Ready Made

I taught at Scrapbook Station yesterday afternoon. Had a great bunch of ladies and really enjoyed chatting about scrapbooking with them. Hello ladies :). And, yes, I'll upload my version of our layout in the next few days.

While I was there, I noticed that For Keeps issue 57 is out on the newstands. I haven't got my contributor copy of Issue 56 yet. Has anyone else got theirs?

Anyway, I thought seeing Issue 57 is out, I should share with you my layout in Issue 56. You may have seen it before, as I did it for the Scrapbook Station DT a while back.



Journaling: Falls Creek 1991. Look at him. I'd like to say that I made him myself, but I have to confess that I found him there on the slopes, waiting for some friends to happen by. A baseball cap for a hat, a jacket 'round his neck for a scarf was all that was needed. Perfect!

Is it in there?

Loved doing this one. I used some pizza box cardboard for the background. Tore all the top layer off it - my tip is to do this in front of the TV as it is mindnumbingly boring - about as boring as advertisements ;) - and painted it white.

If you want to know what I did to make the page, see here.

I've also put up some instructions for my "Love You" and "Conflicted" layouts that appeared in SC this month. They're here.

Hope you've had a great weekend.
Kathie

Housekeeping

I want to update my blog to include my little blogging community on my sidebar. I have met so many lovely people through this blog, and I want to update my links. So, if you come here to visit and want to be included in my contacts, please let me know your blog addy and I'll do a big update sometime soon.

Anyone know any safety practitioners who want a job? LOL, no not mine. We have a job advertised at the moment and want to spread the word. Somehow I don't think my blog is going to help all that much. Shell, it would be perfect! Wish you were here.

Well, it's back to work for me. I have a meeting to plan for a meeting. Heh heh.

Have a great weekend!
Kathie

Tagged by Britta

Those of you who are regular visitors would have passed Britta in the comments room. And admired her german language skills :). This girl is the best! She lives in the most wonderful countryside. She is single mum to the most beautiful little girl. And she's a mad keen scrapbooker too.

And she's just nominated me as a rockin' girl blogger.



Check out the link to see what it's all about. Spreading the love :)

Now, who to pass the award onto.... So hard to choose. So hard to choose. I hate choosing! There's always people that I have to leave off my list. OK, here are my rockin' girl bloggers:

Nicole Wood
Mel Diener
Lisa Le-Ray
Mardi Winen
Megan Stephenson

I want to send out a huge congratulations to Nicole. Not only has she just announced she's pregnant again, but she's also just been named as one of 10 winners of the For Keeps Everyday Moments Competition. Congratulations chickie! You really do rock! Hope the morning sickness eases up soon.

That's all for today
Kathie

But wait! There's more...

This week's SketchesOz layouts have just been uploaded by Tatum. I have two up there at the moment.

Mel Diener was this fortnight's guest sketch artist. When I first got Mel's sketch, I have to admit that I was stumped. But after a bit of head scratching and paper shuffling, lol, I ended up adoring the design and the ensuing layout. In fact, I have it in my head to use the sketch for another layout shortly. Love it Mel! Thanks.


Journaling: Look at you - you really are one CHEEKY little boy. Daddy snapped this photo at just the right moment as you jumped out from behind the meatsafe. PEEK-A-BOO!!

The next layout uses new papers by Rasberry. Love these little boy papers. This was a bit more of a challenge for me than it should have been, because when the papers arrived in my mailbox they had been rolled, squashed and flattened so as to fit right inside the box. Imagine! Who would do such a thing!

Anyway, I managed to resurrect as much as I could, and this is the end result:


Journaling: You sit facing forward in the car now. You look so cute, hand on one knee, the other hand resting on the arm-rest, like you're in an easychair. You've been discovering more of the world as we drive around town. I feel like I have a driving companion now because you talk to me from the backseat. "Err" "Err". When I turn to look at you, you're looking at me with a big smile on your face. "Oooh!" you say, and your arm reaches out, your hand pointing to the big truck in the lane next to us. Or the bus - yes, buses seem to be your favourite. For now.

That's it for now. It's way past my bedtime. Yawn.
Have a good Wednesday!
Kathie

Layout share

Hello! I'm sitting outside in the sunshine with my laptop on my knee at the moment. It's a glorious day today. In fact, I should probably run inside and put sunburn cream on my nose. I'm likely to get a sunburn, lol.

Jamie's running around shifting pegs and generally making a mess with garden soil.

So, while he's busy occupied, here's a layout share. These three layouts are all in Scrapbook Creations this month.


Journaling: So in love with this squished up little face; those sweet snuffly noises you make. Look at you! You're three days old.


This next page was just one of the get it done quick pages. I never thought it would get selected for publication. It just goes to show that you never can tell. That's actually my art work (from year 10 highschool) there on the page.

Journaling: I spent many happy hours in the front room of my grandparents' home as a child. But I have no photos of it - only this pencil sketch, done one night for a high school art assignment while we were there for tea. Thank goodness for school homework!


I think you should be able to read the journaling on this one lol. I am a bit embarrassed, because although I stated in my materials list to SC that the layout was inspired by Teesha Moore, they haven't included that information in the magazine.

OK, off to make a coffee. See you!
Kathie

Stop the world, I wanna get off.

Congratulations to Janine on the safe arrival of little Kaitlyn. Another baby :)

Well it's Friday again. We are getting over colds. Last week it was gastro. This week it's colds. Again. I sent Jamie off to childcare this morning with a shocking cough. Sigh.

He was funny this morning. It just goes to show that they really are soaking *everything* up at this age. Yesterday when we arrived at childcare, we did our usual routine which is to put our fruit in the fruit bowl, put our milk in the 'fridge, and put our bag into Jamie's locker. I forgot to take his jacket off though. It was only as I was about to go I realised he still had it on. So, we had to make another trip out to his locker to take it off and stash it away.

This morning, we get to his locker to put away his bag and he says to me "errr!". He's pointing down at his jacket. Clearly, I'd forgotten again, lol. The boy has a much better memory than his mother. Not that that would be difficult.

Phil has this week and next week off work and is over at the new house, painting, fixing floorboards and so on. As usual, he has bitten off more than he can chew in a fortnight. Let me think, our house at Hove took me a solid month, in fact 29 days without a break - I counted them, to paint. Our current house took a good six months, every single weekend, to paint. And Phil thinks he can paint the new house in one week. Hmmmm. Anyone see the problem in this logic? Anyone?

So, Wednesday night he comes home and says to me "you're going to have to help me paint the new house". At which I just look at him. Like, when? I teach scrapbooking next Saturday and the Saturday after. I work two days a week. Not to mention the small fact that we have a toddler who is my sole responsibility seeing as "childcare isn't Phil's thing". My parents are already baby-sitting the Saturdays that I am teaching. When might I be able to fit in a spot of painting? Especially seeing as the new house is half way across town, is empty of anything at all for a toddler to amuse himself with - except for paint cans and rollers.

Sigh.
I'm tired.
And grumpy.
We've been sick for 6 weeks solid and have hardly had the opportunity to go anywhere. Every play date we've arranged I've had to cancel coz we've been sick.
I'm lonely.
Did I mention I'm tired?
Or grumpy?

Where can I get a new life. I didn't sign up for this one, that I remember.

Five weeks to go. Hopefully things will quieten down once we're moved. Oh yeah, that's right. I have to arrange for our house to get packed up and moved.

And I'm supposed to paint.

Aaargh!
Kathie

20 months

I am so proud of you Rabbit. You have really grown up so much this month. You now attend childcare two days a week.


At first you were miserable, and I spent several mornings feeling totally distressed, with your howls and pleading face echoing behind me as I left the childcare centre. But this last week you seemed to settle down and now the carers tell me that you’re doing really well. Renee thinks you are wonderful as you are such a good little helper. As soon as the bag comes out for the toys, you are there by her side, helping her pick up the blocks and put them away. What a sweetie you are!

You kept crawling around on the floor last Saturday and had me quite perplexed. I mean, you haven’t crawled for a good six months. And then I realized. The babies in the childcare center with you probably still crawl! It seems quite funny to see you clattering around on your hands and knees again after all this time. Especially seeing as you are loving to run everywhere at the moment. You run around and around the rug on the lounge-room floor. And around Grandma and Grandad’s kitchen bench. Around and around.


You have been more vocal too. The kids at childcare tend to talk a lot more than you. So, you’ve upped the volume, but still don’t make any words. Oh, sure, you can say “woof” on demand. You’ve said “Jak” a couple of times quite clearly. And I know you can say “Dadda!”, because I’ve heard you when Daddy comes home from work. But you choose to communicate pretty much non-verbally for the moment. And that’s fine. In your own time. Although, you do have the sweetest little voice and I can’t wait to have proper conversations with you.

Everyone warned me, but I don’t think I realized… the other thing you have been bringing home from childcare is bugs! I joked to Daddy this week that by Monday morning I usually know what bug you have brought home on Thursday/Friday the previous week. This week it’s a cold. You and I are sharing it. The week before it was gastro, which you and I shared also. A fortnight before that you got a nasty cough that you shared with Daddy the following week. And before that you had an ear infection and I had caught the cold you had prior to that. Argh!

I have noticed that you are a lot more independent this month. You are able to put your arms through the sleeves of your clothes and you try to put your shoes and socks on. You want to try to do everthing yourself. You won’t let me help you with your food. You must hold any spoon that comes near your mouth. Actually, you are pretty capable of guiding the spoon to your mouth now, so I let you go. It’s nice to have that time to do something else. What I’m not enjoying is your growing tendency to throw your bowl, cup and any food that happens to be lying around, onto the floor. Especially seeing as it’s accompanied with a huge chuckle if I tell you that it’s naughty.


I watched you eating your lunch the other day. You didn’t seem all that hungry and I just watched what you were doing. I watched as you fingered your vegemite sandwich, then tipped it from the plate onto your high chair. You put a piece in your mouth and half bit down on it, then changed your mind and took it back out of your mouth. You tipped all the pieces of sandwich into your pelican bib and then fished them all back out again and piled them up on your plate, that by this time was upside down. Then you took each little bit one by one from the top of the plate and put them back on your highchair tray. Lots of playing. Very little eating. When you finished, you piled your cup and flannel on top of your bowl and looked at me. Finished Mama!

Ratbag! I love you |.............thiiiis much................|

Sticker fun

Yesterday Phil brought home a Bob the Builder sticker book. Complete with repositionable stickers. It was a great hit. He brought it out for Jamie at about 4pm and they had great fun with it in the kitchen while I was getting tea organised. It took a while to stick the stickers in the book – mostly in the right places if it was Phil playing; all over the place if it was Jamie playing. He would shriek with recognition when he saw Spud or Dizzy or Wendy. He loved the cat curled up on the mat too. Does the cat have a name? I dunno.

When the stickers were all in the book, they began to lift them all off the page again (this is where the repositionable bit is so handy in prolonging a bit of fun) and, seeing as they were in the kitchen, they stuck them all up on the oven door. Fun.

Then, when they were all up on the oven door, they started to stick them all back in the book again.

Then, when they were all in the book, they started to put them back on the oven door again.

I could go on, but you've probably got the picture by now.

Anyway, when 5pm came, do you think I could convince Jamie to come and have tea? Hah! When 5.30pm came around he still didn’t want to leave the book to eat tea. At 6pm he still didn’t want to leave the book to eat tea.

In the end, Phil managed to shovel some food into Jamie's mouth, while he continued to examine the book on his high chair tray-table. Then, it was straight back to sticker play.

Sometime later, I asked Jamie if he wanted to make a bath. Now, this is normally accompanied with a nod of the head and a determined run for the bathroom door. However, last night it was greeted with a downturned mouth and much crying. So much crying in fact that, we had to forego the bath.

All he wanted to do was play with those stickers! Aargh!

At least I know that if I bring them out around 10am, he'll be occupied happily for the rest of the day. Something worth keeping in the back of my head.

In fact this morning he was very busy for about an hour as he trotted between the kitchen and the loungeroom to transfer stickers from the oven door to the entertainment cabinet door and back again. After a while, he even got wise and started taking more than one at a time.


Have a sunny Sunday!
Kathie

Yipee!

Hello there. I'm blogging from my desk. Feeling yuck, but not too yuck to go to work. As long as I stay sitting down, I'm OK.

I just had to let you know that Jamie didn't cry when I walked out the door of the childcare centre this morning. Yipee! He cried a bit when we sat on the floor to play with the toys. He had a little tear running down his cheek which broke my heart, but by the time I left he wasn't crying. I was so relieved. Anyway, finally got around to telling you. I'm so happy. It's so much easier to come to work!

That's all for today!
Back to work now ;)
Kathie

Too funny

You girls really are too funny. I never thought that I looked all that much like my sister. But everyone told me I do.

And then, when Jamie was born, I was saying to someone (I think MelD possibly) that I couldn't see myself in him at all, but that I kept seeing flashes of my sister all the time. Well, she fell about the floor laughing (as best I could tell seeing as we were emailing) and responded to say that seeing as that my sister and I look like twins, she guessed that Jamie took after me. LOL.

Yes, and I'm the one in the blue jumper.

Well, I have a viral bug. I knew it! I slept for about 16.5 hours in the last 24. I feel sick and dizzy whenever I stand up. Mum and Dad have taken Jamie for the afternoon. I was finding it a bit difficult to entertain a little boy. We sat on the couch this morning and watched kids TV. Then, when ABC Kids finished, I happened to turn over and find Raggs on at a new 11am timeslot. Well, new for me. The TV is never on in our house at 11am, lol. So, we sat there and watched that too. Jamie loves Raggs and all his doggie friends.

So, on that note...
Pawwwwws up!
I'm off to veg on the couch.
Kathie

Two more current layouts

I have a page in this month's Creating Keepsakes Aussie Reader Gallery:


Dimple.
Journaling: It was one of the first things your doctor noticed when you were born. "Look, he has a dimple!". And people continue to notice. Because it's so cute.

The layout was inspired by this:



And this is my layout for Scrapbook Station this fortnight:


I wish

The theme this month was to use our favourite quote. I have so many! This one was particularly strong in my heart when I created the page though.

"The bond between sisters is sometimes tightly woven, sometimes loosely held, but never broken."

I miss my sister!

Journaling: I wish - that you didn't live so far away.... that we could have tea with each other's families on a Saturday night... that our children would grow up together... that we talked more.

Sob! I think I was feeling melancholy that night when I made this.

I get so down in Winter. Still feeling low. Plus I've put my back out. Plus I had to have a 2.5hour sleep this afternoon because I feel chilled to the bone like I'm coming down with another bug! Argh! Hopefully the nana nap has fixed the situation. Jamie is still sleeping - 3 hours and still not awake. He is sleeping so much now that he's in childcare - he gets so worn out! He slept for five hours on Saturday. Two 2.5hour naps. He never has a morning nap anymore, but he needed it on Saturday.

Bye til later
Kathie

Tagged again

I have been tagged by Tammy. Here goes:

Four of my favourite jobs:
Disclaimer: I wouldn't really say that I have any favourite jobs, as I'd far rather be home doing other things, but here are four of my jobs I've had so far:
1. Medical Researcher at Flinders University - I researched the workings of a gene that is frequently mutated in cancers
2. Occupational Health and Safety Adviser, Adelaide University - after I decided research wasn't for me, I went back to uni and built on my Bachelor of Science with a Postgraduate Diploma in Occupational Health
3. Human Resources Manager - they thought I was wasted in OH&S and promoted me... several times.
4. Senior Preventions Adviser, SA Public Sector - I took a sea-change after 10 years in 3.

Four of my favourite local places:
1. Amarin Thai restaurant - it's Phil's and my fav.
2. My parents' house - my childhood home
3. River Torrens - love walking or jogging the track around the Torrens
4. Westlakes Shopping Centre, lol - it's where we go to get out of the house when Jamie's being a sh*t.

Four of my favourite foods:
1. Spaghetti Bolognese the way I cook it, with heaps of veggies
2. Pad Thai
3. Green chicken curry
4. baked cheesecake

Four of my favourite places in Australia:
1. Darwin
2. Sydney
3. Gold Coast
4. Clare Valley

Now, I think I have to tag four people so I choose my four SA girlies :)
1. Nicole Wood
2. Mel Diener
3. Lisa Le-Ray
4. Mardi Winen

Not much else to write about. Feeling low at the moment. Best to keep to myself really. Nothing you all want to hear about. Just the usual winter colds and flus. Plus trying to do too much. Etc etc etc. Will be back when I'm in a better frame of mind.

Take care
Kathie

And more LOs

I was totally rapt a while back to be invited to contribute to Kate Mason and Debra Fuller's book, Heart of Design. The book came out a few months back, so I hope it's OK to be sharing the pages that I have in the book with you now.

The first is another wedding layout, The Promise.

It uses lots of lace, tulle, feathers, beads etc from the actual wedding. I had it left over, sitting in a little plastic bag. Lots of meaning on this page. The journaling is actually my wedding vows :).

The next layout "Old Books" deals with my love of vintage books.


That pile of books is what my mum pulled from her garage one day when I was up at her house. All my "little golden books" from when I was a child. All her little picture books from when she was a child too. Plus, a stack of Enid Blyton books. Drool. I can't wait until Jamie doesn't try to pull apart books, so that we can graduate from board books and I can read some of these to him.

See you!
Kathie