Brothers

It's been a beautiful day here in Timaru - warm and sunny autumn weather. I should have been outside gardening or walking but I had planned to go to a crop day at Artfull Crafts all week. Mind you, the day started early with the boys playing rugby at 9am. I love the photo of Jack touching his dad's leg as they are being coached. The team are 5 and 6 years old - don't they look so little?!

Tim (9) played a great game. He may be small but he gets right into the thick of it. This year he is playing halfback and has scored a few tries in the last couple of games. Go Tim!

So on the topic of boys, here is my Kaisercraft Up, Up and Away layout I did today, titled 'Brothers'. I cut the moonride paper (hot air balloons) into circles and layered them on chipboard. This is another sample project for SENZ. I haven't done a layout for a while so it's motivated me to do another soon.

Project day

I've got bronchitis at the moment so have taken a few days off work. In the weekend I lost my voice - I don't think I've ever been in that predicament before, even with trying to keep five kids under control! And all the tips I've learnt as a voice therapist (my bachelors is in speech and language therapy) had no effect whatsoever. Why is it that the kids continued asking questions and expected me to sort out their issues when I was incapacitated? Challenging, to say the least!

Today I spent time doing a Beyond the Page project using a Kaisercraft cube and Bo Bunny Gabrielle papers. The Artfull Crafts store (and staff) are heading up to Auckland next month for SENZ (Scrapbooking and Papercraft Expo NZ) and holding eight workshops. Liz is full of amazing ideas and the design team and staff are busy creating extra projects for display. So this was what I came up with. I'm not much of a scrapbooker so I was happy that I put myself out of the square, so to speak ☺

The photos are some of my favourites of my three youngest boys which I took down at Caroline Bay last autumn. In fact, the one to the left won a regional tourism competition and the boys' image, much to their delight, is on flags around Timaru and on the region's website banner.

The papers are such yummy tones of chocolate, sea green, chalk and apricot. I only used three from the collection because they were double sided and both sides coordinated so well.

I used Tim Holtz distress inks in Walnut Stain and Old Paper, Bo Bunny Gabrielle paper, Spellbinder dies, Martha Stewart punch, Kaisercraft lace and skeleton leaves and seaweed we collected from down at the beach.

Christmas houses

Plans are underway now for opening up our Christmas house to the public. I am fundraising for Christchurch City Chorus to travel to Houston next year for the International Sweet Adelines Convention. I've been a member since the start of the year and I'm so looking forward to being part of this event with my fellow sweet ads friends. It is a big commitment for me to be part of the chorus as I travel a four hour return trip every Wednesday night to rehearsal, plus regular weekend coaching. Sometimes I wonder where I will muster the energy from, but once I'm there and singing I just love it. Singing is a joy, and when you are singing with 150 others in four part harmony, and doing choreo at the same time, it really is an amazing experience.


I'm posting a picture on the theme of today's post. These four houses were from a class I did at the SENZ craft expo earlier in the year in Christchurch. Very fiddly to do, but worth the effort. They fit in well on my Christmas hutch dresser in the front entrance. No one seems to have noticed that I never took down my christmas china off the dresser this year. One less area to redo now which is a bonus!