Tuesday 23 November 2010

Mikayla’s had some brilliant news!!

There was quite a bit of excitement in our house last week!

On Wednesday a package arrived for Mikayla and when she opened it she found a wonderful letter from the NZ Pork board regarding the competition she entered earlier this year. They sent her a NZ Pork board book which is really glossy and includes all the different pork cuts and what you can do with them followed by lots of recipes.

They also sent her some gorgeous ceramic salt and pepper shakers shaped as little pigs… very cute!   But the most exciting part... they have asked if they can publish her recipe that she designed for the competition on their official website!!! How exciting is that??

awards

The week got even better though because when we got home on Thursday there was a letter from Waiariki Polytech... and she has been ACCEPTED to do a two year diploma in Culinary Arts!!!

letter

Although she TRIED to do the very cool, calm and collected thing when she opened her letter it didn't work because within seconds she was squealing with delight and jumping up and down saying I GOT IN!!!

It was really neat to see her so excited about it… and knowing that it’s what she really wants to do makes it even more so!

The only strange thing for me is that I’m going from having two kids at school to having none… it all came around a bit quicker than I was planning!  2011 is shaping up to be a year of BIG changes!!

Sunday 21 November 2010

More layouts

You know what it’s like when you get challenged to do something and you just have to… well that’s been the case with these layouts!

First up there was a ‘photo swap’ layout challenge.  Esther, Rangi and myself all swapped photos and then the challenge was to make a layout for each other.

Rangi made a gorgeous double layout for Esther featuring some photos of her son Liam:November 015

Esther received one of my photos (taken on Alphabet Day earlier this year) and she’s created this fab layout for me!  Love the grungy look of this one :)Esthers layout

Rangi sent me a photo of Luke when he was just a wee boy and here’s the layout I came up with:Luke at 5

We all agreed that it was a bit of a challenge scrapping for someone else… the results speak for themselves!

And while we’re talking about layouts… it was the Friday
Fun Night at Scrapbook Dreams and we had a fantastic challenge… select a favourite designer/scrapper and then create a layout in their style.

I chose Renee Dowling as it’s a style I admire but haven’t tried before.

When I looked at Renee Dowling’s blog I spotted this layout:

renee dowling

And this is the layout I created by scraplifting her style:Rep Hockey

I’m really pleased with the layout… especially since the photos have been waiting for 3 YEARS to make it onto a layout!!

Rangi also set us a TWIST challenge… to create a flower without using scrapbooking paper… heck!  But with a little creativity I came up with this:Flower

It’s a flower made from skeleton leaves mixed with a denim die cut flower and the centre is a Prima pebble.

Thanks again for another awesome challenge Rangi… my album is getting much fatter now :)

Thursday 11 November 2010

Senior Prize Giving 2010

Yesterday marked the end of an era… it was Krystal’s last high school prize giving.  As she said… “My next ‘prize giving’ will be when I graduate from university”!

There were a LOT of speeches and it seemed to go on forever… in fact the prize giving started at 1pm but they didn’t actually get to the awards part until 3pm!  It was worth it in the end though…  Miss Krystal walked away with two awards and she’s absolutely thrilled.

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She got 1st place in Year 13 Accounting:

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and Excellence in Year 13 Visual Arts Design:

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This year they also gave all the Year 13 award winners a Whitcoulls voucher which Krystal was thrilled with:

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After school we had to take her Visual Art folio board down to the courier along with her workbook as she’s hoping to get a scholarship toward uni – she won’t find out till January if she gets it but as they say “You’ve got to be in it to win it!”

Krystal has certainly put a lot of effort into her studies this year so it was great to see her so happy with the awards.  She has her first exam this Saturday, YES she has two exams on Saturdays this year! The final exam is in late November so although the prize giving is over and she doesn’t actually HAVE to go to school (apart from exams) she’ll still be spending the next couple of weeks in uniform.

Congrats Krystal… I’m really proud of you!

Sunday 7 November 2010

Awesome…. I got another layout done!

On Friday Rangi hosted the ‘Friday Night Fun’ at Scrapbook Dreams… and it was a fantastic challenge :)

Step 1 (8pm): Choose a paper range and scrap with it.
The challenge being the majority of the layout must be in the range including embellishments (you may have to be creative if you don't have any pre-made ones in your range).

I decided to work with the ‘Happy Together’ range from Fancy Pants.fphappy

Step 2: Once you have your range an photo/s sorted, lay them out and take a photo:IMG_0965_1

Step 3: Create your layout and take a photo of it all completed and post it up in the gallery (by midnight).

Note:You may add additional bits and bobs to your layouts like buttons,rub-ons etc... but keep in mind the challenge is to use a majority of the range you have chosen. Be creative!

Then it was time to go and get creating!  We all know that chocolate helps the creativity… but on Friday night I think it was the strawberries that did it for me!! LOL

Mikayla made us a bit of a treat… extremely yummy!IMG_0970_1

And while we were all creating Rangi gave us a twist!!  With the range you are using- Create a gift tag!
It must include: To & From

Hmm… that one had me thinking!  I actually did get both my layout and gift tag done and photographed by midnight… but as we all know it’s really hard to photograph layouts etc and get the colours right with artificial light so I’ve re-photographed them over the weekend.

Here’s my layout:IMG_1019_1

I used some photos taken of my sister (Katey) and Miss Krystal a few years ago.  Krystal was born the day before Katey’s 17th birthday and they’ve always been really close.

I used the patterned paper to make my title along with a bit of a Prima flower branch:IMG_1020_1

I made the heart by covering some chipboard with patterned paper and then die cutting it:IMG_1021_1

A couple of pearls and some more flowers and it was all done!

The tag came together really easily… must try making tags etc again after completing a layout:IMG_1018_1

I used some of the patterned paper and Prima flowers and then I covered some more chipboard with patterned paper and die cut the wings.  A few alpha stickers on the wings gave me the ‘To’ and ‘From’ and then I just added some cool fibres.

I enjoyed working with this paper range so much I made a card as well…. always good when the creativity flows!IMG_1017_1

And here’s all my projects together… not bad for a couple of hours in the craft room:IMG_1012_1

Thanks Rangi for a brilliant night!!

If you like the idea of the ‘Friday Night Fun’ why not join us at 8pm on Friday 19th November for the next one!!

Tuesday 2 November 2010

I’ve done another layout!

Don’t you just love it when the mojo flows???

This months challenge at Scrapbook Dreams is to use die cuts in a creative way… so I got out my new Tim Holtz leaves die and got busy.  I started off die cutting the leaves out of plan manila card and then I used LOTS of ink… some stamping… a bit of embossing and then some dimensional magic on them.  This is how  I used them on my layout:

Kerikeri

The photos on the layout are actually from a trip the girls and I did to Kerikeri back in 2006… and although the leaves look like autumn ones the photos were actually taken in early summer LOL

Have to say I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out! 

If you’d like to take part in the challenge then click HERE for all the details… and be in with a chance to win some Tim Holtz die cuts!!

Thanks for looking and feel free to leave me a comment Smile

Shell xx