Here's one more very simple layout I did this week, using another single enlarged photo - a photo that I love even if it is a little over exposed! It was taken of my two girls and niece playing on a tyre swing that is hanging from a tree in a lane behind my parents house.
Next layouts posted will have more that one pic on them - I promise!
Di Herman and I took the kids to a park/playground today.
We were laden with cameras, as always , just in case the moment deems it it necessary, and we were supposed to be taking photos of kids, I think, but ended up having much more fun a snapping photos of each other!
Soon the kids were tired and bored, and were ON us, very typical. But we were having too much fun with our grown-up toys.
The funny thing is, we both had TWO cameras each on us, a little snappy one, and the big ol' Canons so my eldest daughter lay about 6 feet in front of us, and took photos of us, taking photos!!
The really funny thing is, there was a also a father there at the park, with his children - can you imagine what he was thinking watching 3 cameras all taking photos of each other at once! It's all for a worthy cause. It's for the greater good. That greater good called scrapbooking!
Gotta love it.
Check out Di's blog for her photos, or were they my photos, that I took? I can't remember....
While we were there, enjoying each others company and enjoying just being a couple again for a day, I was reminded of two of my favourite ever layouts. They were about when my hubby and I escaped for a couple of days, same situation, two years ago. I didn't take the camera this time, cause we were in shop mode, but I'll share those old layouts again, just cause I like them, and because I like my husband. Apologies if you have seen them before, elsewhere on other galleries, or back when I posted on the Remember When blog. They are quite different in their approaches. One is quite busy, with mixed pp etc, and the other is extremely streamlined and 'clean'.
These layouts go in my OWN album which is A4 (Australian size a bit different to 8.5 x 11") which is why the size is a little weird to some. Second image is a double spread in case you hadn't already worked that out!
See you soon. Thanks for stopping by.
PS. One more thing. At the risk of looking like a nutcase, here's a confession. I don't like using the word 'hubby'. Sometimes not even husband. It makes me feel OLD and middle aged. Partner sounds so much more hip and cool. But when someone mentions to me about their 'partner', I'm thinking to myself, 'well, is he a boyfriend or a husband? Just say it like it is!'. Yes, I think I have issues, and my partner, is my husband, cause I married him, so I guess he's a hubby, even if that does make us old and boring. We don't feel old and boring. Or does 'partner' mean defacto? If that's the case, then I really do have a hubby, not a partner. But partner does make me sound younger ..... mmm ..... do I need therapy or what?
I got to use a scrap of very old pp and some American Crafts foam thickers and a AC chipboard flower. Oh, and you gotta love 'kraft' as an answer to all problems.
The next layout was the second one that I did at Di's house that night. I almost didn't post it cause it is embarrassingly simple. I got the idea of the multi coloured border from a layout in the the current issue of Simple Scrapbooks mag. Once I had chosen those four colours for the border (which took longer than usual because of excessive chatter and chocolate eating) it came together really really really quick. Just a title with some AC chipboard letters. This photo was an 8x10 (a hard size to scrap on a 12 x 12) and it had been floating around my pile since last October, so I was happy to just get it stuck on and a quick layout achieved.
Any questions, just ask. Another layout coming soon....
Although this is not scrapbooking, I want to try to use this blog as a reference for which I can go back and scrap from, and get my journaling from. This is one of those entries. I want to get some of the story down, before I forget it, before I am ready to actually scrap it. So feel free to peruse what my family did this week. I don't mind - if I did I wouldn't put it on a blog!! There will be more real scrapbooking tomorrow.
Yesterday we did something that Marc has wanted to do since we first had kids. We went ice-skating. For someone such as my husband, who grew up on skates, surrounded by a very frozen environment, this was something he always wanted to do - take his half Canadian daughters to see some ice! Now we live in city of 5 million people, and there are two ice rinks here. Two. Though I hear a third has opened up, but alas, it is in a big tent, and Marc refuses to go to ice in a tent. He hasn't seen snow or ice for 12 years, since we moved here, even though I offer to take him each year. We can go to our snow fields here in the winter, but it's a 4 hour drive away, and that goes against Marc's philosophy of snow. That is, that snow should come to him, he shouldn't have to GO to the snow.
We had never tried it up until now, because heaven knows the unsporty one CAN NOT skate, so if you think about the logistics of it, Marc would be out there on the ice, holding up all four of his women! There would have been a trip to the ER, for sure.
Marc's parents have been visiting from USA, and being from a frozen land, they too can skate, so it was a perfect opportunity to take the kids. Three adults in total that can skate, one for each child, and one useless adult who would stand behind the boards and take some photos. Fab.
At the beginning there was lots of this
and this
but with some help
they were all soon skating around by themselves, proving they did in fact, have some Canadian blood after all!
Marc is what Australians call a 'speed skater', but what Canadians call an 'average skater'. Ordinary Australian's tend to skate once or twice in a lifetime, and tend to shuffle along awkwardly. When Marc glides easily and very quickly around the ice, kids tend to come up to him and say things like "Wow, where are you from??". Marc finds it all quite ridiculous. At one point, the girls asked him what the markings on the ice meant, so he started to explain that the rink is used for a hockey game and told them what the lines on the ice were for.
A few little boys joined in, and soon he had a small crowd listening in on a quick hockey lesson. Here he is demonstrating a 'face-off' (Mel will get this). Notice Australian skaters shuffling along the boards in background.
This is so Marc. He seems to draw a crowd, mostly kids, where ever he goes. I think he just has a very loud voice, and an accent doesn't hurt.
Marc loved every every minute of the day,
and he said "It warmed my Canadian heart to be skating with my girls" (even if it is in warm Australia - got to take what you can get!)
We had fun, as always, talking at high speed like we haven't talked for months (when in fact it had only been hours) and we actually scrapped. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure that she got as much achieved as me - she spent most of the time sifting through hundreds of thousands of photos saying "Should I scrap this? How about this one? Do I just chuck it, or scrap it?" Somehow, while giving my opinion of her billions of photos, I got TWO layouts finished - no computer required for either.
This is one of them. Not a big journaling story this time, just some photos that totally wanted to scrap. And as usual lately, I haven't been able to choose just one or two pics, so I threw them all on! Thanks for the scrap Di....
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It is sad, and quite hard to believe that this much time has past since I had my last little baby. Here she is 5 years ago, holding Daddy's hands.
I'm sure it is joyful and happy and all those things, but I am still sad that my baby is growing up. I must admit, it is nice to be past nappys, dummies (pacifiers), strollers, high chairs and the list goes on and on (and on).
So we had a small party at home with a couple of her friends and the cousins.
Daughter #1 has dressed herself up in her fathers clothes and performed as a clown at the past few family birthday parties that we have been invited to. She is SUCH a show off. Loves to perform, and make everyone laugh. And look fabulous doing it. (This is the same girl that does the ballet - who could tell in this outfit?). At the other parties, she has prepared the clown games and entertainment very well, and has always asked me ahead of time to paint her face accordingly. So, for Lucy's party, I decided to buy daughter #1 her own REAL clown outfit complete with wig and honking nose.
She was unbelievably excited and now wants to go to clown school. I'm thinking that in a few years being a part-time clown at kids birthdays might be better than working the fries at McDonalds! Not that that's a bad thing, but I know from experience, it's a hard gig!
So, prior to clown entertainment, there was face painting, done by yours truly on the little guests. Aren't these two girls gorgeous!
Then it was time for some races in the unfortunately un-mowed backyard.
The first one was the egg & spoon race, with little potatoes used instead of eggs - less messy!! (idea is to run, holding potato on spoon and not let it fall off). The clown got involved with all the little kids, and Lucy's Grandmother is there in the back - I'm even in this one - off to the far left pulling a weird face...
and after the egg & spoon, there was the three legged race,
complete with crashes.
Then the clown did some entertaining (some dancing and being silly in general), and even made the kids little balloon dogs! I didn't know she knew how to twist and twist and make a dog!
Lucy decides she doesn't want a clown at the party anymore and has a "It's my party and I'll cry if I want to" moment...
and the clown, a little sad, momentarily passes the wig over to middle sister.
Before long, Lucy puts on a 'Hannah Montana' wig that was a present from her Grandma, and forgives the clown for being centre of attention, and they jam together for the crowd.
Hannah Montana cuts the cake with a very scary and too huge knife, samples the cake with her finger and it's all over....til next year.
Happy Birthday, Lucy!
Since Jody W has been posting her pages according to themes, I thought I might attempt the theme thing today. My theme for today is sporty action type photos. Of course, you must remember that I am the most unsporty person that has ever walked the planet, but luckily my children inherited their father's sportiness and there are now sporty photos to scrap. I'm sure most people with children will have to scrap some sort of action/sport photos at some point. So here we go. This first page is probably my favourite.
It's nice and simple and uses three 4x6 photos that were cropped down. It is about Lucy (4) and her gymnastics. She just loves gymnastics and being upside down whenever possible. The journaling is about how she has always done everything with straight legs and pointed toes since she was 2. It's actually quite funny and watching her always makes me laugh. I printed the black textbox straight onto the white cardstock, and then stuck the rest of the bits and pieces on. These letter stickers are of course American Crafts. They are vinyl, and they smell very vinylish! But they are a cool colour, so if they want to smell like vinyl, that's fine! Update: I have been alerted to the fact by Melanie L that these letters are in fact fabric, not vinyl - they do smell weird, but not bad weird, more like crafty/something new but good weird. Thanks Mel, and sorry for the mis-info!
Next layout is a double page spread about the daughters ballet. The layout is okay, but it's the story that I wanted to pass on to her. There are 6 photos on here, which makes it a little busy, but I just couldn't choose, I like them all. Making two black and white perhaps helped with the busyness. The right page contains a 8 x 12 enlargement. I put some text over the photo in photoshop elements to give myself a heading before getting it printed. The left hand page has five 4x6 photos, cropped down. Hopefully you can double click if you want to to get a larger view of this layout.
My last one is a lift from Di H who lifted it from Cathy Z. Such a easy simple layout. My original photos were too big to crop down to this size, so I had them printed out half size. Sorry that the photograph of the layout is dreadfully shadowy. The frame is yellow dotted swiss bazzill. A great, very subtle, slightly 3D pattern. I saw that someone else used a raised dotted cardstock as a frame this week - I think it was Mel L.
So there are my three action type layouts of the week. There are lots more to come shortly. Not action photos, just normal photos. See you soon!
I bought the girls some new dressing gowns for Easter, whose colours actually made the girls look like the Easter Eggs! The last dressing gown I had bought was a size 3, seven years ago, and it had been passed down from girl to girl, and we finally passed it on to a cousin. It was definitely time for some new ones - sorry about the not great photo.
Then, after church, we all headed to my parents house for lunch on the verandah with the relatives. Kids got to drink 'champagne' (ie lemonade) from plastic champagne glasses and thought that was especially exciting.
During the lunch on the verandah,
we were visited by some kookaburra's. It was a good thing too, because the American in-laws were there (pictured) and up until that moment, they thought a 'kookaburra' was either a small bear, or a possum type animal! So a lesson on Australian animals was well enjoyed and obviously well due. My father in law even took some pieces of meat out of the bowl and hand fed the birds -there were three in total.
The day turned into bit of a wild life exhibit. My dad has a big beautiful fish pond in the yard full of huge japanese gold fish, and there sitting on the rock beside the pond was a big gecko-type lizard, about 15" long. I didn't take a photo, thinking it wasn't that interesting at the time, but considering the zoo-like day that evolved, I probably should have.
So then, there is another easter egg hunt through the garden of my parent's house, and part way into the hunt, daughter #2 very calmly asks her grandfather to come and see what she has found. He graciously follows her and she points to this! It was huge! Nothing like looking for chocolate eggs and finding this.
When Grandad and Amelia call to us about what they had found, no one believed them. Eventually we all went to have a look and there were lots of "OMG"'s!!
Now this is not entirely normal for suburbia Sydney, at least I don't think it is! (Of course, it did happen to Di H recently in a far more alarming manner). I have never seen a snake apart from a zoo in my 35 years, and my parents have never seen anything like this in their garden, so don't panic any foreigners reading this, don't let this put you off coming to visit us. It turned out to be a 7 foot (!) diamond python - totally lethargic and non-dangerous. We decided the day was just like going to a zoo, but much cheaper, and without the elephants.
So how was your Easter?
