Family Home

It was really great to have the kids home last weekend. Very busy but special week.

Scrapbooking wise, I haven't done a real lot this week. Sarah has been home for a weeks holiday (well really a study break). Life has been hectic for her at work at the moment with a promotion and therefore she has had to train someone to replace herself. Meanwhile she is also trying to complete some study, so as she was coming home last weekend and then had to be here again this weekend for her friends 21st, she decided to take a week off and come home and try and catch up on some study as well as trying to get an assignment done.

We have had a great week, both her and I booked into one of Ali Russell's a scrapbooking classes at Embellished on Monday night. This is the first time we have had the opportunity to go to a scrapbooking class together and we were both very happy with our layouts, which I will share below.
The photo on my layout was just a random shot we took when we held the camera out in front of us. Really happy with the way it turned out.

Sarah's used a blurred half photo of herself she found in my box of photos and considering that she doesn't often get much of a chance to scrapbook these days, she did a great job. I think the class really inspired her to get a bit more done.

She enjoyed it so much that when on Tuesday night while I scrapped with a friend making cards. she decided to cover a little journal that I had here. I guess you could kinda say she scraplifted my CJ cover, but it looks terrific, and she made a special pocket inside to keep notes, and then used my flourish stamps to stamp each page of the journal. She is so fired up we went off to Spotlight on Thursday to buy some more little notebooks so that she can make some more as gifts. She wanted to get half a dozen but unfortunately they only had one journal left. Here's hoping she can find some back home in Brissie.

Meanwhile, whilst she was busy covering her journal, my friend Ann and I made some cards. Now I have to say this was a totally new experience for me, and I can't say that all my cards are original. I have to say though that I have been really inspired by Ange Churchill's cards, and the "I love you" card is a scraplift of one of Ange's cards. Ange does classes every Wednesday night at Embellished. As yet I haven't managed to make one of her classes but I hope to one day. She has truely inspired me to give card making a bit of a go, especially since Gayle Murray (from Scrap of Faith) also issued the challenge a couple of weeks ago to make a card or two out of your scraps each time to scrap a layout. The designs of my "Hello" card and "Miss You" cards were also inspired by cards I have seen else where. Unfortunately I cannot remember where I saw them or whose designs they were, but I am happy with the way they have turned out.

This week I also managed to finish my "Sign In" pages on my Scrap of Faith CJ. Have just on finished my pages now and then I can get it posted off (hopefully by Monday) Will take of photo of my pages when I finally manage to get them done.

That is about all I have to share scrapbooking wise this week. Have to say though that last weekend was a pretty awesome weekend for us, with all our kids home. This doesn't often happen so it was very special. Now the reason they were all home too was pretty special as Chloe decided that she wanted to be baptised. Sarah was going to be here already as we also had our woman's retreat last weekend, so she had planned all along to be home for that but then when Chloe decided that she wanted to be baptised, Pete flew home especially to be here for her. It was a very special afternoon as our whole church family got together to witness it and I was so proud of Chloe as she stood and shared her faith journey with everyone. This was an awesome thing for her to do as she absolutely hates public speaking. She even had a couple of her friends from school come along to witness it too. We managed to get a couple of family photos, so I thought I would share one. Not only have we managed to scrapbook together this week, the girls and I have had a chance to go shopping, do some baking together, watch a movie, and just generally enjoy hanging out together. We even got to stand outside on Wednesday night and marvel at the eclipse of the moon, and gaze at the star filled sky. What an awesome God we have.

The other exciting news we got this week was the announcements of the winners of the " 2007 International Secondary Schools Digital Design Challenge" Steve entered the school and a few of his students into this competition, (he did this whilst we were on holidays) and the school tied for Overall Winners of the competion with two of his students taking out first place in the architectural category entitled "Spiritual Space for Function with or without Water". Both of these students also took out the "Best Overal Design Award" for the whole competion. As you can imagine, Steve has been on cloud nine since the announcement was made on Wednesday. The local paper here is even running a story on it. I am very proud of you Darl, I know that you share a passion for seeing your students do well, and you spend way above the hours you need to going back to school to help and support your students. I know that they love the course and are highly motivated, and winning a competion like this really is the icing on the cake for you all. Congratulations also to Jack and Miranda as well. You guys deserve to be very proud of your work.

Chloe has a big day ahead of her today. About 10 days ago she was called in for a group assessment with Woolworths, last week she got called in for a second interview and then found out that she had the job. She is going to be a Service Cashier and starts tomorrow. She has about 14-15 hours of work this next week, and she is so excited thinking about the wonderful pay packet she is going to get. Chloe's only means of income previously was the odd $10 here and there for ironing or odd jobs that she did at home. Both Steve and I are very thankful that she will now be earning her own income - think she might be in for a bit of a shock - doesn't go as far as you want it too. Will have to take some photos of her in her work Uniform when she gets it and post next time.

Sarah and I have some serious shopping to do tomorrow whilst Chloe is at work. We have Father's Day presents to buy, birthday presents to buy and awedding presents to get. Hope we can also find time to fit in a coffee also.

I really want to thank all you lovely people who stop by and say hi and comment on my blog. It is so nice and encouraging to see your messages, and I want to let you know that I appreciate the fact that you take the time to say Hi.

So many things to be thankful for this week

1. Loving and supportive family

2. Wonderful church family who are there to support and encourage us.

3. First day of spring today - new life - new growth, may it also be like that in our lives.

4. Fun times together as a family

5. Music in our hearts and souls.

Demo of my Son - in - Law's Band

Just thought I would share a video clip of my Son-in-Laws band "Falling Short". This is just a demo of one of their songs called "Billboards". My son in law actually writes all their songs and music as well. They played at the Convention Centre at Southbank in Brisbane last weekend.




If you want to know which one is my son-in-law, well he is the tall one (in a black t-shirt, with the black guitar),who swings his guitar right around his body. I am probably a little bias but I think they are pretty cool.

Crazy Week

This is a crazy week - with too much to do and not enough time to do it all. It doesn't help that I am feeling terrible at the moment. Seemed to have picked up some virus that is making me feel extremely tired. I mean it really would have nothing to do with the fact that I have had some really late nights either - I am sure.

Had a really busy weekend but a great one. My friend Karen was in and we had lots of girlie time. Went and had pedicures on Friday afternoon and then came home and scrapped, scrapped and scrapped some more into the early hours of the morning (I am sure the tiredness I feel now is as a result of these late nights). Saturday afternoon we had our monthly scrapbooking get together and Karen joined us for that. We scrapped all afternoon and into the evening, and didn't quite get our layouts finished before we had to come home. Packed it all up and then uppacked it when we got home so that we could finish it before we went to bed.

I was very productive and managed to get a few layouts done. I managed to get another of the CJ's out of the way, but not the one that needs to be sent this week. Need to work on it real soon. Anyway I thought I would share what I did manage to get done.

I was flicking through an old issue of CK and came across this layout about the power of words, and really wanted to scrap this. Chloe has been going through that difficult stage in life where words that are spoken can be very hurtful. She has been hurt quite a bit lately and I am sure she has hurt others also at times by the words she has spoken. We have talked about this quite a bit lately and this layout really stood out to me, and I wanted to record it as a reminder of the power behind words for good and bad. There is a passage in the bible that speaks about this. It is found in Phillipians 4, and it says, that whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anyting is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. This applies to our thoughts where others are concerned also. You see what a person allows to occupy his mind will sooner or later determine his speech and his actions. This layout is a reminder to always be aware of our thoughts about others so that our words will have to power to build - up and encourage and honor and respect others. Not always an easy thing to do, and something we cannot do in our own strength. Anyway this layout was a scraplift of Jenni Bowlin's layout on Page 114 of the February issue of CK.

This second layout is for a CJ I have been involved in. This is one of the last layouts CJ's in this round, and we had to do it on our favourite books and authors.

The next layout I manage to finish was a double layout about our new glasses. We all got new
glasses this last month. A terrible expensive exercise, although it could have been worse - we were fortunate to get them when the local Optical Warehouse had big savings on frames. Chloe also needed new contacts - they were the real expense.

Did a quick layout using more of our Christmas pictures. I still have so many more to scrapbook yet. The pile of photos I have here to be scrapbooked is ever growing.

Had lots of fun doing this last layout. I have really enjoyed playing around with felt these last couple of weeks, and I'm enjoying finding new ways in which I can use it on layouts. Went down to Embellished on Sunday to buy a couple of journalling pens, and ended walking out with heap more including this gorgeous coloured cardstock - just had to come home and use some of it. I'm really happy with the way this layout turned out. Mind you it ended up nothing like I had imagined it to be. I can see that I will be playing around with felt a lot more.

Just a few other photos taken on the weekend. Had the best time with Karen. Also wanted to include a photo of her with her son Tom. He is a great kid - a real credit to Pete and Karen. He spent 9 days in Brissie at the Ekka on a Show Camp. He was one of 20 students from thorughout Qld, selected to go to a literacy writing camp at the Ekka. He had a great time and actually produced articles that were printed in "The Courier Mail". He arrived back here on Friday and then on Saturday was involved in "Optiminds" with his school here in Rockhampton. His team got a highly commended and they did an excellent job. Karen and Tom drove home to Emerald on Sunday and then Tom left on his Year 6 camps yesterday again - (back in to Rockhampton and the Capricorn Coast)

Other photos are just random shots of Steve and I, and Chloe doing the usual teenage thing - phone attached to the ear.
Hope you all have a great week.

Things I am thankful for this week.

1. God's power within to make a difference in the lives of people.

2. The best husband anyone could ever ask for.

3. Great friends and girlie time.

4. The rain we've had in the last couple of days.

5. for all my great online Scrap of Faith friends who are a real encouragement and inpiration to me.

An Expensive Month

Well not a lot has happened in the last week or so since I updated last. It has been a pretty busy household here work wise - deadlines are this Friday so hopefully things workwise will settle down for a few weeks. Do have quite a few visitors coming in the next little while though. My friend and work colleague from Emerald (Karen Bray) is coming in to pick up her son who has been down at the Ekka at Show Camp. They are staying for the weekend so that Karen can come scrapbooking with us - really looking forward to a girlie weekend.

I have managed to do a small amount of scrapbooking this week - some would say I am crazy as most of this has been done in the wee hours of the morning. Definately having an early night tonight.

The first couple are for the Circle Journal I am in with the girls from Scrap of Faith. I must have rocks in my head. I know a couple of months ago, I said I was not going down this track again for a while, but they are such beautiful girls and such talented scrapbookers, and this circle journal too was all bout sharing our faith, so I just couldn't help myself and had to sign in for another one. It was supposed to have been posted today, but still have the sign in pages and my layout to do. Plan to get this done this weekend along with a couple of other CJ's from the last group. I think that will just about see the end of them and I can then hand them on. I am afraid this CJ is very bright and very pink. Gotta love Pink.

The next layout was one I did in one of Ali Russell's Classes at Embellished on Monday night. This is the first class I have done with Ali since she has moved into the shoppe and I must say it was good to be back doing it again. Ali has run a series of four classes on hidden journalling, and love how 4 of the 7 photos open up different ways to reveal journalling underneath. Mind you the journalling is not done yet but it will be one day. I was really happy with the finished layouts. If ever you girls get a chance to do a class with Ali or Julie Heard it is really worth it. They are such inspirational scrapbookers. This layout is entitled "Delightful Daugher" and I must say she really is. Feeling very blessed to have such awesome kids.

The final layout is a scraplift from this months Creating Keepsakes Magazine. Actually it is a couble scraplift as it one of Lisa Bearnson's layouts on Page 4 of CK and then again by Kayla Aimee Fox on page 94. Anyway it really inspired me when I was looking through the magazine at about 11.30pm last night and instead of going to bed like I should have I thought I would just make a start on the Layout, well at 1am it was finished. I mean how crazy was I - I had to get up and go to work this morning. There is definately going to be an early night here tonight though. I guess I was also motivated by Embellished Idol's Challenge for this week too which was using a paint colour strip. Now although I didn't sign up for Idol, I have been checking out the challenges, and I just happened to have pink, maroon and green paint strip at home here so have used it in this layout, although it is not very clear. Still it is something different for me. Loved the finished layout.

It has been a pretty expensive month in our household this month, with all of us getting new glasses and also custom made contacts for Chloe as the disposalable ones are no longer suitable for her eyes. I can only hope and pray that she looks after them, as to replace just one eye will cost us in excess of $200. Anyway thought I would share photos of us all with our glasses. For both Chloe and I, these are not our first set, but the time has come for Steve to get his first pair. (Truth be know he probably needed them at least 12 months ago or longer, but there was not way he was getting them before he turned 50). He is still struggling a little trying to get used to them.

Well a lot more happening in this household. Hopefully after this weekend I will have a few more layouts to upload. Looking forward to the followng weekend when my married daughter will be home for a weeks holiday. Pete will also be home that weekend so I will have all my family home together. Very rare that this happens, so as you can imagine I am really looking forward to it.

I'm Scrapbooking again

Yeah after what feels like months of not doing a lot creatively, I've managed to scrapbook three layouts this last weekend, and enjoyed every minute of it. In fact last night I had difficulty sleeping because I had ideas swirling around inside my head. Don't you just hate it. Mind you it has been quite a while since that has happened. The first layout was a challenge from the Scrap of Faith Cyber Crop the weekend before but I never did manage to get it completed by the Monday and uploaded into the Gallery. Still I persevered and did finish it. Nat Mardon issued the challenge to use pink, green and while, with your own handmade embellishment, and a verse of scripture. I guess I have been closely following Ngaire Bartlam's blog "Beautiful like a Rainbow" and this got me to thinking about "Beautiful" and what real beauty was all about. There is so much emphasis places on physical beauty by the media, Hollywood, and even people in the workforse and general, that it really can have such harmful affects on woman. I also remember ready a children's book called "The Twits" by R. Dahl and the chapter on describing Mrs. Twit has always stayed with me,


If a person has ugly thoughts, it begins to show on the face. And when that
person has ugly thoughts every day, every week, every year, the face gets uglier
and uglier until it gets so ugly you can hardly bear to look at it.

A Person who has good thoughts cannot ever be ugly. You can have a wonky nose, and a crooked mouth and a double chin and stick-out teeth, but if you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.


You know in a way this really is a biblical truth - In Phillipians it says "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is prue, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me - put it into practice"And the God of peace will be with you''.

Anyway this all got me thinking about what "Real Beauty" is - you see real beauty comes from within - and it will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.


My layout was about this sort of beauty. My verse was 1 Peter 3:3 which actually says. "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment (or appearances) such as braiding hair,, wearing of gold jewellery and fine clothes. Instead it should be that of your inner self. The unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirt which is of great worth in God's sight. Anyway I was quite happy with the finished result.



I keep a bit of a scrapbooking notebook and jot down ideas, or titles, or journalling that I see and like and think I could use. The journalling and title for the next layout came from my notebook. It would have come off some layout that I have seen, but thought it sounded great, and probably did apply to "Daddy's girls" so this second layout is really just a fun layout to document this quote. I really enjoyed doing this. Have lots of new papers that I haven't had a chance to use, so was able to finally use some of them. Also haven't used many flowers lately so this was a good chance to use some of these as well.

My last layout I did in a couple of hours last night. Again, just wanting to document a little about why I scrapbook. I bought these elsie papers, and buttons when I was on holidays and have been dying to use them on a layout.
News wise in our household. Not a lot has happened in the last week. Celebrated the birthday of one of Chloe's friends on Thursday night. Chloe managed to get back to school on Tuesday. I was off colour all week with a cold. I was supposed to have seen my doctor on Friday but she has been sick and in hospital so that visit didn't happen. In fact it seems that every household and family in Rockhampton at the moment is affected by this awlful flu. I was reading in the local paper on Saturday, that we have been the hardest hit of any town in Queensland with it. I know we are so short staffed at work and we just cannot get replacements a lot of the time. Classes are half empty. One class I was in today had more than 10 students away with it. My friend Jan has just been give her 4th week off work with it - she has never been this sick in her life before.


Thanks to Chris Millar for tagging me as a 'rockin' girl blogger'. What an honor. The idea originated from Roberta Ferguson and now I have to tag 5 girls that are rockin'!!!! I'd love to tag Nat Mardon, Lusi Austin, Anthea Peterson, Julie Heard, and Ali Russell. Girls I love checking out your blogs and I think your layouts rock.

Finally things I am thankful for this week.


1. That we are feeling much better and on the road to recovery.
2. For a wonderful husband who shows his love every day in the little acts of kindness that he demonstrates towards us.
3. Great friends
4. Awesome kids
5. A faithful and loving God