RAK Winner & Other Stuff

Okay ... I did a draw last night for the last RAK winner for my immunity blogging :-) Well actually Lyndon did the drawing cause my crazy little assistant was in bed! Congratulations ...

Angel Gurl

I know your address so I will pop a little something in the mail for you either today or tomorrow. ;-)

Have you seen the latest challenge for Project Scrap Away!??? Oh my it really is getting harder!

Here is your challenge this week. Show us how you use your conventional scrapbook tool in an unconventional way. The most UNCONVENTIONAL idea wins! You will be required to show us the step by step photos and the finished product!

I have an idea, but am waiting on clarification on a few things. So can't really start till then. In the meantime something else might present itself!!

I have another Woo Hoo for yesterday too ... last night Aaron did poos on the potty! MAJOR achievement :-) So proud of him. Of course Lyndon is taking the credit because he put him on the potty, but that's okay, he can. I don't mind :-) (But have decided after cleaning the potty I am going to try and skip the potty bit and get him to try and do them straight on the toilet!!!)

Last night we went out and Maddison wore her new dress from Nana ... so these pics are for you Nana :-) One of our "Aunty's" here said it's very provocative! But it has it's good points, it's short so she can still crawl properly wearing it and it's cool! I love the pic of her pulling the edge of the skirt up a bit to show a bit more leg!! hee hee







Okay, I am off to check my tool stash in case I have missed one that could be a goodie!

Woo Hoot

Wednesday again! Man the weeks are fair zipping along.

First up with the woo hoots would be having Lyndon home all week :-) And yesterday surprising us and coming home at lunch time :-)

New Water filter has been installed so now all our water is filtered :-)

Still in with Project Scrap Away ... Challenge 11 comes out tonight. And here's what Teresa Collins said about MY cultural layout -

"This project is truly original. I don’t think I have ever seen anything so innovative and creative in telling the story on a page layout. I loved how she used the various mediums for her embellishments. "

(I wonder if she was trying to say she'd never seen anyone put so many things on one page before (hawhaw). There was quite a few more I wanted to put on actually, but I couldn't get them to rhyme with anything so had to leave them off!!) :-)

I think that's about it actually.

Last week (Tuesday to be exact) I got these 2 LO's done and on Saturday afternoon I made Maddison's birthday thank you cards! I know amazing aye, haven't written in them yet though! Hope to get them done today or tomorrow and then get them sent off.

These LO's are really simple, but I'm pleased to have them done. I still have SOOOO many photos left in that big pile! I really want to do some more for Maddison's album, but ... you know how it is.

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Also have to do a draw for a RAK from the last immunity blogging. Will do that tonight and post tomorrow the details :-)

PSA Challenge 10 LO

Well here's my entry for Scrap-n-Crop's Project Scrap Away's challenge 10. The theme was to scrap with a cultural theme.

First up though - I want to thank everyone who helped me blog for immunity. You were awesome and I still can't believe the fantastic response I got. :-) So thanks heaps. I had the choice again last night to chose whether to use immunity or not and after studying the LO's (which are all great) I just couldn't chose to use the immunity to make sure I stayed in the contest. It just didn't sit right with me. I'd like my LO to be judged on it's own merit, not just because I want to stay in. So I won't be blogging for immunity anymore (that's if I am still in the contest!!). Sort of seems pointless when I just can't bring myself to say "yes I'll take immunity". I'll still blog about PSA, but not to get more points for immunity.

So here's my blurb about my LO:

This challenge has made me homesick! Kiwiana (a name given to sum up all aspects of New Zealand culture) was the inspiration for my LO. In 1991 McDonalds launched a new burger in NZ called the Kiwiburger. The advert for this had a really catchy tune and listed lots of Kiwiana that are part of the New Zealand way of life. I took parts of the jingle and also added other things that reflected what being a "Kiwi" means to me.

Not having any New Zealand themed papers in my stash (and being too far away from NZ to purchase any) I decided to make my own. Even though I don't have a drop of Maori blood in my veins I wanted to include part of the Maori culture on my LO, so I chose a flax weave serviette and mod podged it to white cardstock. I also drew a koru free hand on red cardstock and edged it in black. (The koru is the Maori name given to the newborn, unfurling fern frond and symbolises new life, growth, strength and peace. It is an integral symbol in Maori carving and tattoos, it's also an iconic symbol of New Zealand flora.)

My LO includes Kiwi slang, the Kiwiana words are in rhyme form and it's designed so that people think about New Zealand culture and ask questions. To add interest and a little more texture to my LO I used funflock on the sheep, added glitter to the fish and butterfly and created the jandals out of corrugated card. I used dimensional magic on the title letters and foamed out all words on the layout.

Journaling:
What being a Kiwi means to me …
All Blacks, Thermal Dacks, Walking Tracks
Gumboots, Punga Shoots, Kiwifruits
Pohutukawa, Maori Haka
Hot Pools, Rugby Balls, Snapper Schools
World Peace, Woolly Fleece, Raising Beasts
Silver Fern, Sun Burn
Jandals, Sandals, Coromandels
Swandri's, Butterflies, Fishing Flies
Marmite, She'll Be Right
Buzzybees, Cabbage Trees, Paua Please
Kauri Tree, Kiwi, L&P
Whitebait, Good On Ya Mate

So what do you think? Think it sums up being a Kiwi for you? :-) I'd love to hear your opinion.

Tuesday ...

Well Tuesday is nearly over, and I am planning on an early night (well early for me!!). Last night was really late. I stayed up to do as much as I possibly could on my cultural LO for Project Scrap Away, so all I had to do today was stick it all down. Was brushing my teeth at 2.15am and Aaron woke crying, so I lay down with him on his bed for nearly half an hour and Maddison woke! Sigh ... so quietly left Aaron and fed her and while I was doing that I heard Aaron get out of bed and disappear into our room!!! So he spent the rest of the night in our bed. I didn't get a lot of sleep. Anyway that's life with contests and kids huh! :-)

Finished my LO though and am quite pleased with it. After all my worrying about it! Thanks everyone for your suggestions and ideas you gave me. I ran with the Kiwiana theme. Will post it on my blog later on either tonight or tomorrow morning.

Here's some pics of what the kids got up to yesterday. While I was doing my hair in the morning Aaron kept asking me to build him a house. But I couldn't be bothered with the cushion one as he destroys it too quickly! So made them this one in the lounge and it kept them entertained for a bit. In the afternoon Maddison opened her last 2 presents from us which were little board books, as you can see Aaron is the expert on present opening and possessing! He kept the ones that were interesting to him of course and Maddison could "share" the rest!!

Today Lyndon surprised us and came home at lunch time :-) The kids were so excited (and me too of course). And the other exciting news today was we got the water filter installed on our main water line, so hopefully now we have crystal clear water all the time! The guys that installed it said the dirty water problem was probably because the building had steel tanks instead of plastic ones! Nice.

Thought I'd share with you a couple of things Aaron has said in the last couple of days. Yesterday he drew all over my craft shelving unit with coloured pencils. I WAS NOT AMUSED! So he got sent to his room for time out while I spent about 20 minutes with an eraser trying to get it all off. I was reasonably successful, there's still a bit there if you look closely. Anyway I was just about finished and he comes in all happy and takes a look and says to me "Mummy all fixed, good job Mummy"! Unbelievable.

Tonight after tea I made some custard and we had it with some strawberries and icecream and Aaron had a taste and declared "It's okay Daddy"! Huh as if I would dish him up something inedible!

Monday Madness

Well it's been a busy and interesting few days.

Maddison had a great birthday party, but Saturday night was terrible, she woke so many times, had a really high temp then vomited about 4-5 times. Nice. So needless to say I didn't get a lot of sleep. Took her to the Dr's on Sunday and of course her temperature had dropped by then, so they just said it's a "wirus" (or in English a virus!). Her temp was up and down all Sunday, so I just kept her home and she had a couple of really good sleeps and was in bed by 6.30pm and asleep by 6.32pm! :-) She's better today.

So with all the going's on I haven't made very much progress at all on my Cultural LO for Project Scrap Away. Doesn't help that it took me AGES to decide just what I was going to do, then I've been too busy with other things (or too tired) to do anything. So haven't got good vibes about this one. That might change tomorrow, but right now, it's scary how much I still have to do on it. So if you'd like to help me out with immunity, that would be GREAT :-) Please see this post here for instructions. Thanks heaps. Also, check out Project Scrap Away's blog here too as they have some mini challenges for all blog readers and you can win prizes. Check it out.

School holidays started today too, so that's been fun! My afternoon is not my own anymore, so another reason why no progress has been made on my LO. Aaron has done several really naughty things today, and had time out on his bed, but hasn't seemed to have changed his attitude much! (breathe deep Rachel!)

And for those that were asking if Aaron giving Maddison Thomas the Tank Engine stuff for her birthday helped with the sharing, the answer is NO! Sounded good in theory, but the reality is ... he spent all Friday and much of Saturday with her new little trolley with blocks on it and had it loaded up with all her other new toys that he fancied and was running round like a wild thing taunting her with it and saying "No Maddison share!!!" Honestly! I ask you ... what are we going to do with him???

So here's some photos of the Birthday Girl on Friday and Saturday. :-)

New trike from Grandad & Nana (Aaron has a red & yellow one, but prefers pink now!!!). Bob and Wendy toys from Grandad & Grandma, she really liked them. A cooks outfit from Uncle Matt & Aunty Kate. Trolley from us. The cake was in the shape of a flower if you can't make it out in the photo!! :-) A last minute job on Friday night ... put it in the oven around 11pm! Decorated it on Sat morning. The rest of the cake pics are self explanatory.

PSA Challenge 10

Well the new challenge is out ... #10 for Scrap-n-Crop's Project Scrap Away. The theme for this challenge is:

"For Challenge 10 the remaining contestants is to scrap with a cultural theme! Anything cultural at all!!! For us Malaysians, it could be celebrating our colourful festivals such as our Chinese New Year or Deepavali festivals. Talk about your culture or rediscover your roots, scrap all about where you came from."

Now I really wished I had a New Zealand scrapbook store next door! Oh well, I will just have to use my imagination and get a bit creative. Fingers crossed that inspiration will strike big time!! This weekend is going to be pretty busy too with Maddison's birthday party, so not sure how much I will get done before Saturday, and next week is school holidays! Great ... I can just see Aaron wanting to be sooooo helpful (not).

I'm still blogging for immunity since I chose not to use it for the last challenge. So if you'd like to help me out that would be wonderful and VERY much appreciated.

The points system works like this:

• 2 points scored if my blog post on PSA Challenge 10 has more than 5 comments.
• 2 points scored for every third party (that's you my dear readers) that mentions me and Project Scrap Away (including links) on your own blog and leaves a comment on Project Scrap Away's Immunity blog post (you just need to write your name + Rachel's friend and a link back to your blog).

I've got more RAK's lined up too if you need an incentive :-)

Thanks heaps.

Woo Hoot Wednesday

Wednesday again!

Woo Hoots today are:

I'm still in the Project Scrap Away contest. Sort of unbelievable really. Challenge 10 comes out tonight, so that will be interesting, the challenges seem to be getting harder (well for me anyway!).

Lyndon gets home tonight (hopefully, otherwise tomorrow).

Maddison turns 1 on Friday! ONE ... where has the year gone?? This morning while she was sleeping Aaron helped me wrap a few of her presents (namely the Thomas the Tank Engine stuff I got for Aaron to give her). The idea is he will realise that they are hers and not his and she'll have a train to play with that's her very own! (hopefully it works!!)

I've tidied up my scrap desk a little bit, so it's got some clear space on it other than just where my craft mat is! :-) We'll see how long that lasts.

It's amazing what you find when you tidy up actually. Found this LO I did a couple of months ago, but never finished because I didn't have stickers for the title. So completed that last night.

Okay, Maddison has just woken from a 2 and a half hour sleep, so better give her lunch then I am off to the post office. Hoping it won't be such a long wait today! So if you are waiting on mail from me ... it's being posted today :-)

My Entry for PSA Challenge 9

Well here's my entry for Project Scrap Away's Challenge 9 ... it's very muted in colour compared to everyone else's creations! But I'm pleased with it and that's what counts huh! It sure looks better than the original anyway! hee hee

The challenge was to take one of your first LO's and give it a make over. So this LO was created in 2003 ... not a great photo and really bad LO! Ahh the days before digital ... obviously felt I had to scrap even bad photos. Looks like the oval with the title has been hand cut (nice!)

I cut the flowers from the patterned paper and using a versamark pen went round the edges of the petals and leaves and embossed them with Stamp-it's antique gold enchanted embossing powder. I painted the chipboard letters and then embossed them too with the same embossing powder. It looks much better in real life!

I'm still in the competition! Check out the results here.

I didn't use my immunity for this challenge, so I'll still be blogging for immunity. Will do a post about that tomorrow.

And the winner is .......

This wasn't rigged I promise!

I did another draw this morning for a RAK for those that left comments on my blog, their own blogs and Project Scrap Away's blog to help me out with immunity for this contest and Aaron drew out ...

Grandma's name!

(He was puzzled when I said it was Grandma's name because there's no G in it! hee hee. I purposely put the blog name on it so he wouldn't pick out the G too!)

So Grandma I will pop something in the post for you today :-)

And a HUGE thank you again to all you ladies helping me out with immunity.

Observations ...

Here's a catch up of the kids and other bits and bobs from the last couple of days :-)

Caution - long post and photo heavy!!

I've learnt a few things this week, especially in regard to potty training! Even if Aaron says no he doesn't need to do wee's take him to the loo anyway. And if he's "fiddling" and still says no, take him anyway! On Friday he did really well at school, and came home and did good too. He sat on the floor in the kitchen and read a story to Maddison (that's the latest craze, reading to Maddison like the teacher reads books at school and he keeps telling her to "come back Maddison, sit down, listen with ears Maddison" Hee hee I have to keep turning my face away from him cause I'm smiling away! He's such a bossy boots!).

So anyway he read this counting book about 8 times then trotted off to do something else and I was busy getting tea. Honestly it was only about 5 minutes he was out of my sight and I went to check up on them ... they were in their bedroom and Aaron had obviously needed to do wees so did ... it was like a fire hydrant had broken in there! I didn't take pics, was too busy trying to salvage books and get Maddison up out of it! She was trying to crawl in it and was slipping and sliding everywhere. Thankfully (have to be thankful about some things!) it was only wee's! Sigh ... at that stage I just put a nappy on him while I cleaned up!

Here's some pics of Aaron reading - 2nd pic is him saying "moo" as there were cows on that page! Nice lips :-)




Something else I already knew, but was reinforced ... you have to have good legs to be able to look great with footless tights! (snigger) Wearing nappys with a short top doesn't really help the look either! heehee

This pic is of Maddison wearing a gorgeous little singlet from Nana. Real glad I got a pic of her in it before we went out! Because 2 minutes out the door she did this big vege spit up! Nice.

Saturday afternoon I baked a cake to take to mtg ... It's Carols bd today :-) So kids were VERY excited to watch the beater go "round and round Mummy"! Aaron kept asking for it to go faster! He didn't understand that I didn't want it going fast when I had just put the flour in! (You can tell he doesn't clean up the mess can't you.)

Aaron had the beater to lick and Maddison had a spoon with a little bit of mixture on it and when she finished that she'd just grab the side of the beater and come away with a very sticky chocolaty hand!




Yep she's standing all on her own there.

And yes she's licking the floor ... can't waste the mixture you know!

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Love this pic of her, she looks like a little raccoon :-)
So here's my cake, so glad for cake tins that make the cake look SOOO much better when you tip them out :-) Didn't ice it, just put icing sugar on the top. It had a layer of raspberries in the middle, but I think it could have done with a few more!!

And here's the kids playing on the keyboard while I cleaned up the floor, the cupboard doors and everything else that was covered in chocolate cake mixture :-) Wonder how many scrapbook layouts I could do with all the photos I took hee hee Maddison's nodding her head away to the beat Aaron had playing.

Here's the stuff I got in the rainbow swap and the layout I did with it. You had to use as much as you could on the LO, but there were 3 pieces of paper and a tag I didn't use. Thought the page looked enough like a Christmas tree like this!!

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So ... working on my re-do layout for Challenge 9 for Project Scrap Away. Must say it looks completely different from the original layout. Photo still isn't the best (sorry Mum, but it isn't), Anyway hopefully your eyes will be drawn to what else is on the page!! That's the plan anyway.