I'm back!

Hello all - sorry it's been so long since I've posted, but as some of you know, we've been away on the Big Bradford Adventure!

Nick had long service leave to take, so we decided to have a nice big family holiday with the boys, before Ashton starts school (which is next week, by the way!!). So, we headed off in mid-December, and got back about a week ago.

We did have a totally fabulous time, but it's fair to say that the holiday didn't quite turn out how we expected.

We decided to go straight up towards Sydney, as we've done the SE Victorian coast drive enough - I wanted to see something different. So our first stop was in Gundagai, and then Wombeyan Caves for a couple of nights, then Terrigal just for Christmas Eve (we had a lovely fish'n'chips dinner on the beach while Ashton went nutso running around in the sand), then Hawks Nest for a couple of nights, then Manning Point for 3 nights, and then we went on to Nambucca Heads.

We were just settling down after dinner on our second night in Nambucca Heads when my mobile rang - Nick's mum was calling. Nick's dad had had some chest pain, went to the doctors, who sent him to hospital, where they did an angiogram, found 4 blockages, and he had been scheduled for quadruple bypass surgery the next day (New Years Eve). Obviously we were rather shocked by the phone call, and took an hour or so to work through our options. If possible, Nick wanted to get back and see his dad before he went in to surgery, so we booked him on a 6.00am flight from Newcastle, and set about packing up camp. We drove out of the caravan park at 1.00am, and drove through the night, arriving at Newcastle airport at about 4.30am, and we dropped Nick off. The boys and I headed in to Newcastle, and after quite a while, managed to find ourselves a motel for the day, so I could get some sleep. Dad flew up to Newcastle that afternoon, to help me bring the car and trailer home - was good to have someone to share the driving with.

Laurie had had surgery that afternoon, and thankfully had made it through very well.

We headed off after picking my Dad up, and made it to Mittagong, where we grabbed a motel room for the night. I got to spend New Year's Eve in the lovely Motel Melrose, with Duck Egg Blue walls, with my dad and my kids!

We set off early the next morning, and made it home late that afternoon.

At least we were able to be here to assist our friends from England, who had arrived on New Year's Day, and show them a bit about setting up life in Melbourne.

Laurie was making a really good recovery, and was out of hospital after 6 days, so we decided to head off again on our holiday once he was settled at home.

This time we went to Lakes Entrance, then on to Mallacoota for a week (lovely little part of the world, that one), then on to Jervis Bay to stay with Nick's cousin for a few days, and then drove up to Sydney so that Ashton could see the Bridge and the Opera House, and made our way down to Goulburn, then to Strathmerton on the Murray to camp with my friend Vicki for a night, and then finally home last Thursday.

We are all very well rested, and I am not looking forward to going back to work at all!

Unfortunately, my computer has had a little conniption fit while we were away, so has been rebuilt, and as yet I don't have photoshop back on it, so I haven't been able to work on the photos at all. Never fear though - I'll post some pics as soon as I can - and you'll be seeing a lot of them in my forthcoming scrapping work too!

I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas and New Year, and I'll talk to you soon!

Ness.
xoxo

A busy week ....

Evening all :)

Well, what a busy week it's been for me .... not only did I get a layout accepted for publication by Scrapbook Creations, but I have also been offered a position on the Design Team for Scrapping Around, which I have of course accepted - very excited to be part of the team!

Plus, I had the most delicious Christmas lunch with work at Rockpool yesterday - it was just divine! Next time I'm flush with money (yeah, right!), I'm going to take Nick there. The food was fabulous, the service the best I've had in a long time, and the decor was really lovely too - all in all a wonderul dining experience - especially because I didn't have to pay the bill! Hooley dooley - the dearest steak on the menu (Wagyu) was $110 .... I DIDN'T order that one LOL!

Well, I hope the pre-Christmas madness isn't doing your head in too much .... I have had a very busy day today, and am currently finishing off a nice glass of wine, and will be heading to bed shortly.

Only a couple of creations to show you tonight ...

Here is the layout I did as part of my DT application ... it's the pics from Ashton's orientation days at primary school.


And here's a clock I did as a step-by-step ... love that photo of my boys.


Hope everyone has a lovely Sunday, and I'll talk to you soon.
Ness.
xx.

I've received an award ....

.... from the lovely Annie at The Scrapbook Hub. I have received a Proximity Award!

"These blogs invest and believe in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers, who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

So the 8 bloggers I choose to pass on the award to are Tanja, Chelle, Kylie, Manda, Lisa, Belynda, Gypsyangel and Tanyah.

I love reading your blogs ladies - keep up the good work!

Talk to you soon,
Ness.
xx

Been very busy ....

Hello all -

Just a quick post from me tonight - I have been madly trying to prepare for Christmas so haven't been posting much, but wanted to share some news with you ...

At the recommendation of my friend Tanja, I've decided to apply for a Design Team position, and was busy on the weekend putting my application together. I sent everything off last night, so it's beyond my control now .... I think applications close on the 19th, so wish me luck!

Also, I decided to try and submit a few layouts to the Scrapbook Creations magazine, just to see what happened. It's one thing on my scrapping to-do list ... getting a layout published at some stage .... and considering I got bumped by Scrapbooking Memories a few months back, I thought it was time to try again.

Well, I have had some success - I got a lovely email back today, advising they want to publish one of my layouts in a forthcoming edition of Scrapbook Creations!! Very exciting :) See - doesn't hurt to try!

Now I need to cross all my fingers and toes, and hope that this one doesn't get bumped too :)

I will, of course, keep you posted, and I will post pics of my Design Team application pieces as soon as I can.

And now, it's late, and I need sleep .... so I'll talk to you soon. Hope you have a good week!
Ness.

Another present completed ...

Hello all :)

Wow - what a wet weekend we're having here in Melbourne - and isn't it fabulous?? I can hear a collective sigh of relief from all the Melbourne gardens ... desperately needed a good watering.

Well, after finally fishing off the canvas during the week, I had the chance to work on the gift box of cards that I gave to mum.

I had a paper mache cigar box from Spotlight sitting here on the shelf - covered the lid in some Crate paper, added some Kaiser rub-ons, some Green Tara flowers and a selection of green, blue and silver bling, and it's done! Here is the finished product :)


Gave it to mum last night as her Christmas present, and she loved it. And, we gave her the canvas today too, as we won't be seeing her for her birthday, and she was absolutely thrilled - even teared up a little bit! Awwwwwww .... very pleased I decided to finish it off for her.

I've got a little project that I need to work on at the moment, so I hope to get the boys into bed shortly so I can get some scrapping done and make a start on it. They've had a couple of late nights in a row, and they are VERY tired, so hopefully they won't put up too much of a fight and I can grab a glass of wine and head to my craft room.

Hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend!

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

Finally finished ....

Evening all!

I'm pleased to say that I have finally finished the canvas that I started back in May ... I'd painted it, and stuck the photos and PP down, but that was it. I lost motivation, and put it aside. Well, I had a brainwave last night that I could finish it off and give it to mum for her birthday, so now, it's finally complete!


It's a pretty big canvas - 15 inches x 30 inches, and I just love those photos of my beautiful boys. I hope mum likes her pressie!

I've also been madly working on cards lately too - making my Christmas cards, but also making normal cards that I'm giving to mum in a gift box as her Christmas present. Just finished decorating the box tonight too, but it's too late to take a pic, so will post that one tomorrow. Here's a pic of one of my Christmas cards (I've made all different cards this year) with thanks to Claire for the colour combination idea, and also just a general card I made to give as part of mum's present.


Well, we ended up having a pretty busy weekend - I had a work Christmas dinner on Friday night which was lovely, and then we had a wedding to go to on Saturday night at the Melbourne Savage Club. Very interesting venue, and as it's traditionally a men only club (no, not THAT sort of men's club! :) ) I doubt I'll ever see anything like it again. Lots of leather couches and hunting equipment and valuable paintings and books and pool tables and poker tables ... very stuffy, but still an interesting venue for a wedding reception. The food was lovely, and it was also nice to be able to wash it down with a glass or two of 1988 (yes, that's 1988) Wynn's Coonawarra. Yummo!

Sunday was really just a clean-up day, as I'm trying to give our house a nice big spring clean, as we've got friends coming to stay over Christmas and New Year. My to-do list is massive, so I'm trying to whittle a few tasks off it each day.

And this evening has been very exciting, celebrating the announcement of the 2008 Scrapbooking Memories Masters, as my friend Chelle has been 'crowned' a Master - congratulations Chelle - such fabulous work by you, and look - you're even on the cover!! Well done indeed ... what a fabulous year lies ahead for you - enjoy your prize :)

Hope the rest of the week treats you well ...

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

It's December ....

..... and that means that I can finally show you the card I made, using one of the stamp sets from the new Summer Mini from Stampin' Up! I also borrowed one of the new scallop punches when I was at Genna's house - very easy to use!



This is the Embrace Life set, and I also have the Eastern Blooms set, but am yet to use it ...

I love the products in the new mini - I've got some of the felt flowers coming my way, as well as some of the coordinating rubons ... they look lovely! If you're interested in getting any of the Stampin' Up! products, just give me a hoy!

I've been busily making Christmas cards this week, and also cards to give in a gift box to my mum as her present, so haven't done a scrapbooking layout for what feels like ages ... although I did make the trip down to the new Kaisercraft store in Geelong today and got some lovely papers and bits and pieces, so who knows ... maybe there's a scrapbooking page not too far away.

Hope everyone has had a good week so far,
Talk to you soon,
Ness.

A couple of cards ...

Hello all :)

Just thought I'd post a couple of pics of the cards I made at my catch up with Tanja and Genna last week ... there is a third card as well, but it's got the new Summer Mini stamps on it, so I can't show that to you yet ...




The exciting news in my world this week is that my friend Jacqui has finally had her visa approved, so that she and her hubby and daughter can now migrate out to Australia. It's been about two years in the making, but they've finally been approved. They're planning on getting here around Christmas or New Year, so now it's full steam ahead for everything for her - trying to organise flights and pack up their lives ready to ship everything over to the other side of the world!

They'll be staying with us for a bit until they find a rental property - and I'm actually really looking forward to helping them set up home here in Melbourne - who doesn't enjoy spending someone else's money??

Anyway, I'm really tired tonight, so I think I'm going to call it a night ... thanks for looking, and I'll talk to you soon.

Ness.
xx.

Time for school!

Hello all :)

Hope you've been well. The Bradfords have again been busy busy busy ... and it's also been an exciting time for Ashton too, as he had his first orientation day at school yesterday. How cute does he look, all dressed up in his uniform??


Don't you just love the look of the school uniform that's got room to grow? And the cute little peg legs poking out the bottom of his shorts?? :)

You may recall I had a little scrap session with Tanja a few weeks back, and managed to whip through a few really simple Christmas cards ... just love some of the Kaiser Christmas rub-ons that are available at the moment.





Also whipped up this normal card too ...


And, other than the wedding invitations, that's about all I've done lately. Have started some other cards using the Unfrogettable set, but they're still unfinished, so won't post pics of them yet. Here's a pic of the front of the wedding invitations I've made for Greg and Brooke ... she loved the exampe in the Stampin' Up! catalogue, so here's a copy as close as I could make it :)


I've just placed an order from the Stampin' Up! Summer Mini Catalogue too, which will hopefully arrive this week sometime, so it will be great to have a little advance play with some of the lovely sets available in the new catalogue. Will be sure to post pics when I'm allowed too!

Well, that's all from me for now - hope you are having a good week so far!

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

What a busy weekend it's been ...

Afternoon all :)

Hope you've all had a lovely weekend! I know I have ...

It all started on Friday when we had a lovely catch-up with Kath and Justin and the kids again, and also gave singstar another belting into the wee hours of the morning! We downloaded one of the Queen special packs, and were singing our little hearts out :) It was another 4.00am finish though, so we were just a tad tired on Saturday ...

We had to drive over to Epping yesterday to order our new trailer for our camping expedition, and once home, Nick and I tag-teamed nana naps in the afternoon, so we were both a bit more prepared to go out for dinner again to Stu and Sonia's house. Had a lovely roast dinner, and then played the usual games of 500 (Sonia and I actually one a couple of games this time!), and then called it a night about 12.30am.

Today has been busy busy busy too - headed over to Eltham Lower Park and took the boys on the train and also the pony rides, and they had a great time. Then lots of work in the garden this afternoon to make room for us to park the trailer, and we're about to head out go-karting tonight as well.

I'd better go get ready ... but hope you all have a lovely week! No new creations to show you yet, but I'll be able to take a pic of all the wedding invites now, and will post that shortly.

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

Monthly sketch challenges and a mini-retreat!

Evening all ...

Wow - I can't believe it's November already ... or should that be Movember? I found out on Friday night that Nick's dad, who has a full beard and moustache, and has had a full beard and moustache for 43 years now, has been gathering sponsors, and is planning on shaving it all off for Movember! Good on you Laurie :)

And, of course, being November, it's now time for my next monthly card and layout sketch challenges at Scrapchat.

Here is this month's sketch, designed by Anna Bowkis, and taken from the PencilLines sketch blog.


And here is the sample layout that I prepared.



And here is the sketch for the card challenge - design is by Lucy Chesna, and is from her sketch blog My Sketch World.

And here is the sample card I prepared, using Stampin' Up! cardstock, stamps from the Priceless and Warm Words sets, and the double-stitched ribbon in Blue Bayou, as well as some fabbo SEI patterned paper.

And I also want to say a big thank you to Tanja, who invited me down to her place yesterday and overnight for a fabbo scrap session and 'mini-retreat'! Thanks Tan, I had a great time! It was lovely to catch up with you again and spend some time with your family - I really appreciate the invitation :D I churned out a few cards, so I'll work out how to resize things on this laptop, and upload a few pics for you at some stage soon.

Well, I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend, and I'll talk to you soon!

Ness.

October photo swap layout -

Hi there - me again.

I have been given permission by the lovely Sue to post a pic of the photo swap LO that I prepared for her ... for the swap that runs most months over at Scrapchat.

It know it's very green, which is not a colour that I normally work with, but it's also very sparkly, which matches the pic perfectly, I think.

Thanks for letting me post it on my blog Sue!


And now, back to the housework. Ugh ....

Hello sunshine!

Hello all :)

Just a quick one from me today ... and I don't even really have anything to report.

Just wanted to wish you all a wonderful weekend! It's going to be a super day in Melbourne town today - 30 degrees! The sun is already shining, and it's lovely and warm outside already.

A day of action is ahead for me - we have friends for dinner tonight, so there's all the housework and shopping to be done, as well as washing the dog (which she's NOT going to enjoy... she loves water, just not being washed :D), fixing our curtain rail that fell down yesterday, and I have to get some drinks for tonight as well - Kath's bringing the Singstar, so I'll need to get some Dutch courage !!

I hope everyone has a lovely day, and I'll have some more pics to post in the next few days - I've been busy preparing sketch challenge samples and photo swap LOs, so I'll be able to post the challenges at the end of the month, and will post my pics here too when I can.

Talk to you soon,
Ness.
xx.

A new scrapbooking resource website has been launched ...

Hello all -

Just a quick one for today - letting you know that a fantastic new scrapbooking and papercrafting website has been launched - the Scrapbook Hub.

It's chock-full of inspiration, and useful information and links, and showcases specifically the Australian papercrafting industry.

It's well worth the look if you want to check it out ...

Talk to you soon,
Ness.
xx

Stampin' Up! specials for the month ...

Oops - I almost forgot to mention the 20th Birthday Specials that Stampin' Up! are having this month. Just spend $20 on regular catalogue merchandise and you will recieve 20% off the following sets.

Item	Page #	Description	Regular Price	20% Off Price
112594	37	Big Bold Birthday	$53.95	$43.16
108894	38	Pretty Princess	$45.95	$36.76
108753	51	Birthday Best	$25.95	$20.76
110246	55	Crab & Company	$52.95	$42.36
112318	118	Short & Sweet	$29.95	$23.96

and the extra bonus is that you only have to spend the $20 once and get as many discounted sets you like on that order. This offer expires 31st October, so check out your catalogues, or if you don’t have one yet, there are links here on my blog to the catalogues on the Stampin’ Up! website.

Let me know if there is anything I can help you with!

Long time no blog ... and Happy Birthday to my future daughter-in-law!

Hello again -

Sorry it's been well over a week since my last blog post, but life just seems to get in the way sometimes!

I've been busy busy busy lately - not with anything in particular though, just generally busy.

On Friday night I caught up with my friend (and Stampin' Up! upline) Tanja, and her other downline Genna, and had a lovely night (well, night and morning, considering I didn't leave Genna's house until 2.00am!!) I didn't get a huge deal done though ... mostly chatted :) I did make a couple of cards and did some stamping to use on future cards, so all was not lost. Here's a nice simple male birthday card ....



We have just had a lovely weekend weather-wise here in Melbourne, so the boys and I (including the big boy!) got out into the garden on Saturday and tidied up the back yard - all the trees had become a bit overgrown since we've moved in, so we've chopped off a few branches, and pulled out a few shrubs that hadn't survived the drier conditions, and it looks soooo much tidier in our yard now. Nick even got the mower and whippersnipper out - I don't think the neighbours knew what those strange sounds coming from over the fence were! The whippersnipper protested a bit initially, but eventually Nick got it started, and away he went. Anyway, the garden is looking great - he even got out and did the nature strip!

Then, on Saturday night, we had our friends Greg and Brooke over for dinner, and so I could show them the mock-ups of their invitations (I'm making their wedding invitations for them) - and I was very pleased to see that they liked what I had prepared. They have decided which one they want, and I'm now organising to order everything in, so I can get cracking. I'm doing 50 invitations, 50 RSVP cards, and 100 placecards - so I'm going to be a busy little bee in the near future. The design they've decided on is using a lot of Stampin' Up! stuff - and is basically a replica of the invitation in the current Idea Book & Catalogue (which is what Brooke had asked for) ... and I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

Sunday was a sensationally sunny day, so we got out early and went to a couple of nurseries, and bought a few little plants to re-stock our newly tidied garden beds, and then headed home to watch Bathurst. It was a good race, but it never seems to have quite the level of excitement if it's not raining LOL. There was a very good tussle for position in the closing laps though, which made for excellent viewing.

And then, before I knew it ... it was time to head back to work yesterday. Bleh. Didn't have a bad day at work at all, but after such a lovely weekend, it's always icky being stuck back in an office.

Today was the usual Tuesday thing - swimming lessons for Ashton, and then to the playcentre - but today we had the added bonus of it being Hannah's second birthday! We gave her a gorgeous little handbag and purse (what is it with little girls and handbags??), some necklaces and bangles, and a plush Elmo - and she looked so cute running around the playcentre with Elmo poking out of her brand new handbag :)

Well, my scrapping to-do list is again at monolithic proportions, so I'd best get my little kidlets into bed and get to work.

Hope everyone has had a good week so far, and I'll talk to you again soon.

A quick card ...

Evening all :)

Hope everyone has had a lovely weekend ... it's a shame it's over so quickly though ...

Firstly - congratulations to all the Hawks supporters out there, and commisserations to all the Cats supporters! At least it turned out to be a great game. So often Grand Finals can be complete fizzers, but it was a very tight, tough tussle, and was very enjoyable to watch.

Just thought I'd show you the male birthday card that I did - with many many thanks to Tanja for the inspiration ...


I've made a few more cards today too, but by the time I remembered to take a pic, it was too dark outside, so they will need to wait until during the week.

Hope everyone has a lovely week, and GO WEBBER in the Singapore GP tonight :)

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

The Stamp Shak CC is on tonight!

Hi all :)

Hope you've all had a lovely Friday ...

Just a quickie from me tonight - a reminder to you all that the Stamp Shak CC is on tonight.

There's no theme per se for this month's CC - it's been a 'grab bag', whereby all forum members had the chance to submit an instruction, and they were all thrown into a hat, and 3 instructions were drawn out for each challenge.

Here is my sample LO for one of tonight's challenges ... I'm being a bit sneaky and uploading it now (the CC is only just about to start ....), but I'm not going to say which challenge I've done, or what my instructions were, so I don't give anything away :) (Sorry about the crooked pic)



I'll be back again over the weekend to show you a nice little male birthday card I made last night for the Scrapchat september card swap - with many thanks to Tanja for the inspiration.

Have a great weekend!

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

A quick Christmas card ...

Hello all :)

Hope you're all having a lovely day so far! It's been quite a nice day in Melbourne town today, and it's going to be absolutely glorious tomorrow - 24 degrees and fine - so the girls and I are taking the kids to the Warrandyte Bakery park for a bit of a run around ... will be great to get out into the fresh air again.

Just a quick post from me today ... I participated in the Christmas Card swap through the Stamp Shak forum, and here is my little creation. I sent them off to Tiddlypeep, the swap organiser, today, and I'm looking forward to getting my selection back!




Well, my first official order of Stampin' Up! stuff arrived on my doorstep this morning, so I'm hoping to get around to making some lovely new cards with my lovely new stamps in the next few days or so.

I'll post up pics once they're done!

Hope everyone has a lovely Thursday, and go the Cats on Saturday!!

Talk to you soon,
Ness.

It's nearly retreat time again!

Hello all :)

Hope you're all having a lovely weekend so far.

It's been a busy week in the Bradford household ... the year seems to be absolutely flying by of late.

During this past week I signed up for the Very Special Getaway scrapbooking retreat, run by the Remember When Paper Company, in support of Very Special Kids. I went on this retreat last year (my first ever retreat!), and had a great time! I got to meet Tanja in person there for the first time last year, even though we'd been chatting on line for quite a while beforehand ... and we're both going to go again this year. The retreat this year is on the Cup Weekend again, but the venue has changed to the Black Spur Inn ... such a beautiful part of the world up there, I just LOVE the drive through the Black Spur :)

Well, my Stampin' Up! Starter Kit was waiting on my doorstep when I got home on Friday, and it was very exciting rifling through my new stamp sets and all the paperwork. There's quite a bit of reading ahead for me, but it all seems fairly straighforward. And now I need to sit down and make up some nice sample cards ... I placed my first order this morning too, so I should have another box (or 2 - thanks Vicki for helping to flesh out the order!!) arriving on my doorstep this week.

I've also decided that I'd like to see if I can sell some cards and gift cards to local florists etc., and there's also a few craft markets around here - so I'm aiming to make up a little stash and hopefully have a market stall at some stage in the future. If just one person buys a card that I've made, I will be happy :)

I had a quiet-ish day at home with the kids today while Nick was down racing at Phillip Island ... I do enjoy going down to watch him racing, but at the same time it does make my stomach turn watching him drive so fast around the track ... thankfully he didn't break anything on the car, and was able to (yet again) drive it home safely.

I finished off my Christmas cards for the swap at The Stamp Shak forum during the week (will take a pic and upload soon), and tonight I've made a card for the October card sketch challenge sample at Scrapchat, but as it's not October yet, and the challenge hasn't been listed, I can't show you! You'll just have to be patient :) My next item on the to-do list is the LO sketch challenge sample ... I need to decide on a sketch to use first!

Tomorrow is meant to be quite a nice day I think, so we'll hopefully be able to fit in a nice family outing somewhere. And I need some 'me' time too tomorrow - I've done stacks of housework today and entertained the kids from 6.30am until 10.30pm on my own (we had a friend over for dinner which means the kids got to stay up late), and I'm feeling VERY tired tonight.

As a matter of fact, it's actually bed time for me now ... I can't believe it's nearly tomorrow already.

Hope everyone has a lovely Sunday, and I'll talk to you soon.
Ness.
xx