My elder son and his darling on their wedding day, quite a few years ago.........

and again, two children later..........

These three layouts are holiday photos from England, the gorgeous field flowers of Norfolk, and a memorable pub lunch with my dear brother and sis-is-law.

Mothers' Day photo shoot......trying to get a nice pic of my sons and the grandies.........hopeless!

The one cherished liquidambar tree on this property that gets Autumn colour........we don't have the climate for colour, I love it.

Macadamia nuts in our orchard............yum!

Finally scrapping my youngest son's High School Graduation. ten years ago!  Well, you can't rush these things!

I have been so neglectful of my blog ........it has been a whole month since I was here!  However, I have not been idle...........had a fab Mothers' Day, although being the first without my own Mum left a shadow over the celebrations. My kids spoiled me with gorgeous perfume from Pen and family, some new mugs and a pretty perfumed candle in a pretty glass from son and family, and Tim took me out to dinner to save cooking. 

 The garden has been getting some much needed attention at last, now the rain has turned to beautiful Autumn sunshine.  Dennis has dug a new rose garden in the front........I have been waiting three years for it.............and my roses are finally out of pots and into the soil.  It is looking a bit raw, and new, but in a few months should look good.  Can hardly wait to see those lovelies blooming.

A little scrapping has been done, with my friends at Home and Scrapped and Red Earth Scrapping providing lots of inspiration.

Home and Scrapped is hosting it's second retreat, in Brisbane next week, to link up with the Papercraft Expo. I am busy packing and getting my stuff ready to attend.........exciting.  Not so exciting is the train trip which will be 12 hours overnight.  Arriving Brissy at 6.30am.........oh joy!  It will be all worth the effort to catch up with cyber friends and meet in real life, so looking forward to that.

Happy May Day!

It is the first of May and the sun is shining........for a little while, at least.

We have had rain, rain, rain and everything is mud and pot-holey roads.

The kitten is highly entertaining and growing fast!  No surprisingly, for such a tiny thing, she eats like a horse!

We have lots of family birthdays this month so it should be fun.

As you can see, I have done a little scrap-booking during the wet weekends!

Love is........

Miss you, Mum

Me at 5

(sketch by Julie Packham)

 This is my DT challenge for this month.  'Scrap the Everyday'.  The challenge criteria can be found at http://homeandscrapped.ning.com/forum/topics/may-challenge-angie?page=1&commentId=3450741%3AComment%3A127138&x=1#345

 Happy Day

(class by Kate at Red Earth Scrapping)

 card  challenge

(sketch by Liz Weber at Red Earth Scrapping)

 That's my Cuz

Step by step at Home and Scrapped

 a couple more cards while I was in the mood!

Go on over to Home and Scrapped and check out all the new challenges for May.

Egg hunt at Martha's

Have just finished this layout using the fun pics taken of the grandies over Easter, all ready to go searching for the 40 chocolate eggs the Easter bunny left hidden in the garden.  Poor Easter bunny must have been drenched from the rain we had all night long!

This double page was adapted from Heather's Mid Week Sketches, numbers 14 and 15, tipped sideways to suit my photos.  Thanks Heather.  You can check out the weekly challenges at ScrappySketches.http://scrapysketches.blogspot.com.au/

Holidays are over!

This is the new member of our family, Cleo the kitten, a gift from my lovely girls from Inverell.  She was a foundling, a tiny little thing with no family and has been nurtured with special care for all of her eight weeks of age, now to be spoilt by moi.

 This is my take on the April challenge by Jewels of Home and Scrapped, to use ribbons from the stash and a photo taken today.  The journalling is my personal 'bucket list' for 2012.  A page for the Book Of Me.

It has been a marvellous and busy Easter with family visits and grandchildren staying over for the holidays.  Lots of chocolate, of course, lots of hugs and some special times shared.

Tonight, there is a Step By Step challenge over at Home and Scrapped and a fantastic cybercrop over the weekend.  Pop on over and join in the fun of the challenges.

See you there!

A scrap retreat in the Mountains

It was a very l-o-n-g drive to Leura in the beautiful Blue Mountains but well worth the effort for the first ever Red Earth Scrapping retreat.  It was wonderful to meet up with the lovely ladies in real life, having known them only from forum posts.  Helen, and her lovely Mum, Christine put a big effort into making the weekend run smoothly and providing us with nice things to eat, and a big thanks to Natalie for her yummy puddings!

The Old Leura Dairy is completely built from recycled and re-purposed materials, inside and out.  The walls are straw bales, rendered inside, to an interesting and tactile organic finish.  Outside is clad in corrugated iron and the windows are varied and pretty with lead lights.  Huge, weathered timbers form the beams and supports.  The place is ideal for weekends away, Leura is a pretty mountain village, a nice place to spend a relaxing time enjoying good food and shopping.

 I got a few layouts done and several cards, my large flowers are courtesy of Helen's tutorial!

This was my lovely comfy room for the weekend.

And one more layout!

Heather's sketches

Heather's sketches have kick-started my missing mojo, and the pre-retreat challenges over at Red Earth have added to it.  The layouts are not the most fabulous in the collection, but after a lull, at least I am going again.

My Christening.......a LONG time ago, with all the family.  Heather's sketch and handmade flowers.

 Snapshots of Sunnydale..........Heather's sketch and hand-made flowers.  She is one talented lady!

Nice to spread out and do a double page layout for a change.  These pix were taken at the lookout on Thunderbolt's Way.

And finally, a card from leftovers for the stash, using a ribbon flower gifted in a swap.

On the home front, we now have two pairs of cute little Zebra finches living at our place in a new taj-mahal aviary built by DH, who is now busy making nesting boxes for them.  Would be so exciting to have baby birds!  They are great little time-wasters, so cute to watch, and not nervous of us at all.

Thanks for dropping by!

Scrap-fest weekend.

I have been home alone this weekend, with the family all away doing other things.  My time has been spent productively  catching up on the great challenges over at Home and Scrapped.

We had another fun Step By Step on Friday with plenty of chat online, and I managed to complete two more of Heather's  mid-week sketches from her ScrappySketches blog........

 This is my Creative Design Team challenge for March..........use doodly lettering on a page featuring yourself.

 Creative Design Team member Jewels set this challenge.  I love all the vintage style papers here, they go well with my old family photo.

 This is my take on Sarah's March challenge, based on a magazine page, head on over to H&S, to follow the Creative Design Team's fab challenges for this month.

 This is Heather's MWS 9-12.......

And this companion page is from the Friday night SBS.  Friday is always a fun night at H&S, and it gives me something fun to to while hubby is watching the footy.