I'm great at keeping secrets...

...cos I forget to come back and tell them lol!!!

This is the cover of the launch edition of Australian Scrapbook Ideas and I'm really excited to say I am a resident design team member for this fab new mag. That means that every issue I will be producing some hopefully great layouts plus lots of instructions, hints and tips so you can complete entire layouts from start to finish, as well as detailed info on where you can get your supplies from.

I'm very excited to be in the company of some truly awesome scrappers in this new venture - Jolene Pienaar, Mandy Collins, Cindy Porter, Jill Gerraghty-Groves, Barbara Shepherd, and of course, my bestie and partner in crime, Cass Glass!!!

I also have to give a big shout out to Tina, Robert and the team at Practical Publishing Australia for putting the new magazine together and for giving us all the freedom to create as we each do best. It's been a wonderful experience to be involved so far and it has really fired up the mojo which I haven't felt this much for a long, long time. We're looking forward to bringing something a little different to the Australian scrappers out there who are looking for that something extra. I know there are lots of opinions floating around out there as to what readers really want in a mag and of course we'd love to hear those ideas - they are what will help us to create a magazine that you truly love each and every issue! We want to give you cover-to-cover, can't put down, must go try that now reading that will send you to your stash in a flurry of creativity and hopefully inspiration.

If you were at the Brisbane Papercrafts Convention you may have had an opportunity to get your hands on an issue already, otherwise it goes on sale in newsagents on 17th July 2010. There is also a great subscription deal at Practical Publishing Australia's website that you can take advantage of.

I didn't end up going to the convention at all this year, which I really missed as there were so many girls I wanted to catch up with! Sorry especially to Nic - thanks for the phone chat the other week! and sorry Lou cos we didn't get our yearly photograph! We'll mebbe have to photoshop it huh? lol But life, work, kids and everything else gets in the way sometimes and circumstances can just bugger up the best of plans. I hope everyone who went had a great time though...I did live vicariously through your Facebook posts! lol I'm also sad that I didn't get to visit the Zenozam man who always has the cutest little acrylic jars of bling in all shapes and sizes that I love to use, and the clever people who bring the big plastic tubs of VersaColor and Brilliance Dew Drop inks that I can never get enough of! I think I see some online shopping in my future...

I've been working on a bit of off the page stuff, trying my hand at mixed media, but because I mainly have scrap supplies, it isn't technically mixed media yet lol I've decided that I need an entirely different stash of stuff for that so there's more hunting to be done. I have however done quite a few thrift shops lately and rummaged up some old 45 records in their paper covers, a few big LPs with nice album sleeve artwork, some vintage dress patterns, lots of habby stuff, plenty of old buttons, bits and bobs for my pages which makes me a happy girl. I've also been bitten by the hat and scarf bug so I've been picking up bargains here and there as I do my thrift shop trawling. If you're on the south side of Brisbane, some of the ones I've been to lately are The Salvos and Lifeline (at Woodridge, on the corner of Kingston & Wembley Roads), the big Endos store on Wembley (opposite KFC on the service road), there is a SVDP (St Vincent De Paul) and an ADRA up on the street that runs next to the train line - I can never remember if it is Railway Parade or Station Road, there is a huge Lifeline and Salvos superstores at Acacia Ridge, in Boniface Street (behind the big Tradelink/Stratco place on the corner of Granard and Beaudesert Roads), and some of the smaller shops like Aid for the Blind, the Asthma Foundation and RSPCA also have great thrift shops around the place if you google for them. There's also two in Watling Street, Springwood (opposite side of the road from Ikea - now there's a map reference we all understand!!!). There's always the multiple good shops on Annerley Road at Annerley to choose from, including that gorgeous huge antique shop that always lures me in even if I cannot afford to buy anything, and there's also Reverse Garbage at West End which I haven't visited in a while but am desperate to go back to. There are also quite a few thrift shops close together in Browns Plains/Regents Park too if you like to get to a few in one go. I'll take some pics of my finds and put them up when I get a minute, so you can appreciate the huge amount of tat and crap that I could not pass up lol

If you're a FB buddy, you'll be pleased to hear that while I'm not completely accepting of the crap life throws, I am (as a very wise lady did say to me) learning to catch and throw it back!

I hope you are all well and be sure to say hi if you stop by. I'll try to be a more faithful blogger now that the mag is out and I'm not quite so in the scrapbooking darkness anymore lol

Cheers, Lu xx

WHO LOVES ANNOUNCEMENTS?!?!

lol well I do! I have had something in the works for a little while now that will hopefully get me fully back into the scrappy swing of things and back into creating regularly. Sometimes it is easy for life to get in the way of the things we love to do and unless there is a driving force, a particular reason or deadline to be met, our hobbies can tend to slide under the mountain of family, work and life in general. I've been busily instilling rota charts, behaviour charts and schedules into my home over the last couple of weeks in preparation for wanting and needing to dedicate more time to my scrapping because now I am scrapping with a PURPOSE! I'll be able to blab over the weekend when I have a bit more time to blog but for now I just wanted to say that I'm back in the saddle and happily creating, with more organisation, more free time to create and a quieter, more orderly home!

March has been a month of change here...and a month of injuries. Lachlann broke a bone in his foot while attempting to get onto his Ripstick (yes the skateboard thingy of doom!) so it was a six hour late night hospital wait for x-rays, crutches, etc. Just as we were about to leave the emergency room he vomited - he's my kid with the delicate stomach and I think the shock and tiredness just got to him. Doug got a lovely alkaline burn while at work which hasn't healed after two weeks still. The kids and I have all been through the regular change of season cold, as well as vomits, and a couple of weeks ago the ganglion on my left wrist swelled up so badly I couldn't type much at all and had to wear a wrist splint for a week and a half. It's all gone now and you'd never know it had even been there - until next time it decides to play up! Blayd is currently away on his very first "man camp". I call it "man camp" cos the chaplain at his school is taking a group of boys all 14/15 in age out into the NSW bush for four days of camping. It's designed to help the boys build self confidence, trust and independence and he was so excited to be going. They had to take everything - AND I MEAN EVERYTHING! - they would need to survive for the four days and had to carry it all themselves. Good thing he's fit lol He comes home tomorrow and I'm sure he'll have heaps of stories to tell.

We've been implementing the charts etc that I mentioned above and it is all going really well. I got most of the charts from a website called http://www.freeprintablebehaviourcharts.com/ and they kids have really taken to them. The best part is they have charts already made up that target some of childrens' most annoying behaviours. Lachlann has a "no arguing" chart and he gets up to three points each day for not arguing with Doug and I, with teachers at school or if we are going out anywhere. He's such a chatterbox and is one of those kids who must have the last word, usually as he is flouncing off to his room to contemplate the indignity and injustice of his life hehe He's done very well and I'm really proud of him. James has a "no tantrum" chart which I really need to print up for his teacher to use at school. He's much better there but it would be good to continue the chart there and at home for consistency. James has a gran who indulges him very much and folds like a house of cards if James so much as whines in complaint so we are giving her a chart to so she can help undo the behaviour she has helped to create! Caeligh has a "no hitting" chart for early mornings and evenings when her medication has worn off and she tends to go a bit feral and get aggressive. It's also going surprisingly well. I've also printed off vouchers for things like "one hour of tv time - you pick the show", " one 50 cent ice cream at McDonalds", "a date night with mum/dad" etc and they are good for rewarding a good day or a good week. I keep them on the fridge so the kids see them all the time. There are also certificates on the website to that I give out once per week for different things but all four kids get one for something they have done in the week. It reinforces that I did notice their good behaviour even if I didn't comment directly on it at the time, and hopefully they realise that sometimes rewards can come later for good behaviour, good jobs, etc, and that they won't need immediate rewards all the time.

We also created a job rota. In our house, because I work such long days and Doug does too, it can be hard to get the basic things done each day. On a busy morning, someone will forget to empty the dishwasher so I can't reload it in the afternoon, or something that needed to be washed hasn't been, etc. So we've made a decision as a family that all six of us are on the job rota, so that way the kids can't say that we aren't helping them (but as any of us parents know, kids have no clue how much work actually does go into running a household and family, and it's a lot more than will fit onto a basic job rota!!!), and we've scheduled all the usual tasks like taking out rubbish, emptying the dishwasher, refilling the dishwasher, rebooting the laundry (emptying the dryer, putting the wet stuff in the dryer and putting dirty stuff in the washer), sweeping the tile floors, vacuuming the loungeroom and bedrooms, folding clothes and putting clothes away. It also stops kids from complaining that "I did that just yesterday - it's someone else's turn!!!" cos they can see when they did a job and that someone else is doing it today instead of them. We rotate all the jobs each day - we all have one job in the morning, one in the afternoon and one after dinner - but it's still only 3 jobs a day each for the kids and so they don't feel overburdened. They have a supplemental chore sheet that they can do if they want extra pocket money, and they've discovered that if they properly complete their three jobs per day, Doug and I don't ask them to do anything else and they have lots more free time, rather than us always asking them to help get things done so they feel like they never get a solid block of play time.

One ongoing drama is the mountain of socks - with four kids there are never-ending battles to find pairs of anything, even when we have what I'm sure is about fifty thousand pairs of white school socks!! How on earth can nobody find a pair of those?!?! So I decided to turn the sock drama into a game. I sat Caeligh down on the floor, put the sock basket between us, loaded with dozens of unmatched socks, and we took half the basket each. I then told Caeligh we were going to play "Go Fish" with the socks. She would hold up a sock and ask me if I had the other one. If I did have it, I gave it to her and she got a point. If I didn't have it, she had to put it to one side and move onto another sock. We must have found thirty or forty pairs of socks in half an hour, all because it was a game and didn't feel like a chore! I'm a little bit proud of myself for coming up with that one. It's not often a child will ask if they can sort the odd socks lol

I'm off to have a play. I bought some really cool big square (like one inch!) black, red and green bling from one of the cheap shops nearby and I also had to buy the apparently necessary barrage of easter themed crap for decorating easter hats for school tomorrow so that ought to be fun! Maybe I can get away with a supervisory role for that job lol

Cheers, Lu xx

PRIMA! PRIMA! PRIMA!!!

Big Secret Promotion Winners
And the winners are....
(Click on the purple curtain to reveal the names of our two winners from the Big Secret Blog post!)
You have 7 days from today to contact us at cari@primamarketinginc.com for your prize package.

If you don't have a blog, don't worry, you still have a chance to win.
That's Right! Prima is giving away two more AMAZING prize packages in conjunction with our BIG SECRET!
We want EVERYONE to have a chance to win so we are changing the rules a bit.
Please copy this write-up and link us on your blog, Facebook, or any other site that you frequent (please follow their TOU).
Then post here with a link to your blog, Facebook or site post for your chance to win BIG with Prima!
One US and one International winner will be chosen on Thursday, March 4th, 2010.
And we are getting closer and closer to revealing our secret-it won't be long now!
Just a couple more days of suspense!

Let's all face it girls - no matter how much Prima we already have in our stashes, there is always room for more of this divine stuff!!!

Cheers, Lu

Poking my head in for a quick hello!

So here are a few shots from our family Christmas.  It was an early start (isn't it always?!?!).  Caeligh was in charge of the camera that day so these are all of her pictures, slightly blurry but taken with much excitement and pride at being the photographer for the day.

My nan was down in Brisbane after moving from Townsville and she got to meet my children for the very first time.  This is my birth mother's mother whom I only met myself for the first time a couple of years ago.  It was lovely to have her in my home and getting to meet all the kids.  Caeligh felt instantly comfortable with her and even climbed onto her lap for a cuddle which is almost unheard of from Caeligh!

We had lots of family, friends,  food and fun.  The kids all loved their Nintendo DSs that they got, along with lots of outside toys like ripsticks and scooters.  It was a long day with a mad cleaning frenzy at the end of it, instead of a relax, because we left for two weeks of holidays at Golden Beach at Caloundra on Boxing Day.  Had a fantastic time, great unit with a full kitche, washing machine and dryer in the unit, the beach was across the street and so was the BBQ area.  The kids could swim or fish.  I think fishing has become our new favourite family activity.  Instead of the usual bickering and sniping at each other, they all would get really excited when someone caught something and there were lots of pats on the back and congratulations.  It was a nice change to see them being so supportive and encouraging of each other and thus it has become one of our new weekend activities to do with them.

Not a lot of scrapping going on but slowly doing a bit here and there.  I did have a third layout but SM accepted it for pub so I can't put it up here for ages according to their new publication rules.  It was nice to create something and I'm glad I haven't forgotten how to scrap!  I'm trying to make a little time here and there for it, so even if I don't get something finished in one hit (which has always been my style), I can come back to it and work on it some more when I do have time. 

School has been a big change this year.  Blayd is now in Senior School so he goes from 7.45am to 1pm every day.  I wish I had had hours like that when I was in high school!  Lachlann is in Middle Schoo, James is in Upper Junior and Caeligh is in Junior School.  She has settled down a lot at school but can still be quite the handful at home, especially in the mornings when waiting for her medication to kick in, and then in the evenings after it has worn off but otherwise, home life is on the up and up.  We all still have our crazy days - hell anyone with kids will tell you the best behaved kids can have off days - but overall I'm glad we're back into the routine of school.  We are going away to Caloundra again for the Easter holidays and Blayd's best friend is coming with us so the kids all have something to look forward to which I think helps as well.  We'll also be going back up at Christmas this year for two weeks again.  I can't believe how much we all enjoyed the break and how much we all needed it!  I was very strict with myself and I only worked for two hours the whole time we were gone!  Easter will be different but that's okay, all part of being self employed but I'm sure I will still have plenty of time to have fun with the kids.  

I'll post some holiday photos on a new post as I have to get back to work now but I wanted to come and share those couple of layouts.  It's nice to be scrapping again!