Everyday Insanity and Delight

been making stuff...

Just a quick post for today.  I had a crazy Saturday night out and feeling super-ordinary today! (yes that's TWO days later - hmm) Plus I am meeting clients shortly but I just wanted to quickly share these!

I've been making a conscious effort of late to spend less time at the computer and more time being productive.  Some stuff I've been making lately I can't show yet but here's what I can!

Firstly for Aussie Scrap Source this bag.  It's a blank Donna Downey canvas bag (from Prima) .  I took some raw artist's canvas and created torn patches by masking and colouring with Glimmermist. The polka dots are a Heidi Swapp mask and the others are by Tattered Angels, Tim Holtz and anything else I could get my hands on.

Next, I caught up with some old friends from school Saturday night.  I'll post more soon but to go out in a skirt with no pockets is a pain because I don't like carrying a handbag.  I made this on Saturday afternoon just before I went out.  It is "just" big enough to hold my little point and shoot camera, my iPhone, id and some cash.  It has a long cross-over strap and i can forget I'm even carrying it!

I just made it from left over fabric and a piece of felt that I had in my stash..

And last but not least, while I was trawling the internet looking for iPhone cover ideas, I saw one of these, and so did Alexander.  He begged me to make him one, so last night I did.  No computer, just a movie - Hawke in fact, just in case you were wondering :) If I wasn't feeling old already, well I actually really enjoyed the movie and I think that makes me a bit of an old fogie as well!

This is Totoro from the movie My Neighbour Totoro which my kids adore!  They've not really ever been that into Disney movies other than the Pixar ones maybe but they LOVE anything by Studio Ghibli. It comes from their Dad.

Now that I can apparently make anything Maddy wants a cuddly one - eek! Like I said though, the idea was stolen from one I saw on Flickr.

Okay enough procrastination for today, I have a house to clean and clients to meet...:-D

photos, fame and birthday fun!

I shouldn't call her my baby, but she is, and she always will be.  My little Madeleine turned eight last week.  EIGHT!

It seems like yesterday that she was asking if she was five yet!

She had a party at the end of June with Alexander but for her actual birthday she had asked for a pamper party, then a sleepover, or a tea party, or or or or - you get the drift right?

She settled on wanting to go to a movie, Toy Story 3 in fact, and she asked for friends to come then decided she'd like lunch at McDonalds, a play in the playground and the movie late in the day so Daddy could come too...

I must confess that I offered her a new outfit in lieu of taking several friends to the cinema because it is PRICEY to go to the movies.  She adored this dress so it was an easy bribe...

We had a quiet dinner at home with Nanna and Peter and Miss M's requested birthday cake - a cheesecake please.  One of those ones with the strawberry jam on top.  And candles.

Too easy, I didn't even have to make it, it was bought.  All of the times I've made lavish birthday cakes and she just wanted this.  So I topped it with her favourite Chocolate Royals and her eyes just about popped out of her head with excitement!

 

A girl of simple pleasures my girl is.  She was happy to play Littlest pet Shop and Polly Pocket all day.

Speaking of simple pleasures, I've been on some mad sewing spree.  I'm on an assignment for Aussie Scrap Source at the moment and I've made three, yes THREE projects instead of one because I'm sewing and I have more to come.  I can't seem to stop, I get idea after idea and it's madness!  Fabulous madness.  Photo jobs have been slow with the miserable weather and for the first time in a long time I'm finding I have some breathing space.  Here's some favourites from a recent shoot though...

 

I say it and think it every shoot.  Cutest. Kids. Ever.  Oh they were gorgeous, made me clucky and their Mum was lucky I didn't try to take them home with me :-D

And while I'm on the subject of photography, here's a little mention in my local newspaper, The Warragul Gazette.  Yep that's the side of my head and my camera - lol...

A bit special I reckon and an exciting launch to be associated with purely because women successful in their pursuits always inspires me in some way!
 
Here's a couple of layouts I've done for Aussie Scrap Source

And another exciting "fame" moment.  I'm on the Ottobre Designs blog with my first ever Ottobre creation! Woohoo!

 
If you like to sew then you will love this magazine.  It comes out four? times a year and it's chock full of fabulous patterns for women.  There's about 20 different garments and they're sized from quite small to not even close to small, like me for example...plus the cost of the WHOLE magazine is around the same as a single pattern here in Australia.

I love the top and underdress that I made, in fact it's rare that I will post a "body" photo of myself anywhere but I like the outfit so much I wanted to share.  The next mag is due to hit Aussie shores ANY day now and I for one have been stalking the shop to buy it from - Crafty Mamas every day, waiting waiting waiting...so grateful to Rachael for introducing it to me.

Okay that's about it for me tonight, my electric blanket and snuggly doona are a-waiting!

pretty stuff :)

Just because I want to knock the ugliness of this week OFF the top of my blog, I'm sharing my latest two projects for Aussie Scrap Source :)

The Crafter's Workshop

And....Basic Grey 

I had an amazingly fabulous set of photo sessions today for the EW Tipping Foundation.  I totally enjoy these jobs no end and despite the fact that in a business sense they're not big but they make me feel SO alive.  It's amazing the energy that is generated by people who've had to put extra effort into things we take for granted.

Have a fab weekend =o)

changes

I'm in a weird place emotionally at the moment.  Maybe I mean mentally. Ack! I dunno.

I've had a crazy busy last month and am spending a lot of time right now soul-searching about where I'm at, what I should be doing, what I want to be doing - blah de blah blah blah. 

I have changes going on internally and around me.  I'm not sure if they're good or bad but either way I guess they're bound to happen.  Maybe it's just that I'm aging.  Maybe it's because my babies are not babies anymore.  I have work changes happening and spiritual changes.  I, well we, are struggling financially and that's adding to the feeling of unease and is fostering the anxiety about making changes...

Okay so busy is good, or else I have no idea what I'm doing.  I loathe being bored so yep, busy is good.  Firstly I want to show you my new website - woohoo!  The old one I loved, but it needed an update.  And more space!

I have done away with the splash page and I'm still not sure if that's right or not.  I find splash pages kind of annoying so decided not to have one :)  I'm loving my new business image, it feels like it reflects ME!

Featured on there is a wedding I photographed a little while ago and it's taken me AGES to proof because there were so many fabulous pics :)  Here's a hand full of my favourites...

Beautiful wedding, a totally gorgeous day!

I've not long returned home from working as a teacher's assistant on the Mistified tour, assisting Heidi Swapp, and Tattered Angels owner and Glimmermist inventor Wendy Senger.  We, that's Suz and I. We started at the Melbourne Mistified workshop day...

It was a fabulous day, and the nest bit was that I knew lots of the attendees :)

Here's a pic stolen from my gorgeous gal-pal Tan..

And I totally love this shot of the "paparazzi"..

We had a day off then off to Sydney for the next round of Mistified!

I managed to nick off for a little bit into Newtown in Sydney to visit a button shop - All Buttons Great and Small.  It was WAY further away from where we were than I thought but Newtown is a gorgeous suburb and I took lots of photos of old buildings and stuff.  Once I finally arrived there I only bought TWO buttons because I don't really need any more buttons and I had to get back.  Distracted by my surroundings and rushing to get back I managed to roll my ankle in a pothole on the rickety old footpath.  Like really, WHY? 

Ugh it was SO painful and I was on my feet for the next few days and I was so far from home and totally embarrassed and worried about my camera and it really was just the most annoying and painful thing!  I tried to just keep ignoring it but I just couldn't.  AND I didn't think it was as bad as it was and I felt like an idiot and grrr, I can tell you it looked like this the next day and it was CANING!

I managed to get a bandage from the hotel and basically just strapped it up tight, wore lace-up boots and hoped for the best.  Lots of Ibuprofen and Codeine from Suz helped immensely!  Two weeks on, it's still SO sore and a bit swollen, but what can ya do?

After we finished at Mistified Sydney, it was off to Homebush to set up for SIA where we were working for Aussie Scrap Source.  We were making ATCs and still assisting Wendy and Heidi.  I got to meet some online friends I've known forever and see old friends again!

I came home with love/hate for the industry in equal amounts.  The love is obvious, why I love working in the industry, the hate was for the feeling that my heart isn't in it as much as it was, how much I missed my kids and just how I've kind of lost my way.  It's caused me some of the soul-searching I was referring to.  But enough about that for now, here's some layouts I've done for Aussie -

Inspired by children's artwork...

and a focus on flocking...

And my latest Budget Scrapbooking kit...

And...speaking of all things lovely, my Mother's Day was gorgeous.  The plan was for Suz and I to have one day back in Melbourne in between all of the touring, and then we'd be heading up to Brisbane for the last part of the Mistified tour.  We ended up not being needed and had the option of finishing up at Sydney so of course we took it!  As much as I loved the first week, I was tired and missed my babies oh so much PLUS not going to Brisbane meant we were home for Mother's Day.  My babies spoiled me, firstly with this lovely decoration on our misty windows...

Maddy made me this scrumptious card and laminated picture/placemat...

Alex made me this from his special Lego, in my favourite colours of course.  But I have to give the Lego back - lol...it's the thought right?

Both kids decided that they didn't like the gifts at the school Mother's Day stall, so gave it a miss this year.  Instead they gave me this delicious knitted throw that I REALLY wanted...yummo!

I love it to bits!!

A few weeks ago through Facebook, I received a notification from my local radio station about registering your business for the "19 Minutes of Fame" where you can nominate some of your favourite songs and they are played for nineteen minutes and the best bit is that your business gets mentioned on the radio.  I decided to register and to my surprise they called me the next morning to say I'd been selected.

Not only did I get my favourite songs played and my business mentioned BUT they gave me tickets to see FAME the Musical which I was absolutely stoked about and THEN they gave me a night for two at the  Sofitel Melbourne.  Seriously, I could not believe it!  Nathan and I have NEVER been away for a night alone since we had kids and that's at least 11 years ago!  So we went last weekend.

Fame was at the breathtakingly beautiful Regent Theatre where I was spoiled with Daiquiris in glowing glasses!

And in my opinion, one of the best seats in the house.  This is from my seat...

 No-one in front of me with their boof-head in the way, no seats in front cramping my legs - OH it was BLISS and so nice just to be alone with my man!

We had a glorious view from our beautiful room.  I gazed out those windows for HOURS!  That in itself was fabulous!  We even slept with the shutters open. :)

The hotel was VERY swanky, much more flash than we're used to and it was LOVELY, the bed was amazing and I had a GREAT sleep!

And of course woke up to this glorious city view :)

After a sleep-in and leisurely breakfast we headed off into the city.  The Buddha's Day festival was on so we thought we'd quickly check it out, but we ended up staying for AGES!

I was given the opportunity to make an offering to Buddha which I did, because I wanted to experience it.  I'm not a religious person but I'm certainly open and curious.  What I did NOT expect was to become completely overwhelmed with emotion.  It was scary!  It was unexpected and I was so embarrassed.  Thank goodness for sunglasses.  I can honestly say I had some sort of spiritual experience and I am a skeptic normally...

The whole festival was wonderful, lots of colour, movement, different foods and smells and sounds and street performers and music and it was fabulous, I'm SO glad we went.

I finished up by adding a leaf to the Bodhi Tree with my wishes..

and saying hi to Buddha ;)

 

I think that's about it for now, I'm off to photograph three-year old twins, their baby sister and Mum and Dad, can't wait :)

Pasta as promised...

I've been promising Madeleine for over a year (yes really it's been that long) to make felt food with her since I saw this on Mel Goodsell's blog.  I suggest it every holidays and we NEVER get around to it.

Last day of holidays after a crazy and chaotic two weeks home and I decided we were making it no matter what.  Maddy has been so involved in her imaginative play lately that I HAD to before she grew too old to love it!

So we started with Mel's ravioli and I cut and sewed while Maddy was on stuffing duty.

Please excuse the grubby face and crappy phone photo...

Maddy's Bella-Boo thinks that felt pasta is ace!

...especially with some yummy red sauce..

Once we'd made four and a half little bowls of ravioli, Maddy decided she needed a felt hamburger and was certain I could just whip something up.  I managed this....

Which contained a dodgy looking set of buns, a weird meat pattie, cheese, two versions of tomato, both equally crappy in my opinion but awesome in Maddy's, onion rings, lettuce leaves and of course a fried egg!

 Apparently sometimes toys just feel like a salad platter...

Yeeeeah I added a carrot to the repertoire and THEN Madeleine decided we needed a fruit plate.  I managed a banana of sorts...

And by then I'd proven my point to myself so I just lost interest...

Happy happy daughter though, so it was worth it. :)

In other news I have a new logo -

I really love it and finally feel like I've settled on a business image that is totally "me".  I celebrated with new business cards..iPhone phot by the way, can't decide if I love the camera or hate it..

And a yummy new website is on it's way ready to take over from the old one.  I've outgrown it, isn't THAT ace??

I'm quite behind with scrapbooking much to my own disappointment and it hasn't been helped by firstly a massive computer crash last Friday night.  THAT was a grey hair inducing moment let me tell you.   PLUS I've spent all flipping week reloading and finding drivers and hunting down discs etc etc, so annoying :( and now my printer drivers are out of date which is infuriating, then on top of all that I seriously hurt my back.  I had a bulging spinal disc pinching a nerve.  OW!  It was hard to sit, hard to stand, hard to walk, hard to sleep PLUS I am annoyed that while money is tight I'm forking out for chiropractic care.  But he is worth every cent because while it's a niggly pain, it is nowhere near as bad as it was.

But getting back to scrapping, here's my latest stuff for Aussie Scrap Source

Firstly a layout inspired by song lyrics...

Inspired by Pixies of course and even more so after going to their recent Melbourne show :)  Maddy's nickname for Alex was"La La" before she could say his name.  We have no idea why she called him that but she did for a long time.  And it sort of stuck for a little while.  I love making pages that have multiple layers of meaning, and this was one of them. :)

 Next you may or may not know (or care) that Aussie Scrap Source now distribute October Afternoon. It was probably the only brand I really cared about not getting to use all of the time once I joined Aussie because I loved it SO much!  But now...well I'm in a bit of scrapping Nirvana really...here's my "introducing" layout using October Afternoon...

I just love Maddy's grin in this photo and the papers are DIVINE!

While I'm on the scrapping subject, I've been itching to share our new Budget Scrapbooking kits with you.  I was on Quickutz and Cards this month and Suz on Pages :)  I can show you mine but i don't have Suz's image at hand and I could find it but honestly I'm too lazy!  You'll have to come and look in the SHOP or maybe Suz will put it on her blog! Anyhoo here's our Quickutz kit for April...

Everything to make the above PLUS instructions for only $28. Even the die is included!

And here are the cheery cards..

 

You can make ALL TWELVE of these cards with everything included AND instructions for $20.  Yep twenty bucks and you'll make all of the above cards and there's even some papers left over, probably enough for more cards or even a layout!

We're taking Budget Scrapbooking back to Brisbane this year and I can't wait!  Come and visit us on our booth.  If you visited us last year, it was our first show and it was crazy and chaotic and I'm not sure that I've ever ended up more tired in my life ever but I'm itching to do it all again!

I met so many fabulous people and Suz and I had a blast!  It's great to go away to "work".  Such a chore staying away and leaving the husbands and kids behind - oh ho hum ;-P

Okay I think I've been sitting here long enough.  Chiropractors orders I'm afraid, no sitting for long periods at the computer!

Have a fab weekend :)
 

 

a month and a bit...

So my life has been a little hectic of late.  All a good kind of hectic, it's just kept me away from blogging and stuff.  If you are connected to me on Facebook you will already know what I've been doing anyway...yep I am a total sucker for the micro-blogging revolution.

One of my crazy weeks involved hanging out with these guys..

 

I was commissioned to work on a campaign with the Westpac Bank who have opened a new branch in the teeny town of Drouin in Victoria.  We worked within the community to promote the new Bank Manager Michael (in the suit) as a part of the local community.  We did this by taking the Westpac Mobile Art studio caravan to schools, community groups , the shopping centre etc and asking adults and children alike to create an art piece representing what they loved about living in Drouin.  I should add that the above photo was taken by photographer Jonathan Tabensky who filled in the schedule when I could not :)

My involvement in the campaign was to work with both Michael and Stacy the Tour Manager (pictured on the right of me) recording the campaign photographically.  I can't even begin to estimate how many photos I actually took...

 

I'd love to share the photos here, there were SO many gorgeous pics of the most adorable children and amazing art pieces but sadly I'm not permitted to because officially the images are now owned by Westpac :-S.  The art pieces were collated and exhibited at a special VIP night for the bank and then sold off with all profits going directly to the Drouin CFA branch.

I was most excited to find out I sold one of my photographs on the night AND received some of the nicest feedback on my work ever.  So fab.  Here's the image sold to benefit the CFA -

 

I really want to add that it was all a job I took on kind of reluctantly thinking it would be SO boring following some stuffy "suits" around all day but I can honestly say those two above were really great fun to work with and it has been one of the best jobs I've worked on for ages. Like it seems with ALL of my photo subjects I actually became a bit attached to them and even missed working with them a few days after...what the? 

 They were both easy-going and fun and not like "bank" people at all.  Maybe I was wrong about "bank" people.  Could I have been wrong??  Hmm... 

I even worked at Farmworld. while beautiful children made art. Eek, haven't been there for a few years but it is THE place to be here in Gippsland!!  And it was the place I first discovered scrapbooking ten years or so ago!

Anyway during that crazy week of going here there and everywhere, I also photographed TWO weddings! Oh how I love a wedding, and again I get attached to my subjects and dammit I've even started to become weepy during their ceremonies.  Ugh I have gotta toughen up but I just can't help it, it's such a beautiful thing and every ceremony is so emotionally charged that it is contagious.

The first of these two was, in my defense, a gorgeous friend of mine who totally deserves every shred of happiness coming her way.  Her and her gorgeous man were married in a deliciously light flooded church with her sweet spunky son as a groomsman.  I have a huge soft spot for this boy as he is a great friend of my Alexander and has been forever!  He stays here a lot and has often taken part in our family activities like the decorating of our Christmas tree etc.  He is like a big brother to Maddy and when he started to cry during the wedding ceremony I wanted to dump the camera and give him a big hug.  He wasn't sad, just overwhelmed and since the wedding that boy has been walking on sunshine just like his Mumma! 

So I went to the rehearsal the night before and so glad I did, even if I did feel a bit weepy...look at them, aren't they gorgeous?

 

And their wedding was just beyond words beautiful.  There would not have been a dry eye in the church I'm sure.  The bride was glowing and the groom looked like he'd won the lottery and then some :)  I can only show a few of their photos because I'm just starting to work on them and I don't want to share any here that they haven't seen yet either!

More later after the happy couple have seen them :)

The second wedding was a perfectly elegant twilight wedding on a Friday night at our local Wild Dog Winery. When I say perfectly elegant it really was.  It was serene and so calm and every detail was divine!

Again, don't have too many photos to share here until the couple are back from their honeymoon and have seen them first!

 

Isn't that setting amazing? I was shattered when it started to rain and then I lost my light - argh!  But....having said that I got some beautiful shots of the whole event and I'm sure they'll be very happy.  I should also mention that the venue raised over $11,000 yesterday for the Royal Children's Hospital Good Friday Appeal  How good is that?

In amongst all of the activity I somehow managed to make it to a concert in Melbourne that I had been HANGING for.  The one and only legendary Pixies. I "get" that maybe they were/are a little alternative I guess but I'm amazed how many people have NOT heard of them!  Happy happy time for me though, especially when I discovered that Suz is a fan too!  So we went and got crushed by rude, smelly um, people, and while I can only speak for me, I feel like a piece of my life puzzle is complete now that I've seen them live.  They were the soundtrack (well part of) of my youth and seeing them live, well let's just say some parts of me will never age!  I only took my new phone as a camera which was bittersweet as we were against the barrier and close and only got this pic really...

 

I've also been sewing a bit lately.  I wish I had time to do more, I have some delicious fabric waiting to be turned into cute skirts for Miss Moo, but for now, I finally made my handbag which I'm totally loving!

And...while I'm on the subject of delicious sewn stuff, I will FINALLY mention my new camera strap yumminess bought directly from here - Made.X.Manda 

I casually mentioned my love of red fabric with white polka dots on her Facebook page and before I knew it she was offering me a spotty camera strap.  Oh BLISS!!  And it was under $30, sent speedily and I LOVE, no I ADORE it! It is SO comfortable around my neck and even on days when I was shooting on and off for 12 hours or more, my neck was still comfy with it.  YUM!  I can highly recommend Amanda's straps!

I spent Good Friday at Cindy's Egg-sellent crop day in Endeavour Hills.  I'm very happy to have finished two layouts for Aussie Scrap Source.  Phew I'm a bit behind!  They will be on the Aussie blog soon.  Speaking of scrapbooking, here's some stuff I've done for the Aussie blog recently...firstly Stamper's Anonymous, I covered Tim Holtz...

 

I'm finding now that Alexander is older, it's harder to scrap for him, but I'm really enjoying the challenge of it all...

This one is for a fabric product focus - my maternal guilt...

Teresa Collins "Sports" range...

 

And this is a current fave - "Inspired by Art" and OF COURSE I chose my idol Charles Blackman

This piece is featured in one of my most pored-over books, "Australian Printmaker" by Charles Bannon.  I have owned the book FOREVER I'm sure and flicked through and gazed into it for more hours than I care to recount.  The piece I chose was "Web"

 

Here's my page inspired by this art piece -

 

I have more but I have no idea where the images have gotten to - sigh...

So I'll share the pics from Crazy Hair Day, of my babies.  If only my Divine Miss M would let me do something crazy to her hair.  This is as crazy as she'd get - blah!  Alexander the Great no the other hand - he went nuts!

 

And....even more client pics to share :)

 

Isn't that little boy totally scrumptious?  Oh how I could happily adopt many of the children I photograph, he was SO much fun and has his Mum and dad completely smitten!  I love how he wrapped his little feet around his dad's neck!  I laughed and laughed photographing these guys and still have LOADS of pics to come!

And here's some more of the last family I shared...another adorable little boy and smitten parents with another baby soon to enter the family :)

This is a current favourite image.  I can't stop being happy to look at it :)

 

Dad was such a good sport.  He didn't even have a big tummy but went to a whole lot of effort to inhale a LOT of air to create that belly.  Isn't it gorgeous?

And....here's some of the shots from my latest shoot for Zeve

They have some of THE yummiest fashion pieces coming out later this month - yum yum yum!

 

Oops a bit small but you can see them better on their website :)

Speaking of yummy stuff to wear, I'm pretty sure I NEED this....

It's from this shop and I'd be happy with almost anything from there...;-P  Especially the cherry bracelet..mmmm...

So as you can see, I've been somewhat pre-occupied with stuff.  Good stuff. 

Happy Easter!

the stench...

I've had the most ridiculously crazy week.  I'm a complete scatterbrain right now and my house STINKS! It's like a mixed stench of old bananas and cat food.  It's way feral!!! Or something.  I need to do some organising.  I hate it when I get behind on stuff but sometimes house crapola has to wait and work takes over.

I'd love to show you a pic of my laundry but not even I could cope with that level of humiliation.

So just a quick post, just wanna show you this little baby, my latest organisational tool that I whipped up over the holidays..

 

I seem to be forever stuck for ideas yet I save ideas, cut pics out of mags, write down quotes and ideas, take photos that I want to draw blah de blah blah etc and when it comes time to sew, or scrap, or draw or whatever I get stuck and can't remember anything with my scattery memory.  So I made this from some favourite fabrics, in fact the black/grey damask is a reproduction 1940s fabric that I have bought to make a handbag...but that's another day of waffle.

This is just an A4 art journal and I've attached tabs related to the sections I need and I've been madly adding stuff to it and I feel a (little) bit more organised.

Also reading this at the moment -

Do you ever read dooce.com?

Really cool blog for Mums, well women in general I guess. Well this book is by the same author and it seriously is a great read.  I can't put it down and I relate to it SO much.  All new Mums should have a copy.  And how cool is the cover?  It's made by one of my fave sites to drool over - Subversive Cross-stitch It also makes me ache for the days when my babies were well, babies and at the same time makes me insanely grateful that their baby days are over!

Right enough waffle, this smelly house is getting to me - blergh, never a dull moment.....:)

officially back to normal (sort of)

Into February already, kids are back at school and I'm trying to find my way into the normal everyday.

I haven't found my way yet and the task of writing myself a list is proving overwhelming - lol..I hate being bored and there's no chance of that so there's no complaints here.

I spent a fair bit of the holidays catching up on my client editing and I'm in the process of building a new updated website.  I love how it looks so far but time is not on my side, I have to just do little bits here and there!

I wanted to share some scrapping that I don't think I've put on here yet, firstly January kits for Budget Scrapbooking.  I did the "Pages" kit this month using yummo Crate Paper.

Aussie Scrap Source Grungepaper project -

Anna Griffin -

7 Gypsies -

 
And I did some sewing....

The dress was made from pre-shirred fabric from Spotlight and the skirt is a "lazy days skirt" using the pattern which can be found here. Have a look on Mel's blog for Lazy Days Skirt inspiration.

Then of course I made chairbags from my Miss Moo and my niece Lilly.  The night before school went back - eek!

Lilly was easy, she just wanted something pink with fairies and she adored the rick rack on Maddy's Lazy Days skirt so I added some and made her this -

My Divine Miss M however was not so simple.  She was very specific with what she would like on her chairbag this year.  She wanted to pick the fabric - cool it was spots, I love spots.

It had to have a monkey sewn onto it, not any monkey but a cute monkey with a tree where it is hanging upside down by it's tail holding a cute sign that says "Maddy" on it.  She even made me little sketches sort of and I was to and from from my sketch book seeking approval from the child that said, "I know you can make it Mum because you can make anything." And with an ego-feed and expectation like that I was determined not to let her down.

The child tearing up the hallway to scream at me in bed that there was a monkey on her chairbag and how wonderful it was was worth it all. :)  She proudly whipped it out of her school bag on day one of term to show everyone!

 I have lots of other stuff I could blog but I give up trying to catch up, rather I will just try to keep up! I will leave this post with some recent client pic faves - seeya! :)

I could keep going with this wedding, honestly they were amazing people, but I'll stop and save it all for my website!!

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