Excitement and a spot of crafting

Just a bit of excitement today when my new cropping table finally arrived. I know I am easily excited but you see we have always had this table which is little and cute and really no good for entertaining. My front room (the scrap space) has had two trestles and an end table. The trestles are getting old and rickety and painful to put up and down. So now I have this:

and I am so in love with it. I predict that this table will see croppers cropping, and stitchers stitching, and quilts basted, and family and friends gathered around it for homecooked meals, and it will probably even turn into a mansion of a cubby house at some point. It is beautiful and I am so proud that I paid with it totally from Creative Memories money.

So when are you coming to crop with me?!?

On a totally unrelated subject. As a kindy teacher I have always valued prior learning - children come to kindy with all sorts of wonderful knowledge that they pick up from watching their parents (I had one little bloke that could take tractors apart LOL) Here are my children showing off a bit of what to them is very normal. Hannah has been learning to knit on a knitting nancy. She is making a beanie for dolly. Then the other day I found Dan seriously doing this and as he did so saying to himself "knit, knit, cro, cro" Bless them! I'm glad they've inherited the crafty gene!

Keep smiling,

Nell

p.s. would have loved to show off my table with a huge vase of flowers but the garden is exhausted after the heat wave!

CM layout comp and other stuff

Okay, at the risk of sounding heartless, I so don't want to talk about the Vic fires. It is a terrible, terrible tragedy but I am to the point where I have thought about it too much and I just want to move on. I have been making a quilt to send through Mrs Martins Quilt Shop and some soft toys to send to Meet Me at Mikes. It seems like every blog I look at has talk of the fires. January and February seemed to have been plagued by bad news and ill health for so many people that we know. I so hope the rest of the year is a good one. Enough. On to more positive things.

Creative Memories is having a layout comp and while I normally don't do those kind of things I thought if I am encouraging others to have a go I should be doing it myself. It was kind of fun going through albums picking out my favourites to submit. So here they are:

Innovative layout?

This was done quite a long time ago but it is still one of my favourites - think it is the pink and green together that I like?

Best use of journalling: I don't know how to turn the photo around so that you can read it but this was written when Dan was a newborn and my friend Shannah took the photo!

This one is of Dan when we went to Lake Bonney. It is for the title category (I like to cut up our title stickers and rearrange them - someone told me that this is "serial killer" font eg. like the notes that get sent to police asking for ransom money LOL)

This is Hannah at Coffin Bay for the "themed layout".

Last pic is of my boy with his dog. It is no secret that I haven't bonded with our dog but I really can't fault him with the kids. He puts up with all manner of games and rough housing at his expense and he takes it all goodnaturedly. The kids adore him.

No other wildly exciting news here. I feel like I have been cleaning up little messes (spilt milk, wee, crumbs etc etc) all day. Joys of motherhood LOL.

If you have taken the time to read this please leave a comment (I'm still easily excited by comments left on the blog!)

Keep smiling,

Nell

Some Recent Cropping and how we beat the heat

I have been trying to finish our 2008 family album and I am so cross that it will not fit into two volumes! The goal this year is to make 2009 fit into one album which means more pages like this one with LOTS of photos (these are some of our favourites from the trip home to the farm for Christmas)

I have also been playing with Creative Memories beautiful new Heritage and Serenity papers. Very yummy!

We have been surviving the heat wave with lots of iceblocks and fun in the wading pool (and quiet time and air con in the afternoons!) I think poor bunny and the dog and chooks feel it more than we do! The last photo is of my little man with a squash and some cherry tomatoes (all organic and home grown!)

I love that even though we live in a boring housing estate we still have our chook pen and fruit trees and vegie garden. I can fool myself into believing I am still a country girl! Surprisingly, because he knew we grew it Dan devoured the squash for tea last night!

Today is the first day that Hannah is at kindy all day and Dan and I don't have plans. The house seems very empty without her and Dan is following me like a shadow! I think Truck Boy and I will enjoy our days together (and I might even get a bit more crafting done as Dan doesn't feel the need to be entertained as much as our Preschool Diva!) I'm off to play.

Keep smiling,

Nell