Nerine's Virtual Stamping Night

Last Night Nerine hosted a Virtual Stamping Night. Luckily for me I live across the park from Nerine so when Avryl didn't see fit to allow me to stamp I headed over to her house!! These are the projects I completed.

The second one is above - the challenge was a one layer card that used one ink colour, which had to be a non-traditional Christmas colour and extra brownie points for using a reverse mask. I've used Elegant Eggplant ink on Blush Blossom cardstock. The stamp sets are French Flair and Carte Postale. I only have vanilla grosgrain ribbon so if I want another colour I find a way to dye it! Last night I ran it roughly over the Elegant Eggplant ink pad to give it uneven colour.

This card was for the first challenge - a layout. I used SU Cool Carribean and SU Pretty in Pink cardstock I paired this with some SU designer Series paper (not sure what the name is it was a sample block I bought on sale a couple of months back). I used my Snowflake Spot stamp set with Real Red ink and Dazzling Diamonds. I coloured my ribbon over the Real Red ink pad. A nice bright Christmas card!

Season's Greetings

These cards were inspired by Carol Dunstan's "Cool Paisleys" in Stamping and Papercraft Vol 13 No 9. I love my Paisley Background Stamp almost as much as my Scribble This set. I have used them more than any other stamps in my collection. So I was very excited when I saw some cards that used the two sets together. Being Christmas time though and only half way there with the required cards I converted them to Christmas cards.

I highlighted a couple of Paisley Flowers with Dazzling Diamonds using my CM Precision Point Adhesive Pen for glue, but it doesn't show very well in the photos.

Recipe - Cardstock - SU Whisper White, Night of Navy.

Ink - Real Red, Night of Navy

Stamps - Paisley Background, Many Merry Messages, Scribble Wheel.

Accessories - Dazzling Diamonds

Daddy's Girl

This is the first page I have done that doesn't have CM paper on it since becoming a consultant 2 and 1/2 years ago! What a strange feeling.

Recipe - SU Cameo Coral Cardstock, SU Tempting Turquoise Cardstock, SU Whisper White Cardstock. SU French Flair Stamp. SU Cameo Coral and Tempting Turquoise Markers. CM Petal Multi-Maker. DCWV Vellum Quote Stacks It's All About Girls.

Mel's Colour Challenge

I often visit Mel Hanlon's blog to check out her great cards. Every week she has a colour challenge, this week you had to use Lavender Lace, Chocolate Chip, Green Galore and Whisper White. This is what I came up with.

Recipe - Cardstock - Lavender Lace, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip, Green Galore.

Ink - StazOn Black

SU Watercolour Crayons - Lavender Lace, Chocolate Chip and Green Galore.

Stamps - SU Bloomin' With Beauty, SU Merci.

Tools - SU Designer Label Punch (thanks for the loan Nerine:))

Ribbon - SU Vanilla Grossgrain died with SU Green Galore Stamp and Write Marker.

This card is winging it's way to someone special who has helped us a lot recently I hope they like it!

Flour

This is a variation of a sketch I found on SCS. It was definitely a quick and easy page to complete.

Recipe - SU Chocolate Chip Ink, SU Paisley Background Stamp, CM Pink Lemonade (again!), CM Pesto, Kindy Glitz, CM Petal Multi-Maker, CM Pens for title, CM Expressions of Daughter Vellum.

Bath Time

I have finally gotten around to scrapbooking our photos from our Christmas 2007 trip to Brisbane!!! It's fun looking back and seeing how Avryl has changed. I'm really pleased with this page. Hope you all like it as much as I do.

Recipe - CM Cherish Perfect Fit, CM Pink Lemonade, CM Aquamarine, SU Chocolate Chip ink, SU Friendship Blooms stamp set, SU White Craft ink and SU Textured Sky cardstock.

I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to line up where I wanted the swirls stamped on the photos. I'm told Stayz On ink would work better on photos but since I don't have any I used the craft ink - still works but probably not as bright as Stayz On would be.

Christmas Card

This is the first Christmas card I've made this year that I've been really happy with. It's made with a combination of SU and CM products as usual! Hope you all like it as much as I do.

Recipe - SU Real Red ink and cardstock, SU Night of Navy cardstock, SU Whisper White cardstock, SU Classic Stars Jumbo Wheel, SU Silver Embossing Powder, Versamark, SU Many Merry Messages. CM Large Square Maker and CM Galaxy Micro Maker.

Gift Card to Scrapbook Page

My lovely SU demonstrator always makes a card to say thank you for our orders. Since I seem to have as much of an addiction for SU products as I do CM I have lots of these gorgeous little cards(I'm a hoarder!!). I was doing a clean up of my craft table and found one of these cards and again couldn't throw it out - far too pretty, so I've used it as an embellishment on my scrapbook page.

Recipe - Nerine's gift card with the satin ribbon it came with, CM Blush Blooms (now deleted), CM Pink Lemonade, CM Cloud and CM Expressions of Family and Friends Vellum.

Masculine Scrapbook Page

I struggled with this page for some reason but I'm happy with the results.

Recipe - Paper - CM Cabana tone on tone and designer prints (now deleted), CM Expressions of Him Vellum and SU Cameo Coral ink sponged around the edge of the page.

For such a simple page it took a very long time to complete!@ Hope you like it as much as I do.

Butterflies Page

This page was inspired by Nerine's Pirates and Butterflies Page. I've used a combination of CM and SU products again. It was hard not to make the page too girly since the photo has Liam is in it as well as Kiara and Avryl!!!

Products Used - CM Spargo True 12 inch page, CM Pink Lemonade Card Stock, SU Night of Navy Card Stock and Ink, SU Flitting By Wheel, CM Navy Fine Tip Pen, Kindy Glitz.

Hope you all like it as much as I do.

Scrapbooking

I don't know why but for some reason blogger is uploading these images in their original rotation - anyone who knows how to fix this please leave me a comment with instructions! So imagine these pages rotated 90 degrees anti clockwise.

I was surfing the net for inspiration and came across a sketch for a card challenge that I based these pages on (go here for the blog I found the challenge on http://inkastamp.blogspot.com/). I came across another challenge that was for Breast Cancer awareness month - use a pink ribbon anywhere on your page. A combination of the two and this is the result!

Products - CM Pink Lemonade, CM Earth Elements Designer Prints, SU Whimsical alphabet (now deleted), SU grosgrain vanilla ribbon, CM brown and pink pens. I used a pink bold tip pen to colour the ribbon as I didn't have any pink ribbon.

I'm really happy with the result - I hope you all like it too!

After that marathon blogging session I'm off to help Avryl tidy up her room!!

Edinburgh

Edinburgh Castle

By the time we hit Edinburgh I was extremely tired, so I reserve judgement on it as a city. It is very different to both London and Paris. We only saw a tiny part of it really despite walking all day again!!! Edinburgh Castle from the outside looked like the largest castle we had seen, but because it is still very much in use the part that was open to the public didn't take long to see.

Normandy Beaches

Typical Aussie showing a bit of bum crack above her jeans!

Avryl Posing with her Sandcastle

Avryl and Daddy - Omaha Beach

Omaha Beach

OK so again I don't have many pics of Normandy - I know that Aaron has more though!! These are all from Omaha Beach. We stayed in Arromanches and spent a whole day driving along the different beaches - it's surprising how long it takes to drive short distances in Europe. The roads seem to all be narrow and windy unless you're on a motorway, which our GPS apparently objected to!! I loved the Normandy area, I could quite happily live in an area like that, it's very pretty - the only downside is the cold weather!!

Stonehenge

Everyone told us - just look at it from the road. Well we got there and you can see it really well from the road but, we wanted to walk around it. This was where we bought the Overseas English Heritage Pass that allowed us entry into 100 sights managed by English Heritage and gave us a guide book to plan our trip to Edinburgh around the sights that interested us! The pass definitely paid for itself and a bit extra. And I did enjoy walking around Stonehenge with the audio guide to here more of the history and myths surrounding Stonehenge.

By the way as you've no doubt figured out I'm a bit out of order here!

Warkworth Castle

Looking out one of the windows
This was one of Avryl's photos - budding photographer that she is, she had using my camera down pat by the end of our holiday!

This was another find in the English Heritage Guide Book - this is a fairly intact castle - missing windows and roof only. It was the second home of the Percy family - we drove past their main home - Alnwick Castle later in the day, it was huge!!!

Ieper - Menin Gate

Menin Gate - I can't believe this shocking photo, I hope Aaron has some better ones or I might have to steal Nanna's post card!

Ieper - this seemed to be the town square - we bought the best chocolate here!

This is the highlight of the whole trip for me. Aaron and I have had a painting of Menin Gate - Menin Gate at Midnight, hanging on our wall since I fell in love with the original at the Australian War Memorial while Aaron was at Duntroon. The monument in real life was extremely moving and the history of this town so sad. The town was basically flattened in WWI, 60 000 Australian fought in this area of those 46 000 died. This monument has the names of all the fallen soldiers (not just Aussies) who do not have a grave stone else wear. The side walls are full of names, it is unbelievable and incredibly sad how many names there are here. Every evening at 8pm traffic is stopped through the gate and the last post is sounded along with a short ceremony, including the poem, "For The Fallen"that is read at our ANZAC Day services. It was an extremely moving evening and even now when I think of it I get goose bumps.

Audley End House and Gardens

OK so we've been back for a week now and I thought I'd better get organised and show you all more of our photos from our trip. Aaron hasn't sorted out the 20'gig' that he took and I'd have to say I don't think it will get done before moving day, it feels like we have so much to do!!

These photos are of Audley End - see below for more details.

Aaron was our main photographer, so I have lots of photos of him like this!!

If there is water to be found Avryl needs to play in it.

Avryl found pink roses, just like Dorothy likes!!

Audley End House - view of the back of the house.

What a fun day this was, we found this place in the English Heritage Properties Guide Book. It looked like it would be good so off we went and after only about 10 wrong turns along the way found it!

They have tours of the house that take about an hour, we decided to risk it with Avryl and I would have to say her behaviour was as close to perfect as you get with a three year old!! The inside is unbelievable for us Aussies anyway! The gardens are fantastic to wander around, there were so many people having picnics there, it was a gorgeous day, we're told it was hotter than their Summer days.

The Servant's quarters were set up as they would have been in Victorian times, including actresses playing the parts of Dairy Maid, Laundry Maid and Kitchen Maid. The Kitchen Maid was even doing the day's baking in an oven heated by fire!!!

France

We are alive and well!!!! I've been letting Aaron take all the photos while I soak up the atmosphere!! Have left Paris now after 5 nights there - enjoyed our time there but I was sick of being jostled by people all the time! Spent last night in Charters, thoroughly enjoyed a smaller place with no where near as many people.

Paris - Mum and Simon were very kind to us and helped us get the right Metro when we arrived in Paris, explaining how it worked and then we assured them we'd be fine!! We found the street we needed on the map walked there and didn't see a phone so we kept walking!! It took us what seemed like forever to find a public phone only to discover it doesn't take coins and had to find a place to buy a card. Aaron got that organised and then it took another 5 minutes to figure out where to put the card!! We had that figured and after 6 different attempts at the phone number we'd been given to call to get into our apartment a lovely lady told us what we were doing wrong!! We then walked back to our building to wait outside, believing it would only be about 15minutes before someone would arrive, a nice lady took pity on us and let us into the foyer of the building so we could at least take off our packs and sit down and let Avryl walk around without holdong our hand (footpaths in Paris seem to be single file!), it ended up taking over an hour for the lady to arrive - overall not a wonderful start, we were then so tired we said let's just go for a walk get some dinner and we'll find a supermarket tomorrow. Big mistake - there are no Supermarkets open on Sundays and the corner store we bought a fedw supplies from charged the earth!!! But after that bumpy start we had a great time.

We've seen the sights, lots to tell ou all when we gwt back. I loved the architecture of the buildings the most. And the parks and the musems!! I would have to say though that I have walked so much I've not been missing my regular exercise with Julie - and instead of travelling lunges with weights I've been doing Metro stairs with Avryl or her pram!! Aaron and I had 24hrs to ourselves - Mum and Simon took Avryl for a night (they went to the zoo) and we went to the Louvre.

Charters - would have loved to have had more time there. The Cathedral is so different to the Notre Dame in Paris. The town is big enough but quiter than Paris, lovely Medieval buildings.

Normandy - Aaron has had his first day driving on the wrong side of the road!! He is worn out - snoring beside me:) We're staying in Arromanches, about 250 meters from the beach. We've alreadybeen down to the beach and Aaron and Avryl had a long walk on the sand. It is soo beautiful. If it weren't for the rusting "pontoons" in the ocean and the fact that buildings here although in the same architectuaral style as other towns we drove through have a newer look to them you would never known such a major battle had been fought in this town. This is what I imagined France to be like.

Weather - it's cold - 10 degrees celcius today. Our first couple of days in Paris were gorgeous and lulled us into thinking France was going to be warmer but it started being cloudy and spitting rain a few days back and it's been like it ever since!! Avryl and I have both got a cold (Aaron had his at the start of the trip!) but we are still having lots of fun!

Avryl is starting to get home sick though - talking about Bella, Kiara, Pud, Luke, Lily, Kura and Remi all the time. She spent most of the time in our hotel room at Charters "talking" to them on the phone. She has also started asking to go back to our home in Australia (thanks to Mum's hard work Avryl now understands that Tindal is in Australia).

I still can't email and don't have PO boxes so anyone checking this that would like a postcard please email arron with your address!! (aaronbetts@aapt.net.au) He checks email more frequently than I do!!

Brienz Rothorn Bahn

Yesterday we went on the steam train trip Brienz Rothorn Bahn. Avryl as you can imagine was sooo excited to be going on a real steam train - she was a bit put out that the train didn't have a face like Thomas though! Have a look at Aaron on Face Book for more pics of the day - I let him be the main photographer as it was very cold!




The view from one of the lookouts at the top!! Does it show how cold it was. The pics definitely DO NOT do it justice!

Avryl couldn't make it to the second lookout where you could touch snow due to a mishap getting her clothes soaked. So Daddy bought the snow to her! She was so excited about it, lots of squeals and giggles along with her little dances!

It was a fantastic day, I highly recommend the trip to anyone coming to this area of Switzerland.

More Luzern

It was really hard to pick just a few photos that show Luzern!! Here are my 4 favourites -

Painted buildings seem to be very common here. Sometimes under the eaves is even painted. We decided it must be to brighten it up during the winter.

Not what you expect to see in the middle of a city - cows! This was against the old city wall.

Switzerland is absolutely beautiful. I am so glad we started here, it has been a great start to our Europe trip. My email is receiving at the moment but for some reason the emails I have sent have not worked so... I'm thinking of you all!

Luzern

This is just a quick entry - helping Mum organise her photos has taken longer than I thought :) So only one image form Luzern. Such a beautiful city Aaron and I didn't put our cameras down!! This is a very gorgeous bridge but... I can't remember what date it was built. Very tired - will try and post more another day! Went on the Brienze Rothorn Bahn today, we all loved the steam train.

Europe - Switzerland Day 1

Interlaken

We spent the afternoon wandering around Interlaken yesterday and these are a few of our photos. Aaron and I are blown away by the architecture. We're heading into Luzern today so keep a look out for more pics tomorrow!!

Hasliberg

This is the view from our balcony! It is definately an extreme change - Avryl was playing in the water 3 days ago and now we're looking out at snow! This area is a popular ski resort in the winter and our hosts have a whole wall filled with skiis, and several old fashioned wooden sleds.

Interlaken

These are a bit out of order - back to Interlaken - this is Brienzersee (Lake Brienze)

Interlaken Orst - Interlaken Railway Station. All the train stations we have seen have been very picturesque.

Avryl and Bella

Avryl and Bella have had a great day together. I put them down for a sleep at about 1pm, after several toilet trips and hearing lots of chattering - right up until 2.30pm I went in at 3pm to get them up - these photos are what met me when I opened the door! Avryl's room was clean!!!