What Have I Been Up To?

Doesn't time just fly? I just never seem to have enough hours in the day to do all that I want to do. I've got a couple of CJ's I have to get finished this weekend, my L/O for Club - Scrap n' Chat, and a pile of OTP and mini books that are in various stages of completion. Not to mention all the sewing and new patterns I'm in the process of working. I really need to devote more time to the business but with working full time shift work at the hospital (and doing extra shifts) and getting the kids to all their activities and helping with homework etc it is just plain hard.

My other big project that seems to be taking up a lot of time is the refurbishment of my craft studio. At the moment it's just a mish mash of furniture and storage units I've collected along the way. However I am now planning to redo the room with new units and a new desk. As my craft studio takes up the spare bedroom I am planning to remodell and put in a sofa bed so we can have people stay. I've been pouring over Ikea catalogues and making visits to Bunnings for the last couple of weeks as I come up with a plan. I seem to have spent a lot of hours dreaming of ways to make this room workable as a scraproom, sewing room, office and spare room while naking it the perfect creative space for me. Finally I've decided on a new configuration, what desk I want and the storage units and shelves as well as the colour scheme and some decorative pieces.

As I have a blue TV in the room I've had to plan the colour scheme around it. I'm going to get a couple of white expedit bookcases from Ikea. These are perfect as they are in 30cm cube configurations. My desk is actually a stainless steel kitchen console from Ikea. With the stainless steel splash back I'll be able to put some magnetic little pots on it to store various items at the ready. As I tend to stand up to scrap these days it is the exact height that I need. I'm also going to get a funky barstool for those times that I want to sit. I'm painting one wall blue and the other either a red or green. IKEA have these excellent red and green boxes that are 30cm cube so they will fit well on the shelves and store all the bits and pieces in. So the colour scheme will be whit, blue and steel with some other bright colours as accent bits. I can't wait to have it all done. I've worked out the costing, hence why I'm writing this at work while I pick up some extra night shifts to pay for it. I'm hoping to have it all finished in a couple of months.

Can't Believe I Haven't Blogged For So Long

I can't believe how busy I've been. I got home last Saturday after spending a wonderful week on the Pacific Star with the Scrapbooks and More Scrapping cruise. Had an absolute ball. Got to meet some lovely people and to get to know others I already knew a lot better. Spent most of my time with Mum, Rachel, Milly & Brendan. had heaps of fun..... going to shows, dancing etc.

Thought it was going to be a crap week when I got my scrap stuff confiscated at customs due to my scissors etc. We eventually got it all sorted and ended up having to scrap with security guards watching us. All our tools at to be itemised and checked back in at the end of each scrap session..... must have thought we were going to attack each other with our crop-a-diles and bone folders!!!!!! Some of the female security ended up working on the projects with us and became scrap addicts to boot. They showed the captain and we got to go on a tour of the bridge as a result.

The scrap sessions were great and the projects we worked on were just gorgeous (especially the keepsake box). I won the badge comp and received a lavendar making memories tote which I just love!!!!! All the gifts and the prizes were great. Hope and co put a lot of effort into it and it was well worth it. Can't wait to go on another scrap cruise.

Here's a pic of Mum & I about to board the ship.


Here's Milly & I with the gorgeous First Officer Luca. Milly the cheeky thing copped a good feel of his butt!!!!! He had the most define french accent that made all the girls swoon.

I've got a heap of other pics but I'll put them in a slide show and post them here later on in the week.

Been so busy since I got back. Firstly I spent a small fortune at the Brisbane paper Arts Festival on the Sunday. Jo & I had a great day out. I bought a cuttlebug and some dies, as well as some more BTP stuff (like I need anymore). Had afternoon tea with Katie & Louise who I met on the cruise. Then on Friday met up the some girls from Scrapbook City Forum at the lovely Rachelle Minnett's home. Her home is simply gorgeous..... I could easily live there. And then I had Milly, Jo, & Rachel over for a scrap night since Mark's gone away on a fishing weekend with the boys. I started work on a mini album I'm going to make about the cruise. we all had such a nice time and are planning on making it a monthly get together.

Finally, Club Scrap n' Chat is underway. The first challenge went out. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with. We now have 12 official members. They are all lovely ladies so this should be fun.

Sorry for the long post but as you can see heaps has happened. Gotta run now as Grey's Anatomy is on soon. It would have to be my most favourite show at the moment.!!!

EMM CROP

Had a lovely time last night at the EMM Crop with Jo & Andrea. Was nice to catch up with Carol-Lea Morgan as well and met some really nice ladies too. Got a heap of stuff done (which is unusual as usually find I'm scrap blocked at these things).

Only 14 more sleeps until Mum & I go on the SAM scrapbooking cruise. The tickets arrived on Friday so now it feels real and I'm really excited. Just looking at the tours to do on shore and making final decisions so I can fax the booking form for that tomorrow. I've finally finished making our tags and badges. I'm really happy with how they've all turned out. I couldn't resist showinf them off at the crop last night and the feedback was very good. I'll take some piccies when it's light tomorrow and upload them. I used the cricut and gee it made it so much easier and quicker to make them. As I had to make 44 tags in total I was so glad I had the cricut.


I love my criut!!!!! I also got three new cartridges as Scrapbooking Emporium had them for sale this week. I hadn't really used the cricut much until I made the tags, but now that I have I can see just how much I can do with it and how much more economical it will be to make my own alphas & embellishments.

As a tool junky (I just love tools) I also managed to buy some new scrapbooking tools to play with this week. First up I got a glass cutting mat and new retractable cutting knife. It's amazing how much easier it is to cut with the glass mat as opposed to using a rubber one. I also got a fiskars hand held craft drill. I was pretty impressed with how easy it is to use and how well it went through some wooden shapes I had. I then managed to get hold of some Basic Grey precision files. These are tiny metal files that will be perfect to fit into intricate chipboard shapes when covering them with paper. Can't wait to try these out.

Well better go The biggest Loser and Grey's Anatomy are on tonight. They ar ethe only TV shows that I watch at the moment.

Reality Scraps...... Week 2

This is my entry for week 2 of Scrapbook City's Reality Scraps comp. The rules were that we had to use the Making Memories 'Cheeky'range of pages. Patterned paper had to be used as the background. We had to use the 8" chipboard that were in the kit, Journalling had to be on the chipboard. I'm pretty happy with the result.... didn't really like those papers and it was soooooo hard to work with them. I made it through to week 3.

Week in Review

Well since I've had such a busy week I thought it would be easier to recap all in one hit.

Monday was my birthday!!!! I still enjoy having birthdays even though it means I'm getting older. Was a funny day a) I started the day pretty sick with biliary colic; b) I had to work; c) since we're on diets in this house we couldn't go out for dinner as we normally would;and d) the kids were at their dad's house and forgot. However I did receive some lovely presents. mark bought me a beautiful red Jag wallet, coin purse and keyring set. I also had some money to go on a scrapbook shopping spree. Mum & dad sent money so I could buy new clothes for my upcoming cruise and my 2 brothers both gave me a lovely willow tree figurine each (I love these little figurines..... if you don't know what they are they look like they have been carved from wood and have no facial features).

Spent a couple of fun days with Jo. Thursday we had a quick trip to Ikea to return a kitchen trolley I had bought that didn't work (surprise, surprise we refrained from shopping in there!!!!). Next stop was Spotlight. Spent some birthday money on a new cutting tool for scrapbooking. Looks like a rotary cutter but with interchangeable fancy blades. I'll have to take a photo of it and post it. We then had a girly lunch and st up the MSN messenger for Club- scrap n' Chat.

Friday we spent the day with Kaye and Melinda. Cruised a few scrap shops and of course spent money. Got some new stamps and a circle cutter. Had a great day.... will have to do that again soon.



This is the Layout I did for the first week of Scrapbook City's Reality Scraps competition. We had to scrap our passion (well that was easy.....stitching is definitely mine) using the 3 bugs in a rug papers from the survival kit. We also had to journal and it couldn't be hidden. We also had to include an embellishment cluster using products from 3 companies. I used alot of hand stitching on my layout and am pretty happy with how it turned out.

Until next time,
Terri x

Digital Scrapping

I've just completed two of the quietest night duty shifts I've done in a long time. This gave me the chance to surf the net a bit and I ventured into some digital scrapbooking sites. I must say that I'm a bit taken with this alternate means of scrapbooking. Some of the kits out there are just so scrummy!!!!!!! A lot of them are free as well!!!!!!

I downloaded some free kits and am going to have a play around.....see if I can work out how to make layouts this way. Now this doesn't mean that if I'm successful that I'll turn my back on paper scrapbooking. I really enjoy the hands on, glueing, cutting, doodling etc. and the off the page stuff. But if I can work out this digital means of scrapping I'll be able to scrap anywhere. On night shift, holidays, anywhere anytime and all I'll need is my computer.

Some of the sites that I found useful where:- www.scrapbook-bytes.com and www.clikchicdesigns.com .

Off to see if the method I've used to start organising these digital elements in has worked. Knowing me I'll become addicted to digital scrapping and start collecting hundreds of digital elements.

Oh I nearly forgot. I found out how to make blinkies so I'm going to have a go at this today as well.

New Fabrics

On the way home from work today thought I'd duck into the Quilter's Store at Auchenflower for a look. I've had an idea for a new quilt in my head for a while so thought I'd see if there was any suitable fabrics. Initially I was planning to buy some pink and chocolate fabrics. But when I saw these colours below I couldn't resist them. The deep chocolates, turquoise and oranges were just too yummy to pass up. I then bought some matching DMC threads to stitch the applique designs with.

Now I can't wait to start designing this new quilt. It will also give me a chance to use my EQ6 quilt designing software which I haven't used as yet.