More early spring cleaning and some Sass

Feeling good right now…Steve and I spent a good part of the morning sorting Katie’s mountain of toys and eliminating over half of them. away went the rubbish and the broken or missing bits. Anything to good to throw will go on trademe or to the Sallies. I am stick of having so many toys hanging around and she doesn’t play with most of them. And it feels good to purge, I’ve been doing a lot of it lately and I am really enjoying it.

Has anyone else been reading the Sassfras Lass blog lately? they have the yummiest new lines coming out for CHA at the end of the month. OMG I want it all.  The felties are my favourite particularly the monsters…for some reason they remind me of Katie at the moment lol…she’s going through the terrible 3’s which I really think is a lot worse than the terrible 2’s lol.

this too will pass! every mothers lament!

There are so many new collections to drool over and Sassfras are having a blog draw during CHA though I doubt it will include international bloggers, those sort of things never do. But I entered anyway…you never know.

Well better move, got to take Steve out to my cousins to babysit her kid tonight. takes nearly an hour to get to her place.

have a great night all…..ohhhh while I was cleaning up my office I found this disc with a pile of my old sig tags I made years ago….so I will share a few with you over a few blogs.

hugz

Early Spring Cleaning etc

For the last few weeks Mum and I have been indulging in a bit of early spring cleaning. Together we managed to make order out of the chaos that my room and wardrobe had become during my last major RA flare, its amazing how these things get away on you. And today I decided it was time to tackle my scrapbook room which has got more than a little out of control and a bit of a dumping ground lately. this is how it looked this morning just after I started

and after hours of pulling nearly everything out and vacuuming, cleaning, dusting and sorted, this is how it looks now.

I still have some sorting to do, drawers to clean out and the shelves to clean and reorganise but at least now I have plenty of room to do it and Katie even has her own wee craft mat and seat (this photo was taken before I put the chairs back in) Katie helped me carry things to and fro and gave me her critical assessment of how it looked when I had finished (“it looks boutyful Mummy”). she also tested out my ink pads when I stopped for lunch lol…she didn’t do to much damage though and was so happy when I showed her that she had her own wee area and promptly sat down and started drawing. I need to sort out the purple drawers so I can give her a place to store all her art supplies, she’s mad on drawing and colouring and is starting to get into scrapbooking too…YAY!

In between sorting and restoring order I managed to squeeze in a quick call to my s.i.l in Aussie to see how she was and she tells me that her hubby, my brother, won’t let her get into scrapbooking because he reckons she has enough junk lol…well wait till I get over there at Christmas time…we will go shopping in Newcastle…they have a huge scrapbook shop there and its not far from where they live in Maitlands.

I had the weirdest experience on Thursday, I took Katie to the doctor, she has another ear infection, and when I came out I was getting her into the car when this man approached me and asked my name. I told him and he told me that Mum had told him I was there and he had some papers to serve on me. Of course I am thinking, what the hell have I done that would bring this about? and then he mentioned my ex hubbies name and it dawned on me, a breath of relief and then I could talk lol. He was serving the divorce papers on me lol. After almost 15 years of being separated my ex has finally got around to divorcing me lol, only because he is getting remarried in November. I never bothered, the only time I even thought about it was not long before Chris died and we had started to discuss marriage. So now I am going to be a gay divorcé, except I’m not gay lol…but you know what I mean lol.

anyway a very strange place to be served divorce papers huh? I did get a bit of a giggle from it though, especial when the guy asked if I would be object to the divorce and I burst out laughing. I don’t think he quite knew what to think.

that’s made me laugh all over again hehehe.

ok time to get missy ready for bed and have some ME time…yay I love me time when I have a clean scrapbook room to play in!

oppss before I forget, a photo of my new great niece, Keita, before I go. isn’t she beautiful? Looks just like her mum did when she was born. Man being a great Auntie is making me feel old…time I had a talk to these nieces and nephews of mine and tell them to hold off on the offspring until I am a suitable age to be a great auntie. lol like their parents held off when they made me an auntie at 14. the joys of being the youngest of a big family I suppose.

have a good night

hugz

V xx

Prima @ Scrappin Patch

Scrappin Patch has some very cute Prima goodies coming in early next month and its all just gorgeous…the problem is, how can I just limit myself to a few pieces and stick to my scrapping budget with all these super cute things tempting me….now do I choose these  wee beauties?

or this bling bling  or some of the awesome products. there are so many beautiful things to choose from that’s its going to very very hard to not go overboard lol. And Pauline and Adrienne are running a giveaway for those that post PPP’s on their blogs (that’s a Promotional Prima Post lol) and let them know via email. So off you go, check out the awesome products and then do your post….they are so beautiful!!!!

Meantime….I have work to do and a DD who has a visit to the doctor in an hour, or course I am not organised lol….are you surprised? no me neither lol

have a fab day

hugz

V xx

Cold creation

I have a cold but that hasn’t stopped me being creative today. Sitting on the couch by the fire with all my bits around me I managed to complete two layouts. The tray table Steve brought me for Christmas came in very handy.

the first layout was for the recipe challenge on Scrappin Patch , had to use brads, chipboard title, at least 1 photo and rub ons. It took me ages, mainly because I decided to use loopy brads and lace ribbon through them and that took forever, what a fiddly job. It came out good though and another layout to fill in the latest album.

I love the photos in this one, the first time Katie worked out how to open the Playhouse Disney website. I created a shortcut for her on my browser and she worked out how to open it without any help at all. Definitely her Mummy’s wee girl, a real geek lol. I found her happily moving the mouse around. Took a wee bit to teach her how to click the mouse in the right place but now she knows that trick there’s no stopping her.

the second layout I haven’t taken a photo of yet. I finished it about half an hour ago and it was to dark by then. It was just for fun this one though. I do that now and again, just do a spur of the moment layout just cos everything is out.

I did this one the day before last of wee Harmony for the Sketchbook countdown challenge that Hannah set.  we had to use 4 embellishments in a cluster, 3 photos, 2 words in the title and one journaling tag or spot.

I just love these photos of Harmony, she’s such a cutie!

 

 

I even made a card yesterday for my sis in law in Aussie who has been really sick and needed cheering up, she’s just been told she’s not allowed to go back to work for at 6 months after a really serious lung and chest infection.

not the best of photos but here’s hoping it cheers her up a little. She hates not working, she’s a teacher and specialises in special needs and loves her job.

 

well I had a few surprise wins last week, both from Scrappin Patch challenges.

I won the Baz Challenge that finished at the end of June and the designers choice challenge that Annelie set a few weeks ago. these are the layouts. Both

of them completely different from my normal style.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am really enjoying stepping out of my comfort zone lately and trying something new. and I have to say my favourite is the Baz one, it was inspired by a page in one of Katie’s colouring in books. It was an awful lot of paper piecing and fiddling but well worth it.

Now I need to go and get Katie ready for bed and try and convince her to have some cough mixture. She started this particular round of illness. This has to be the worst winter for colds and flu’s we have ever had in this family, seems we just get over one and another one hits. Katie only went back to preschool 2 weeks ago after the last lot and now she has to have a few days off again. Anyway time to go. Night night all

hugz

V xx

Great Aunt

I am a great Aunt for the 3rd time…My niece had a baby girl on Thursday afternoon in New Plymouth. We are still waiting for Jodi to send through a pix. He was with her right up til an hour before the birth. They are very close cousins and the baby’s father is not exactly the dream partner apparently, I’ve never met him so I cant comment. But Jodi was so excited about his cousin  having a baby you would think it was him having the baby lol. As long as him and Tracey don’t decide to start having babies just yet, they have a long way to go with their careers and want to travel before they settle down to have a family.

I cant wait to see photos of this latest addition to our family. more later

hugz

V xx