Crafty Bits and New Family!

Okay that was a bit longer than a couple of days!  Right crafty things....I actually didn't get up to much crafty things over the last couple of months.  Some magazine work but otherwise the only crafty things I have done are a couple of small things for friends.  First was this 8x8 page which was done for my friend Ali who has just moved back to Australia!  A group of us get together every year and go away for a weekend of scrapping and fun and Ali is a big part of that group and is going to be greatly missed!  So we decided to make her a little album using photos from our weekends to remember us by.  This was my page.

 The same group of girls organised a little decorated notebook swap amongst ourselves.  By the time I was paying enough attention and decided I wanted to take part in the swap everything was already organised and the swapees had been handed out etc.  My sweet friend Gemma who was organising it did offer to swap all the names around but I told her not to worry so we decided to just do a direct swap between the two of us.  This is the beautiful notebook that she made for me.  I just love it, especially the beautiful papers she has used.

This is the notebook I decorated for Gemma using Bo Bunny Prairie Chic.  I originally had loads to go on the front but ended up scrapping it all because I much preferred it with the clean and simple look.  That and you actually have to be quite careful of what you use otherwise it makes it difficult to write in!  I used my Bind it all to punch holes in my paper so it could cover the whole of the cover.

  I figured Gemma would already have a standard notebook from the swap she was doing so I decided to do a slightly different one for her and chose one with all the dividers which I just added a little decoration to.

So that's it over the last two months!  A small layout, a notebook and a card! As I said earlier I did do some layouts for a magazine article and am currently working on some more but of course I can't show any of those so that is all I have to share for the moment!

Last thing for tonight....we have a new member joining the family tomorrow and here he is!

Isn't he adorable!  He does not have a name yet as we can not all agree on one so hopefully once he comes tomorrow we will just know!  At the moment some of the favourites are Domino, Jett, Colby, Diesel, Socks and Oreo!  He is a Sprollie which is a cross between a Collie and a Springer Spaniel and he is beautiful!  The kids are thrilled as they have been begging for a dog for a few years now! :)   So I am sure I will have lots of photos to share soon.  Anyways I am shattered and I am sure I will not get much sleep for the next few nights with a new puppy so I am off to bed :)

Abandoned Blogs, Holidays and Birthdays!

Well hello my long neglected blog!  School holidays are always crazy but this year was even more crazy than usual so I just decided to take a break from the scrappy world and enjoy it and not stress and rush about blogs etc.  We went away twice over the holidays as well as had family come and stay with us, the kids did two sailing courses then there was Bikeability courses, birthday parties, sleepovers, carnivals, beaches etc.. etc...  I really felt like I needed a holiday by the time the holiday ended and then we finished it with a bang by all getting the worst flu we have had in years!  We were all totally out of it and the kids even missed the first couple of days back at school, what a start to the school year!

A big event over the holiday was this young man becoming an 'official' teenager (of course he has thought of himself and acted like a teenager for ages! ;) )  For his actual birthday he just wanted to sit around all day, play on his new games on his xbox with his friends and have Pizza for supper so that is what he did, as you can see from the photos he didn't even bother to brush his hair the whole day!

He has wanted to go to Alton Towers for ages and we have never gone because it was just sooo expensive but he put it down on his birthday list and said that was all he wanted, he didn't even need any other presents. So of course now that we have moved to the other side of the country from it instead of being 40 minutes away we decided to take him, but... of course we did still get him a few presents :)

These are a few photos from the day but have you ever tried taking photos of people on rides these days!  They all go so fast and I kept taking photos of other people.... but I did get quite a few in the end although I won't bore you with all of them!  This is the Nemisis and turned out to be one of his favourite rides, how I don't know because OMGosh does it go fast and it goes really close to the edges, just crazy!  We then went on the Nemisis Sub Terra and wow that was scary!  I laughed the whole time whilst screaming my head off and trying not to pee my pants :D  The worst part is they are all secretive about it so you have no idea what to expect but it was a pretty scary experience that wreaks havoc on the senses lol.

 Another big favourite was Air but I didn't manage any photos of that one! This was Blade which is pretty standard but still fun!

The Ripsaw looked quite tame but actually turned out to do way more than it looked like it would do and was quite scary in the end and he had no interest in going on it a second time lol.  He had quite big eyes for a while after that one but loved some of the other rides that were way scarier!

I just love this picture, I really had to resort to bribery and corruption to get them to agree to go and stand with Sid and pose for a photo!  They had every excuse under the sun, the main one being that they were waaaaay to old but I just ignored them and shoved them at the stranger dressed up like a giant sloth and said 'smile!'.

Speaking of birthdays, it was also my wonderful Daddy's birthday recently and this is the quick card I made him using Bo Bunny Surprise!

I haven't done much crafting but that was one item and I did a couple of other small items with/for friends that I will share in a couple of days.   I have a busy day tomorrow and my parents are arriving for a month's visit from South Africa (yay!) but I will also get around to some blog hopping tomorrow night which I have not gotten around to very often recently either!

Pinterest - Food

I am a little bit of a Pintrest addict and pin waaaay too many things that I never get around to trying!  I have however tried a few of the hundreds of recipes I have pinned.  Now if you had to see how many recipes I pin and how many cookery books I own or cookery shows I watch, your first impression would be that I love to cook.  Wrong!  I love the shows and the books but I actually really dislike cooking, but.... I really LOVE food and am a total foodaholic so I do cook and try out different recipes :)

So anyway I decided I wanted to start adding Pinterest things I have tried to my blog so I am going to start with a few recipes I have recently tried.

First up is this Baked Sweet and Sour Chicken from The Recipe Critic.  This was actually really nice and everyone apart from one very fussy child liked it!  I would definitely make this again as I love battered sweet and sour chicken but I did find it very sweet so I would probably make it with less sugar and a bit more vinegar and Soy sauce.  I served it on top of egg fried rice which was really yummy.  Just click on the picture for the recipe.

This Spicy Sausage Pasta from Kevin&Amanda.com was very nice too.  Quick and easy to make and everyone liked it.  I couldn't find any Turkey sausage so I just used a Mattesons smoked pork sausage and that seemed to work perfectly.  Once again just click on the picture if you want the recipe.

Goodbye Bo Bunny!

Well today is my last official day of being on the Bo Bunny team as tomorrow the new design team will be announced!  As I said in my last post I did not reapply for the team this year even though I have had an amazing three years with them.  Bo Bunny is amazingly generous and getting to work with their beautiful products has been a huge privilege.  I will really miss the wonderful girls on the design team and Kris the design team coordinator, they have truly been an amazing group of really friendly and supportive girls.  So to finish off my term here are quite a few of my favourite Bo Bunny items that I have made over the last three years in no particular order :)

 

  

 

These last two are actually from my design team auditions and they are still some of my favourites today :)

Okay that was quite a few!
I have some ventures I am going to be getting involved in that have been on the back burner for a while and I am looking forward to getting started but I will definitely miss being a part of the Bo Bunny family and will always look back on these three years with fondness :)

Clean and Simple with Trail Mix

Oh my where has the time gone again!  I have been working although as is often the case on nothing I can show at the moment!  This layout was up on the Bo Bunny blog last week but I just haven't managed to blog it yet.  This was a really sad layout for me because it was be my last official layout for Bo Bunny as I didn't reapply for the team :(  I really love that background paper and didn't want to cover too much of it up so I decided to do a really clean and simple layout for this one and I actually really like the result :)

See if you can spot the mistake on that one.  Don't you hate it when your brain is thinking faster than you are writing and you make a silly mistake in your writing, but it was just a little mistake so I decided to just leave it, it adds interest ;)

I just got my latest copy of Scrapbook Magazine and I was very excited to see that my layout is the cover layout again!  As with all Scrapbook Magazine covers I used the very pretty free papers that came with this issue and a photo given to me by Scrapbook Magazine

We are only one day into school holidays and the kids are already driving me a bit crazy! :)  So after a crazy day I think I should go to bed now and will do some blog hopping tomorrow night :)

Heritage with Bo Bunny Anthem

This layout was done for today's post on the Bo Bunny blog and the theme was Heritage.  Now I am not usually a big heritage style scrapper as I really prefer bright colours but I had lot's of fun doing this page using some bright pops of colour.

I had this fantastic photo of my Dad as a teenager receiving the Victor Ludorum at his school gala and I decided I just had to use the Anthem paper range to scrap it as!

Bo Bunny Products Used:

Patterned Paper : Celebration, History, Nation, Peace, Sovereign/Anthem

Chipboard : 12x12 Chipboard/Anthem; 12x12 Chipboard/C'est La Vie

Noteworthy : Anthem

Stamps : Anthem

Buttons : Et Cetera; Timepiece

Stickers : Combo Stickers/Camp-A-Lot

That is it for tonight, I am off to go and melt in bed even with the fan on, instead of on the couch!  Not that I am complaining as it makes me feel all nostalgic for my childhood, roll on more sunshine! :)

Dad Layout

Been a little while again although not tooooo long this time! :)  We have been busy still settling in and enjoying our new home and the beautiful weather!  The kids seem to be settling well into school and we are all really enjoying the stunning area.   We took a trip to Sealife which the kids loved, then caught the 'land train' along the beach to go up in the tower to see the view. 

 He has joined a new cricket team and is doing really well in it and got Man of the Match last week!

I caught a train to Bournemouth this weekend to go and meet up with my besty who was there for the weekend and I haven't seen for ages!  We had a wonderful day chatting, swimming and melting in the sauna and steam room.  This was us eating lunch, everyone thought we were nutters taking photos and laughing like crazy :)

This is my latest layout for Bo Bunny, our theme was Fathers.  The photos are of me and my Dad last year when my parents were on a trip to the UK.  I love these photos because it is not often that my Dad will let you get a photograph of him without covering his head or pulling funny faces!

Bo Bunny Products Used :

Patterned Paper: Bird Watching, Field Journal, Lakeside Retreat, Woodland Picnic, Stripe/Trail Mix

Stamps: Trailmix; Wall to Wall Textures Stamp

Chipboard: 12x12 Chipboard/Trail Mix

Stickers: Combo Stickers, Camping Cardstock Sticker, Dimensional Sticker/Trail Mix

Brads: Trail Mix

Petals : Hello Sunshine

That's it for today, I hope everyone has a great week and here's hoping all this gorgeous sunshine continues! :)