Mini Album Madness

Still very much loving the creation of mini albums - I get such a great feeling of achievement after completing one, and they only take a couple of hours to make.

I made one back in February, which had just pictures of the girls from February, I used a Basic Grey Matchbox Kit and decorated it with L'il Davis Design chipboard corners which I inked, and Pebbles Inc stickers. Now I have a little keepsake that I can carry around with me when I am away from the girls (which doesn't happen much these day thank God!) Here is this little mini album:





I made another mini album of the weekend. I had three left-over Cosmo Cricket Plain Chipboard lacing Cards which I painted. I applied a solid coat of paint, and then used a contrasting colour and a Heidi Swapp Mask to paint a second layer on the cards. I used a bright Orange and a Crimsom paint. Instead of lacing the cards up like I have previously I used rings to bind them together in a book, and tied little ribbons in the holes on the right side of each card. I then stuck pictures from a recent trip with friends to Long Beach into the little book and used some Cosmo Cricket rub-ons and some Pebbles Inc stickers to decorate it. Here is the result:

Weekend round-up

Girls managed to spend some quality time with their Nan and Pop on Weekend. In Jasmin speak, we had a "sleep over" on Friday night, and then Nan and Pop looked after the girls on Saturday while Dave and I helped out at the Must C Movie Sale at Civic Video. It was a cold old day, I must buy myself some gloves and a beany for next time, as Dave and I were handing out balloons to kids in front of the shop. I also got to hand out coffee samples as well from Gloria Jeans (manage to sneak a couple of these myself, to keep me going!)

It was a busy rest of the arvo with coffee and a catchup with my sis - Hellie, and then a catchup with Julie to discuss Employee Collective Agreements.... boy employing people is difficult these days! We have had to employ a specialist organisation to help us out in this area, it's just too complex!

We enjoyed a dinner out at a club on the Saturday night before driving home. The girls and I went to bed early as we were totally shagged! I bet Nan and Pop were shagged too!

Sunday we went with the girls and watched Shrek the Third at Hoyts (which involved bribing Eliza to sit sit for almost 2 hours with lollies!) It is a great kids movie, worth a watch. The girls love going to the mall 'cause they get to have chicken nuggets from McDonalds, and get to have a look around Toy R Us (or should I say run, with Mum and Dad hot on their heels). We visited Jeff and Fiona and the boys on the way home - Jasmin loves her cousins, and they have a great time together. We invited them back to our place for dinner, and enjoyed some Red Curry of Prawns for an entree and Chicken Caccaitore for mains. Another early night, so exhausted!

Digital Scraps #6 & #7

Gotta love the digital scrapbooking. Have gone crazy downloading freebie digital kits and such off the web. I took David to accupuncture tonight for his foot (seems like the only spare hour I get in the week sometimes!), and I took my little laptop (the smallest Sony Vaio you can get - fits in your handbag!)

I managed to complete two layouts while I was there. I am still learning - so #6 is a simple layout I created from scratch and #7 is a layout which uses a template - really love the templates. I really didn't understand how these worked until Mel explained the Ctrl-G grouping thing which sizes your paper/photo or whatever to the fit the element in the template.

I normally don't finish my business work until after 11pm most nights, so normally feel too tired to pull out the scrapbooking stuff to do part of a page. Digital scrapbooking means I just need my laptop, and I can use it in bed for say 1/2 an hour at night and get most of a layout done! It is fantastic!!! Definitely still doing the conventional scrapbooking, but I normally only get time to do this when I go down the coast, or to an organised scrapbooking event.

Here are my layouts:

#6 Eliza at Long Beach - doing her normal thing where she watches people for a while before running off to explore.


[Materials: Instant Success download from Creating Keepsakes by Jessica Sprague, font: AEnigma Scrawl,downloaded from web.]

#7 Jasmin's Ponies. I recently purchased a Little Pony Stationery Set for her, she loves to pretend to write letters and normally makes the envelopes out of paper and sticks them down with sticky tape (very cute) - so she was very excited to get the stationery set, and even more excited when she discovered it came with Little Pony stickers. She then demanded that I go and take photos of her ponies, so that she could do a scrapbooking page, which she then stuck every single Little Pony sticker on (there must of been about 30 of the suckers).



[Materials: Ad Challenge Layered Template by Katie Pertiet downloaded from Designer Digitals. Pink Dots Paper and Big Floral Paper from Shabby Princess Designs ShabbyMommy Kit, also Alphas from the Sunny Porch kit by Amy Teets at Shabby Princess Designs. Journalling Spot by Jessica Sprague, Echoes of Asia Kit, downloaded from Creating Keepsakes. Fonts: Lucinda Handwriting and Century Schoolbook.]

JinkyArt Photos

Last weekend we had the pleasure of having Barb from JinkyArt come around and take pictures of the girls. I love the photos. Lucky I have almost three months to decide which ones I want to buy, as Barb is off to the US with her family to take pictures over there.

Click HERE to see our gallery. I am so excited about getting the photos. Will probably frame some for the wall - get some to scrapbook.

Digital Scraps #1 to #5

Well, I have finally had a go at some digital scrapbooking. Bought Cathy Zeljke's Clean and Simple Digital Scrapbooking DVD from work, so that I could have a go. Thought it would be prudent to start with some templates - so that I can learn actually how to use Photoshop Elements as I go. I completed my first five layouts on the Sunday night, with some helpful tips from my digi scrapbooking queen friend Mel. Here are my first few pages:

Long Beach Weekend

Spent the weekend at the coast with friends at Long Beach, at a house we stayed at about seven years ago. It was a bit cold and chilly on the Saturday, so Dave took Jasmin to see Shrek 3 at the cinema with the other older (and not so old kids). Unfortuneatly they got really bad seats, in the first row at the far left of the cinema, so Dave could hardly see anything. Will probably have to go for another viewing at some point.

So for the rest of the day the kids all spent the afternoon running around inside playing, and also playted a bit of the Nintendo WII (Eliza thought she was playing too, as she got to hold one of the remotes and point it at the TV as if she were playing). The kids also played a bit o Guitar Heros - very addictive!

On the Sunday it was nice enough to actually take the kids to the beach for a run around - they played in the sand, flew a kite that Drew brought along, and ran up and down the beach. It was a bit chilly so we didn't stay for too long.

Got a lot of scrapbooking in over the weekend as well, including some digital scrapbooking. So a nice lovely relaxing weekend.

Here are a couple of pictures of the girls at the beach. I love the way that Eliza stands and observes people and her surroundings for a while, and then she will run off and explore. Her looks have started to change a bit lately as well. Maybe because she is getting some more hair (and teeth). I think she will have the same hair colour as Jasmin maybe. Jassie also looks so grown up, I love it whe she wears two piggy tails (just like Kim Possible she reckons!)