Way overdue

I just realised it has been ages since I updated on here. A couple of new things - one thing that Im pretty proud of is: It has been 9 weeks since Rob and I gave up smoking. I think considering the amount we both smoked its a great achievement. The next awesome bit of news is the new addition to our extended family - the birth of my little cousin Caitlyn Rose Johnston, born on the 12th March at 1.13pm weighing 7lb 4oz and 51cm in length. Daniella is now a proud big sister (and big is the word, she is growing WAY too quickly). To record this moment I have now completed my page for March:

I can also now show you the cards and cross sitch I made for little Caitlyn. The only unfortunate thing with this is some silly person (although I blame my proofreader lol) put 2008 instead of 2009 on the cross stitch. This has since been fixed but I forgot to take a photo of the correct version lol. I made two cards because we didnt know what to expect so we have a blue version and a pink version:

I also finally got around to finishing and framing a cross stitch that I started ages ago:

And now for two scrapbook layouts I have done. The first one was for another Queens Challenge over at stamping scrap, this time Nicki was made Queen. Nicki's challenge was for us to do a page based on a Queen song. Now thankfully Nicki named a few songs to help get us started, my song of choice was "You're my best friend", with my best friend being my Mum. She is an amazing woman and has achieved so much, to me she would be an inspiration to anyone. Anyway enough mushy stuff, we had some really nice photos of Mum from the wedding so here is my layout:

And since she is so wonderful and looked so great, Mum was also used for my Little Shop of Sketches layout on sketch 34 (see stampin scrap for more details).

Ok last one, I was going to leave it there but I couldnt resist showing a layout I did featuring Daniella, this also shows how quick she is growing although the photo was taken at christmas. This layout was used for little shop of sketches, sketch 33.

Thats enough for now, and thanks for looking :)

Recent stuff

Now for the recent stuff and wohoo it let me add it all at once this time lol.

Its Mums boyfriends birthday tomorrow and hes pretty into golf so I thought I would attempt to design my own card as I couldnt find any examples on golf cards online. I made the flag by putting together some different coloured cardstock. Found a picture of a golf club online and printed that out, then put it onto card to make it stronger. For the grass I snipped some cardstock so it hopefully looks like blades of grass. Added a button for a golf ball and a tag with eyelets to say Happy Birthday.


One of the design team challenges at stampin scrap is to do a page every month with pictures of what happend that month. In January my brother came to stay with us for three weeks so of course the page got to be about him. I found it a challenge to do a boy page as I hadnt really used browns before but am quite happy how it turned out. As you can see I am also starting to journel more :)



And to follow from January of course is february which was Chloe's first bithday. I have been friends with Chloe's mum Niki since intermediate school so she is like a neice to us, shes growing so quick that I really enjoyed doing a page about her.


This months ABC letters are S and G. My S page is a picture of Daniella smiling, isn't she cute? My little cousin is growing so quick as well. She is due to have a wee sibling any day now (well anyday last week actually lol) so I imagine I shall have lots of baby/kiddie pages comming up. I can't remember where I got the sketch for this one, think it was online but it was good to make use of my scollop punch, and mums smaller one that is still on loan lol

And this page is for our Girls Night in Challenge - March. I thought since this layout had so many flowers on it, why not use photos of my wedding flowers. Also another excuse to use my border punch. And of course with flowers goes bling, well with anything goes bling lol. The little pink blings are ones that I got from Vicki for my RAK for wining the Queens challenge at stampin scrap, THANKS Vicki!!!

I went to a class at Tanyas place where we did a together forever page. This was for valentines day. I used two of my wedding photos, both to do with our rings. This class was great as we did lots of different things, inking, paper tearing, hand stitching with beads glued on top (the hearts) and it made me start journelling, which to be honest I hadnt really done much of.



I didnt have any challenges to do one day but still felt like a scrappy day so I chose a sketch out of my little shop of sketches folder and chose a photo of Buddy again. The title is Peanut because thats his nickname. I also did some hand stitching on this as Nana gave me a Bazzil stitches pack for my birthday 08 and she kept asking have I used it yet, well yes Nana I have lol.

Little Shop Of Sketches

This is my layout from the Little Shop of Sketches #30. My photos of hubby. He hates photos and it can sometimes be very hard to get him to smile but he looks great when he does. I was quite happy with how this page turned out as it was one of my first layouts using paper tearing.

Intelligent

This is my I page for the ABC challenge. I is for Intelligent. This is a photo of Buddy sitting on hubbys knee. Buddy has got his overalls and his jersey on and looks like he is reading the paper - what an intelligent little boy lmao.

Girls Night In Challenge

This is my layout for the girls night in challenge - february. This challenge is also run over at stampin scrap. My picture is of our little Angel as a puppy (not that she is much bigger than that now).

Dashing and Daring

Februarys letter challenge for the ABC album was D and I. For hubbys christmas party 08 the theme was dashing and daring so I thought this would be a good D page. He dressed up as a lion and I dressed up as a madam. Apparantly in the old days the madams ran the bars or saloons or whatever they called them lol anyway here is the layout

Update of layouts

So I have just been going through pictures of my layouts and have realised that there are quite a few that I havent uploaded to here, mainly my Janurary ones. For some reason this is playing up and doesnt seem to want to let me upload more than one at a time so I will try doing them in different posts. This is the first challenge I did for Stampin Scrap. We are doing an ABC album and we get set certain letters every month. January's letter was A and of course A is for Angel. I made the tag myself with different paper/cardstock, a paw punch and an eyelet.

Another update

Well it was finally sunny enough to take some pictures today so here is another update of some layouts I have done. http://littleshopofsketches.wordpress.com/ puts a sketch challenge out every two weeks. Here's my take on sketch 31

For the Synlait christmas party 2008 Rob dressed up as a lion. We got Mum to come out and take some pictures, and he was just so proud of himself lol here he is jumping around (more like tigger than a lion) but the look on his face was priceless.

Yvette on the design team at Stampin Scrap has also set a challenge. This one has to be bright summer colours, have at least 5 layers on it and include a critter and a tree. Now I must admit this one had me stumped but I gave it a go and it actually wasnt as hard as I thought it would be . . .

Some of you probably know we went to Queenstown for our honeymoon last year. While down there we went on the jet boat - man what a blast. We got some pics taken and here is one of them.

And finally, while surfing the net I found a layout that looked so pretty I just had to try it . . .

Also while in Queenstown. This time we went on the Segway. Rob put this off till nearly the last day as it was on my list of things to do, not his lol. It took awhile to get used to the feeling of it, you stand on a wee platform thing and it all works on balance - you lean forward to speed up, back to stop and stand straight to just keep going (I think, remember this was a year ago lol). Also instead of turning the handle bars to turn a corner it just all works on your balance. Our tour took us through Queenstown, up and down some hills, along the beech, and through the gardens, took about an hour and we had so much fun. Rob came away wanting to buy one (only about $12000 lol) he thought it would be pretty cool for bringing the cows in, considering he didnt want to go on it lol.

Another Page

Well I couldnt help it, today I sat down and did another page lol

After nearly a day of housework yesterday hubby totally surprised me by saying I should take a break and do a page (so not like him!!!). I enjoyed the online class so much, and loved the layout that I decided to do another take on it . . .

This was taken at our wedding last year and combines all three families.

Well I've done my first online scrapbook class, over at stampin scrap and it was great. We all got sent a copy of the instructions and then met up in the chat room where Tanya took us through the instructions. Here is how my layout turned out . . .

Cant wait for the next class, as it gives me a good excuse to do a page lol

Valentines day

Happy Valentines day to everyone. Usually I would buy hubby something but I decided this year I would put some techniques to practice and made him an off the page jigsaw and a card. Here are some pics













Also our resident Queen Vicki at Stampin Scrap has set us the challenge of doing a page layout with a photo of ourself, some pink, some bling, and a crown. Here is what I came up with last night . . .

This photo was with taken on the day of my wedding with my Mum, myself and my bridesmaid Nardia.

My first post

Ok so I think I finally have my blog up and running, and YAY I have my first award already. Many thanks to Tanya for giving me this reward . .

No doubt there will probably be something on here that I dont like and end up changing, but for now hopefully it will serve its purpose :)