just another day...

easter catch up

 

a horrid bout of food poisoning saw me down for the count for the lead up to easter which means that eggs blown with all good intentions never got dyed - not that that would stop phoebe.  this is her 'nest' (that would be my paint palette) complete with chickens, eggs and egg wrappers.  you might also spy my tarisota nani-bird in there.

 

 

it also meant our easter morning egg hunt nearly went totally unrecorded, as i spent most of my time faffing with white balance and exposure which had been set for indoor low light photos the night before.

 

 

last year i had a migraine the night before the school easter bonnet parade, this year it was food poisoning.  i'm seeing a theme and i think its called easterbonnetparade-itis.

 

anyone else got one of these at home?

this is me. i know - the insufferable half face camera covered head shot.    i took this because i just got about 8 inches cut off the bottom of my hair and caz wanted to see it.  only i couldn't figure out how to take the shot with both eyes open.

 

 

 

couple of easter themed layouts on the aussie blog - you can see more detail there.  the lovely mel did a couple of gorgeous ones too.

bottom one is of easter egg hunt 'bridge club' organised for the kids last week at a nearby park.  i was mid-sickness but thanks to all their efforts all i had to do was turn up, take photos and go home and sleep for the rest of the day.

 

be vewy vewy quiet. they're hunting wabbits.

   

we gave the pre-school kids a minute head start which phoebe in particular really didn't need.  they had instructions to find 22 eggs each and then stop. by the time i checked her bag there were already 32 cloistered in there, only she can't count that high so didn't know. 

my brother and his family arrive from london for a flying visit next week.  i'm very much looking forward to seeing them (through my new lens!!) and alex is more excited about his arrival than father christmas' i think.  anyway i'm desperately trying to get a million things done for sia and other stuff before their arrival (when i'm not procrastinating with long blog posts.. :) )

hope you all had a happy eggy easter.

crazy hair day

crazy hair day at school, raising money for the leukemia foundation.  a couple of brave little souls got their heads shaved, others just needed to.

honestly. this gorgoeus kid can't even look threatening with a cherry red mohawk!

 

the lovely olivia.  how beautiful is this girl. 

while her mum was busy snapping away inside, i was swiping photos of her and her kids :)

check out those eyelashes.  he turns three on sunday.  happy birthday rylie!!

 

 

and you know who wasn't going to be left out.  we went for the leopard spot look.  and clever me took along a camera sans memory card, so i snapped this one when we got home. it's been hot and this girl can whip off a dress faster than light i tell ya.

 

hot. icy pole weather.  the mohawk didn't last the day.

 

did i mention it was hot?  phoebe decided to find a cool breeze in the hallway without anyone even noticing. fast asleep with her pillow and 'blanky'.   alex nearly tripped over her on about his fourth bedroom escape attempt.

 

 

a couple of layout shares for an article in last months for keeps.  the top one is how two kids can amuse themselves with light sabers and a bar of soap.  the bottom one is about 'flanny', phoebe's invisible friend she's had for years now.

looking forward to a fun weekend of scrapping and friends at crop for kids tomorrow.  see all you melbourne girls there!

who's left at home to shoot

when i first started scrapping i had two full time and willing subjects that i could aim my camera at all the time.  and then alex went to school so phoebe became my main victim focus.  now she's spending more time at kinder, both me and jesse were at a loss.  till he fell asleep this afternoon with one of his rawhide sticks in his mouth looking to all the world like he had a 30 a day habit..

and then he heard the shutter click..

he spent just enough time in each pose before changing position slightly.  i think he's been watching phoebe.  anyway if you've ever read dooce you'll be familiar with chuck who i just love.  i'm toying with the concept...

anyway the tarisota gallery has just exploded with some amazing work from the usual suspects as well as two new unbelievably talented and welcome permanent additions in the form of jill who has had me in awe of her work for a while now and jo who is our new digi-guru and is about to have me in awe with all of her skills.  welcome to them - they're keeping us 'oldies' on our toes with both their talent and enthusiasm.

this months collection is very very beautiful.  it's been out of my comfort zone in that the papers are quite dark and elegant (two things i'm so not) - but very versatile and fantastic for boy scrappers.  as ever i found myself with more ideas than time, but here are a couple.  check out the gallery though to be blown away completely.

 

 

 

made me laugh that nic howard copied my theme almost exactly.  you'd think she could think of her own thing to do with an owl.  actually though, in fact i think she also has a clone of my son.  or is it all boys that just can't turn off and go to sleep without hours of procrastination, reading and complaints of hunger...?

 

 

taking a lot of photos of the kids sleeping lately that would be because it's really low light and i can.  phoebe sets herself up at night with babies and soft toys arranged around her very specifically and i just love being able to record it properly now with the 50mm 1.4 without having to turn the lights on.

i've been working really hard over the last week on my classes for sia, though i can tell you that wouldn't be as hard as cheryl and sally and the steering committee have been getting this amazing event off the ground.  i'll be posting sneaks for the classes as soon as i get an all clear :)

 

i'm reassessing my scrapping a bit lately.  i think i have to on a regular basis because it's easy to get the balance out of whack, and recently my scrapbook pages have been led by the photos rather than the stories.  i blame the camera to some extent - obviously there's more temptation to scrap a beautifully set up shot.  i dont want it to be at the expense of the detail though, so i'm setting myself a journalling challenge. 

a lot of the time as well i do have a story to go with a photo but i run out out room to tell it amongst all the irresistible embellishments and a need to showcase half a dozen patterned papers.  so for the next month or so, to get the story telling habit back, i'm going to journal first, find photo second and then figure out what product works best with it. 

now this is a classic example, up last week on the aussie scrap source blog.  i was honestly blown away by these deja views papers - i adored the colour palette, the quality of the papers and cutting out the delicious flowers to balance the photo became my priority.  luckily this is just an old photo i hadn't used yet that worked well with it - there was actually no story.  the tree is in the front garden and phoebe posed.  but if there were a story, where would i put it.

speaking of more changes though, i was dead thrilled to have the lovely nic finlayson join the design team at aussie scrap source.  she's an old friend who i respect and admire in both scrapbooking and real life, so having her join us is very very cool.

anyway. enough of the ramble.  or more to the point - here's to more of the ramble :)

 

oh and by the way nic h didn't really steal my idea.  i think we posted our layouts within an hour of each other and hers is totally more expertly executed. 

gosh it's been a while

my family has had a bit of a sad trot lately, beginning with the tragic and unexpected passing of my step-cousin, a vital young woman of my age with a 4 yo daughter before christmas and (hopefully) ending with the long fought though expected death of my aunt after a two year battle with cancer.   her two older sisters - my mother and aunt were with her till the end. the three of them have a long and adventure-filled history.

that, along with a few other changes, job uncertainty with frank and yet more work than i could ever wish for for me, a new kinder schedule and a house that just won't clean itself comes some way to explain my absence.

in other news...

i'm being scrapjacked! i must say i do love a guilt free scraplift and this is great fun.  they sent me a huge pack of fab Bella! products and i came up iwth the above.  the (minimal) papers are scrummy new Paper Trunk '1974'. 

i love what Sharryn and Louise have produced already and look forward to seeing everyone elses. 

 

 

 

A couple of recent layouts from the aussie scrap source blog.  honestly star wars is so big in the house right now i'm not sure when i'll be able to do an alex layout with them in it in some way.

i find i'm loving a kind of central square look in my layouts at the moment.

 

and another actually .. for a fontwerks feature in  for keeps.  i'm not a big stamper but i love the size of both of these fontwerks alphas and enjoyed playing with this one.

 

 

these photos are from australia day weekend, so they're long overdue.  we went to see the sand sculptures in Frankston.  Truly the intricacy and attention to detail in the sculptures was just amazing, and certainly worth more than the cursory glances my two gave them before whining for ice creams and swims in the sea.  me - i just wanted to play with the cool depth of field in my new lens.

now while i'm here, scroll back up a few photos and tell me - who else reckons frank looks just like the scarecrow in the wizard of oz.  and i can't believe it's never struck me before!

 

 

the highlight of the day should have been the sand sculptures, but it was actually this.  we call these 'walls of ears' because the climbing things on the one in the park near us look just like ears.   when i do this layout it's probably going to be titled determination.  alex wasn't so keen and came back to land pretty quickly, but phoebe was going to give it all she had to reach that buzzer at the top.

the exif data on my camera tells me they started at 2.01 pm

 

 

she was here at 2.06 pm

2.11 pm.  by now when she got this close and then slipped not just frank and i, but the whole crowd waiting at the bottom all let out a collective 'ohhhh.'

 

2.16 pm.  and again. so close but no cigar.  this time the attendants caught her when she got near the ground, because she'd pretty much gone over whatever time limit you get, and i didn't mind because my neck was stiff and the camera batteries were all but worn out.  she got a round of applause from the bystanders.  not bad going for a just turned five year old we thought.