Challenges!!!!!

I know there is many of you out there that love challenges and we have quite a few running over at Scrap Happy. I will be starting one real soon too, which I'm excited about getting underway. So if you haven't already joined the forum go on over and join.......... Have a look at this challenge for example........

ok girls I have got a good one for you all!!!! We have decided because December is going to be busy and people might be away over the Christmas and New Year period we thought we would run a DECEMBER/JANUARY layout competition!! OK so here is what you have to do! You need to do 3 layouts to be in the running BUT they don't have to be uploaded until January 20th ok so that gives you all of December and 1/2 of January to get them done! Because it is a double whammy of a competition it will be a double whammy of a prize! OK Santa is coming.....The value of this prize is over $150.00 yes that is correct! So don't miss this competition girls!

Now here is what you have to do:
your FIRST LAYOUT will be a product based comp: so you need to COMPLETE 1 LO in BLACK AND WHITE! All paper and embellishments have to be ONLY BLACK AND WHITE! -then- you must add 1 and only 1 embellishment of another color! (so you have to do a black and white LO and add only one thing on there in a different color and that can be of any color you like - eg: a black & white LO with 1 piece of RED ribbon......Or 1 Pink flower etc
Oh and one more thing - you have to be on the page somewhere, doesn't matter if you are in a photo with 30 other people you still have to be on the page somewhere ok
AND
the next LO will be a technique based comp: so we will give you 3 different techniques that you will have to use on you LO -
1. PAINT: you have to include paint some where on your page
2. TEARING: you have to tear something on you page
3. STITCH: you have to include some type of stitching on your page (this can be either hand or machine stitching)
you also have to TITLE you page after a song title! eg: "Am I Not Pretty Enough" by Casey Chambers

so now I hear you say that's only 2 Layouts no actually one of you Layouts has to be a double page! heeee heeeee
CAN'T WAIT TO SEE WHAT YOU ALL COME UP WITH!!!!!!!

Now come on girls this is going to be fun! And its not that hard really!

The WINNER will be announced at the end of January!

How easy is that!!!!!! Now come on all of you could do that, and I must say the layouts sound very nice too, might give this one a go and give you all a run for your money........Hmmm I wonder if being on the DT restricts me from entering.........Hmm must find out. LOL

Taking a break

from my busy scrapping day, that is. I have been up since early this morning doing washing that has gotten way out of control!!!! and scrapping those important pages ect that I should have been doing all week. I have had a bit of a slack one, lots of kid stuff but other than that just doing some reading and trying to stay inside out of the smoke. It really did blanket us this week, so bad that the airport had to close and the paper reported visibility down to 100 meters. It has cleared considerably today and doesn't feel a if it is going to get as hot as they predicted.

Well I have done my Pencil Lines sketch for this week already this morning so I will share my sneaky peek now and you can head over to the site on Monday morning to see the whole thing :-))

The colors are way off, sadly I noticed it last week when I took a shot of my Pencil Lines layout. I think my camera might be on it's way out :-(( Although I have been going to get a new one for a while and I just couldn't face replacing something that was still in good working order, it just didn't feel right. So now maybe it is time.

My friend Marie told me yesterday the Masters have been announced for this year and I noticed that our very own Angel Carole Janson is one of them!!!!! Yay congratulations Girls you so deserve it. Then as well, I see Debbie Kingston has been named too, WOW way to go Deb congratulations to you as well. It was a wonderful year for me being a Master it gave me so many opportunities and opened so many doors that I otherwise wouldn't have even considered, not the least of which is the wonderful Journey Tara and I have begun with Scrapping Angels. So to both of you and the other Masters as well, have a wonderful year and I wish you all the very best.

Ok it's time for me to return to the grind stone, boy it is so hard having to do work that you love so much :-)) Onto some projects for Fiskars, what a thrill.

Bush fires

Have started earlier this season and once again are very close to us. The local Paper this morning said we have 30 fires burning around the north east of Victoria. I had a feeling we might get some Friday night, because when I went out to get Blake at 11.30 pm there was lots of lightning around. The next morning I knew they had started as I could smell the smoke and when I went outside there was a significant smoke haze.
I remember the 2003 fires very well as we had burning leaves falling around us for days and you couldn't see across the road for the smoke, it was that thick. It has been so dry this year that I think maybe the fires will be even worse than then. Hundreds of firefighters go out to battle these fires, some never get much of a break just rest when they can besides the roads. Thank god for organisations such as the Salvation Army for providing them with food and drink as the firefighters are the only reason these terrible fires don't destroy more property and take more lives.

Eddited to add - Blogger was not playing when I started this entry so I have continued it this morning after seeing billowing smoke out my front door yesteday and then a photo of it in the paper this morning.

It really does look like it will be a really bad summer for fires, maybe our plans for camping at Christmas won't eventuate after all.

Pencil Lines

weekly sketch is up this morning with another fantastic sketch, go check out the great work the girls have done again this week!!! The new month has started so once again everyone is in the running for the monthy prize. Each week and each layout it judged on it's own merits so enter every week if you want the more you enter the more chances you have of your layout being chosen as our favorite this month. Here is a sneak peak of mine this week, head on over to have a look at the whole thing. It's also over in my gallery at Scrap Happy cause I used up the rest of my bits from my DT pack, the fabulous Cosmo Cricket PP, I just love it. You can even buy this month DT pack for yourself as they are selling it in a kit, it's sooo yummy you should get it for yourself.

In other news I was honored to get an email recently from Helen Williams asking me if I would be interested in becoming an ambassador for Fiskars AU. OMG I couldn't believe it such a huge company as Fiskars I was blown away. She wanted some more regional people to be involved, huh finally being in a regional area had an advantage. She said they were and excellent and generous company to work for as she had done so on and off for the past 4 years. They have a large promotional program being organized for 2007 and would like me to be involved, representing the company using the tools and products and showing them to others, doing demos and projects for their displays. How awesome is that, we all know fiskars and how good the products are. I have already been asked to do some projects for display in their stands at the S&C shows throughout Australia for all of 2007, the items have to be in Melbourne by the middle of December.... EEEEKKK that's not long. I'm so excited though and have ideas running around my head!!!! I'm going to buckle down over the next week and see if I can't produce something amazing, although as those who know me can testify I'm not overly inspired by doing BTP items. I have had a plan for one in my head for quite a while and now I will do it for the Fiskars display. I will of course do a layout as well cause that's what I'm really about. So enough time on the computer I had better get on with it.

Love this time of year

All the school concerts, performances, break up parties and formals are all on. I love going to all these things with all my kids (that's makes for lots of things for me to attend LOL)On Wednesday night it was Blake's Middle Years College Drama and Music performances. He loves both music and drama, though his band has just gotten together they are coming along very nicely and their enthusiasm is wonderful, they did not perform this year. Watch out next year!!! He did perform a Play with 2 other boys called 'The Interrogation' Blake was the one being interrogated. It went for about 20 mins and it was really good. A little too believable for Ethan, who is only 4, He said to Katelyn, OH that's terrible, with his hand covering his mouth. Made us laugh, but the poor thing didn't realize it was only acting and Blake wasn't really getting hurt!!! He was Ok though in the end. All the performances were enjoyable and it was a good night out.
So this is Blake,the actor!!! He recently had all his hair cut off after growing it for the last few years, he looks so different with short hair. That's him as a baby, second from the right in the double layout in my last post, 16 years ago, they grow up so fast. Next week he has head start week at the Senior Secondary college that he will be going to next year.

It's Tahlia's 9th birthday tomorrow she is having 2 friends over and we are going out for lunch and then to see a movie. It was hard to get her to settle down to sleep tonight as it always is the night before anything exciting. It should be a good day we are looking forward to it.

Well it's now 11.30 pm time to go and pick up Blake from his girfriends, the joys of being a teenagers mum, huh.