MAKIN A MOVE!!
Well as I've said before - all things come to an end. Couldn't work out how to add what I wanted here so have moved over to typepad where I could. Follow the linksie over and well ........I'll see you on the other side :D
Busy, Busy!!
WHAT A WEEK!!!!!!It has been absolutely full on here. So many things on the go and for a little while there I was feeling just a little overwhelmed and thinking I might have overjuggled a bit. But I am slowly roping it all into order and getting on top of it to find balance again.
First up .....I said a little while ago that I was taking a little time out from my DT position at Embellished......I have decided to make the time out permanent and step down from the team. So many, many thanks to Ali and Ang for having me as part of the team - I have enjoyed my time there emensely! I have met some of the most fantastic ladies in my two years there and it has just been a blast.
But all things come to an end and it's just time for a little change I think.
Have been having fun just scrapping for no reason in particular. Have had an offer for guest designer so that will be fun. Is just for a layout or two - no hassles/limits or anything so that will be cool. So keep an eye out for them in the near future.
Now for my BIG news. Remember last post I said I was looking into a course for study. Well the course was Certificate III in Children's Services. Spoke to the Director at Ry's daycare about options and she pointed me in the right direction for info and with an offer every now and then of relief work whilst doing my course. Hmmmm, every now and then hey?? LOL - She asked me to come in last Wednesday for relief work and I have been there every week day since. This week alone I have like 30 hours. This is brilliant as if I do at least 12 hours a week for three months then my course is subsidised and is less than half price - BONUS!! So from an idea to almost full time hours in a matter of days ......how lucky is that. And I have been just loving it there. LOL - ok a room full of 2 to 3 year olds can be a little full on at times but seriously it has been just fantastic. Plus even when I'm at work I get to spend time with little man Ry - though to be honest he does ditch me to go hang out with the other people lol. Has been tiring though adjusting to 8.5 hour days - has been quite a while since I've worked days as long as these.
Saturday I headed an hour down the highway to Gladstone to meet up with
Lauren,
Nicole,
Anne and
Carole. Must admit was a little nervous - meeting new people is not something I do easily lol. But they were just a awesome group of ladies and I really did have a brilliant time there. I did a lot more chatting than scrapping - in fact I didn't even finish one complete layout LOL. But I have finished it now, will put it up further down the post. I did have to leave a little earlier than the others as I had the hour trip back home - but am definetly looking forward to catching up with the ladies again soon. Thanks for a great time guys ...BIG THANKS to Lauren for being a superb host .....the roast she cooked up for dinner was just DELISH!!
Sunday we lounged around for half a day doing nothing, got bored so decided to head out on a mini road trip after lunch. LOL - we are so not organised at times. We decided to go and check out Port Alma - bout half hour down the highway. Unfortunatly after a really long drive down a winding road we were meet with locked gates. Apparantly its a restricted area - so nothing to see there lol. Though we did get a mini lesson in on the way - the road runs along side salt fields, was really interesting to see actaully. So back to the highway where we decided to head back down to Gladstone and then on to Tannum Sands which is such a pretty place with the cutest little playground. Kiddo's had a ball on the flying fox, even little Ry got in on the action. Got home pretty late though - but was a great day. Here are some pix from our day:
These are just some pix I grabbed of the kiddo's the other day - love them!! Totally gorgeous!!
Okie onto layouts from the last week. My days may have been flat out but the nights are still my own. Managed to get my hands on some of the new My Minds Eye papers - both the Bohemia and Kaliedoscope ranges - absolutely delish can I say!! The first two layouts were done using these papers. The second layout is for
Aussie Scrapjack - this is my jack of Megan Stephensons layout.
This next layout was done for the
Everyday Garbage challenge blog. Was to use items from your handbag. Have really enjoyed the challenge blogs this week - kinda gets you motivated to get back into it.
LOL - just realised how buggered I look in this pic - not that flattering at all really lol. Oh well, such is life.
This is the layout that I didn't quite get finished Saturday. I came home and added the journalling and bits to the right of the photo. This is my 'poor' little man Rylan in time out after yet another episode of pushing buttons. He knows the rules - he just likes to see how far he can push them. And then seems totally mystified after getting called on it. LOL - he'll be the child to give me grey hairs I bet.
The next four layouts are
Scrapgenie layouts.
Love the Daisy D's range and had a total ball coming up with these two layouts. My fav's I think.
These two were made using Pebbles Inc - My Girl range.
Love this pic of Maddy - she is just adorable. The big butterfly came from Gloria Jeans coffee shop. I picked them up a little while ago - they were using them for fundraising - you just made a donation and you got to keep a butterfly - they are huge!!
Well that's all for today - no doubt I've forgotten half of what I wanted to share but that will do for today I think. It's late and I really need to get to bed. Thanks for dropping by and will catch up again soon.
take care
Julie xx
Gettin closer...........
Another week down .....and another week closer to Christmas. It's rushing up like a speeding train isn't it?? Cannot wait for our roadtrip back home to visit everyone and to meet the new bubs. We've met Brylie - my sisters bub - but there is still Damon (Steven's sister's bub) to meet and little Montana (Sarah's little one). They will all be close to nine months by Christmas.
We've had a bit of a busy week here. Kiddo's settled back into school really well.
Maddy had a haircut ....lol, should say a hairhack. she lost a heap of hair. She used to be able to reach it behind her on her back, now it barely skims her shoulders. But I think it looks awesome and she's really happy with it - best part though ..... no more arguing in the morning over finding hair ties or brushing knots out. Certainly has destressed school mornings.
Rylan copped a black eye at daycare. Had the carer ring me to say that there'd been a tussle over a toy and that Ry had a little mark near his eye. By the time I came to pick him up in the arvo it had swelled to a full black eye. The worst thing though is that if people do comment on it it is usually to say - 'oh well, boys will be boys' - really pees me off actually. I don't expect my boys to be rough just because they are boys and I most definetly do not think they should be 'proud' to wear battle wounds like this. It's healing slowly - is at that yellow-y stage at the moment.
On Sunday we headed to the Botanic Gardens for the Arts in the Park day they were having. Was total fun. There was all these free activities for the children to participate in and keep them busy. All three kiddo's got to screen print their own t-shirts with the logo for the day - they are too cute!! There was also a couple of camels there for rides if you wanted. Now Ry has never seen camels before so he was quite taken with them. LOL, everytime they went off to take people for rides he'd stand there crying for the 'mamels'. So I thought ok then, we'll put him on with his Daddy for a ride - he'll like that if he's so interested...........NOT!!! The kiddo screamed blue murder when we picked him up to put him on, so no camel ride for him lol.
We also did a little duck feeding whilst at the gardens before heading home for a lazy Sunday afternoon.
Have also spent the last week really thinking about what it is that I want to do once the kiddo's are all at school and I think I've made my decision on the path I want to take. It's not concrete just yet but the more I think about it the more excited I get so I'm heading up the the local uni/tafe here on Wednesday for some more info on courses and such. Will let you know how I go with it all next post - lol, don't wanna jinx myself just yet.
Now onto some scrapping. Have had a busy week with my scrapping. Most nights you'd find me in my scraproom hunched over my desk. Is good to have the interest for it back again.
This is a big canvas that I did for the Everyday Garbage challenge blog. The canvas measures 60 x 40 cms. The challenge was to use items found in your bathroom. Used a hairspray tin and a cologne bottle lid to stamp onto the background. Used an old toothbrush to flick paint across background and to swipe edges. The green flowers are made from makeup removal pads that I painted and cut into their shapes and the green flower centre is made from cotton wool buds. Was a fun challenge and I really did enjoy adapting everyday items to my work. Love the way the way the canvas turned out and think I might get a frame made up for it.
This next layout was done for a photo swap. Photo was sent to me from Maz - is a pic of one of her friends. I find it hard sometimes to scrap other people's photos as you don't know the details behind the pic - so went with a general theme for this layout. Was really happy with how it turned out. Hope you liked it Maz.
These next few layouts are just some layouts from the past week. Love the photo on the 'teach them how' layouts. Maddy is really getting her own sense of personality now and you never know what she's gonna pull out when you point the camera in her direction lol.
This last layout was done for a sketch challenge. The sketch is a Becky Fleck sketch I think and when I first saw it I must admit that I thought it would be easy enough to follow and alter a bit along the way......was a bit harder than I thought lol. So whilst there is a little bit of a difference it does still resemble the sketch quite a bit, but it's done now and I'm happy with the end result.
That's all for this week guys. Thanks for dropping by and will catch up again soon.
take care
Julie xx
Back to school they go........
School holidays are finished and the kiddo's went back to school yesterday. Maddy was quite excited to be going back - she's been missing her school buddies. We weren't as flat out the second week of the hols as we were the first. I really wanted to tackle the potty training with Rylan and figured would be heaps easier if we just stuck round the house and focused on it. He's really picking it up good. He'll sit there no probs..... will sit there for ages actually lol ....... the tricky part we're having is in actually getting him to tell us that he needs to go - at the moment we're just sitting him on it every hour or so. There is a pic or two of him in the photo collage below sitting on his potty - man does he dwarf the thing lol, his chubby little butt hangs over either side ... he's just too cute!!
Maddy decided she'd like to learn to cook this past week. Fair enough I thought, we've all got to learn at some point. So I figured a cake mix would be a good place for her to start on her own. She was quite serious about it lol - if one of the boys came in and started talking to her she tell them 'out of the kitchen please, I'm concentrating'. She did a great job with her cake .....was quite delish!! And she even passed the mixer over to the boys to lick after finishing ..... thought she was being kind till she said she'd just have the bowl to lick instead, lol - she's not a silly child.
This has been the best ever school holidays for us. We normally all end up cranky by the end of the two weeks - not this time. I really, really enjoyed the kiddo's in the last two weeks. I know we're always supposed to enjoy our children lol, but normally school hols will push me to my limits. Not this time!! We spent heaps of time together, plus I got to spend heaps of time one on one with them as well - which is not easy to do sometimes. The house is so much quieter with the older two back at school, which is not a bad thing but it is a little sad and Rylan is missing them both already.
I woke up Sunday with a sore throat and seriously I just sat in bed and nearly cried. I thought that I was getting Toncilitis back yet again, and I just couldn't deal with it for a fourth time. But the throat didn't get any worse throughout the day, just a little sore - plus I had runny nose and sneezing - so was just a little Spring cold I caught. Still made me tired but no where near as bad as the tonsils cause. Feeling heaps better today so have shaken it I think. This has just been the worst ever winter for me - never have I been sick as much as this. But it does make me look at my lifestyle a bit and see what could be causing me to be rundown enough to catch the bugs, so am making some changes that will result in a more relaxed and healthier environment.... have also rediscovered my love for oranges lol ....YUMMO!!
Have been scrapping a little - have scrapped six layouts in the last week. Can only share three of them though as two are for class and the other one is a layout that SM asked me to do for their Aussie gallery coming up.
Well that's all for this week, thanks for dropping by and will catch up again soon.
take care,
Julie xx
Having a blast!!
The first week of school holidays have just flown past for us. Normally we go a little crazy and get a little agro with each other but I have kept the kiddo's really busy this time and it has worked like a charm - I think we've had the best holidays ever so far!!
I think I mentioned in my last post that they'd both made a list of all the things they'd like to do over the hols - lol, they lost their list within a day of writing it. We still did the doughnuts and milkshakes for lunch one day though - though we swapped the milkshakes for kiddie capps. We've been to the beach a couple of times, been to the Botanic gardens a few times, visited the Rock Pool water park once (going again this wednesday), hung out at the local shopping centre for a couple of hours of shopping and people watching, spent a morning at the local library.
This past sunday we were invited along on a bbq with some of Steven's workmates and families. We drove up to Byfield state forest to a little place called Upper Stony Creek - and it is just BEAUTIFUL. It made me feel like I was back home in the Vic mountain area of Bright, not the town, but the area surrounding it. The creek flows down to an area thats been set up for swimming, and the water is so clear. There is a pretty area set up for bbq's under these really tall pine trees - was just so relaxing. There is also a camping spot there with these cute little sites all fenced individually - gonna have to try them out I think, have really missed our camping weekends.
Gonna share a funny little story - was NOT funny at the time believe me lol. Ry was standing at the edge of the river, wasn't deep where he was but a few steps in the rocks slope down to a fairly deep part - well for him anyway, and they are really slippery. So he stood up to come back to the side and started to slip on the slopped rock towards the middle. I didn't panic just strode over pretty quick to grab him .......... and slid all the way into the middle myself lol - I did manage to keep Ry's head above the water though. So there's me in soaked jean shorts and t-shirt for an hour car trip home - very uncomfortable! Though the guys did tell me at least it was a pretty graceful entry sliding in the way I did = not much concilation believe me. Here are some pix I took, doesn't that river just look gorgeous!!
Now being the start of another month that means that it's new kit time at
Embellished. Here are some layouts that I've made up using the kit.As you can see, it's pretty versatile between boy/girl layouts. This will also be the last kit I work on for a little while, am having a bit of a hiatus from my DT spot - takin a little time out to just do nothing I guess. I've had my spot for well over a year now and I feel like I've grown a little stale if that makes sense - so hopefully with some time off I'll feel a little more fresh.
These next two layouts were done just before I fell sick - just never got the chance to share them. Nearly broke my sewing machine on the first one - not sure if you can see it on the pic, but i hit one of the little brads with the needle and it got stuck - lol, it definetly did not like that!!
These next two are ones that I've done in the last week - haven't really felt like scrapping much. Have been reading heaps at night - will often look up and realise it's like one or two in the morning. Have also done a couple of Scrapgenie layouts, will share them next post.
Well, that's all for now. Am planning on a much quieter week this week so I can tackle a little potty training with Ry. He had his first day in those trainer pants yesterday - think I'm gonna need to buy quite a few more pairs. He soaked the three I had in less than half a day. Ended up putting him in Nick's jocks after that, couldn't believe that they fit his chubba butt so well!! So day one didn't go so well. But he did use his potty today - unfortunatly I was in the shower so once he did it he then proceeded to tip his wee onto the rug!! Little turdskie!! Am hoping that by the end of school hols he's got the drift - fingers crosssed.
thanks for dropping by, will catch up again soon
Julie XX
Feeling better.
Well it's been a little while between drinks hasn't it?? Would love to say that I've been flat out with something really cool and exciting or even that I've just been to busy with life to take a chance to update, but I haven't unfortunatly. I have spent the last week really crook with Toncilitis yet again. Besides the one night I spent up at the hospital for some antibiotics to be given through an I.V most of my time has been spent huddled up on the couch sleeping.
But am getting over it now, starting to feel better - still a little dizzyness at times but I think that's just because I've been laying down so much - and have been up and about quite a bit today. Well I had to really, today is the first day of school holidays up here, so had to try and keep the kiddo's busy somehow. I did end up cheating this arvo though and took them down to the local video shop to hire some movies, figured if I could get one more quiet day in then I should be feeling fit as a fiddle. The kiddo's have made up a list of fun things that they'd
like to do over the holidays so I'm aiming to get most if not all of the items done. It's such a cool little list - doens't have heaps of big ticket stuff on it - more places they'd like to go and play at for a while or go and see - lol, one of them was to go have a milkshake and a donut for lunch one day .... sounds ok to me as a one off.
So that's about it for now - nothing to share, this is the first time I've been online in over a week - kinda cool actually - and I doubt I'll be on a heap over the school hols either. There is one cool thing I can share today actually - look at the pressie I got in the mail today:
It's from Cathy at Scrapgenie and they are just gorgeous - An AMM handbag and a matching AMM
purse - how cool are these!!! THANK YOU SO MUCH CATH
Y!!! THEY ARE JUST BEAUTIFUL!! I couldn't believe it when I opened up the parcel and saw these - thank you, thank you, thank you.
Okie, well that's all for today then, time for me to serve up dinner, another thing I haven't done in ages lol, take care and will chat soon
Julie xx
SC layouts............
Two posts within days - lol, I must be feeling motivated. But the reason I wanted to blog today was because I finally got my hands on the latest copy of Scrapbook Creations, have been hanging out for aaaaaages for this issue. I had quite a bit of work in it - five layouts for a paint feature, three for a Spring journalling feature and two just in the quick grabs galleries. So I was all excited to get it home and have a read through. Open it up, flicking through, flicking through and then saw my first feature ...... was so disappointed. The printing colours were totally skewiff!! It's like they went overboard on the orange ink. So just wanted to share all the layouts in their original colours, believe me, the kiddo's did not need extra bronzer added to their skin lol. So here they are:
The paint feature -
The Spring journalling feature - 
The two layouts in the Quick Grabs section - 
This layout wasn't in the mag - it was done for the Colour challenge competition they had not long ago. Had to chuckle when I got it back, normally I like my layouts bottom heavy yet this one sits up near the top - must of been having my own skewiff day that day lol. But I like it still - love the colours and the pic is one of my fav's.
Okie, well that's all for today - just wanted to share.
take care and will catch up again soon
Julie xx
This next layout was done for the Everyday Garbage challenge blog. Was to use items from your handbag. Have really enjoyed the challenge blogs this week - kinda gets you motivated to get back into it. 
The next four layouts are Scrapgenie layouts. 
Now onto some scrapping. Have had a busy week with my scrapping. Most nights you'd find me in my scraproom hunched over my desk. Is good to have the interest for it back again.
This next layout was done for a photo swap. Photo was sent to me from Maz - is a pic of one of her friends. I find it hard sometimes to scrap other people's photos as you don't know the details behind the pic - so went with a general theme for this layout. Was really happy with how it turned out. Hope you liked it Maz.
I woke up Sunday with a sore throat and seriously I just sat in bed and nearly cried. I thought that I was getting Toncilitis back yet again, and I just couldn't deal with it for a fourth time. But the throat didn't get any worse throughout the day, just a little sore - plus I had runny nose and sneezing - so was just a little Spring cold I caught. Still made me tired but no where near as bad as the tonsils cause. Feeling heaps better today so have shaken it I think. This has just been the worst ever winter for me - never have I been sick as much as this. But it does make me look at my lifestyle a bit and see what could be causing me to be rundown enough to catch the bugs, so am making some changes that will result in a more relaxed and healthier environment.... have also rediscovered my love for oranges lol ....YUMMO!!
Well that's all for this week, thanks for dropping by and will catch up again soon.
