HAPPY BIRTHDAY

to my neice, Madeline!!!!! She turns 9 today :) I forgot that school went back so its too late to ring now :) Typical.
Anyway just want to wish Mads a very happy birthday...I hope the giant knot came out of your hair easy last week!!! hahhahaa

{layout credits can be found here}

Monday Randomness

Well, it was the Australia Day long weekend and we had such a busy but fun weekend :)
First, on Friday (Australia Day) we went out with some friends for a BBQ and an afternoon of lawn bowls up at their local bowling club. It was so much fun! We had an entire green to ourselves where we just ran amok drinking and soaking up some sun (with sunscreen on, of course!)

Then on Saturday we headed out to Mosman where we had arranged to go on a boat dive. So we jumped on the boat around 10:00am, took us 10 minutes to go out to the North Head. Got geared up, jumped in the perfectly calm waters and went for about 50 minutes. Towards the end of the dive we noticed a bit of surge and it was a bit rough as we stopped at 5m for 3minutes to do our safety stop. When we surfaced OMG the water was so choppy with huuuge swells! LOL we jumped back into the boat, and it seriously took us 40 minutes to get back. we had to go sooo slow cos we were in a tiny speed boat with 6 full sets of scuba gear and one very choppy ocean :) It was so much fun!!! I loved it!

Anyway then on Sunday we did some housework, I did my aerobics, Travis went for a cycle, then we headed to Travis's sisters house for a late lunch and then came home :) So it was a jam-packed weekend, but at the same time it was relaxing and fun :)

A few changes to my CT blinkies on the left happened late last week. I said godbye to Faith and Michelle and hello to Kellie Martin and Summer Simmons :) I applied for Summers team last time and didnt make it.. so it was a case of 2nd time lucky!!

Anyway here are some layouts.. one using Kellies new Sea Breeze mini kit, and one using Summers Southern Drawl paper pack :)


Credits here



Credits here

Funny how taking half an hour extra with my layouts has changed how I scrap. Pre-EHD days I used to just use what was in the kit cos I was too lazy to go through all my DVD's to find stuff...just slap it al together and think yeah it's good enough. NOW with everything easily accessible, all my kit previews printed and sitting next to me, I can see what I have and I find it so much easier. And I dont stop until I am 100% happy... because I have too many printed layouts that I just HATE cos I didnt take that extra time to make it better :) So Im loving my layouts now :)

Anyway I moved office on Thursday (LOL last week must have been a week for changes!) because the girl who left before Christmas had a better office than me.. its bigger, quieter, out of the way and it has TWO WINDOWS! my old office was smack bang in the middle of main walkway, had the printer at the door and the kitchen opposite it, and no windows. So there was always noise and people walking past. I love this new one :) I can check my forums and not be disturbed! hahhaha

oooh we have a dairy Farm right near us at home, and on Thursday night I was driving past to pick Travis up from the station and I noticed about 10 cars stopped by the side of the road, and all these people milling around.. so I slowed down to have a stickey beak and there was a cow about to give birth! As I was driving back with Travis, I slowed down again, just in time to see the little calf pop out and drop to the ground :) I have never ever seen that happen in the 2 years we have been there.. certainly never seen everyone mill around the fence.

Anyway then on saturday we were coming back from diving, and there were people there AGAIN and another cow has just had a baby!! We didnt see this one come out though, by the time we got there the baby was curled up on the hay and the mother was cleaning it :)

So they must have moved all the pregnant cows because there were a few more in that paddock that looked very very fat!!

Busted Custard!!

We have an old doona covering the lounge cos the dogs like sitting up there watching TV with us. Anyway its old, and we dont care about it. They worked out early on that they can open the buttons and pull a nice, white fluffy blanket out from inside. Well, theres about 3/4 of it left LOL The rest has been eaten.

Anyway they usually do this when I leave them for 10 minutes to get travis from the station. by the time they hear us getting home they abandon the scene.

Today it was really hot.
I went outside to pick up their poos and to put the bins outside cos it was bin night.
I came back inside and went to the lounge.. and snuck up on this:


hehhee I dont care about the doona inside either.. I won it at bingo about 8 years ago! LOL Once its completely gone its gone, they can just have the cover.

Oh well, at least they provide me with an endless suplly of cute pics to scrap!! LOL Just like these ones of Onslow:


Click right here to see the proper list of credits. I used a template by Deb Fisher. You may wanna click on her name (linked above) to pop by her blog and scroll down a bit :P

Anyway not much else has been happening... went scuba diving yesterday. Both today and yesterday have been hovering around the 40 degree C mark.. soooo hot!!! well, we dont really feel it cos of the air conditioning inside ;) But I remember when we first moved in, there was no a/c and the small split system stopped working after one week. oooh that was so bad! I was spraying myself with water bottles all day and having cold showers every hour. yuck!

Oh well... I think thats about it... going to sit on the lounge and watch the rest of the cricket with a glass of wine and some crackers! LOL

Henna Head

I first heard about using Henna to colour hair about 4 years ago and was doing it every 6 or 8 weeks for about 2 years running. My hair had nice shiny red highlights and was so soft and silky :)

I got lazy because it is an all-day production and pretty messy so I stopped.
Until yesterday when I just sick of my fuzzy hair!

Anyway its pretty fun and really good for your hair. Dont try it on light hair or grey hair though... unless you want it to turn bright orange!! It works best on dark hair. Oh and you cant use it on hair which has been coloured cos it apparently has some pretty weird reactions!

The thing I love is that you can add so much stuff to it to get different colours.
Yesterday I used red Henna powder, added a very VERY generous amount of Paprika (makes it go redder), I infused a teabag with the water before adding it (I think thats for a golden highlight?) and a dash of olive oil for a conditioning treatment. I slapped it on my freshly shampooed (but NOT conditioned) hair. Wrapped my head in plastic and washed it out 6 hours later. This stuff can be left on for 24 hours if you want.
This is the result:


this one went a bit orange!
I got the best dark red colour when I added red wine to the mix, but I cant stand the thought of "wasting" a good glass of red!! LOL

Anyway what else have I been up to?

We had a quiet new year as we just landed in the country on the 30th. Stayed home and wated the crackers on TV LOL
Then it was my birthday on the 2nd, which was spent at the 5th ashes test in Sydney. For someone who isnt all that interested in cricket, the day went by sooo fast! I actually enjoyed it :) Except I could hear the ball get hit, but never saw WHERE it went, so I would look to the left, and someone was catching it over to the right LOL I think I missed all 4 wickets on the day!

Got some great bday presents. Travis got me 2 External hard Drives, so I have spent the past 2 days copying all my backed up kits on DVD to the EHD, extracting, sorting, renaming, organising previews.. but its going to make looking for things so much easier!

I was at the shops at 7:00 doing my grocery shopping today, went to the butcher and remembered to take the bag with me this time! LOL Last time I had the trolley at the butcher, I paid for all my meat (4 weeks worth of lamb, pork, veal and sausages!) andtook off. Got home, unpacked the groceries, realised there was no meat so I had to ring up the butcher to see if it was still there!! hahaha They had put it in the fridge for me :)

Anyway I cleaned up the house, packed away the Christmas decorations and rearraged all the stuff on the cupboards, cleaned the house and now im going to scrap :)

Here are a few recent layouts I have done since coming back...
Credits for each can be found HERE



And this is my first layout for the Amazing Digiscrapping Race



OMG I am in the computer room, the dogs are asleep in the dining area, about 6m away from me. In amongst the snoring, I hear a loud fart and chuckle to myself cos that always makes me laugh... Before I had these two, I had never heard dogs make farting noises.
Anyway about a minute later it has wafted into the computer room and is seriously making me gag. UGH its PUTRID... gotta go get the air freshener... bye bye!!!