I am a Single Mum…

….for a month

Yep, DH is heading off to Hawaii to be with the Army and leaving me on my lonesome. Watch these posts getting shorter and shorter and sounding more like a crzy woman as each day passes LOL.

I have been running around like a headless chook for the past week getting things organised for the trip and so on – poor DH will be living in a tent and roughing it for a while but he gets no sympathy from me – Hawaii in the middle of our Aussie winter? Come on! Sorry DH – 26 degrees, perfect sunshiny days and awesome shopping compared to sick kids and 2 weeks of the school holidays dragging everyone around to do the grocery shopping? PUHLEASE.

Actually I better watch what I say on here because he’ll be reading this when he gets over there – I love you hunny!. Feel free to bring me back all the bling you can fit in your bag, ok?

Here’s a few shares with you from the past fortnight – I have been a busy scrapper and polished off about 14 layouts and quite a lot of cards and OTP’s.

The first two LO’s were using the new “Memento” range of papers from Addicted To Craft – I hadn’t see these before the beginning of the year and they are perfect for all manner of boy themes in scrapping. Plenty of bits to chop out and use as extra embellishments, double sided, fabbo colours and printed on nice, thick paper.

This next Lo was created using a sketch set for us by Angella – great choice of sketch and using the Memento papers made this LO fall together really quickly.

Caz, the lovely owner of SCRADDIX  has sent me some of the new range of My Mind’s Eye “Penny Lane” to work with. Thanks Caz – your Kits and ideas are always so generous matey!

Here’s a few samples to share with you but if you’d like to see the lot, go and check out the Gallery at Scrapaddix to see what the whole line looks like.

That’s it for here otherwise I’ll fill up the whole page – go check out the gallery at Scrappaddix!

Another big, special, awesome, outstanding thang I have to tell you all is that James participated in his first ever Special Olympics last weekend and came back with 4 gold medals! I was so incredibly proud and happy for him. You see, a few weeks ago we have the school athletics carnival and he came last in his runninig race – and has been down about it ever since.

Not just, “oh well but I had fun” kind of down, but depressed that he was never going to be able to win a race against those big kids ever in his little life.

For those of you who don’t know, my third son James has Short Stature. The old fashioned word is dwarfism. He is currently the same size as my three year old and will only ever reach just over a metre in height. His arms and legs are half the length they should be, so it means he can’t run or swim as fast or as far as the “average” kids.

However, the Special Olympics is purely for those kids with a disability and he came first in three of his races and second in the final race. I was so proud of him I thought would explode out of my chest.

And I will NEVER, in my life, forget the look of complete triumph and joy on his little face as he emerged from the pool, yelling, “I won!” He was so suprised and so proud of himself and I cried my eyes out.

Here he is getting ready to start his race and half way through it, (he is with the unassisted swimming helper) and the final photo is of my little champ

What a hero! And the next day he went to school and used the medals as his chance to get a smooch from the big girls in year six. Chuckle.

That’s all from me and my epic post for now – I hope you are enjoying a lovely weekend and I’ll catch you all again soon, ok

Take care all,

Sares x

RIP Michael Jackson

I usually dominate all my posts with a whole stack of stuff from my scrapbooking but today I would just like to pay tribute to MJ and what a great loss it is that he has passed away at such a young age.

Whenever I think of him in later years of his life I come up with the word “sad”. It’s just so sad that he was not able to live with the constant scrutiny of public life and that there were so many others willing to enable his insecurities.

My gut feeling is that he was happy to be with children because they were always up-front and honest with him. There was no subterfuge, no criticism and no judgement – only adoration and happiness from them. As a teacher I can understand wanting to be surrounded by that. There is comfort in feeling completely accepted for who you are.

I feel for his family of young kids and his other brothers, sisters and parents who must also be facing their own kind of demons right now. I wish we could all help them in some way – remove from them the “need” to be accepted by the public and just be happy to be who they truly are.

Isn’t that something we should all aim for in life? To be comfortable with who we see in the mirror every morning and stop spending so much energy trying to meet the standards of everyone else.

Sares x

Guess What?

We don’t have to go to soccer this morning because the field is a boggy marsh. Do you know what that means?? It means I have an ENTIRE weekend at home. OMG I don’t know what that feels like.

So, instead of relaxing by the cabana drinking cocktails and perving on the cabana boys (even though it’s winter – I can dream, can’t I?) we are spending the day doing all those little “odd jobs” around the house. You know, the sorts of things you walk past 50 times saying to yourself, “I’ll get to that soon” and never do.

So here’s the “TO DO” List:

* Take a load of stuff to the Tip. DO NOT go to the Tip shop and bring anything else home. Nyet. Nada. Nothing.

* Finish off some washing and ironing so the kids don’t go to school next week looking like they slept in their uniforms (like they did last week).

* Wash the floors – honestly, there are small tribes of pygmies living in the goop underneath the kitchen table. Ew.

* Dye my hair……To be fair, it only need the roots done but I look like a hippy. I haven’t found any grey (yet – and I’m not looking too hard either ) but there are white crazies in my eyebrows. Sorry. Too much info?

* Grab a shovel and attempt to clear some space in the Rumpus Room. What on earth do those kids do in there? We buy storage from IKEA and then spend hours cursing the makers of all flat packs assembling it. Then they pull it all OUT of the storage and spread it all over the floor so that the last time I saw carpet in there was in 2004.

* Start knitting DH’s jumper. This is a project that fills my gut with dread. I can knit a scarf. I could even knit a pillow if you coached me – but a full jumper. If he’s lucky he’ll have one arm only lsightly longer than the other and it will be finished when the kids get married. In 2020.

Sheesh, just looking at that list makes me tired. I may have to stop and have a cuppa before I get going. And maybe some toast. And maybe catch up on Facebook. And Lolcats. Gee, it’s Saturday night already! Where did the time go

I have managed to do some scrapping this week. I don’t quite know how – one minute I was repainting my bedroom and the next I was looking at 4 scrapped pages on my desk. Must be PMS or something.

“Hopelessly Devoted”:

A LO for my brother for Father’s day using the Man About Town papers from Upsy Daisy. Speaking of Upsy Daisy, guess what? FOUR NEW PAPER LINES. Woohoo! Heading my way and soon to be here in Oz.

Here they are!

(This line is printed onto textured cardstock so I can’t wait to get my mitts on it!)

Loved it loved it loved it loved it loved it. LOVE THEM ALL.

Check out the Upsy Daisy Designs Blog to see what the DT have made using some of these papers and the other gorgeous Upsy Daisy papers.

Here are some of the other projects I have completed this week:

“Honorary Grandad”

(In Canada and America they have Father’s day a bit earlier than in Oz, so these are in time for their celebrations).

Here’s some ideas for you to try using your stamps and brads too:

*Why not use a stamp to “interlink” a border pattern, then cut it out and use it as a border on your LO?

* Use brads as “dot points” at the beginning of journaling strips.

* Rub a large Rub-on onto white cardstock then cut out and mount off your page as a custom title.

I hope this post keeps everyone busy for a few hours – I’m off to try and conquer my list! Wish me luck

Sares x

Last Box Packed

At last I have packed up the final box of “Memory Gift Albums” and they are soon going to be heading down to Victoria. I have to tell you, I don’t know what I’m going to do with all the room in my house once they are all gone! LOL.
The Memory Gifts Project has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my life. I have never before seen such generosity and love given by people and I am very honoured to have been a part of it all.

I wanted to copy here for you the letter I have written and placed in the front of each album:

“Dear Family,

Welcome to your new Memory Gift Album.

My name is Sarah Gladman and I am a mother of 4 children.
During the time of the bushfire crisis in your home state, I was touched and saddened by the losses you, your friends and family suffered. I devised a way to help rebuild some more positive memories in your lives. The Memory Gifts Project was created so that other crafty ladies around Australia could help me, too.

As you know, some of the most precious objects lost in fires are family photos and momentos. Scrapbookers believe in the importance of these objects and spend a lot of time and money putting albums together to try and tell the stories of their children and families. I wanted to be able to give you something to help you start putting those stories back together. Of course, some of your photos and special objects may be lost but there are new photos to be taken and stories to be told as you begin to rebuild your lives.

Your Memory Gift album is a “blank” scrapbook album. Each page has been created until almost completed. The next stage is for you to place your salvaged or new photos inside. If you are missing photos, why not write about that special birthday or event? I hope that, over time, your new album will be filled with new pictures and stories that will be handed down to your children to help them to remember happy times in your family lives.
So that you can add your own special touch to your album, you are also being given a “Starter Pack” of
basic scrapbooking equipment such as adhesives, papers and embellishments. Feel free to add whatever new and improved touches to your pages using this Kit.

You may ask how we managed to get so many Memory Gift albums organized. I am happy to tell you that, when I asked my scrapbooking friends to help me create some albums, the crafting community responded immediately and so did the wider Aussie community—both here and throughout the rest of the world.
Initially I asked everyone that read my website to contribute at least one finished page. I never counted on
everyone donating at least 10 finished pages and I realized that we were looking at a much bigger project than I first imagined.

When the cut off date arrived, we finished up with a total of just over 14,000 pages, over 850 albums and over $10,000 worth of scrap booking supplies donated. I was absolutely blown away at the generosity and eagerness of everyone to help out. By the time we finished, I had received over 500 parcels (my postman was impressed I can tell you ) from all over Australia as well as Indonesia, North America, South
America, Guam, Dubai, England, Switzerland and Canada.

I am so very proud to have been a part of this whole project.

You will see that some of the pages in your album have been signed (on the back) and some have even got a small, personal message or note of encouragement included. I hope you don’t mind that I have left them there—I felt they were a small way that
people contributing felt that they were reaching a “person” rather than just donating money.

I hope that you will accept this album knowing that, as painful as recent memories can be, we hope that life continues more positively for you and for your family. I hope that this album in a small way can help you rebuild what was lost. I also hope that this album is something you can have that is more personal. Something handmade, specifically for you, with pleasure.

With many warm wishes to you and your family,
Regards,
Sarah Gladman”

I appreciate you guys reading such a long post but I thought you would want to be witness to the end of the project and know what the families will be reading when they get their album.

So, what comes next? I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – a HUGE THANKYOU. I can’t ever repay the generosity of every one of you who donated a page, or a Kit or an album, or supplies for the Memory Gifts. The call went out for help and you all made such a huge effort to contribute. You should all feel very, very proud of what you have made because it is going to bring hours of pleasure to the families who receive an album.

I am still absolutely blown away by the amount of work that was put into the pages donated for the albums. And I have to say a special thankyou to those of you who sent me a card or a note just to thank me for my efforts – it meant a great deal to me when I received those cards. There were times when I thought I would be overwhelmed at the thought of the whole project, but I would open a card from one of you and it would brighten my day and off I would go again.

So a Big :

I am going to post this now so that you can all read it and then I am going to re-edit the post later with some of my latest work and some interesting new scrapping tidbits to chew on

And later on:

Here’s a few shares – for those of you who are heading up to the Papercraft Festival in Brisvegas this week, please check out the ADDICTED TO CRAFT stand and catch up with the lovely Angella Peardon, Hetty Hall, Jane Tregenza and other from our DT showing off their work using the latest My Mind’s Eye, Prima and many other brands.

Here are the LO’s that I created using the new MME 29th Street Market,Dream Street and Prima Paintable Transparencies.

 

Have fun and happy scrapping!
Sares x

Virus Times Two

I’ve been struck down with a double virus this week – first, the Koobface one on my computer and second, the dreaded flu lurgy! Urgh to both.

All in all, I would have rathered the computer virus, but hey, you don’t get much choice with these things when you have little ones, do you? Little germ factories. Every time I see another kid sneeze I shudder. It’s hard enough dealing with 4 sick kids at the best of times but when DH goes to Hawaii in July they are FORBIDDEN to get sick. I mean it, kids. You break both your legs, DON’T come running to me, ok?

While I was busy sneezing spluttering all over my desk I had another 4 boxes of Memory Gifts albums arrive – thankyou to everyone up at Daisy Chain scrapbooking as well as the Tassie shop who also sent me a parcel. I have collated them and they are now getting ready for sending.

I also managed to get some projects done for the Brisvegas Papercraft Show happening next week – my work for Addicted to Craft using the new Dream Street, new Prima paintables and new Prima Transparencies – woohoo, had a ball with those ones. Mind you, I can’t show you much – OK maybe I can relent and show you some of the cards.

I also pulled together some Chatterbox cards and Wedding invited using their new FABULOUS range. I mean, it’s fabulous stuff and it’s called Fabulous too, just so you don’t get confused.

I’ve also been playing with some more Digi work for Eidou – this is my newest creation – a set of Vintage Fairy Adobe Brushes - I am hand colouring them as we speak and they are being turned into .png elements – so head on over to EIDOU and take a look at all our latest uploads. You’ll be playing with Digi in no time!

I also put together a FREEBIE for you – for those of you who are considering going Hybrid, start with this Kit and you’ll find out how addictive (and inexpensive) it is to be able to print out your own embellishments like these and then use them in your paper scrapping!

Check out the FREEBIE NOTEPAPER HERE.

And here’s another Tutorial for you this week – part of my “one per week” schedule.

 This week it’s all about “Photographing Babies” – whether it’s your own bub or a friends’, there is something HERE that might help you take better baby photos.

Well, that’s all from me folks – until next time – see you ’round like a rissole!

Sares x