Phewff so the LSS ride ends for me! I am so glad I took part and really enjoyed the creative push but quite glad to get off here and concentrate on my SE layouts this weekend. The effer girls have thrown a curve ball for the next dare and called it #3.5 which has to be in by Saturday...I would never have done it with all my hair intact rofl!! Commiserations Vicky but we still have one kiwi contender in still Marieke Broeckman...all the very best to you for the next one, will be cheering for you!

Other news is my baby boy has turned one this week! He had a lovely day with lots of cupcakes and wonderful pressies. Poor wee fella is still struggling with his teeth which seem intent on all coming through at once...his nose and saliva are streaming so he is a bit of a soggy one year old at the moment lol!!

Had a bit of a What The?!!!! moment on Wednesday when the kindy teacher rang that morning to say Patrick had had 'An Accident.....quite an extensive one actually" while my heart did flip flops and my head started racing with thoughts about ambulances, ringing Jim and getting down there quick....she then calmly said .....and his shoes are thoroughly soaked do you mind if he walks around in bare feet... dumbfounded I blurted out, so hes just wet his pants then, of course he can wear bare feet!!! Really!!! are they not trained in telephone calls lol!! Could she not have just said, Patrick has peed his pants and his shoes and saved me same grey hairs......hold me up!!!

Ok so if you want to see some creativity going wild, head over to twopeasinabucket and pop last scrapper standing #3 into the search!! The girls judging are REALLY spoilt for choice this week! Anway here is my entry, it suits me but after seeing the competition I am thinking I will be having a lovely restful week next week lol!!

Cannot believe I am through to LSS round 3, as is Vicky! excited or what! The dares don't get easier though this week its all things circle, I was pleased to latch onto an idea straight away this time so feeling less stressed about this one!

Lovely weekend, Joseph's team had a good win at their soccer match and earned the coaches choice player of the day, so cute! It has been great to see the team learn to work together and support each other over the season, their last game next week, I am going to miss it when it finishes the whole family has enjoyed it!

The kids nasty cold cough bug finally got me...aaagggh...dratted cough is driving me (and everybody) nuts!!

Have finished one layout for SE, got photos sorted for the board book will order from digimax tomorrow and the other layout won't take long so should have it all finished by the end of the week hopefully.

No school tomorrow for Joseph as all the schools in the area are closed for the Maori Queen's Tangi....could be a nightmare trying to get over the bridge to mainly music too so think we will just stay put at home!

Jim has treated himself to a BMX bike for his birthday next week so he can play around down at the skate ramps with the boys. Its great, the boys love it that Dads out there with them doing what they are doing, Joseph is getting really confident and speeds over the ramp and has started going riding the skate bowl too has had a couple of minor tumbles but they don't seem to faze him at all. Patrick is happy to just potter about and I help him zoom over the ramp.

Man that was exhausting! I raided the choc olate stash after this lol! The cause of the urgent choc eating is this, my entry for LSS dare no.2 (use 13 pics on one layout), left all the sticking down for this morning only ran out of my favourite sticky dots and had to use those blasted photo splits which drive me mad trying to peel off bits everywhere and they always want to stick to your finger and not the paper!!. For a start didn't know where to go with this one to make it stand out so had to stop thinking of the competition aspect and just create the layout for myself, which is good because I have a layout that I like without having tried to over do it. Have had a quick peek at some of the other entries and all I can say is "wowee!! Some people come up with the most amazing ideas!!


But!! no rest for the wicked mwah ha ha, the goodie guest designer box from Meg at SE arrived yesterday full of the most wonderful urban lily paper and some other treats for me to play with so I shall get a start on that tonight, have some ideas going....must dig out some baby photos....

Woohoo I'm in the next round of LSS! Along with the talented Ms Vicky Gibson (see my links) go the kiwi girls!!
So to the next dare...called the 'Bakers dozen' which is to use 13 photos on a layout....have been scribbling random ideas all day....

NZdares next challenge has been extended to a 2 week deadline!! Not keen on this... a fast game is a good game...I was putting things together much quicker with less procrastinating because of the short deadline and was really happy with what I was turning out....Come on you kiwi scrappers rise to the challenge and push yourselves, thats half the fun! waiting 2 weeks is going to become very ho hum!

I have a lot of fun with challenges also at Scrapbook Essentials forum and Meg has lots of lovely goodies in the shop there too!! She also very generously supplies a guest designer kit and all those who have over 40 posts go into a draw to become the designer for the month! Ruth was to be this months but due to her Mum in Hospital she will be doing next months and there was a re-draw.... Me lol! Hopefully the kit should be here on Monday which gives me a couple of weeks to create like mad!!!

This is my entry for the Last Scrapper Standing dare for Effer dares....Cherryarte paper again perfect colour...blue and green...my favourite combo.

I used rubons for the title then added a couple of epoxy stickys, one with the word pure and the other Energy renew but wished I hadn't as they look a bit funny...couldn't get them off though without ripping the paper darn it! but never mind, this is creativity and creativity isn't perfect!

Started off with just the white sequins for the swirls but decided it just wasn't quite working so raced down to the local fabric shop and found the beads, couldn't believe it when I walked in and they had them in just the right colours...so I simply imbedded them into the sequins with a bit of glue...I like it, my bit of arty farty scrapbooking lol!

Just waiting now to see if I get through into the next round!!

Well its been a week of snot, snot and more snot with alot of coughing thrown in for good measure...3 kids with colds ...fabulous... poor wee Samuel is having a hard time sucking his fingers with a stuffed up nose and wakes up very grumpy as he ususally sucks them to settle himself back to sleep if he wakes... so sleep for both him and I has been sporadic the last few days!

Got my A into G and finished a layout for NZ dares No.4 challenge 'The Chaos within'...chose a more serious tone with this one and scrapped my lovely Nana who is dealing with Alzheimers. I love this paper by Cherry Arte...it does pay not to scrap while tired though as the mistakes kept coming thick and fast but I just wanted to finish and fell into bed at 12.30pm lol!

Am now working on my Last Scrapper standing challenge with the effers which is to do all journalling on the photo itself. I need to finish tonight so could be another late one!! yes Jim is a scrapwidow lol!!....heres a sneak peek...more gorgeous cherry arte paper...the photo looks a bit strange but should look good once I've finished with it!! I hope!!

Well for some reason these NZ dares are really tickling my scrapping funny bone and I 'm really enjoying injecting humour into my pages! This photo taken during a biking trip in the cotswolds cracks me up, my bum is the star of the show here, nevermind the pretty english countryside rofl!

Hubby is getting a bit worried about what I am going to do next...we have a certain pic of him ironing in the nude rofl that cracks me up but hey this is a family show right!

Have signed on to play the Effer dares challenge, totally out of my depth there I'd say and I'll be booted out the first week no doubt but I can't wait to try lol!

Its much warmer today and it feels like Spring is nearly here
woohoo!! Jim got stuck into finishing the wall beneath what is
to be our Japenese garden so
will be able to start designing and planting soon....so far have
planted some gorgeous dainty white
camellias along the back fence but otherwise it is still a big pile
of dirt lol! This years Summer project!





The following pics are proud mummy moments....Patrick has discovered that yes he can draw all by himself and he dosn't need mum to 'help' after all!! I was amazed when he drew this wonderful dinosaur in minutes!

I have been totally fascinated watching Josephs progress as he learns to read...it seems like the whole world has opened up to him...he reads anything now, words on cereal packets, road signs, tv ads and he loves it! We get a big pile of readers from the library for him and loves keeping them by his bed, so proud that he can just pick one up and read himself a story (although he still loves mum and dad to read to him also! thank goodness otherwise I would feel a little redundant lol!) Here is reading a bedtime story to Patrick, so cute!