Did you know

that i love to read and i love books. I have such an eclectic taste in authors however i will not read Stephen King or any of the Twilight books they just don't do it for me.
I love spy books and war books yep that's right, here's my latest addition to our bookcase

I have had to wait ages for the new Tom Clancy book, its a big one and quite hard to read whilst laying down (I love to read laying down with a drink and a bag of chips oops apple. Andy McNab is another of my favourite authors and his first book Bravo 2 Zero is a true story of how he managed to escape from a prison in Iraq he is the most decorated soldier in British history. His other books are all fiction  with war themes. I love KGB/CIA spy type books so if anyone can recommend me any please leave a comment.
The other day i picked up this book and read the blurb about it and thought OK i will give this a go and when i got home i looked at the author "Nicole Ritchie", surely not 'the' Nicole Ritchie i thought, she cant write but what little did i know it was quite a good read.
Of course there had to be some crafty books purchased

and this leads me on to all of the baking that i have been doing lately,, before i go on let me tell you that these were the kids choices and i am so OVER chocolate.

A giant milk chocolate cookie, i found it very sweet but the kids loved it, and

these ones were called chocolate crackles, very nice but a bit of an effort to make.
I am not a sweet person, give me a cheese platter any day but i must confess to a love of home made cookies or biscuits, and here are some all ready to go as gifts, aren't they cute?

Boy that was a long post, i am home alone and plan to do a bit of scrapping now before i start on dinner, so
TTFN
Linda

Hooray

Yippee.
Last night i finished a LO.
This LO has taken me ages to do and has put me off doing any scrapbooking at all. Why you might ask. Well the photo has a storey with it and i wanted to tell it well, i also had an idea of how i wanted the page to turn out but couldn't bring myself to do it. So in the hard pile it went.

Last night i thought STUFF IT, just do it, and you know what, it was real easy and i am oh so happy with the way it turned out.

Now its not really a pretty page, it does however tell the storey which is exactly what i wanted and thanks to a Friday Photoshop tutorial with Jessica Sprague i was able to do my journalling on the computer.
Its a sad storey with a bittersweet ending.

That doily stamp is oh so pretty and came in my monthly kit from Cocoa Daisy.
And here is the newspaper article..in case you are interested

So yay i did it, i am very happy with it and now i am in the MOOD to SCRAP.
Thanks for dropping by.
xx
Linda
PS i have baked yummy things all day today and i will show you tomorrow so if you are on a diet "sorry".

Would you give this to a boy?

Hi there,
i have just finished making two cards and one i wanted to do in boy colours, i was quite pleased with myself and walked out to show Andrew (dh) and he said "you cant give that card to a male its got a cake on it". humph##** so what do you reckon?

Could i give this to a boy or not?
Here is another one in different colours that i am entering into a challenge at Meredith Scraps.

Now i don't do new year resolutions but this is one thing i will be working on next starting Saturday, will ya just take a look at my craft room.

My desk. OMG what a MESS.

Next to my desk. OMG what a mess.

Now this corner is real BAD.

and my computer desk, bad as well. I consider myself a tidy person with everything in its own place, well judging by this mess you all wont agree, so i am off to Ikea on Saturday to buy some units or something.

Ok, have to go pick up Joe now who has been working in a hot kitchen for the last nine hours. He has met just about all of the tennis players playing in the Hopman cup including Andy Roddick and Leyton Hewitt and a couple of weeks ago he met Shane Warne and the man himself James Packer. Gees if only Pierce Brosnan came and stayed at the Burswood i would have to hang out in the kitchens with Joe.

Night all

xx

A little pink

Hi all, how you doin? We are having some very hot weather here in Perth so its nice to spend the day at home with the air/con on and jumping in and out of the pool and eating yummy crunchy sweet fresh grapes straight from the Swan Valley.

A little crafting is going on here-not much but some.

Here is another rosette, pink this time on top of one of my handmade boxes all ready to give to a sweet girl who will be turning 14, who as i type this is one her way to KL for some shopping with her family. Happy Birthday Rebecca.

and here is the card i made for her birthday. Everything is from my Cocoa Daisy November kit and Stampin Up. Apart from my vintage button which was courtesy of my MIL. I do so love buttons and hate to part with them but what good are they sitting in a box?

Next up is a card inspired by PTI and they were easy to make so i made a couple to put in my stash and the stash i am creating for my SIL who loves to give home made cards.

Flower stamp is from PTI everything else is Stampin Up. BTW Andrew and Caitlin hate dislike the Kraft one and yes i think the green and red ones are better.

Joe is fast asleep and has been for nearly the whole day, he worked from 12 noon yesterday until 11.30pm poor thing he could hardly walk when i picked him up. He is still loving it and coming home with funny tails from the kitchen every night. As yet he has not cooked me anything but i am patient and can wait.

I want to do a LO now it has been a whilst since i did one but i just don't feel it if you get what i mean. I may stick with cards or do some Off the page thingy or work on my mini album or maybe i will go and have another swim. I have told said 18yo daughter and friend to get out of the pool as they have been in there for about 2 hours and they WILL be burnt but ha who am i to know these things.

Have fun, thanks for visiting i so love it when you do.
xx

Cards For Australian Troops

Hi one and all
Over the last couple of years i have read many American blogs (Jennifer Mcguire in particular) that talk about 'cards for troops' and thought what a great idea, but what would i write to a soldier that i had never met? Well.........++##DAH**##   Linda you don't actually write on them you send them blank. OK so it took me a couple of months to figure this out and i love this idea. Just imagine sending a blank card to a serving soldier and he can then write in it and send it back to say his little son, imagine how the little boy would feel-"I got this from daddy" or how about a Valentines card or I am so proud of you card. Oh its making me feel quite sad and happy at the same time thinking that we as crafters can do this to help support our Aussie Troops.

I am ashamed to say that i never thought to organise anything like this for our troops but a lovely lady from the Cricut Messageboard has. Her name is Mel and she can be contacted via email here all we have to do is send some cards-with envelopes to Mel and she will forward them on to the appropriate places.
So please all you Aussie crafters out there go through your stash (i know you have them) or make some new ones, any themes. Melissa is sending the first batch out on Jan14 so you still have time.

Here is my first contribution, these all came from my stash so i will make some new ones for my next lot.

Here is a piece from Mel's post over on the Cricut messageboard-

"Had a chat with the US organiser of the Cards for Troops and have a few tips.

If you would like to put a name on the back of the card please feel free to do so, but use only either your screen name or your first name, no surnames please. We will also be stamping the back of the cards with an email address so if anyone wants to make contact with the girls they can via that one. I will onforward all emails to the card maker and also share them on this thread. The email address is cardsforthetroops@hotmail.com
For those sending cards, a huge thank you. For those thinking of participating, please remember this will be an ongoing event until all our troops are home!! So whilst you might not be able to help out now, any and all help is welcome at any stage and any time, as well as any amount of cards be it 1 or 100!!
We have approximately 2,900 personnel overseas at present time from all three services. These areas include East Timor, Sudan, Egypt, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East."

Okay so this is my mission for this year and now i will have to go and replenish my card box and what a great excuse to buy some more supplies, surely Andrew cant begrudge me even more money to spend on craft to make cards for our troops!

Thanks for reading my very long post i had better go and make some more cards.
xx

Okay

..It's 3pm and i have just taken Joe to work, Caitlin is at work and Andrew much to his disgust returned to work today so GUESS WHAT? I am home alone for a couple of hours. The ironing is up to date for the first time in about 6 weeks so i have some extra time to share with all of you.

So how was every one's Christmas? Mine was OK i don't know if it was because we had been on holidays or what, but i wasn't very prepared and the excitement wasn't there for me this year or is it because my children have grown up and would rather sleep in on Christmas morning than get up at 5am (OK not Joe's fault as he was working until 1pm Christmas morning).

Anyway here is the start of some of my holiday snaps and aren't you lucky  not everyone gets to see me in bathers. (oh and before you look at these i have put on about 15 of my 40kgs but not to worry am back on track now)

me buy the pool RELAXING

Andrew and Caitlin at the pool bar for Happy Hour.

Well that's enough of that for now, some more to come later. Here are some lovely rosettes and flowers that i made after watching a video on the Hero Arts website by Jennifer Mcguire.

Cant you just see the big ones on some yummily wrapped prezzies, oooo, I can so i will be making a ton of them in different colours b/c after all 'its all in the packaging'.

Now you all know that i love to make mini albums and seeing as i was so inspired by Tracey's hybrid Christmas album i am going to do a little hybrid 5"x7" album of our holiday.



Here is the album cover with a lovely photo courtesy of Joe who had fun playing with the camera. Very simple but this is what this album will be.

"Lets start at the very beginning a very good place to start" do you remember that song? Doris Day i think. Anyway i digress as usual, yes the beginning.. us waiting for the taxi at home and us at KL airport in Malaysia waiting for our connecting flight. This was done on a 5x7 template that i purchased from Jessica Sprague. You will see a lot of these throughout the album in different formats. I also kept the envelopes that they give you in the room to add to my album.

So what do you all have planned for the next couple of weeks? Apart from doing some rearranging of rooms and cupboards i am enrolled to do two online classes, one starts tomorrow. So yay i am back in crafting mode.

Will be back later today or tomorrow to ask you Aussie crafty people for some help (its all about cards for troops a huge thing in America and hopefully one that we can start here)

Its good to be back

See ya later
xx





Merry Christmas

Hi everyone you probably thought i went on holidays and never came back. We have been back for a little over a week now and as you can imagine it is a very hectic time so i have no crafty projects to show you.

We had a fabulous time on our holiday, spent heaps and ate way to much, i will put you all through the agony of seeing some-not all, of my photos after the Christmas rush has died down.

I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS and a safe and happy new year. Thank you all , for your lovely comments and support over the last year.

xxx
Linda