More DYL

I struggled with these ones - perhaps because of the bigger journalling area (funny, I seem to have lots to say on other occassions?) or just the one photo?  I might try again and put four in the journalling area...and this one came with a colour scheme which I also couldn't get the feel of either. OR perhaps its becuase it was after 10pm....!

Anyhoo, here they are:

First one is about my dreams of a shiny, tiled laundry IN my house (currently, as this is an old house, the laundry is detached and in a little shed near the house. Very rustic, but a bit of a pain, especially as its more of the blah type of shed at the moment and not just quaint!  We do have rebuilding plans, as it is getting quite holey around the bottom, so then I might be able to make things a little nicer) Picture, a bit arty farty, is of husband's work clothes on the line. maybe I should substitute with a picture if a lovely laundry from somewhere on the net (I am not using one of my laundry!)

A title will go on the patterned paper once printed, some nice thickers I think!

And this one, obviously, my favourite 2009 Christmas photo.  Its meant to have a circle element at the top between the photo and the patterned strip, but I again will add that (scallop I think) after printing and put the title on that ala Nicole.

Off to the city on Wednesday, but hopefully I will post some photos from the past few days (mud & doll houses & more of the girls room) before then.

DYL

So I got the poops after cleaning up the girls room AGAIN (everything has a home, but you wouldn't think it) and then installing their new doll house from Santa, and then vacuuming all sorts of crap off of the loungeroom floor.

I am raising piglets, I am sure of it.

Anyhow.  So I did some playing with the templates from the CZ class I finally decided to take.  Mind you, I might not have read all of the stuff (need to print out and put in a pretty binder to read and digest) but I sure am having fun.

I decided to do it all digitally/hybrid (more or less) and will print out and stick onto paper like I;ve been doing with my collages to date.

This was a 12x12 originally but I have dropped it back to 8x8 so I can easily print it (8x10 and crop).  I have done this one three times, just changing out the picture of the child, so each one has a layout for their album.  The steam train ride is something they all still talk about.

This one was 8.5 x 11 with a heap of white space around, so I cropped down to the nitty gritty so the white space will be "real" card when glued down.  Because I am a twit and didn't put a border around the white background on this, you can't see it, but it will end up a 8x10 double page with lovely white space. The title didn't have that strip of card behind it on her template, but I couldn't read it on the photo so had to improvise.  And because this is all about "balance' and "symmetry" of course the same strip had to continue to the other page, in this case the green paper.

So there you have it.  Now I better go and hunt something down for tea!

Internet Goodness

So, I have vacuuming to do and washing to fold (blah!) but thought I would get rid of this stash of internet goodness ideas that I have been gathering for awhile. Need to get rid of the ideas out of my head sparked by these and move on! (warning: long post, lots of pics and very light n fluffy!)

Love this photo with the girls and their tutus, but ESPECIALLY love the pink cowboy boots.  I think I need to get some for at least one of my girls (well, only one needs new winter boots this year!).  So, if you see any, let me know!  (and isn't their headwear so cute as well!)

Continuing the canvas art there, here's a cute idea that you could easily adapt  - little coloured doilies for the flowers, or cut out/punched shapes, and some simple and fun painting.  Even I could do this, but I am not. Becuase I haven't finished their name canvas things yet.

I am waiting for some less humid weather to finish painting my office wall green - more apple than this, but loved coming across this photo (from Moon Ko) of a green wall.  I have collected some black boxes similar to these from the discount store (and might go back and get some white ones as well) for storing my serpate committee paperwork in...And I will have either green or black lever arch or box files as well...I was going to have white shelving units...what do you think? 

Just a bit of whimsy - what cute sock protectors!! Think I need to buy some of these for my friends (female ones of course!) AND for myself! (from madeit )  (fyi  - stops grass seed and dirt and the likes from getting in ones socks and down into ones work books.  A bit of spear grass seed in one's sock has been known to halt all proceedings until located and removed.  And you DON"T want to feel one in your underwear - if you see someone suddenly jump off their motorbike and drop their daks, you know that speargrass has invaded!!)

Great book mark idea!  I'm going to collect some colour cards from bunnings and make some of these for myself!! And perhaps back them with some matching patterned paper...Too easy. Love this idea.

Now, if you need some name labels and bag tags for school, you must check out this lovely site:  Fairy Dust Design.  I've ordered some tags and labels for my girls (and a tage for my boy's backpack), as well as some for one of my neices' birthday, to add to the tutu gift.  Fairyt Dust has a lovely range of party invitations and cake toppers as well, if you don't want to make your own. Worth checking just for ideas!

Now onto yesterday afternoons time wasting and ultimatley dissapointing craft endeavours.  I saw this wonderful video over at jinkyart (gorgeous photography site that I've just been introduced to by Mel) which had in it some lovely folded paper cranes as a mobile in a  girls room. (cuter than the photo below)

See, look how cute they are, even good old Pottery Barn were selling them as Christmas ornaments. So off I go to the internet to find some instructions to do this.  I have half a brain, I'm a scrapbooker, so surely I can handle some paper folding.

Well, let me tell you something, dear reader.  Either I am a complete idiot and cannot follow instructions (which could be possible!) or its waaay harder than it looks.  It could be the instructions are not well written as well.... but lets just say my attempts at a "simple" butterfly and a "simple crane" did not yeild a result like any that you see above...

Anyone with experience in this department, I'd love to hear from you.  Otherwise I am going to call this failed and think of something else!  Like this:

My dear and wonderfully creative friend Kat sent me this idea, which would look lovely on my branches, dont you think? Now THIS looks simple enough for me to handle (after my shamful failed origami attempts!)

And one last bit of internet goodness, Coffee Shop has released a new action, very dreamy looking and would be lovely used on shots of little girls in long dresses running around a garden... (I like the third one best). So go forth and download, if you are into actions (pse friendly too)

So that's it, my vacuuming and folding await.  Apparently the housework fairies haven't been whilst I have been composing this post....

The Birthday Present Hunt

So, as you may remember, my oldest daughter has a birthday at the end of January, so I've been on the search for suitable gifts for a 7 year old girl...which is harder than you might think!

The wonderful Shannon got me a great deal on a lovely tin tea set in its own  little suitcase (after I found some for more than twice the price on ebay!) so there's one gift down. (got another one as well, so Georgie can get one for her birthday as well.  The joys of having two girls so close together in age!)  I've also got a cute little ruffley apron to go with it.

Kate's crazy about High School Musical (I would have thought she was too young? but anytime its been on TV, she's been glued to it!) so before Christmas I found 1 & 2 dvd's on sale (for $8 each! ) and tucked them away.

One of the joys of having a birthday not long after Christmas is that you tend to get lesser in the gift department...and normally the above plus some clothes probably would have been it.  I was thinking of perhaps a small "girl" lego set to complete, but seeing as the girls got a large doll house for Christmas, it seemed silly.  However, at a friends place on New Years Eve,  Kate fell in love with their Powerwing Scooter.  I had been told that they were frightfully expensive, but I headed to ebay just to see HOW expensive....and found one that looks identical, for well under $100. Done.

And THEN, while I was there, I thought I would look for pettiskirts for Di , seeing as she was hunting some for an upcoming professional photo shoot...and came across a great deal on tutu's!

I have  bought 8 of these in mixed colours, far cheaper than I could buy the netting and then find time to make them, so SOLD!  I just have to buy some white singlets when I get into the city next week (hello Best and Less, here I come!) and maybe add some button or ribbon embelllishment (or something) to the singlet - and there's a gift for Kate and birthday gifts for Georgie and my two neices DONE! 

(question:  I was thinking plain white bonds style singlets - with the narrow straps - or do you think a matching coloured one for each skirt would be better?)

I will have  four skirts spare, so I thought I could sell them with a little singlet - I'll do a post when I've got everything together with a price etc, if anyone is interested...

So there you have it, Kate's birthday present shopping all done and dusted.  Now I just have to worry about a CAKE...and the little party she wants.  Think we'll restrict it to just a couple of little girl friends, and maybe have a normal cake at school for all of the kids.

Stay tuned for some internet goodness later today or tomorrow.  I'm off to put away the Christmas decorations!  (but the twig branch tree is staying up!)

The Everyday and Extraordinary of 2010

So, in 2008 I joined Nicole and did 52 weeks (which isn't really finished yet - but I do have all of the photos, just need to print the journalling - so, so close!), and for 2009 I am doing a best of (will share that process soon) and 2010?...

Nicole again prompted me - she is doing a week to a page using divided page protectors (her example below)

Brilliant idea, but I know I would struggle to finish it - I think I would get through to the end of January...but instead!  I plan to do a MONTH at a time! I got myself some of these same page protectors, made myself a little template in Elements so I can get printed 4x6 photos that have two little photos on them, and I also made some monthly title blocks to go.  To fill any empty pockets I will use scraps of paper to suit the title block, and journalling if needed. 

And if I have LOTS to share, well I can do another page if I want, or simply do my own collage of photos (the way I have so far) have that printed and slip into a standard page protector within the album.  I have a AC 8.5x 11 album not being used ready for this project.

I even thought I could include 2011 in the same album, using the same format, or whatever brilliant idea Nicole comes up with for then. ;-)

This should be so easy! Here are the little monthly title blocks  - will get them printed monthly with my photos.  Crop and slide into the pockets.  Quotes from quote garden on the net.

Here are some other ideas of how you could capture your year....I am particulary taken with the business card holder and the page inserts (but I've already got my A4 sized pages...) Cute and concise!

The two items above I found at kikki k, but I think you could source the same thing at a lesser price at office works or the like.  The same with these A4 sized business card holders - perfect if you take landscape photos more than portrait style. (or you could chop a full sized portrait 4x6 in half and just slide each half into the appropriate pockets)

A blogless reader of mine (hi Kathy!) showed me the brilliant way she put together Project 365 this year.  She bought a photo box from Kikki K, and simply slipped her photos in the standard photo holders.  But doesn't it look great? Simple and effective and easy on the eyes.

As you can see, the lid flips around and it closes up like a normal stationary box file. This same concept could be used to catch a few photos from your month, with title blocks slipped into the pocket to divide your month. No fiddling around to crop photos, journalling could be printed on a 4x6 block as well, or like Kathy did, printed directly onto each photo in your editing program of choice.

So there you have it, how I plan to capture our 2010, and some other ideas to hopefully inspire you.  Good luck on your journey...

And another thing

This is the third and last of the mini posts I have for today - a little gap between posting as I had visitors arrive for "smoko" which, really was lunch!  Good times, we are off to celebrate New Year with the same people tomorrow, at their property. Slip n slide down the hill for the kids, watching in the shade with a cool drink for the adults!

Anyhow, just had to share these photos of my boy and his muscles (which are apparently located in his elbow!) 

I love the look of concentration on his little face, as he puffed up his muscles...

And yes, it was me who pulled his pants up that high...why do mothers do that?! 

At least one of these photos will make into my "best of '09" album that I am planning - more on that later.  After tomorrow I will be able to finish gathering my favourites and start on the design, which will be a photo book, probably from snapfish.  More details later!

The girls room

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...love the doona covers, but I love the patchwork pillow with its combination of fabrics even more.  The covers have brightened up their plain little room immensley...when I gather enough motivation I might paint one of their walls green too.

Now if only I could get them to keep it tidy and make their beds every morning....