Everyday Insanity and Delight

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 :)

I have happy eyes....

...I've been looking at these scrumptious babies all day...

 

 

 

 

Probably helps that their Mumma is a total sweetie...

 

Looking at these images, just makes me smile.  And can you believe there's still heaps more to come...

Happy days all, happy days :)

WHAT is the go?

Man it's FREEZING!  How weird is that for October?  We still have snow on the mountain - bizarre...

 

Not that I'm complaining really, but the gloominess is a bit...um.. contagious...

I stayed up far too late watching The Batchelor last night.  I'm not much of a TV watcher but I've been a bit of a reality TV addict lately.  Sigh...I quite enjoy that I don't watch much TV but that had me sucked in.  Along with The Apprentice Australia as well.  I'm loving the bitchy tension within the groups, and WHO would group women together?  Reeow!

I've also been having a lovely time eavesdropping on Twitter and occasionally joining in on conversations between Mel and Tammy all about their sewing.  I'm SO jealous - lol....I have a seemingly endless list of scrapping and photography commitments and all I want to do at the moment really is sew and draw.  Sigh...

Have a look at their blogs though because there are some beautiful and simple little girls' clothing items that they've been sewing and they're delish!  I'm planning on having the whole of January off though so I'll be sewing up a storm.  And besides I'm thinking that Madeleine won't forgive me if she doesn't own a twirly skirt very soon!

October already...

Far out this year is flying....where does the time go?  Seriously...we're into Term Four already as well! 

We had really nice holidays here, and also nice that the kids went back to school yesterday..they were ready and so was I.  We didn't do heaps, the weather was mostly miserable and we were sad about the passing of Grannie.  Both Alexander and Madeleine were far more upset than I anticipated. So we hung out at home mostly which was just as well because I still had to work on stuff for Budget and for Nicole Finlayson Photography

We finally managed to get to Star Wars at Scienceworks  Serious geek-fest with fittingly geeky volunteers working there who looked like they just stepped out from behind World of Warcraft or left a LAN party.  Love that.  It was obvious they are true fanatics and couldn't have been a better match to the exhibition. I'm sure one of the staff there own this car....

 

Okay so I'm quietly sniggering but the truth is that I love seeing people with a passion :)  The Star Wars thing creeped me out at first then bored me silly.  I'm so not into it.  Nathan and the kids though...well they love that stuff.  And I did enjoy how educating the process was really..

 

 

Yes I may snigger but I HAD to do this regardless of the fact that my poor husband clearly can't work my camera :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nice huh?  I reckon Darth was demonstrating with much cheekiness, my um, height, or lack thereof...

 

 

 

We went to the Lightning Room presentation as well and learned all about sound and electricity.   That was cool!

 

And went to the Planetarium.  If you do this DO it!  I hadn't been since it was at the old museum and this one is amazing.  So real I felt motion sick.  The chairs recline back and the show is sensational.  We went underwater, and out into space.  It's a great experience, especially for kids :)

 

Look at my boy's hair!  Grr I so wanna chop it off, although it's growing on me now I guess!

 

She doesn't care that it's pouring rain, it's a park and she's playing there. And that's it.

 

The photos in the Pumping Station aren't great but I don't care :)

 

 

It's such a gorgeous old building, I just wanted to stay all day!

He's gonna hate that I posted this but I LOVE it!

 

We ended up cold and wet and didn't care!

We spent quite a few days just hanging out at home and Alex stayed with a friend for a few days.

We had Grannie's funeral in Geelong on Friday and it was hard.  A beautiful service but so hard to say goodbye.  I said a few words as the oldest grandchild and managed to get through without too much sooking.  I was mad at myself that I cried, I SO wanted to get through without crying at all, tried to save it until I'd finished talking but it just didn't happen.

My cousin brought with her a bag of Grannie's beads.  She had HEAPS of gorgeous plastic bead necklaces and bangles and as children we all used to play in them so in Grannie's honour, we all wore one of her necklaces.  It was such a thoughtful thing on the part of my cousin.  Both of my babies cried when I did and really cried and it made me even sadder that I couldn't take their sadness away.  I'm glad they came though - an important life lesson.

After going to visit Grandpa and hanging out at Grannie's favourite pub for her wake we headed into Melbourne city to the Eureka Skydeck

Both kids and I have been before but Nathan hadn't.  Poor Nath, he has a morbid fear of heights and he tried to enjoy it, but he just didn't...

It was way too cold and yucky to do anything else unfortunately..:(

Saturday night we headed off to a 40th birthday party.  It was a dress up party and we had to go as something starting with the birthday boy's initials - S, A or B.  We somehow managed to pull together costumes amongst all of our busy-ness!

 

Nathan was an Arab, I was Boy George, Maddy was a Barbie Ballerina and Alex at the last minute decided to go as an Axe-Murderer. (Aren't boys charming?) It was fun to dress up!

 

Mostly though last weekend we slept.  We were SO lazy!  And it was fabulous!

I don't think I can share the last few photo shoots here as they're shots for commercial jobs. Hmm must check that but I can tell you I've been very busy and I'm loving it.  Also busy with Budget Scrapbooking as well. It was World Cardmaking Day  on Saturday and behind the scenes, Suz and I were working madly on new mini-kits for cards in honour of this special day.  Here are some cards I made using die-cuts...

 

 

And some using stamps...

 

You can see all of our cards from the weekend here

And.....if you want to buy our bits and pieces used on our cards, you can get it all here

Or you can WIN our card kits FREE by participating in this

Nice and cheap and lots of fun to make!

While you're there check out our latest kits that I don't think I've shared yet...

Pages -

 

Quickutz -

  

And check out Suz's delicious cards - 

 

Yummy eh?  You can get these here   Each kit is under $30 and comes with everything you need to make all of the projects shown PLUS the instructions!  New ones are due in a few weeks :)

Speaking of paper stuff, here's a layout I did for Aussie Scrap Source

 

 

 

I'm going to now take my freezing self (hey isn't it meant to be Spring?) and do some more scrapping!

Thanks for stopping by :D

I've got a big black shiny car.......

Yep here it is....

 

 

And I am very much LOVING it :)

Sad to see the other one go - sigh....had that baby for seven years, since Maddy was tiny but hey, time to move on :)

Been working frantically getting Budget Scrapbooking kits ready to go out for this month - will show you a pic when I have them edited :)

For now though, here's a couple from a photo shoot I did on the weekend..how cute are they? 

 

 

Scrumptious, gorgeous babies....:)

Right I'm off to enjoy this divine sunshine :)

Yesterday

I went on an excursion with Madeleine's grade yesterday, to the Police Station here.

 

The Junior School is learning about their local community so they went to see how everything works inside the big building on the corner here..

The kiddies were so funny, just about all of them obsessed with the belts that the police wear with the gun on it...lol..I almost felt sorry for the officers fielding all of the questions :)

The car was a highlight for them too - check out this face when the siren was switched on!

 

Think my girl enjoyed the trip much?

 

That's our point-and-shoot Canon in her hand, she took lots of photos...the apple never falls far from the tree eh??

This is the "Ugh finnnnnnne Mum take the stupid photo" face...

I had just arrived home when Nath called me to say he'd found a car for sale that he thought was exactly what I have been looking for.  I feel like we've been looking forever but it was exactly what I was after and after a test-drive I was smitten and get the new car tomorrow after it's detailed.  Pics to follow after delivery tomorrow.  A bit sad to have this baby go as a trade-in though...

 

I have driven this car for seven years...Maddy was tiny when we bought it...

 

Nevermind, I am happy to be moving onto a sedan, I guess and we seriously need to update.  Wish I was getting it today - lol...

I'm not having a crisis.....honest....

...but I got this done last week....

The bar piercing that is - known as a 'scaffold' or an 'industrial'.  I already had the high ring piercing and the bar goes either side of it.  I know what you want to ask,"Did it hurt?" and the answer is, "Hell yes!"  It was a needle piercing so a cut to fit the bar.  It was worse after a couple of days  - OUCH - but today I've been able to lay on it.  I LOVE it and before you think I am mindlessly insane, I'd been thinking about it for ages and decided to just do it.  I love piercings and it's there because I feel like I'm going through some huge changes emotionally, spiritually and philosophically and basically it's there to remind me of what I've been through, to listen instead of speak, and to not grow OLD! It's a reminder that although our bodies age and we wisen and mature, we shouldn't forget the lessons of our youth - and that's the main reasoning!

So I've been busy busy as usual, have my finger in a few pies right now, one of them being a little job I'm doing in a soon-to-be-opened cafe/art gallery here.  I've been soooooo insatiably lucky to cross paths with artist-extra-ordinnaire Kimbaross.  To cut a long-ish story short, I finally met him in person last weekend and have secured some of his DIVINE pieces for display and sale in the gallery.  Here's a couple I have here that I do NOT want to part with.  Ever.

 

I've totally stolen these pics from his site (thanks K - lol) and will have a new section at www.nicolefinlayson.com where you will be able to buy the artworks I have in the gallery online if you'd like to.  If you're interested in either of these pieces, please contact me via the email link.  If you just want to drool over his amazing portfolio check out his work here. AND if you don't want to buy these pieces you can buy prints of the pieces at the same site AND he is generously donating all profits to bushfire charities.  Awesome eh???

Speaking of all things arty, I feel a bit inferior to post this right after that creative genius BUT I finally got a chance to scribble and here's this week's effort -

A quick charcoal on canvas paper.  Man I LOVE charcoal. Anyway it's title "Resignation".  You know when you fight the daily fight and you just give up?  Well that's what I was thinking here...

I have a sketch book full of ideas for art pieces, just life gets in the way sometimes...

At least I still get to scrap - here's the last few pieces I've done for Aussie Scrap Source

Isn't that Cosmo Cricket "Everafter" range totally DIVINE!!!??  I did a layout with it today as well but can't share quite yet :)

I spent last weekend with my favourite scrappy girlfriends making pages for Sarah's Memory Gifts appeal,a  crop organised by Cindy.  We made HEAPS of pages and had a FABULOUS night with drinks, pizza and laughs all around and lucky for me the lovely Suz let me crash at her house for the night. (Actually i should say thankyou to phoebe since it was her gorgeous pink room that I got to sleep in again :) -thanks Phoebe)

Here's a few pics stolen from Cindy's blog of us feeling festive...

 

He he heeee!!!

I've been very busy with photo bookings as well this month which is SO fantastic, I'm LOVING every second still!  I have a couple of exciting things in the pipeline so I'll be busy for quite some time I reckon.

Before I go I want to share with you some more of the 10th Anniversary photos of Tanya and Michael - they were SO adorable.

 

 

 

 

 

Hotties aren't they?

I have some other stuff I'd love to share but honestly I've been sitting here for SO long, I really need to do something more constructive.  Bye for now :)

More spark searching.....

In the search for my spark, my self-expression, my kick-start back to positivity, a day away from home was in order. Nothing fills me with ideas and inspiration more than a trip to the city and a day at the gallery.  I also have menu boards to design and paint for a new cafe and have no idea wha the trends are right now so it was the perfect excuse to take a day out to explore.

I dropped the kids at school and caught the first train to Melbourne.  I'm not one for public transport or crowds but the train is so EASY.  It takes me directly into the heart of the city, right to both of the major art galleries, costs me less to travel return than to PARK my car plus I get almost an hour and a half of uninterrupted relaxation with nothing but my book and my iPod.  Just for the record I read and finished this book on the train that day.

You might have heard or "Tuesdays With Morrie" and "The Five People You Meet In Heaven".  I've read those as well and loved this one just as much.

Anyway.........I had a lovely relaxing trip into the city, watched these guys in Federation Square.  No I dunno who they are but they did an amazing cover of "Don't Hold Back" by The Potbelleez - cool stuff!

Then I headed off with sketch book inside my newly refashioned jumper bag and sketched this painting by Charles Blackman. (I've raved and raved on here about this piece before, won't go now) It was amazing to sketch it from the real thing. :)  I'll post my drawing when it's more finished!

I tried VERY hard not to place my hands on this (it was so hard not to)  Makes my insides tingle with glee to see these strokes of genius!  Yep really it does ;)

and this -

Took even MORE photos of this AGAIN!

Stood gobsmacked looking at this

this

and this too...

There's something fascinating about going somewhere alone.  I would rarely do it - I'd take a friend or the kids, but it was so nice to be alone with my thoughts and sketch book and I was amazed how many people talked to me.  Total strangers telling me stories of their lives. 

That happens to me a lot actually, I think I must look approachable.  I'm convinced though that every person I cross paths with teaches me something and always try to listen.  Maybe that's a message to me from the Universe - maybe I need to listen more, or observe more, or something!

I had a fabulous conversation with one of the security guards who I was convinced when he approached me, that I was in trouble for either drawing in the gallery or for the enormous amount of photos, including close-ups I was taking.  Nope he was just friendly and we had a great discussion about Blackman vs Tucker and all sorts of narrative artists and it was wonderful! :)

There was a temporary exhibition there as well by Rosalie Gascoigne.  It was fabulously freaky.  Some pieces had me scratching my head, like this one....

Then others were awesome like these:

Here's some more of her stuff :)

How freaky are these??? Shudder...

Loved this, it is pieced crates -

I took heaps of photos of the city but mainly for drawing inspiration.

And I had a lovely wander around looking at menu boards in the endless amount of cafes and restaurants.  It's such a lovely culture.

Saw this in the gallery shop.  Made me wish I still had babies.  Maybe our kitten would wear them....

I hope everyone has remained safe today - it's smoky here and a water bomber just flew overhead.  Makes for an uneasy tummy I tell you.

I'm off now to check the CFA website and then to have dinner with my gorgeous niece and nephew and family!

Searching for my spark....

I taught my last class for a while at Simply Said last weekend - a mixed media canvas and everyone did brilliantly - all SO different.  These are mine - you've seen them on here before -

Using similar techniques, the girls all had a ball with Glimmermist and all sorts of yummy crafty goodness!

They were all so clever! Don't these look yummy? Polished Pigments sitting on the table.

And here's my layouts from Aussie Scrap Source for this week just gone!

Paper Loft -

Junkitz Fabric Swatches :) Can't believe I didn't know about these earlier, I'm in love ;)

And finally Paper Trunk - most of the product on this page was from CHA, not here yet, but soon!!!

I had two photoshoots the weekend just gone, on Saturday AND Sunday and I am completely, totally LOVING every moment of it.  Mind you, I have around 1000 photos to edit and sort but that's perfectly okay with me!

And I've been doing some stuff that I've been meaning to for ages like "refashion" a jumper I found in an op-shop into a bag that would hold my sketch book and stuff.  Anyone who knows me well knows I love stripes - particularly black and red or black and grey - I love grey, I love it's ability to pick up any colour it's with and it's neutral-ness (yes it's a word on my blog ).  I had to line it with my favourite red fabric with white polka dots!

I took it to the city with me last week on the big search for my spark, my mojo, my joy for life and creativity and while I can't say I found it exactly, I'm certainly re-motivated.  I've been editing photos from my day trip all night and now I'm too tired to blog them - lol!  Will do another day :)

I've also been sewing head bands, mainly just for Maddy and I and my neice.

You can find the pattern for this headband here

Even if you don't make the headband, check out the site -yum! :)

Okay I was going to add heaps more but it's near midnight, I need to go to bed :)