So little time.....

This week I have been a busy little bee crocheting beanies for Rhyley's school team
for Relay for Life! I am busy making up to 20 beanies for next weekend!
If time permits there will be aliens (to go with the team's space theme) or daffodils on each one!

There has been little time to scrap!
So here are the pages I have completed since the last time I shared.


This first one is one of my Dad and his brother when they played Rugby League
together, a very LONG time ago.

 Check the credits: here,here & here

This one is of my little monkey when he was in hospital last year.

 Credits: here, here & here

This one is from the KISS concert in Mackay!
I won the tickets and took Jason with me and his sister and brother in-law got
tickets too and came up for the weekend to attend.
It was an AMAZING night!

Rockin' the credits here, here & here

This one is of my boys being silly  (as per usual)

For credits go here, here or here

 
Here is a rare one containing photos of me!
I love how it turned out.

 Credits are here, here & here

This one is from Rhyley's school camp last year!

 Credits: here, here & here

This is a layout was made after my uncle's passing and is of my
Dad with his 3 siblings.

 Credits: here & here

For Easter I made Rhyley this bunny basket!
I loved how it turned out so I did a layout!

 Credits: here, here & here

Seriously I LOVE Rise of the Guardians and I LOVE Jack Frost!
I also LOVE the quote I used for the title on this layout!

 Credits: here

This layout is all about play!
We headed to the park and Daddy and Rhyley played it up for the camera!

 Credits: here, here & here

The other weekend we took Rhyley to the Circus for the first time!
Here is a layout of Rhyley with the Lennon Bros. Circus Ringmaster!

 

 Credits: here

I scrapped this photo years ago when I began digi-scrap but I only used
a quick page.
I now prefer to make my own pages so I rescrapped it and came up with this:

 Credits here & here

Lately I have applied and been knocked back from many Creative Teams.
At first it upset me, especially when I was knocked back from a few of my favourite
designers.
Instead of not applying I have decided to apply more often.

When I saw a call for a smaller designer Crescent Moon Designs,
I decided to throw my hat in the ring, seriously the worst that can happen is
I'd get told NO! (and well lately I am getting used to it :-P)
But.... I was accepted and here are my first layouts: 

 Credits are here

An invite to a camp out party:

 Here are the credits

Well that is all for now.

Until next time,

What A Week, I'm Exhuasted

What a week it was this last week....
Back to school has been full on, Rhyley's teacher got them right in the swing of things &
sent homework home the first day back, much to my horror!
We usually have a week before the dreaded homework starts but not this year!, oh well
you can't win them all.

So Thursday was a public holiday. We spent a lovely relaxing day at home together since it was Australia Day, in all honestly it was too hot to go out & join the festivities of the day.
On Friday at school they had a fun filled day celebrating Australia Day with Lamington
making, thong throwing & watching the movie Red Dog, Rhyley had a great day & really enjoyed the day with his school friends.

This weekend we decided to get Rhyley a new bed; a double bed - so it can used as a guest bed when we have family visit, after Jason put it together we wrapped the lights we used on the Christmas tree around the bedhead & across the window.
Rhyley loves it! - which what really matters I plan on getting a couple of thin bookcases to put on either side of the bed for storage of books, clock, toys & other knick knacks.

This weekend I also went shopping for a Closet Cupid gift for one of the ladies on a parenting site I'm apart of.
What is a Closet Cupid?
Well it's the same as a Secret Santa but we are sending each other a little Valentine's Day gift.
If you don't know how a Secret Santa works it's where you are given a name & you go out & buy a little gift for that person & give it to them.
The thing is we are all over the world so we send our gifts then post a photo of our gift.
So we all get to see what the others have received.
It's alot of fun & really exciting to get a gift & not know exactly who it's from until you open it.

So I decided to make a little handmade goodie for my Closet Cupid gift & when I saw the awesome Commercial Vectors Miss Mint had just released over at Peppermint Creative I knew exactly what I was going to do.

So here's what you'll need for this craft.

Materials:

Firstly I purchased Treats & Friends Word Art by Tay Silver for only $0.99!
or grab the Valentine XO BlockART  freebie also by Tay Silver (hurry it won't be free for long!)
Photoshop Elements or similar
Printer
A Ceramic Mug
Ceramic Paints I used Mont Marte brand
Paintbrush
Scissors
Sticky Tape
Tape Measure/Ruler
Pencil

Method:

1. Measure your mug so you can resize the vectors so they will fit nicely on the mug.
2. Open up you vector (I used the PNG file) in your editing software.
3. Resize the images & arrange them on an A4 page for printing (I cut the cake off so I could place it above the text.
4. When you have all your images on your A4 page you are ready to print.

 

 5. After printing, cut out your image & turn it over to white side, take your pencil & rub all over the piece of paper (doing it like this is easier than trying to cut everything out) 

 

 

6. Position the paper on the mug & tape it in place so it doesn't move. 

7. Then carefully trace around the image onto the mug, remove the paper. 

8. Using your paints - paint over the image on your mug when you are happy with it follow the directions on the pack of your paints - mine required me either to coat with a gloss & bake at 150°C for 30 minutes OR to bake at 150°C for 30 minutes, let mug cool then coat with gloss & rebake at 150°C for another 30 minutes. If your paints have similar instructions I highly recommend painting, baking, glossing & rebaking! 

 

9. Enjoy your new, spiffy custom made mug - give it as a gift or keep it for yourself!

In the last couple of weeks I also got a couple of new pages done.

Unfortunately I haven't had a chance to do more because I have been battling some major unexplained fatigue lately so I'm off to the doctor's next week.

But in the meantime here are my latest pages:

The first one is of Rhyley & Coop opening their joint Christmas present I used Miss Mint's beautiful kit Christmas Past

 Credits are here

This one I made for Peppermint Creative's Pimp My Page Challenge for January. I decided to scrap about our very unwelcome snake visitor earlier this month.
 

Credits are here

It's time to get some sleep.

Until next time,

Back to School

Well yesterday marked the first day back to school!
It was Rhyley first day of Grade 5! Really can't believe my little boy is in Grade 5 already
he is growing up WAY too fast it really is bittersweet to think this year will be his 10th birthday!
Seriously where did it go but it is very exciting that he will be double digits this year.

So because it was back to school I made Rhyley a special breakfast to start the new
school year off on a yummy start with a super delicious pancake known as David Eyre's Pancake!
I saw the recipe on a Martha Stewart Show repeat and we had tried it before so
I thought this would be a special treat for back to school.

Here is the recipe- I used 2% milk & honestly it made no difference at all & only half as much butter. You can view the original recipe here.

David Eyre's Pancake

Ingredients 

1/3 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of milk 
2 large eggs
Pinch of fresh nutmeg (ground nutmeg is fine)
4 tablespoons of unsalted butter
2 tablespoons of icing sugar
Lemon juice, jam or fruit (optional)


Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 220 degrees. In a bowl add flour, milk, eggs, and nutmeg mix until just combined. Batter will be slightly lumpy.
2. Melt butter in a 12-inch cast-iron skillet (personally I used a cake tin as I don't own a cast-iron skillet).
3. Add mixture and transfer to oven. Bake until the pancake is golden brown, 15 to 20 minutes.
4. Remove from oven and sprinkle with icing sugar; serve immediately.
5. Add lemon juice, jam ect if you like we topped ours with chunks of watermelon, honeydew and grapes which cuts the sweetness of the icing sugar.

If you have never tried this pancake give it a go it is SO worth it!
I also did lots of baking for back to school because this year the aim is not to buy
packaged snacks for Rhyley's lunches and hopefully I will succeed because then I know exactly what he is eating because I made it.
I baked Mango & Coconut Muffins (for Jason without coconut), Anzac Cupcakes, Mini Quiches & Mini Tuna Mornay. I will share these recipes soon but first I will share my recipe for Anzac Cupcakes I adapted it from this recipe that I found here I made mine more like you would Anzac biscuits.

Here's the recipe:

Anzac Cupcakes

Ingredients
2 cups plain flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup dessicated coconut
1 teaspoon of bicarb soda
A pinch of salt
125 grams of unsalted butter
1/2 cup Golden Syrup
1 cup of milk

Icing
1 cup Icing Sugar
50 grams of unsalted butter
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/3 cup Golden Syrup

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees. In a saucepan melt the butter & syrup together, add bicarb soda to melted butter mix. 
2. In a bowl add dry ingredients & make a well in the center.
3. Add melted butter mixture & milk to the dry ingredients, mix well.
4. Divide mixture into muffin wrappers & bake for 15 - 20 minutes.
5. For the icing add all ingredients in a bowl and mix together. (See Note)
6. Spread cupcakes with icing, if desired sprinkle with coconut.

Note: If icing is too thick add a little milk personally I didn't add milk so I could store the
icing in a bottle in the fridge to ice the cupcakes after defrosting for lunches.

So those are some of the recipes I made for lunches this week.
I bagged up everything, labelled it & popped them in the freezer so there is enough for about
2 weeks worth of pre-made lunches.

Until next time,

What A Month

Hey there.
Well Christmas is almost upon us. It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Christmas, 2011 has really flown by.
So we have been really busy this month with school (seriously this term has been hectic), being of holidays, preparing for Christmas, organising our holiday.
This term at school Rhyley went on his first school camp, this was his first trip away from home that wasn't to a relative's house! They went to Action Challenge and he had an awesome time his favourite part was the giant swing they used there and hopefully we will get some photos from school in the new year. After camp they had 2 performances to attend, swimming lessons, end of year break up party (which was a trip to the cinema to see Puss In Boots, swimming and pizza for lunch), &their Christmas Concert and Party!
We have also been busy decorating and baking for the holidays, we decorated our Christmas tree & welcomed our cheeky Elf on the Shelf to our family- his name is Bumble aka SuperElf but I will write more about him and his antics in another post (Yes! he deserves a post all to himself!)
Rhyley & I made Gingerbread Heads for his classmates this year.
They were so cute & were a BIG hit with all the kids & parents too.

I definitely need to work on my icing skills and maybe I will have to practice a little more & (of course by making more cookies) but first I will need to by some decorating goodies on the web since they're harder to find here.
I got the idea for these Gingerbread Heads from Bakerella's website (I swapped Molasses for Golden Syrup that's why mine are lighter).

I packaged two of them up in a bag with a topper I made using Dear Santa & Jolly Gingerbread Elements from Peppermint Creative & Cookies for Santa by Kate Hadfield

Close up of the topper

We also made Rhyley's teacher Mrs Dyson a Crayon Art Monogram and these adorable Apple Containers which we filled with Mini Toblerones!

I got the idea for the "apples" here.
I made the apples out of recycled 600ml soft drink bottles & added a few "tweeks" by adding a piece of bottle to make a lip to place the lid on top. 

Anyway onto sharing with you some more layouts I have completed:

Layouts from July:
The Frosted Fun Elements & Papers where perfect for scrapping these photos of Rhyley first ice-skating attempt :)

Credits are right here

 

Credits are here


Check the credits

Well this post is alot longer than I expected so I will wrap it up for now.

Until next time

My Mojo's Back

Well after a creative dry spell I finally managed to find my mojo which has meant my blog has been left to collect dust yet again lmao!

Anyway the mojo has been flowing thick and fast so let me share what I've done lately:

I finally managed to scrap Rhyley's 1st day of Grade 4 and I love how it turned out!
This page was chosen by Miss Mint @ Peppermint Creative for Mint-spirational Monday YAY!

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits are here

I scrapped this photo of my In-Laws that I took on a recent visit
I was incredibly honoured when Miss Mint chose it for Mint-spirational Monday (along with the next page too)

Credits can be found here

These photos were taken at Christmas time a couple of years ago and this template by Sara Gleason of zinnias and swallowtails was the perfect fit

Credits are here

Credits can be found here

I told you my mojo was back!, hehe.
So these are the layouts I have managed to do it the past few weeks fingers crossed the mojo sticks around!

Until next time,

Hectic

Wow it has been so busy here since my last post.
I am still studying my uni course which I have exams for in 2 weeks *cringe* I am a little scared cause I haven't sat an exam since Grade 12 which was 13 years ago hopefully I don't get too nervous.

So other than studying we have been busy with school holidays, football, school and heaps more and I have even managed to scrap a bit as relaxation between assignments.
Here is what I've scrapped since last time:

Mixed Bag Monday Challenge- Extract It

Credits can be found here

This photo was taken when we went to see the Gold Coast Titans play the Melbourne Storm at Skilled Park during the Easter school holidays. We had a great time and the boys were stoked that the Titans won the game.

Credits can be found here

This layout was made using photos from Easter. We made Cascarones and before smashing them they were hidden around the yard for Rhyley to find then we all got to smash them on and over each others heads. These we so much fun we are doing it again next year!

Credits can be found here

This layout is using one of those photos you just cherish because they are so rare. Getting Jason to really smile is near impossible. And I was honoured when Miss Mint choose both this one and the one above for Mint-spirational Monday on her blog.

A Week In The Life Challenge involved creating a layout showing what you did each day for a week obviously. It was huge week filled with study, assignment results, school, Rhyley got an award for participating in the school Fun Run, a memorial service for Rhyley's school friend Steven and his brother Tim and mother Maggie Halliwell who were killed in a car accident, a trip to Ballina to visit Mum and Dad, fishing and Anzac Day.

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

Credits can be found here

As you can see it has been hectic around here. I have a few more layouts to post but I will have to save them for the next post.

Until next time