New adventure about to happen

I thought I would start updating my blog  a little bit more regularly. Its been 14 months. OOPs.

Back in July I did an online photography course as I was given a Canon DSLR camera for my 50th birthday and I loved every minute of it. Yes I was very critical and self doubting about my photo's. Still am. but there you go no one is perfect and I'm certainly not.
In two weeks time I'm going to be doing the Advanced course with a few of the girls I did the enthusiasts course with. Toni Laws, Naomi Sherman & Mel Champion are 3 stand outs.

here are a few of the shots I've taken since doing the course.

 

Will leave it at that for today and pop some more up another day.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

January 24, 2014

 

Its been six months since my last post.

 I was telling the world that I was off to the USA.

Well just to let you all know..... I loved it. Loved New York. Loved Las Vegas. the verdict is still out on San Fran. Loved the drive down the coast of California to Anaheim. Would love to have spent some more time in Carmel. Hearst Castle at San Simeon was unbelievable and we didn't really get to see Santa Monica. Totally adored Disneyland and had fun at Universal Studios. And who could not love Waikiki?

New York is definitely on our re-visit list. We heard so many people say New York is great blah blah blah and thought Yeah yeah whatever. But OMG ITS AMAZING. We stayed at The Beacon Hotel and loved the accommodation and the staff. Anthony and Ray at the conierge desk were great.  Central park in summer is just beautiful. We only got to see half of the park. Didn't even see half of NY. Is just HUGE!  I could keep raving about it but I could never ever do it justice.

Las Vegas was Hot! we arrived during a heatwave (if there is such a thing in Vegas). We stayed at The Aria hotel. the Casinos are jaw-droppingly amazing. We went to the Grand Canyon with Big Horn Wild West Tours. Brett was our tour guide and we had a blast with him. A real Chuck Norris look alike and sound alike. Highly recommend this company.

Next stop was San Francisco.  The Handlery hotel was a big let down  after being in the Aria and The Beacon.

But we had fun when we did the Safari Tour around San Francisco. We went to Lombard St and climbed to the top and then walked all the way down again. We also caught a trolley/cable car to the Wharf and back with the guys hanging off the side like they do in the movies (no run away cable cars or car chases thank goodness),

Well that's it for tonight. I'll fill you in on the rest of the trip another day.



Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

The start of 5 weeks long service leave

Hey there.
Tomorrow is the official first day of my five weeks Long service leave. I was hoping for more but work demands didn't allow it.
But its FIVE weeks away from work. YAY!!!
I have a full on week this week having nails and hair done and grabbing last minute things and doing housework before we fly out to America. 
You could say the holiday starts on Thursday night when we get taken to the airport motel so that we don't have to get up at 2.30am on Friday morning. So instead we only have to get up at 3.30am. this gives us an hour to shower, do our hair (well us lady's anyway) and make sure the bags are properly packed before we get taken to the airport (3 minutes away).
We are Super excited as we are going with our best friends and we have been planning this for 18 months.
Laptop is charged, kindle is charged, playbook is charged, iPod's are charged, so there's no excuse to be bored on the plane.
Our first stop is New York (5 nights), then off to Las Vegas (5 nights), a quick flight to San Francisco for 3 nights and then we drive down the coast over 3 nights. Then we hit Anaheim for 4 nights (Disneyland here we come) and the its over to Hawaii for 3 nights of relaxation before heading home and back to reality.
I have a week at home and then its definitely back to reality and work.

I'm hoping to post pics while i'm away as most places we are staying have free internet access.

So...

Start spreading the word,
I'm leaving today (Friday)
I want to be part of it,
New York New York!

chat later.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Not that I have many followers but I do apologise for being so slack in not posting for 4 months.
Its just been the start of one of those years where time just gets away from you.
Its not like I haven't been doing anything.
In January I sign up for the Creative Jumpstart summit 2013 which was run by Nathalie Kalbach.  So many talented artist's donated their time to do technique videos. I've tried quite a few of the techniques but still have some more to try.
I also started doing Fat Mum Slims photo of the day challenge. Well its not a challenge just lots of fun and its amazing the idea's that people come up with to interpret a word.
I started doing a daily journal .  ( I have slackened of a bit this month but try and catch up once a week.)
And it was quite stressful at work.

February was still hectic at work but we finally booked our holiday to the U.S. That has made it more bearable to go to work. I started reading more on the way to work thanks to my great Christmas present from my girls (my Kindle).
We spent the Weekend up at Hahndorf, which is a gorgeous little German settled township in the Adelaide Hills, with our great friends (16 of us).

March started with ME getting my new lease car. A Holden Captiva 5.  I LOVE IT.
I've made a few cards for birthdays and did a couple of digi Lo's

This is the last one I did based on a sketch challenge on Jellybeanscrappers.com

and at last April.

The kids & I started watching the 3rd season of Game of Thrones and I started doing Zentangling.  Its quite relaxing just doodling patterns in no set order and really quite effective. So I do that while we watch TV. and that is it all caught up.

 





 



Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Happy 2013

WOW!!! Its 2013!!

Hopefully it will be a LUCKY year this year.

We are finally back in order after our little episode with the indoor paddling pool last year.

We have brand new plush carpet in all the rooms that were affected.  I love coming home after work taking my shoes off and walking into my bedroom and squishing my toes in the pile. (I'm even doing it now while I type in my craft room).  There's nothing like giving your feet a bit of pleasure after a long day at work and cooped up in shoes (I have to wear enclosed shoes at work).

I think this year I'm going to try and do more things that will de-stress me after work. so there is going to be toe/carpet squishing, foot spa's, I may even luxuriate in a bath or two instead of having a shower. 

This month i have started doing a photo of the day challenge. the site I'm doing it with is fatmumslim.com. So far I have done each and everyone.  I know 5 days doesn't sound like a big effort but for me that is a record! LOL.  (my kids tell me I have a short attention span when we are talking (oops) ).  I have also been keeping a journal. The longest I have been able to keep up one of these is 8 months.  lets see if I can finish 2013.

We have a few weekend getaways planned and a big holiday later in the year.  Either to the US (if our friends can make it) or the UK (if they can't). 

Well I think I have bored you enough.

WISHING YOU ALL A VERY HAPPY AND SAFE NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL!





Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Almost there

Well its been a month since our house suffered water damage and we are still in a state of disrepair.  Not for much longer (says she with her fingers crossed).  We have picked the carpets and we should get a phone call anytime soon.  We just have to empty our built in robes so they can be taken out before the carpets are put in. We are also having new carpet put in our bedroom as well.  So we are going to have to move stuff out of 5 rooms so that they can lay the carpet on the same day. We have gone for Stainmaster IQ twist (something like that). They tested it in the New York zoo for 3 weeks and then gave it a clean and it came up as good as new. If the elephants and rhinos can do their worse on it and it survives that then it will survive just the two of us living on it. (plus future grandkids. hahaha )

Our Scrap hostess with the mostess Toni over at Jellybeanscrappers.com allowed me to set a couple of challenges this month.  The first was a monthly challenge which was inspired by the Graphic45 team.
 I was emailed a newsletter with instructions for a post-it note holder. I had made one of these a few years back and thought it a great idea.

 

 So I made these two with A Ladies Diary and Happy Haunting papers. and set them as the challenge.

 

Then Toni was kind enough to allow me to set another challenge. This time it was for the halloween Cyber Crop night. For this challenge I  made some Halloween Tags.



For the first tag I just did some T!m Holtz techniques for the background (blending and water splattering).  I used the rickety fence die and the branch from (oops I can't remember and my dies are all outside). And the second one I used the haunted house die, embossed the fence, white washed the house using the distress markers inked the edges with black soot and used graphic45 happy haunting cut-outs (the moon and witch) then popped on some googly eyes, a few spritzed flowers and ribbon and hey presto. my tags.  If I had my scrap room in order I would be able to tell you all the names of the dies and embossing folders. so my apologies to T!m Holtz. lol

Tomorrow (maybe) I will show you what else I have made but for now I am going to relax before hubby gets home from work.

ciao for now.

Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx

Where has the time gone

My daughter informed me a couple of weeks ago that i have been slack in updating my posts (and also told me off for my grammar and punctuation. Kids!)
Well what has happened in 5 months?? A lot but not a Lot. If that makes sense.
I had my birthday in June.
I think the most important event is that  our eldest daughter purchased her own home and moved into it in July.
A lovely 3 bedroom villa only 5 minutes from Mum ( thank goodness). Her Dad has painted most of the rooms and occasionally phones her to say "is it alright if I go around to your place and do this or that". So its all coming together for her. She just had her new lounge suite delivered yesterday.

I also started a new position at work, Quality control.  Its not really hard work but it takes time and can be mentally exhausting.  I am enjoying it.





We had my lovely sister-in-law & brother-in-law come and stay for the weekend in August and had a lovely 3 days together. We went to Glenelg one day and had lunch and a few drinks at the Watermark Hotel and then drove along the coast up to Semaphore and had afternoon tea at the Palais.  And as you can see brothers and sisters never grow up.

September was fairly quiet. We celebrated my Mums birthday, and this was the card I made for her.and as every good mother does.... it goes in her display cabinet. lol.














October is a completely different month as it started on a good note, well the first two days.  On the Monday night we went out for tea to celebrate my nephews birthday and then on the 2nd hubby and i
packed up and headed off to Mildura ( a 4.5hr drive) for 4 days of rest and relaxation.  That idea went out the window 6pm that night when we received a phone call from our youngest daughter to say she had gone to pick something up (an apple pie we had left in the fridge) and found the inside of the house under water.  Gary told what she had to do regarding turning the water off, which our little hero did despite the mains tap being in bug infested bushes. A few phone calls later we had 2 daughters, 1 father, 1 future son-in-law and our 2 best friends at our house sucking up water and moving furniture up out of the water.  2 bedrooms, the lounge, study and kitchen ended up being effected.  But if it wasn't for all their help things would have been so much worse so we are so grateful to have these people in our lives. Now the house is dried out and its the waiting game to get things replaced or repaired.  The insurance company have been great so far.
 I am so glad I raised daughters who love their food. lol.

Well that's my life blogged to date.  At the moment I am trying to make my Secret Santa gift and if I don't stop surfing the net and procrastinating it's never going to get done.


Thanks for taking the time to look, take care. xx