School Holidays

Well one week already over for the Vic school holidays.

Mmmmm what have we done.

I took Madeleine her friend Laura and Laura's little sister Emma to the Melbourne Show on Wednesday. We caught the 8.15am train and got to the show around 9:30am. When we arrived at the showgrounds there was no power, something had happened in the show bag pavilion that had caused the blackout of the whole show. Luckily that didn't last long as they have a 2 for 1 offer on the rides between 9:30 and 11am.

We had a great but very exhausting day, the crowds by the afternoon were humongous. The last couple of years we have gone on AFL Grand Final day and the crowds are much more civilized. The day didn't start all that well though, the girls were on their 3rd ride when Emma VOMITED all over Madeleine. Well as you can imagine that took a bit of the shine off first thing (we'd only been there 1/2 hour) I thought Madeleine was going to throw up as well. So anyhoo that took about 30 - 40 minutes to clean up. I had to make sure I really got it all or she was going to stink all day.

After that we decided that the rides were out for a while. Although Emma felt a lot better we just went and did more conventional show things. Like check out the animals etc now Madeleine would like a pair of RATs for pets. Don't know how the cat will feel about that. We also spent alot of time in the big pavilion that you get the food samples. Gotta love that and the girls tried dip and dot ice cream. By 2:30pm we'd all had enough and we headed home.


That evening I was going out for Thai with a couple of girlfriends, which I did and it was lovely but by about 9:30pm I'd had enough and was quickly running out of steam. It's such a big day at the show and all the travelling. All worth it but exhausting. I figure next year the girls will be old enough to go on their own.






















...........................................................................................

Thursday we all went out to dinner with our friends the Fagans and the Browns. It was Taylor and ALex's birthdays who are my friend Julie's children. We went to a local hotel and while it was nice to catch up with everyone the food and the service at the hotel wasn't that great. With the prices Pubs charge for meals now days you may as well got to a restaurant where there is table service.
.........................................................................................

Friday afternoon I took Madeleine to see the movie wildchild which she really enjoyed and then after that we went clothes shopping. She was one very happy camper after purchasing 3 new tops from Peninsula Surf. One of which she has on in the layout below.
.....................................................................................


Saturday we spent the afternoon at a friends house watching the AFL grand final and eating ourselves stupid. Phylliss certainly knows how to put on a spread, the food was very very yummy.

Sunday we had lunch at the Mentone Hotel with Neil's folks and his sister. Do you ever get the feeling we eat out alot??? No wonder I can't loose weight. Ah well I do enjoy all the socialising.
..................................................................................

Layouts

1. These are the beautiful tulips that work gave me as part of my farewell gift when I left in April. The design is from Pencil lines sketch 103.

GIFT: pp: BG Ambrosia line, ALPA: Velvet thickers and BG Ambrosia stickers, Scenic Route journalling tag; Kaiser Bling and BG Ambrosia flourish sticker.






















...........................................................................

2: This layout is from one of the recent workshops over Kim Archers at home website. If you never have you really should head over and sign up for one of her classes. They are all fabulous. I love Kim's design always a delight to work with.


The photos of Madeleine are from this weekend. I've used off cuts from the Love Elsie range of pp's and Love Elsie softie buttons.

















...........................................................................................................

Well I think I've gone on long enough for one post, have a great week everyone.


cheers

Leeanne xxx

Jumping on the Band Wagon

Inspired by Wendy's beautiful take on sketch 102 over at Pencil Lines, I decided to get on board and have a go myself. Now I've been religiously checking out each new Pencil Line sketch as it comes out, on Monday here for over a year now, but have never actually participated. Wendy has been showing her take on the sketches over the last couple of weeks and they have all been amazing. Her version of this weeks sketch is outstanding and inspired me to have a go. All the PP's I've used are from BG Offbeat range along with the stickers. Alpha's are from the American Craft and Heidi Swapp.






















........................................................................


Last Monday night we headed off to Madeleine's school 2008 showcase of it's Bands and Choirs at the Frankston Arts Centre. WOW!!!! It was amazing the children are so talented and they are lead by such enthusiastic and also talented teachers. Madeleine plays Bass Guitar in the Training Concert Band and of course it goes without saying they were fantastic.

..........................................................................

It's now School Holidays here for the next two weeks, so I know Madeleine is ready to kick back and have lots of sleep In's. I can't believe we are already heading into the last term of the year. It's scary how quickly time is passing.Mmmmm better start thinking about Christmas. YIKES!!!

...........................................................................

Friday night a girlfriend asked me to go along with her to a workshop at the Brahma Kumaris Centre for Spiritual Learning the following day. The workshop was about exploring the differences between IQ, EQ (Emotional Intelligence) and SQ (Spiritual Intelligence). All very Deep and Meaningful I hear you say. I like to think I'm open to all things so I said I'd go, not really knowing what to expect.


It was a lovely day and it made you look at how and why you react in the way you do to certain events, things, places. They made you break it down and look at each response and how it made you feel, and how by learning to change your perception you can make things better and how you interact with people more meaningful. That's a very condensed version of what it was all about, some of it was quite enlightening and some it I didn't feel was very practical in day to day living. On the whole though it was more than a little interesting to really break down why you do certain things and why you react the way you do. I certainly had a few A HA!! moments or as I like to call them..... OPRAH moments.

..........................................................................

Well I think that's about all, for those of you, who have their team in the Grand Final next Saturday. Good Luck!!! I don't really care, but if I had to chose, I will be supporting Geelong again this year. Go Cats!!!!!

...............................................................................

Cheers

Leeanne xxx

Spring really has Sprung...

What absolutely magnificent, good to be alive weather, we've had the last few days in Melbourne. Just glorious!! all be it a bit windy, but the housewife in me likes a good drying day (hehe). Everything and everyone seems just that little bit brighter.


Anyhoo what's been happening mmmmm.... On the work front all is good. I don't know whether I've mentioned it here but since May the company has been in negotiations with a major organization who were interested in buying a controlling share of uSwitch. Good news is the contracts were all signed last Monday. Now we can start marketing, promoting etc....


The new company is called choiceswitch.com.au and the launch will be in the middle of October. We are thrilled to be affiliated with such a well known trusted organization as Choice, and all that their name/brand bring to our company. It's all really exciting to be a part of something from the ground up and I'm looking forward to seeing it grow and develop over the coming years.


On the home front everyone is finally feeling good and over all the lurgy's that have been hanging around for a while.


We've dined out a couple of times this week. Gotta luv that!! No cooking always works for me.

Thursday night the three of us headed down to our local Indian for dinner. As always the meal was scrumptious. Last night about 5:30pm friends rang to see if we were up for going out for dinner. Well of course I didn't want to be rude so off we went to a Thai restaurant in Chelsea Heights. The food was good, but I have to say not a patch on the Thai restaurant in Patterson Lakes. Then we headed back to our place for a couple of drinks and coffee. All in all a very good night.


Tonight we are off to another a friends for dinner. Kate rang yesterday to say Hi and as we haven't seen her and her hubby for about 6 months it will be great to catch up. Ahhh....... another night not cooking "noice.


Neil at the moment is off on another bike ride, he's training for a around the bay in day which is happening next month. I can't even begin to imagine competing or completing that. He's always up for a challenge though.


Tomorrow night Madeleine is playing at the Frankston Art Centre with the school band (she plays bass guitar). They had an all day rehearsal yesterday down at Tyabb but unfortunately she could only stay until 12o'clock because of netball. At least she got 3 hours of practice in. So I'm looking forward to seeing and hearing that tomorrow night.


Last but not least I'll leave you with a layout I've just finished and a couple of cards made from scraps from previous Layout left overs. The photos are from our trip up to QLD back in July.

Girls just want to have fun: PP:BG offbeat; Alpha: Thickers, carollees creations and BG. Embellishments: BG stickers, bling, prima flower, heidi swapp tape and buttons.



















































Ok that's it for now, hope everyone has had a lovely weekend.

Cheers

Leeanne xxx

Layout share and blog award

Not much has happened since Saturday although I am pleased to say the gastric bug seemed to only last 48hours thank goodness.

I forgot to take any photos on Fathers day...(bad scrapper) Oh well there's always next year. Madeleine got up and made Neil bacon, eggs, sausages, mushies and baked beans on toast. That's what I call a BIG Breakie. Then later in the day made very yummy scones to take around to Neil's folks place for afternoon T. She seems to be taking a bit more interest in cooking lately which is nice and she's quite good at it to boot.

I have managed to complete 3 more layouts over the weekend this time all 12 x12. 2 using new scenic route pp I picked up last week at Debling in Design and the 3rd using a bit more of the Euphoria range from BG.

1.Super Charlie:- Scenic Route Sonoma pp ; Alpha: Lil Davis and BG alpha stickers, Bookplate Heidi swapp, Heidi Swapp Mirror bird and flower.






















2.Right Now:- PP Scenic Route Sonoma; Alpha - Thickers, Ek Success and Karen foster, Heidi Swapp book plate; MM crystal brads, prima flower, Ribbons from Fiona Carter























3. Stick Insect- This photo of Madeleine was taken back in 2004 when we went to the Grampians during the Sept school Holidays. She's grown up alot hasn't she?
PP:BG Euphoria, BG Euphoria stickers, Kaiser bling, Jenny Bowling journalling tag; Alpha - BG, buttons



































The very talented Wendy T has very kindly nominated my Blog for an award. Thanks Wendy I really appreciate it.

The rules for the award are -
(1) The winner can put the logo on their blog.
(2) Link the person you received your award from.
(3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
(4) Put links of those on yours.
(5) Leave a message on the blogs of the girls or boys you’ve nominated.
So I am nominating these gals (whose blogs I stalk on a regular basis) for the award too:

1. Helen Karanfilovski:- I've only got to know Helen's work this year and I am blown away by her talent. Her work is always stunning, fresh and funky.

2. Sheree:- What a truly talented scrapbooker she does the most beautiful work.

3. Cherie:- Cherie and I have a few things in common and I love reading her blog and catching up with her families antics. Looking forward to catching up IRL at create 08 in Melbourne

4. Jane: I love Jane's work it's always lovely and she even manages to do LO's of herself. Always impressed when girls scrap about themselves. Something I need to do more of.

5. Julie C:- I've been stalking Julies blog for a while now and her work is fantastic.

6. Janelle Wind:- This lady is not only an amazing scrapbooker but her needle work is to die for.

7. Kim Archer :- Kim has been inspiring me with her work and her absolutely amazing online classes since I started scrapbooking a few years ago.

Ok That's it for me today.

cheers

Leeanne x

A Quiet Week

Another quiet week and weekend so this should be sort and sweet.

. Tuesday night Madeleine had her first game of netball with a new team and they thrashed the other team 52 - 2.

. Wednesday Lynne and I went to see Mama Mia!! there was 4 of us in the cinema. Lynne hadn't seen it before and for me it will be one of those movies that I will watch again and again. Just pure unadultered fluff and lots of fun.

. Thursday I taught my third class at Debling in Design, had a fun night with the girls and spent my wages on the new Scenic Route collection.

. Friday night Madeleine had her hair cut and then coloured for the first time. Well it's only a semi and it's more or less the same colour as her hair. They call it a gloss so it really just makes her hair look shiny.

. Today (saturday) I have spent most of the day in bed recovering from the night before. Seemed to have picked up some kind of gastric bug so have been feeling like the proverbial since 3am when it all started.

Finally here are a couple more layouts I've completed this week. First one is of my great neice Charlie taken when we were up in QLD in July and the second is an old photoof Madeleine taken at Logan's beach in Warrnambool (VIC). The southern white whales come every year with their calves. It's amazing to watch them frolic out in the water just beyond the breakers. I love this photo of Madeleine and it's been on my to do list for a few years. Finally scrapped it the other night.

Love this face: PP: Basic Grey Eva border stickers; Alpha BG Eva ; Journalling spots- Elle's studio & Jenny bowlin. Fancy Pants felt.


















Whale Watching:- PP: scenic route, Heidi Swapp tape, Journalling spot: Scenic route, Alpha: Thickers and Heidi Swapp.






















Well I think I might head off to bed again.
Happy Father's day to all the dads out there, I hope everyone has a lovley day.

Cheers

Leeanne xxx

A Creative Weekend

It's amazing what you can achieve when you have a quiet weekend. Besides taking Madeleine to Youth on Friday night and then Netball on Saturday, we had a lovely quiet time with no other commitments. Don't get me wrong I love to go out, but on the rare occasions when we don't have anything planned it's soooooo nice to kick back and relax.

Because of the above, I was inspired to Scrap and managed to achieve 4 layouts and 2 cards. Nothing like some new patterned paper and new photos to get you going. For 3 of the 4 layouts I used the new basic grey Ambrosia line. The 12 x 12 layout shows photos from last Thursday night when some girlfriends got together to celebrate 2 of the girls 50th Birthday. It was such a fun night... so many laughs. The third snow layout I used older Scenic Route Grafton paper and Summer rage and a tiny piece of new October afternoon.

1: Snow Fun

2: Going Going GONE

3: Winters Playground

4: Celebrate 50

Thank you to everyone who has asked about Madeleine she is so much better this week except for a bit of a cough she's well again... and went back to school last Thursday. Lets hope that is it for her she has not had a good year.

That's it for me today, take care everyone and enjoy the week.

Cheers

Leeanne x