I Came Back :)

My goodness. Where has the time gone. It seems like it was only a few days ago that I wrote on my blog.

I have been rather busy over the past few months - scrapbooking, looking after a sick bird, caring for our menagerie and my daughter's as well, while they were away in Alexandra. They are all back now, thank goodness. I felt I was about to have a nervous breakdown through trying to feed the Indian Ringneck, Chloe aka Jaws, who absolutely HATES me. The vet told us she attacks me because she thinks my son, Jeremy, is her mate and that I'm a threat to her relationship with him. Yay for Jeremy and yay for me (not).

I'm not managing the hot, humid weather here in Auckland at the moment. 26 - 27 deg C and 100 percent humidity isn't a good cocktail for sleeping at night and working- all I want to do is blob and sleep during the day. Hopefully with some normality getting back in the household next week with everyone back at work, that will get all sorted out - that's what I"m telling myself anyway.

My wee baby Jai - again not being so cutie cutie - kept catching birds and lizards and things and insisting on bringing them inside to show me how clever he was. I don't know why he kept doing this as every time I saw him with something - no matter how big or small - I would S C R E A M - which would send him off in a panic - usually with the thing in his mouth. My friend, Carol, was here the other night and we were quietly chatting away, when Jai bought a lizard inside and was about to take it up to my bedroom. I saw that he had something in his mouth and on cue, I let out a rather deafening scream. (Poor Carol, I don't think she'll ever recover from the ringing in her ears and the hearing loss she suffered.) I decided I couldn't cope with him being so cruel to birds etc so I bought him a collar with not one but two bells on it. Well, what a sight. He was literally running around the outside of the house and up and down the next door neighbours section trying to run away from the noise. I'm pleased to say he wasn't successful. A whole day and a half went by and there was no sign of 'gifts' for me from Jai. I thought this was fantastic and that the bell collar was working. Unfortunately, this didn't last long - yesterday I heard a minor bird screeching so I went outside. I couldn't see any sign of Jai so thought all was good. The bird kept making the terrible noise so I went and investigated a little more - only to find Jai had caught another bird - bells and all - and was trying to hide from the minor bird who was dive bombing him. I'm at a total loss as to what to do with this not so cutie cutie kittie. I still think he's adorable and he's still my Mr Flop - but I don't want to see him catch any more birds.

As a number of you will know, I really enjoy participating in ATC swaps. I joined an English ATC group a while ago, sending my ATC's and money to the organiser  so she could return swapped ATC's in return. Unfortunately I didn't receive anything back so I was left feeling rather frustrated and disappointed. I am really happy and excited to say that I have met a lady, Yvonne, on-line from Canada, who is really keen to do a two for two swap with me. This has put me back in a positive mode for international ATC swaps again. I'm really looking forward to swapping with Yvonne and hopefully we'll be able to continue swapping for a long time to come.

Well my dear friends, I'm going off now to cook some dinner and then do some scrapbooking. I've got to get myself organised and upload the pages I've completed for the Southern Girls Challenge and other challenge sites I've recently joined.

Once I've done this, I will upload them to my blog so you can see that I haven't just been sitting on my toosh over the past couple of months :)

Hope you guys all have a great 2011 and that the year brings you health, wealth and good fortune.

Southern Girls Challenge No. 6 - Colours

As you can see - my dear innocent little Jai is helping me AGAIN with my scrapbooking. This time I caught him red-handed - or should I say red-pawed :) By the time I found him, he had chomped on the flowers and was in the process of 'attacking' the photo. Needless to say, I wasn't impressed - Still love him though :)

Southern Girls challenge No. 6 - Colour

This is my little Jai in the dryer - I only just took some towels out and was coming back to get the rest when I found him all snug inside it. I got such a fright - hence - he's not cutie cutie - he's still my baby though :)

For the challenge, I chose the colour blue as it is one of my favourite colours -  both in my layouts and also in what I wear.

Week 5 Challenge - Glitter

So Exciting !!!!

I won - I won - I won

I'm so excited. I entered the Southern Girls Challenge competition last week, as I usually do, and my name was drawn out to win a prize. I'm so excited - as you can probably tell.

The Southern Girl Challenges' have helped me to get my mojo back and I'm starting to feel a lot more confident in myself and happy to experiment with more things. I think this is a brilliant site to follow because the talent that is being shared is amazing. I learn so much and am often in awe of the fantastic things these ladies come up with.

I'm going to have a go at the challenge this week - glitter - which will certainly be quite challenging for me. I'm not quite sure where to start yet, but I'm going to have a go and start at the beginning - probably more than once if I know myself.

I spent some time at Scrapaholics (it was called Arty Farty) last night doing some scrapping. The atmosphere was awesome - Cherie, who used to work for Scrapbook Studio, has started working there every Thursday night til 9 p.m. and on alternate Friday night crops. It's awesome having a fantastic place to go to get inspiration and positive guidance when things turn to custard (well, they might not turn to custard for you but they certainly do for me).

I'm really looking forward to spending more time at the shop. If you are in Auckland, do make the time to go and check it out - Scrapaholics, Moore Street, Howick (it's under Arty Farty in the phone book)

I'm going to head off now and make a start on the next challenge. Hope you are all participating or have participated in the challenge so I can see what you've created. Have a good week everyone :)

PS: A BIG BIG BIG THANK YOU CAROL - YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

 

 Ann

I'm So Allergic to Mornings

mmm well, daylight saving is now upon us - which is great, don't get me wrong - but OMG I'm allergic to mornings at the best of times and now losing an hour in the mornings as of last weekend - I'm having a severe reaction to lack of sleep as I am still wide awake at midnight, rearing to go but struggle when the alarm goes off in the morning - and boy, don't my sons know it. They are steering well clear of me at the moment.

 Well, i went to Megan's Retreat last weekend and had a fantastic time. Lianne Gray took a class using Gesso (not sure how to spell it), a 12 x 12 stencil and thick chipboard. We placed the stencil on top of the chipboard then scraped Gesso over the holes, smoothing it out with an old credit card/store card. Once we got all the bubbles out and had an even coverage, we carefully lifted the stencil off, leaving a thick image behind. It was awesome. Once it was dry, we painted it with acrylic paint, rubbing it off we a rag. Again once the base colour was dry, we then added other colours of our choice to create the look we wanted. I had heaps of fun doing this - didn't get my hands too dirty either - which was great. (those of you who know me are very aware of my lack of enthusiasm in getting my hands dirty - once I get into it though, it's all good - just the initial yucky yucky thought). Once all the paint was dry, we then started adding our embelishments and photo/s. As usual, I didn't finish mine, but when it's done, I'll put it up for all to see.

I went to Shopaholics on Friday night for their crop night. I managed to get my layout completed for the Southern Girls Challenge, which I've titled "Luv u Jess". I'm really happy with the layout, which I'm not going to attempt to upload it to their website. I'm guaranteed to spend at least an hour trying to work out how to do this, but hey, it's good practice - I guess

Hope you guys check out the Southern Girls Challenge website, if you haven't already. It's great fun participating in their fortnightly challenges - it certainly gave me heaps of inspiration to get back into scrapping my photos.

Hope your week goes well -  and you get heaps of scrapbooking done - Bye for now

Ho Hum - I'm so over Cleaning

Well, it's only Monday and I can't wait for the weekend. I'm absolutely over the 'spring cleaning' thing already. I've spent the whole day sorting, cleaning and supposedly chucking out the hoards of old things my darling boys like to hold on to - just in case. I'm definitely not a hoarder or procrastinator, which unfortunately both my boys are very talented in. Everything I wanted to dispose of was intercepted by Nicholas - talk about frustrating.

My little babies - Jai and Rocko - have been feeling the cold the past few nights. They have been more than happy to curl up and go to sleep on my bed - and being extremely successful in taking up almost the whole bed. Jeremy, my oldest son, has been away since Friday so I've had Bob, Jai's brother, sleeping on my bed too - yay - less room for me. He must be used to having a small amount of room as he sleeps in the cutest tightest little ball. Jeremy has him well-trained.

I've been desperately trying to upload one of my layouts to enter a competition but I somehow got the size of the photo to be over 3000 KB, which I'm guessing was far too big as it wouldn't work. My dear friend, Carol, fixed it for me, which I'm so grateful for, so I was able to enter the competition. I don't know what I'd do without her. She has the patience of a saint - she certainly needed it tonight as I had absolutely no idea how I managed to get the photo so big. - Thank you so much Carol :)

Well, I'm off to Megan's Retreat this weekend which I'm really looking forward to. I'm notorious for not really achieving much when I go to retreats, but I'm hoping this time it will be different. I'm at least going to try and be a little bit more organised than I have in the past, so that might give me a heads up.

Well, I've no more news to share. I'll let you know how much I achieve at the Retreat this weekend.

Bye for now :)