Whats wrong with my slideshow?

SO I need help!  I can't work out whether its blogger I need to adjust or Photobucket (that hosts my pics) but either way I have no idea where to start.  I know that so many of you blog yourselves that someone could post on here to tell me how I adjust my settings, otherwise I am only going to be showing half of my work lol!  Fingers crossed one of you helpful sorts can show me the way :o)

I'm a winner with Paper Artsy!

Oh I cannot begin to tell you how chuffed I am at being selected (randomly) on the Paper Artsy blog yesterday...I have won 2 of their lovely Christmas stamp sets so I may well be making Christmas Cards this year, after all!





Leandra also gave a heads up for this very creative lady - Jo Capper-Sandon blog which I would wholeheartedly recommend having a browse through, especially if you love the Stampotique stamps (Carmen, you need to go check Jo's work out!!)

And just a quick piccie of my friends' dog Dexter wearing our rugby team's shirt for home match day! He's just the soppiest dog you will have ever met...and he's a Groodle! (cross between a golden retriever and poodle lol!)

I've been Scrappin' !!!

Well, I've managed a couple of layouts over the last couple of weeks :) And I've been using a real mish-mash of manufacturers to boot! Theres BasicGrey, Kaiser Craft, Cosmo Cricket, MME to name a couple, along with techniques a plenty....sewing machine work, distressing with acrylics, tearing, curling, diamond glazing, inking and generally enjoying myself :)

Nigella's Way

I've just been sent this email by my Mum (she knows me too well) and I thought I would put it on here. It made me chuckle :)



1. Nigella's Way - Stuff a miniature marshmallow in the bottom of a sugar cone to prevent ice-cream drips.

The Real Woman's Way - Just suck the ice cream out of the bottom of the cone. You are probably lying on the couch with your feet up eating it anyway.

2. Nigella's Way - To keep potatoes from budding, place an apple in the bag with the potatoes.

The Real Woman's Way - Buy Smash and keep it in the cupboard for up to a year.

3. Nigella's Way - When a cake recipe calls for flouring the baking tin, use a bit of the dry cake mix instead and there won't be any white mess on the outside of the cake.

The Real Woman's Way - Spar sells cakes. They even do decorated versions.

4. Nigella's Way - If you accidentally over-salt a dish while it's still cooking, drop in a potato slice.

The Real Woman's Way - If you over salt a dish while you are cooking, that's tough! Please recite with me the Real Woman's motto: 'I made it and you will eat it and I don't care how it tastes.'

5. Nigella's Way - Wrap celery in aluminium foil when putting in the refrigerator and it will keep for weeks.

The Real Woman's Way - It could keep forever. Who eats it?

6. Nigella's Way - Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and rub it on your forehead. The throbbing will go away.

The Real Woman's Way - Cure for headaches: Take a lime, cut it in half and drop it into 8 ounces of vodka : Drink the vodka. You might still have the headache, but you won't care!

7. Nigella's Way - If you have a problem opening jars, try using latex dishwashing gloves. They give a non-slip grip that makes opening jars easy.

The Real Woman's Way - Why do I have a man?

8. Nigella's Way - Freeze leftover wine into ice cubes for future use in casseroles.

The Real Woman's Way - Left over wine???? Helllloooo?!!

Best (UK) Fathers Day ever!

Mark got a lovely card from the kids (chosen by moi of course!) and Rhiannon had written some beautiful things in it about Mark, all unprompted. Then he had a couple of little pressies and (the best bit!) agreed to go whale watching today, at Victor Harbor which is about 60 km away.

Josh was none too impressed by the whole idea of driving up and down a coast line, pulling in at any given point to see if anyone had seen a whale! But I had been looking at the SA Whale Centre sighting log and there were some positive sightings yesterday and I had a good feeling that we would spot a Southern Right Whale migrating from Antartica to Queensland to breed.

Anyway, we headed off at around 11am, and got to our first view point - Basham Beach. It was just like a dirt track leading off the main road, and we pulled up. As we got out of the car, we heard a call from the whale in the sea in front of us!!!

It took my breathe away - I felt totally in awe and very emotional. The whale was less than 100m in from the shore and was just there "posing" for ages before slowly heading east towards Middleton Beach. Further in the distance were 2 more whales swimming side by side, blowing and rolling every now and then!

I mean, just how lucky are we to have seen thee magnificant creatures playing in front of us like that? And just "down the road" too! LUCKY is an understatement.

We hung around for a while and the kids were getting a little bored and hungry so Mark and I agreed to leave, although I am sure if we hadn't got the kids with us we would have sat there all day.

(5 minutes to) PARADISE

...well it's more like 15 but that didn't sound quite so awesome for a scrapbooking title LOL!!

This photo was taken back in Jan of Sellicks Beach. I just love the trusts and blues of the land and sea and the pure white talc sand that goes with it. We just need the spring to come and the temperature to hot up a bit so we can enjoy it with our clothes off!

FINGERS CROSSED!

Something random I found whilst trawling the net - it made me laugh so much I cried!!!

ANYWAY, WHERE WAS I??!!!

I love peeking at other blogs and am an avid follower of the TIM HOLZ blog. The inspiration there is incredible - he is so generous with his video "how to's" and his RANGER GIVEAWAYS. Fingers crossed for me I get picked...I haven't purchased stash for 6 months because of finances so to get a package from him would make my year!!!

Grin

I love this piccy of my kids when Harrison was a baby...big bro and sis certainly looked please with their new brother!

I have been tinkering with deco pages over the last week for Scrapbook Sisters forum and am getting them posted out tomorrow if Mark gets to the post office.

I will post piccies here once I've got the pics uploaded.

Autumn at Easter

Australia really is the topsy-turvey of England! Instead of daffodils crocus' and snowdrops it's been the lest of the busy lizzies, kangeroo paw and hibiscus!

They don't have the Easter Bunny, but the Easter Bilby (a small rather cute marsupial/rodent creature) and the chocolate isn't the same as in the UK. but nonetheless the children still enjoyed their first Aussie egg hunt in the garden and around the house on Easter Sunday.

The photo of Josh Rhiannon and Harrison was taken at Adelaide Zoo yesterday. Can't wait to scrap this!

Stuff

Well our house contents from the UK finally arrived last week after spending 10 weeks on the ocean. A couple of things unfortunately didn't survive the journey though, including our huge television set which had been dropped!

I am slowly sorting through all my scrapbooking and art supplies - Mark has bought me a beautiful table, cupboard and wall unit on the promise that I will keep tidy and not leave my stuff out. It's going to be hard when I am in mid flow of creating, but I am going to do my best to keep the house looking straight!

This photo was taken the other night from my bedroom window. I can't wait to scrap these pictures.

Sunset over Moana Beach

PHOTOS!

At last - I have my own internet connection so all the pics that got downloaded on to my lappy can be uploaded :) However, I am not going to put everything online as I want to scrap with them and show you them when I have "done my bit" with paper to them! BIG HINT SCRAPBOOKSISTERS!!!!! lol!

Here's a couple though to let you know what we are having to endure ;)

Still waiting....

100 YEAR HEATWAVE

Well it's certainly a talking point!!! We had the car read 50oC at 3pm last week as we were collecting the kids from school *eek* When you step outside it's like someone has just opened the fan oven door on full blast in your face! I am determined NOT to be a whinging Pom so have not said a word about it, although the Aussies are making up for it with their whining!!!I saw our first bush fire on Australia Day - in the Onkaparinga Hills (Isn't that just a fab name?!) We live in the city of Onkaparginga so it was a bit worrying watching the massive plumes of black smoke billowing in the sky as we were on the beach, but apparently after 3 helicopter and plane water bombs and lots of firefighters it was controlled swiftly.

Kids started school on the first day back from the hols on the 26th Jan which was great to get straight into a routine. No jobs as yet though. DH is flying back to the UK on 5th Feb for a month so I will be out here alone. I want to study midwifery I have decided so need to research that and in the meantime get a job which would ideally fit in with the school hours.

Best go and do some ironing now though - I am round Lorraine's house again borrowing her PC and as our belongings are coming until th 5th March :( I am still on the scrounge!

I will post photos just as soon as I am on my PC, and can't wait for my scrapping stuff to arrive...I miss my art :(

Made It!

Well, 3 days ago we arrived in Adelaide - totally jet lagged but happy to have made it. Ours friends' house is so amazing and the kids clicked again as if they hadn't been away. 2 parties later and we have caught up with the sleep and are now starting the hunt for a house. Hallett Cove is beautiful, although not really for us as it is exceptionally hilly so everyone overlooks everyone else. We are looking into a couple of places called Flagstaff, Aberfoyle, and Happy Valley (not sure about this name though - they must be on the Prozac!) which are more extablished so are very green and luscious.

The weather is fab although it's going to be a whopping 41oC tomorrow so we will be inside! Oh, and have already seen a craft shop in one of the towns...I will have to investigate further when we have our own place.

My buddy Sarah made me a journal to record everything and so far have kept it up to date...just hoping to get some photos put in when I get on line properly (this is our friends PC so I cant download pics).

Year 1 Scrapbook Pages

A little while ago I put a wish on UK Scrappers for any old stash that the members had finished with as I take my Son's art class on a Thursday morning. I was totally overwhelmed by the kindess from so many ladies who sent me the most amazing papers, cardstock and embellishments for my project....so much in fact that what was to be a project for 1 class ended up being for both year 1 classes! And what's more, Mrs Fuller is going to repeat it with her next class in the new school year :)

The children all had their photo taken and printed in school, then they got to choose a backing paper, a mount for the photo, some ribbon, and loads of embellishments all to tell the story about themselves. I think they all did a superb job, and you never know, a few may even take up our hobby!!!

Here are just a small selection of layouts the children did of themselves, which were then turned into calendars for their parents.

I've been looking through my photos to find the couple of layouts I created for my LSS as they wanted to do 2 Christmas kits, but I must have forgotten to take photos :( They were created with the beautiful SEI Christmas papers and lots of embellies. I hope that the girls at the crop enjoyed them.

This layout was created using Prima papers, stamps and chipboard swirls covered with a large helping of distress paint :) Very dimensional and textural. The large flower was cut from the patterned papers, inked, curled and layered. I think it works.

Flights are booked!

Yes, finally, flights are booked for the 7th January. One way tickets for all of us, and Mark will have to come back in Feb to (hopefully) finalise the house and ship his tools out! Can you believe that we have over a container's worth of stuff?! Mark would tell you that most of it will be my art and scrapping supplies lol and between you and me he's not wrong! (Well he's got his tools and I've got mine!)

The kids are really excited now as they know that it is finally happening and are counting down the last couple of weeks of school.

So it's full steam ahead here with packing and clearing...wish me luck.

No Christmas Tree :(

I have been formally told that in no uncertain terms that I will NOT be purchasing a Christmas Tree this year :( Bah-humbug I say, although the miserable buggar does have a point about "wasting" £25+ at a time when we are counting every penny and meant to be packing for our holiday to Oz...but how will I feel without my beautiful glass ornaments to ooh and aah over, no flashing twinkling coloured lights that sparkle in the dark, no angel to watch over us during the festive period :( Oh, how sad is all that?

So technically its not snowing but I just love this tag that was made for me!

I've just finished the last of the swaps I got carried away with joining to and am now awaiting the goodies in return for my efforts. 30 different cake recipes should make a neat little book for my kitchen :)

October UK Art Raffle

I found some me time today and created this fun enterpretation of "The Dark" which I am really pleased with :) Here's hoping the recipient will feel the same way when the draw takes place at the end of this month.