RAK Give Away / Brad Challenge

I cleaned out my "Bits & Pieces" in my scrap stash today. You know, all the "other stuff" apart from paper and cardstock. Amongst the ribbons, buttons, flowers and all the rest... I found an incredible amount of BRADS!

Brads: split pins with funky little bits of awesomeness attached.

I nearly passed out when I found my stash of brads... there were SO many and there were even some un-opened packets! What a waste! ANYWAY... I have a challenge for you.

Make just ONE card using at least ONE brad in an interesting way.

Here is my take on the challenge:

To be in the running for one of three RAK PACKS (yes they do include brads, yes there is other good stuff in there too, don't worry IT'S NOT JUST BRADS!) you will need to either:

1. Leave a Comment in reply to this post ALL ABOUT HOW MUCH YOU LOVE/HATE/ALWAYS USE/NEVER USE BRADS.

or

2. Leave a Comment in reply to this post which links us up to YOUR CARD that you made using a brad.

There are three packs to give away and you've got to be in it to win it! I can't wait to hear your brad stories and see your braddy cards!

Hope you're having a fantastic weekend.

Today's Layouts

Still Alive!!

Yes, I am still alive & still scrapping.
Between the RAK that Ant sent me, the stuff that I should pick up from Lee-Anne over the next coupla days and the photos that I am picking up from the shops this afternoon I will definitely have some new layouts to share within the next week or so.

Sorry I've been slack in posting comments on your blogs... rest assured i am still reading most of them!! I'm still around. LOL.

Happy Valentine's Day! :)

I almost forgot HOW?!

Well, it is CYBERCROP weekend all around!! Scrap Therapy & Scrap Budz ANDDDD the first challenge went up over at BW2 (where i am a CT Member) so I've been scrapping like mad... for the first time in weeks! I feel like I've forgotten how to do it :(

PINK is a card for the INCHIES Challenge over at Scrap Budz.

That's My Girl is a layout I did for Scrap Therapy's Stars & Jewels Challenge.

LOVE is a card I made for a card challenge at Scrap Budz.

To Me, You Are Perfect is a layout based on the inspiration of LOVE ACTUALLY that Relsi put up for a Scrap Therapy Challenge in this month's Cyber Crop and last but not least is my rushed example for the BW2 Challenge using the colours Pink & Teal. It is me back when I was 20 and still so young & naive!! Haha.

Toot!! Toot!! - CT MEMBER WOOHOO!!

I'm really excited because I've been announced as one of the Creative Team Members for a new challenge blog run by the lovely Eve from Scrap Budz.
Check it all out here: http://blackwith2challenge.blogspot.com/

So Much Love

I love my class. They're far from perfect, but I love them to pieces already. It's going to be a great year. 26 amazingly different personalities. They're mine. I'll do my best to get the best out of them because they deserve it. I am soooo happy to finally FINALLY be doing what I've been working towards for so very long. This is IT! :D

ANOTHER award

Well, I've had my first few days hanging out at school, setting up my room and going to professional development sessions all over the place. We've got more of the same until Wednesday when we get... CHILDREN!
LOL!
That's what it's all about... hahaha.
So far so good, I feel like a part of the school already and everybody's been really nice! :)

Anyway, I received this blog award from both Ant & Eve soooOOoo I'm passing it on to:

Ant

Eve

Sandra

Lea

Sarah

Congratulations to these FIVE lovely ladies!

It's the End of the World as We Know It

It's the end of the world as we know it... and I feel fine!!

There are a LOT of things changing in my life at the moment, but the biggest one is that as of tomorrow, I have my first full time teaching job. This week is only professional development and setting up the room and what-not but it is the start of something really different and big and comes with a new set of people, experiences and challenges and i'm sooooo excited but soooo freaked out about how time-consuming it will be. After five years of the uni/casual work laidback lifestyle I've now got a "real job." I've been warning my non-teacher friends (assuming that my teacher-friends will understand!) that I'm about to drop right off the planet cos I'll be so busy.... so I guess I should put that on here too.

I may be a bit slow on the updates for a while, especially as I get used to my new routine!

I'm usually fairly organised (even if i seem stressed and chaotic, i know what i'm doing!) and this time it is no different... I've got a plan of attack for how to manage housework, wedding plans, scrapbooking, fitness & fun as well as work... now I've just got to implement it and hope it all works out for real.

*jumps in the deep end*

*waves*

Seeya!!

More Layouts...

The "Together" one is a lot more visually busy than most of my more recent layouts. Not sure if i've pulled it off alright. Polka dots... well... i just love them. :)

No Escaping It...

There was no escaping it. Today was GOING to be a Scrapping Day for me!
I went to the Post Office and had received 3 items:
1. A present from Ant (yes, scrapping related!)
2. My first subbie copy of Scrapbooking Memories (courtesy of DF's thoughtful Christmas gift)
3. An envelope full of spotlight ads.

All signs pointed to scrapping!

I really love the three bright layouts i did today... and i'm not too fond of the Christmas Eve Eve double layout i did last night. I STILL HATE SCRAPPING CHRISTMAS STUFF. *shudders* I typed up my journaling for that one, just for something different! Anyway, hope you're having a fantastic week :)

Back Together Night

Well, due to the flooding we experienced yesterday morning, Ben & I cancelled the Young Adults Group get together that was supposed to be at our place. THEN as the weather let up a little, Hannah suggested we continue on with the night but hold it at the church. So we did that and ate pizza, played pictionary (my first time!) and also played twister (my first time!). It was so much fun catching up with everyone after a lot of them went away for holidays. I love this photo of Cat & I playing twister... props to Stephen for grabbing my camera when i wasn't looking and then standing on a chair to take this.

Ooooohh and yesterday Ben & I organised readers for our wedding ceremony. Nicole is reading the poem "The Art of a Good Marriage," Cat is reading "With God As Your Partner" which is the poem that she gave me along with her recipes for inclusion in my Kitchen Tea album annnnndddd, of course, we're having the Love chapter from 1 Corinthians 13 and Ben chose Stephen to read that one. YAY so exciting!! Everything is falling into place :)

Flooded In!!

Here are some photos from just around the corner from our place...

I might have to make a mad grocery dash later on... not sure whether i should go to the supermarket the long way or to the corner store the ridiculously long way. Yes, i'm serious, i think the corner store is now further away than it should be.

Yikes!

I haven't done any scrapping in the last few days, have been too busy cleaning the house.
Young Adult's Group is starting back up again tomorrow night AT OUR PLACE for a casual catchup session involving Pizza & the Nintendo Wii. Hopefully the catchup will inspire the others to get back into the regular meetings at church... it's been too long, this holiday break! I'm having serious YADs Group withdrawal!!
The next few days will be my last days of freedom before... professional development and... EEP!...SCHOOL! I wish the weather would get better soon so I can make the most of the last bits of summer.... i want to go swimming, i want to go walking... there's so much i want to doooooOOooo but meh... i'm just having a whinge.
I'm starting to get really excited about having a class of my own and am even getting used to the idea of having year 7s. It turns out that another girl i know also got a job at this school so that will be nice, having a familiar face in the staffroom. Anyway, I best get back to cleaning... yikes!

L.O.V.E

I'm currently working on some bits & pieces for the wedding...

This, along with (hopefully) a photo of us (with a frame i'll decorate) and a pretty box full of note cards for people to write to us on (instead of a guest book...that way I can take them and glue them and turn it into a SCRAPBOOK!) will all go on a table somewhere at our reception. That's the plan, anyway.

The Proximity Award

Thankyou Shimano (Christine) for giving me this award... now, what do I do with it?!?!

Pass it on! :D

This is called The Proximity Award."These blogs invest and believe in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

1. http://antonellar.blogspot.com/

2.http://annieandrex.blogspot.com/

3.http://buttonsandbowsandmore.blogspot.com/

4.http://scrappinshimano.blogspot.com/

5.http://ramblings-of-relsi.blogspot.com/

6.http://alliecollyer.typepad.com/stuff/

7.http://sarward.blogspot.com/

8.http://theycallmethescrapnut.blogspot.com/

Congratulations Ant, Annette, Sandra, Christine, Relsi, Allie, Sarah & Julie! :)

Cupcake Challenge for YOU!

I'm not good in the kitchen.

I have never been good in the kitchen. Ask my high school home-ec teachers and they'll only be too happy to share the details of just how 'not-good'

With that in mind, I'll tell you a secret. Today I bought another cupcake book. I say another because I already own a few. I like looking at cupcakes, I think they're very cute and the epitome of innocence... and they're usually pink! The Australian Women's Weekly Easy Cupcakes by Colour showcases all sorts of cute cupcake styles and gives instructions on how to make them... that will come in handy if I ever feel that way inclined.

ANYway, i was particularly taken by this page.... and was inspired to create a scrapbooking layout. I used a lot of pink & white as well as a butterfly flourish! So, my challenge for you is to draw some inspiration from this page in my new cookbook and create a layout.

If you take up my challenge, please post it up on your blog and link it back to this post so that I can see what you've come up with!! Have fun :)

Challenge Four is MINE. ALL MINE!

Happy New Year!!

Just thought I'd give the January Cybercrop at Scrap Therapy a plug seeing as I am a Summer DT (for this month only, while the REAL DT members are on holiday). My challenge is a card challenge. http://www.scraptherapy.com.au/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5872&highlight=

I had a stupid moment and ended up making TWO sets of cards for the sample. Here is a peek at one of the sets. Can you work out what the requirements for the challenge are, just by looking at them? Probably not. So you better go click that link above and check it all out, hey. And while you're there, why not join in on the other challenges that are going on at the moment?

Scrapped This... and this...

Wow, you can tell when i'm having a rather scrap-happy day and haven't really done much else, hey? This is my 3rd post today!

I've made these items as part of the Scrapping with Kaisercraft Competition over at Scrap Therapy:

OH AND THIS IS JUST MY BLING BOX! The gold box had choccies in it for Christmas. I begged and pleaded with Ben to let me transfer the choccies so that i could have the box... and so I added some thickers & pearls and ta-da... BLING BOX!

BEN IS A LEGEND!!

My darling fiance` Ben is a deadset LEGEND. As part of my Christmas present he got me a subscription to Scrapbooking Memories. Today I got an awesome pizza box of free Kaisercraft goodies as the free gift for subscribing. WOOHOO!

It will be a challenge, that's for sure! They're not my usual colours or styles to scrap with. BUT THEY'RE FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. Yippeee!!!

We're all going on a SUMMER CLEANING SPREE!

We're not going to Tinaroo this year... I'm a bit sad about that (it was beginning to be a tradition to go to the platypus campsite at the dam for NYE) but I honestly don't care what the awesome foursome does at this time of year, as long as we're together. I really do like spending NYE with those guys. It's a special night... remembering the year that was and looking forward to the new year... and what better way to do that than with your best mates who were there for the best and the worst and will continue to do so the following year.

No, instead of going to Tinaroo we're going to a Taipans game (Annie's a newly obsessed fan!) and then apparently coming back to our place for quiet drinks. OUR PLACE?! eEEEEeeep!! That means cleaning!! I'm sick at the moment too so it is quite difficult to suck up the energy to clean at this time but it sooooooo desperately needs to be done. I figure if i tackle little areas at a time it'll all be fine. I hope!

Boxing Day

Here are some recent layouts. Some I made today and others I made on Christmas Eve.

I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas and didn't get totally wiped out at the sales today!

I'm currently working out who to vote for in the Triple J Hottest 100. I love this time of year!

Cast your vote here:

http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/

The Fantastic Five

Apparently it's physically impossible to get a nice photo of the five of us in the dark by ourselves. That's okay. LOL. Our numerous attempts are rather funny but definitely not our finest photographic moments. WHO CARES?! This lot... *sigh* ...getting sentimental here. These are my best friends in the whole world EVER and i'd be stuffed without them. When i talk about my mates who are closer than family IT'S THESE ONES that i'm talking about. So much love!

It's Christmas-Eve-Eve!!

I would just like to wish everybody who follows my blog (the whole like, um, one or two of you) a fantastic Christmas-Eve-Eve. This is by far my favourite day of the year....hmm... okay, second favourite, to my birthday. C.E.E is an annual tradition involving Ben, Russ, Annie & I (and sometimes Russ's brother Adam as well) exchanging gifts and usually having dinner out together as well.

It's the holiday made for spending time with, giving gifts to and sharing a meal with best mates who may as well be your family...

I have a mission in mind for tonight. I MUST GET A PHOTO OF THE AWESOME FOURSOME. Deadset, 2008 is almost over and there is not one photo of the four of us together in this calendar year. It's a keen scrapper's nightmare.

ANYWAY:

In the last two days I've scrapped three layouts and an OTP album.

Two of the layouts are with photos from the wedding we just went to on the weekend and the other is a photo of Ben & I being silly together a few weeks ago when we were in town with our best mates. The OTP album is going to be a Christmas present for the minister at our church. It's not very Christmasy and I'm not 100% finished the journaling (i still feel like there's something missing) but I think it's pretty cool considering I did the whole thing on Sunday night... stayed up pretty late, I was on a roll and there was no way I was leaving it so that I could forget my plans by the morning!! Have had that far too many times before. I am entering the OTP album in the Scrapping With Kaisercraft competition over at Scrap Therapy. I can't wait to see all the entries, I have a feeling it's going to be HUGE.

Weekend in Malanda for Melissa & Damien's Wedding

This afternoon we got back from a weekend away for Melissa & Damien's wedding up on the Tablelands. It was an absolutely beautiful wedding and very, very true to THEM. Loved it. I cannot WAIT to get these photos developed and to start scrapping them... very exciting stuff!

I caught the bouquet and Ben caught the garter...I wasn't sure if we even qualified as "single" seeing as we're ENGAGED and have been together for 5 and a half years but our mates insisted we were fine to enter and well... I didn't even TRY to catch it... the flowers just came hurtling towards me and i extended an arm and plonk. Mine. Epic moment :)

Impressions of a Beginning Teacher...

I spent this morning in my room. My classroom.

I was trying to make it a bit more "mine" but there really wasn't that much I could do considering that a) pest controllers & cleaners are still going to come in between now and when we go back and they will move everything around and b) the teacher from next door has all her stuff in my room cos she's waiting on someone else to move out of her room so that she can move in. Basically all i did was move some furniture around (ripped up some skin on the tip of my big toe in the process...YOUCH!), set up my desk, spray&wiped the cupboards behind the whiteboard as they were absolutely filthy with dust and then sat and ate chocolate while reading over syllabus documents.

Feeling Very Special!

Awww i'm feeling all special cos i got a blog award from Ant. SoooOOoo I'm passing it along...

For the award:

1. You have to pass it on to 5 other fabulous blogs.

2. You have to list 5 of your fabulous addictions.

3. On your post of receiving this award, make sure you include the person that gave you the award and link back to their blog.

So heres my five fabulous addictions:

1. Chocolate... even though i'm lactose intolerant. Don't think about this too much! :)

2. The Internet... I spend far too much time on here.

3. My fiance` Ben.

4. Scrapbooking

5. Driving... broom broom!

Five Fabulous Blogs

1. Antttttttttttttttttttttonella

http://antonellar.blogspot.com/

2. Belindaaaaaaaaaaaaa

http://belindasescape.blogspot.com/

3. Annettttttttttttttttttttte

http://annieandrex.blogspot.com/

4. Reeeeelsiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

http://ramblings-of-relsi.blogspot.com/

5. Tamaraaaaaaaaaaaaa

http://princess-tamara.blogspot.com/

Have a fabulous day! :)

FINALLY!

Four & a half years of uni, a couple of months of relief work and now finally FINALLY I have a class of my own for the first six months of next year. Year 7. LOL. I can't wait! :D

Christmas Presents I've Made Recently

Here are Annie & Russell's Christmas presents I've made for them.. i'll get them something bought as well but yeah... i wanted to try making something just for a more personal touch, i guess. I'm only posting these up cos i am fairly confident they don't know I've got a blog and consequently won't see them... Annie's looks better but Russ's is more personal... the white bit of folded cardstock is a letter... it's not so much that it's private but rather cos there was so much of it it didn't FIT!

Annie's album:

Annie's Frame:


Russell's Album:

Yeah that's one and a half of those albums... i wish i'd planned russ's album better before i started it.. i stuffed it up so badly and didn't have spare paper and oh, it was drama after drama making it. I had to put it away for a few weeks so that i couldn't see it and wouldn't be tempted to change it again!

SO yeah... those are the "personal presents" my best mates are getting this Christmas...