back finally, with my Chrissy collages.

Hi - I'm back!! I have been quiet on the blog front since my return from being on holidays a week ago - just getting kids ready to start school again, doing two million loads of laundry from a beach holiday and all that stuff.

Firstly, THANK YOU Renee, for filling in for me while I was away. I loved your photo-ish posts and was very inspired by them. I hope you will come back and post for me again soon!

Secondly, I must announce the winner of my blogiversary thingy, and the random pick commenter was..."Caitie" - so Caitie, if you want to email me your photo/photos, and some journaling to go with them, and your preferred layout size, I will scrap away for you.

Thirdly, I will share my Christmas layouts with you. I know, Christmas was SO long ago now, I can't even remember it, but hey, I've now scrapped the whole season in one layout, so here it is.

I brought 16 photos that represented the Christmas season over to photoshop elements and assembled them there, and had the whole collage printed off as an 8x10 photo. I changed some of the photos in each printout, to focus on the individual child, and got three 8x10 print outs. I scrapped the 8x10 simply, and stuck it on some Christmassy paper. Can't decide with patterned paper I like the best, so I'll share all three, and you can pick which you think works best. The second one is certainly 'busier', but I do like the pattern. Very Christmassy.

I have since does another collage type layout without the use of photoshop, for anyone left out there who still is a hands-on type scrapper. It is nice to go hands on sometimes! Will share that in a couple of days.

Will leave you for now with two image from our beach holiday. They're of my husband telling all the kids we were there with, the story of 'the Hobbit'. He is a great story-teller, and remembers every little teeny detail, word for word. Had all the kids (and an adult of two!) enraptured around the bonfire this evening - he told it in parts over three nights. Quite funny.

See you very soon!

too much fun and too little sleep

Well I feel bad... I have not done what I had hoped... sorry readers and sorry Nicole :(

I have typed about six drafts... none of which sound right... lets just say its been a great holidays I have just been bad on the organisational side of life and also having some issues with unhappy children in the evenings...

So this is my last blog time before Nicole gets back and wants her space back... but I am thinking I might find a space to do this more regularly like I used to (and actually get to Harveys when school and routine get back)...

This week we have been here:

looking for the water hole Nicole blogged about a couple of weeks ago...




we have been here twice:




We have also been here:




All those photos were from my phone. Steve has been reminding me of how much I didn't want a camera phone when they first came out... and how much I now use it.

Then there was the trip to the Great Grandparents and the God parents... and too many trips to the green grocer due to mass consumption of healthy food and lack of organisational ability on my part.

So... what to leave you with...

The recipe of the week (the healthy one, because the choc chip cookie recipe is NOT healthy)

Zucchini Slice... the perfect summer dinner - from taste.com.au

• 5 eggs
• 150g (1 cup) self-raising flour, sifted
• 375g zucchini, grated
• 375g carrot, grated
  
• 1 large onion, finely chopped
• 4 rashers rindless bacon, chopped
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• 60ml (1/4 cup) vegetable oil

Method

1. Preheat oven to 170°C. Grease and line a 30 x 20cm lamington pan.
2. Beat the eggs in a large bowl until combined. Add the flour and beat until smooth, then add zucchini, onion, bacon, cheese and oil and stir to combine. Pour into the prepared pan and bake in oven for 30 minutes or until cooked through

Oh and you have to buy your kids these...

they are called "bilibos" - you can check them out at bilibo.com. I bought mine from the good people at urbanbaby.com.au

We have had the most fun with them since Christmas. I have about twenty photos of different things Sage has done with them... If your kids have these, can you send a link to the photo? They are the most rad toy for promoting creative play....

Finally... good night guys... hopefully I will see you somewhere soon

too ambitious....

(me... on a crazy walk - photo by Steve)

so my plan has got me a bit in over my head...

I have taken seriously a million photos, ok not quite a million photos over December and these first few days of Jan. I can barely figure out where to start with them all... and there has been lots of good and interesting ideas and posts all over blog world in the oast few weeks I feel over stimulated...

But for now...

Some things have not changed since you heard from me last (not this morning, I mean a while back when I used to blog)



I still get a kick out of taking self portraits .... this one is from a quiet day Mr Amos and I spent together while Sage was at preschool. And I still love converting photos to black and white and then making the contrast a bit too strong.




And I am still into setting my kids up for photoshoots... I am not looking forward to when they won't have their photo taken.

Oh and I love this one too...





My friend MJ actually owns the creative licence to this flower bed, I wonder if its even ok to do this... ops... he writes an awesome daily photo blog you can find it here - you should subscribe... www.thesealife.com.au looking at his daily emails really inspires me to get out and take more photos.

This bed of flowers is here for you locals... can you see little Mos ticked in the flowers?



But some things have changed.... as you know two kids are busier than one. It feels like more than double the load at times and so the scrapbooking has taken a slight side step (more on that later)... but two kids has taught me all kinds of new things. One of the things that has changed, is that there is so much more love. Who could imagine how awesome it would be to see your children in love wih each other?




So on that.... I am going to bed. Well, I am in bed, but I am going to sleep.

I have a few ideas of things I am going to share while I am holding the reins for Nicole. But if there are any specific things you can write a comment, and I will get to it.

Thanks for sharing these couple of weeks
Renee

well here i am

Hello friends of Nicole....

I am here. Well sort of. I just got home from church and now I am going to a wedding. But I will be back here tonight (late) with something more thoughtful and lengthy...

And here is photo to keep you going until then...

Small scale DD, scrap giveaway, and announcing guest blogger

I am totally jealous of everyone's 'December Daily' (DD) albums that I keep seeing, and am wishing I decided to do the DD thing, Next December, I will! I will, I will, I will!

So for 2009, I looked back at all the photos I took in December and decided to get a DD concept into a layout. I was going for the layout idea cause I didn't really want another mini album. So I dragged my photos over into photoshop and created a page using the photos that I had (didn't get one from every single day) and added the day that they were taken, and a very brief line of journaling on each photo for explanation.

I got the page printed out as a 8x12 enlargement, and plan on scrapping it on a 12 x 12 layout (basically just put strip of cardstock and pp down the remaining 4x12 inch side). On the facing page I want to just journal, giving a more detailed run down of what we did in December.

I was going to try and get this all done to share with you before I go away on holiday's in 2 days, but I just don't think it's going to happen, so I will share the 8x12 photo that is my DD!

Oh and guess what? This is my 1 year anniversary post from starting this blog, right on one year ago!

Hey, maybe I'll scrap a page for someone? Anyone want a page scrapped?

I always find scrapping for other people so much easier than scrapping for me. Leave me a comment below, and I will randomly pick one, and you can email me your photos and journaling, and I will scrap! And I will, ofcourse, provide all supplies, get photos printed, etc.

If you have issues with someone else scrapping you a layout, then comment and say hi, and tell me there is no way I am allowed to scrap your photos, and then I won't enter you into the draw. Okay? If you are in Australia, I will scrap any size, if you are outside Australia, I will scrap 8.5" x 11" if that's okay, to cut down postage costs. Hey, at least it's one less page that you have to scrap, right?

Now for some way more exciting news, because I am going away for TWO weeks and will be internet-less for that time, I have found a guest-blogger to blog here for you. Do you remember my friend 'Renee'?? Renee used to blog in her cool, arty, photographic way for Remember When with me back in the old days, but has since vanished from web-land due to the arrival of a baby boy.

However, she has agreed to return from post for me while I'm away, (YAY!!) so come back in two days time (Sunday) to check out Renee's post! THANKS Renee!!

P.S. will check for comments on my return from holidays, and pick one to scrap for then. xx

***"hApPY nEw yEaR"***

Happy New Year!!

201o has arrived. A whole decade has passed in the 2000's!! How did that happen?? I so remember the arrival of the new millenium - seems like just a few years ago, not a whole decade!

The week between Christmas and New Years, was very quiet and relaxed. Lots of PJ's going on here. I was looking through my December photos and I think I could possibly attempt a 'December Daily' type thing. It may not be too late!! I have been SO inspired my Melanie and Di's DD that I think I'm going to try something along the lines of the DD - though I don't know that I want a separate mini album - I think I want to try and fit into my normal scrapbook mode - somehow. mmm. The brain is ticking...

I got an email from a lovely Kathy Aylward this past week, which shared with me her photo a day album - LOVED it, it was brilliant, and has inspired me with the December Daily idea, but also with my baseball-card-sleeve-plans for the new year - oh my gosh!! I just realised that means today!!! 2010 is new - must not neglect my new plans on the first day! Some weeks, I might just try this photo a day and slide them into my baseball card sleeves, but then other weeks, one or two or photos will do. Anyway, here is an example of Kathy's album of a photo a day. So cool. It's also shown on Sharon's blog.

So this week, I even got time to scrap. At the end of last year we got some photos taken by Rachel Richter - our first real family photos ever! I decided the girls were all at a very agreeable age to get some real photos taken. They could all behave well and smile on command. They could now all respond well to a threat of 'be good and smile or else...'. We are past that stage which looks like this.

This photo I took of my sister, my brother in law and their 18 month old last week - gotta love 18 month olds. So, for this very reason, I never bothered getting real photos taken until now.

You will see lots of Rachels photos in my upcoming layouts for the next little while. I was thinking of putting them all into a photobook, but have started scrapping them instead. Might still do the photobook idea - not sure. Anyway, here is my first scrapped layout of some photos that Rachel took in the middle of York St, in the city. The girls loved this massive umbrella, and were all eager to have a hold and get their photo taken.

A very simple layout, which aims to leave the focus on those three, very colourful photos!!

Happy new year all! See you on January 5th!