Its been awhile............................

Sometimes I have the best of intentions, but have difficulty following through on them.  Does'nt seem to matter what they're about, sometimes they just slip under my radar again.  Blogging is springing to mind!, and I have lots to share, so to make it quicker Im going to bullet point it, otherwise you might turn grey by the time I finish :)

* I had an awesome 5wk adventure travelling to the UK catching up with friends that I used to nurse with.  12yrs is a long time, and it was like I'd never left.  Sightseeing with Michelle in London, staying with Emma and David and their two boys in  their static - its what we would call a mobile home, but very flash and sits in a holiday park year round - in Barmouth, Wales.  Never been to Wales, even though I lived in the UK for four years and its just beautiful.  And then to Drogheda, Ireland to stay with Pheadra and Ritchie and their girls.  All in 3.5 weeks!  It was a whirlwind trip, but thoroughly worth it.

Michelle and I in the gardens of Althorp House

The Memorial to Princess Diana

The NZ Memorial in Hyde Park

Close up of one of the monuments

The closest I got to Downton Abbey :( it was shut for filming

The chinese gardens at Portmeirion in Wales

Part of the village in the Snowdonia mountains, Wales

My friends Emma, David, Matthew and Adam at Harlech Castle in Wales

Pheadra and Caoihme at the Drogheda fire station - her husband is on the fire brigade.

* A week in Sydney on the way home catching my sexpot husband at the airport and some friends of ours to  shop, sightsee and watch Muscle Car Masters at Eastern Creek.

* I applied to join Twiddlybitz DT and have been asked to be a guest designer for them in June, July and August!!!!  Grinned a lot that day :)  This is part of my application, I altered a jewellery stand, hanging a Twiddlybitz chipboard birdhouse from it, which I had painted, stamped and distressed.  The base I created a 'cobblestone' patch using texture paste and brick stencil then inked.

* work has been so busy since I got back, we've had some really sick pts through the unit, and Ive been exhausted going home.  Was so tired one night, that when I got to my car I waved my security tag at it to open it :) lol! You never know it might happen one day :)

* My niece gave birth to my Great-Nephew on 7th October weighing 7lb 12oz  - Luka James Anderson - and hes very cute, not that Im biased or anything :)  My gift to him was a Kaisercraft train, and I filled the carriages, with bootees, little tops, and rolled some nappies up into log shapes and tied them up. I used MME Little Robots range of papers, and Donna Salazar gadget gear dies.

* Forbes's aunty Jenny died last week, the last of the Gourlay siblings.  She was the loveliest lady, so easy to chat to and always had a smile on her face despite what was happening with her.  It was a very sad time for us, and travelling to Oamaru for the funeral we reminised along the way. Im going to miss her a lot.

* My birthday this year, my family all got together and bought me a kindle.  This would be one of the most awesome presents I have received.  I read 8 books while I was away in the Uk - it came in handy on train trips and airports I can tell you! Can you imagine carrying 8 books around in a suitcase?!  I also realised yesterday that I have read 32 books since getting it the first week in august!

* Scrappin Patch Retreat this year was at Glentui again and this time we had the awesome Cindy Porter teaching us.  This lady has so much information to impart, shes like a walking encyclopaedia on all things distressed, ink and stencilled! I learnt so much from that weekend.  Theres another retreat coming in April with no classes at this stage, but that could change, wink :) and a lot of time to create to your hearts desire, can't wait!

That roughly catches you up! Im planning on being back soon with another post :)
Thanks for popping in and not giving up on me!

A little Graphic 45

Hi there!

Winter seems to be dragging, its my least favourite of all the seasons :(  thankfully Im getting away from it for awhile, jet setting off to England for just over 3 weeks in August - not that they have had an awesome summer, but at least it will be a bit warmer :)

Over at Scrappin Patch theres been a competition going on, Stars in their Eyes - a bit like the television series but you have scrap in the style chosen by each of the DT.  I chose Tara Orr, even though she had been picked the last time we had this comp, two years ago.  This time though I thought I'd rev things up a bit and instead of layout they would have to make an OTP item or card with matching tag, in the style of Tara Orr.  Judging from some of the blogs Ive been reading some people were expecting a surprise along the way, so they were'nt going to be disappointed :) the entries that were submitted were amazing, especially since most don't do OTP or cards.

One of my examples was a childs dolls cradle, made using Graphic 45 Little Darlings - I loved this range, its so cute and I ended up making other things with it too and used up my entire stash of it.

A couple of close ups for you

I decided to keep the head board relatively flat and except for the one chipboard piece its all flat, nothing popped up for dimension - I had visions of little fingers picking bits off!

With all the bits left over I made a layout for friend to say thank you.  If you caught my post on Scrappin Patch using a mini album, then you will recognise the photo, its little miss Indie again :)

Some more close ups for you

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Shirley!

I have very short wee post for you today, bit like me really lol :) short and wee!

I have a lovely friend who I met back in the day, when I worked at The Stamping Ground and Scrapbook Station.  We discovered while chatting one day, that her sister lived across the street from me when I was growing up in Christchurch, before we moved to Timaru - Mum remembers her too!

Yesterday was Shirleys birthday, and in honour of her love of all bright colours I altered this wooden box using some Prima Paisley Road papers, the last of my stash, with matching mini album and gift tag.  The mini album I thought could be put to use as a brag book about her grandchildren, and yes Ive used more Prima packaging to make the album and base of my tag, and some more of the notecards.

Hope everyone had a lovely long weekend, thanks for popping by!

The Colour Purple

Not exactly one of my favourite colours to scrap with purple, not by a long shot!, but it turns out its my friends favourite colour - after all these years of knowing her, I had no idea! I had a bit of a hunt on my hands trying to even find some purple paper in my stash but I found some Websters Hollywood Vogue and the reverse of a piece of Country Estate, again from Websters.

Her birthday was this month so I bundled up a package and sent it over,  all of it in shades of purple.  I made these wooden letters for her bedroom, and no its not purple :) but cream with a white duvet, so hopefully I can rely on her husbands colour description :) and it will fit in well!

And a couple of close ups for you........................................

Also inside the box I had some Cherry Ripe bars - she loves these things, yuck!, and some absolutely devine hand and body lotion from The Aromatherapy Company.  I wrapped that separately, added a tag I made from the scraps for decoration and then popped in a card.

Thanks for popping by!

The Explosion Box

Earlier in the year I was preparing to teach my first class at Scrappin Patch's retreat, held at Glentui.  If you've never been out that way, its a glorious place to hold a retreat. Its nestled in amongst the hills, surrounded in bush - sitting scrapping away listening to the birds and lucky for me not far from where I live :)

Ive taught classes before but this time I had to prepare for 20 possible students, the most Ive ever taught before this was about 6, so this was huge for me!  I also had to type up instructions - another first for me.  I hauled in my BFF Rebecca to read through and and see if it all made sense, or it sounded like a load of double dutch, thankfully it all made sense :) - then it was time to package together 20 kits.

Ive been to lots of classes before, and Ive been a Nurse Educator previously, so I knew what I liked about teaching styles and what I did'nt.  I really wanted to make people feel welcome and I have this thing that no matter what the question, it is never stupid because there is usually someone else out there that has the same question, they're just too scared to ask it in case they look stupid!  Actually thats usually me lol! :) And I would hate for anyone to feel like that in one of my classes.  I was also aware that some people need more help than others to complete projects.  I was also following on from Trina's class so I had a lot to live up to!  I liked how with each class of hers Ive been to, she has made a wee gift for each person, so I took her lead and made little pillow boxes and filled them with mini Easter eggs, only I forgot to take a photo of them, whoops!

So heres the box. The papers were Kaisercraft's Sweet Nothings and I used entirely Kaisercraft product to create the box and added in Martha Stewart punches, twine, chipboard, Cherry Lyn Flourish and muslin and a Dusty Attic ornate gate.

Explosion boxes have been around for a long time - I even have one a friend made for me years ago for  Christmas!  So, I really wanted this one to be different, not just a remake of the original, so why not try and fit a secret garden into the bottom  of the box, complete with rustic old penny farthing and ornate gate?!  The rest of the album I created around my grandparents, Grace and John.  The photos are from the early years of their marriage - there are no photos of them together in their later years, Granddad died when my Mum was little from a congenital heart defect that was picked up when he went to enlist for WWII, consequently he could never serve his country. All that history makes these photos all the more precious, they are all I have of him.

Kaisercraft sponsored this class, which was a very proud feeling for me!

If you want to make an explosion box, there are loads of instructions on the web, or if you like I could email you the instructions to make this one, just leave me a comment.

Have a great weekend!

A little bit of Kaisercraft

Hello again, yes I know quite rare two posts in one day, you must be as shocked as I am :))

I thought I'd show you my latest OTP project using Kaisercraft's new Kite - I just loved this project!  My lovely friend Karen way down south has just become a Grandma to the cutest wee girl called Indie.  She really is quite cute.  Usually as baby gift I scrap a wooden letter (or their whole name depending on how many letters there are), but this time I wanted to go a bit further and incorporate her name into the kite.  Ive used the final pieces of Bonjour I had, which is a shame, I loved loved loved this range!  But anyway here it is - I found it difficult to photograph without having it on the wall, so I ended up on a stepladder looking down over it, still not that happy with it but you get the idea.

Ived used some tulle to tie all the 'bows' together, and then added two pale pink tulle double bows to the beginning and the end.
And a few close ups, so show all the detail in the kite.

Ive made the flowers using a Tim Holtz die and  Spellbinders Anemone Flower Topper.  The wooden Kaisercraft leaves I inked with Versamark and rubbed two shades of Pearlex into them.  The bird and butterfly are both popped up with foam tape.  The punch in the background has become a big favourite of mine lately, its Martha Stewart Deep Edged Heart border punch.
With the leftover scraps I made a card, and I also decorated a Kaisercraft mannequin.

This time I used a Stampin Up border punch to create the white edge and just mitred the corners to create a frame around the base layer of paper.  Then Ive layered Spellbinders Romantic Ovals and Martha Stewart Heart Scroll, with a single pale pink tulle bow layered with a double bow of seam binding and rose.
Apparently I made Indie's mum cry when she unwrapped her gift, which makes it all worth while - not that I like to make people cry if you know what I mean!

So, the mannequin, here she is in all her Bonjour glory......................................................

As you may have gathered I have a love of all things heritage, so the idea behind this was to create an old fashioned dress with a bustle.  To create the bustle I shaped squares of paper into cones and then layered them on top of each other with flowers over top and a double bow ribbon.

And the front, with her wee apron..............................................

Well I think thats about all folks :)
Have a great day!

And the winner is.......................................

Hi de hi everyone!

Heres hoping everyone had a wonderful mothers day, goodness knows the weather was absolutely beautiful here - 20 degrees according to the car when I was driving to work :) , that smiley face is for the weather not work incase you were wondering lol.

So, enough babbling :) I have roped my husband into picking a winnner, all official - names in the hat, very hightech :) and the winning name is.......................................................TRACE!!  Congratulations!, and a big thank you to everyone for joining in the polkadot door blog hop.

A parcel of goodies is on its way to you!
Enjoy!