....and yes I have been playing catch up since I returned from our vacation but I did find some time for a little scrap therapy.......aaahhhhh......just what a girl needed after such a busy holiday season. For two full days I spent in my art room playing with my Kenner Road December goodies and I have to say (yes I know I say this all the time but seriously I find it so easy to scrap with the collections kl puts together) the December collection (I usually purchase every kit KR brings out each month) has to be my new favorite collection. As I was creating each page, a new idea to use the goodies would pop into my head! Enough chit chat, here are some pages.

The photo was taken at the beach up at Coffs Harbour as the sun was setting. As I was about to take the photo Miss J reached over to her sister and said to her "let me fix your hair" hence the title....lol! It was such a sweet moment!

As promised I finally found some time to edit the Christmas gift photos. This year I had so much fun creating some of the Christmas presents for friends and family. I plan to keep the tradition going each Christmas. I loved the look on my family's faces as they unwrapped their handmade gifts. My sister especially. It took several hours to convince her to just open the gift. She said it was wrapped so beautifully she didn't want to open the gift. I had to threaten her saying that I would go home now if she didn't open it. My niece Miss C loved her gift, she has it sitting on her dresser and to my surprise, the colors in her room go perfectly with the canvas. Ok, on with some photos!

I made my 3 nephews gift card holders for their gift cards. Nothing fancy as they just tore them open as I suspected....lol. I simply stapled a bit of ribbon the the bottom of the gift card to use it to pull the gift card from the handmade envelope. Stamped them with Pink Paislee's Mistletoe and Co Impressions clear stamps and also used Fiskars a to z clear stamps that I got in one of my Teckni Colour kits from Tarisota. I used a sewing machine to seal the edges of the envelopes and stuck a Making Memories glitter foam sticker on the back to seal the envelope.


 My brother has a terrible memory (either that or he just couldn't be bothered....lol) and he always forgets our birthdays so I made him a magnetic birthday reminder calendar so he can put it on his fridge. I got the idea and the printable perpetual calendar from the Pebbles Inc blog that Celeste Smith made. A perfect and fitting gift for my lazy bones brother! I  used all Kenner Road goodies from Windy Corner (October '09 Add on kit) and Handmaiden (October '09 Main kit).

Each Christmas I change the colors I use for wrapping the presents and this year I chose gold, red, green and beige/tan/brown. Wrapping presents would have to be my favorite part of gift giving.

I was inspired by a Christmas tutorial that Kendra McCracken (this woman has such amazing talent) did for Fiskars called Cardinals and Tags Tree so I made similar ones as my gift tags for my family's presents and added American Crafts Thickers for the first letter of their names.

So what have I been up to for the last few days....well scrapping of course! I finally pulled out my July KR kits and got creative. Two layout's and an album, well there are no pages in the album yet but I plan on adding to it.

The first one is a 12 x 12 page about my two sweeties giving each other a lovely little cuddle and not fighting for once....amazing!!



The second one is another 12 x 12 page of the girl's relaxing on in the garden about a year ago. The photos were taken at our last house, I miss that garden so much and so do the girl's. We spent many hours out on the porch and playing in the garden, loads of BBQ's and a rabbit or two!



The last one is a little album covered in yummy Heather Bailey material. I will be adding a bunch of family photos that really need some attention. I have been meaning to print them out for ages instead of hiding out inside my PC!



Well, my eldest DD finally goes back to school tomorrow, poor thing she has been very ill this year. I think she has managed to go to school for two weeks last term. We have all been house bound for the last 3 weeks as Octavia wasn't able to leave the house unless she was wearing a face mask (she tested positive for a strain of the swine flu) which she was too embarrassed to wear as she thought everyone would laugh at her. We've been having loads of fun playing with my scrapbooking supplies and making all kinds of things, (strange but good....lol) playing the Wii and doing fun activities we found on the net. It's funny, you think you have a really big house until you are restricted to leave it, surrounded by two fighting girl's and a flu shot injected mother who keeps telling you her arm is going to fall off! How much fun can you have in a little over 3 weeks????? I swear the walls are getting closer every day.....lol!

Ok, I have an album to get started on for my friend I mentioned in the last post......here's a sneak peek:

HAPPY DAYS!

All frames by Catherine Designs at After 5 Designs HERE and HERE

My poor little blog, feeling so neglected and lonely!
A little bit of news.....I am a god-mother! Wooohoooo.....here is my little boy Ashton:


My brother Drew and his partner Tammy are over the moon, I have not seen my brother look so happy and proud to be a dad! Ashton is so little and sweet, I hardly let him out of my arms during our visit, I wanted to take him home with me but little Jada was not happy one little bit about that idea...lol! I can't wait to see him again next month for his christening.

Here's a little project I did using some yummy Kenner Road goodies:



Materials Used:

Papers by American Crafts and Sassafras Lass, sale price tag, vintage yellow ribbon and chipboard buttons by Jenni Bowlin all from Kenner Road; Flower pots by Mondo; Stamped Alpha by Queen & Co; Material by Heather Bailey and Spotlight; Buttons and love note ticket from Making Memories and my button stash; Eyelets from Moonshine Designs; Thickers and flair buttons by American Crafts; Bazzill Cardstock, Black Archival Ink, Chipboard, Twill, Embossing Label Maker, Glue gun.

THINK HAPPY THOUGHTS!

Worn Overlays used on photos are by Amy Martin from The Lilypad