OK.. I am off to Hyden in the morning, so looking forward to doing some teaching again and meeting all the ladies, it has sparked off a few ideas that I am going to put into action when I get back and get my studio finished.

Right now I am looking forward to Easter,(which is next week btw!!!! how did that sneak up on us) Good Friday picnic at Kings Park and Michael's birthday and an Easter Egg hunt Sunday and Alec's first friend having a sleep over during the school holidays, they conspired together I'm sure but I'm looking forward to it.

I'm off to finish packing! have a good one..

I love the idea of a family photo, but in the 5 years of having had one and then two children, we haven't been able to coordinate the four of us to all be looking in the same direction at the same time let alone all smiling, that was until yesterday! so here you are, my family and my big teeth. I can't get over how huge my teeth are and how squinty my eyes are, but those things aside they are good photos of me, I still have that photo pobia thing going but as I am not going to drop 25kg over night and get new teeth I am recording who I am now not waiting for my ideal 'me'.

I must thank Lissy, thanks Lis you were fantastic, I always love photo sessions with you, I now have 470 photos to choose from.

Today I needed to make something cute, I had downloaded the directions to Ali Edwards Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Always album and though why not! I don't have the cute little file so I made a cover, the heat gun died so any embossing will have to wait, before we get a replacement I may have decided on a different cover, it is awfully cute though. I also had to make the circles, I've been trying to find these for ages but no one has them, these were made in photoshop and printed on a transparency, no where near as nice as the hambly ones, they are really nice and thick and this one is very thin but does the trick.

Next week Lis, Sharon and I are off to Hyden for a retreat, we are each doing two classes each so we are going to keep you busy girls! Here are the sneak peeks and what you will need for the classes.

brads 'n' things

In this class we are looking at using 4 or more photos on a single page layout and incorporating circles into our embellishment.

I love all the different coloured brads you can get so in this layout we are using as many as we like! and cirlces are very in so we will look at other ways to add circles to our pages.

You will need -

5 photos, close-ups, 2 black and white and three colour
2b pencil and rubber
compass (essential)
wet glue (glue stick or acid free craft glue)
black journaling pen (fine tip)
small craft hammer
12 inch paper trimmer
scissors
double sided tape
self healing mat
ruler

Supplies I have used:

2 sheets of cardstock (match colours from your photos)
1 sheet of patterned paper, I have used scenic route cape town, which way black
heidi swapp plastic letters (something of medium size and no more than 1 inch in height)
heidi swapp grunge brads (1 packet)
cardstock scraps
antique white paint (I will be bringing paints)
collections stars, hearts and flowers chipboards

Double event layouts

Do you find you put these off? you know, Christmas, family affairs, trips to the zoo, birthdays. They can be difficult. Everyone is doing something everything clashes but you want to get a record of the day. I made a formula for myself, once you see the basic pattern it is easy to change and adapt to your needs.

What you need:

at least 3 6x4 inch photos, 10 photos to crop to 2x2 inch
double sided tape
craft glue
12 inch paper trimmer
sand paper
ruler

Supplies I used:

2 sheets of cardstock
paper for journaling (cardstock or ledger pp)
patterned paper scraps
EK success sticko style chipboard letters
Black journaling pen fine point

Other title options:

SEI so bold cardstock stickers
Basic grey mini monograms
Heidi swap acetate letters

This is what the wish list from the Autism Association Ealry Intervention Centre comes too.

I would so love to be able to raise this much for them this year, I have a two page list in front of me from Tasha the clinical director of the centre, I will publish some of it later today. This is equipment and resources that will be helping a child from the first time it is used and for a very long time after that.

As far as autism goes for me and those I talk to who are therapist and parents Early Intervention is the key, it is proven, it is so worthwhile and we can see the resources at work and the progress made.

From last years fundraising the centre bought some weighted jackets, Alec has one from the centre right now, his teachers are EXCITED, yes excited by the improvement and progress he has made in a week of using the jacket during activity time. Beacause they had the jackets we were able to trial it and I am buying one for Alec.

This is what it is all about for me. Such a small amount of money will make such a difference to so many families.

ok I know.. like you didn't feel as though you really needed to know this but Riley not only sat on the toilet for the first time (without being hysterical) he did a poo!!!!!!!!!! I can't believe how proud of him I am.

So we are out of nappies! he has been standing to pee for about a month but just wouldn't sit on that toilet, no bribe was ever big enough. Add to that that he has had 8 dry nights without a nappy and I am pretty happy. It took a little longer than I thought but he was ready today and that is all that counts... now the question is do I scrap this? because you know I got a photo of him sitting on the loo don't you!

Poor Justine, she never quiet made it all the way up here yesterday, Lissy and I were sad... but we had a rather luscious roast pork dinner, it was yummy (sorry Justine) along with a g&t and one of Michael 'special' iced coffees we were set!

We had a good laugh, the kids played outside with the hose and Michael made them a gingerbread house, it was a great end to the weekend!

• Our friend Vince is our lawn mower man, he came at 8-ish to do our lawn so we stumbled out and picked up toys and rocks, he told me he would drop back a garden bag for us, I took this as a hint we needed to do some gardening, not only did we empty the wheel barrow we filled the bag.. we now have a tidy garden again... thanks Vince!
• I cleaned off Riley's chalk drawing from the wall of the new studio, took down all the picture hooks and it is ready to putty, hopefully get the first coat of paint on this afternoon (if i can decide on a colour)
• Justine and Lis are coming to dinner Sunday night, Lis is brining 'something with lemons' for dessert

This is the 'studio' at this point in time! ok so a bad photo, don't have a 'real' camera atm and the room is an odd shape, these are my doors!

I've just updated my Autism crop day cafe press shop they now have plus size shirts.. yayyyyyyyyyyyy so I popped those on and added black shirts also.

Another wasted day here, woke with a migraine, I've organised for my friend Ali to pick up Alec from school because once I take an imigran I'm out for the count for a few hours, which is better than being down and out for 3 days I suppose, but at this rate I will never get my studio painted!

The internet was down this morning, very inconsiderate of it I wanted to check my mail and find the name of something! but it was down so instead I went out to brekky with Sharon Manning and Lis Cassey for Lis' birthday... Happy Birthday Lissy!!!! Mwahhhaaaaaaaaaaaaa.
We went to the Old Cottage cafe in the Swan valley, rather delicious eggs Benedict were consumed and lots of chatter.
last night I did my first ever ATC class at Scraptivate with Kelsey O'Mullane, lots of fun I will be going back for another one, it doesn't hurt to have a few more techniques to use. And isn't this stamp so cool, I have one reserved for when they come in!ATC's have never appealed to me as i don't do little well, but I put my hand up for a swap we are doing for the Buzz and Bloom design team, not sure why I said yes considering I had never done one but I did and it led me to learning so that is always good.

2 loads of washing and another photo used. Nothing planned for the day, I need to clean, but then I ALWAYS need to clean

Went to Scraptivate today on the way home from the markets, it was my reward to myself for still being in one piece. Wont bore you with the details, I only came away mildly insane and the boys had fun, oh except for when my three year old told me it was boring sitting listening to the band... three and already he is rolling out boring!

So scraptivate is very yummy, didn't get to see everything but the boys were all very good and gave me a pretty good look before they started running riot, well Michael didn't run riot, that would be hard to explain wouldn't it.

So when I sat down with my new stuff.. I lurvvvvve new stuff I had to be tough with myself and start scrapping photos I printed and then cast aside, set myself the task of not printing any more until there are gone, here are my first two, I'm getting the hang of the 8.5x11 now I think

you know when you just have to have something... luckily this was a $4 something, I bought the Rhonnah Farrer Bold Borders from twopeas, so so cute. shhhhhhhhhh Riley and I went to Ikea this morning, only 2 little things for the scraproom, the rest is for the boys playroom and our walkin which is the most ignored and messy room in the house!

I have randomly done a few of these but now I have gone as far as to buy some page protectors so they can go in the album so I thought I better try a few more(also helped use those 6x4 photo's I printed) I still don't quiet have the spacial availability worked out but the title isn't too squished

the temperature right now this minute is 42.2 which is just bloody awful!

chicken and salad for dinner and lots of quiet tv time for the kids!

and the same forcast for tomorrow!!!

disgusting!!!

I like trying new things.

I dislike waste.

So when I saw I could print 4 photos to a sheet of paper with zero wastage I was curious, I also wondered about not editing photos first. I worked out in the end I should stop being curious and avoid wondering about things!

I am a single photo scrapper, so imagine how lost and alone a single unedited 6x4 photo looks! For what started as a quick layout took 4 hours of serious pondering and shuffling, I wont list the judgement blunders I made, there are way too many, but after saying all that throughout the day the page has grown on me, a little busy perhaps but interesting non the less!

Nothing is more important to me than ensuring the future of my children, to help our son Alec and many other Western Australian children that attend the Autism Association Early Intervention centre we are once again running a crop day fundraiser. last years was fantastic and this year we have a bigger venue, we can hold up to 120 ladies.

At the same time the coffee snobs community Michael frequents has rallied to the cause and have donated 30kg of green beans through this months bean bay and a local coffee roaster Fiori Coffee have donated the use of their roaster and grinder and we are having a coffee drive!

Coffee blends will be finalised once the donated coffee arrives and 250 gram bags will sell for $7.50

Once again we have been touched and thrilled by the offers of help and the donations of prizes, for more information on the coffee side of our fundraising check out Michael's coffee blog cafe grendel

you can just skip this entirely if you like, it bears little resemblance to anything rational at all. I'm sick you see.

I don't do sick well.

If I am not totally incapacitated I suffer dreadful guilt at not being able to do what needs to be done, you know the whole nurture and care for the family thing, I'm sick enough that I am only barely functioning but well enough to stand up so to me that means if I go to bed I am slacking off, so instead I am watching star wars with the laptop, I so love this laptop, it is very cool. last week I took it to a cafe while i waited for Alec to finish therapy and set up 6 pages of photos for printing.. but that is another story.. I am sick! add sick to a migraine and you have real misery, I am so over migraines. No you understand the rambling bit

As for scrapping, I have a page sample to do for the Hyden retreat, so looking forward to going away with Lis and Sharon and might try and finish a few pages i have floating around

So no expectations for this weekend, it makes a nice change.

how to scrap!

This was my only achievement for yesterday, I did no washing or mundane things at all after I had tidied the kitchen in the morning. Today is a different story, if I want a nice weekend I am washing and cleaning today, I can live with that, one day of drudgery for 4 days of fun stuff, the fun stuff being painting my studio..
And no I really don't know what this layout is about, just a captured second in Riley's life, made me realise how fleeting any stage is.. photo by Lis Cassey.

Ramdon Fluff

Do you judge how good bad or indifferent someones life is compared to yours by how and what they blog?

I ask because I just wonder what you actually think of me. (go on tell me I really want to know) This is not at all in a low self esteem type of way, because I know I am a bit of a goof ball, loud, brash, bad hair, chubby (ok I am being very kind to myself there) it was chubby or beefy and beefy always reminds me of female Russian discus throwers which is even worse because I did throw discus at school!

I have been reading blogs today and some are just all out there, all the nitty gritty telling it how it is and others are like window dressings that flutter in the breeze and look far more enticing than your dusty venitians, I also ask this because someone said I was witty, I try my hand at humour but always thought I fluffed the punch lines.

I really do think the strangest things when i am tired.

So omlettes for dinner tonight, markets with Riley tomorrow morning for fruit and veg and some mummy and Riley time then 3 days of going nowhere doing nothing and loving every sesond of it!