Before ... During ... After ...

As promised the Craft Room Pics ....
BEFORE >>>




DURING (as I was saying "OMG What was I thinking!") >>>




And AFTER >>>





I am VERY Happy with the end results! Also that it didn't take 10 hours to finish (I really thought I'd be working on until the wee hours of the morning!)

Inspiration

We all have people in the world of scrapbooking that we admire, aspire to be more like etc etc. Since becoming a Fiskateer and being welcomed into the Fiskateers by May Flaum I have followed her blog and marvelled at her creations. Just recently May was a guest blogger for Ali Edwards and the words she wrote really rang true to me. "Scrap for yourself" and that is what it's all about really. Thankyou May for inspiring me and making me remember why I scrap. It's not about getting published or getting the most comments in your gallery, it's all about scrapping your memories and how much YOU love it yourself!

On another note ... I totally rearranged my Craft Room last night. It was a task that half way through I thought 'OMG what have I done!" But now it's finished I am glad!!! I'll post before, during and after pics later on :)

Cupcakes

Who doesn't love them? Well I know Duff from Charm City Cakes doesn't but I LOVE Cupcakes!! So when KaiserCraft bought a wooden cupcake album out I HAD to have it!! The album has been sitting on the shelf for a looong time! So I finally put it together the last few days. And here it is .....









I have left a couple pages blank to add more cupcake pics later! And I'm sure more pages will also be added at a later date!
Next on the list is to turn this Kaiser Gingerbread Album into a Robot Album for all Riley's Birthday pics! Just like I did the Butterfly Album for Abbey's 1st Birthday HERE
Wish me luck!!

Next Holiday ..... Easter!!!

What are your Plans for Easter this year??

ROBOT BIRTHDAY BLAST!

We had such an awesome time at the Birthday Party yesterday, what fun! Riley was so excited and everything was awesome .. I was busy running around so the camera which is usually in my hands was forgotten by Jase, not as many pics of what happened as I'd like but it's ok ... here are a few pics of the day .....









Awesome Day :)

Happy Birthday Riley Jay ....

5 years ago today I gave birth to my first child. I developed pre-eclampsia and was induced. My whole labour from first contraction to when I held my baby was 2 1/2 hours. He was born on a Saturday at 2.20pm. His Daddy cut his cord and his Grandma was there to see him arrive. It was the best day of my life ... the day I became a Mum. The last 5 years have been the most challenging and rewarding ones of my life. On Monday my sweet baby boy goes off to school and into the real world. I am feeling quite emotional, it's a hard thing letting your children go, but I know it's something that needs to be done.
So HAPPY BIRTHDAY my sweet boy. Mummy and Daddy love you more than we will ever be able to express xxxxx

5 More Sleeps until Party Day!!!

I am soooooo excited!! We are roboted out!
A friend of mine, Kristy, makes the cutest little creations called Softies and I have always loved them. I decided to ask her if she could make a Robot Softie for Riley's birthday and OMGoodness did she provide!! She made the cutest darn robots you ever did see!! I don't know who is going to be more excited about the robot .. me or Riley!!
We are ready and I have nothing I can do until Wednesday! Tomorrow is going to be loooong and sloooooow! I just want Wednesday to come so I can get cooking and baking and not just sitting!
Soooo I have tried to keep myself busy by crafting!
After doing THIS LO of Abbey's Positive/Negative proofs, I decided I wanted to do some of Riley's. This is what I did ....


I have had this Kaiser 'Skull Boi' paper for a while, but Riley just isn't a 'skull boi' type of kid, when I saw the pics of him with the skateboard I knew that it was the perfect opportunity to use the paper! I am really pleased at how this LO turned out!
Next ....


Now there is a funny story about this LO. Jennie was chosing some sketches for the TM Challange this week and she showed me one last night. This morning I saw a challenge on the Fiskateer Blog that I wanted to try do so I printed off a sketch I had saved in my 'Sketch' folder. Later on I saw that Jennie had posted 3 sketches on the TM Scrappers blog and funnily enough the sketch that I had printed out that morning was one of them! So This LO ended up working for both challenges! This is the sketch from PageMaps


I am half way through a LO using one of the other sketches and hope to get that and the 3rd sketch done tomorrow :) There will be no crafting until after the weekend from then!

AWESOME Giveaway ....

Over at Paper Popsicles


You could win ALL this!! ... Papers by Pink Paislee, KI Memories. Luxe Designs, s.e.i. , Fancy pants; 5 sheets of alpha stickers; overlay; chipboard album by Maya Road; paper frills by Doodlebug; Sassafras Lass buttons; Jillibean Soup journaling sprouts, Rub-on, stickers…..
Jump on over and have a looksie you have until April 3rd!!

Friday was a HUGE scrapping day!

I ended up doing 4 LOs for the TM Scrappers Challenges. There were 6 colour combos and today I really want to get the last two done!
So here are my efforts ...


This colour combo was purple/green/black ... I sorta cheated on the black and said it was in the photo! This photo was taken at the Positive/Negative photo shoot at Kindercare last year. I LOVE the photo so I wanted a LO that was a stunningly beautiful, I am happy to say I really LOVE this whole LO.


Colour combo blue/white/brown
This photo was taken at Shakespear Park in Whangaparaoa last year while Jase was in America. Riley was looking out over to Auckland City.


Colour Combo brown/orange/pink
These were some of the little proofs from the positive/negative photo shoot, it is so hard to decide what photos to buy because they are all so adorable! This is why I am so thankful that they give you a little passport sized proof of each photo they take ... you just have to be clever to hide the little order number on the side of each pic hehehe
Watch this space for the colour combos red/white/grey and yellow/black/white :)

TGIF

YAY!!! It's Friday! I was naughty today and kept Riley home from Pre-School, mainly because it was raining and I didn't feel like walking in the rain .. and partly because next week is his last week before he starts school. Once he starts school there will be no staying home for no reason, I will miss him not being around. Next week is also my last week of being a stay-at-home-mum as I go back to work. So I wanted a day to have fun and muck about with both my kids. Next week will be busy busy busy with party stuff so I took advantage of today!
Speaking of party stuff .... I have done A LOT of crafting for the party, I don't want to post the pics yet, I'll wait until after the party ... but so far I'm very happy with how everything is turning out! Very exciting!
Since I have been so busy with party stuff I haven't had a chance to do any scrapping. So this morning I sat and did the TM Challenge LO of the week ...


The challenge was to roll a dice and the number you got gave you the colour combo you had to use on your LO. I rolled a 6 which was black/grey/blue. I was NOT happy about this combo and did almost cheat and roll again but a challenge is a challenge for a reason!! So I worked it out and am really pleased with how the LO turned out! Also I got to use up more of the paper in my scrap box since it is getting rather full!!
I am motivated to do more scrapping so when the kids go to bed I'll be back in the craft room!!

Under the Trampoline ....

I ventured out into the back yard this afternoon and found something under the trampoline ..





My daughter is so adorable!! She had set up the picnic all by herself and was feeding her baby so beautifully. What a darling!

BIG Weekend

WARNING: This Blog post will contain a photo BONANZA!!!

We were lucky enough to have Jase home again this weekend! Feeling a bit spoilt really! We had such a fun time this weekend.
Saturday we packed up a picnic lunch and headed off to The Glenbrook Railway for a Day Out with Thomas the Tank Engine with our friend Taryn and her son Adam. Riley has a bit of a phobia about noises and he wasn't too happy to begin with (trains are very noisy!) But after his first ride he was fine and everyone had a great time! We even got to eat our lunch on the train!!
Here are some of my favourite pics ...






And of course the train himself ... THOMAS! (and a couple of his friends!)






On Sunday we packed up another picnic lunch and went to the Auckland Botanical Gardens with my cousin Nicole and her family. We had such a great time wandering around the gardens, with Riley leading the way! Lots of Fun, so much fun that BOTH my kids fell asleep on the way home which is pretty amzing since Riley doesn't sleep in the day!
More fav pics from that day! ....






Jase is lucky enough to have a four day weekend this week so this morning he was lovely and let me have the morning in my craft room :)
I completed 3 LOs today which is the best I've done in a day for a long while! Here they are ...


This LO was for the TM Scrappers Challenge 'Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue' ... I'm not 100% happy with it. I do love how the photos show off Abbey's beautiful Blue Eyes though :)
Something Old - the patterned paper I've had for ages
Something New - Threading Waters Boarder Punch
Something Borrowed - 2184 Challenge #6
Something Blue - Title, paper, my daughters eyes lol


I have wanted to scrap this pic for along time!! Abbey was 2months old and it was our first professional photo shoot with all four of us. I am really pleased with how this turned out :) The papers come from My Minds Eye I tried out making my own bling swirls on this LO, I think they turned out pretty ok! Check out how to make them on this tutorial. I used beads and Kaiser Bling on mine, time consuming but oh so worth it!


Last but not least ... another old pic of the kids. This was one of those times when the page just fell into place. I think this LO took me half an hour to do. It rarely happens that quick! But tonight it did! Heidi Grace papers on this one.
Hubby has just gone to bed which tells me it's bed time!!
Goodnight :)