Rambling thoughts!

Holidays - where have they gone?
I am now almost halfway through my 2 week holidays. It feels like I spent soooo long counting down to them and they are almost over. I don't feel like I have achieved much so far apart from lots of sleeping and just hanging around. I had BIG plans of getting a 'spring' clean done, however that plan doesn't seem to be working. Oh well! I have decided that I am going to stop stressing about that and just enjoy my time off. I have to go in and work for a couple of days next week so today is being allocated as scrapping day. I have been scrapping recently but nothing to show at the moment.

Masters:
I have decided to enter the masters competition and so I have been working on that. I have really enjoyed the challenge of it and I have been really happy with the work I have produced. One more to go and I am finished.

Scrapbooking Teaching:
I also started teaching on Tuesday night! It was great fun and everyone came away with such different layouts which is always a great thing. We did a circle LO with lots of paper strips and edge distressing. My LO is still at the shop so I will have to get a photo to put up when I collect it today.

Embellished Idol:
Embellished Idol kicks off on Saturday night. It is great to see the range of people taking part this year. The competition really has a international feel with so many people from all around the world.

Agnes Waters / 1770:
On to other news. On Wednesday I went to Agnes Waters / 1770 with Nathan. Over the past year he has spent many, many nights in this beautiful spot for work and so when he found out he was going this week he organised to take me. I got to go with him while he worked and it was interesting to see what it is exactly he does. He has been in this job for 8 years and I have never really known what he does. So 1 1/2 weeks before he is due to start his new job I went and checked out what he does on all of these out of town trips. He had to climb one of the towers while we were at the site and took some awesome photos.

Uni??
Nathan has finally got his change of course sorted out and is able to return to his studies this semester. He seems to be looking forward to starting again and hopefully having an in town job will make it a bit easier to get he work done. He found it very difficult to juggle his study and being out of town all the time cause whenever he was at home he didn't want to be doing uni work.

Well that is about it for me. Hope everyone has a fantastic weekend!

I have been busy scrapping.

After our photo shoot with Ali the other weekend I have been motivated to get scrapping. It just happened that I was also getting the June Kit for Embellished featuring the beautiful Amy Butler papers. They are just so versitile and I have had so much fun playing with them. I have ended up doing a 8 1/2 x 11 album of all of the photo shoot photos and I am so pleased with how they have turned out. Here are SOME of the Layouts I have done with the kit.













This is my Dare sample for this month. The dare was NO paper / NO adhesive! I really enjoyed creating this and the challenge that it gave me to think outside the box.


This is the June sketch for Embellished. This was my first ever sketch that I had to create. I was really happy with how it turned out. To see some of the other DT members samples jump over to the embellished forum. http://www.embellished.com.au


Well that is all from me for now. Looking forward to a long weekend, however I am not looking forward to having to get report cards done!

Have a great LONG weekend everyone!

Hayley

Photo Shoot.

I am so excited to have seen some of the photos already from our photo shoot with Ali over the weekend. We headed down to the river bank on Saturday afternoon and spent some time with Ali mucking around and Nathan & I really enjoyed ourselves. It was great to have out photo taken in such a relaxed fashion. Ali takes really awesome photos and you can check out her stuff at her website (http://www.alirussellphotography.com)

After out photo's we headed home to get stuff organised for dinner. We had 10 of us (adults) in total for a BBQ on Saturday night. Around the table were; Ali, Glen and Luke, Jo, David, Harry and Liam, Amanda and Mark, Ang and Noel and us. We had such a great night with some old friends and we were also able to spend some time getting to know each others husbands which was really great. I would post some photo's of us all, however I forgot to even get my camera out! What a terrible scrapper I am LOL!!! Oh well, hopefully we will get to do it again soon.

On to other exciting news...
Nathan has been offered a new position. He will be working for the same company - BUT - he won't have to travel anywhere near as much. After 8 years of constant travel we are really looking forward to this. He will be starting at the end of June. (Which just happens to be the start of my holidays but oh well) This just means that I will be free to do my own thing during the holidays.

Book club???
Today I got an e-mail from one of my friends (Amanda) about the thought of starting a book club! How cool!! I am so excited - we are getting together this weekend!! I think that this is such a great idea. We already have our own library system going where books are continually moving from person to person so I think that this will be so much fun. This sounds like the sort of homework I will really enjoy!

Fund raising:
On of the other designers at Embellished (my local store) Maz is planning to spend two weeks in November/December 2008 cycling around Vietnam and Cambodia in support of Oxfam. She needs to raise money so if you would like to find out more or support her please visit her blog .http://followtheyellowbrickroad-maz.blogspot.com/

Well that is all for now. I hope everyone is having a fantastic week. Leave me a comment if you drop by.

Hayley

A bit of a scrapping share.

Well I can't believe that I have taken so long to post again. I thought that I was getting so good. Oh well! Last weekend we went out to the family farm so that Nathan could do some work on the boat and then of course he had to get it out on the water as soon as we got back to check out his work. Apparently it is AWESOME!!!

I have been laying low for the past week or so and have been getting heaps of scrapping done. A bit of it is stuff that I can't share for a while but here is some of the stuff that I can. The first is my second last In My Skin for the competition on Embellished and the others are just Lo for me.

What a weekend!!!!

WOW!!!
What a fantastic weekend I have had.

Friday:
On Friday afternoon I headed down to the Embellished Retreat at Cool Waters. It was a fantastic weekend full of scrapping, socialising and jumping (the jumping pillow down there is just so much FUN!). It was great to meet so many of the girls that I know through the web site and to be able to finally make connections from names to faces IRL. On Friday night we had free scrapping time which was great as it gave us a chance to just chill and get to know everyone. I was able to complete a couple of LO and do a lot of chatting ( I know that those of you who know me would be very surprised to discover that I was chatting).

Saturday:
On Saturday morning we were up and jumping on the jumping pillow straight after breakfast. It was great fun but I think that the kids thought we were slightly crazy. Saturday morning we made a beautiful Felt, Flower shaped book designed by the fantastic Kristy. I had so much fun - there was heaps of stiching - and the album looks fantastic. Thanks Kristy! It was so fantastic to get to be taught by such a funky designer.

Before lunch Ali announced the new Design Team Members for Embellished and I am very HAPPY to be able to announce that I am one of the new designers. I am SO EXCITED!!!!!! It was fantastic to be able to meet all of the current design team members from around Australia and New Zealand. I am really looking forward to working with them. Kirsty has already given me a list of jobs which I am looking forward to tackling.

Saturday afternoon the wonderful Kelly Slattery from New Zealand taught us a LO which she challenged us to get completed in under an hour. In the afternoon we had free scrapping time and then it was time for me to get ready to party.

Saturday night I had an engagement party for my friends Jenny and Dean in Rocky. It was great fun and I got to catch up with people who I haven't seen for a while. Now we start the count down to the wedding in November. In other exciting news from the night I found out that 2 of our other friends got engaged on Saturday morning. Congratulations Pete and Christine!! After my action packed day it is no wonder that I slept soundly.

Sunday:
Sunday morning I was up early and ready to head back to Cool Waters for some more scrapping action. This morning Ali taught a beautiful mini album using acriclic. It was just beautiful. We worked on the background of it so tomorrow I will have to add my photos and journalling. I have no photos to upload of all of my work over the weekend yet as I decided to have a nap instead of finishing my projects and photographing them. I will upload them later this week. So now the countdown begins to next years retreat. I am looking forward to it already. After such a busy week I am glad that this week is only a 4 day week cause I think I need I few days off to recover.

3 More sleeps to GO!!!

Well we are on the countdown to the Embellished Retreat for 2008. I am very excited as I have never been on a scrapping retreat before. I will be heading to the coast on Friday afternoon straight after work and I am really looking forward to meeting some of the people that I know through the on-line forum and getting to know some of the other local scrappers better. I will post photos of all the fun next week.

I haven't been feeling well for the past few days, however I started back at work on Monday after my one week holiday. It was a pupil free day and so I thought that I would be all right but I can home feeling really bad about 2:00 and slept through till 6pm. This morning I was determined to go to work, however as soon as I started to speak Nathan told me that there was no way I could make it through a day in the classroom today. So today I have stayed at home and rested, eaten ice-cream, drank lemonade and rested some more. I am definitely feeling better for it and I am hoping that tomorrow I can go back to work.

On with some of my scrapping stuff. Last week I put up a picture of the beautiful Sassafras Lass papers and promised some Layouts using these - so here are a few from last week.


I also went to Ali Russel's class at Embellished (LSS) on Thursday night and created this beautiful LO. I love the burst of orange.


And finally here are my last two creations for the In My skin challenge on the Embellished website. The first one is Breasts / chest and the second is the stomach.

WOW - I LOVE THESE PAPERS!!!

I went into my LSS (Embellished) today to print some photos and also came out with quite a bit of the new Sassafras Lass papers. They are so cool, very bright and funky! I love the owls on them as well. I came home with some of the 'Serendipity' range and some of the 'Life is Beautiful' Range. I love the scolloped edges of the paper I can see them really comming in handy on the pages as well. What a great idea to get more out of your paper as this doubles as the barcode / ect section on the back. The pages are doubled sided, however I have only photographed one side. I am looking forward to playing with these over the next few days. Will post some pictures of the results when I get scrapping. This is the 'Serendipity' range.



Here is the 'Life is Beautiful' range.



That is all for now - Unitl next time.


Hayley