Photo Booth

This sure beats squeezing into a photo booth (which I haven't done for years), and its good for a giggle. Click here to check it out. I'll have to show Jas when she gets home. Here are the results of mine (he he):




This is what Jas and I got up to after school:



Just had a great game of charades with the girls. Eliza uses the cards which have the pictures on them, and Jasmin reads the cards with the phrases on it, to practise her reading. They are surprisingly good at guessing and performing the charades.

List Maker List Maker

I am definitely a list maker, must be something to do the the finisher/completer personality type I am. I just love making lists, lists of all sorts of things -

* shopping lists (5 weeks at a time, neatly typed up in an organised spreadsheet, complete with all the meals I will cook for the 5 week period

* lists of shows I am enjoying (Gave up on the list of movies, just too many to add to it)

* lists of things I want

* lists of things to do (if it's not listed I just forget to do it)

* lists of expenses to be claimed at tax time etc etc.

and my most favourite list of all I'd have to say is the list of books I've read this year. This is a recent list as I only got back into reading at the beginning of last year. Mind you I was too tired and too busy to do a whole lot of anything before that!

I thought I'd share the list of books I've read this year. Maybe you've read some of these too - maybe you could add some to my list of books to read:

1. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - Club Dead
2. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - Dead to the World (NB. one of my favourites - especially the shower bit - you'll know what I mean if you've read this one!)
3. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - Dead as a Doornail
4. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - Definitely Dead
5. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - Altogether Dead
6. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - From Dead to Worse
7. Charlaine Harris - Southern Vampire Series - Dead and Gone
8. Charlaine Harris - A Touch of Dead
9. Richelle Mead - Vampire Academy - Vampire Academy
10. Richelle Mead - Vampire Academy - Frost Bite
11. Richelle Mead - Vampire Academy - Shadow Kiss
12. Richelle Mead - Vampire Academy - Blood Promise
13. Richelle Mead - Vampire Academy - Spirit Bound
14. Alex Dural - Vampire Beach - Blood Lust
15. Alex Dural - Vampire Beach - Initiation
16. Alex Dural - Vampire Beach - Ritual
17. Alex Dural - Vampire Beach - Legacy
18. Alex Dural - Vampire Beach - High Stakes
19. Alex Dural - Vampire Beach - Hunted
20. Janet Evanovich - Full House
21. Guillermo Del Toro/Chuck Hogan - The Strain
22. Jodi Piquolt - Perfect Match
23. Charlaine Harris - Grave Sight
24. Charlaine Harris - Grave Surprise
25. Charlaine Harris - An Ice Cold Grave
26. Steig Larrson - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (watched the Swedish movie after I read the book, which was a fantastic read)
27. Gregory Maquire - Wicked
28. Twilight - The Graphic Novel
29. Stephenie Meyer - The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner
30. Wicked Lovely - Melissa Marr

Bit of a pattern there with some of the books - might have a theme I think!

Anyway - this is what I have beside my bed at the moment (not including the stack I still have waiting in the cupboard). I'm also hanging out for the next book in the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins.

Art Journal and other layouts

Started Bek's Art Journal Challenges. Haven't done any mixed media art before - probably looks like a scrapbooker trying to do art - but here goes anyway (please don't laugh). I got a small art journal book to start the challenges. This one uses Glimmermist, Oil Pastels, paper, transparency, stickers and jewels:


Poor Jas had to be picked up from school by Nan on Monday (she's never had to come home sick before). The teacher rang me to tell me that she had shaky legs and hands and didn't fell right, so I got Nan to wander down to pick her up (lucky she is here three days a week, otherwise it would have taken a good 50 minutes to get to her). On questioning her that night appears that she had a sugar low - she has a metabolism just like me and has to eat constantly. What she experienced - the shakes, hot flush and nausea, is exactly what I feel sometimes if I leave it too long to eat and my body has obviously processed all the sugar or something, and I am left with no energy. Not sure what triggered it, as she had a big brekkie and had had fruit break about 1 hour before she had the low.... may have been anxiety over losing her whiteboard at school? Anyway - we pack her off to school now with a little pack of jelly beans, in the hope this will help the next time she has an episode.

Haven't done a lot of scrappin lately, here are a couple of layouts, mainly assignments for online courses:

My Week 12 assignment from Nic Howard's Dimensional Details Course:

A Week 12 sketch challenge - Becky Fleck provided the Page Map for the sketch:


A layout for Layout #11 assignment for Darci's course. Had to use three action photographs, four flowers and four jewels. Also based on a sketch which I made my own, so looks a bit different to the original:


And this one was a color challenge from the color room:

No Homework!

Ok - today we have done absolutely no homework. Perhaps we will do some sight words later and then I won't feel so guilty. I can normally con Jas into doing sight words during the commericial breaks of Master Chef (she loves watching it as much as I do!) - must be a funny sight the three of us girls cuddling on the lounge whilst watching the show! I'm sure she could have done the Beef Stroganoff elimination challenge the other night - who doesn't cook beef stroganoff once in a while. I'm sure I'd need another dinner after eating Quail - there's really not a lot of meat of the little things!

Instead of doing homework, we indulged in becoming Princesses (the girls succeeded I don't think any amount of princess makeup will help me though!), and then we did glitter pen artwork (need to go and buy a few more of these babies, I think we used them all up). I had fun, they had fun, maybe I shouldn't feel guilty about the homework - sometimes I think we all need a break.

Steps to becoming a princess:
Step 1: Apply eye shadow and blush

Step 2: hold onto your sisters head really tightly so she doesn't move and ruin her lipstick!

Step 3: Apply lip balm over the top to make the lips extra kissable

Step 4: Wait while your sister goes to the bathroom (perhaps if I played with her princess makeup while she's gone, she won't notice?)

Step 5: Half-way to being a princess

Step 6: Apply copious amounts of body lotion and perfume - so I smell really good!

Lots of scrappin

I have managed to do quite a bit of scrapbooking lately, mainly late at night when watching a movie or a show with Dave, one of the advantages of being able to multi-task I guess.

Here are some of my recent layouts:

Starting with two layouts from the Darci D course called Bakers Dozen, she provides the designs and specifies the materials to use, eg. the first one had to be a picture of friends and you had to use a thick piece of ribbon, and a "friends" related rubon:

This one had to use a photograph of two family members together, and a length of co-ordinating ribbon and a chipboard heart. Quite enjoying this course as the layouts are super simple, and you can tart them up if you like.

The next two layouts are from Nic Howard's Dimensional Details course:


One of my own designs, featuring the beautiful Naomi and my nephew Anthony. They have just built a house together, and are moving in this weekend:

Another layout from the Nic Howard Dimensional Details course:

Another one of my own layouts - Jasmin actually got up one morning and used some glimmermist and a glimmerscreen to spray the background, I begged her to have it so that I could scrapbook a picture of her on it (she agreed):

Another Darci D layout from the Bakers Dozen course. I tarted it up a bit from the simple design provided. I love these pics of Jasmin. She used a whole series of pictures for a Talk at School where they had to compare the hats of yesterday with the hats ofo today:

A layout with Eliza ready for her 1st dance class:

Used some Glimmermist on this layout about Jasmin getting her ears pierced earlier this year:

Me and Dave - a simple layout I designed:

I did this one for a colour challenge on "The Color Room" website, you had to use the pink, blue, red and white:

Another Darci D layout documenting the things we buy and why. We had to use a family photograph and a white flower and coloured brad:

Another Darci D layout to document a season or event, I choose a summer long weekend down at Maloney's Beach with our friends, I turned the single page design into a double - we had to use 5 metal rimmed tags and five brads:

And finally two layouts from last night:

A Darci D layout where you had to use a favourite photograph, and a ribbon cut in lengths to form a heart, and a letter L.

A double-page layout about the feeding the giraffes at Dubbo Zoo in March.


Update on us - we have had a couple of weekends at home, which is really nice, mixed in with some weekends away. We went and stayed with our Friends in Sydney a couple of weekends ago. It's always good to catch up, and Shell and I enjoy a few glasses of wine together (or show I say a few bottles). Dave also got us an iPad whilst we were in Sydney, he lined up while I took Jasmin to see a specialist in Sydney about her learning difficulties. Turns out the front section of her brain which controls concentration and memory has not developed as quickly as it should, but they confirmed that she has a higher than average IQ, and the front section of the brain should develop in time (the lady at Kip McGrath, has said that most kids front brain sections develop by the age of 12). In the meantime we will contine with the Kip McGrath so that she doesn't get further behind in her reading. She is making excellent progress and has increased her reading age by almost 12 months in not quite six months she has been going.

back to the iPad - the girls and I have hardly had a look in on the iPad, Dave always has it, luckily our second one arrived this week, so now the girls and I have had a play.

Well - off to do some more work, and also to listen to the new Eclipse soundtrack Dave bought on iTunes for me!