Me at 3

Well I haven't been here for a while, that's a combination of me being incredibly lazy and incredibly busy!

I thought I would share one of my favourite pages with you.

This is me aged 3 at our favourite swimming spot Pebbly Beach. Its not actually even a beach it was a river lol. As usual I have used loads of flowers and bling. All of these are from my2angels :) Where else!

NEW DISCOVERY!!!

Sorry everyone I haven't been here for a while! I have been sick then had sick children. So I decided to take off to Devonport for the weekend with the family :) We had a great weekend with the Inlaws Brenda and Rob. Love them to pieces!!!
Brenda and I detoured on Sunday to do some shopping on our way back to the house for lunch. The plan was to go to chickenfeed ($2 shop) for quilling supplies for the girls. We picked those up and were wandering around and I spotted some of the non slip mat stuff. They had it in purple, black, cream, blue... don't no what else. Brenda and I looked at each other and started grabbing rolls lol! It looks like square mesh but is a bit puffier and cheap as anything! Next to that Brenda spotted some funky woven placemats made out of plastic so we grabbed one of those each too. It just goes to show you that you can find scrapbooking goodies in the strangest of places!! I would upload some pics here to show you but when we left to come home this afternoon Rob asked me if I had my bag of scrap goodies and I said of course I do!!!! When I got home and unpacked the car I discovered that I didn't have it at all :( It's still in Devonport!!

My example for Amandas first challenge

This is my example of Amanda's challenge over at Aussie Girls Gone Scrappin It is the first challenge for then and if it's anything to go buy it will be a terrific place!

The criteria were to use the quote " Laugh as much as you breathe and love as long as you live" also use ribbon, chipboard and a metal embellishment.

























Close up of the chipboard flowers. I have coloured them with Zig metallic pens and then dimensional magic. The rhinestones are a scroll from My2Angels cut up and new Prima E line pearls and rhinestones in the centre of the flowers.

If you get the chance ladies hop on over to Aussie Girls Gone Scrappin and have a look. Lots of challenges starting on the 20th of every month and swaps and lovely ladies to chat to!

Night all I am off to bed. Daylight savings has messed with my body clock enough for one day :)

Summer Splash

This is my entry for Artastic's challenge this month. My partner says its a very loose interpretation of Van Gough's work but what would he know, he is male!

I took inspiration from the swirls and circles and the texture of the paint looks like stitching.

Super Busy Weekend!

Well we are all scrapping our little hearts out this weekend. So many challenges up to do. And of course the new ones coming up Mid month at Aussie Girls Gone Scrappin'

























I thought I would share with you some pages of my son. I'm not very good at boy pages, I can never think of what to embellish them with. Girls pages are so easy with flowers, ribbon and rhinestones, poor boys are a bit limited with what embellishments we can use I think!

This is a double page LO of Josh playing football this year. I was so proud of him, he is 15 and plays football on the senior men's reserve team. He won best player on the field two weeks in a row and most improved player the following week. I get very scared sometimes when I watch him play, some of these guys are HUGE compared to him. The only time he has had a bad injury tho was an away game and I wasn't there. He was carried off the field on a strecher after being mistaken for a ball and kicked full on in the ribs/kidneys then trod on. :( My poor baby. He loves it tho and wouldn't stop playing no matter how many times he was kicked or trampled.























This is Josh at around age 3. We had a pool in the back yard and he learned to swim before he was 1! He is part fish I am convinced of it! He got the goggles and snorkel and flippers for his birthday and he loved them so much. He would cry and have a mini tantrum if I told him he couldn't wear them to the shop or to take them off at the dinner table. He would wear them in the bath and one night when I went in to check on him and tuck him in before I went to bed he was actually sleeping with them on lol. I love the bright colours on this LO, I don't usually use bright colours. I do tend towards more girly lO's tho.

Aussie Girls Gone Scrappin

http://aussiegirlsgonescrappin.ning.com/


A great new site just starting up. Why not head over and get to know everyone and get prepared for some challenges!

Lovely Ladies on Challenge Chicks

Well I was going to scrap something for you all tonight but I haven't and it's all TRACYS FAULT!!!

She sent me over to The Challenge Chicks to have a look. I joined ages ago but I hadn't actually looked around yet.

THEY HAVE CHAT!!! And lovely ladies to chat to!

Lol. I love chat. Any of you that know me know I like a good chat now and then heh heh.

Any way....
Blame Tracy that there is nothing to look at here tonight besides more of my boring drivel. I will be a good girl and scrap tomorrow I promise :)

*picks up halo* I'm going to read more of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies now.

CHALLENGE HEAVEN!

I was having a look around at other blogs when I got home from work early today and Amanda had a link posted on her blog about a friend who was doing challenges on her blog. Of course the word challenge set off flashy lights in my brain so I wandered over for a look.

WOW! I am going to have a go at some, if not all of these, and I thought I would post it up here so that you guys could have a look too.


Word Challenge - Use the word "Adorable" in your title.
You must also use inking, ribbon and stamping somewhere on the page

Themed Challenge - Calendar. Take inspiration from a calendar in any way you like. It can be the numbers, months a particular date etc
You must also use scallop edges and a tree/s on your page

Sketch Challenge - Use this awesome sketch from PageMaps as your inspiration.

Quote Challenge - "A picture is worth a thousand words"
You must also use strip journaling, buttons and a star/s

Number Challenge - 1 flower, 2 photos, 3 buttons, 4 journaling spots/cards/, 5 gems/rhinestones

Colour Challenge - shades of blues and browns

Ebony and Ivory Challenge - White (Ivory) with pink and green
You must also use brads and a butterfly/s

Scrap Yourself - You must use a pic of yourself using Australia or Australia Day as the theme.

Have a look at the full post at Shell's Scrapping and other stuff

$90.00 For Blue September

A BIG thank you to all the lovely ladies who entered a page for the cancer fundraiser Blue September. I mailed off my donation to the cancer council this morning for $90.00. Thank you all very much for entering :)

LAST DAY!!!

Just reminding everyone its the LAST DAY of September today. That means that if you have a blue layout to contribute to raise funds for cancer today is the last day you can email it to me :)

Send them to joannepowell1972@gmail.com

My2Angels Waaayyy Down Under

Sorry I haven't been here for a few days. What a week I have been having! I have been very busy at work with the new library move, it took much longer than anyone thought it would! Then Friday(EXCITEMENT) Tracey and her lovely mother and two angels arrived at my place ready for the classes on Saturday. We took her children to a musical performance on Friday night. I would have pics for you all BUT when I pulled the camera out of it's case it had no memory card in it!! Grrrr

Saturday was a wonderful day, a little full on for some of us with 4 classes on but we all loved it! A couple of the ladies were complete beginners and they are now addicted lol. Sorry ladies there goes all of your free time and spare change now!

























This was the boy page for our class. This is my gorgeous 15yr old son Josh. Funny little bugger he is. He hates having his photo taken! I loved doing this page. I find it hard doing boy pages. I never know what to add for embellishments. Tracy had some wonderful ideas.


























This is the lovely off the page class. A house with a removable roof so that it can be used as storage. It's just the right size for holding dimensional magic and a million other pieces :) Mine is being used as adhesive storage. The houses were made by me for the kits :)
























This one is my favourite page. The pic is my two youngest girls Mikaela and Kelsie. I have never painted chipboard in different colours before I use it, I always coat in one colour. So that was something different for me. I have also never used tulle, being too far from a shop that sells it! I really like the look, I am going to use more of it from now on. This page has so many different little embellishments on it you never really see it all on the first look. Just like all of Tracys pages!

So back to my horror week now the good bit is over!

Poor Tracy and family. The weather was so bad here on the weekend they weren't able to get out and see anything. We had planned on Sunday to get out and show them the west coast but we woke up Sunday morning to pouring rain and gale force winds. They decided to travel up to Burnie and stay the night there before heading on to Devonport. The trip to Burnie which should have taken them just over an hour took them 2 and a half hours! There were power lines and trees down on the roads everywhere and major delays in traffic as the roads were closed!

Trust Tassie to turn on the good weather for them.

I wandered in to work on Monday (I don't usually work on Monday's) , and in the sunshine mind you, to discover our beautiful new library/access centre had leaked like a 70 year old wooden boat! There was 2 inches of water on the floor in the foyer access centre! One whole row of computers were full of water and a whole stack of books were ruined :( The new carpet is soaked through. Sigh. One very busy day was spent trying to clean up the damage.

Today is my recovery day. I hope Tracy and family had a lovely time here despite the weather! I know I loved meeting them all and spending some time with them :)

another blue september

This beautiful layout is number 9 in Blue September challenge :) It's Amanda's second page. I made an allowance for her because she has twice as many men in her life than most of us do.

Entry number 8 For Blue September

Todays entry is from Shazza...... She said.....



I have sent you a layout of me with my son Jarred on Hamilton Island. Jarred had been living and working on Hamilton island landscaping the gardens of a new resort called Qualia. I hadn't seen him for a couple of months.























I love typed journaling I always forget to type it up and regret it afterwards when I see it finished. (I hate my messy handwriting!)

Thank You Shazza. That is $80 now for Cancer :)

3 Blue September Layouts!

WOW I didn't expect such a huge response from everyone! Thanks so much Ladies :)

I had three beautiful pages in my inbox today when I got home from work.

























The first page is From Brenda Wyllie. This is her gorgeous Husband when he was at Ulverstone High School (and had hair) :P Lovely page Brenda :)
























This gorgeous page is from Amanda :) She says .... I have used, Prima pp, music paper, Scrapware Chippy Circle Tree, buttons, Cloud9 letter stickers.
I have some ideas for how to use my tree now Amanda!
























The final page is from the beautiful Liana :) This is her gorgeous husband Craig and her equally gorgeous daughter Mattaya (I hope I spelled that right!) What a beautiful photo of softy Craig


I love them all ladies.... how many pages are we up to now????

7!!! Woohoo I was aiming for 5! Now let's see if we can get 10 That would be fantastic!

Shelves Shelves and more Shelves!!!!

Just a quick note to you all tonight! I am so exhausted and aching from my day in the library. You are all saying now "what!! How can a day in a library leave you exhausted" lol Seriously.

Our school was lucky enough to receive the governments stimulus grant and are having MAJOR renovations done. Our new library access centre and IT room are the first to be completed..... well almost, we worked around them today as they laid carpet and finished little jobs lol.

Our old shelves were sent away 3 weeks ago to be resprayed and they returned today (just in time) looking fabulous! BUT they were all mixed up :( we have about 6 different types of shelving and it came back in boxes all jumbled together. Hours of arguing screwing and unscrewing later we sorted most of them out, if not to their original sets, then into ones that worked lol.

But I can tell you screwing a whole library full of shelves together is not an easy job! I didn't do it on my own of course but my poor old knees think I did lol.

I should have uploaded some photos here but Ruth has them all on her camera and I didn't think to ask. So I haven't done any scrapping or any of the jobs I was going to do today so I had them finished before Tracy comes Friday BUT I have a library ready to load books into tomorrow morning. That makes me a happy chappy :)

Night all I'm off for a soak in a hot bath and bed ready to do it all again tomorrow!

First Steps..... From Daphne

Another beautiful Blue September page form a very clever lady called Daphne Birett.

It's called first steps.....
Have a look at her blog to see some of her other lovely pages. http://daph-a-dills.blogspot.com/
This is lovely Daphne... what a little cutie!

Another blue September

We have our third Blue September page :) Thats $30 so far for cancer.

This one is from Tracy at My2Angels. She has used Melissa Francis PP, silver rhinestone stars, painted corrrugated cardboard, blue stars, cheerleader charms, and terracotta cord fabric flowers from buzz and bloom. All of the embelli's are available from her shop My2Angels
It looks great Tracy :)

Milla

This is my challenge entry for shabbychic butterflys and bows. The criteria was to use white or cream cardstock as the base, use the colours pastel pink and lemon predominately and use butterflies.

I didn't have much in the way of pastel pink and lemon now my girls are older they like brighter colours... I guess now we have a baby in the family again I will have to stock up!
























This is my Great Niece Milla Grace. She is 7 weeks old already! The time is just flying by! I have used bazzil card as the base and Urban Lily Blush and Kaiser Sugar Sugar patterned papers.
















An acetate butterfly from Karen's Scrappin Kupboard with kindy glitz around the edges for a much needed touch of lemon :P And some of the gorgeous flowers from Delish.





















The main embellishment cluster has more flowers from Delish, gorgeous butterfly from My2Angels a rhinestone heart also from My2Angels and Tags from Karen's Scrappin Kupboard.

Friends.... Blue September page

My blue page.... I have so many blue things in my scrap room to use I thought this would be easy to do! No such luck there. This would have to be one the hardest pages I have had to quickly put together. Perhaps it's because the beautiful Websters paper doesn't need any extra embellishing so the more I added the worse it got lol.

Should have waited because I just got my order from Delish with a load of beautiful flowers in it :(

This is my eldest DD Kitty (Kirsten) on the right and her two best friends Bekka and Talia at her leavers dinner drinks last year.

Love my Dad

Our first blue LO.......
This LO is from Jacqui Miles. She apologises for the angle it is the only photo she has of her LO because her brother has it in Victoria. This is a LO of her father who died of cancer two years ago. Sorry for your loss Jacqui and thank you for sharing with us xx

Its lovely

Blue September Fundraiser Challenge

Hi all... I have a little challenge I want to throw out there to anyone that is interested.

This month is Blue September. It's about creating awareness and raising funds for cancer in men. One in two Australian males are diagnosed with cancer by the age of 85! At least one in three cancer cases are preventable, and the number of cancer deaths could be significantly reduced by more men choosing a cancer-smart lifestyle. These men could be your fathers, your husbands, your boyfriends or your sons.

I want to donate $10 to Blue September for every blue page emailed to me by September 30.
It doesn't have to be all blue it just has to be the dominant colour.
So come on ladies... help me out with this great cause and help the men in our lives.
Email your entries in to joannepowell1972@gmail.com

www.blueseptember.org

Country Bird House

What a terrible day today! Rain, hail, thunder and wind. Where is spring? At least our Queensland visitors will be suitably impressed next week it's forecast to snow!

I have ran around today and finished off all of the jobs on my job list that I made at the start of the school holidays.... and just in time too. Back to school tomorrow! Hopefully the new library
will be ready for us to move into this week! How exciting that will be!!
























Thought I would share one of my own designs with you today. These are my Country bird houses. I have painted the roof with crackle paint and the main part of the houses with paper. For decoration I have used wire and the flowers from my2angels. They stand about 30cm high when assembled. These are available to buy from Tracy at the my2angels shop. They come in kit form ready for you to decorate :)

Inspired by Amanda, Jacqui's shoe and the chickens

Well I have had the pleasure of scrapping with my friend Jacqui again today. She came armed with her finished shoe.
















She has used Tickler Creations flowers. Ribbon, feathers and charm from Spotlight.

















The heel is covered with silver rhinestones. At least a million she says lol.

















The ribbon around the shoes she has pleated herself. I thought she had brought it that way but she sat patiently and did it herself. Clever little cookie isn't she.
Now Jacqui is a mum of 5 children under 11 so it's amazing she gets time to do any scrapbooking!
She is also mother to one of the Ickys.
























This page I have used Daisy Bucket Designs, My little monsters papers and thickers. Thats about all!























The journaling says.... I had my friend Jacqui's son staying with us for the night. His name s NICKY, my daughter Mikaela is called MICKY. Together we call them the ICKYS. They are so alike you would swear they must be brother and sister. They are both CHUBBY, Both make SILLY noises. Both EAT like they are planning on starving for the next week. Both have a HILARIOUS sense of humour. Both are the ODD one out in their family. Both are LOUD and Silly. We love the Icky's :)

























Page two for the day is Hagely Farm. This is me ages about 8 I think on a school trip to Hagley Farm. I look pretty impressed with the chickens. I actually remember this trip. We had to collect clean and grade the eggs for sale. We also tended the pigs, made candles and butter and went to school for the day in an old school house where we had to write with a quill and were threatened with the cane. I have used Buzz and Bloom Pleasantville chip board houses from My2Angels, Thickers, Chocolate Covered Cherries, Cherry Garcia patterned paper, Basic Grey rub ons, Kaiser Black Paint and ribbon from my stash.

























My third page for the day was inspired by Amanda's shabby chic page on her blog of herself as a little one :) I haven't really tried shabby chic before so it was fun! I have used Websters paper, rhinestone words, charms, velvet leaves, tags and Doileys from My2Angels. The gorgeous flowers are the new prima flowers from Karen's Skrappin' Kupboard. The beautiful pearl butterfly and flourish up the side is also a new Prima release from Karen's.























Flowers, tags, charms and leaves from My2Angels. I have used glimmermist on the doiley and hidden journaling tag.
















The gorgeous new prima flowers.

My Scrappy Spot

Wowsers what a busy day!! I haven't managed to create anything today. I have a certain online friend coming to stay with her family next week and since I am off to my younger sisters engagement party this weekend and have work again next week I thought I would tidy my scrapbooking room ready for when she came while I had time :)















This gorgeous and super handy cupboard was made for me by my father in law. It was supposed to be a Christmas present but because I'm spoilt rotten I got it when it was ready.... which was waaaay before Christmas. Under the shelves it has two huge cupboards and two sets of drawers on either end. It has ribbon holders (I really must get around to hanging the rest of my ribbon!) the little tubs hold small tools, inks, glues, adhesives and most used embellishments. The paint rack slides out to make it easy to get to the paints at the back. The small drawers are alphabet drawers and the racks on the end hold all of my papers.






















These are the alphabet draws. In here I keep all of my wooden and chipboard alphabet letters and numbers.
















The paper racks. He has made me three separate sections. One for cardstock, one for patterned papers and one for scraps. They are all separated into their colours.
















My display cube. I like to change these as I make new things. I seemed to have a lot of red and black on my other shelf so I grouped them all together. It's fun even if no one besides me ever sees them.













My fowlers jars filled with flowers instead of preserved fruit heh heh.
























The ugly shelving unit pilfered from downstairs. Fowler jars are on the top shelf, baskets of stickers, alphabets and rub ons are on the next and on the bottom magazines, books, my UFO basket and my cuttlebug, also a gift from my in laws :) Oh and my beautiful painting my son made for me. My intention was to cover each colour with flowers that matched but I haven't gotten around to it yet!
























My other two sets of draws holding all my wooden products and embellishments and my second display shelf. I would eventually like a wall filled with shelves to display my finished work. Hmmm perhaps in the new house.....

The Emperor's new shoes

I was looking for something a little different to do today and decided that I would try to scrap a pair of shoes. My sister did it a few months ago and produced 2 fabulous shoes so I thought I would have a go to see what I could do. My friend Shannon challenged me to make them Goth so off I went to the local second hand shop and found a cute pair of high heels to play with. Now I'm not really sure what Goth shoes look like so I thought I would just stick to red and black and see what she thought when I was done.

Instead of doing two shoes I have only done one. The beautiful and talented Jacqui has taken the other one home with her to see what she can do with it.
















I have used black rhinestone swirls on the sides of the shoe and added loose red rhinestones here and there to continue the red through to the back of the shoe. In a line from the heel up to the top I have used red rhinestones ending in a heart shape.

















On the front of the shoe there was a strap and a buckle. I covered the strap in red rhinestones with a border of black ones on either side. The swallow is chipboard one from scrapware that I have covered with black rhinestones and placed over the buckle.


















All of the products I have used today came from My2Angels where the lovely Tracy stocks some terrific products.

The Christmas House

Ho Ho Ho Christmas is getting closer!! To get into the spirit today I made the first of my Christmas decorations. A house which will eventually be part of my table center piece. I had one of my best friends over scrapping with me today and with lots of advice produced my first house in the new series from Retired out to lunch. A recent CHA release. What a great product they are too! Really easy to put together and endless possibilities for decorating them! I got mine from Karen's Scrappin' Kupboard
























These are so much fun to make! I have used corduroy card stock for the window shutters, roof trims and door. On the house I have used Graphic45 Christmas Past Collection, Letters to Santa and Carol of the Bells patterned paper again from Karen's Scrappin' Kupboard. The wreath on the door is in a set of stickers from a $2 shop.























The picket fence is from Scrapware. The windows are covered with vellum and the frames drawn on with permanent marker.
















A close up of the dormer on the roof. The Christmas lights are loose rhinestones from My2Angels adhered with Dimensional Magic. The snow and icicles are created with 3D Kindy Glitz. This is fantastic stuff. It's so thick it will hang and not run down.
























The 3D Kindy Glitz looks great as snow on the edges of the roof. I have put a piece of ribbon around the chimney with Christmas sayings on it.


On a sadder note I would like to say a sad farewell to Patrick Swayze. What a brilliant actor he was. Ghost still sends shivers up my spine and who can forget him in Dirty Dancing! While it was expected it is still sad none the less :(