Everyday Insanity and Delight

and so, the season has become silly..

What is it with this year?  The shops are insane already and it's still November.  Sigh.  How I loathe a crowd.  And queues.  Ugh, and the infuriating hunt for a car park.  Or worse still the people who hover waiting for your car park.  Do you do that?  It's not that I think it's a totally bad idea, it's more the ones that block the way for everyone else while they hover.  Or the people that hover in shop doorways.  Can you not see you're blocking the way?  AARRGGH!  Okay so I'm a bit crabby about it all........

Okay enough stroppiness, it will all be over in a month :)

I've been flat out taking photos.  I mean hundreds, maybe even thousands.  Not only is it mad at this time of year because things are winding down but because new stuff will come out for 2010 and needs to be shot and produced now.  I've been doing lots of commercial stuff and families galore. And weddings.  And bellies. It rocks.  I'm loving it.

I have lots of photos to share but I've just made all the cds and want the clients to see them first.  Two weekends ago, I did a fundraising job for my kids' school and loved it.  Mini sessions, totally awesome so watch this space.  Seems my babies go to school with some spunky kids!

Right, now the November kits for Budget have been released and Suz and I have been working hard on a new project too.

Pages kit -

 

And the other kits are on the site.  I could actually go and find Suz's images and upload them but clearly I'm too lazy..

Our fabulous new venture is "Life In Motion"  Check out that link with the details and JOIN US!  We're not flogging you any kits, or product unless you want it.  Suz and I are doing it just because we can and you can too.  We DO have the divided pages and we're using our paper packs, but you could use your stash.  Here's my first two pages..

 

 

 

The BEST part about this project is that you can make as many or as few pages as you like BUT there is NO PRESSURE and making pages in these divided pocket pages is EASY and most of all, it has reminded me to take photos of the everyday and document it which is why I started flipping-well scrapbooking in the first place!  Yay I want to see what you do, so if you join us, I'd love to see your pages.  There are heaps of scrapbooking organisations running similar challenges etc to this and many have kits etc for sale but we're just doing our own thing and we'll be sharing our ideas and pages throughout 2010 on our Budget Scrapbooking blog.

I made this ages ago for the Budget blog too.  Can't remember if I shared it.

 

Using the Crop-A-Dile Big Bite.  Fab tool!

 

I love those gromlets...

Here's what I've been making for Aussie Scrap Source, a little calendar album -

 

 

And I made this for my "Inspired by Jewellery" post.  Inspired by my three Pandora style bracelets collected from the host of trade shows Suz and I have been to this year.  It's an addiction.  The beads AND the shows.  I'm chomping at the bit to go away again.  Or not.  I'm tired but after a break I'm busting...

 

 

Mr Panda and the Divine Miss M are exhausted.  I can't wait until school holidays.  I'm hoping to get everything out of the way so I can have the entire month of January off with them.  They're trying to be nice children but even nice children have their limits I guess.  It's making for many headaches and squabbles! And that is me as well! Amongst all the chaos of this time of year when everything is crammed into the space of a few weeks, I got to witness this...

 

After around ten years of reading the Hairy MacLary books over and over to both children since they were babies, it occurred to me that here is Maddy, reading Hairy MacLary to ME!  Right on back!  And since I know them inside out and back to front, she likes making me try to guess the next line.  They're just the best little stories and this was a HUGE moment.  One of those times where you realise what this crazy parenthood thing is about.  Well a bit anyway.

best day ever!

Melbourne Cup Day means a public holiday for us all.  It's going to throw the whole week out I'm sure but I for one welcomed the sleep in. 

I worked until around 2am this morning so wasn't planning on anything too huge to happen with everyone home plus our nephew Kyle sleeping over.  I did the usual - editing, laundry, cleaning, shopping while the boys SAT all day on the Wii and Maddy played beautifully.  Alex had a friend come over and all was pretty content until I heard music box music and realised it was Mr Whippy!

Mr Whippy never drives his ice cream van around hardly ever.  It's a real novelty for us here.  I want my kids to feel that same kind of excitement that I STILL do when I hear the music play.  So Nath headed off in his van with Kyle and I took the other three kids and we hunted him down for ice cream!

 

They're always ridiculously overpriced but who cares?  Faces like these are priceless!

 

And then Madeleine declared today...."Best day EVER!"

 

And you can't deny that kind of enthusiasm is truly admirable!

:)

3 weeks or so...

I shouldn't be sitting here right now but I'm biting the bullet and blogging before a whole month gets away from me!

Like everyone else I know my life lately (always) has been hectic and a bit chaotic.  I often wonder when things might slow down and if they do, will I like it?  Probably not.

A few weeks ago, Suz and I realised that we were both drowning in commitments and like most mums of youngish kids, we were (are)  hardly ever afforded enough uninterrupted time to catch up with work so we headed out towards the mountains and the quiet and rented a little holiday cabin for a weekend.  The view of the snow on Mt Baw Baw was gorgeous and the whole place was lovely.

 

The weather had been cold and wet, yet the one weekend we're stuck inside working, the sun came out and the weather was glorious...

 

Mind you, I got quite a bit of work done and could sleep when I wanted, eat when I wanted and didn't have to pick up after anyone but me.  I'd love to say it was lovely and relaxing but it was very much trying to get as much work done in as little time as possible.  Lovely to do it all without distraction though...

 

I managed to not only complete this kit for our Budget Scrapbooking October Christmas Card kit release -

 

but I finished off the October Quickutz kit too!

 

I managed FIFTEEN cards from our $20 card kit - I was stoked!  If you're interested in buying them, you'll find them on our site here

And Suz's Pages kit too!

Speaking of scrapbooking and paper stuff, you've all seen this which is in Scrapbook Creations this month - 

 

Well, I also did the Scrapping For Teens article this month.  Here's my contribution - 

 

A CD case and a little cover for a gift card.  AND thanks to a very generous teen, this little book from passport pics.  I put the call out on Facebook that I needed teen pics and her and her Mum chased up and scanned all the pics I needed. SO helpful!

And.....here is a little book I made for Aussie Scrap Source using lots and lots of Glimmermist.  It was actually to showcase a few different uses of bobbly trims (they're so yummy)

 

 

For such a little project I'm telling you it felt like it took me forever to complete it!  I'm SO slow...

I've been more than busy with photography jobs lately and LOVING it!  I've had some of THE coolest jobs ever.  Some have been commercial jobs so I can't show them yet but others I can share away.  Like this one, a current fave because it was SO fun!!!

 

Aren't they hotties?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three sisters who did this just because they wanted too.  Cool huh?  AND they thought they had TWO hot rods coming from a friend.  We ended up with SIX gorgeous amazing old cars including a Mustang from a random stranger who saw what we were doing and offered her car to us for photos.  People were stopping us and saying more women should do it.  It was empowering for all of us and I've never really been "into" cars but the red one above was just SO beautiful it took my breath away. I have literally hundreds of great pics to sift through and having a ball doing so.  You can see more of them here

Here's a few more of the G family.  I loved looking at these gorgeous cherubs, they're so adorable..

 

 

 

 

And....I had a belly in the bush shoot too!

 

Lots more of those on the way :)  It was a crazy adventure getting there.  I wish I made more time to blog so I'd get it all down!

For now though I'm sure I've annoyed everyone enough with this giant photo-fest.

Back to editing and scrapping for me, thanks for stopping by!

Nic :)

And the winner is......

....ooo have SO much to blog, but will have to do it later.  Just popped on here to share this little clip I captured this morning of Miss Maddy Moo helping me out!

Hope you're happy Bec :)

Thanks everyone who entered.  I think between here and Facebook, i had about 40 entries, so thanks for your interest and gorgeous and funny comments.  I've enjoyed this, I reckon I'll give away more stuff here more often :)

I'm off to do a pin-up photo shoot now complete with hot rods and babes - can't wait to share the images with you x

Do you want to win my scrapper's journal?

Not sure if I'm being kind or self-indulgent.  Meh I'm doing it anyway...

 

This is my scrapper's journal, totally inspired by my friend Jenni who had all of her scrapping notes etc so amazingly organised that I knew I just had to make one too.

 

So I did.  And it's in the current issue of Scrapbook Creations magazine as a project.  So you can make your own if you so desire.  Or you can have mine.  Well my spare one anyway, not my hand-me-down dog-eared, handbag scuffed journal.

When you are commissioned to do a  project for SC, you need to make the "steps" for them to photograph so I have a half-made scrapper's journal without a home.  It's a teeny bit different because the brand of binder is different but the embellishments are the same design - same fabric, everything. But there's no name on it yet. 

Just leave me a comment here on this post before next Saturday October 24th and I'll use one of those random generator thingys or one of the kids, I dunno yet and I'll stamp the cover label in the winner's name, finish off the cover and send it to you.

I'll also include blank tabs so you can customise your journal to suit your own needs.

Mine holds theme ideas, project examples that inspire me, deadline lists, things the kids say, little notes and drawings they do, tickets from places we've been etc.  It's amazing how organised you feel when you house all of this in the one place, and amazing how much I missed it while it was away.

So I'm possibly making a total dick of myself here with anyone reading saying, "Eeeew no thanks" or maybe someone will be willing to adopt my semi-finished journal and make it their own. :)