Quick Post Tonight

Where has this last week has gone. I'm feeling heaps better although still seem to have a bit of a chesty cough. I haven't managed to do a lot of scrapbooking this past week as I have been really busy with Uni work.

Missed making the deadline for Week 3 of the Embellished Beyond the Blue Competition, although I did finish the LO yesterday. The challenge for week 3 was "Where or how do you find your inner peace? Where or what makes you feel relaxed? What is tranquility or peace for you"
Although there are lots of things I do and places I love that make me feel relaxed or tranquil, and whilst these are important and necessary in my life, these are shortlived and although I wanted to share at least one of the places that we have holidayed in for most of our married life, I really wanted the emphasis to be on my faith and how it is my relationship with God that brings real inner peace and joy to my life on a daily basis. The Layout is very simple and it opens out to reveal my jounralling and my bible which is really important to me.

My next Layout was just a layout I did about some of my favourite books that I have enjoyed reading at the moment. Just love Karen Kingsbury as an author, but have also enjoyed a lot of Dee Hendersons books too. Just another fun LO.

And finally, my last LO I did was another one of the online classes I did at Scrap of Faith last week with Nat Mardon. Very simple LO but a very effective one. This layout was really about forgiveness, and how irrespective of how we are treated, even when could be justified in being angry and upset, God still wants us to forgive - not just once, twice, seven times but seventy times seven. Really when we harbour hurts and bitterness in our hearts, the only people it really affects is us anyway.

Should have mentioned in my last post that the black and white photos that I have used in the last few LO's were photos that Ali Russell took of me, one day when another friend and I were over scrapbooking with her last November. Most off them I really quite like cause you can't notice my tired eyes.

The next couple of weeks are really going to be quite busy with family coming to stay, holidays etc so I doubt that I will get much of a chance to scrapbook. However I have got a few good books to read, so am really looking forward to getting a bit of spare time to indulge in a bit of reading.

I did come accross this fun Intelligence Test. I challenge you to go try it. I was pleasantly surprised that I managed to get 22 out of the possible 33. I actually asked my husband to have a go - he reckon's he far too busy. I think he is scared that he will be shown up. Well it is getting late and I have an early start in the morning. Think I will leave you with the 5 things I am most grateful for this week.

1. Awesome husband and family

2. For Inner peace and joy

3. Girlfriends, and hot chocolate

4. Holidays coming up

5. A roof over my head and food on the table.

Feeling Lousy with the flu

Well not a lot has happened this week - except that at the moment I have this nasty bug and have no voice whatsoever. Why do these things always hit you at the weekend and never on a work day. Mind you if I am still feeling this lousy tomorrow and if I still have no voice - I may just not get to work either.

I guess the one good thing about it is that it has allowed me to to get some scrapbooking done as I can sit in silence and create, Friday night I felt awlful - I was to have done my layout for Week 2 of Embellished's journey "Beyond the Blue" but my head ached, my throat burnt and I just felt way to miserable. Got up yesterday and worked on it. Now even though it hasn't made the deadline for last week, I still wanted to do it anyway as I am so enjoying the challenges. Regardless of whether I can make the deadlines for the rest of the competition I am just going to keep going anyway for my own benefit. The layouts in the gallery are amazing. I think the thing that is really impresses me most is the honesty of the journalling from everyone.
Have five Layouts to share with you this week, mostly done yesterday.
This is my Layout for week 2. Thc Challenge was "What is your greatest Achievement? What moment in life has made you most proud?This can be one or many things.Must include a title and journaling (this may be hidden)"
My journalling is hidden behind the photo - but in essence it was from the angle that my greatest achievement was that of being a Mum and the feelings I felt when I saw my daughter on her wedding day walking down the aisle on the arm of her dad. How my role in her life was about to change - the sense of achievement and pride and all these other emotions were quite overwhelming on this day. You can view the journalling on the Embellished site in the Gallery. Even managed to use some of Julie Heards beautiful transperent butterflies. I added some bling to them to.


This second Layout is one I did at Ali's last Wednesday night. A group of us from work go and play with Ali and Julie on a Wednesday night. Julie was actually the teacher for this class. It is always a fun night with none of our Layouts ever looking the same. I was really happy with this LO. It really is a good social night out with plenty of laughs

The third Layout is one of the March online Scrap of Faith classes which Ali Russell taught. The instructions were brilliant and very easy to follow. This month I actually bought the kit for it. These are papers I probably wouldn't normally use but I actually love the way it has turned out. Even managed to use a photo that Ali actually took of me just before Christmas.


I really want to document my faith a lot more this year so this next layout is about a song that I really love titled "Imagine" by "Mercy Me". Just happens to be one of my favourite songs, and is sung and played constantly here. I can not begin to imagine the awesomeness of being in the presence of God - but I am looking forward to it. This is quite a different layout for me too cause I used patterned paper as the background - normally I am a cardstock girl through and through, but loved the way this has turned out and I actually really love this BG paper


This last Layout was just a fun Layout I did yesterday when I was feeling sick. It is about my very favourite last thing at night routine. The mug was given to me by one of my students at the end of last year. Love this mug and there is nothing better than sitting at the end of the day with my husband and enjoying a Nestle Double Blend with Turkish Delight flavour Hot Chocolate, topped with Marshmallows. Ah such joy.

Going to head off and have a bit of a rest and then perhaps get a bit more scrapbooking done this afternoon. Looking forward to having our friends from Emerald in next weekend.

Also thought I would share with you this fun site I found. Check out Her Space - My Space just a fun site where there are challenges issued each day. Some great photography and worth having a look.

Blistering Hot

I thought this was supposed to be Autumn - the temperature reached something like 42degrees in Rockhampton today. Unbearable - it didn't even get anywhere near this hot during the summer months this year. It was so hot here today that we had an extreme weather day at school and everyone had to remain in doors in the air conditioning all day. That in itself was a nightmare cause the kids were about ready to climb the walls being couped indoors all day. Here's praying that tomorrow will be so much cooler - don't think I could stand another day as hot as this .

Embellished has decided to support "Beyond Blue" which is a national, independent, not-for-profit organisation working to address issues associated with depression, anxiety and related substance misuse disorders in Australia. This year Ali Russell will be running promotions and sales throughout the year with the proceeds going to support "Beyond Blue" and the big news is that she is running a competion where she is taking us all on a journey Beyond the Blue.....

The competition is about our personal journey...a time to scrap about ourselves This whole competition is in aid of Beyond Blue. Let's get together and help support this great cause. I am sure there are very few of us that that don't know someone or who haven't had someone close to us who hasn't been affected by depression at some stage in their lives. Check out Ali's "Beyond the Blue" blog to get details for this wonderful journey.

I thought I would upload the Layout I did for the 1st week's challenge. last week We had to scrap "What is beyond the Horizon for you - where do you see yourself in 10 years. What goals do you wish to achieve" This week (Week 2 of the competition) we have to do a Layout about "What is your greatest achievement. - what moment in life has made you the most proud." Already have ideas running around in my head to do this one. This was going to be a quiet week and I even thought that I would be able to find some time to scrapbook and manage to get a few layouts done, but have just found out tonight that my neice will be here Thursday night with her three children on her way to the Sunshine Coast to await the birth of her 4th child, and then on Saturday night my other neice and her boyfriend, his parents and his sister will all be staying with us for the weekend. Oh well looks like another busy week.

Last weekend we had our monthly crop. I'm afraid I didn't get much done. I tried scraplifting one of Ali Edwards layouts from her latest book - loved the title thought it fitted in beautifully with a photo of my son and husband on their holiday together last year. Just didn't work for me - probably the fact that I felt hugely disorganised and didn't really have my head around scrapbooking at all that day didn't help. I had trouble packing my gear to take. That in itself should have told me it would have been better to have made it a social afternoon rather than try and scrapbook. It just wasn't happening for me and although I love a lot of the stuff Ali Edwards does, I think my likes and style is more suited to Elsie Flanaghan. Anyway here is my miserable attempt at scraplifting Ali's layout.

I did manage however to finish a CJ that I have had sitting at home here for a few weeks. This is the last CJ from the Scrapaholics CJ round that the girls from Scrapneeds participated in. This group started just over a year ago and the next one I get will be mine. I can't wait to get it back and see all the fabulous work these girls have put into it. This last one was on "My Collection" couldn't think of anything that I really collect until I looked in my scrapbooking supplies and realized that I had heaps of ribbon. Got a bit embarassing to realize I had so much when I sat and counted it all. Think it is more an obsession with ribbon than a collection, so this is what I based my layout on - my ribbon collecction.

Well not a lot of other exciting news to report. a few of us girls had a girls afternoon out yesterday and we went to the movies to see the movie "Music and Lyrics" lovely girlie movie and worth going to see if you want a nice girls night out.

Also want to thank everyone who has stopped by and commented on my blog recently. I do so love to hear from you all and read your encouraging comments so a big thank you from the bottom of my heart.

One of those weeks.

Well it's late - so haven't got much to say tonight except I'm busy busy busy. Have been playing adoptive grandparents this past week as we have had my girlfriends two little boys (8 & 7 years) staying with us for 10 days whilst their parents were down south. Although a very hectic time it has been a really special time for us with the boys as they live in PNG and only come back to Australia every three years for 6 months. They were so good for us, and they just have a real natural curiosity that most kids in Australia don't have - they live in an area where kids can still roam the neighbour with mates, and generally spend lots of time outdoors. Gamesboys, computers etc are not big up where they live and it is really refreshing to see them with such enquiring minds.

Have managed to do a coulpe of LO's which I'll share now. We have our monthly crop on this Saturday so hoping to get a bit more done then.


Well it is pretty late and I have an early morning start - will catch up more on the weekend when I have a bit more time.

I'm sorry about the poor quality of the photos too. It has been pretty overcast here the last few mornings so the lighting has been pretty poor.