I haven't had a whole lot of time to scrap lately so I've been really happy to be able to come up with anything I'm remotely happy with. The mojo has been a bit battered and bruised for quite a few gals I know, including myself, but fortunately I can say mine has recovered somewhat and best wishes to those of you who are waiting for your mojos to be given a clean bill of health!!!
Singapore Fling was done with the Kaisercraft Everblooming range. I really really loved it the moment I received it from the nice TNT man and it is probably my favourite Kaiser range ever. I scrapped the delicious lunch Cass and I had at a restaurant in Sunnybank called Little Singapore on my birthday this year. Very hot, very spicy, very scrummy!!!
Now this layout above is a weird one. Anyone who regularly visits knows this is so not my style - look at all that empty space!!!! I'm not a "clusterer" normally at all and I like balance spread across the page. I had every intention of making this a two photo layout and I thought I'd start at the top right hand corner but then suddenly changed my mind and decided to start at the bottom left and work out from there. Well that's as far as I got!!!! lol I really tried to put things elsewhere, add another photo, incoroporate more of the paper lace red heart shaped doiles Cass got me but every time I tried to add more to the page the layout would scream "Nooooooooo!!!" and so that's all that ended up being on there. I don't think it looks unfinished but I do think it looks a bit sparse to my eye anyway. I did that one while sitting at the free crop at Hughenden on the Sunday morning, chatting and just playing around.
This layout is of my lovely friend Jill's gorgeous boy Jonah. I knew as soon as I picked up the photograph that I would have to match it with the new Basic Grey papers. There's also some cool metallic red/gold mesh stuff that the v.lovely Kylie and Peta shared with me at crop on Friday night - well basically I saw it, begged and grovelled a lot and they let me have some. Thanks girls!!! The brown flourish thing behind the title is actually the brown paper backing of Cass's Prima felt border stuff. Hey, it was brown, it was good!!!! Even better, it was recycled!
So layout wise that's all I've been doing really, just the odd page here and there. This week I'm very determined to have a go at some challenge blogs and a big thanks to Kayla Renee for giving me such a great list from my request on my last post. There are some great ones there and I can't wait to get stuck in. I think I've already mentioned that I'm planning on doing all my challenge stuff in A4 size so that will be something different too, something new to hopefully add to the appeal for me.
Doug and I braved Ikea on Saturday (well it's not really that bad, we didn't have any kids with us!) and had a look at options for an entertainmet unit for our loungeroom that could accommodate some not so obvious storage for my scrapping stuff. Right now everything is still in boxes in my room after the painters finished up a couple of weeks ago and because my desk in my room seems to have been overtaken by my typing business and household paperwork etc, I decided I needed to scrap somewhere else. Now I have a small house, a REALLY small house, with an eat in kitchen and only one living area, the lounge room. It sort of doubles as part office as Doug's computer is in there too. So we decided on a couple of these cool storage units which are white and have eight compartments and no back on it, and it can be stood upright or on its side to make a low line unit. We bought two of them, lucky enough found them right at the end in the discount area, because they had a couple of scratches that won't be seen where we want to put them. So that will accommodate the TV, the games consoles etc on the sideways one and the upright one will have storage boxes and a couple of doors fitted to the compartments and my scrap stuff will get stored in there. It won't be obvious what's in the red leather look boxes but I'll keep all my stuff in them because I've decided to move my scrapping to the loungeroom. That meant finding another desk but I couldn't have anything that takes up more than a bare minimum of room. Doug's suggestion was to scrap at the coffee table - can anyone spell chronic back ache??? He obviously couldn't!!! lol So Ikea to the rescue again with a fold out desk which looks like one of those old roll top ones but has a flat fold down panel on it to make the table part and room inside to store stuff I use a lot like pens, tools, etc and a shelf at the top for more stuff. You can also buy a rectangular piano stool type padded seat that fits perfectly underneath it when the desk is closed up. The seat comes off and has more storage underneath. Gotta love Ikea!!! So that will be my new desk but not sure when that will get bought. It's Lachie's birthday this week so maybe if I'm lucky and the finances permit I can get it when we go back to Ikea this coming weekend to get Lachie's loft bed. He really wants his own bed (right now he has the bottom bunk underneath Blayd) so we figured we'd get him a single loft bed and put his desk underneath etc so they won't loose any real floor space that way. As his birthday is Friday we figure he can wait until Saturday, come down with us and help us carry the damned thing!!! lol Another Ikea job for Douglas - thank goodness he knows how to assemble anything with an allen key! Anyway, the desk won't be huge, won't be a lot of room and won't be like having a whole room dedicated to my scrapping but I figure I don't actually need that much space. I don't have time to scrap every day and when I do scrap right now I have to do it on the desk in my bedroom, away from the kids, the TV and Doug, so I think this will work out much better. I was thinking about moving my typing to the loungeroom as there is less room/storage needed for that but I can't work with all the noise of the television or radio or kids around me so the typing has to stay in my room and the scrapping has gots to go! I'll take a pic when I get it all sorted out and set up (and when I get another camera too, that would help...lol).
Home is a bit chaotic at the moment. Blayd at 13 is turning into the hormonal grump monster who doesn't want to do schoolwork/homework/exist because life is so hard and awful and everyone is so mean to him. Yeah, it's a bloody sad lament isn't it?!?!? We're going to be organising some family counselling because his behaviour is getting worse and I don't think in all honestly Doug and I know the best way to manage/help him through this stage in his life. I'd rather be honest and say I don't know what to do than just keep muddling through and have him get worse, more distant from us and get into goodness knows what kind of trouble because he's not happy with his life. I feel like a bit of a slacker mum because I keep thinking I should instictively know what to do for him but when I'm trying my best and still apparently not getting through to him or helping him it's time to call in the experts. After all, I've never had to raise a teenager before but I know there will be great counsellors who will have a lot more to offer us than what I can come up with. It causes a mass effect when Blayd hates the world as he fights more with Lachie who in turn is teary and cranky because Blayd's forever picking on him over meaningless crap, then Lachie takes it out on James who seriously overreacts because he is way babied by Doug's mother and seriously believes he is constantly persecuted by his half brothers (yeah, another massive issue that I am trying to sort through) and because Caeligh is such a strong willed brat (sorry but in the last week or two she really has been a brat - at least I didn't call her something else!!!) she sees everyone else going off and joins right in so it feels like every kid in my house is going off the rails all at once. Yes, sadly I do realise that it's a reflection on how Doug and I handle these issues that contributes to how the children all cope and right now I don't think we're handling things very well thus the kids are all exploring their own ways of coping/acting out/expressing their feelings. Iv'e had some good suggestions from the school counsellor as to where to look for help so I'll be doing that over the course of the next week or so. I hate living in what feels like a giant pressure cooker where everyone is constantly yelling, fighting, exploding over the littlest things and taking out frustrations on each other. How are Doug and I holding it all together? Well, I wouldn't say we are actually. We don't have screaming fights or anything like that. We never have. We just get snippy and snarky with each other which I hate too because we really should be backing each other up and being each other's best support right now. I think counselling will be good for all of us and hopefully it will teach us a few things about how to manage stress and how to deal with things more constructively. Fingers crossed it will make a big difference to the peace in our home (or lack of it at the moment!).
I don't think I have any other exciting news....oh, Caeligh is having her enrolment interview this week for school. I'm wondering whether I should sedate her with Phenergan before we go....hmmm....it's so very tempting. I'm terrified she'll show them what she's really like and they won't see a very intelligent girl with a fiesty nature, they'll see an undisciplined, out of control little beast that they won't want at their school. She's just not great at self control and I can hardly blame her. I was just as beastly at her age apparently so I can't say much at all... I just hope she can behave long enough for them to see that she is more than ready for Prep and in fact I'm sure she will love the place. Part of her behavioural issues I think come from boredom. She likes constant attention and something interesting to do all the time otherwise she starts getting bored and that's when the trouble starts, either that or she feels she isn't getting enough attention so she does something to draw attention to herself. She's not fazed by being in trouble though, not in the slightest, and working out a reward/punishment system has been hard with her. I'm praying that she'll have a good day and things will go well at the school.
Typing is going well, nice and busy, but as you can see from this post, I'm here blogging instead of typing which means I'm having some real concentration issues of my own at the moment. I'm so easily distracted and I'm not getting done as much as I could be. That's something I'll have to address with myself though, not sure how just yet.
Now I really will go so I can get some of that work done. I'll be sure to post up any challenges I get done and if you come across any good challenge blogs then be sure to pass the info my way!
Have a good week, love Lu
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