House Progress - 24th - 26th December 2008

It's really starting to look like a room now. Here's the run-down over the last couple of days...

24th December 2008 : First wall frame was made and put into place.

Here's Roh and his dad making up the first part of the back wall :

Second frame put in place. This is the first part of the back wall (rumpus room).

Two cheeky little monkeys spying on their dad and pa from the living area windows.

Third wall frame on it's way.

26th December 2008 : Fourth wall frame placed in position. All four frames up.

Lana and Jude outside, watching the action.

All walls braced. First floor timber sitting on timber frame, not in the right spots, but ready to be maneouvred (is that the right spelling?? lol)

Sorry this is all quite factual, but I really want this as a record of happenings, as much as to share the photos and progress with my interstate family & friends, who all know how long we have been waiting for this. Roh's really happy with how things are travelling, and so far, nothing too dramatic has gone wrong, so fingers crossed it continues that way.

Um, what else have we been up to? Took the kids to see Madagascar 2 yesterday - so hilarious! We all loved it. I've been scrapping - finally got one of my half finished projects completed - yay! Will share very soon. Still have about 6 other unfinished projects to get through, but oh well, all good.
Took myself off to the Myer stocktake sale early, EARLY (7.30am) this morning just to see if I could get Jude a new suit for a good price, and I am happy to say that I succeeded - woo hoo! The suit jacket was $30 off, while the pants had $19 discounted from the full price, so I was very happy indeed :-)

Ok, I think that about does me for today...sorry for the randomness of my post. Hope everyone is well and safe!

Hugs, K xx

House Progress - 19th-21st December 2008

Ok, so I'm back with some more house shots. Can't believe how much has happened in one week!

19th December 2008 : Rohan and his dad, Dennis, started bright and early putting the hy-joists into the sub-floor frame. The inspector came around just before midday and gave us the go-ahead to keep on building - yay!


19th December 2008 : About 5pm - all done!


20th December 2008 : Saturday afternoon Roh and his Dad continue working. This time attaching the floor sheets to the sub-floor. In this pic, Roh is attaching some brackets to the frame.

View from back of house :

21st December 2008 : Roh, with some help from Ben, finishes off the flooring. Woo hoo! Our rumpus room has a floor!!

This is the view from the rumpus room - tree tops. So serene and beautiful.


And here's Roh sitting on the new floor. It's a beautiful day here - a little bright for photos :-P


So far things are progressing well with the house, although it will probably slow down this week due to other commitments. Everyone here is very happy that things are finally happening though.

I have scrapped some more, and have nearly finished another layout that I can share. Will be back tomorrow, maybe ..he he.

Take care.
K xx

Layouts X 2

Ok, so not a very original title - sorry - brain isn't feeling expressive :-P

This first layout I finished off last week, playing with the new October Afternoon range, Night Light, which is so adorable and perfect, I think, for little boy layouts with little quirky monsters - so cute! This image isn't great - I scanned when I think I should've photographed - but oh well. The colours do work well, although this image doesn't really sell that point...lol...Photos were taken by DQ in October.


On Tuesday I went to the Heidi Swapp Create 08 workshop in Melbourne, and it was fantastic! Heidi is a very inspirational woman, whose honest and friendly demeanour made her so easy to like, and easy to learn from too. She is definitely one talented lady. Anyhow, I digress...the day was full on, as in 'don't scratch that itch or you will get behind', seriously it was that crazy busy all through-out the day BUT we did learn so much. My head has been full of ideas ever since and last night I sat down and played with my new distress inks (yup, new - I just had to get some, and because I have to have a good variety - I bought 6..he he) and masks. This is my first layout since the event, and my first solo attempt with the inks and masks. Another layout I probably should've photographed instead of scanned but again, oh well...lol...There is a little bit of bling on this layout which makes it look a bit better than this, but I am happy with my first attempt. I think there will probably be a few layouts like this coming up in the next few weeks - I already have another one planned in my head - so be warned...lol!!

Will update tomorrow with more house progress - yes, can you believe it?? MORE house progress. The ground floor (which will be the rumpus/family/guest room) has almost got the flooring down - woo hoo!!

Enjoy the rest of your Saturday!

K x

House Progress - 12th - 18th Dec 2008

This has been one crazy week, what with the Heidi Swapp Workshop, Cassie staying (yay!) and the house finally starting underway - it has all been a little chaotic, to say the least.

Anyhow, this is just going to be a house update, for those who are curious, and especially for my interstate family to see. Woo hoo - it's all happening now!!

12th Dec 2008 : Plans pinned up on wall. Our constant reminder of our end goal.


14th December 2008 : Nathan removing the old stumps from previous owners attempt at an illegal extension & prepping the site for Earthlift.


14th December 2008 : Site finished by Nathan & Roh, all ready for Earthlift on Tuesday.


16th December 2008 : Tait Timber delivery of our timber using a crane truck. Timber is now sitting in our driveway :-P


16th December 2008 : Earthlift drilling in our screw pile stumps. Were suppose to go down 6 metres, as detailed in our geotech engineer's report, but they hit rock about 3-4 metres down, so for each stump they went in just as far as they could, after approval from our engineers and council reps.


16th December 2008 : Earthlift removing the dirt ramp, which they used to access the top 4 stump sites, and clearing for the remainder of the stumps to go in.


17th December 2008 : James, from Close Quarter Earthmoving, came in with his excavator to remove a lot of excess fill and prep the site for levelling & for the sub-floor to go down.


17th December 2008 : Site cleared and ready for Earthlift to come back and cut the screw piles to the right height and add braces.

18th December 2008 : Earthlift cut screw piles and weld on steel braces. Site ready for sub-floor.


18th December 2008 : Rohan and Clayton prep the existing house for the new sub-floor to be installed.
18th December 2008 : Rohan and Clayton bracing the existing house.

18th December 2008 : First piece of sub-floor timber layed.



As I type, Rohan and his dad are building the sub-floor. The inspector has been by and approved it, so now we are good to go with the flooring, framing, first floor sub-floor, first floor framing and more. Will be back with more photos as things progress. So exciting!!

House Ideas - take 1

With the house extension/renovation finally starting next week, I've started a book of ideas for each of the rooms and areas, with paint swatches, furniture ideas, etc. Here are a few that I've finished...

Living Area/Foyer Ideas :
Alannah's bedroom :
I actually have already bought this bedding set with cushions, because I loved it so much. It's just so pretty. I also have the quilted throw that matches, which brings in a bit more green which looks fab with it.

Family Bathroom Ideas :
I have more pages on the go, and will share when I remember. I love interior design/decorating and cant wait to be able to live it out in my own home. It's been a long time coming and I am so excited about the next year. Paint samples, fabrics, wall treatments...ahhh, heaven :-P

Lana - kinder days

Here's a few photos of Lana from kinder. I do have some really cute ones of Lana with her friends but it's probably not wise to put other people's kids up onto my blog without their say so, so I won't :-)


She's getting so big now and is so excited about school.
And here's one of Jude on the kinder's pirate ship slide, just for fun ...

Busy Days Ahead..

Finally, we have a date for the beginning of our building adventure - Tuesday 16th December - woo hoo!! On this day, the big machine comes and screws in our steel stumps and our frame is delivered. Roh is planning on building flat out over the Xmas break to get it to first floor stage by early January. I can't believe things are finally starting!

Also on that day, myself, Dan and my dear friend Cass, from SA, are all heading to the Heidi Swapp Creative Escape and that too is something that I am so excited about. Looking forward to a fun girls day out. And Janine is coming down for it as well, so can't wait to catch up with her too :-) Should be a great day of fun!

The new Scrapbook Creations is out, and Dan's got the cover and it looks fantastic! I'm so excited for her. Also out is the latest For Keeps with Vita's cover - more great projects from Vita are shared with the how-to instructions in the mag too. Awesome hey? I've got two layouts in the latest FK's - one double layout for the ET project, which is my last ET project and the other is a Printblocks advertorial using K&Company products. Here's my double layout - celebrating Roh and I having been together for 10 years which is one third of my life..crazy...:-)


Took some photos of Alannah at kindy today, so will be back with those when I've had a chance to look at them. She has her end of year kinder concert tonight too, so she's pretty excited about that. Not long now and she'll be off to school...eek!

Take care xx

Ebay Listings - Scrap Stuff

Ok, so I actually got something off of my to-do list done - woo hoo for me...hehe..

I have done a bit of a purge of my scrap stash so if anyone is interested, I have listed 4 major pizza boxes full of scrap stuff - boy, girl, love & friendship and family & holidays, as well as one packet of the Daisy D's Wonder Years Rub-ons. Could make great gifts :-)

Here's the Love & Friendship kit :

Did you see the Glimmer mist hidden among the goodies there? It's the beautiful 'Black Cherry' colour..hmm...nice :-)

Ok, next up is the Girl kit :


Next up is the Family & Holidays kit :


And last up for the kits is the Boy one :


And here is the Daisy D's Wonder Years Rub-ons :


Ok, wow, two posts in one day - I don't think I've ever done that before..lol

Take care xx

So..it's Friday

And we are having a home day. How I love and long for 'home' days, as they don't happen very often. But now the problem is - what to do? I have a list that is so long - sewing, scrapping, ironing, house stuff, ebay listing..hmmm...not sure..so while I procrastinate over the list, I thought I'd quickly do a blog post :-P

Here's a layout I started last weekend, at Reeze's place, and finished off on Monday. This is of my little sis Hayley, who lives in SA. Loved the top she is wearing in this photo and the retro colours - fabulous inspiration.


It's a real mix of Basic Grey Sultry, Ambrosia and Offbeat, as well as Daisy Bucket & Rhonna Farrer rub-ons, brads, a Love Elsie Chipboard frame and some KI Memories chipboard. I'm loving using up some of my older stash too.

This weekend should be busy with house stuff - Roh and his dad are suppose to be finishing off the access road for the big screw pile machine to get in on and it needs to be about 2.5 metres wide all the way, which was ok until it hit the corner of our house, so now some major retaining walls, and fill are going to be used to fix it. Fingers crossed we get the screw piles in before Xmas.

Have a fab weekend!

Ok, so I didn't win :-(

And I am a bit disappointed, but who wouldn't be. And it doesn't mean that I am not absolutely thrilled for Chloe who did win the 2008 'So You Think You Can Scrap' Australia's Favourite Scrapper title - woo hoo - enjoy the slice chickie! It was a great comp and I got a whole heap of new layouts finished because of it, so it's all good really :-)

Onto a bit of good news, I have had two layouts picked up by Scrapbooking Memories today - my double layout grand final entry, and another layout of Rohan which hasn't even hit the blog yet - so that's cool - I'm happy about that.

Other news - Alannah has been allocated her first school class, which we found out about last night, while we went to the prep info session. She also got to pick her library bag and chair bag, so that's another couple of things off of the 'school to get' list, which is great.

Last week, Alannah's kinder had the AGM, which as I'm president, I had to run. In usual Kelly-style, I put my big foot in it when explaining about the responsibilites & legal liabilities that go along with being president of a kinder, and then surprise, surprise...no-one wanted to take the job on....lol...but eventually two mums offered to share the role, so all is good. I hand all the stuff over to them tonight, and then I'll be free - woo hoo!!!

My sister DQ has posted an absolutely awesome photo of Ash, her son, on her blog, so go check it out if you're curious - I think it's just fantastic!

I have finished another layout off, of my other sister Hayley but I haven't sorted the image out yet, so I may be back later with that.

I'll just leave you with an image of my latest project - this is a cross-stitch that I picked up on ebay - so retro and funky - I love it!! (seller : cutestuffonline..lol) Can't wait to get started on it, even though it's quite big and will take forever, but I've been feeling in the mood for some stitching lately, so this will fill that need....hehe

My SYTYCS Grand Final Entries

Boy, did I feel the pressure this week! Even though the challenge was actually quite simple - one single and one double layout in your own style, I think that freedom made it harder...lol..or maybe that's just me..:-P

Anyhow, here's my single. For something different, I made the grey car out of felt and turned the windscreen area into a journal spot :

Love this patterned paper here (the cars) by Glitz Designs - I picked up at Papercrafts from the shop Memories 2 Remember. The girls there are so lovely and have awesome customer service, from my experience.

Next is my double. This was actually my second attempt at a double layout. The first one is still in pieces in my scrap tote - it just wasn't working. So this morning I started fresh with new photos. Then with a mad dash down to The Scrapbook Scene and Janet and Sharon, I came back with a stack of Basic Grey Ambrosia to play with. I think they worked great with the autumn photos (click on it for a larger pic).

(Image removed - picked up for publication with SM)

They are now up in the gallery at Scraptacular and the nervous wait begins until tomorrow's announcement of the winner. I think voting starts 8.30pm tonight and goes for only 24 hours - eek! Can't wait to see Kirsty's and Chloe's entries :-)

Oh My Goodness..

I made it to the grand final round of So You Think You Can Scrap at Scraptacular - far out!!

Thank you to anyone who's voted for me - I'm still so surprised to have made it this far - so a big thanks for your support and comments. I've had a ball with this competition and my album is looking very full with all the layouts :-)

Thanks again!
xx

Round 11 of SYTYCS

Can't believe I've made it this far, with the talent I'm sharing the comp with - it's just amazing. If anyone has voted for me throughout this competition - thank you so much!!

Here are my Round 11 layouts. I just made deadline with the Barbie one :-P

Got back from Adelaide at about 1am this morning, so am really feeling it now. Going to head off and veg in front of the tv now, I think.

Have a fab week! xx

Broadband is back - woo hoo!!

Man oh man, I missed my broadband. Dial up is just soooo slow! Oh well, whinge over. It's back and all is good again.

So I have completed a few layouts in the last few weeks, and amazingly enough I have made it through to Round 11 of SYTYCS - crazy, I know and now the pressure is on. Here are my Round 10 entries :
This first layout was for the "Music to your ears" challenge. Inspiration had to be taken from a CD cover (or record cover, etc) and I used the album "Polyserena" by George for my inspiration. Secondly, the lyrics of a song had to be incorporated into it somewhere, somehow. I've used lyrics from the song "Black & Gold" by Sam Sparro, which is a fav at the moment on my ipod - very boppy and it definitely has a catchy tune :-P

The second challenge was called "Lift It" and for this we had to choose a layout by one of the Scraptac Design Team girls and scraplift it. I've scraplifted Dionne Molina's layout entitled "Sweet Traditions" which appeared in one of the last issues of For Keeps Creative Scrapbooking, I think...hmmm... Anyway, I flipped the photo placement and put my twist on it. I'm actually really happy with this one - I LOVE all the colour, and the funky BG range "Offbeat" was fun to play with. Thanks for the inspiration Dee!!

Next up are a couple of layouts based on the fabulous KI Memories Sheer Delights - sorry the images aren't fantastic but they are very tricky to photograph :-P..well, for me anyhow! These Sheer Delights are available over at Kiti Q for only $3.50 a sheet. Why not have a play? They also make great mini album covers as they are thicker and stronger than a transparency but with a lot of the same effect. Fun, fun!! Check out Dan's and/or Vita's blog for more inspiration using these sheers.

And lastly is just a layout I pulled together quickly with a really large photo that I've had sitting in my stash for ages, so decided it was time I actually scrapped it. I've used this layout to list all the different names we call our Lana Girl (including that one :-P he he). With a photo that big, keeping everything else really simple, I feel, is the best way to go.

That's it for scrapping for me over the last couple of weeks. I'm about to get off of this computer and get started on my Round 11 layouts - new fun challenges are up so I better get cracking as I head off the South Aust at the crack of dawn on Friday and don't get back to Monday arvo which is right near deadline..crazy pressure!!

Sydney Papercrafts was fantastic fun. Nikala and Janine were such a laugh to hang around with, and we had an awesome afternoon/evening in Darling Harbour. Will post some photos soon, although I didn't actually take many, having two photographers with me, I felt a little silly with my little snapshot camera next to the girls with their DSLR's and big lenses :-P lol...we had fun though.

Ok, I'm off to scrap.

Thanks for stopping by!!

Would Love to Update BUT...

I am currently on dial-up and everything takes forever to do. Have photos from Sydney and layouts to share. Am excited to be through to Round 10 of SYTYCS. Will update as soon as our broadband services return :-)