Time for change

Well I've had some time to think about where I am in life with work, family, scrapping and the whole 9 yards as the saying goes, and I've made the decision to make some changes for myself, hopefully for the better.

The first of those changes was to sadly relinquish my position on the CyberScraps design team. A lot of my decision came from the fact that I don't really have the time that's needed to be a fully involved design team member for a retail store with an online component as well. It takes far more hours than it looks from the outside to keep up with all the work needed each month in terms of the gallery, forum, cybercrops, challenges, planning, etc, and with only a couple of people it's been hard to keep up. I've definitely not been able to support Cath as much as I would have liked to and it isn't fair for me to continue when I know I can't do that. I'm going to be cutting back now to things which don't require a lot of online involvement which for me really takes away from my scrapping time which should be the whole point of the exercise. I've been with Cath since she began the online store almost two years ago now and I've loved every minute of being immersed in the whole design team lifestyle and playing such a hands on role in the direction of the shop. I've especially loved the amazing women I've met through my time there as well - people I probably never would have met otherwise - and I hope that anyone who wants to keep in touch will do so through my blog or email me or carrier pigeon or anything at all and naturally I'll do the same. I'm also very thankful to Cath for all the opportunities that being a part of her design team has given me and I know she'll continue to do well.

So what now? The typing is here as always so that's keeping me busy but in the spare moments (what are those?!?!?!) my lovely friend Alana who runs Scrapping Outback has asked me to help her out to showcase some of her products so I'll be doing that in bits and pieces for her. I'll also be helping out at the Scrapping Outback stand at the Scrapbook and Papercraft Convention next month (Queen's birthday long weekend at the Brisbane Convention Centre, Southbank) doing product demonstrations etc so I'd love to see you if you are going. That reminds me...

.... that Scrapping Outback is holding a big competition - Sounds like fun......here is the info!
Brisbane Scrapbooking ConventionJune 8 & 9thWould you like to see your work on display at our stand, alongside works by Lu Benson (li'l ol' me), Rachelle Minett, Sandra Gerdes, Petrina McDonald and Jill Geraghty Groves...well you could. If you have purchased products from Scrapping Outback you are eligiable to enter. We want you to help us show off our best products. So if you do not already have our designs in your stash, you need to do some shopping.To enter you just need to submit your layout or off the page project. You can enter as many submissions as you like...the only requirments is that you MUST contain products from Scrapping Outback. Entries are to be uploaded in the Brisbane Scrapbooking Convention Competition in the gallery. So register your details in the gallery, grab some products and show us what you can do with our designs.Entries close 27th May. Winning layout will receive a huge prize pack valued at $100, presented in one of our Convention reusable shopping bags which will be personally autographed by all the above designers as well as your layout on display at the Brisbane Papercraft Convention. Sounds cool hey?

In an update from my work for Kaisercraft at the Stitches and Craft Show a couple of weeks ago, I'm also really excited to announce that I've been asked to be a Design Team member for Kaisercraft!!!! I only found out yesterday so that's mega exciting. As far as design teams go it's a great opportunity to work with all of their latest and greatest products to create samples for their catalogues, trade shows like CHA and the monthly workshop booklet that you can find at your local scrap shop and it's something I can fit in around the typing business as well which I'm really thankful for. There are some other fantastically talented Aussie scrappers joining me on this very exciting design team but I'll let them tell you in their own time - I dont' want to spoil anyone's surprise but I'll link as soon as they've made their own announcements. Huge thanks go to Melissa Kennedy who asked me to come on board - I'm really honoured to be involved and can't wait to show you all the exciting things that Kaisercraft has planned! They just keep getting better and better as I'm sure you all know. Stay posted for updates.

So have I been scrapping? Not much really but I did a couple of layouts today that I'm really happy with.

I'm off to do some typing tonight because there's always that waiting for me and tomorrow Caeligh wants me to help her make a mini album for her to keep in her room. She always loves to see the layouts I've done but wants to keep them for herself in her room instead of in any of my albums so we'll make her something that's just her own.

I hope everyone's travelling okay and keeping well. Hopefully now I'll have a bit more blog surfing time to catch up with you all. I miss reading what everyone's doing and I definitely need to have a big catch up!

Have a fab week, love Lu

MY FEET ARE KILLING ME!!!!

WOW!!!!  What a massively busy day!!!!  Cass and I picked up Jill and gave her a lift in to the Convention Centre with us - no point all of us wasting petrol and parking money!  Creative Living have set up an amazing indoor garden for us to work in - complete with timber garden sheds too!  There is astro turf on the ground and lovely white tables and chairs for our make and take classes (we KaiserCraft chickies are doing bag tags complete with your choice of papers, flowers, bling and ribbons, and the luverly Fiskars gals are doing make and take cards and showing off all of their fab tools - don't forget to look for their new Fingertip Craft Knife - it looks weird, works like a dream and I need to get me one of those babies!!!!).  There's also a real grassed garden behind a white picket fence and there are cute little ducklings wandering around in there.  We have Garden Parties which is our on stage demos where Cass and I get to wear little microphones around our heads like space cadets and we do quick layout demos, altered monograms and I do a wooden canvas demo and while that's going on the (hopefully) captive audience is served the most amazing little white iced cupcakes with pink flowers.  There is beautiful music playing all the time and it's like scrap heaven in that corner of the show!!!  It's quiet, it's creative and it's really reall fun!!!  From a work point of view we don't get to sit down at all but the loo is right near our garden shed and the coffee shop is about three metres away!  I've had a wonderful, fast and busy day and now that I've done my first "on stage" demo I'm not nearly as nervous as I was this morning.  I guess it's just the fear of the unknown as it's my first time working one of the craft shows.  I hope I'll be well and truly over the nerves by June as I'm helping Cass teach her classes and doing some product demos as well.

I'm going to go and have a quick crash on the couch for a while before I get back to my typing.  I've got a couple of fairly new clients and I didn't want to tell them I was unavailable only a couple of weeks after they started with me so I'm fitting in my typing around the days at the show.  Thank goodness it's a relatively quiet week on that front otherwise I don't know how I would be managing it all.  Doug has been a total legend at home.  I walked in the door after Cass dropped me off at about 6:45 tonight and the loungeroom and kitchen were clean and Doug was just serving dinner.  There isn't a price you can put on a capable man who happily does what needs to be done and one who also rang me right before he knew I had to get ready for my demo today just to wish me good luck and to tell me he loves me.  

I haven't taken any pics today because I forgot my camera in the mad rush this morning but I will take some tomorrow and post them so you can see what we've been up to.  If you do manage to get to the show please do come and say hi and sit and do a make and take with us.  They're quick, easy and lots of fun - and best of all they're FREE!!!  Then hang around to watch a demo, admire the ducklings and enjoy a scrummy cupcake!

Have a fab Thursday!  Love, Lu

Brisbane Stitches and Craft show

I'm just getting ready to get moving for the day.  Cass and I have been asked to teach for KaiserCraft at the Brisbane Stitches and Craft Show this week (today until Sunday, 10am - 4pm every day) so we've spent the last week doing a bit of headless chooka action getting demos ready and organising ourselves for what will hopefully be five days of fun and meeting people!  We always make a point of going to the craft shows anyway (best place around if you're an ink junky like us!!!) and you always manage to run into people you know which is a great way to catch up so now we'll have five days to have a look around although I think most of that will be trying to duck around the place in the hour before it opens each day because after that we're pretty well scheduled.  We'll be doing make and takes and "garden party" demos during the day so if you're going to the show be sure to pop in and say hi!  I believe we'll be spending our days in the Creative Living "garden" which will be an interesting experience to say the least!!! lol  I'm absolutely going to take my camera because I'm sure I'll want to get pics, and especially if I run into friends which reminds me I probably should go and top up that camera battery first or nobody is getting pictures of anything!!!

I'm off to pack my toolbox with a few basics we'll need to do our demos and then go get gussied up ready to rush out the door when Cass turns up to pick me up.  I think there'll be some herding of children and husband in amongst that as well so I'll post more when I get a chance.

Hope you're all having a great week and dont' forget to say hi if you're at the show!!!

Love, Lu

Lest We Forget

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them".

Lest We Forget

Seriously missing scrapping type contact!

So I got some more scrapping done, bugger all really in the scheme of things but something is better than nothing in my book! lol  I've been doing really well with the typing but it's a lot of work, more than I had planned on, and so I'm back to working ridiculous hours but at least I'm working ridiculous hours for myself and not anyone else so I can't bitch too much.

I'm not sure why Blogger is making me put all my layouts up the top all of a sudden but people have emailed me to say that they can't leave me comments either so wassup Blogger?

Anyway the top two layouts are using a cool new range at CyberScraps from a company called 
Little Yellow Bicycle and the range is called Zach's Life.  All very funky and great for the boys in your life.  Some of the papers even have coloured ledger paper on the reverse -have me a serious thing for ledger paper at the moment and I've been collecting it even though I don't want to use it in case I need it for something special, whatever that is! lol  There are cloth stickers, die cut cardstock stickers, cool round brads that look like meta washers, some nice alphabets that I have left au naturel apart from white pen around the outline of them and the great range of double sided papers.

The layout of Lily is the one I did last crop with the new KaiserCraft Bohemia paper range which I think is gorgeous.  I left all my photos at home that day (Bridget Jones here: DISASTER!!!) so I had to borrow Cass's photos and chose this gorgeous pic of Lily.

The next two - Baby Ballerinas and Kristofer - I did at Cass's place yesterday while experiencing her shiny new scrapping bench for the first time.  I was just playing around - gotta love permission to play - so I just used whatever came to
mind and whatever felt right.  I love being able stand up but it fits a bar stool underneath cos the old grey mare ain't what she used to be so I got jack of standing after about two hours!!! Beautiful scrap room though and everything is in arm's reach.  Cass has her side of the bench and she's set up the other side complete with cutting mat for me so I'll always have a place to scrap no matter how cluttered my desk at home is.  I've got three transcription machines on my scrap desk and now have no room left to scrap - even after all the trouble with the air conditioner and completely decluttering, reorganising and setting up my scrap desk how I wanted it.  

So that's been me lately, working mostly, scrapping rarely, but glad that the mail out for the typing business worked.  Now for the headache making issue of sorting out tax, GST, BAS statements and all that stuff.  See that's the thing that I really loathe as I failed bookkeeping miserably at TAFE because numbers just make my brain shut down and I get so easily confused!  How stupid does that sound....but I do, I've never been good at math and trying to remember where all the different numbers go is a struggle.  So I seriously lack confidence with that but I know if I take my time and persevere at it I will get a better understanding.  Cass said MYOB would be a huge help too so I'll get that and take it from there.  ARGH headache making.......

There's lots going on scrapwise behind the scenes with a couple of articles coming up, my "I Thee Wed" cube in this months' SM and my first ever publication in SC with "Friends From The First", a layout I was really happy with and it has a cute photo of James with Levi and Jonah, my friend Jilly's two boys.  I'm also really excited to be working for KaiserCraft at the Stitches and Craft show at the end of the money for five days.  I have a secret fear that I will spend more than I earn by having to stay in that place for 10 hours a day!!!! lol  Cass and I are both working there so if you're going to the Stitches and Craft show in Brisbane from April 30 - May 4 we'd love to see you!!!!  Come by and say hello and see what fabulous new things KaiserCraft are coming up with.  Man, have they come such a long way as a scrap company and I find myself using lots of their stuff these days.  All those cool OTP things and being surrounded by bling and pearls and flowers all day - heaven!

While I think of it I did a super quick blog cruise the other day so hello to Miss Sue the Too Cool (one day we might get that chat!), Ali (congrats), Jilly (thinking of you dearie!) and Lusi (prayers for you honey and hope it's all going okay) and Brigitte (thank you for always keeping in touch and I haven't forgotten your journal).  Blogging and blog surfing is one of those things that drops off the end of the priority list pretty fast in my house when life gets busy but I often think about all the cool chicks I know through scrapping and have only talked to through blogging and wish I had more time to keep in touch.  I know there are lots of us in the same boat though.  

I'm off to type now.  I have about 15 hours of audio transcription to get through today (4 hours of actual digital file but the ratio for transcription typing is about 1:3 so three hours of typing for every 1 hour of recording but I'm doing something new so I'll be a little slower today).  It's a good opportunity though and good money so I'm just going to bite the bullet and get it done and over with.  There are people who have crappier jobs than me to ensure there is money in the bank each week, I'm just lucky I'm sitting at home doing it and that I can choose my own hours.

I hope everyone is having a productive week so far - is it Thursday?  Yep it is which makes tomorrow Friday!!!  I have sadly had to give up my Fridays at the shop because I have one (now) regular client and their busiest day is today which means I need to do all their typing from two big clinic lists tomorrow so no time for the shop but I will still definitely be coming to the crop nights - no way I'd miss my crop nights with the fab group of chicks we have at CyberScraps!!!  I'll be coming in on Mondays now with Cass because by Monday I've done all of my work from the following week and nobody has any new work until Tuesdays from the look of things and then it's full on from Tuesday to Friday.  I've got Caeligh at home today as she normally doesn't go to kindy on Thursdays anyway but suddenly I'm busy on Thursdays with typing so she will spend the day watching her favourite tv shows, reading books and colouring in on my bed so I can still see her and chat while I work.  We'll probably have a picnic lunch on my doona! lol  I'm torn between feeling like she would get more attention and have more fun at kindy but I feel like I never see her if she doesn't have her Thursdays at home with me.  Friday she goes to gran for the day which she loves so I don't worry about that and she's at kindy Monday through to Wednesday.  I feel like I never get the balance right no matter what I do so I usually just do what I think is best at the time and hope that it's enough.

Have a good week chickies - what's everyone else been up to?

Take care everyone, much love Lu

New For Old Sale at Cyberscraps!

NEW FOR OLD SALE

SUNDAY 13 APRIL 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.
• Do you have half-used packets of chipboard in your stash that contain only the wrong letters?

• Do you have paper that you loved once upon a time and now can't stand?

• Did you buy a magic gadget and you've used it twice?

Bring it to the CyberScraps' New for Old Sale – get rid of the stuff you don't need and stock up on new goodies for just the registration fee!

How it works:

• Register with us by Saturday 5 April and pay a $5.00 registration fee.

• Make a list of your items – keep a copy for yourself and give a copy to us (see the required format below – we will be using this list to charge customers for your items and to issue your credit at the end of the sale, so you must follow this format). You can download a .pdf version of the inventory form here so that you can print it out, or as a Word document here. If you complete the inventory form by hand, please use a dark-coloured pen (not pencil) and write very legibly.

• Mark your items with your initials followed by a number for each item – for example, if you're Jane Smith the first item you're selling would be marked JS1, the second item JS2, etc.

• If you have multiples of the same item (for example, three sheets of the same paper which you're selling separately) each one must have a separate number and must be listed separately.

• Mark your items with the price .

• Deliver your items to us between 4.30pm Saturday 12 April and 8.00am Sunday 13 April.

• At the end of the day we will total the amount your items brought, and issue you with a store credit for that amount – depending on the popularity of the sale, we may not be able to finish totalling sales until Monday.

Tips:

• Use pencil to mark your initials, the number and price on the cut-off strip of double-sided paper – mark single-sided papers on the back.

• Stickers are great for pre-packaged items (chipboard, tools, etc) and can be bought from OfficeWorks or larger newsagents.

• You can package together multiple items (for example, several sheets of paper) but people are more likely to buy individual items.

Not in Brisbane?

If you can send us your stash, marked as above, with the completed inventory by Thursday, 10 April we'll happily sell it on your behalf and you'll receive an online credit voucher. However, you MUST think about what you'll do with unsold items – if we post them back to you, the cost of postage will be deducted from your sales credit. Download the inventory form as a .pdf file here, or as a Word document by clicking here – fill it in, keep a copy for yourself and send us a copy with your stash.

Coming to buy some goodies?

We'll accept payment for items by cash, VisaCard, MasterCard or EFTPOS - the transaction minimum for cards is $10.00.

Questions?

Call us on 07 3274 5522 during business hours or email Cath if you'd like more information.

Bonus for non-scrappers:

The Cystic Fibrosis bookshop (supported by the Lord Mayor's Community Trust) nextdoor is having a 50% off sale that weekend - someplace to send your non-scrapping companions!

Example of list format for Jane Smith:
Item name
Description
Price

JS1  Chatterbox paper  $0.20

JS2  Chatterbox paper  $0.20

JS3  Sizzix machine  $50.00

JS4  Sizzix die  $70.00



Now that I've finally finished sorting through my desk and my entire stash it sounds like a good idea to me!!!

I haven't really been up to much else...... okay well that's a fib.....I've been having a few new things going on in the background that I can't really say too much about just yet...I've spent a small fortune that I didn't really have to spend on a mail-out for my typing business (but you know what they say - you've gotta spend money to make money) and countless hours doing up letters, resumes, envelopes, yadda yadda.  I've had to take a four day temp job this week because the mail out stretched an already thin budget but I have to say it has paid off already with my first new client starting with me next week and wanting to refer a colleague as well so it's a good start.  The kids only have three days of school left until a week of holidays which is also really handy because Doug will be at home too and I need the car on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to do pick up and drop off for this new client.  

Poor James is standing next to me asking why I type so fast!!! lol  I told him it was my job and he asked "why can't you just type slower?".  Lol I don't make any money that way!

I had to sit a typing test yesterday with the recruitment company who were offering the temp job.  I haven't sat a formal typing speed test in years and a small part of me got snarky and wondered why I had to prove myself because I've been doing this for so long now but I know that lots of people aren't quite so genuine about their experience and figure they'll make up something good and then learn as they go.  So I sat the copy test - which is really different to dictaphone typing which I do - and I had to look at a sheet of typed material next to me and type as much as I could of that within five minutes.  The focus was on accuracy but mine suffered a bit because I'm used to just looking at the screen and typing what I hear which means I can fix mistakes as I see myself making them, not trying to switch between looking at the screen and looking at a piece of paper.  I could feel myself making the odd mistake but it was too time consuming to go back and fix them because then it impacted on your speed result.  In the end I scored a shocking 91% accuracy ( for most typing jobs you need to have preferably 98%) but a lightning quick (for me anyway) 97 words per minute!!!  I was blown away by the speed because I thought I was slower than normal because I was trying to look at the screen and at the paper as well.  If I had known how fast I was going I would have slowed down a bit to focus more on the accuracy which normally is much better for me in my usual typing environment.  It doesn't matter, I was offered the job and now I can say I have a documented speed test as well but I might put the brakes on a bit and say that I'm 90 words per minute and better accuracy which is more like my real speed.  See?  I went from a quick little post to a big one just typing as fast as I think - yep I talk that fast too....lol.

I did a HUGE clean up on the weekend.  I woke up Saturday full of beans and motivation ( so hard to find most days) and set about just tidying up the kitchen and then went the whole hog and cleaned the oven, emptied the pantry, wiped down all the shelves and reorganised all the stuff in there.  I just went from room to room and I can't tell you how much stuff I ended up purging.  I have been trying to teach my kids that they don't need to hang onto every single toy they ever owned.  I put the spin on it that there are kids who don't have many toys and that if they don't love or play with a toy then they should do something really nice for other kids and give it to a charity so that someone else can love that toy.  It seemed to click with them so FIVE GARBAGE BAGS later....!!!!  The same thing happened on Sunday and I fell into bed on Sunday night completely exhausted but feeling very satisfied!

Scrapwise I haven't done much at all.  I did a REV IT UP album for Doug a couple of weeks ago using the KaiserCraft tabbed albums which was all about our day at the V8's Queensland round at Queensland Raceway at Willowbank last year.  He was so chuffed with it he took it to work and showed it off and took it to his racing mates to show them too.  It was so nice to see how much he liked it as normally I don't make things for him iykwim?  So that's in the shop right now if anyone is planning on going in - it's sitting on the pile of KaiserCraft albums on the left.  I did do a layout of Lily on Friday night at crop but I'll put that up another time.  Apart from that I haven't done much at all even though I know I have much to do.  My scrapping has really lacked motivation lately and I just look at my stash and feel like it's another chore to do.  Maybe I should be the one reminding myself to play?!?!?!  I'm sure the mojo won't be gone long.....

Hope everyone is having a good week.  Hopefully I'll check back in later in the week!

Chat soon, love Lu

Quick layout share

I did this layout a couple of weeks ago for my two lovely friends Peta and Kylie.  I had one of those "play" urges so I just did whatever I felt like doing on the page and I'm loving how it turned out.  I really need to remind myself to play sometimes because scrapping shouldn't be hard work, or a chore, or something I have to do because I have a deadline to work to.

Quiet weekend here really.  Not much going on.  Remember to play!

Love, Lu