What a cool surprise!!!

I checked my email this morning and Scrapbooking Memories have left a message to say they will be using my story for their Real Life, Real Stories feature!!! OMG I'm so excited!!!!

Cass and I were both doing the happy dance when they asked her a couple of months ago as it seems like a huge step for us who are relative unknowns in the scrapping world. My story is going to be in Volume 9 No.1 which comes out at the start of July and Cass's is in Vol 8 No 11 so she'll be in June's issue and I'll be in July!!!! That is the coolest thing and I'm gonna get up from my chair in a second and do my own happy dance!!!

Apparently I need to choose an accompanying layout for the article and the fab thing is that I can choose any layout I like which means that I can have something published that I really love as an example of my own work but which would normally not be accepted by the mags as it's a bit "out there" or a bit too freestyle. So I'll have to get out all the albums today and see what I want to send off to them. There are a couple of real faves I have at the moment but SM have them already and they are awaiting allocation to an issue so can't use those ones again but I'm sure I'll find something!!!!

In other news girls we had an amazing chat with Marah Johnson last night in the Cyberscraps chatroom, as well as Tammy, Allison and Cheryl who are her completely inspiring design team. They were so open, honest and genuine and really shared with us like they'd known us for years. It was an absolute pleasure to chat to her and hear about her upcoming ranges and the new USA Summer CHA releases she's got coming out. Not too many clues to ruin the surprise but enough to know it will be something of a must have if you love Marah's work! It will also be her incredibly original and cutting edge style which is what I love about her work now - it's stuff I had never seen before. We had quite a few visitors and a big thanks goes to Akuti from the SM forum who put a notification up for us for those girls who wanted to drop by. Akuti it was great to chat with you "in real life" if you know what I mean!

Not heading off to the shop today. I've got a batch of typing to do for a cardiologist and let's face it - I kinda do need the money now so I'm staying at home like a good girl to get it all done.

The kids are really stoked about only two days left of school. James is thrilled to bits to be almost upon his very first school holiday (big grade one this year) and honestly I don't know what he thinks will be happening!!!! Doug is having next week off and while we do try to get out and about with the kids a bit more sometimes it's just nice to stay around the house and not have to go anywhere if we don't feel like it! I know that to celebrate the first day of school holidays on Good Friday - in a not very particularly religious way - Doug is hiring a PS3 from the video shop for the weekend and we'll have our four kids plus my two nephews (Cass's two eldest boys) over as well for a sleepover and game-a-thon.

Cass and I were also saying how we really need to get out some time over the break and do a "proper" photo shoot with all the kids as nothing inspires us two like some new pics! I don't think the video shop opens until midday on Good Friday so we were tossing up taking them all to the Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens which also has it's own beautiful Japanese Gardens as well as the planetarium. We do tend to get a bit over the top about photo shoots so we'll both have our cameras and we're planning on dressing all the kids in white t-shirts and denim with bare feet and going a bit beserk. Oh that reminds me to recharge the battery on my beloved Panasonic Lumix. And empty all the memory cards!!! Unfortunatley I tend to run out of battery juice before I fill up my memory cards. I even have a special hard plastic case with a rubber lining to store my SD cards in because I often need more than one. I think altogether I've got almost two thousand photos worth of SD card space!!!! That seems a bit ridiculous when I say it like that!!!! lol Let's just say it's a lot of photos but I've discovered that about photographing kids. It's far better to just keep shooting and get as much as you can and then weed through later and find the best ones - like panning for gold really! lol I even wanted to go a bit further and get Caeligh and Lily little satin Chinese cheongsams (sorry if I'm completely getting that wrong - the little satin slip dresses with the high collar and the cap sleeves?) and putting their hair up in loose buns with chopsticks and have them running around in bare feet in the Japanese Gardens and getting lots of pics of them together. They're such a cute pair - Caeligh with dark hair and dark eyes and Lily who is all blonde and blue eyed. Yes, trust me, Cassandra and I are VERY WORRIED about the teenage years as they are thick as thieves and look so cute together!!!! We have visions of pimply teenage boys looking at our girls and asking each other if they prefer blonde or brunette!!!!! I'm sure they'll be fine once the boys realise that Lily is far too high maintenance and Caeligh is too much of a tomboy with a vicious temper!

I really should get this typing done if I want to have any free time at all on Friday for photo shoots so I'll get back to it but I wanted to share about SM. If you are a scrapper who hasn't been published it's a good opportunity to get your story in print as well as a layout. The Real People, Real Stories feature is an open call and you just type approximately 200 words about why you scrap and how you got into it and attach a scanned layout so they can see an example of your work. The email address for Real Life, Real Stories is kevans@expresspublications.com.au if you're interested.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll be back later!