there's always someone else who wants to boss you around even though it is YOUR wedding. People lose sight of the meaning of a wedding. You try to make "things" perfect when you really should be perfecting your union. So what if you had a beautiful wedding (or a circus) .... if you are stressed, and you hate your family and relatives afterwards, and you made your bridal party miserable wearing dresses they don't like? And worse.... spend whopping tens of thousands of dollars where it could take a huge chunk off your mortgage! Peter and I promised each other, that we will not bother our kids with a wedding if they didn't want one (in fact, Peter will try to dissuade them, lol).

Anyways, I sidetracked. I brought my camera along to play, to experiment, and hopefully take some nice shots. Turns out, they didn't have a photographer on the day. Just everyone with their point and shoots. Peter's Auntie Julie, the nicest woman on earth, came to me and asked me to take a photograph of the couple together and Theo is her youngest son. I could never say no to this lovely woman. So to not disappoint, I started shooting, and shooting, and shooting, and became the inaugural photographer. Peter even said I became a Nazi photographer cos I was telling people where to stand, whose turn it was to take photos with the couple. LOL... I wasn't all that fantastic, to tell you the truth. No where near photographer standards (perhaps not even amateur), but I did manage a few nice shots, so I was very happy. 

Last week, I picked up some Scrapware Goodie Boxes from Ange (Scrapware). These are a new release and will be available to order from the website soon. I wanted to make these goodie boxes for the mums at school. The five of us have bonded very well and have become really good friends. It's a shame our kids will all split and go to different classes, and one of them changing school cos they have moved. But I sincerely hope we will all stay in touch and still be good friends.

All that is required are paint, 2 sheets of patterned paper and embellish to your liking. I bought those hinged jars from The Reject Shop at $1.50 each. You can fill them up with whatever you like! I bought chocolate coffee beans, raspberry bullets, strawberries and cream and mint M&Ms. The girls loved it.... I even managed to get one of them to shed a tear. hehehe... was supposed to be a happy moment, but she got really emotional. :) :)

We are done with our Christmas shopping a while ago.... very organised huh? Now I just have to wrap them up. I also have to finish the last 30 cards for Peter to give out. Sigh... crazy times ahead! I hope to come back soon to blog again... before Christmas.

Cheers!

RAK ANYONE?. Zuttered. Layout.

OK... this is a bit sad. To date, I only have 1 person who has written a letter to Santa. Come on, ladies... I know I'm not the most popular person in the world, but SURELY my blog has a few readers and/or lurkers out there! Show me some support, we can write to Santa, we are worth it! There is a RAK! Most importantly, get out of your comfort zone!

OK... grovelling over.

I went to Ruey's place last night to do some Zuttering. Yes, after much ado, I FINALLY pulled out my Zutter!! We wanted to make some post-it note holders for teachers as Christmas gifts. Here are the results. The post-it Notes are adhered to the insides of these holders which I didn't photograph but I thought was pretty straight forward. There is more to add to these gifts which I will complete and photograph again. I did make a few more but they are not finished so give me a few days. But I tell you what, THAT Zutter is a mighty cool tool!!  Ruey did use and abused my machine.... like there was no tomorrow. hehehe... I'm sure she'll share some of her creations on her blog. 

Today, my kids had 3 different parties to go to. They have a more established social life than I did when I was their age. Ellen had 2 birthday parties by her classmates, whereas Peter took Phaedon to his work's Christmas Party at a park. Tomorrow, we have Tae Kwon Do grading and I really hope to get some more Christmas cards done.

I have also completed a few DT projects for Scrapware this week. Using KDD Spring Flowers and Tulip Pots... I made a card, a bookmark and get this.... A LAYOUT!! I haven't done a layout in a month! How shameful! I'm a bit smitten by the Stampin' Up Dazzling Diamonds. They look especially gorgeous on a painted light background as shown on this KDD Spring Flower 3. BTW... can't say I regret getting the Fiskars Threading Water punch!

Another design from the KDD Spring Flower range (KDD Spring Flower 2). To take advantage of the height of the stem, I added it onto a long background, making it a simple bookmark.

Yet another Tulip layout :).... These few shots at the Teselaar Tulip Festival are my favourites. Just love the bright colours! I decided to tone down everything else and made it as simple as possible in order to bring out these cheery flowers. Tulip Pots and Steelfish lowercase letters are used.

That's all for today. Should seriously start sending out Christmas cards right about now! Have a great weekend!

mich