Trying to keep up with the pics and Kaiser winner

So I'm trying to keep up with the pics for the year so I'm playing catch up from Friday - you know me, there'll be lots of catch ups lol Naturally these pics aren't in order because Picasa has decided what order they go in and not me! So the pic above and below are from yesterday. I babysat my niece and nephews (Cass's son Ronin and daughter Lily, and Kris but he doesn't need babysitting, just company) yesterday while Cass and Kelly went to a movie. Ronin found Jamie's rollerskates and wanted to use them so we strapped him in and he was off like a shot, a real natural! I asked Lily if she wanted to use Caeligh's rollerblades so both of them were cruising around the house in no time. Last night was quiet at our place as Blayd and Lachie are with their dad and James and Caeligh went to gran's for a sleepover so Doug and I had the place to ourselves. The pic below is a present Doug got me as an early Christmas present - he knows how much I love to sing, in the shower, in the car, anywhere at all really. There are some great songs on there, recent stuff too as well as older stuff. Out of consideration for hour neighbours we made sure all the doors and windows were closed lol

The cleaning bucket is looking at me today, knowing that it will get its workout tomorrow morning once the kids are off to school. Damn Cass and her cleaning bucket - it's become a real fixture and with everything in one place I know where to go when I need something and it does make getting the cleaning done a bit easier. I'm not a Domestos addict yet however...I can't stand the smell that you can't get out of your nose for hours.

Below is Friday's picture, not a great one but one that I see everytime I look out my office window. We have pebbles all up one side of the house where it's too narrow for grass but it doesn't stop the weeds that have sprung up like...um...well like WEEDS!!! lol Apparently it's our responsibilty to spray regularly so the weeds don't take over but it's been raining all week and there doesn't seem to have been one totally dry day so far lately to go out and do it so the jungle continues to flourish.

What I didn't get a chance to take a pic of was the name Caeligh randomly picked for my Kaisercraft goodies which was Robyn W!!!! Robyn if you want to email me (there's a link on the left side bar) I can get your address and post your Kaiser goodies off to you.

I'm going to go get some typing work this afternoon - ugh. I've had a slow last few days because of yet another tooth abscess driving me insane. I've been chewing through Panadeine and anti-inflammatories and eventually caved in yesterday and went to the dr to get some antibiotics but they are slow to work this time so I'm still not entirely focused as there is a constant, low grade grumbling toothache going on all the time no matter what I take. I was going to get my teeth fixed as part of my Life List for last year but I just ran out of year! I do want to do it this year though - provided I can work up the courage to go to the dentist to get a quote!

I haven't done any more scrapping though have taken over the far end of my dining room table with a couple of baskets of necessities so that I can sit down when I have the time and urge and get something done. My office still remains like a storage shed for all of my other supplies and I can't bear to think of unpacking any of it until I know where it's all going to go, otherwise it's going to end up a huge mess and I won't know where anything is. I want to get to Ikea in the next week or two just to have a look at options and I'll work something out from there.

Caeligh and James have just come home so I'm going to go get them lunch and then show Caeligh the Gabriella Cilmi song "Sweet About Me" that we recorded on the Foxtel IQ last night from one of the music channels that does a karaoke segment on Saturday nights. It's the original film clip but a strip down the bottom with the words. She'll be quite excited as she loves the song so even though she can't read the words, she knows them all by heart anyway, and I'm sure she'll enjoy prancing around the lougeroom with the microphone. Maybe that'll be another photo for later today.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday, love Lu xx

Tagged by Lis!!!!

I've been tagged by the lovely Lis and my challenge was to choose the sixth photograph in the sixth folder on my computer. This photograph was taken about a week before we moved from our old house. It was one of those afternoons with that really great late afternoon golden light, you know the ones I mean, where everything just photographs fantastically no matter what it is! Well this was at the beginning of sundown, just before the yellow light hit the backyard and I wanted some pics of Caeligh. She was sitting on the front steps and our poor cat, Towser, wasn't nearly fast enough lol Honestly all the cats should now by now that when they see Caeligh reaching for them they should RUN!!!! Anyway, she got him and clutched him to her like only a four year old girl with too much enthusiasm can. I did get one reasonable shot before this but it had to be the sixth picture so this is it - Caeligh trying to talk Towser into staying with her and Towser trying to get away....

I'm not a huge tagger, mainly because I find it hard to find time to do them "properly" and therefore feel I shouldn't burden another scrapper with something I usually can't manage myself but because I have found time to do this, I figure Jilly, Sue, Lusi and Ngaire should be able to do this as well. Love and respect you girls hugely, so I hope you take it for it's true intention - a compliment and an apology all in one!!! lol

Have a groovin' Saturday night! Lu xx

First Day of School (original title huh? lol)

Well today was a big day in our house. Caeligh started Prep grade after many discussions about whether she could take her headband out at first break (no), whether she could take off her shoes when she got there (another no!) and whether I could just wait outside her room for her from the time I dropped her off until it was time to go home again (absolutely NO!!!!). She was happy enough this morning to get up, get dressed in her big long schoolgirl dress, put on her shoes and let me do her hair which is almost unheard of for my darling little feral who would prefer to run around wearing as little as possible, filthy and with rat nest hair if only we would let her. She did draw the line at piggy tails however, prefering a simple stretchy navy headband which she proceeded to lose by the time I picked her up this afternoon. She has that kind of "slippery" hair that just about every hair accessory known to womankind slides or falls out of within an hour. She's buggered now though as I don't have another headband and hers didnt' turn up on a quick scan of the classroom. Quite frankly it could be anywhere! I think we'll just have to write that one off and she will have to live with piggies tomorrow if she likes it or not. As far as I know, she does plan on going back tomorrow so her first day must have been okay and she got her medication on time so I believe the teachers are happy for her to come back as well lol

The boys were all dressed nicely, new shoes which none of them have scuffed up yet after the first day and Blayd and Lachie were happy to walk because we live so close to school now. They weren't happy about the first day of school book overload that they had to carry in their backpacks but apart from that they were all fine. James went to a new pod this year to make room for the new Prep kids and he likes his teachers and has his friends with him in his class. Lachie loves middle school and the sudden extra independence that he will have, and loves having his best friend in his pod with him, especially as they can walk home together too as his friend lives a little further away from school than us. Blayd is at the top of middle school this year, his last year before senior school. He was just grateful to access full size handball courts again after a six week break of having "totally nowhere to play at all". I had no idea handball was so important for sustaining teenage life but as a mama, what do I know?!?!? lol

It was a good start to the year and for me I now have all of my kids at school. Still haven't given that much thought as I've had work to fall into straight away when I got home from school this morning but boy was the house quiet. Cass walked over for coffee and we discussed our respective first day of school stories and I've been typing ever since (except when I bravely walked up to the school this afternoon to pick up the kids - I say brave because I am overweight, unfit and haven't been feeling the greatest lately so it was a slight shock to the system to walk a kilometre in the heat and back again but I figure it's a kind of forced exercise and I so desperately need some of that!).

So many posts in one day but I'm trying to establish a regular blogging habit so if you get email updates or anything, sorry!

The pic of the bag in the doorway I took just because I noticed it sitting there and thought it looked like a nice shot so call it my photo of the day for today.

I hope everyone else had a great first day back and that you all waited until you were out of the kids' line of sight before you did the happy dance!!! lol Cheers, Lu xx

Sorry about that...

....the formatting in the post below is crap but I've discovered I can't format in Blogger for peanuts!!!!

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