Plan for today

My plan for today is to try and get all my teacher presents done! A big plan but I'm going to try.
I have never left it so late to get them done before. If I do get them finished I will photograph them and upload them on here.
There is so much stuff to be done around here that my head is in a whirl. The Christmas rush has well and truly started but I refuse to let myself stress out about it this year - I absolutely refuse!

Here are a few more layouts for you to look at while I go and start those teacher pressies.

I had this hideous green paper with a white border I had got from who knows where and was going to toss it when I realised it would be perfect for one of the squillions of footy layouts I seem to do. The bouncing footy lines are pen of course, not stitching!

These are my fabulous scrapping buddies on one of our weekends away. The font and frames are from the Hannah Montana cricut cartridge. I was really pleased with how this double layout turned out!

The coach isn't a weirdo trying to kiss Sebastian because it is his DAD! I like how the title turned out even though I used lots of different lettering it still seems to work.

The Easter Bunny must have a very big pouch as he always leaves such interesting pressies behind for us!

Thanks for looking.Please leave a comment so I know there is someone out there!!!

 Sebastian and Georgia in the pool with one of their wonderful swimming teachers, Natasha. Georgie looks so little!

 I have just now realised that I forgot to stick the journalling on this one - whoops!

I love putting rubons on photos - they always look great!

Cut these letters on the cricut and was really pleased with them. I can't remember where I got the big footy diecut shape from but I wish I could! I love the grass paper too but I can't remember where it came from either. I always need footy stuff so if you ever see any around please let me know.

Sebastian and his best mate at footy Zak. They both look so much older now.

 My boys at jumper presentation for season 2009.

 Without the magical cropping of digital photos mine would look so ordinary. Cropping is particularly great for turning an ordinary sports photo with bare patches of grass and out of focus moving players, into a terrific photo by chopping all the dull stuff off. And I couldn't survive without my all important delete button to get rid of the evidence of all the dud photos I take! It's these little moments in time that I will treasure forever as although Sam wanted to keep playing his extremely poor eyesight meant that continuing to play as the boys all got bigger and the game got more physical was just out of the question.

Photos and layouts like these will help to remind Sam of all the fun he had, the skills he developed, to his credit to a much higher standard that I ever thought he would, the friends he made, and that every now and then he would do everything right, and be in the right spot on the ground at the right time, to look like a champion!!! Good on you Sam!

Sam is now continuing his role at our fabulous footy club - Werribee Centrals Junior Football Club, by being a timekeeper at all the matches his Dad coaches and his younger brother plays in, and helping his Mum with the club emails and club website!!! Which I haven't actually started looking after yet but it is on my very long to do list before footy season starts again! Phew!

Whoops!

Sorry, made a mistake, the flower crystals are 5 for $1 and I said they were 10 for a dollar! Whoops!
And I do have them in a few different colours, pale blue, aqua as shown in photo, mauve, red. please see my ebay listing if you are interested.

Here are a couple of layouts I did earlier this year. They don't have much on them in the way of embellishments or anything as I thought the photos just said it all.

Georgie looks like such a baby in these photos, She has grown up so much since then!

I also completed this double layout a while ago and even when I look at it now I am very happy with how it turned out. Sometimes they just fall into place so quickly. And at other times you can agonise over a layout and then when it is finished it still disappoints you!

It was fiddly to highlight the journalling with the little letters but I was happy with the result when it was finished.

And didn't I warn you that I like bright colours on my layouts? Perhaps I should warn people to put their sunglasses on before they take a look!!!

A very productive Melbourne Cup Day

I cannot believe I have just typed half my blog post and looked up and realised there is nothing there because the keyboard USB fell out......

So I shall calmly and purposefully start again without screeching too loudly and waking up the children who are finally asleep.......

For the life of me I can't remember when I last picked the winner of the Melbourne Cup, which is what I did yesterday. I love the races and having a bet but over the years I have had less and less time to indulge myself, as well as having a husband who indulges himself to the max at this time of year (easily indulges himself enough for twenty people) so I don't really bother much anymore. I had $5 each way on the winner Americain, and what a fabulouly exciting race it was, and I cheered that horse all the way down the straight to the finish line for my $5 each way. So I did have a win yesterday, and Adam collected my winnings for me today. But it all pales into insignificance compared with what I achieved yesterday - my sister Barbara and I reupholstered my hideously, disgustingly filthy kitchen chairs!!!

Those friends that know me know that I have a large light timbered, extendable kitchen table which was originally in the dining room in this house. We bought a new dining setting several years ago and moved the large extendable table into the kitchen. The chairs have ALWAYS been horrible. they were upholstered with this urky creamy beige colour (so not me) and were always intended to be recovered but it was one of those things that never happened and they just got murkier and more and more hideously disgusting until I could bare it no longer, and now they are brilliant, in bright canvas stripes of turquoise, navy, lime and white! I will upload photos as soon as I get the chance.  And to say we reupholstered them is making it sound a grander task than it was as my kitchen chairs only have fabric on the seats so that is actually all we had to do but it still took us all afternoon to complete them all. Sam, my son, was chatting to me this morning and informed me that he thought the chairs looked fantastic but of course that they don't go with the light fittings anymore so what am I going to do about that now!!! I was so pleased that he liked them and then utterly deflated by the end of his statement when I realised that he was right and I had made a new problem for myself but at least the chairs look fabulous and amzingly, really lift the spirit of the room! I suppose this all seems very small and insignificant but to me completing anything these days is a major achievement, let alone having the motivation to get moving and do it, hence my reason for bragging about it here!

And so on Friday night, when I have some friends over for the first of many Friday crop nights I hope  - my scrapping buddies will be able to put their bottoms down on these gorgeous new seats instead of worrying about what diseases might be lurking on the old ones!!!

And today I even scotchguarded them - oh happy day!

This is Georgie dressed up for book character day at school. Thank God for chipboard letters! And yes, of course, she is Goldilocks!

It really has been such a busy, busy week. I finally had an overdue order of Glue Glider Pro Permatac cartridges arrive early in the week, contacted all my previous customers about them, and they have been going like hotcakes on ebay! My etsy shop has had more views this week than it has ever had, thanks to the facebook and blog crosslinking I think, and I've managed to upload sime extras into there as well. Lots more lace and trims and ribbons have arrived to be sorted for the shop in a box, a bag and a basket so everything seems to be just humming along. Why does all of this seem to be falling into place lately? It doesn't feel all over the place and itty bitty like it used to, it really is all coming together. Is it the blog that's helping me to sort all this out? I shall have to ponder this all a bit more I think.

And to any of my friends reading this post if you are planning on coming over on this Friday night to scrap can you please let me know by email!

And here are my gorgeous three, Sam 13, Sebastian, 10 and Georgia 7 all ready to go to the footy with their Dad a couple of months ago. Sadly, they have no taste, so they barrack for Carlton, but you can't have everything!
Do you think they are used to their mad mother photographing them all the time?