This is very cool, you may (or may not) remember a few months back I was talking about blurb booksmart, well yesterday I sent my first book to be published. It is an 80 page book of coffee photos, you can buy a copy or see a preview HERE

I can't wait for it to arrive! lets call this a test run because for Christmas I am making the family a book of my 365 days photos and I will be ordering 5 copies of that myself, but that will be my Christmas shopping pretty much done!!

My book has no text apart from the introduction and dust jacket, I wanted it as a purely visual experience, Michael is also working on a book but his is a bit more heavy duty, he is doing the history of coffee (notice the common theme here)

Michael is home early today before he goes to Sydney for a few days for work, he was out roasting coffee and the boys had their umbrella's out.. a definate photo op

hi blog readers... I am in need of a photograph. Not just any photograph but from a North American Christmas .. preferably with snow and people in lots of clothes making snowmen or decorating the house.. just so we can see it is Christmas and there is snow

Why do I need this you ask, well I have a project to do for Buzz and Bloom, so you would have to be ok with it being posted to the B&B blog, my blog and my flickr. So if this sounds like fun email me your photos at allipat at gmail dot com. They need to be either straight off your camera or 300dpi ready for printing, I will also need your name, the place the photo was taken and what you are doing.

Sounds like fun doesn't it?

And what is with the give me a favour thing, well Riley says that when ever he wants you to do something for him, which is pretty much every 15 minutes! It just sounds so cute.

then you should read this blog, she is a very funny lady and writes very well..

Riley and I had lots to do this morning but we got going as soon as we dropped Alec at school so we were home by 9:45. Feeling adventurous I decided to make us some multi-grain rolls for lunch.
I really love the dough setting on the bread machine, I find the loaves it makes a bit overblown but the dough setting makes perfect dough and I do the rest. This is a multi grain mix from weigh'n pay and some malted rolled oatie type grainy thing on the top


and ta daaaaaaaaa don't they look yummy!!! fresh rolls in time for our lunch.

we awoke this morning to no power, the only problem with this was how was I going to dry my hair before we went out!!!

The boys were great they came in for cuddles then went off to play in the lounge. If we had just been doing soccer I wouldn't have even worried about washing my hair but we were also meeting friends for dim sum afterwards. Soccer was great and so was dim sum.

The crowning glory of the day were the croissants I made. You see Alec loves croissant and at $2.40 each from the bakery it was going to really start adding up, so for under $8 I made 24!! The boys helped roll them and they got the thumbs up from every one. It took a whole afternoon but it was worth the effort.

Labels: cooking, soccer

Alec started soccer 4 weeks ago. Yeah that's nice you say, well it is actually pretty fantastic. You see it is very hard for autistic kids to play team sports. So many different rules, things changing from second to second. Yet here we have Alec who is thriving, getting in there and loving it. Every goal he celebrates as though it was his goal, he feels, and I think he likes what he is feeling, instead of confusion there is euphoria, he looks as high as a kite, he flaps his arms and he makes funny noises and I think that is part of the appeal for him, he doesn't have to hold those mannerisms in because most of the other kids are doing the same thing.

Now for the not so good news, he is having trouble recognising peoples faces, it is made so much harder by the fact that the kids wear a school uniform now. We are going to do a set of photos for him with everyone photo and name for him to keep in his desk. Emotionally he is on a bit of a rollercoaster right now, up one minute acting like a teenager the next, he can be so dramatic. Last week I wouldn't let him play his computer game, or maybe I said he couldn't bring something somewhere, well the next thing you know according to him I had ruined his life.. Michael pointed out he was about 10 years too early to be feeling that way.

We have reintroduced his schedule at school, it helps so much and it is one more thing to reduce any stress he might be experiencing. Stress for Alec is bought on by not knowing what to do next, not knowing what is expected of him, too much noise and things like not knowing how to react appropriately to a situation. I sometimes find it hard to remember the little boy that didn't talk and hid under tables and screamed all the time. He has come so far and he has embraced every bit of therapy we have given him but some things will always be there and we teach him coping strategies.

And as for Riley, well he is such a complex little thing. We try very hard to make sure he is getting everything he needs, right now he needs lots of positive strokes, we give him little jobs to do, bringing in the washing, emptying parts of the dishwasher and tidying the playroom and give him lots of praise, we are building his self esteem up, Alec has it in abundance but as Riley is very shy we want him to break out of his shell a little more and this is the first step. Funnily Riley has the confidence to speak to adults but almost looks afraid of other children.

Here is my gorgeous big boy coming off the field, couldn't think of a title so this is how it stays... we are all off for flu shots this afternoon and Riley is getting his 4 year old vaccinations, wish me luck, I hate needles and I will probably get mine first to show them how brave mummy is...

UPDATE: the doctors went well after an initial hitch, they had booked us with the wrong Dr Chris, we see the same doctor all the time, it is really important for Alec and he wouldn't see the other one, so in the end our Dr Chris was good enough to see us during his lunch break, I went first, then Alec who was a bit shaky but happily announced it didn't hurt at all I didn't have to be brave after all!

Labels: autism, scrapbooking, soccer

I was greeted by two excited little boys this morning. They bought their mothers day gift home during the week and tried to give them to me then but I sent them off to hide them. Michael said they hid them very well too. The also surprised me with a BIND IT ALL!!!!!!

Michael took Alec to a party yesterday but said he wanted to go early to go to a camping store to check out pots for his coffee roaster, instead he told Alec they were going to Scraptivate to get me a present. When they got there the girls asked if it was a mothers day present and Alec said yes, but we are at a camping store, and you know he didn't say a thing he kept the secret.I got a beautiful decorated cushion a card and a box of chocolates from Alec and a painting, bookmark and a pipe cleaner bracelet from Riley.

So after gifts Michael made me eggs benedict, which were just so yummy, the eggs were cooked to perfection and the sauce (ok I helped with the sauce) was delicious, thank you honey I loved my brekky and my present, you sneaky thing, and you too Lis, keeping secrets from me :)
ta da! I have so wanted one of these, I even had a huge email marathon with Lis about it just the other day, why I wanted it, what I had planned, how I was saving up with all my loose change.. sneaky
and here I am with my two beautiful boys, after the photos we went off and watched Alec's soccer game, he loves it I am so glad and it really is a nice family outing.
So I hope you have all had a wonderful mothers day, I have had the best one.

So this was great, I really enjoyed it. It took me 3 days but that is ok I now have something I love. And you know what else for the first time I used things from the same design line, I mean what in six years you never thought to do this, it just all worked and that is what I love.

Much of my inspiration came from saturn art I would love that much energy in my work all the time but will settle for every now and then.

So there is lots of foam tape, a bit of felt and the letter stickers are on transparency that I cut around, gave me more control and then I didn't have to worry if I hated where they were.

I'm looking forward to my next layout now, once I clean the table top.. one of those never ending repeating things, still not as drudgish as laundry though and clears the mind for more creating

Labels: scrapbooking

time.. I don't give myself time. When I do that first step process of envisaging how the photos will look on the final page, instead of going through the process I just want to go to the finished product.

Looking at recent pages I am skipping over anything that takes time, when did I get into this rush, I don't know because I have time set aside for scrapping but in this mind set I find I do very little but shuffle papers.

SO today I am putting in the effort, doing a few different techniques and not worrying if I am still working on this layout tomorrow. See what happened was when I scrapped every single photo it was easy, you were always in the groove, now the boys are a bit bigger and they already have 14 albums between the two of them so I had to back off and be more selective of what I scrapped. This put more time between scrapping, lots of distraction some good books and then WHAM!! it is gone, I've run off the road and I can't even drag up an idea from the depths of my mind. I want to get back to that middle road, where I can be super simple or a bit artistic and it is all good.

I've started a new page, I am going for arty, I've cut things out and I've painted some glad wrap (saw this HERE and loved the idea) but above all I am going slowly, enjoying the process because the process is the most important part of the finished product.

Challenge~ Is creating "beautiful art" more important than the process of creating?

Well lately I haven't been seeing much art in my work as I go through the creative process. When I MUST do something I feel stressed and unsure during the process. Then at other times it all just flows out and I love the process and the finished product.

I really think that the process is just as important as the finished product, I love things I enjoyed making more than ones that stressed me out and I think it shows too.

Even though we usually don't share the steps we took to create something I think they are an important part for us, what made you decide on those colours? what made you choose that paint? how did you know those things would work? these are the things I ask when I see art that makes me go wow. Those were all the questions that went through my head when I saw THIS by Saturn_art / Michelle Clement This is art, what I love most is what she has done with the bubble wrap, this page is so alive, I want more of that life in my work

Labels: scrapbooking

Here is Alec during his first game of soccer, I grabbed some overlays and whatever else I saw next for this one, I was doing well until it came time for the title. Notice the lil davis wooden letters, am I a hoarder or what!

Here is a nice quick easy one, I love this formula layout I am so so tempted to just use it for every layout I do.
This is another one I have done using a Donna Downey sketch, it just looks so good, I ad a couple of extra 2x2's to it but I love how it doesn't look at all cramped and there are ten photos on a single page.
Love the photos, not entirely thrilled with how I have displayed them. I like space and I should have left space between the photos. I originally did this as one of my formula pages but then decided not to, regretting that now

Lots of you have asked about the frames and stamps I use on my 365 day photos, well the majority of them I have bought from designerdigitals.com and once again they are having a 30% off sale on everything until 7am EST Tuesday (that's in American time btw)

to get the 30% use coupon code: 148694

I use the quick find and search for frames or dates or whatever I am looking for.

I have washing to do and dinner to prepare and 4 unfinished layouts on my desk that I just can't seem to find the right thing for, so instead of doing those things I went and watched some movie trailers. Hellboy and Hulk look pretty cool.

Movies I want to see (click on them to see the trailers) infact I am thinking tonight we might go and see Ironman or maybe Friday night otherwise it might be a bit late for the boys

Ironman
Get Smart
The Incredible Hulk
Hellboy II
Indiana Jones
Prince Caspian