More Scenic Route

This is Lauren and Joshua playing on the stairs.

Ingredients
Brads: Queen and Co
Large Playtime sticker: Bazzill Chip Toppers
Lettering: White - Heidi Swapp Green -Thickers by American Crafts
Giggle Tag: Pebbles Inc
Acrylic Stickers: Cloud 9

Taking the Scenic Route

Here are a few cards I made with some left over paper from the layouts I made below, the flourish stamp on the second card is from Basic Grey and is in fact the end of a peacock tail.

These two layouts are from a visit to a wildlife park in Halls Gap, the large lettering is from Sizzix.

Don't laugh, this is me aged 17 at a formal event for my then boyfriend and now husband's uncle. Goodness knows why we thought the face fungus looked attractive?

The flourish above "Ladies Night" was cut on the Cricut. The paper used on all the layout's is Scenic Route, but then you had all guessed that from the title, hadn't you?

I'm back

Just returned from a weekend stamping and scrapping down at Tootgaroot with my stamping buddies. Claire's Grandad owns a place near the beach and four of us plus enough stash and tools to open our own shop decamped there for a long weekend of scrapping and card making. Day one, started with me arriving late, waylaid by a husband with a malfunctioning nailgun that just had to be taken to repairers before I embarked on my trip, thus delaying me enough to get caught up in all the traffic around schools out and going home time. The upside of this, is that the sun was setting as I headed down the beach road and it was simply beautiful and made a great start to the break. On arrival my three lovely friends came out to help me unload the car of a not insubstantial collection of sizzix dies, being my tool input for the weekend, Claire was supposed ( supposed being the operative word) to bring the Cuttlebug stuff and nesties, but I forgive her!! She did after all bring some very tasty Thai sweet potato and pumpkin soup, which incidently I meant to ask for the recipe of. and made a very tasty pizza. My other contribution to the weekend was chocolate ( of course), some wine and cheese, plus scones my gorgeous daughter Lauren made, along with homemade cherry and raspberry jam ( not mine unfortunately but a lady who comes into where I work - I now have orders for more from my stamping buddies). The others had a head start on creating as they had all got there in the afternoon, my little stamping space was waiting for me next to Claire, who surprisingly had not encroached on my area, she made up for that omission during the rest of the weekend though! Love you really Claire.
Leanne had thoughtfully decided to treat us all to a Christmas in July gift of a scented candle and saucer, in a decorated gift bag with card to boot and also baked some lovely cookies and a Christmas cake. Thank you. She was also my room buddy for the weekend, poor thing, I do snore quite loudly but she very politely said it hadn't been a problem, my husband reckons it keeps him awake at night. It must be a family trait as my brother is similarly affected but with a much higher decibel rating than mine, his poor wife is very long suffering.
A trip was arranged to Paper Squared, a very large scrapbooking store for those not in the know, Judy and Leanne had never been there before but were very impressed with the size and range of supplies. I had to leave after half an hour to set off for a previous engagement in Melbourne with my family to see French and Saunders. (returning in the early evening), the rest stayed on a for a mammouth two hours, bank balances suffering in the process.
Judy with much prompting from the rest of us, attempted her first scrapbook page, a perfectionist with her card making, this was a tortuous and unexpected departure for the weekend but we were determined to break her duck and forced her in a friendly but confronting way to face her demons and stick something to the page. It was an arduous journey with Claire at one point saying through gritted teeth " just stop overthinking and stick it down", the two pikers, Claire and Leanne couldn't keep up any longer and went to bed at midnight, leaving Judy with me, I was determined not to hit the hay until we had cracked it, it took till 2am but finally it was all but assembled.
Christine you will be amused by this, but Claire conveniently had the corner seat again, so I was on tea making duty, I did tell her I would mention this on the blog, so she can't complain. This morning she even got a bit precious and insisted on a cup and not a mug for her mid morning cuppa.
The only downside of the weekend was an uninvited guest of the four legged furry variety who snuck in in the dead of night and chewed our fruit and pizza base and the ants who invaded the worktops and any available food at every opportunity.
Thank you Claire for organising it all and to you, Leanne and Judy for being such great companions for the weekend. We will have to do it again.

More Grow - this time cards

This is where all the small leftovers went. My favourite is the sunflower which I stamped on various scraps of different patterned papers.

Grow

Love these papers so much I used every scrap (pardon the pun) more or less. I apologise for the wonky looking layouts, they are in fact straight in real life but when I photograph them for the web, something strange happens.

This was Lauren's first pony Chester, he was a nightmare from the first day we bought him, misbehaving, running off, refusing to go in a horsebox or trailer (truck or float if you are Aussie). We persevered, brought in a Horse Whisperer, practiced with him everyday and eventually he started to toe the line. Unfortunately he never did get over his aversion to the colour yellow/orange and we knew if we arrived a a show and any of the jumps were that colour we might as well turn around and go home, He steadfastly refused to go near them, any other colour and he would fly over them, no problem. Chester remained a cheeky chappy though, and whilst cleaning out his stable, would steal your hat, or in my case lift my leg in the air by biting the tassell on my boots, as well as trying to eat mints through your clothes if he could smell them in your pocket. He lived with us for three and a bit years, through him, Lauren learnt so much until sadly she outgrew him. We sold him onto a lovely lady not far from us and we continued to visit him regularly.

The first layout shows Lauren at Bournemouth, a seaside town in England, being spun until she felt sick in this contraption. Rather her than me!!

Scrummy fudge and fab friends

A bit late posting these as I gave them out 2 weeks ago, but better late than never. Lauren made some really scrummy fudge for me to take to stamp club at Claire's, rather than just hand it out I decided to dress it up a little. Sorry Christine, you missed out as you were sunning yourself in California, perhaps she will make some more for next time.

21 Today

Lauren was 21 today. The first two pictures were taken on Saturday when we went out for a meal to Credo in Olinda. Lovely food and great service. You must try the mixed berry and white chocolate steamed pudding. Yummy

This is Lauren and Holly, Holly is still 12 but eagerly awaiting her 13th birthday in October.

This is Lauren, baking her own birthday cake. I offered but she loves to bake. It was lemon sponge with lemon filling and lemon icing covered in dessicated coconut. Surprisingly it wasn't overwhelmingly lemony, just fabulously tangy and fresh. I took some to work today and it got the approval of my workmate

Blowing out her musical candle, which was very out of tune. Kevin took her up to St Kilda today (I had to go to work) to the world's biggest Triathlon shop (don't know how the owners know this) and bought her a wetsuit for her triathlons, Holly gave her money as did other members of the family. Kevin loved all the bikes in there, he has just bought a new one for his racing, not that it has improved his performance much. LOL

Raspberry Suite Challenge #11

I decided to enter my first Raspberry Suite Challenge by Dawn McVey, I love scrolling through all the entrants looking at the beautiful cards people have produced.
The challenge colours were: Bright Pink, Light Gray, Grass Green, Bright Red and Black.

I stamped light gray cardstock with a Hero Arts background stamp in light gray ink and mounted this on a bright red card, I took an old Basic Grey tag from a set I hadn't used and coloured it in bright pink and grass green, This was then mounted on black cardstock and trimmed, the gorgeous button at the top is glass and is shimmering with green and pink tones. I added a strip of bright pink patterned paper, with green and gray stripes, then adhered the tag, stamped "Love you" (stamp by Creative Cafe)and added a heart (Heidi Swapp).