December 2nd

On Wednesday I realised that my supply of contact lenses was REALLY low – in other words I had 4 left!

The only problem was that Wednesday came and went and I forgot to ring the suppliers!  I finally remembered about 4pm on Thursday!

Thankfully they were awesome and they got my order on the courier straight away!  I got home to find my order waiting for me.

While I don’t MIND wearing my glasses at home I NEVER leave the house wearing them.  For me it’s not a vanity thing… it’s all about CONFIDENCE!  I always feel an instant lift as soon as I put in my contacts.

I’m really pleased about keeping up with it… I know it’s only just started but I did wonder if I’d keep up to date… so far so good :)

Happy scrapping xx

December Daily Project

After watching Ali Edwards’ December Daily project for the past few years and always thinking “I’d like to do that!” I decided that this year I would actually join in.  I’ve made all the pages for the project but still have the covers to do… I know what I want to do I just need to make some time to do it!!

For this project I decided to use the Simple Stories 25 Days of Christmas collection… and I totally LOVE it!

Here’s my introduction page:

The journaling reads:

November 2011

For the past few years I’ve been watching Ali Edwards’ December Daily project online and looking at what everyone else has done… and every year I promise myself that ‘next’ year I’ll join in.

I’ve decided that this year I WILL do the December Daily… I WILL make time for journaling the day’s events… I WILL take my camera with me… and I WILL take more notice of what goes on each day.

But mostly, I WILL take the time to spend with the people – including those with ‘four legs’ – who really matter to me… and I WILL spend time doing things that I enjoy.

Shell Honig

December 1st

December began with the usual chorus of “a pinch and a punch for the first of the month” at school… followed closely by “Whaea Shelley that punch was a thump!”

This week it’s “Technology Week” at school and my whole class is making paper bag albums.  It’s CRAZY in the classroom with everyone wanting my attention but thanks to Norm and Sue we’re making good progress!

Tonight we had our annual Night Class dinner and this time we decided on Thai food.  Pork and prawn toasts, shrimp green curry and then deep fried bananas.  YUM!

For those not in New Zealand “Whaea” is a bit like “Auntie” so instead of the kids calling me Ms Honig they call me Whaea Shelley.

Happy scrapping xx

Time for a catch up!

Hi everyone

There has been so much happening over the past few weeks and although I’ve had great intentions of updating my blog, it just hasn’t happened until now LOL

First up I’ve been busy with the Rugby World Cup!  I’ve never been much of a rugby  follower but this term at school it was our theme and I got caught up in the excitement of it as well… and actually I’ve learnt quite a lot along the way.

On the Scrapbook Dreams forum we organised a tag swap for the Rugby World Cup and I was blown away by the response.  20 ladies chose a country and each created 20 tags about their country.  Then they sent them in to me and we organised them all before sending them back out.  Here’s what 420 tags (including covers) looked like on my lounge floor:

I did 20 cover tags:

And then I created 20 New Zealand tags:

The finished tag book looks pretty impressive!  Mum took part in the swap as well and she created the Ireland tags… if you knew my mum you’d know that she’s more Irish than the Irish LOL

Here’s Mum’s tag:

And here’s a photo she sent me of all her tags arranged very artistically!

At school we were lucky enough to have three of the Irish team come for a visit so we made a huge effort and had a classroom window competition.  Here’s the entry for my class:

We used a shamrock template and the kids coloured in HEAPS of them… green ones for the ‘grass’ and colourful ones for our rainbow.  We also had a pot of gold at each end of the rainbow along with dancing leprechauns!!

It was a bit hard to photograph with the sunlight but you kind of get the idea.  In the centre area we had a string of flags and big letters spelling out Ireland that the kids did:

On the day that the Irish players visited we had a massive fashion parade which was fantastic… so much GREEN everywhere!  Here’s a couple photos of my kids all dressed up:

Just imagine over 500 people all dressed in GREEN!

In the middle block we had Gaelic games and I was helping out with the Gumboot tossing… lots of fun but I lost a lot of my voice shouting out “1... 2… 3… TOSS!”

At lunchtime there was a mini food festival with all sorts of Irish goodies and Mum came over for the afternoon as well.  After lunch we all went to the hall where our kids performed some kapahaka and really blew the Irish players out of the water by singing the ‘Irish Call’… it was pretty impressive stuff!

The Irish players were presented with a carved paddle which they were pretty thrilled about:

Afterwards they went around shaking hands and handing out a few goodies like key rings.  Mum and I were a bit slow off the mark but one of my boys managed to get a key ring for Mum and she was pretty thrilled about it:

So that was Irish Day!  I’ve been watching quite a few of the games and actually enjoying them LOL 

I think that’s enough for now but I’ve got a very special little boy to introduce to you in the next update so keep watching :)

A little bit of baking madness!

In amongst all the other things happening this weekend I decided to try and make some decorated cookies.  I’m NOT over the cupcakes yet… just wanted to try some different icing techniques!

It took a couple of goes to get the biscuits right… my oven seems to be going into hyper drive at the moment… I might need to get the thermostat looked at!

Anyway, I made some cookies using my new teapot cutter and finally got a few that I was happy with… and Tautu got quite a few that I was not so happy with… which meant he was pretty happy too LOL

Last night I made some glaze icing and had a go at decorating… and I’m pretty pleased with the results considering it was my first time doing this.  Here’s a look at all of them together:

I started off with some black outlining which I let dry for about 30 minutes.  Then I made up some hot pink icing and started ‘flooding’ the shapes.  After a while I was tired of all the pink so I made up some teal icing and kept going. 

Tautu decided to ‘help’ me with the sprinkles… and he has decided that maybe I need a new ‘interior decorator’!!

He may be right because I prefer the ones without the sprinkles!  The glaze icing is really cool though and you can get some awesome effects with it.

By the time we iced these little babies we were completely over icing and everything sweet!  We decided to have curried kumara soup for dinner so I set Tautu to task peeling the kumara for me… and managed to catch him at work without him realising it!

Unfortunately his ‘helpfulness’ didn’t extend to the dishes last night… but the cookies still look awesome this morning!

Now it’s time to get myself organised and get to work for the start of the new term.

Have a great week everyone