Lists, Glasses, Sneak Peeks

Lists

By nature I am a list maker…..I add and delete on a daily basis. I don’t feel in control unless I have a list of some sort, any sort and cross things off as they get done. But this last week I have let the list making and crossing off slide…….sometimes I just need a rest from it. So from today the list is back in control and everything is itemised. Call me methodical if you like but it works for me!

New glasses

I have had to wait almost 5 weeks for these glasses. After choosing a new pair of glasses at an optometrist that will remain anonymous, I waited 4 weeks for them to be ready! Ridiculous, so my dilemma was, do I grin and bear another few days with my old ones or cancel the order in disgust and go to another store? I chose the latter after the employee of the first store said, and I quote “I wouldn’t put up with it either and I certainly wouldn’t ever shop here again”. What sort of loyal employee is she? At this point I had to question the integrity of not only the girl in question but the Optometrist she was working for. So cancel the glasses I did in a fit of rage! This shouldn’t be so hard, should it? I just want to be able to see properly.
So I decided to try another one that had come with recommendations and happened to mention on selecting the glasses of my encounter with an opposition store and that I would really appreciate it if the whole process could be sped up a little given it was a new prescription and I needed them. Well within 7 days I had new glasses and I can see so much better. An experience I don’t want to have again any time soon.

Sneak Peek

Here is a sneak peek of what I have been up to…………I hope to unveil in full soon!

Well I do hope you all have a great week and I would love to hear from anybody visiting my blog and would like to leave a comment……feedback is always welcome!

Take Care until next time.

Tagged and a surprise!

Thank you Kim for tagging me (I think)…….

Here's the rules:Each player starts with 7 random facts/habits about themselves. People who are tagged need to blog about their seven things and post the rules as well. At the end of your blog, you need to choose 7 people to get tagged and list their names. Don't forget to leave them a comment telling them that they have been tagged and to read your blog!

OK……….7 random things about me

1. I hate being yelled at! Even in fun, I burst into tears.
2. I used to be a Travel Consultant and have travelled extensively except to the USA and Canada – they are still on the list.
3. I love chocolate! Any kind except for white chocolate, Cherry Ripes or orange creams – YUK.
4. I love things to be neat and tidy although it isn’t always that way.
5. I have Semi-Circular Canal Syndrome (I have a hole in my skull at the end of the ear canals…..and there shouldn’t be one) so I live with Vertigo on a daily basis.
6. I am a Taurus – but don’t consider myself stubborn on all fronts…..just most!
Actually I researched the traits of being a Taurus and I quote
“In the main, they are gentle, even tempered, good natured, modest and slow to anger, disliking quarrelling and avoiding ill-feeling. If they are provoked, however, they can explode into violent outbursts of ferocious anger in which they seem to lose all self-control. Equally unexpected are their occasional sallies into humour and exhibitions of fun”
Yes this is so true ask my family!
7. I hate hate hate (and I don’t use that word very often) snakes! I can’t even watch them on TV.

I cannot find seven people that have not been tagged so I will leave it with me! Sorry.

I have some pretty exciting things in the pipeline that hopefully I will be able to unveil in about a week or so. I’m still working out the ins and outs of how to set it all up. But stand by as hopefully you will be interested in what I have too!!!!!!!!!

I was going to say have a great week cause I keep thinking it's Monday!

Enjoy the rest of your week everyone and take care.

2007 WA Press Photography Awards

Steve has a little time off this week before the girls go back to school on Thursday so we decided that we would do something as a family today. After flicking through the newspaper this morning I came across an advert for an exhibition for 2007 WA Press Photography Awards which was on at the WA State Library. Renae is looking at doing photography of some sort on leaving school and both Steve and I are interested.

We told the girls we were going to the State Library; with a bizarre look on their faces we didn’t enlighten them to much else until we were nearly there. You know it was so refreshing to see something different (something we don’t do often enough). Being Press Photography there was a broad spectrum of subjects from sports and Ben Cousins to a house fire in Kalamunda (a house that was scarily so much like ours it kind of spooked both Steve and myself). We spent about an hour or so looking around at all the photos that had a small explanation of the subjects under each one.

Afterwards we decided to have some lunch and we chatted about what our thoughts were about the exhibition. Mine were that perhaps if the captions were not under each photo then we might have made our own stories up to go with each one and how different those stories may have been from what really happened.

Different photos moved each of us differently and we even found a photo of someone we knew personally which was a little bit of excitement……”I know him, isn’t that JD?”

One photo in particular of a now elderly Australian soldier mesmerised me with every line and wrinkle of his well worn face telling its own story, some good and some bad.

Gemma loved a photo of a 7 week old baby with his eyes wide open.

Steve liked one of an aborginal child with very excited smile on his face.

We also discussed the fact that a picture doesn’t have to be perfectly in focus to make it a great picture. While we didn’t always agree with the judges on their choices (there were others that perhaps we would have chosen instead) we could see their reasoning behind their decisions. I think judges in every realm have a personal choice factor in their final decisions as to who gets the blue ribbon.

A very enjoyable day!

Cleaning and Chocolate YUM!

This morning was spent cleaning up my Scrap room putting away all those bits and pieces that I couldn't find a home for and unpacking my gear from both the Artistic Journey and Hyden Retreats. Renae gave me a hand to do this too which was great. So my "collection" tray is empty and ready to be filled again over the coming months. Some new boxes were allocated and labelled and the decks are now cleared! Good feeling.



This layout was done today by Renae, my eldest daughter. After a few pointers on what decisions she needed to make along the way she managed to do really well and this is the result!
If I ever need some help with my scrapping I know who to ask I think. Great job Sweetheart!





The voting for the next round at Scrapbook Outlet opens this afternoon for 24hours so don't forget to head over and check out Lissy's layout and vote!

Go and check out Alli's "Today" Poppet Canvas at Buzz and Bloom too, it's gorgeous.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Impossible, Printer, Repeat Photos and Scraps

Here's a layout done today of all our friends' children. 6 couples (12 adults) and 13 children altogether (14 including Renae but unfortunately she had to work this particular day). We have been friends for over 20 years and get together infrequently but always do something for Xmas in July. So maybe in July I can get a group photo with them all looking at the camera and smiling. Thanks to Sandy and Neil for hosting this day, we had a great time, including the Easter Egg hunt and the kids even got to swim.






I have done another couple of layouts which unfortunately are for submissions so I can't show you those just yet.

I am now the very proud owner of a Epson Stylus Photo 1410 printer! This A3 printer is superb, I had some photos printed the other day at a processing lab and then printed the same photo on my new printer and honestly the one I printed was so much better. I can't wait to run a piece of 12x12 cardstock through it......... I know little things eh.

Have you ever loved a photo so much that you have scrapped it several times? I was working on a layout this morning of Gemma and she comes in and says "Not again Mum, that's the third layout you have done using that same photo". "No" I said.
Gemma was right, I have used this same photo twice before and was about to do a third......I drew the line and did away with the layout.....begrudgingly. Luckily nothing was stuck and can be used on another.

I bought a Cropper Hopper plastic box to house all my scraps the other day and now they are nicely filed by pattern/colour. My theory is that now I know what I have and can find it, I will use them up. They were starting to take over my scrap room. Thank you Jigga!

I'd like to wish Lucas a very Happy 10th Birthday!!!!!!!!!! I hope you have a great day gorgeous.
Love Aunty Sharon! xxxxxxxxxx

I think that covers the last few days so until next time take care.

Still Hibernating

We are still hibernating and enjoying some much needed down time around the house. The rain yesterday was very welcome and I loved working on my Art Journal entry while watching it come in across the valley. We are on tank water and were just about to order another truck load. We have lost alot of plants in the garden this year too as we ran out of dam water very early in the season. Hopefully we gained at least a quarter of a tank yesterday and last night.

I am being brave here! Below is one of the pages I have done for my Art Journal, the first one I mentioned before did not quite turn out the way I wanted it to. This page was inspired by a combination of things, my mood at the time, the diamond stamp in the bottom left hand corner and the colours in the background. Before you ask like Gemma did, No I did not draw the Jester!

I have colour washed a couple of more pages which I hope to find a quite corner this week and do some more. I can see how this could become addictive too, I had fun playing with some of the Golden Acrylics and combining different colours and intensity. I'm out of my comfort zone which is a good thing (I think!!!!!!!!!!!).

After 4 1/2 hours yesterday I found the bottom of the ironing pile and so the neverending cycle begins again!

Steve bought me flowers on Saturday. He has never liked to buy me things for a reason, if he could do away with birthdays. Mother's Day and Christmas he would, instead he would buy me something every now and then for no reason at all. I love yellow flowers of any kind, they brighten things up.

I need to go through some more photos in readiness to scrap this week so hopefuly I will also have some more layouts to show you.

Lissy has made it through round 2 at SBO.........Yay Lis, way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Have a great week everyone.

Lots of tidying up and a double layout

Well today I achieved quite a lot……a double layout for the April Sketch Challenge at Scrapbook Outlet NZ. These photos are of my two very special friends Michelle and Deb, taken on Michelle’s 40th Birthday. We went out for lunch at a winery and had a great time with no kids! All our families and kids are friends and I really do cherish them all. I’m not a huge fan of purple but nothing else would work with the photos today. More journaling too!

I have also been backing up some photos off my computer, it really is scary how much you accumulate in such a short space in time.

I have also tried to print some photos from home….I purchased some satin photo paper the other day and thought I would give it one more go before giving up completely. I surrender! Nope it did not want to play, point blankly refused to load the paper, just kept jamming!!!!!!!!!!! Not happy Jan! I even changed the print settings trying several different ones and still nada…. Very frustrating. Might be time for a new printer??????? Wishful thinking I think.

I have done a page in my Art Journal too but I’m not that happy with it, so I will hold off sharing until I have done some more, hopefully in the next few days.

Enjoy the rest of the week.

Layout Wednesday

Well I have accomplished 2 layouts today and finished off my donation layouts to the Autism Crop on 23rd June.

First one is of my Darling Husband Steve (he hates DH) taken in Sydney at Christmas time. He commented some time ago that I had stopped journaling on my pages.....so just for him I have put some on this layout.

The second one is a photo you have already seen of my daughter Gemma at dancing.

I haven't done a bright layout for ages and then I have two in the last few days.

Thanks for looking and I do hope you are enjoying the school holidays.

I can share......

Some of the pages from the album I have just finished.
OK so a little background.......it was for Scott Strange, a professional golfer from Perth. His girlfriend commissioned the album for his 30th Birthday and how she managed to keep it a secret is beyond me. I do know that she was busting to give it to him and she did just that on Saturday and he was overwhelmed at the enormity of the very unique gift he received.
The album was essentially to capture his golfing career and in particular the recent (and not so recent) success he has had, so things like newspaper clippings were an important part of this album as was some of the tournament memorabilia collected along the way.
Among the tournament pages I wanted to showcase some of the amazing photos that were supplied to me and create “inspirational” pages just to break up the album a little.
So here are just a few of the pages from the album, the photographer of some of the photos is at this stage unknown, but hopefully I will be able to credit him/her sometime in the near future.

This was the opening page. Very simple as I think the photo spoke a million words and I wanted to make a statement page 1.

So that is just a snippet of the album. Below is just one layout that I have done this week.

Thanks for looking and I hope to share some more with you all tomorrow.......if I could just hibernate and scrap for the rest of the week then I would be a very happy girl!

Take Care

GO LISSY GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK I'm no cheerleader but Lissy has made it through to the next round for the Scrapbook Outlet NZ Design Team. Please check it out from Friday night when the next round of voting opens! You need 100 posts to vote and there are plenty of games to play to get you over the mark.

GO LISSY!!!!!!!!!!!!



A photo I took on Saturday of our friends youngest son......this boy is going to break a few girls hearts when he gets older!





I hope to have a few layouts tomorrow to show you.......so stand by!


Hope your Easter has been relaxing............I'm so over chocolate!

Happy Easter

Happy Easter everyone............I wish you all a safe and chocolate filled 4 days! I don't know about you, but I want to know where the last 3 months went?????? This year is just disappearing so fast.

Yesterday I delivered an album to a client. She loved it! It was for her boyfriends' 30th birthday present......the details at the moment are limited but after the weekend I should be able to share some of the pages from the album.

I have been wanting to start my own Art Journal, I have done alot of research into what an Art Journal should be and I think this has confused me somewhat. I do not profess to be an artist of the traditional kind i.e. create pieces using traditional mediums like paint etc. I think I have found that with scrapbooking (and I know this word doesn't totally encompass what I do) I have a certain style of everything being straight and neat and "very clean" that I want to let that go to a degree (let's not get too carried away though) and explore some other combinations of mediums and see what I can come up with. I guess all this has stemmed from the Artistic Journey Retreat and discovering what can be done with things like liquid nails. So with that in mind and a break in my work at the moment I have decided to let all go and experiment. So stay tuned for some posts of my attempts at creating an art journal! Could be interesting!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


As promised here are my layouts and frame from Lis and Alli's classes last weekend......

Lis' Frame



Lis' Felt Layout



Alli's Lots of Photos Layout (I haven't finished this one totally, I need to add some journalling to the bottom right hand side).




Alli's Brads 'n' Things

Thanks for looking!

Just a couple of sites that I have come accross this week are Aussie Scrapjacked if you are a scraplifter (which let's face it I think we all are to a degree) then this site is well worth the visit. Aussie company Fynmark producers of the Bella! brand of scrapbooking products is going to be giving away a prize to the winner of Aussie Scrapjacked every month! This month's Scrapjackee is Erica Glover!

The other site is Aussie Pub Calls here you can keep track of (and I quote) "Australian and New Zealand Scrapbooking and Stamping: * Magazine Publication Calls * Design Team Calls * Competitions * Discount Sales * Retreats * Challenges AND MUCH, MUCH MORE!

One last thing, Claudine Hellmuth is offering her readers a free copy of the first issue of Go Make Art - just check out her blog and follow the links. I haven't had the chance to read it yet but it sure looks interesting!

I am hoping to get some layouts done of my own during the holidays but the house needs some attention first........or does it?

I think that's it for today, hope you got this far! LOL

Take Care.

Home from Hyden

Wow what a weekend! I had a fabulous time catching up with friends from last time, teaching and spending time with Lis and Alli. Karen was true to form and ran a fabulous retreat with lots of laughs and great company. We had four classes to do on Saturday which ran like clock work and all three of us have very different styles so there was something on offer for everyone. Two classes on Sunday and lunch before hitting the road home again.

I also did Alli and Lis’ classes which I learnt a lot from, like you don’t have to fill the page to do a great layout. I need to finish these off but promise to post them up in the coming days.

Congratulations to the girls who won the raffles with money raised going to Leukaemia research. Great cause!

Hello to all the ladies that wanted our blog addresses and remember what I said, “we like to read your comments!”

Here are some photos from one of my classes (my last one in fact) everyone hard at work……………

Alli doing some tutorials on Photoshop……

The lovely Lis!..........

You can check out Lis and Alli's blogs as I'm sure they will be posting some more photos!
Back to work now.
Take Care!