Blog Makeover!!! :)

Hi :) As you can see (hopefully) I've been 'playing' on the computer this morning (don't you just LOVE not having to go to work???) I found this gorgeous (and fun) digital paper and matching header and it really appealed to me.... I love the 'new look' and it really made me want to blog which has got to be a good thing!

I love that the paper is so cute! Speaking of cute... I got an email from Mum the other night (that's not the cute bit!! LOL) She'd been 'lurking' on Scrapbook Dreams and felt she just HAD to respond to my new avatar: "I must tell you: I love the new logo for you on the site. The huge pink hat tickles me and I can't help but smile. It's a real cute pleaser."

Thanks Mum!! I think she's pretty cute too! What do you girls think?

It was FREEZING here this morning!! When I looked out the window there was a real frost!!! Take a look at this:

The sun was still rising and the view was actually really stunning... so being a scrapbooker... I grabbed the camera and took this photo (along with a whole heap more) of the view looking out over the neighbours back yard:While it doesn't look quite so good in the photo as it did in real life I was thrilled to see the 'lines of light' coming from the trees! Not a bad start to the long Easter weekend... and the school holidays!!! On that note I'm going to wish everyone a very safe and happy Easter... and may you all get far too much chocolate :)

I'm a very happy scrapper today!

I have finally managed to 'make' some time to scrap for myself... and the 'extra' hour thanks to daylight savings was helpful too!I decided to use one of the new 'Back to Basics' kits from Scrapbook Dreams and see what I could do with it.

I chose the 'Handsome' kit because I haven't really used grey very much and I was looking for a bit of a challenge.I started off doing a 12x12 layout of Richard and Kody because I had a great photo that would work with the April challenge at Scrapbook Dreams.

The challenge was to cut up a photo and I must admit that after feeling a bit hesitant at first I LOVE the results. This layout is called 'Buddies' and is about my niece Kody and her 'Buddy' Poppa.

I had lots of fun playing on this layout. I used Weathered Wood distress ink and bubble wrap to add a bit more interest to the background. Then I cut out my circles (dessert bowl, coffee cup and glass jar) and then I distressed the edges and inked them. The flower was orginally white but I used another Distress Ink technique that I saw online to colour it... love how that turned out!

I cut the photo and then backed it onto cardstock before mounting it on foam dots. The frame around Kody was cut out with the cricut (Base Camp). For the title I used some chipboard letters that I've had for ages, inked them with Weathered Wood and then added some Dimensional Magic (gotta love that stuff!!) I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

Next I decided to do a double 8x8 layout for Kody's album. Kody's favourite question at the moment is "What doing?" Apparently she asks everyone 'What doing?' all the time! Very cute the first few times but not so much by number 25!!! She calls Mum "Gamma" and Richard is "Pop-pa" so I decided to use that as part of my title. Here's the left side:

And here's the right side:I'm really hooked on the whole inking with bubble wrap thing so I did lots more of that and then started layering everything the way I wanted it. HEAPS of Weathered Wood ink because it just went with everything so well! The brackets around the left side photos are actually a frame that I cut the middle out of... very cool thing to be making my own embellishments!

Once I'd done the three layouts I still had 2 whole sheets of paper left and I was still itching to scrap so I had a quick look through my stash and found a mini tag album. I 'think' I remember getting it in a sale about 5 years ago because it was cheap... better late than never as far as actually doing something with it goes.

It's nearly Richard's birthday so I thought since I had a few photos of him and Kody I would make him a mini album about their relationship. EVERYTHING got inked, distressed, grunged etc... and it let me make use of ALL of the bits of paper I had left over from the layouts :)

Here's a bird's eye view of the album:Front cover:Pages 1 & 2:Journaling: Kody likes to ask lots of questions! Her favourite one at the moment: What doing?

What doing Poppa? Playing with Sophie.

Pages 3 & 4:Journaling: What doing Poppa? Reading you a story. What doing Poppa? Tickling Kody!!

Pages 5 & 6:Journaling: What doing Poppa? Trying to read my newspaper! What doing Poppa? Sharing my lollies with you. Yummy!

Pages 7 & 8:Journaling: What doing Poppa? Eating my pudding. Me too! What doing Poppa? Going to Auntie's house.

Back cover:

By the time I'd finished the mini album I only had two small pieces of cream cardstock left! That's great value from a $12 paper kit don't you think??? If you want one of these kits... or one of the other two kits available check them out HERE.

I hope you are all enjoying the 'extra' hour today :) Shell xx

I'm back finally!!

Oh my goodness... No posts since January 4th!!! I've been so busy with other things that I've been neglecting my blog so I'll try and do a bit of a catch up of the past couple of months :)

Scrapfest 09

The weekend of January 17th & 18th was a BIGGIE in our household! I got together with Debbie and Pam to organise a local scrapbooking event and it all came together really well! We had classes, shopping, a crop night... and very little sleep (thanks to Esther!!! LOL)


Debbie, Pam and I each taught 4 classes over the weekend and it was pretty full on! And then we had the crop night on Saturday night as well. Mum came over and brought my Auntie Daphne with her and it really was an awesome weekend!

The girls helped out too.... Mikayla was my classroom assistant and Krystal ran the shop for the whole weekend... THANKS girls :)

Here's a photo of the girls with Mum... Poor Grandma really does have to look up to talk to them now!!I was really lucky to finally meet Esther and Tricia over the weekend as well! Esther arrived from Wellington on Friday afternoon and kept me up talking until 4am!!! I loved this photo of the three of us taken at the crop night... hopefully I'll even get a mini album done one of these days!Mum TOTALLY surprised me with a gorgeous cake she'd made especially for Scrapfest! It was really rich and decadent... EXACTLY what we all needed to keep us going until midnight!!! THANKS heaps Mum :) Tricia, Mum, Krystal and Auntie Daphne all went back to Tauranga on Sunday night.... and slept!!! Meanwhile Esther, Mikayla and I had fish and chips for dinner and couldn't get off the sofa because we were so tired! There were a few snores heard during the night LOL

Family catch up

Once Scrapfest was all done and dusted it was time to catch up with my sister and her family. I hadn't seen my wee nephew in a LONG time and he wasn't having it at all!!! He cried the whole time I was there and kept looking at me as if to say 'who are you???' But my sister did share this lovely photo of both my nephews with me since I didn't actually get to see 'Mr Smiley' smile at all!!

A couple of weeks later it was 'Mr Smiley's' first birthday and this time he decided that Auntie wasn't so bad after all.... and by the afternoon even made his way to sit on my lap and have a few cuddles :)Isn't he just GORGEOUS!!!! Mum had been busy buying the kids some matching clothes so we got a photo of the little ones together... minus Mr Smiley who was having a nap :)Miss Kody was expecting the arrival of her little sister in a few weeks time and checking out all the dolls when we managed to get this photo of her in the dolls cradle... very cute!Then it was back to school for me and the girls. Krystal's in the 6th form (Year 12) this year and VERY busy with all her assignments, projects, essays etc and she's also working part-time at Spotlight so it's pretty full-on with her! Mikayla is in the 4th form (Year 10) and 'beginning' to realise that she actually needs to do some work! We had parent/teacher interviews this week and both the girls are doing well :)

This year I'm teaching full-time again... and LOVING it! I'm working with the teacher from next door and we're running a pilot programme which is going really well. Instead of having a class each, we're working together with a class of 54 students! It's pretty full on but it's also having amazing benefits for the kids! Plus Ashley and I each get to use our strengths in teaching to better advantage. I did some art with the kids yesterday and it was awesome :) Ashley is REALLY good at science so each week he's doing science experiments with the kids (and I'm learning a huge amount!!!)

Creating My Life 09

After last year I decided that I wanted to be more 'in charge' of my life so I decided to make an album that was focussed more on journaling than photos to document what was happening each week. I thought other people might like to join in so I've been posting a new prompt each week (well... most weeks) so if you'd like to have a look and join in... click HERE to have a look!

Book Binding Night Class

I've been wanting to learn about book binding for a LONG time and the opportunity came up to do a night class focussed on hand stitched books. It was two sessions of fun, learning and techniques and here's the little book I made for myself:

I decided to use my book for all my kit ideas... I'm trying to be more organised this year! Then I went ahead and made a book each for two friends who design the monthly challenges for Scrapbook Dreams. Here's Esther's book:And here's the one I made for Tricia:

Both of their books are 5" x 5" so they're perfect for designing layouts :)

New Family Member

As I said before... Kody was expecting her new sister's arrival... and she surprised us all by arriving 3 weeks early! Welcome to the family... Jessica (Jessy) Mackenzie :) Here's Kody and Jessy:

Back in January Jenny nominated me for a Lovely Blog award... Thank you!!! I'll get myself organised and get the blog updated very soon.... Promise!!

Happy New Year :)

Well Christmas and New Years is done and dusted! It was a bit different in our family this year because we didn't all get together for Christmas. One sister got together with her in-laws and the other had Mum over for lunch... and the Honig's decided that we really NEEDED to chill out together! I'm so pleased we did because it was a great day... and we actually had a lot of fun :)

Krystal spent most of December working at Spotlight (and she's got a lovely bank balance to show for it!)... in fact, she only had about 5 days off in 5 weeks so it was really lovely to spend some time with her!! Between Krystal working and me trying to get a million things done we didn't get around to putting up a tree but Mikayla did get into the whole spirit of things and decorated a chair! How many families do you know that have a Christmas Chair??? lol

Of course Tequila thought it was especially for him and decidd to keep the chair warm for Santa!For Christmas food we decided to have a big break from tradition and have some special treats that we don't have all that often... so our 'lunch' consisted of cheese, crackers, pesto, hummus, chips and dip :) Very tasty!!We did however have sparkly grape juice which we LOVE and hardly ever have :)While we nibbled away we opened up our presents... and I had a very special treat from the girls on the Scrapbook Dreams forum.... THANK YOU again!! They really spoiled me and made me feel like a million dollars :)

The Christmas entertainment came in the form of Singstar... and it was actually really fun! I even managed to beat the girls once or twice lol Then it was time for dessert:

Strawberries, blueberries, ice cream, chocolate sauce, caramel sauce, wafers, chopped nuts, chocolate and yes that HUGE bowl is whipped cream!!! We definitely don't eat this very often!! Since it was just us we decided to splash out on some 'proper' sundae dishes and here's our creations:We spent quite a bit of time working out the best 'recipies' for creating sundaes lol By the time we got through all that we chilled out on the sofas and watched some movies so by the time we went to bed it really had been a lovely, relaxed day :)

Scrapfest: In amongst the million things I've been doing lately is working on my classes for Scrapfest and I'm so thrilled with the results! These first pics are from my 'According to Me' class:

We're making a cute file folder that's the perfect size for keeping photos to crop, letters and even the Cuttlebug embossing folders!Don't you just love that beaded tassle??? Mikayla and I spent a couple of hours threading all the beads and stitching them onto the ribbon... yep they're all made by hand!

These pics are from the 'Layers of Love' layout class:

I had so much fun creating this one... there's bling, flowers, inking, layering and embellishing!There's only 3 spaces left in this class too so I'm super thrilled that it's been so popular!

Instead of doing a card making class I decided to do an Artist Trading Cards class...the ABC's of ATC's. I made quite a few ATC's while I was 'playing' but these ones were definitely my favourites:

And somehow my last class has just grown and grown... I've been playing for days with different techniques and totally LOVING it!!! Here's the sneak peek of 'Don't Stress... Distress' using Distess Inks of course lolSo that's my classes... can you see why I've been super busy??? lol Debbie and Pam (from the Scrapfest team) have got 4 classes each as well and we're having a crop night on the Saturday night so if you're able to be in Rotorua the weekend of January 17th & 18th it's going to be well worth this visit. Check out our Scrapfest blog for all the details and information!

Creating My Life: 2008 proved to be a very 'challenging' year. I really wondered how I was going to make it through and then I picked up a REALLY good book in a little second-hand bookstore here in Rotorua. I think this book actually chose me rather than the other way around because it's certainly not one that I would usually read. It's written by Teri Hatcher of Desperate Housewives fame and it's seriously good! Kind of like having a late night gossip with a close girlfriend!

Anyway, it got me thinking about my life and how it was all going. I mean REALLY thinking!!! So, I decided to create an album for myself... kind of like a Dear Diary of things... and as I was talking to other people about it a new plan formed. I'm going to post prompts every Sunday for 2009 and if you want to take part you are totally welcome :) Here's the cover I made for my album: If you want to take a look at the prompts so far... there will be a new one up later on today... then check out the Creating My Life blog :)

More Christmas: Since we didn't all get together for Christmas 2008 Mum decided to come over yesterday for a 'Posh Picnic' :) It was going to be a 'Posh Picnic with Wildlife Entertainment'... said in Mum's very Hyacinth Bouquet 'Bucket' voice! BUT the rain didn't want to let us so we had a 'Posh Picnic with Water Views' at my house instead lol

All Mum required was... a cleared kitchen bench, cleared dining room table and a cleared coffee table... and a chopping board.... not asking for much was she???

My oh My but she does do 'Posh' well!!! I've never had a 3 course picnic before but I wouldn't mind doing it again!! (Yes that's a 'hint' Mum!!!)

For 'starters' we had: foccacia bread, pate, camembert, mini sausages (with sauce) chips, dip, basil pesto and sundried tomato pesto!!! Blinkin' lovely :)

For 'mains' there was: cold chicken legs, champagne ham, smoked salmon, croissants, lettuce, cherry tomatoes (if you could steal one off Kody!) chutney, marscapone, cucumber and sliced crusty bread!! Absolutely divine :) I loved this photo of Kody taken during lunch... the caption should be: I didn't touch ANYTHING Grandma!!

And then Mum brought out the desserts!!! Cheesecake, mudcake, whipped cream, strawberries, ice cream, chocolate eclairs, cream puffs, strawberry and marscapone tarts, custard slice and chocolates!!!

YES there was a LOT of food!!! There were 7 of us here and Miss Kody isn't even two yet so she didn't eat much! Mum even bought over all the table cloths, serviettes, bowls, plates cutlery etc... oh and some sparkly grape juice!

It was ABSOLUTELY FAB!!! I can't get over how much time, effort and thought Mum put into everything! She had all our favourites... chocolate eclairs and smoked salmon (me), custard slice and cheesecake (Krystal) and croissants and chocolate (Mikayla)... cherry tomatoes (Kody)!

We even had some indoor entertainment.... Singstar! The photo of the day HAS to go to Miss Kody... she didn't actually sing.... but you'd never know it from the photo (maybe she's going to be like Milli Vanilli???)

I'm sorry about the long post... there's was just so much I wanted to share... maybe I'll write a book one day lol

I hope you're all having a fabulous start to the new year!

Love Shell xx