My New Family Pic

You guys are really observant! It seems that a few of you noticed our new family photo over there ----->

I can't take the credit for the gorgeous pic. I'm lucky enough to have one of the best family photographers in Australia as my cousin (no I'm not at all biased!). I'm not a big fan of studio photography, and just wanted some natural and relaxed pics of us at home, and that's what Amanda specialises in. You can see more of her work at Spitting Image Photography. She also runs really popular photography classes for kids!

Here are my 2 favourite pics of the kids (including the furry kid!)

Renovation Pics!

Yes, finally! Thank you all for being so patient and understanding during my blogging hiatus. My catchphrase over the past few months has been "we're getting there". Every time I'd look at the chaos surrounding me, I'd remind myself that it was all a step towards "getting there". Now, I finally feel like I am almost there. Things are starting to feel normal again, and it is such a relief! I've been keeping my head down and only been taking one day at a time for so long, and it is only now that I feel I can look up and see clear through to next week! I'd forgotten what that was like!
So, without further ado, here are some pics of the (almost) finished result, as promised:
It almost looks like it has always been this way, doesn't it? Upstairs we now have a rumpus room (that's Coco making himself comfy on the beanbag!):The kids have brand new bedrooms. Amy's is Almost Amethyst (ish!):And Jacob's is Brocade Blue (sort of!):They also have their very own bathroom (still awaiting a shower screen):And downstairs we have a lovely big room, perfect for holding classes, parties, or Open Houses like the one I had yesterday:Do you like the colour? I wanted neutral, but not beige. It's called "linseed" by Dulux, but I'm calling it Sahara Sand ;o) The "wooden" floors are Vinyl planks, can you believe?! They are quiet, were quick to install, and easy to clean. I'm loving them!
This is where you can make yourself a cuppa:
And now the bit I know you really want to see.... My Craft Space. It runs along one entire wall of our Big Room (we couldn't think what to call it, as it's so many rooms in one, but the name Big Room seems to have stuck!). I have lots of storage in these cupboards. The tall ones are "besta" from IKEA. The small one hides my computer in it, and is from FreedomHere's an inside view: Sneaky, huh? It's perfect for hiding away mess and computer paraphernalia. Next to that is my favourite thing. My Craft desk!
The sideways bookcase holds all my stamps, and Dave cut it down and put it on wheels for me, so I can wheel it out. The bottom levels hold stamps that I'm not currently using (eg Spring Mini sets, not yet retired, Christmas sets, etc). The desk and drawers are from IKEA and is nice and long and deep. The drawers hold all my adhesives, tools, wheels, envelopes, and embossing gear. On my desktop the mini office drawers hold small punches, ribbon originals, rub-ons, a few inkpads (Stazon, versamark, encore), re-inkers, wheel cartridges, aquapainters and Blender Pens. I have my inkpad caddy next to that. A rack (from IKEA) holds my most-used punches (circles and ovals). I have a caddy to hold Stampin' Scrub, mist, bone folders, scissors, sanding blocks and stamp-a-ma-jig, and my Stack and Store carousel is next to that.
The desk hutch came from The Barn (office furniture store) and we brought it home to find it was about 2mm too high to fit under the stairs! So my handy husband chopped off the bottom, which left me with a narrow piece of wood, perfect to hold ribbon spools in place! It was meant to be :o)
The top shelf holds sample cards, Hodgepodge tins, markers and crayons, with room to grow. I have spare trimmers on the very top. I just love it, and can't wait to have a free day just to play. I've spent time making cards for classes, but I have yet to just stamp for me....soon!

Under the stairs is where I keep my filing cabinets, which hold all my cardstock, plus a drawer for business files.
I also keep my workshop tote there, plus a basket that holds outgoing customer orders. On top of the filing cabinets I have 12x12 paper storage units, which I bought on Ebay, and they fit perfectly. I've never had my papers so accessible before, but now I can see exactly what I've got, and use it :o) In the corner are my drawers from Howard's Storage that hold all the cut-up cardstock for classes. I can have a drawer for each class, and keep them totally organised. Dave is going to build me a new punch rack that fits on the wall under the stairs. At the moment the rack is resting on the floor. Coco has his doggie bed right next to my desk, where he can keep an eye on things.

So there you have it! If you've made it all the way through my tour, I hope you've enjoyed having a peek at our new space. We even have a spare room now, which is so exciting (currently full of boxes, but that's another story!)
I'll be back soon with some show-and-tell from my Open House.

Proud Mum Moment

This week we had our School Presentation Day awards, and School Reports came home. I had a sneaking suspicion it was going to be a positive occasion, so I made up a card for Amy and Jacob to tell them how proud we are of them. I used some Alphabet chipboard to spell out a fun "U R A star" card. I made it in a couple of different colour combos - Elegant Eggplant, Tempting Turquoise and Real Red for Amy:

I LOVE this new Polka Dot ribbon! The Chit Chat Rub-ons make a really quick and easy greeting too.

Kiwi Kiss, Tempting Turquoise and Pumpkin Pie for Jacob: It's really easy to dye the chipboard using an inkpad and sponge dauber. I punched out the star with the Large Star Punch, and added some fun buttons too. The Tombow glue does a great job of sticking it all on.

Luckily I had these all made up, with a book wrapped up to match (my kids are so easy to buy for. They both LOVE books!); both kids brought home excellent reports and both won awards at Presentation Day too. As Vice-Captain, Amy also did a fantastic job of presenting on the day too, so I was one very proud Mum :o)
Amy also had her Year 6 Farewell this week too (yes, it's been quite a week!). Here she is, my beautiful daughter, looking so grown up:
I can't believe she's off to High school next year! *sigh* ...excuse me while I go and have a little quiet cry

Renovation Report

This is what our house looked like a few days ago:The kids said it looks like it's all wrapped up for Christmas!
Upstairs now has all the plumbing and electricals in, and gyprock on the walls. Here they are doing the gyprock:
That photo has been taken from the rumpus room, and you can see the kid's bedroom doors and the bathroom door.
In the last 2 days, the cladding has gone on the outside, and windows too, so it's starting to look like a real house now!

Today they are patching up walls downstairs. Yesterday we had the stairs measured, and they are due to go in next week. It's looking like almost everything will be done by Christmas, so we'll be painting in January :o)

I've totally given up on cleaning anything now. There's going to be a MAJOR clean up at the end of all this!!

The Renovation Saga

I've had so many lovely emails asking how the renovations are going, with messages of support and words of encouragement. Thank you all, I appreciate each and every one of you. I'm taking your advice and not doing much housework at the moment. Although I can't help myself, and I have to vacuum at the end of each day, and give the bathroom a once-over, but that's it!
So this is where we're at at the moment:


The upstairs floors are down, wall frames are up and roof frames too. It's all ready for the roof and cladding now. There's been a bit of a delay with the roofing. It was meant to be going on on Friday, but when the truck arrived with the roof sheets (all pre-cut) they were the wrong colour! They were grey, but not the right shade of grey (and we all know how important getting the right shade is! That would be like making a card and having your ink colour not match your cardstock! LOL). So the correct colour has been ordered (at no extra expense to us, because it wasn't our mistake, thank goodness!). That will now go on on Wednesday, and it is all quiet here at the moment because until that goes on, they can't do the walls, and until the walls go on, they can't do the windows, etc etc. We're still hoping for lock-up stage by Christmas (keep your fingers crossed for me!)
Now inside...Here is Amy's room being demolished, and that wooden framework is where my Craft Room used to be: That all got knocked down on Thursday morning. I must say that I'm glad last week is over! We were away all last weekend, so I had 3 days to completely empty Amy's Room, my Craft room and our Dining Room. I originally thought I would have until Monday (today), but things progressed faster than I had anticipated! Thank goodness my Mum came and helped pack boxes, Dad came to help disassemble and re-assemble Amy's furniture in Jacob's room (it wouldn't fit through the doorways and down the hall), and Mum also had the kids for 2 nights so we could work until the wee hours doing it all. Dave has had an average of 12 school formals per day to decorate over the past few weeks, so he has hardly been here at all, and I still had classes last week too....madness!
The dust and debris has been incredible. I was warned, but I don't think anything can prepare you for it. My kitchen adjoins the dining area (you can just see the top of our servery bench at the bottom right hand corner of the pic above) and when the ceilings came down, there was dust and muck everywhere. It coated all the kitchen surfaces, every crack and crevice, and even managed to find it's way into the rooms whose doors I had shut....lovely!
My "Craft Room" is now in our bedroom. It's definitely not ideal, but at least I still have somewhere to stamp! If I didn't have that, I really would go insane!

That's our bed at the bottom of the pic, so my craft desk is literally 1 metre from where I sleep. I have been banned from any insomniac stamping though! The desk is much smaller than I'm used to, so I'm having to be a very tidy stamper and clean up as I go!
We had another drama on Friday (having not yet gotten over the roofing drama) when we came home from buying bathroom fittings, to find a wall going up where there's not meant to be one! It's pretty much where the builder's ladder is in the pic above, and somehow a dotted line on the plans got coloured in, somewhere between the plans being submitted to council and the final draft being signed by us. Unfortunately, it's not just a matter of taking the wall out, because they have it supporting a steel joist that's holding up the second storey! We are still waiting to find out what's happening there. I'm insisting that the wall can't stay because it's right where my Craft desk is going!! ....so, the saga continues!

Well done if you've made it through all this. I'll keep you posted (or would you rather I didn't?!)

The Construction Zone!

I thought I'd pop in and show you a few photos of our house a.k.a the Construction Zone.
The scaffolding arrived on Monday and they took the roof off yesterday:

The front path and gate is a no-go zone:

And this is what greets me when I open my front door!
We're getting lots of lovely debris drifting through the bathroom fans, downlights and skylights so already there is dust everywhere. It's exciting though! At the end of all this there will be 2 kids rooms, a rumpus room and bathroom upstairs and a big open Craft area (that will also serve as our dining room) downstairs. The aim is to have downstairs done by Christmas so we can paint in January. Upstairs will be to lock-up stage by Christmas, and work will resume on that in late January. In the meantime, the kids are sharing a room...lucky they get on well!

Twin update!

Some of you may remember my Proud Auntie moment back in November last year...well I thought it was about time you had an update!Here are my twin nieces Hannah and Rebecca 8 months on! Aren't they gorgeous?! They're starting to move about, eat real food and babble away to anyone who will listen! They are such good babies, happy and content :o)

Team Christmas Dinner

I have a ton of stuff to show you, but I just haven't taken any photos of any of it yet! I need to have a big photo session, but other things keep getting in the way! Most of them are fun things...Last night we had our team Christmas Dinner:

It was the best night! There were 16 of us, and Ruth was kind enough to host us all at her house. She went to so much trouble with table decorations (check them out on her blog), Kirrily did some games for us all (Ruth and I won, but everyone else got the prizes LOL), and all the food was so yummy, especially Liam's Cannelloni! Ruth and I did the other food, and we had a feast! We also had a Secret Santa (isn't it great to get a present that you just know you're going to love?! We gave each other items on our Stampin' Up! wishlist of course!), and a Christmas card swap. I feel so blessed to have a team of such lovely ladies!

Now, a card. I made this card as a sympathy card for a friend a little while ago, and I had some very sad news today that another friend of mine lost her baby boy, so I am feeling rather emotional....

I stamped in Black Stazon on Watercolour paper and used an Aquapainter and my inkpad to colour in. I used the Scallop edge punch to make the Rectangle. Check out THIS tutorial to find out how I did it. I'm so happy we have this punch now. I don't think it has made it back into my drawer since I got it!

Stamps: Paisley, Embrace life, Sincere Salutations
Ink: Versamark, Black Stazon, Purely Pomegranate
Cardstock: River Rock, Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate, Watercolour paper
Other: wide Double-stitched Chocolate Chip ribbon, sponge daubers, Aquapainter, Scallop Edge punch

Proud Auntie moment!

Aren't they bee-yoo-tiful?? These are my brand new twin nieces, born yesterday afternoon. That's Rebecca (2.78kg) on the left and Hannah (2.38 kg) on the right. It's my first time as a real Auntie (I had 5 ready-made nephews and nieces when I got married, but these will be the first to call me Auntie Rell!), so I'm looking forward to doting on these little bubs. Lucky my Sister-in-law lives only 2 minutes away :o)

Valentine doggy!

OK, so I know that I totally missed Valentine's Day (where has February gone??), but I couldn't resist showing you this photo, albeit a little late...This is our little dog Coco, dressed up by the kids for Valentine's Day (actually it says "Valentimes", because that's what Jacob (7) insists on calling it). He is just the sweetest dog, and puts up with anything!

And, just to show I'm not totally unromantic, here's the card I made for my husband for Valentine's Day:

but I suppose I shouldn't admit that I haven't actually given it to him yet...
I used the Heart from "Simply Said" and 'kissed' it onto my Paisley Background stamp in Tempting Turquoise ink. So, now you're probably wondering why I was kissing stamps and not my husband .... Kissing is a technique where you ink up a Background stamp, and press another uninked stamp onto it, and then stamp onto your cardstock. I stamped the little word 'love' from Everyday flexible Phrases in Chocolate Chip ink on the heart. Next I stamped a label from 'Label Classics' (retiring set *sob!*) in Chocolate Chip and cut it out. Then I wanted some patterned paper in Tempting Turquoise and I couldn't find a thing that worked. So I used Teneale's genius idea of Brayering my Au Chocolat paper (that girl is sooo clever, I tell ya!) in Tempting Turquoise. There's lots of corner rounding going on with this card (another retiring product *double sob!*), and a piece of Tempting Turquoise ribbon (can you believe how much ribbon is retiring?? *triple sob!*)

Who says love should be reserved for Valentine's Day anyway? I think I'll go and put this card on his pillow right now!

Happy Anniversary

Here's a card I made for my Mum and Dad's Wedding Anniversary last month (34 years!!). I was really unsure about this one, but I know Mum and Dad favour neutral, classic colour schemes. I'd always stamped this wheel in pretty, spring colours, so it was interesting to try something different with it. The colours are black and Sahara Sand. I've coloured with my neutrals Watercolour crayons. There's some black grosgrain ribbon and some vintage brads for a touch of class, and then some scallops done with the Corner Rounder (guard removed). One of the flowers have been popped up on Dimensionals.

And now, some really exciting news...Look what we got!!
This is Coco (aka CocoPops), the newest member of our family. It feels like he's always been here already. He's just slotted straight into our lives. We picked him up yesterday from Monika's Doggie Rescues. He's a 2yo Maltese cross who was rescued from a pound, and was waiting to be adopted by us! He's been just amazing. He hasn't barked (yet), loves the kids, LOVES pats and cuddles, and just wants to be where we are. He's obviously had some training, and can fetch, sit, walk on a lead, come, drop and stay and he's house-trained too. Why anyone would let this treasure go is beyond me! If you're looking for a pet, I would highly recommend a rescued dog!

It's a Pirate Party!

Another discontinued set ....
I'll be putting up a few cards made with discontinued sets this month. This was Jacob's 6th birthday party invitation (going back a little way in time here!). I used a set called "Lively Little Ones" and cut out a little pirate hat for him, and drew a white gel pen skull and crossbones on it, and used the Horizontal slot punch to make his little eyepatch. The background is stamped with Fresh fillers (I use that set so often!) and I did the message on the computer. The colours are Ruby Red, More Mustard and Old Olive. This card doesn't open; it's a postcard with a magnet on the back, so the recipients could stick it on their fridge.
It was such a fun party; the boys were all great. We all got dressed up as pirates (that's my hubby Dave as blackbeard!), I made a treasure chest cake, Dave made them balloon swords and scabbards, and balloon parrots to sit on their shoulders, and we played lots of pirate-y games...mind you, they were pretty happy to just run around like mad idiots and have balloon sword fights with eachother!!



















Oh, and don't forget my competition...scroll down to see the details!

Kids Rooms

We had a Garage Sale on the weekend...a great opportunity to move lots of stuff along to other people's homes, make a bit of money and help a couple of friends sell their unwanted stamps (so they can buy more Stampin' Up! stuff!). We redecorated the kids rooms in January, so there were lots of baby toys and stuff that they no longer use, including heaps of Wiggles stuff (my little boy is growing up too fast!). This is what their new rooms look like:

Both kids chose a turquoise-y colour (Jacob's is slightly darker, but you can't really tell in the pic). Amy has a new Loft Bed, so she can have her own hide-out underneath. Their rooms are so much easier to keep tidy now too, as there's more storage, and less stuff!