Today...

You may find me here...

And then even possibly here...

I'm looking forward to a day of fun conversation with Dan (and maybe even Kate :-P), good coffee and inspiration in the bucketfuls. A fab way to end the week :-)

July 2009 - House Update

Ok, so lots has been going on with the house, in the month of July, along with the exciting arrival of Cedar, and also having my parents and nan stay with us...yep, I said 'stay with us'..lol...it was the next best thing to camping apparently ;-P

Anyhow, this post is all about the house..don't say you weren't warned....:-)

Here is our beautiful Spotted Gum timber flooring delivery - all piled up neatly, ready to be laid.

Here is some of the timber flooring laid - I must say that I just LOVE this timber - the various colours all randomly placed, in my opinion, looks fantastic!

Next up, our plasterboard was delivered. To say it's been chaotic inside is an understatement, but the piles are slowly diminishing each weekend. And the dust...oh my goodness

And at the end of last weekend, this is what the interior looked like. Our living area has nearly all the plaster up...

Jude and Alannah's rooms have the plaster up, as does the stair well, and part of the hallway.

And here are our two little helpers (on their terms, of course :-P), but it's great for them to be involved too.

August is looking like being another crazy month, but so many things are happening. This week I picked up the main bathroom wall tiles - a simple white gloss ceramic tile 30cmX60cm, as well as a dark grey pebble strip feature about 15cm wide. Next Tuesday our kitchen/laundry/bathroom floor tiles are being delivered and we can pick up our new kitchen - yay! And within two weeks our stairs will be ready for pick up too. It's going to be great when the kitchen and stairs go in - it will be like a real house - woo hoo!!!

Now, to pick paint colours..fun, fun!

A Little Scrappin'

Had a productive day with Danielle on Tuesday, scrapping and just hanging out. I managed to finish two layouts. Here they are :

This top one started from one of last month's sketches at the Scrapability Sketch Blog, but I only just managed to finish it this last week - whoops!



And I finally scrapped Jude's ultrasound photos...only took me over 4 years..lol. This paper is from the new June Bug range from Basic Grey. Love the colours in this one.

Hello Cedar

Congratulations to my little sis Dan, and her family on the arrival of my new little nephew, Cedar Rhodes. Of course, he is just adorable :-) And I'm looking forward to lots of bubby snuggles.

xx

Settling on Bathroom Fittings

So we're nearing the stage where the bathroom is going to be installed, tiled, etc. And it's time to finalise decisions on fittings.

Here is one major thing that I had my heart set on - a free-standing bath - and I got it. It's a New Reece Mizu Square-edged free-standing bath that I won off ebay for a bargain prize -more than 50% off of the retail price - which makes me and Roh very happy :-). Always got to love a bargain!

The other thing is our toilet suite - we've gone with the Reece Tonic design - all the s-bend is encased all the way to the wall, which makes for easier cleaning - yay! That was another one of my 'must-haves' - s-bends just frustrate me to pieces.

So anyway, I'm sure you just love that I'm sharing every detail of our reno with you...hmm...maybe pushing it a bit with the toilet share...lol...Will be back with some more reno photos soon, and maybe even some scrapping.

Next post is my 300th post..so will have to make it about something exciting ;-)

Scrapability Sketches Blog - New Creative Team

And I'm on it! Along with six other talented ladies - all their blogs are now in my side-bar, if you wish to check them out :-)

The first July sketch has just been released. Here's the sketch and my take on it :

A Puffing Billy Outing

Yesterday, after a really horrid week of sickness, we took the kids on a morning out, on Puffing Billy. It was a chilly morning, but the sun was shining beautifully and very brightly. Here are a few snaps from our day out...

The famous Selby trestle bridge..
Alannah.. Jude..

Emerald Lake Park, looking so peaceful and pretty..

The Puffing Billy Train..

Rohan and Jude, both as excited as each other..lol...

Alannah and me, snuggling up against the cool wind..

House Update - Nearly there

So, we're just up to re-cladding the exterior of the only two remaining original rooms, which will be the laundry and our bedroom. The laundry got the do-over on the weekend, including removal of the existing window, and installation of the new one.

The inside of our current bathroom, with the window removed..

The current look of our bathroom/laundry with the new window in. Different..hey? lol

And the wall pretty much finished except for some filling and painting.

Our bedroom has been partially re-clad, the eaves are being finished off tonight, and the electrical rough-in is taking place this week too. Always something to get done around here, at the moment.

My June 123 Blog Entry

Here's my take on this month's challenge over at the 1,2,3 Challenge Blog.

This month the key componets were the use of fabric (the bird cages - Q tea kit), buttons (at least six) and hand-stitching (details on the bird cages). I had fun using bright colours with these autumn photos, and I love these photos of Danielle and Ash that I took in May.

New Sketch Blog

Check it out here ...

Scrapability Sketches

The sweet and lovely Becky Mitchell is running this blog, and the June sketch is up now. Complete it by the 28th June, and you go into the running for a guest Creative Team member spot - how cool!

Why not give it a go?

xx

House Update - Nearly Locked Up - Yay!

So, even since I took these photos on Saturday, more work has happened and now the super large window has been installed and the weatherboards put up around it, which means we are no longer living in just a framework - woo hoo! Just in time for the really cold weather too.

Will head down the hill and take another photo of the new large window soon, and update in the next week.

But for now, here are some pictures of our house, which I think is coming along very nicely :-)

And, just for a laugh, here is the inside of the house, and as you can see, my 'kitchen' area..lol..just like camping! And the big window was sitting here while I painted it, and is now in the space pictured next picture down.

Ok, so I really need to do something creative to share, but I just actually haven't done anything - haven't had the time nor motivation with the things going on with the house - there seems to be always something to paint (which is me - painter-girl :-P). Would love to give the 123 Blog challenge a go, so we'll see what happens this week.

Oh, and Alannah has another wobbly tooth.

Something Spiffy

This is our new front door handle/lock - I finally won something on ebay and it's pretty spiffy. It uses fingerprints to open the door instead of a key - seems kinda space-aged to me but pretty cool. Jude thinks it's very special..lol...

The house should be very near lock up by the end of the weekend - yay! Will have pictures to show once the hill dries up a bit - at the moment it's a tad muddy from this week's rain. But it is looking really good, and I can't wait to have all our walls up. It's nearly time for the fun stuff to start :-P

Some Walls

A small update on the house. Quite a few walls went up over the weekend, but not all unfortunately - due to rain and having to re-assemble scaffolding which is time consuming.

Here are a few pics. I have more to take..but again, the rain is getting in the way of that :-P

This is the back of the house, with a rumpus room window in..

Side wall - rumpus room..

Front wall...

This is the right side wall, view from the road. These windows are the bathroom & ensuite windows...

Our Funny Two

Just a quick photo share of our two little monkeys - Jude struggled to stop making faces, while Lana was all smiles..

An Alannah Milestone

Ok, so it's not a fantastic photo. Poor Lana has a cold so she's a bit sore around the nose, but the big news is ....she lost her first tooth yesterday! She was very excited but then a little unsettled - she wasn't too sure about the feeling of the gap in her teeth, and how to eat normally too. But today she's completely fine with it, and even excited again - she can't wait to tell Mrs B at school on Tuesday..lol.

Paul Dempsey Gig

These photos are courtesy of the Triple M website/photographer from our night out, at Paul Dempsey's solo single release gig.

He did a great show, and we had a really good time. The support act was very talented too - Young Werther - except for a very 'blue' Martha Wainwright cover, we really enjoyed it.

It was very cool to get a photo of Roh and I together, as this is the first gig we've been to together since I was pregnant with Alannah, which funnily enough was a Something For Kate concert (of which Paul Dempsey is the lead singer). Although flash photos are never very flattering!

Finishing Off

So these two layouts I've had hanging around for weeks, and I finally got around to finish them off.

This first one is using Lily-Bee products (picked up from Kiti Q). Loved the colour combo used here, inspired by the products, and love how warm it looks.

This next one is really quite a bad quality image - I took the photo when it was nearly dark, but it tells the story of Jude's operation in photos. All the journaling is actually written on the back of the layout as there was a lot to record. This uses Crate Paper's Orbit range - so cute!

Not much scrapping actually happening at the moment. Due to other commitments, I had to pull out of the Arty Pants DT comp, as I just couldn't fit in the last challenge, but something positive has come out of my application for it, but I won't share that just yet ;-)

In house news, hopefully by the end of this long weekend, our house should be at lock-up stage, and I'll have a load of new photos to share. Have been trying to pick up a few things on ebay for the house, but haven't had much luck yet. Will keep trying :-P