Onlsow photos and a couple of layouts :)

This layout is another one as the guest designer. Its called "TIME CHANGES many things (but not the love of friends)." its about friends of ours in Oamaru, and they came to visit, we see each other once a year, and the kids just play together like they have never been apart, its just wonderful :)

Now some photos from Onslow (for those of you that emailed me wanting to know what its like. This is what you drive through on your way to the lake. Your on top of the world with no one else around :)

Except for this old tractor in the tussocks. It was used years ago to pull vehicles up the hill, in the days when your vehicle would over heat on the big hills.

It is like in the middle of know where. You drive in and this is what you come too. :)The family skimming stones :)
This is Abby being a boat LOL. The light is natural, I haven't altered it at all, itsn't it gorgeous.
And a layout to finnish with. This is for the April challenge #3 over at scrapbookoutlet . It isn't how I envisaged it but I'm certainly happy with it :)

Belated news

I am late in this, sorry. But most of you may know that the new Ezine is out. It is fantastic too, lots of inspiration in there. I had the absolute privilege of being guest designer for the month. For this I was sent a gorgeous box of supplies (the February kit), that included, pp, cardstock, diecuts, ribbon, brads, chiboard album cover-gorgeous, there was the goreous Making memories note paper and probably a lot that has slipped my mind. I had a play with it all and completed a couple of layouts and cards. I can now share with you all as the Ezine is out.

This layout is of our gorgeous Flo. The flower was stamped on a seperate card then cut out and had dimensional magic over the top.A card I did for Megan and Baz's wedding.This one I wasn't happy with but others thought it was the best one, so thought I'd better share itThis one was to go in a frame into Abbys room, but it hasn't made it out of the lounge LOL

Blog candy.

Check this out over at Carols Paper playce . Its Carols birthday and she has some blog candy to give away. The picture above is a example of what she has on offer, just gorgeous, look at that bling and look at the colour. Now I've managed to take some photos of the section. I've dug around and have photos of when we first arrived here so you can compare. The trees that were in the garden were rotting and hadn't been looked after for ages and they were blocking all our sun out, so they had to come out, and the lawn was full of moss and really wet and with the tractor over the top, well it made a real mess so it got sprayed and worked and well, now its lawn and a new garden. :)

Here is the old out the front photos and unfortunately you can't see the window that was replaced by the sliding door after the alterations. And this is the view from the road. The mail box is in the middle of that flax bush (poor mailman)

And now it is like this, lawn isn't up yet LOL. the hose is in the fish pond which now houses 5 fish, Smudge (Olly's), Foxy Loxy (Jake's) and Bubbles (Abby's), plus two unnamed :) When there is pea straw on over the weed mat it will look 100% better. And you can't see the front deck from here either, it is 11 meters long by 5.6 meters wide (I'm standing on it zooming in)

And here is old out the back photos. The window over Lionels shoulder is the old dining room window that we pulled out and put a sliding door in, for that one day deck (and the one day is now) and the water tank, well it was just a tank full of holes with a old water pump shed beside it that had about a foot of water under it, really safe!!!!!!

And here is the one day deck. On top of the posts we are putting a seat along the front so you can just sit on it and if you want swing your feet out the other side to watch the kids or you can just sit on the deck if your out on "the not there yet" lawn

Well we are really proud of it, must admit, I took a photo before Lionel had trimmed off the decking timber at the other end, sorry.

Layouts to share

As most of you know, last week was scrapcamp in Dunedin (Mosgiel to be precise) and what a hoot it was. I had two fantastic roomies. Lee and Sharon who put up with me for two whole nights. Not that we were in our rooms much, first night was 3 - 31/2 hours and then the last night was about the same. So a very long weekend and very productive weekend. Here is a selection of layouts. The first is of Abby on the fire engine at school camp. She's always wanted to be a fireman and this was just her in her element :) It was also for a challenge to use 6 pieces of paper This was very simple, although time consuming with all that hand stitching around. The title was doen using the slice machine. Don't ya love it :)This was for a challenge to use bling on a layout. :)

And this was to use food on a layout, either word wise or a picture LOL.

Family layout- to use stamps on a layoutThis one was just because. I love this photo of the boys :)This layout kit was kindly donated by Andrea from Scrapbookoutlet and designed by Lara :)And this is for the sketch challenge. There was also a north Island retreat so there was a North vs south sketch challenge kindly being sponsored by fiskars and also fiskars are judging it. This is probably my favourite layout for the weekend. It's based on a sketch but I love the simplicity of it all.

I also did a simple mini album and two cards. So it was a very productive weekend.

We've also been really busy on the home front. We finally have our lawn in. Yep, after two years of having it worked and sprayed it is sown out. And to be honnest, it was the best thing that we could of done (waiting this long). The garden that was there originally with the big trees, well all the roots were gone (because of the spraying) and it was a fine composty type of soil. It has come up awesomley (if there is such a word). I marked out a garden and Lionel has been helping me with it. Then I decided a fish pond would be cool- well I've decided it for a while really, just actually admitted it to Lionel LOL. Then there was that cool water trough over in the paddock that wasn't being used- hint hint. We went over for a look (with the tractor) and brought it back, and it looks brilliant. To top it all off, a big nursery not too far away was having a big sale. We shot over for a look and came back with 50 plants, including a big Japanesse maple, a weeping maple, and a whole heap of natives plus a pom pom tree (Grandads rememberance tree), oh and the water lilly that they kindly dug out of their pond. The weeping maple is just behind the pond. Then on Wednesday after school we went into town and came home with 5 fish. Friends gave us a garden voucher when we moved so we used this for the fish - plus there is five in their family too.

Now there is not only the garden and the lawn but we've nearly finneshed the back deck. I say nearly as there is a seat to put on and the steps and about 4 lengths of decking (This can't go on till the seat is done). Hopefully I'll get some photos reduced and put on here and you can all see.
Well I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and please drive safetly if you are driving.