Altered Clothes!

Jazzy and I have been having a lot of fun putting our creative touch on some clothing. Jazz loves bright neon colours so we decided to give a top and some denim shorts the "splat" treatment! The results are below. It was lots of fun to  create and has got us thinking of other possibilities!

Chilli Crab!

Last weekend Brad went off on a fishing trip with somme mates at Bynoe harbour  and  while they weren't lucky enough to catch any fish he did bring home an impressive stash of  fresh mud crab. So on the menu for Monday night was chilli crab and Nasi Goreng made by Brad. Yum! It was  absolutely delicious. One of the really cool things about living here!

Layout Share

I said that I would share some of my layouts that I have created over the past 12 months so here they are.

 

 I love thhis photo and have had it for ages and always struggled to scrap it because of the colours in the photos. I must have been overthinking it because it came together really nicely.

I made the  coloured flowers out of dry embossed vellum circles layered and curled and the black glitter one was made with Jac paper and cut with the big shot and glitter stuck to it. I love how it turned out. I drew flourishes with a glue pen and then poured glitter  over the top. I also added some bling flourishes to finish it off.

I wanted this gorgeous selfie that my husband took of himself with our son when he was a baby to be the feature of the layout and i think it worked. There is hidden journaling behinid the title.

I had heaps of fun putting this together. The background is squares of cardstock stamped with a birthday definitions stamp and coloured with dimensional pearls paint so it is shimmery in real life. I then stitched the squares with the sewing machine.

 

This is the open up part of the disco page, I had a lot of photos that I wanted to add so rather than a double I decided to make a lift up flap with photos of the details of the party set up hidden. I love how it still works as a layout in it's own right but became a lout with 10 photos on it and some journaling and the invitation on it.  I figure that I could make a second page with all the photos of her friends at the party to compliment it.

 

The photo that inspired this layout was taken at the same place that our wedding photos were taken. We stayed at the hotel that we had our wedding reception at for our tenth wedding anniversary and thought it would be cool to take a photo of us 10 years on. It was pretty special. I really enjoyed creating the oversized patchwork heart and the little letters were perfect for the journaling around the heart.

 

thanks for looking.

Tam xo

 

Scrap The Boys January challenge

I am loving having time to be creative and decided to have a go at the Scrap the boys January challenge. One of my Facebook friends shared the challenge on Facebook and I thought why not! This is the first time I have had a go at a Scrap the Boys challenge so it is "something new" for me too! Lol. The challenge was to create a layout about "something new" in my boy's life. I decided to create a layout about my son and his incredible creations that he builds in his room. I love walking past his room to see what new adventures he is engaged in. He will often spend a few days creating little worlds and will leave them set up on his rug in the floor until he is done then will pack it all away. We are often amazed that he can negotiate a path to around the toys when he hops up in he middle of the night to go to the toilet! Anyway I took some photos a while ago and thought that the challenge was the perfect opportunity to scrap them! Ok here is my layout.  It was a great challenge thanks to Scrap The Boys.
Tam xo

 

Wow 2014.... Where does time go!

Well it is already the end of January 2014. Last year was possibly one of the most eventful and turbulent ones for me yet. I experienced some amazing highs and some pretty full on lows and for the most part of the year was in self preservation mode just trying to get through each day in tact. One thing that I did learn is that I have some of the most amazing people in my life and am loved. I had such great support from near and far and that love and support has helped me so much.

This year is going to be a great year, it will be dynamic, it will be fun and exciting and I will be positive, organised and productive. I plan to make time to be creative as much as I can (something that I haven't done for a while and miss heaps, I will enjoy everyday and record the great moments, which is why I am going to attempt to keep a semi regular blog going again. I am going to join a craft group here that meet regularly  to help me make time to be creative and meet some new people which should be good, I am going to attempt to be super organised so I can be the best me and juggle full time work, uni, parenting, my relationships and my health. I am very skilled at looking organised but living in semi chaos and I am very good at procrastinating but I want that to change and am feeling pretty good about it.

 All of this really is for my own record and I am not entirely sure that anyone else is at all interested but I thought that given I enjoy reading other's blogs about the goings in their lives it couldn't hurt to share. Before I reflect on the possibilities for the year ahead, I thought I would reflect on the year that was those highs and lows......

Ok the highs......
1) I was successful in receiving a scholarship to complete my early childhood teaching degree, awesome really as I am not sure that we could afford for me to complete the degree the conventional way and once I have the degree it will open more doors for me.

2) my contract for my job was rolled over for another 12 months. I LOVE my job, I have never really felt that way, sure I have enjoyed work but never truly loved  it, the job challenges me in so many ways, is so varied and I feel that I make a little difference in the lives of the people I work with.

3) my gorgeous girl was made primary house captain at her school. She only started at the school the year before so to have peers and staff vote for her was a testament to who she is. She has also done  some spectacular work and improved out of sight, a child who even at 12 battles with constant ear infections that get so bad that her ear drums burst and she doesn't even realize has worked tirelssly to work against the odds to go from achieving below expected levels in just about everything to getting high achievements in just about everything. She also graduated primary school and is off to high school this year. Yes I am one proud Mumma!

4) my  sweet shy boy has overcome some of his shyness this year and has put himself put there and started swimming and tennis. It took us a while to convince him to have a go but he got there and loves both sports and it doing well. He also did very well at school and has some great goals to work towards achieving this year. Again a very proud mumma.

5) Travel - boy we squeezed in some  amazing travel into 2013! Living up here has some advantages.... Being so close to some spectacular countries and amazing locations here in northern Aus makes for easy , economical and awesome travel. Ok our travel for 2013 consisted of,Tasmania,  Bali, litchfield national park, a massive road trip across the territory with my family and beautiful niece which included seeing the Devils Marbles, Uluru, Olga's ,  The plenty highway,  Birdsville, Longreach (spending some time with our family which was amazing! ) Hughenden, Muttaburra and more that I can't remember at the moment as well as more overseas travel to the incredible Malaysia (KL) and Singapore, then to finish off the year a trip to Brisbane to see our family. Oh and about 101 trips to Darwin throughout the year too! Lol.

Ok the lows-

1) breaking both of my arms in May  - yep both! I had a terrible fall playing netball and broke both wrists, a rib and managed to hit my head as well giving myself a very spectacular black eye and lump on my head. I ended up spending 2 weeks in hospital 3 hours away form home, my husband and kids which was very lonely and stressful. I had a cast on my left arm for 11 weeks and a splint on my right arm for the same time and have been going to rehab physio and follow up appointments at fracture clinic since. I was only allowed to drive again in September  and long distance driving is still problematic but I am allowed to drive. It has been tough and I still have a lot of pain in my left arm. Breaking both arms is not something I recommend! I lost all of my independence and had to rely on others for everything, sleeping has been difficult and  my ways of working have changed a bit. None the less I am maintaining a positive outlook  and working throug the challenges as they come along.

2) the week I started back at work after my injury, I found out that my program had lost funding and wouldn't operate in 2014. I was devastated. The program I had worked hard to build wouldn't be continuing after 2013 and I wouldn't have a job for 2014.  Thankfully in September we found out that the a funding source had been located and the program would operate for semester one this year. I has to reapply for the contract and was successful so a low turned into a high. The other part to the low in this is that there has been through some major changes and where my program sits no  longer exists and  my program now sits with the regional office. It was really tubulent and sad to see a fantastic organisation go and I will dearly miss the people I worked with.


So the highs and lows are recorded. This year, I hope that I only have highs to reflect on, I think that I had enough lows in 2013 to last a while. Lol.

Ok so when I was looking back at my scrapbooking creations for the past year or so I realized that I have not shared any of them and I have also had a go at a challenge for scrap the boys that I will share in separate posts. To all my friends that are parents of school kiddies, enjoy the first week back  at school and best wishes to all the children that are starting kindy, preschool, school or high school. Exciting times ahead.
Thanks for reading,
Tam xo

Getting back to work.... doing what I love!

I had such a happy day at work today. My first trip back out to one of my communities since I had my fall (may 16) and It was fantastic it felt like I was home. It was great to see colleagues and my families that I work with. I had a great driver as I am still not allowed to drive long distances so I had my own personal packhorse and driver today. Lol! I am learning that all that I am learning that all that all of these baby steps are actually big steps. I absolutely love my job it is the best job I have ever had!  What a fantastic and unique experience it has been!

September 03, 2013 at 07:05PM via Facebook

Cat in the hat close up of face painting.

I was so excited about how well the face painting turned out. I had one very cute cool cat on my hands. I find that you can really finish of a costume with a painted face and I think it is easier than it look. I find it hand to have a drawing or  guideline to work from.  I have made a few discoveries about getting better results with facepainting over the years. I am only an amateur face painter and have only ever used the jars of face paints that you can buy in any craft store.So these tips are from an amateur aimed at amateur face painters using "entry level" resources.

I have found that

• good quality fine paintbrushes work really well and allow for fine detail to be painted without fuss. I tried for a while to use cheap brushes but I just couldn't get good results using them.
• A sea sponge makeup sponge is great for painting the background colour. I wet it squeeze it out really well and then put a bit of the background colour on a pallette and mix a bit of water in to thin it out then run the sponge over it, I test it on the back of my hand first then paint the face.
• I always use a plastic pallete and use a palette spatula to get small amounts of paint, i find this heaps easier than working from the jar.

Tam xo