Lynnie's Hens Night

My sister Lynne celebrated her Hens night last Sat. Lotsa games and giggles, laughs and lovely gifts in the afternoon.

All her friends contributed a recipe and jem of relationship advice to a book I made for her (7 gyp journal kit thingy for all you scrappers).

It turned out very cool, and she loved it. The evening carried on to restaurants and pubs and was pretty tidy really.. er until the tray of tequila shots at some unnamed bar very late in the evening... :0) Go Lynnie!!!

Only 26 more sleeps to go!

School Books

I think I've figured it out... where my love of books, papers and pens originated.

This year as I spent some time (a whole day) covering the kids books for school, I remebered my mum and how she used to cover our books as kids.

They didn't have cover-seal in those days and so, to protect the books she used wallpaper. I can still clearly remember the patterns now, the same wallpaper on our walls as kids.

Then (and here's the special bit) we were allowed to choose a "swap" or a "scrap" to put on the cover of each book. If you don't remember - or had a life outside of 'swaps' or 'scraps' - these were pictures, often children, faires etc, embossed, often glittered and joined together in a sheet by tabs. There was definatly kudos and a rating system when it came to selecting which "swap" went on which book. Afterall there were four of us kids, and probably 5 books each. I just remember it being so special, and that she stayed up late at night doing it.

After the wallpaper and swap, she also carefully cut a plastic bag so that it wrapped around the whole book, sellotaped it into the insides and voila, there you have it - school books covered 1970's style.

so cool remembering that.

Catching up

Seems to be what I am doing so much of already... and it's only a few weeks into the school term!

My mum had a nice birthday, we went out for lunch to a new restaurant on the Karioitahi beach coast Agave. Awesome location, gorgeous food and friendly people.

Have completed a layout for the next Dare over at No8 Wired, had fun doing this. The challenge was to use black and white and one other colour. I choose red (my fave scrapping colour) and I immediately thought of my mothers toes! She has had them painted red for years. To have a pedicure is her absolute dream, I love them too.

My scrapping stuff has recently been organised into 'colour drawers' thanks to Stacey Julian and her Big Picture Book, so my 'Red' draw finally came into it's own during this challenge.

Organising photos - printed and digital has been a mammoth task for the Library of Memories class I am taking, but finally we are starting to 'see the light' and I'm having some 'aahaaa' moments as I realise the different connections you can see in photos when they are NOT organised chronologically but rather in groups and relationships. Very Cool Stuff.

Happy Birthday Mum!

Happy Birthday to my Mum.

56 years young today an awesome mother to her children

and pretty darn cool grandmother as well

able to see the funny side of anything,

and she has taught me that a good hard days work solves most problems.

Happy Birthday Mum

I love ya.

Back to School

Yep, Back to school for the boys tomorrow. Did the baking biscuits /grocery shopping thing today as usual, stocking up on supplies.

As a child I loooved the first day, new books, new felt tips (if I was lucky) and a new teacher. I loved the chance to start things new, learn new things etc.

I'm definitely a new starter kinda person and not so great at the finishing completing project kinda thing. If I ever went to a UFO (Un-Finished Objects) weekend, I swear I would need a big truck to load up all the stuff. Think back to those hook loop rugs we made as kids....

BUT.. I have finished this weeks dare at No8 Wired. Yep actually started and finished this layout in one night. Loved the Hot/Cold and New/Old products ideas. I really need to use some of my old stuff so this was a good challenge for me... now I just need to do another fifty layouts and I would have used all the old stuff I have.