Wicked Princess Layouts

I promised and swore black and blue I would get these done so here they are! These are the layouts using the Wicked Princesses December Dragon Kit. It was full of great distressed, grungy papers and funky embellies so I had more than enough inspiration by the time I sat down to get it all done. For the first layout, I liked the star pattered felt that I even used the white backing paper as well! I did the same for the peel off backing of the bracket. Sorry for the photo glare on the picture...

This one below looks really yellow, as does the one after, because I was taking photographs on my kitchen table last night - hence everything has a slight red border (this one particularly so because it seems I can't crop for crap! I also didn't photograph very straight either! The colour on the photograph is just a result of sanding it. Some photos, depending on where you get them developed and what chemicals they use, will sand a nice reddish orange whereas I've had a couple sand a funny teal green on the edges too. I quite like the effect and it's a bit unpredictable but that's okay cos I don't mind surprises.

This photo I took at the Vodafone Triple 8 Racing open day last month. There was lots of bright things to take pictures of, shiny cars, metal and machinery but I saw these stacked up on pallets in the back corner of the driveway into the engineering workshops. I figured they were something from the wheels but I wasn't entirely sure and didn't actually care but they took a great photograph en mass, all stacked up and rusty looking so I snapped a couple of shots. I printed out the pic to see how it turned out and had it sitting in my pile of recent photos and it went so well with the papers I had in the kit that I decided to use it. The title is pretty much what I said to Doug as I busily matted up the photo. Apparently - and forgive me for not knowing! - but they are the brake rotors from Jamie Whincup's V8 Falcon that won the championship this year. They are the used ones from previous races throughout the year and I guess if he could have taken one home he would have to keep as a momento as Doug is very much a Jamie Whincup fan. Apparently brake rotors are important (well they were at the time they were being used!) so he was very happy with the photo and I learned something new about the mechanics of V8 supercars!

Wicked Princess February Kits

Karen and Tam are all back down to business at Wicked Princesses and the February kits are now available!  There are also some new things happening too from this month so head on over and have a squiz.  It's hard to pick my fave out of them but I think Enchantress: Be Mine wins by a nose!  After all it will soon be Valentine's Day and as I've discovered from recent years, if money is tight Doug truly does appreciate anything I make for him as a gift.  He always takes things off to work and shows them around to his workmates which is really sweet.  If you have a moment swing by here and have a look at the gorgeous new offerings for Feb and if you are still completely undecided, there is a fantastic Wicked Combo which includes three of Wicked Princesses' best kits for the month plus a card kit too for all the card makers out there.  It's also a great price too with value well over the kit cost so would make a nice gift for someone in need of a stash boost or for yourself if you feel like a nice delivery from the postman instead of bills and junk mail lol

The whole project 365 thing seems so popular right now and while I can't say I have devotedly been taking a picture a day - unlike some of you who have been amazing and kept up to date so far - I have taken a few here and there but my lovely friend Jilly has been taking such great pictures that she got me thinking I should be a bit more dedicated so Jill, just for you, a photo!  Not even a good one but a picture nonetheless.  This is my Ikea double drawers that Doug and I 

have on either side of our bed.  They m

See that?  Up there?  The cut off end of sentence?  That's all Blogger managed to save after I typed for half an hour!  Wow have you missed some exciting stuff about Doug's bedside table and his lava lamp "mood lighting", having to take a jar of Vaseline to the shops to buy school uniforms and books, and my unfortunate affliction with cankles.

Blogger, you are truly ticking me off with your lack of ability to keep hold of what I've typed!!!!

I'm going to go put my cankles up on a couple of pillows on my coffee table and wait for the return of some kind of recognisable bone structure while I curse at at Blogger's crappy and ineffective auto-save feature which apparently - despite it's promising name - does not auto save anything.  Ugh.

Kaisercraft January sneak peeks and a layout!

Yes, it's a real live layout that I've done with my own hands.  Almost feels like I'm not a scrapper anymore!!! lol  This is a sketch that I did for Kaisercraft, not a sketch girl at all really but it was great for getting back into the swing of things after such a long break.  It was nice not to have to sit and think it through and see what came but to create with a bit of a plan  so I only had to work out papers, etc.  I've used Esther's Guestlist for the layout plus the coordinating brads, inked Kaisercraft Chipboard, flowers and bling of course!  The beautiful gold brocade ribbon stuff I grabbed from Cass's stash.  She has the coolest stuff in her scraproom that she doesn't realise is cool but when she helped me move, she found a gazillion things in my stash that she thought were cool.  I think we're going to have to have a swap night!  If you're a Kaiser fan, then also keep an eye out for the new silk flowers, plus the paper flowers in fab new colours like purple, pumpkin orange, yellow, olive green, red and black!  We asked for those colours and boy did Kaisercraft listen!!! lol  There are also new bling colours coming out with a vintage feel and I can't wait for those.  I'll be teaching for Kaisercraft at the Brisbane convention in June, doing layouts so if you have any ideas on what kind of classes you'd like to see using Kaisercraft products, leave me a comment with your idea or suggestion and in a week I'll choose a random comment and send you a RAK of a mixed bag of some of the new Kaisercraft flower colours to add to your stash plus a couple of the MDF off the page projects and a packet of bling borders.  Have a great week!  Love Lu xx

Happy New Year!!!! (a little belated maybe lol)

Okay, there once was this blogger who had been flat out so waited AGES to update and get around to it cos she's a bit slack too.  Not that there was nothing to blog about, just that it went on the back burner.  So she sits down one day to update, looking forward to telling the stories behind all the pictures she had put in her blog as a draft a few days earlier.  Well she drank coffee and typed like the wind and eventually was happy with her massive blog post that would surely take anyone an hour to read... :-)  but....when she went to save it in Blogger, the big mean Blogger machine at up her post and said it could not process her request at this time.  She went back to her compose page to copy and paste her blog entry so she could update at a time more convenient to the obviously inconvenienced Blogger but nay!  She could not because the entire post was gone so she was left with nothing but her original pics and no text.  It was a sad day.

Due to slightly massive frustration with Blogger, my first update in just about forver will now consist of dot point pic explanations and I'll attempt a proper post once I get over my annoyance and mistrust of Blogger.

1. Lachlan's Shuffle Up Day where he went from the Upper Junior part of the school to Middle School, the equivalent of graduating primary school (well, the little ceremony thing most primary schools have anyway).  He was quite chuffed with himself and so was I.

2. & 3.  The Christmas tree did go up, a week before we moved, because it just didn't feel like Christmas without it and I needed a visual reminder that there was something to look forward to.  It has birds, bugs, beads, crystal thingies, feather stuff and other assorted crap on it.

4. & 5.  Doug wanted to take the kids to Triple 8 Racing's open day at their new workshops at Banyo.  Was pack, hot, crowded, but the kids all sucked it up beautifully and all "said" they  had a good time, more for Doug's sake I think.  

6. (Below) Caeligh's little "graduation ceremony" from her kindy.  They made them all these cute mortarboard hats with tassels.  She really did like it even if it doesn't look like it here.  The ceremony was combined with the Christmas party which was the Friday night of the last day of "regular" school for the boys.  She's been on holidays ever since and loving it.  Don't know how I'm going to convince her to go school...

7. & 8.  Despite all the chaos of working and moving and end-of-year school stuff, I promised myself we would get away for a few days.  The older boys were going to their dad's for a few weeks so Doug and I took the little ones to Dicky Beach at Caloundra for five days.  We bummed around, spent a lot of time at the pool and the beach, taught James to duck dive for dollar coins (the most effective motivational tool ever for a child who wants to learn how to swim properly but is all wussy about gettnig his face wet!), at fish and chips virtually every night and it was fantastic.  We're planning to go back this Christmas but undertaking the very brave step of purchasing camping gear throughout the year and doing the whole family camp for two weeks if we can.  I don't know anything about camping but if you know how to do it comfortably (if there's such a thing, and we're getting a powered site so that will help) then I'd love for you to share your hints or tips!  

9.  The new mailbox at our new home.  That one picture means a lot to me and represents a lot of things for our family.  We absolutely love the house, love living in it and already everyone is happier.  Caeligh has her own "girly" room, James has his own room, Lachlann has his "fortress of solitude" and a set of double bunks in his room and so does Blayd.  They're all pretty happy campers right now.  Doug and I have a "grown ups" bedroom with a nice Ikea bed, matching double deep drawer chests on each side of our beds and NO COMPUTERS IN THE ROOM!!!!!  It felt like a bit of a battle to be here once we got our application approved.  It was so strange that all the other houses I enquired about/looked at/went to inspections for were also being eyed off by a dozen other people.  This one I had registered my interest for a couple of weeks before but they were having trouble getting the existing tenants out (the tenant had sublet the place to uni students and was thus an absolute hovel when I came to inspect it) so it took longer than I thought and by the time I was phoned about an inspection date, it was a week and a half out from Christmas and I had to check with the RE agent about how many other people were going to come look at it because I was getting tired of competing with everyone else.  She said only one other person had registered interest which was bizarre to me because it's a rare four bedroom and study in Calamvale with separate formal dining (now my scraproom cos I'd never let the kids eat on the carpet!), formal lounge (for a grown-ups lounge room that isn't full of toys etc), a dining, living and rumpus rooms in front of the open plan kitchen, lots of big windows, reasonable yard, master with ensuite and walking distance to school and staggering distance from the Calamvale pub and sort-of nightclub (oh wow, anyone who's a southsider in Brisbane probably has some really good/bad/dodgy memories of their Friday and Saturday nights at the 'Vale!  I know I do!!!!).  Anyway, the RE lady said only one other person had registered interest so I jumped the gun and asked if I could sub an application before I even viewed the place.  She said yes, but I would have to inspect it first before they could give it to the owner for approval.  So I did all that over a couple of days, losing quite a few working hours while I was at it, just scanning and emailing documents, finding the right paperwork, etc.  I turned up on the Friday 12th December to inspect and the other person didn't!  I couldn't believe how it felt like (small God moment here) a path had been completely cleared for me to have exactly what I had been working for with absolutely no competition.  I couldn't quite believe it myself.  The owners accepted the application straight away as they wanted people in by Christmas and we wanted to be in by Christmas.  We did the bond payments the week later (now we're up to a week before Christmas, I'm still working full time and Doug is packing up the old house and it's getting a bit crazy) and had the electricity put on Saturday as the cleaners had to come back because the tenants did a crap job of cleaning the house (not surprised, it would have taken me a week to clean the dump they had turned it into - so bad that at the inspection, I politely took off my shoes at the door - as you do - but by the time we got to the main bathroom that everyone shared, the RE lady says "Oh, you don't have shoes on, you don't want to come in here, just look from the doorway"!!!!  Yep, that bad.   Think a house full of guys with no cleaning ability or inclination at all who apparently are impervious to disease and plague! lol  Anyway, house got recleaned over the weekend and carpets done a second time (cheap, nasty "Rental Beige" carpets I call them, to go with the nasty "Rental Beige" vertical blinda and "Rental Beige" walls!) and we got our keys late Monday morning - the fourth day before Christmas.  Far out, I was stuck at the old house that afternoon, still typing while furniture was being moved around me!  Cass did an amazing job.  Honestly she stepped in, told everyone how and where to pack, move and shift everything, she knew the fastest, safest way to get it all done and I don't know where I would have been without her!  If you ever need one of those people (you know, you can HIRE someone to coordinate your move while you go away for the week or something!) to take charge of a move and set up your new home for you then she's the girl.  I told her she should do that for a business because honestly, I had trouble knowing where to start, but she took our tiny, cluttered house, showed me how to declutter and what to throw out, and has helped turn our new place into what feels like home already.  She's even repainted some of my old, crappy furniture so it doens't look old and crappy anymore!  CASS I CANNOT THANK YOU ENOUGH!  It's her birthday on Sunday (25th Jan) so if you're a follower of her blog, take a moment to stop in and wish her a great day.  I'm still trying to think of what I can do to repay her for everything she's done for me so I'll let you know how I go with that one.  Anyway, it was a race to the finish line but by Christmas Eve we were mostly in, mostly unpacked and only the garage and my scraproom were still packed up and we had a wonderful Christmas with my mum, stepdad and sister, plus Doug's mum, coming over for Brunch and then we had everyone back Boxing Day for lunch.  I love waking up every day in this house and am genuinely thankful for how everything fell into place.  Already the house has managed to stay 99% perfectly clean and tidy for a whole month, not because I've been really anal about it or anything but because there is a place for everything, we only brought with us what we needed/loved and I'm slowly training the children on how to do little things to help maintain the house like putting stuff away, doing a load of laundry every day, turning on the dishwasher each night, etc.  I know they sound like no brainers but I'm not very organised and not a good housekeeper so I'm really proud of all of us right now for trying our best to keep our home clean, tidy and welcoming.  

10. Our new and massive dining table which currently seats ten but I think could fit 12.  Cass's husband, Kelly, very cleverly used a couple of huge pieces of MDF on top of each other for strength that we had at our old house, we bought legs from Ikea, the chairs from Ikea, Cass's dad came over to her garage and routered the edge for us so it looked nice and more professionally finished, and Kelly painted it for us.  It took six people to move it the 50 metres from Cass's place to my place on Christmas Eve in time for our big family brunch on Christmas morning.  Think of all the room we'd have for a crop night at my place!!!  Let me know if you're interested!

11.  I came back from holidays to find Cass (who had very kindly offered to look after the dog etc) had repainted an old pine table that was in my garage, plus she salvaged a big wall mirror and repainted it.  This feature sits in my hallway and I absolutely love it.

12.  Cass's husband Kelly also bought these fab red cannisters (sorry, bad lighting in this one) as a house warming gift for us.  Cass and I were really impressed!

13.  You guessed it, this is my office/scraproom and yep, it's the only unpacked part of the house left! lol  Because I had to work full time again literally the day I got home from holidays, it has been one of those things that came down to doing only what was absolutely necessary, like setting up my computer and transcription equipment and so all my scrap goodies are sitting in boxes, baskets and tubs.  I did a proper tidy up yesterday and now everything is lined up along one wall behind me and much more orderly looking.  I figure I need some "thing" from Ikea, and if you're an Ikea fan you'll know what I mean.  I need some kind of furniture or storage system or some "thing" to put all this scrap stuff into some kind of order and I figure that to be reasonable (so unlike me), I should just leave it all packed up until I have somewhere for it to go otherwise I will be overtaken by product and lost in the mess.  Now that I am lucky enough to have my own room for scrapping, I want it to be clean, organised (sort of and as much as I ever am), and full of things I love so I'm basically waiting for the money to get back up to speed (crappy being self employed over Christmas when clients are away and money is really slow), and I want to invest in a storage/furniture system that works, not buy cheap, half arsed stuff that will "do the job for now" until I get what I really need.  For the first time in my life, I'm actually willing to wait.  So impulsive usually! lol

So that's it, not as long as yesterday's failed blog attempt but better than nothing.  BTW Wicked Princesses are having a garage sale www.wickedprincesses.com.au before our February kits arrive.  I wil have some layouts from the amazing December Dragon kit up this week as I've been scrapping a bit at Cass's place.  Also, there'll be new Kaisercraft soon too which is fab.

I'm not American but hey, congrats USA on your new President!!!  He rocks!!!  

Have a great Wednesday everyone!  Love Lu xx

Thursday night pimpin' lol

How cool are these kits??!?!?!?!  Now these are the reason I wanted to become a part of Wicked Princesses because they are the best kits I've seen around in ages and I think the girls have done a fab job putting them together.  The Dragon Kit is definitely  my favourite and I have visions of heaps of cool teenage boy layouts with it but also some funky, modern stuff too.  Now y'all know I'm not much one for pimping stuff off my blog.  I do it when required but I don't love it in other bloggers so try not to do too much myself.  I do however like to share something good when I see it and some of you may want to get your inky mitts on some kit club action for free maybe.....?  Read on!

Wicked Princesses are giving away a 3 MONTH SUBSCRIPTION to either their Warlock or Enchantress kit!! (Winner will get to choose which they prefer).

All you have to do is leave a comment on the blog - you can find it here - between NOW and Dec 15th. The winner will be drawn randomly, with the first kit being the January edition.

That’s $120 worth of scrap goods, just for posting a comment !!!! Too easy!  And don't even try and tell me you've got nothing to say lol

There is also a great discount on at the moment if you love all three kits and want them NOW, NOW, NOW!!!!  Have a mosey over and check them out.

PIMP COMPLETED!

As for anything else?  Well, what can I say....you guessed it...work!  I thought things would be slowing down this time of year but I'm just getting busier and today I got another new client so hopefully that will tide me over through the Christmas/January period which usually tends to be slow as clients go on holidays etc.  I think - if I'm reeeeeeaaaaaaaly lucky - I'll get the week in between Christmas and New Year off.  I desperately want a longer holiday but it depends on when my private clients are having time off.

My Christmas tree is still sitting in its box in the hallway with bags of unopened decorations stacked on top of it :(  We have decided to rent in the area we'd like to eventually buy in, close to the kids' school and preferably within walking distance, and so we're in the process of finding a rental house.  We have an application in on one we like and it's perfect, with enough rooms for everyone and an office for me - YAY! - but we can't inspect it on the inside yet as the current tenants are still packing and moving out, maybe end of next week we can go and have a look.  I'm really hoping like hell that our application gets approved and we get the place.  It hasn't been easy so far with a couple of real estate agents suggesting we could offer more than the advertised rent on places we've looked at (yep, I know all that is supposed to be illegal now but it is still going on), and I'm also finding it incredibly difficult just to get to viewings of  places to rent.  These days viewings are geared toward the convenience of the agents; no more are the days of driving up, leaving your drivers licence and picking up the keys to have a walk through yourself.  These days agents advertise a time that suits them (and don't even think of suggesting another time that might be remotely more convenient for you- never happen!), you along with half the city turns out to have a walk through and then you basically need to get an application off the agent while you are standing in the house and have the equivalent of the first week's rent in your pocket to hand over with your application before they will even consider you!  So far we aren't doing so great on the "good tenant" scale, mainly because we have four kids, a dog and we're living in a housing commission house and therfore don't have rental references (even though bank statements can prove we've paid our rent on the dot for years).  Apparently we get sent to the back of the potential tenants list in favour of working couples, groups of students, people with fewer kids, people with no pets and people who have rental references.  I can understand the last one.  No real estate agent will ever tell you outright that it works that way but someone I know who used to manage rental houses for a real estate agent said that's pretty much exactly how it works.  I don't even know how to begin convincing property managers that all I want is a nice house with enough room for everyone that I can take care of like it was my own and make it a real home for us all.  Anyhow fingers crossed for the application we've got in now, I've given them business references from my clients etc and thank goodness they are fantastic so hopefully that will help.

I'm really looking forward to end of school as there are so many things on right now.  Groan in unison if you all understand! lol  There are concerts, afternoon teas, exhibition days, classroom displays, ceremonies and events in every direction!  I said I would make something nice for my kids' teachers this year - SO NOT GONNA HAPPEN!  I think I'll give them what they'll appreciate most by this time of year - a nice bottle of wine! lol  Blayd will be moving into his last year of middle school next year, Lachlann will be moving into his first year of middle school (the equivalent of moving from primary to high school- he is so excited about it all!), James will be moving to the last year of lower junior school (grade 3) and Caeligh will be in Prep, and that will be all my babies at school!  I don't know how I feel about that yet.  It's one of those milestones that takes a while to really think about and digest.  I no longer have babies or toddlers.  All my kids are school age children now.  Yeah, the whole "oh my crikey I'm getting old!!!" type thing. 

I've changed my hair back to what could be considered a "normal" colour, a dark brown with a slight violet tint.  As I stood in Woolies last week having a look at the home colour kits and thinking how boring they all were, James stood next to me and said, "They don't have your colour here Mum.  Anyway, I like your hair the way it is", which is sweet if my hair wasn't a fading red with some serious roots!!! lol  I said I was going to make it a normal colour for a change and he then replies, in total seriousness, "but that colour is your normal hair".  I had to laugh before explaining what my real colour is.  How odd for my little man that he didn't knowwhat my natural hair colour is because it's been so long since he's seen it! lol

Doug and I celebrated our first wedding anniversary on Tuesday with takeaway Thai and a bunch of yellow roses for me.  Thank you so much to beautiful Lusi who sent us an ecard from her and her lovely fam.  I will get around to ringing at some point!!!!

I haven't done a lot on the scrapping front, but the delightful Miss Jilly has inspired me to play with mixed media which I'm enjoying very much.  I've done a canvas that I like but it's not quite finished yet and it's so much fun to get out the oil pastels, the inks and paints and really let fly.  I'll be sure to share if I get around to doing any scrapping whatsoever!

That's my update, not very exciting and they're all starting to sound the same these days.  I hope there are more creative folks out there than me at the moment!

Have a good weekend and enjoy getting into the Christmas spirit (my favourite is bourbon!).

Cheers, Lu

OOoooooohhhhh milestone moment!!!!

MY FIRST BABY IS IN THE BATHROOM HAVING A SHAVING LESSON!!!!!!!!

Argh!!!!  Where has 13 years gone?????  I've been happily living in denial about how my oldest son and first child has been growing up (physically at least, maturity wise we still have  truckload way to go!) but today I was chatting to him while we were shopping and I caught a side profile of him with some lights behind him and realised he was growing A BUM FLUFF MOUSTACHE!!!!!  You know, the piss weak, feathery ones that teenage boys with attitude try to cultivate to be more like "real men"???? Yeah, that's the one.  It's awful and horrible and I realised then what I had to do.  I went to Woolies, bought him the safest looking razor I could find.  That wasn't an easy task.  Men's razors these days are big, huge V8 powered things with a thousand blades, trimmers and accessories and the head of the razor looks like it would cleave half his face off!!!  I got a nice, (hopefully safe) 3 blade job without any embellishments at all, totally bog standard.  I figure you need to walk before you can run (or shave before you can cut your whole head off!).  So now my 13 year old is standing in the bathroom, having had an instructional shave from Doug first plus a demonstration of what not to do with aftershave (how brave is Doug!).  

Right now I would normally be in the thick of things taking lots of photos but I figured this was a "man moment" and I gave them the privacy I figure they deserve.  Doug and Blayd don't have a lot of "bonding rituals" as step-father and step-son so I thought it best to leave them to this one. That's why I'm here instead of in the bathroom being a nosy mama.

Blayd has just emerged from the sanctuary of the bathroom, proudly showing me his glowing (slightly pimply) and perfectly smooth skin.  Doug has done a wonderful job of teaching him and he doesn't have a scratch on him, unlike Doug who has a couple of his own from the demonstration!  Doug also made him put on aftershave straight away - talk about mean, but I guess it's a life lesson and he'll know from now on.  I've given him a special "man moisturiser" to put on afterwards and he is walking around the house now ten feel tall and bulletproof!!!! lol

He's so excited that he's already called his dad and left him a voicemail message, strutted into his room and shown off his baby smooth face to his brother and his friend, is talking about telling his karate teacher, his school teacher, his cousins, his mates, like he plans on shouting it from the rooftops!!!!  He says, "I feel like a different person!" and I'm trying to keep a straight face and an understanding demeanour....

I also bought a Christmas tree today - 6ft tall green with gold glitter tips - it is tacky as all get out and I'm thrilled to bits with it!!! lol  I've gone with red deccos to match my loungeroom and have red velvet scrollwork bauble shapes, some red velvet reindeer, some red shiny and glittery baubles, dark red hibiscus flowers, red poinsettia flowers and artificial cherries!!!!  Laugh all you like, I've even got a bag of red feathers that I don't know what I'll do with yet but I'll think of something.  It sounds hideous and genius at the same time and I'll put up a pic whenever I get done with it.  I'm very excited at my super tacky, whorehouse on acid Christmas tree and I'm definitely busting a fufu valve to put it all together!!!  

Have a cool Sat night!!! Chat soon, Lu xx

Christmas is coming!

These cute little bird houses are what I've been doing for Wicked Princesses this month.  They are the OTP November kit which should be going on sale any old minute now.  I was a bit unsure when everything came flat packed like an Ikea purchase but the instructions included in the kit were easy and I'll be doing a project sheet to go with it as well so that should make it a bit easier.  The papers are Making Memories and there is the obligatory Kaisercraft bling plus some chipboard accents as well.  Trust me, when I opened it I wasn't sure if it was into it but once the houses were together and up I realised I really liked it and spent a bit of time adding accents and embellies.  I kept this set fairly sedate but I think I might buy another set and do something more elaborate with it.  It was quick to do as well and would make a great decco for home or would be really nice to give to someone with maybe little rolled up notes stuck in the holes of the bird houses.  Could also roll up little gift certificates or gift vouchers and present them that way as well - that would be cute!  I think I'll get the kids to write little Christmas wish lists, roll them and tie them up with ribbon and put them in there.  If you were REALLY into them you could create a whole Christmas village of bird houses and use it like an advent calendar if you know what I mean.  They would look awesome en masse, esp as all the papers coordinate.  If you're dreaming of a white Christmas you could even cover the birdhouses with spray on fake snow and do the same with your windows and then line them up  along the window sill.  Now there's an idea I like!!!

I have some scrummy new Kaisercraft papers to play with but I haven't had a chance to do any layouts yet.  Another couple of busy weeks at work and a week spent with a killer tooth abscess that took five days of day and night agony to respond to antibiotics and high dose anti-inflammatories.  The worst part was that it only started as a toothache which I figured a couple of Panadol would deal with and then by the time I realised it was worse than that it was too late to go to the dentist (not that I would do that without it being dire agony anyway) and that I needed antibiotics to address the abscess before a dentist would even see me.  So I've been very sore and sorry for myself this week and today is the first day I've woken up and not been in pain so I'm a happy camper.  And yes, I can remember the pain enough that I might just have to go to the dentist of my own free will before it happens again....       

Today we're off Christmas tree shopping - YES I KNOW IT'S ONLY 1ST NOVEMBER!!!!  But because I'm so chronically scatterbrained and the days are flying past so fast right now, the tree is a constant visual reminder for me that I must get onto all the Christmas stuff that needs to be done.  Anyway I like Christmas, love Christmas in fact, so I don't mind starting the festive season early.  I don't turn our house Chrissy lights on until 1 December so it's just inside that gets the festive treatment early.  We change trees and/or decorations each year and before you say how wasteful that is, I keep all the past trees/decorations in the house so I can mix and match colours each year.  This year however I'm going for a colour scheme we've never had before so it will be new decorations.  I'm thinking those really nice bright green decorations and maybe silver as well but I heaps of silver stuff that I can reuse from a couple of years ago when I had a pink Christmas tree with pink and silver decorations.  That's the plan but because I'm into cheap and cheerful, we're going to trawl the $2 shops and see what takes our fancy.  All the kids get to choose the style of decorations they want in the chosen colour scheme so nobody feels left out - except maybe for Doug who's favourite festive saying is "Bah Humbug!!!" so he doesn't give a toss what we do but is happy for us to do it.  I was thinking a black tree this year but that's a couple of hundred dollars and it's not like I'd use it every year so that seems like a bit of waste of money to me so I'm thinking a big green tree (our old green tree is missing parts) that reaches the ceiling nearly and then just cheap shop decorations.  Caeligh is still far too destructive for anything pretty.  What I really want one year - maybe the year that all of the kids have finally left home! - I'll go to DJ's or Myer and treat myself to the beautiful hand blown glass baubles I've always wanted.  I could get them now but that's not fair on the kids because either by choice or by accident they will get broken, I will be angry and upset and they will feel bad about it and that's just stupid.  Much rather get plastic so it doesn't matter if accidents happen - either they break and get fixed or thrown or they last for a few years and there's no drama.  So that's the plan for the day and the kids are always excited about it and so am I.  I'll post a couple of pics once the tree actualy gets up and decorated.  That can take a couple of days sometimes depending on how busy we are and how much work I have on.  My house is less cluttered this year and my lounge room more coordinated and tidy than it's ever been so I'm looking forward to putting up a tree to compliment the red/white/black colour scheme - maybe the green won't work?  I'm so prone to changing my mind at the last minute that who knows what we'll end up with!!! lol  

I've also got to get to Hardly Normal sometime today and get some pics printed out.  I took the plunge and got a new camera after Caeligh smashed the lens mechanism on the last one.  This time I decided to really go for quality, for something that will last and will take the kind of pictures I want so I got the Canon 40D.  It's the same one Jill has that she uses for all of her amazing photography so Jilly, darling, sweetie, lovey, friend - will you give a hopeless camera user some lessons some time??? lol  It almost seems a waste because I don't know what I'm doing with it but I'm slowly learning.  I only got one lens with it, a nice middle of the road that will do what I  need it to now, plus an extra battery, an external flash (which I got to use last night for Halloween pictures) and a few other bits and pieces.  It weighs as much as a newborn and the children are all under strict instructions that nobody touches it but me or Daddy (or Aunty Cassie cos she knows more about it than I do!!!).  So I'm looking forward to getting into the habit of taking regular photos again.  I think that's another reason I haven't scrapped more - if I have fresh, great pics then I'm more likely to be champing at the bit to scrap them but it's hard to summon mojo with old photos that I've looked through so many times before and still not found any I felt like scrapping.  Hopefully I can share some pics on the blog as I get better at using the camera.  

We did do the Halloween thing last night - I know it's a divided issue, some people "do" Halloween and some people "definitely don't" and that's fine.  I understand that it isn't our tradition but Doug grew up in Scotland where it is done and the children just like an opportunity to dress up and play games so I don't mind getting into it with them.  The only trick or treating they do is to the lovely couple next door who always have "safe" treats for them to eat and the little toddle one door down and back seems to satisfy their Halloween urges.  We had quite a few trick or treaters last night and I had a good supply of Freddos on hand to pass out.  It was good to see so many parents getting out and keeping their children company and keeping them safe.  A few years ago we had little kids (like under 10) that were trick or treating with no parents in sight.  I didn't understand that.  We don't live in a "great" area anyway but even if we lived in the safest suburb in the country I wouldn't be letting my children wander about the streets in the dark by themselves.  You never know who lives behind the closed doors of any house in any suburb.  So the lollies got eaten, the children bobbed for marshmallows and lolly snakes and stayed up playing air guitar and having a mini disco in the lounge room while Doug played DJ.  They all fell into bed happy and sleepy.  Like I said, I know some people don't do Halloween but for me it's about taking any opportunity to create some happy memories for them of their childhoods.  I know that in 10 or 20 years they won't care if people didn't "do" Halloween, I hope they'll at least be happy that we did.

I'm heading out the door now to do the Christmas decoration marathon shop and I'll let you know how it all goes.  Cheerio to my mum who hopefully is loving her new car and reclaimed freedom - for goodness sake, Mum, please drive carefully and don't put any more dings in it!!! lol

Have a good weekend whatever you get up to, lotta love Lu xx