Caitlin's 21st

Hi there
you can tell i must be on holidays as this is my second post within a week, shocked, yes i know.

Let me talk to you about sketches.,
well I am no good at them, I see the sketch and that is exactly how i must do the page and if the designer has used a star or a flower motif as their example to put embellishments well then I have to use the star or the flower even though that was not the designers intention.
Now if it comes to cooking I am very good at thinking outside the box and rarely get flummoxed maybe its a confidence thing.
Anyway, my favourite scrapbooker in the whole wide world yes Shimelle has a sketch on her blog every month with a video of how she interprets her own sketch. So I thought I would give one a go

ta da here it is

the sketch asked for a BIG embellishment in the middle and the example had a huge star, so I tried very hard not to use a star, I used a polaroid frame. The position of my photos are the same although in Shimelle's own page she used 2 small photos up the top and a business card down the bottom. See what I mean, Shimelle thought outside that square I on the other hand used the exact same sizes of photos as what was on the sketch.
Alas after all that I love my page so whether i take the sketch literally or on a rare occasion think outside the square it doesn't matter I have a completed page and I had fun playing.

The photo is from Caitlin's 21st party and shows the donut ball tower cake that Joe made, believe it or not that tower contains 248 donut balls, I know as I ordered 250 and I ate one on the way home...hello... I had to make sure they tasted ok didn't I, so we had one ball left. I tell you it was panic stations there for a while.

here is a close up at home before we took it to the club.

Joe spoilt Caitlin and got her an iPad. very very spoilt.

we had a photo booth on the night where everyone dressed up with props

my friend Pina made the table arrangements, I ordered 40 big lollipops in Tiffany Blue.

there was a lolly buffet of which we are still eating the left overs

and I made this really cute guest book which I hopefully will show you in the next post.

Enjoy your weekend.
xx

Mellow Yellow

Yes,I had a few spare moments so I thought I would actually do a blog post and my post is all about week 28 of my Project Life.
For something different I decided to pick a colour and use that as my theme, the lucky colour was yellow.



I had so much fun doing this page finding all of my yellow bits and pieces



I tried something new and used a 3x4 space for my title card. I had been saving that badge for just the right place and I think this is it.
I also cleaned out my purse and found a lot of receipts which I included in a glassine bag.
I love the little frame stamp from the Studio Calico Inked class that I used to highlight my mum.



And the bottom two photos are food related again. Occasionally I love to make my own pasta actually I would rather have fresh pasta any day it is just so good. I made two different sauces as Andrew does not like good old bolognaise/red meat sauce.
If you follow me on IG you are no doubt aware that we go out to lunch most Saturdays and this week we went to Tony Romas which is an American rib restaurant.. I am not into ribs but they are Andrews favourite, what we both liked was the hot skillet cookie, a must have if you ever go there.

So that was my week 28, a good one.

Thanks for visiting, I know it has been a while.
Linda

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Bennett Springs Drive,Beechboro,Australia

Meeting Amy

Well hello
Happy Sunday to you all and happy NSD or interNSD if you are a scrapbooker.

If you follow my Instagram you will know that Traceyand I had the pleasure of meeting Amy Tan on Tuesday and I may or may not have got a little bit excited. Okay, no, little bit, very excited. Amy and Shimelle are my scrapping inspiration. (Who are yours?) so there was no way I was going to miss this event. I was like a fourteen year old meeting Justin Beiber without the screaming.
So here is my LO



Amy was wonderful and so down to earth, having her photo taken a gazillion times was no trouble. There was also a make and take but as their was only three of us in the second group (yahoo for us)we got to sit up close and personal with Amy where we could chat so I didn't do much making and taking. Geez I sound like a stalker.

I was embarrassed/angry/appalled that Spotlight had a famous (hugely famous in America) artist visiting their store and there we sat IN THE AISLE in the aisle, I kid you not. What happened to a nice little room or even a corner decorated with Amy Tangerine merchandise and don't get me started on the merchandise I was ready to buy the whole entire line of Yes Please which has been out for months and na nothing, zip, nilch, zero not here yet.
No worries I will wait until it comes here.

So there we have it, Amy made my routine week into a very happy excited over the top week and in case you haven't guessed it I am still EXCITED.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Project Life Week 14

Gosh can you believe it is week 14 already?
It's April nearly May
One week of school before holidays, yay it has been a very long term

My week 14 came together very quickly, however I have only one pic to show you

Due to that picture on the bottom left. That is my foot covered in water in our MAIN living area. The hose to the washing machine came of and flooded the whole house and I mean the Whole house except for our bedroom and Caitlin's. The craft room and Joe's bedroom were the only carpeted area that got soaked.
The rest of the house has lino apart from the main bathroom and loo (they are tiled) and it was all underwater. So my craft room had to get packed up and this also meant the computer and printer, but we are an apple family and there are plenty of iPads around here so that wasn't a big problem. I did make a scrap stash of the bare essentials which is now housed on the dining room table, and thank goodness for Studio Calico kits I just grabbed my latest two kits. Alas sob sob I am still waiting on my March and April Project Life kits from them (so is Tracey except she is waiting on Jan as well).

Nothing too exciting for week 14 except I did get quite a few Instagram comments from my scrapping idol Shimelle which absolutely made my day as I was very sick in week 14. I also got three IG comments from Amy Tan which also made another day, see it doesnt take much too make me happy.

Caitlin is starting to gather and oprepare her resources for her big teaching prac so that is keeping her busy and at home, no night clubbing for the time being (thank god says mama)

Andrew and I made up a new word "DLunch". Dont you just love it?
Our Saturdays are quite busy,after a little sleep in we clean the house from top to bottom, yes he helps and to be honest probably does more than I, then we go and do a bit of weekend shopping so when all thats finished it is normally around two pm so we like to treat ourselves to lunch out. This particular Saturday we were running a bit late it was near too three and we could not find a restaurant that was open, they had all closed to prepare for dinner so down to Hillarys we went and one of our old favourites was open all day. As this is our only meal for the whole day the man had to repeat our order back to us, honestly it wasnt that much just an entree each and a main but the entree did have a lot of bread, so that finished the day nicely. The kids know now that they have to get their own dinner on Saturdays as I sure am not cooking and Andrew and I never eat dinner on a Saturday.

I must point out that wonderful currents stamp that is available from Studio Calico it is "awesome" so awesome in fact that i I may have got super excited and ordered another one by mistake ho hum thats me all over.
I also must share THIS link with you. If you ever need Project Life inspiration check out these free videos from Two Peas there is a PL one every week and whilst you are there check out Glitter Girl her last weeks video was AMAZING episode 65 be sure to go and check it out so so good.

Wow long post hope you enjoyed it and yes Caitlin I am trying very hard to not be lazy and make sure all of my I's are capitals..
xx

New Zealand

Hello there it's been awhile.

Just popping in to share some layouts that I have made for Joe's New Zealand album.
You have probably already seen these on Instagram but you can get a better look here. Before I start I must tell you that all photos are taken with my iPhone as my DSLR is packed away somewhere due to the big house flood.

This will be the first page. I am doing a 12x12 album with some Project Life inserts as Joe is a good scrappers son and took over 400 photos plus with this wonderful technology today all of the other chefs have uploaded their photos so I have literally thousands to choose from.
There isn't a great deal of journaling on the pages because
a) I wasn't the one there to tell the story and Joe is not the most talkative person around
b) I will have heaps of pages that will follow on from each other so the story should be easy to follow.

Having said that I am not scrapping this in any order, when I put them in the binder will be when they go in date order.

OK so on to the first LO above. It is a lift from an Amy Tan class that I am doing (ha along with about three other classes) Normally I would have found using that background paper extremely hard but it was perfect for the aeroplane photo and I just remembered that I took a great photo of Joe walking with his suitcase at the airport so that will have to be the first page not this one. hmm see what I mean lets just call it a work in progress. The bottom photo is not a bad one its just the light coming in from the aeroplane window. I got to use lots of stamps on this one and it was fun.

and the reason I am not doing this in date order is because of this photo. I love it. So meet Beth a chef from the winning New Zealand team. I couldn't wait to scrap this photo, I think I have done it justice. Again I used inspiration from my Amy Tan class but my LO came out completely different than Amy's. Although all of my scrap supplies are packed I did keep my Studio Calico kits out and my ever growing stash of washi that I don't use nearly enough.

Yep still love love this photo.
So Beth this post is for you so you can see what I have created and so that you can get a better look other than Joe holding the page up when your on Skype. Hope you like them.

Hopefully not promising anything but there might be a short PL post tomorrow. Pff and can you believe it Caitlin has just popped her head over my shoulder and told me off for not making my iiiii's capitals, ha, is the teacher coming out in her or what, so I will now go and amend all of my iiiii's

Ha I I I I I cant believe how many time i use the word I, it is nearly in every sentence and I am not correcting the one in this sentence...

Project Life week 12

Hi there
When one is lying flat on their back in bed with an excruciating sore back one/namely me,is so grateful to Apple for inventing the iPad. I can read and scroll through my photos and do blog posts and lets not forget online shopping.
Anyway here is my week 12 page






Ok this bit tells you about another meal Andrew cooked, coke a cola chicken wings and potato salad. He even made his own mayo, the chicken was a bit sweet but not complaining as I didn't have to cook it.
And Joe coming home
And Joe, Simon and Deney (their TAFE lecturer) with their gold medal dessert and the blurb that was written about their dish from the event website.




Since I was about 12 I started collecting cookbooks and one recipe that I have always wanted to make was a spinach and feta pie, so last week at work we had heaps of spinach left over and I made my pie. I didn't stop there, I also made these spinach and feta filo rolls/swirls/snails. And they were divine I tell you. For savoury dishes I generally don't follow a recipe and for these I didn't either which can result in problems if people want the recipe as they did for this snack.
You can also see the great photo of Team Aus plating up their dessert for 100 people.


This top right photo is a copy of an email to Caitlin.
Here is the background,..Caitlin is doing a double degree in teaching at uni (kindy to year 7) the course will take 3 and 3/4 years. Caitlin has only the 3/4 year left and in that/this year they have to do two big teaching pracs for eight weeks each.
Caitlin applied to do her second big prac which is in August in a remote country town and this was an email to say that her application had been approved and her prac will be in Port Hedland. (For you non west Aussies, Port Hedland is in the Pilbara two full days drive north of Perth. It is a mining town and most people say that you have to live there to like it) as we have lived in PH when the kids were little I can say we loved it and this is the reason Caitlin wants to go back there. It will be really interesting to see what she thinks this time round as a 21yo because she remembers it as a 9/10 yo.
However it was the wonderful teachers she had in PH that inspired Caitlin to become a teacher.

Phew did you get all that? Suffice to say that my baby will be away from home for eight weeks in August and September.

All the papers I used this week were from Studio Calico/Sundrifter collection, and I used my new Dear Lizzie stamp.

Andrew just went to the shops and I asked him to pick up a couple of packets of little Easter eggs in particular the top deck ones, he came back empty handed no eggs left at all, then I text Caitlin please get me some from work, she text back " no all sold out" can you believe it? It's only Thursday. Oh well I would only eat them any way.

So I bid you a very happy Easter may you eat as many eggs and hot cross buns you can fit in your tummy and spend a little time remembering what Easter is all about.
Xx

Thanks for stopping by and yay if you made t o the end.
Xx
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Week 9

Hello hello hello
how lucky am i, Andrew (DH) is on holidays and i have not had to cook anything for three nights as he has discovered a hidden passion for cooking. Imagine my delight when he text me today asking if braised bbq ribs, a salad and crusty bread was ok for dinner...are you kidding...i would eat anything if i didn't have to plan and cook it. Sadly (although its quite funny) he said "its takeaway tomorrow night, i have had enough" ha, i said, "now you know how i feel but i have to do all of that after work".

ok here is week 9 of my Project Life

thats the whole page for you to see, i used a lot of Studio Calico printables that anyone can download and buy, some washi and my favourite doily from PTI.

obviously this is my title card which i found inspiration from Leena (you should check out her PL if you haven't already, AMAZING.

on Sunday i spent a good hour peeling mangos and scooping out their flesh to put into bags to freeze. We usually give about 75% of them away but i thought this would be a great idea especially for smoothies. So this year we are probably giving about half away.
and at the ripe old age of 18 Joe decided that it was time he learnt too iron, as he leaves for New Zealand on Friday the lessons had to start pretty quick.

sorry actually had too much light for this photo. This little cute envelope was in my Studio Calico project life kit and although i love love love oh their so cute love love love them, i do find them hard to use, but not this week, It was our state election and it is compulsory to vote here in Aus so i actually put some of the leaflets from the party that i voted for in the envelope. As this made it rather bulky and this photo is in the top pocket i put one of those mini clip thingys over the top so it wouldn't fall out.

and when Joe gets back from New Zealand and finishes his holidays he starts at a new restaurant at The Crown called Bistro Guillame and laundry have already prepared his new chefs uniforms so he took a photo for me. This will be Joe's last rotation at the Crown after this he will be a qualified Chef can you believe it, three years, time goes so quickly. He hopes to go back to Nobu and work his way up to Junior Sous Chef then travel the world with Nobu.

and last of all Andrew and I had another leisurely Late lunch/early dinner on Saturday at one of our favourite places The Merrywell and surprise surprise this happens to be at the Crown as well.

No pictures of Caitlin this week she was busy with one of her bfs 21sts and has only just given me the photos but i may just cheat and include them in next weeks PL, does anyone else do this?

Thanks for visiting
xxx

Music Festivals

Good evening-i will stick with that as it is evening here
Popping in to share a layout of Joe at some music festivals he attended on the weekend.

Sorry the colour is a bit dull as i couldn't wait until tomorrow and beautiful sunshine to photograph it.
He went to two festivals and had a huge weekend, being the good child of a scrapbooker he kept me the tickets and the wrist band they were given for the over 18 festival, looks a bit like wash tape so of course i had to use it.

The skull i cut from the programme and the two guys in bubbles are friends of Joe. Joe is in the top photo on the left. As it's so hot here they always have sprays mists and water showers for people attending to cool down, i am not sure were the bubbles come in.

The middle photo is of the stage for one of Joe's favourite bands, Blink 182. He was right at the front of the stage after half an hour even he had had enough and asked for a security guard to pull him out. I would have loved to have seen that as Joe is 6ft 5 so it would not have been an easy task.

Well tomorrow is Sunday and you know what that means in my world, ironing day, i am sure i have the biggest pile to date Andrew even suggested we go out to lunch BUT nothing comes between me and my ironing. Ha i wish, it's just that if i don't do it tomorrow my mountain will be huge.

Good night all.
xx

Project Life week 9

Hello there, happy hump day
My week 9 found me in a quandary as i actually had a few too many photos but wanted to include them all and i couldn't put it on a two page spread as week 9 was on the right hand side of my binder...does this make any sense to you?
Anyway this is what i did

I added a pocket page from Snap to be my first page for week 9
it looks like this

which was quite fun as i got to mix up my title card a bit. The bottom photo is from my Instagram account giving me the details of when i posted my very first photo.
here is the reverse of this page

all about Joe's cookbooks and this funny photo of my niece that i copied from her Instagram account.
now on to the main page

Andrew went to the football and i went out to dinner-only fair- and even though it's still hot here, for ease and simplicity my crockpot does get the odd workout.

Caitlin went to two 18th birthday parties and felt old!!! It is nearly time for all of the 21sts to start happening, i had a night of cameo cutting and our mangos/mangoes? are ripe to eat.

 I had to document my washi haul and used them to decorate my page
and last but not least was our Saturday luncheon

Apart from my washi everything i have used came from my Studio Calico Project Life kit or was a Studio download and cut with the cameo.

Joe is now on holidays preparing for his trip and competition to New Zealand next week, on Monday Andrew starts some holidays, Caitlin is back into the uni swing and extremely busy this being her last nine months of uni and ho hum i still have work.

Enjoy the rest of the week and thanks to all of you who left a comment on my last post, i got two new followers and have reached 40 yippee party party.
Linda

Circles

Happy Saturday everyone
We have just been out to lunch and i am FULL to bursting, so there is nothing better to do than take a few photos and sit here at my Mac and let all of this food digest.

A couple of weeks ago on Instagram i posted a picture of a lacy circle background that i had cut out with my Silhouette and with inspiration from Lory (when i saw her Layout i just had to give it a go)
this is what i came up with.

unlike anything else i have ever made, it uses scraps from the scrap bin. I tried to keep visual triangles of some things i.e.) the people and the cabochon flowers and the red paper, then it got all too hard so it was anything goes.
I didn't know what to put in some of the empty circles so i filled them with journaling.
On another note, i am starting a quest to organise my albums. At the moment they are different sizes,colours and makes. Although the colour doesn't worry me i thought it would be nice to have them all in uniform albums. So hello Studio Calico for the next eight months or so i will be ordering a binder, my first binder arrived yesterday so i grabbed a random old album and started switching the papers, holy moly i haven't looked at my very first pages for a couple of years. WHERE WHERE WHERE is the journaling and soooo many flowers, lol the fashion and my style has certainly changed over the years.

Random;;;

Joe recently ordered over $1000 in cook books,
1-can you actually imagine how many that is
2-where are they all going to go
3-half of them are not cookbooks you and i would use, trust me and i consider myself a good cook. When i opened one of the books and picked a random page i couldn't understand the first instruction and it was only for lemon cordial..Something about some machine that does something and something, luckily Joe knew exactly what is was about.
4-these are resource books for Joe, there was one huge book just in sauces and jus and a great book from David Chang about Momofuko, oh i so want to go and eat there.

This is only half that have arrived

See those books no 1 to 5 they came with the most amazing photography and some actual large photos just floating in the box, so i had to take a photo of the this photo as i think its AWESOME

how amazing is that mayo dripping of the bun? May have to nick borrow this from Joe for my work.
After looking in this set of books i think the photography is by Ryan Matthew Smith and Nathan Myhrvold, my apologies if it is not.

Phew so there we have it my some what long and random post, enjoy your weekend everyone, we have a public holiday here on Monday so i will be having a great weekend.
xx

Project Life Week 8

Hi there
i am still managing to keep up to date with my weekly Project Life and here is our week 8

Apart from the title piece of paper everything else uses the Studio Calico Project Life kit, which if you follow my Instagram you will know that i absolutely love it, love it i tell ya even down to the cute box that it came in.

Yes Joe got another burn, not his worst by far but it was pretty good and seeing i didn't get any flowers for Valentines day (: i think Caitlin took pity on me and bought some Sunflowers. The pretty turquoise glitter tape did not come in the kit either, boy i love that stuff may have to invest in every colour.

Andrew spent all Sunday afternoon preparing dinner, it was really nice and as a added bonus there was heaps left over for Monday night so that was two nights i did not have to cook. OK i found something else not in the kit, it's that gorgeous striped colourful washi, it had just arrived so i had to use it.

Am not too sure on this pocket its done now and away but would be my least favourite from a scrapbooking point of view. I love the photos of Caitlin and Bec at the beach having some fun before their very last semester of Uni begins.

I had to document the arrival of said kit and Andrew had his works yearly day at the races and he's a good boy and brings me back a heap of paraphernalia.

 and lastly, my God Daughter was invited to her very first school ball so i had to document that.

I have found the perfect place with the best light to photograph my PL, if you haven't guessed it's in the kids bathroom, as one of the walls is made of glass brick the light is just perfect.

Now i am off to check the B.O.M site (Bureau of meteorology) as there is a huge cyclone about to hit my old town of Port Hedland and if you have read one of my last posts you will know that cyclones fascinate me and I'm a bit of a guru on cyclones and hurricanes. I just hope everyone is OK as this looks like a pretty damaging one.

Night all. 

A Day at Susan's

Created with PhotoShake iPad

Week 6

Hello all, thanks for stopping by and reading my post.

It has been a real hot day here today 40degrees C and when we are at work and moaning in air con comfort we turn too each other and go "poor Joe" as none of the kitchens at the Crown resort have air conditioning. I could not stand it.

I just may stick to my new routine of doing my project life on a Monday afternoon, it stops me from having a Nanna nap and also keeps me from the kitchen and eating, ha, maybe i should do this every week day.

Here is week 6

All cream based this week so i didn't use many of my Studio Calico die cuts as they are mainly white based. I used an old 6x6 paper pad from Sassafrass called Count On Me.

I did use quite a few of the Studio Calico wood veneers, i love them and some arrows that i coloured with my Copics. Not going to mention too much about the yummy thing there in the middle as the competition isn't until March and although not many people read my blog i don't want to give away their creations just in case someone does stumble on it.  IYKWIM

Have to go and cook two meals tonight as Caitlin and i are having Spaghetti Carbonara (yes i know its not diet) and Andrew doesn't like it (who in their right mind does not like carbonara-bacon,eggs, pasta, cream) so i will make him something else.....honestly the things i do for the ones i love.
Might just go and have a swim first though.
xx

Clean Out

My mum is not a sentimental person, and definitely not a crafty one. After dad passed away/OK to be honest before he passed away she was down in his shed clearing it out tidying it up and i remember dad saying "for gods sake Loo (that's what he called me Lindy loo) I'm not dead yet." But that's mum she had to do something at the time. Well, about two months later when dad passed away mum cleaned out all of the photos and albums and of course i couldn't let her throw them out so i just had to take them.
Amongst the treasures was this photo from our wedding day, i know you are not meant to use real photos but that's OK this photo is in our professional wedding album and we must have got another copy for mum and dad. On a side note, have you looked at your wedding album/photos lately? We will be 25 years in December so i guess now is as good a time as any to have a peek down memory lane.

Digressing AGAIN
Here's the LO

Again i used my inner Shimelle and thought about my colour scheme. I started looking for green papers , then i wanted a paper that had some red and pink in it for the roses and mums dress. The rest just came together after that. I have used 5 different background papers from 4 different companies, they are all old and from my stash. Yahoo.

Then i went through all my embellishments looking for red, green and pink and i found that chip board flower from Crate paper which i thought matched quite well, then i got a bit stuck as i couldn't find any other flowers that kind of matched so i decided on butterflies. To make the title match in i used the asterisks from the letters as embellishments and placed them here and there about the page.

No washi on this one but there is some stamping. All in all i am very happy with the way it turned out.

There is quite a few professional photos in the box i got from mums just waiting to be scrapped, luckily i have plenty of paper and embellishments.

Now i may just go and pull out my wedding album, the wedding video can wait for another time.
Good night all.
xx