today

The children and I walked up the hill to check our due-to-calve-any-day cows early this afternoon, and I took the camera to get a photo from the top of the hill. We have certainly been enjoying this amazing winter weather while we can - although the nights are cold and frosty, the days are sunny and glorious. With an outlook like this, I hope you can understand why I love it here. There is almost complete silence, only the faint sounds of tiny grassland birds and the cattle tearing grass, the slightest breeze, and a warm-air smell. Incredible colours. No mechanical sounds, no car noise, nothing. Bliss.

good scrapping day

Trish wanted a photo of me for her website, so Kate took some of me on Sunday after church. This one wasn't quite clear, a little fuzzy, but filtered and changed to black and white, and it isn't too unflattering. I thought it was a good opportunity to do another layout about me, cos I need to be in our family scrapbooks too, right? All these papers are from Scrapartist's - aka Nancie Rowe Janitz - Pink Chocolate kit, the stitching is from Gina Cabrera's Delightful kit.



Did you know?
that I like to dye my hair purple? that I have a BA and Dip Ed? that I don't like beer? that I used to ride horses when I was young? that I have flat feet and a severe overbite? that I know how to milk cows? that I was a High School English and History teacher? that I get migraines? that I rode a motorbike on the farm as a teenager? that I have never had a speeding ticket? that I love roses? that I have suffered from depression since my early teens? that I am a simple scrapper? that I have been married for 18 and some years? that I have seven kids? that I hate the city and love the country? that I have never been in a plane? that I don't like brussell sprouts? that I am 40 years old?

sunrise this morning

I love the early morning, even though I am not a morning person. This awesome sunrise this morning needed photographing, and scrapping very simply. I wanted to use the words to the Cat Stephens song, Morning has broken, but it just didn't work out. Worked on this all evening, fiddling and tweaking like you just can't do with paper scrapping. Posted at RAKscraps. Off to bed so that I can watch the sunrise again tomorrow.

more goodies

Katie and Kellie at Designer Digitals never fail to create something beautiful for the store each Sunday. I have put these two kits on my wishlist, but a little birdie pointed out that I have spent a lot on kits this past week, so I am going to be very good, restrain my spendthrift tendencies, and hold off buying these for a bit (or maybe I'll buy them and just not fess up).

Here is my pick from Katie's offerings this week - Stone Washed Bohemian - totaly superb colors and textures.



Kellie has a couple of wonderful paper packs, but my pick is the Griffin paper pack, simply because the other pack is pink, and I have bought too much pink in the past few weeks. Again, fabulous color combinations and wonderful patterns and textures. I love that these girls can come up with so many unique and tasteful papers week after week, they are truly talented designers.



Now to see if I can get through the evening without losing my mind - is it just Monday that causes my children to be such horrors? I hope so.

lazy Sunday

We had a glorious winter's day here. There was a slight frost overnight, and lots of mist in the valleys, but once the sun came out it was amazing. After Church, I sat in the sun for a couple of hours and read my first Patricia Cornwell book - The Body Farm (thanks for the recommendation, Trish). Now I have to wait for a few more to come in at the local library. I had a snooze on the couch while the kids chatted with their cousins via webcam - gotta love modern technology, and no long-distance call rates. I had sweet and sour beef cooking in the crockpot all day (boy, it made the house smell yum all day!), so dinner was super easy.

Heading for an early bedtime - doing nothing all day is exhausting!

happy Friday

Friday is a great digi-scrapping online shopping day (although I have to wait until late Friday night, being so far ahead of the US on the timezone scale). ScrapbookBytes releases new kits and bits in the store every Friday, and there is always something I need.

DaniB released a gorgeous paper pack, with rich toile designs. I can see these on lots of heritage layouts and even some more wedding ones, and lots of potential for recoloring them too.



Dianne Rigdon has a huge pack called Provence, and often releases her new packs at 25% off regular price for the first few days. I really like the way SBB offers large kits broken down into smaller zip files - this is a godsend for us poor suckers still on dial-up internet. As it was, my internet connection was a bit dodgy and I had to redownload some zip parts, so thank goodness I didn't have to keep trying to get the whole 177 mb in one hit! This pack is loaded with papers, lots of lacy, old-world patterns, a nice selection of ribbons too, and again will be great for color adjustments.



And I bought myself one of Trish's kits - she hates when I do this, being on her DT and all. But I feel rotten getting all her goodies for nothing, and I figure I would buy her kits if I wasn't on her DT. So neener neener Trish, I did it again! I scrapped with this kit already (simple layout, focused on the photo and the journalling). I love the plaid in this kit so much, very subtle and cool.



One more item on my shopping list, from Michelle Coleman of Second Mile Designs. Michelle is one of the queens of distressing, and has another set of brushes available, painted brush strokes - how cool!



Friday is also a nice day to pick up a freebie from Nancie at Scrapartist. She loads a "freaky Friday" surprise freebie in her gallery. You never know what it is until you download it! This week's bonus is a set of lightly distressed pastel papers - thanks Nancie!

Next good shopping day is Sunday, Monday morning for me, when Katie Pertiet loads new goodies to her store.

irony

Just arrived in the post, a cheque from Express Publications for a paper layout of mine that is to be published in My Reflections magazine (Vol 3 No 6). I don't even subscribe to or buy this magazine! This is the only acceptance I had in the past 6 months, having emailed at least two dozen layouts to various Aussie magazine calls. No more submissions (for now).

I did it

I went to an online crop (Thursday night speedscrap at SBB).
I didn't chat. I got the assignment and went off to scrap.
I scrapped my way. My photos. My memories.
Layout completed, story recorded. Happy scrapper.



Here is the story (journalling):
Summer always meant a camping holiday when I was little. In the early years of their marriage, Mum was able to put her foot down, and could make Dad take a break from all the family business stuff, which she couldn't do later. Mum loved the beach, and happily took off with the caravan to the Gippsland Lakes, or down Mornington Peninsula, or along the Ocean Road, just somewhere with sand and water. These are the only photos of the caravan, which was Pop's, I believe, the annexe added for little me. This is obviously the summer of 1967, before Jenny was born. Happy times.

why do I scrapbook?

Every now and again I need to remind myself of why I scrapbook. Just my reasons. I get caught up in the need for lots of "enabling" comments in online galleries, and the desire to be published, and become despondent when these "goals" are not met. When I began scrapbooking, it was with the desire to record the stories of our photos, our family history. I have a terrible memory, and don't remember half of my past, and there are often huge gaps in what I do remember. With scrapbooking, I hoped to get these events on paper, recorded for my own future. And there was the hope that my children and grandchildren would take pleasure in a greater knowledge and understanding of me, the kind of memories I wish I had of my own parents and grandparents.

So for me, it is the story that is important. Remembering the moments. Preserving the emotions and tastes and sounds that make up our everyday and not-so-everyday experiences. So that is why my layouts now often only have one photo (that, and the fact that I scrap 8x8, and there ain't much room on this size page), and some words to capture a response to that photo. My scrapbooking is my time capsule. In thirty or forty years, I won't give a cracker for the embellishments, fonts, and doo-dads on the pages. Given the faddishness in the market-driven industry that scrapbooking has become, "the latest" techniques and embellishments are already "old". No, in forty years, it will be the photo and the story that will remain, and be cherished.

Sure, I enjoy the opportunity to be creative. But for me, that comes in the use of colour, and beautiful patterned papers arranged in a pleasing manner, a photograph that preserves a snapshot of time, and my voice on the page. I don't enjoy painting my own papers, or sewing, or opalling, or hand-cutting titles. I don't need to create my own papers or embellishments to feel creative. My creativity is using the wonderful elements created by talented designers to produce a page of memory for myself. No clutter, no mess - I have enough of that in my household of eight!

So clean and simple, and no more apologies. My style is okay for me, and that is who I scrap for. I like colour and papers, fonts, buttons and brads, stamps and stitching. These I will use. If my pages look samey, that is okay too. My goals do not include 1001 ways to make a scrapbook layout unique so that it gets a dozen comments in an online gallery.
My photos. My memories. My scrapbooks. My way.

about that magazine

I am ready to don my flame-proof suit, in case anybody ever reads this blog entry.

The second edition of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine is a vast improvement on the first. I was extremely disappointed in the first edition, but was unable to voice any criticism anywhere, as all other reviews and messageboard threads were glowing, even gushing. I found the first magazine light on content, with superficial articles and an overload of advertising. The kits given away as bonuses for the first edition were not new - I already had the Gina kit, it was on her second cd, and the kit from Maya was an older one from her online store. Hence, I did not take a subscription to the magazine. I would not order the paper version ever, as the overseas shipping price is prohibitive. I did not intend to purchase the magazine again.

However, the inclusion of a Shabby Princess kit (presumably exclusive to the magazine) was too much temptation. And I have been pleasantly surprised by the content. There are some excellent articles for improving photography, well-written and practical how-tos included. There are less articles-cum-layout galleries, because truly, we can see online galleries at any number of internet sites. There seems to be less advertisements, although I haven't done a precise page count yet. My remaining gripe is the password protection on the pdf file - I only ever read such ezines on the computer, and will never print it off, so this is an annoying little extra to work through every time I want to open the magazine. Congratulations, April, on such a great improvement.

at it again

The winter blues are taking hold of me again. I am prone to depression since my early teens, as was my mother and my maternal grandmother. My bouts with depression can strike at any time, but it seems that for the past 7 or 8 years, the cold dreary weather really does provoke very low spirits in me, and the severe early-season dose of flu probably hasn't helped either. I realised yesterday that my increased propensity to take a nap on the couch is a dead giveaway for my depression - I just become totally lethargic, heavy in the head, and fall asleep over whatever I am doing. Tears flow easily and often - this afternoon a group photo from some online friends had me crying for ten minutes, simply because they are so precious to me. And I am having a confidence crisis, and have deleted half of my online gallery at SBB, simply because I believe it was crap (anything with less than 2 comments MUST be crap, eh). I will stop going to online crops again completely soon, because they cause creative paralysis, and I am totally unable to join in the chatroom banter. But don't feel sorry for me. There is nothing you nor I can do about this. It will pass. I will emerge into the sunshine again. There WILL be sunshine again.

"To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heavens." (Ecc. 3:1)

disexcitement

Just before heading for bed last night, I stopped by April Anderton's site to check if the latest edition of her digital scrapping magazine has been released, and it has! Excitement. Honestly, the main reason I buy these ezines is for the "extras" that come with them, and this edition features a kit by Shabby Princess, so it is must-have for me.



I read all the ordering information, paid by Paypal, and checked into my account as instructed - but no download link to be seen. Log out and log back in, still no link. Send email and go to bed, hopefully there will be a response in the morning. Excitement downgraded to disappointment.

Log into my account first thing this morning to check if the download link has been activated. Nope. I have sent another email, and just have to wait, I suppose. Patience has never been one of my strong points.

UPDATE 11.30am I have an email from April, with the link and further instructions, so downloading right now. It's a big file, will take an hour or so on my dial-up connection, but quite pleased to have had a response and almost have the magazine in my hot little hands, cyberly speaking, that is.

Happy Winter Solstice

Just as well the days will start to get longer again from now. I am already feeling the winter blahs, dull cold days and nothing much doing. Still, we had a good school day, and I got to take a little nanna nap on the couch for a half-hour, which made me feel a whole lot better. Scanned a special old photo of my sister and me when we were very much younger, and scrapped with some of my favourite Gina Cabrera papers, and I managed to use one of the chipboard numbers from that Katie Pertiet kit I bought the other day. So the day wasn't totally wasted.



Oh, and I broke down and ordered Jen Wilson's new cd - been trying not to, but at least it will be on the next month's visa statement. What can I say, I am a paper junkie.

productivity

I have scanned and uploaded the wedding album pages I have done so far to my favourite Aussie scrapping hang-out, if you want to take a peek click here.

This is one of my favourite photos, I think I used to know this girl, but I'm not sure where she went.

retail therapy

Works every time! Lovely "mini" from Dawn Stocstill.



I feel much better. Now I'm off to scrap something!

Monday morning grumbles

The whole family has a bad dose of Monday-itis. Here is my little list of bleah-ness.

• I can still smell dead mouse smell on the covers of those scrapbooks
• I ran out of cardstock last night and can't finish my wedding album until more comes in the mail (I ordered it this morning)
• it is cold outside, and the wood we are burning at the moment smells bad
• I'm hungry, which makes me cranky

Maybe I should check through the new items at my favourite digi-sites, some retail therapy might help.

officially bummed

I love living in the country. I accept that there are incoveniences. There may even be discomforts. And there are mice. As the weather cooled, we noticed the little critters moved back indoors. There was even one little bloke who sat and watched us from behind the DVD-bookcase while we watched TV at night. But why do they have to die on my stuff? A couple of weeks ago, filing and sorting my scrapbooking magazines, I unearthed an ominous smell as I slipped one magazine holder down from the shelf - one of the little blighters had died down inside the back of it, and left a reminder of himself on several of the magazines. That's one way to slim down the CK collection. Muttering and grumbling, he was dispatched over the back fence, and the tainted magazines dropped in the incinerator.

This afternoon, Kate pulled out one of the CM scrapbooks to look at, and "Mum, it smells like dead mouse in there." Ants on the cover of that book, I draw out the next one to discover a very flat, rather smelly mouse remnant. Stuck like glue to the cover of the CM scrapbook by some unmentionable substances. How on earth did the damn thing manage to die between the books like that? Anyway, Ray to the rescue, I couldn't even begin to clean that sucker off, and the two scrapbooks, smelling of disinfectant, are sitting on the workbench to "air off". I think that's a good reason to be bummed tonight.

frustrations of a biscrapual

Hello, my name is Debbie, and I am biscrapual, I am both a traditional-style paper scrapper and a digital scrapper. Sounds like a self-help group introduction, doesn't it. I have seen this term a couple of times in the past few weeks to describe people who scrap both ways, thanks to Michelle at Scrapability and the 2Peas digital message board.

So what is my frustration? The cardstock I ordered for my own wedding album arrived last week, and at the weekend I made a trip to a bricks-and-mortar scrapbook store when we visited my Dad. So I should be good to go with my wedding album - right? The problem is that I don't really want to paper scrap these photos. I had so much fun doing my Mum's wedding photos, and enjoyed the freedom of digitally recolouring so many glorious papers to colour-theme the album. Now that I have ONE real paper that I am happy with, I cannot find any more to co-ordinate with it in a style that pleases me. I have spent $30 on plain cardstock (2 Bazzill colours) and patterned paper, and about the same to have the photos printed as 5x7 prints. I have a beautiful K&Co album to put the layouts in. But I am paralysed at the thought of actually starting. I must, but am finding it difficult. I think that after 18 years, it is time to scrap these photos! Oh, and the album is actually 8.5 x 8.5 inches, so if I wanted to scrap these on my pute and print them at home, I would struggle to print that size on my standard printer. So, you see, I am quite compelled to scrap these the old-fashioned way - just wishing I didn't have to. Stay tuned for progress, or non-progress, reports.



Maybe I won't be biscrapual for much longer. The lure of 100% digital is too strong.

a finished project

Last night I finished scrapping my Mum's wedding pictures, printed out the layouts, trimmed them, and put them in a mint-green colorbok 8x8 album. I'm glad it's done, they are such lovely photos, and the kids love seeing their Grandma as a young girl too. And I like to have them like this too, rather than just digital files in the computer - there is comfort and pleasure to be had in turning the pages of a book of happy memories.



This is one of my favourite photos. She looks so young here (she was only 18!) The entire album is at RAKscraps, if you want to take a peek. It is very simply scrapped because that is my preferred style, and not many words, because this is a family album. Maybe one day I will scrap some of my thoughts about Mum and Dad, but not today, not in this album.

Some of the photos I have scrapped are from the photographer, black and white, and some are taken from colour slides. I never saw these colour photos until a few years before Mum died, and never even thought about the colours of her attendant's dresses before that. It made me realise that while I like the artistic freedom of scrapping black and white photos, and messing with photo effects, colour is an important part of my memories too. So I want to remember the colour of my girl's favourite dress, the freckles on my son's face, the grubby face, the messy shirt, even if they don't really match the papers I want to scrap with. These things are part of me and my life, and are worthy of a place in my scrapbooks.

"diet" is die with a T

OK, so I am not "on a diet", nor am I "dieting", but I have been to see a dietician for some pointers on what to eat to help avoid diabetes. Yes, I need to lose a stack of weight, I am unhealthy, and have been for too long. But I have started to cut back on the volume of food I can consume in a day, and I am hungry. Being hungry makes me cranky, and gives me a headache. And it is only Day 3. Trying to make some changes that will become good habits for the rest of my life. Like eating an apple instead of a vegemite sandwich when I am hungry. Not eating when I am bored, or tired, or stressed, or depressed. Cutting back on carbohydrates. Using artificial sweetener instead of sugar in my tea. Drinking more water. Just taking baby steps for now.
But I am h-u-n-g-r-y.

Of course, a little bit of retail therapy always helps, and some lovely new kits and bits added to the SBB store. I was a good girl and only bought two little bits, so not too much damage to the credit card. This little pack by Katie Pertiet went straight into my cart when I saw it, just loving her papers and alphabets!

Better go scrap something!

lookie

Lookie what I just got my hot little hands on (cyberly speaking).



This will be in the SBB store this weekend, but I can play with it today - one of the perks of being on Trish's DT! Gotta love these colors and gorgeous papers, and that alpha is to-die-for, and I'm not generally an alpha gal. Better go make something purdy with it right now.

block

Still suffering a mild scrapper's block, so spent some time looking through my finished layouts from this year for some inspiration, or maybe a kick in the pants. Scrapping on the computer, I have completed 166 general layouts, and almost done my Mum's wedding album (16 layouts so far), so I can't complain. And I found this one that I made as an application for Trish's Design Team, just for a bit of fun, which I hadn't posted to any of the online galleries.



here is the "Pros" list, in case you can't read it:
I think getting to work with Trish would be heaps of fun. (oh, it is! it is! LOL)
I'd be able to have a DTM blinkie in my siggie. (I have, even though I had to make it myself)
I'd be forced to take more photos of my kids so that I had something to scrap. (part of the cause of the current block, I think - no new photos to scrap)
I'm in Australia, so Trish would be able to phone me and nag me about deadlines. (well, not yet)
I'd get to promote the work of an awesome Aussie designer. (check, hope I'm doing ok with this one LOL)
It'd help to feed my digi-scrapping addiction. (yes, it does)
It'd be a fabulous excuse for not getting the housework done - "But honey, I have a deadline to meet." (not working out so far - grin)
It would help me to "think outside the square" and extend my ablilities and creativity beyond my comfort zone.

and the pitiful "Cons" list:
I might have to post a photo of myself on Trish's website. (not yet, thank goodness)
I'm a little bit of a ratbag. (understatement)
It'd help to feed my digi-scrapping addiction.
the PRESSURE!! (LOL, not so bad so far)

And of course, I used one of Trish's kits (Circle of Life) to further grease the wheels!
But it must have worked, cos I got on the team, and I'm having a blast. Trish is a fun gal, and so talented, I am loving working with her designs.

Feeling a bit more motivated now, we'll have to see how the block pans out.

no place like home

While it's nice to go visit my family, it is so much nicer to come home.

Just as well today was a holiday (Queen's Birthday holiday here today), cos we were all so tired and cranky that it would have been a totally unproductive school day. One consolation of being in the middle of a drought though, it was an amazingly wonderful day outdoors, warm and sunny once the mists cleared, most unusual for June in southern Victoria, and I finally got the mail-order bulbs planted, in hopes they will still grow and maybe flower. The children spent time outside, climbing in the trees and jumping on the trampoline, and generally blowing away the cobwebs which a fortnight of flu confinement had left behind.
Only problem is I feel totally disinclined to scrap! I haven't seen any new kits released this weekend that tempted me, and I didn't manage to get any scrapable photos at the weekend, or even today. The bright winter sunshine was throwing too much shadow on the kids' faces, and then the battery went flat, so maybe I'm just frustrated with that, but I really need some new photos to scrap. I guess I will have to do some more of my Mum's wedding photos, and try for some more pics of the kids tomorrow after school.

week's end

Well, I am so glad this week is nearly at an end - I almost feel like I have gotten on top of this flu (I said, almost) We are off to visit family tomorrow for a belated birthday celebration, and some shopping in the "big smoke", so I should be packing clothes and organising the house. But I can't help myself from checking the store at Scrapbook Bytes every half hour to see what new goodies have arrived - I think some retail therapy is required to get me outa this flu-slump.
Lots of wonderful layouts arriving in the SBB gallery after the server move - seems like I am not the only one going a little stir-crazy while the site was down. And I'm keeping a lookout for Trish Jones' new cd



I'm so excited to be involved with her DT (yes, that was a shameless plug and a toot for me too!)
Hopefully some scrapping and a return to normalcy with the beginning of a new week - I wish!

birthday

Today is my birthday - and I am still rotten full of flu-that-has-become-headcold. My kids all have varying stages of bad headcold/mild flu, so we are not a happy household.
I got several sweet handmade cards (all those scrapbooking stickers of years ago being put to good use) and a mini-album scrapped by my oldest daughter, Kate, using the sticker stash, scraps, and the leftover photo box. And a lovely card and a couple of dvd movies from my want-list from hubby (Ferris Bueller's Day Off, and While You Were Sleeping) so at least I have something to watch today while snuggling on the couch under my favourite rug.
My Dad may drive up to visit (its a 2 hour drive, he's a good Dad) and will bring something take-away for dinner, and a bought birthday cake.
Still no scrapping, and my favourite site is down for a server move, which is causing serious withdrawals, but I spent some time yesterday ordering cardstock and paper for my wedding album (after 18 years, I think its time). And I renovated and reframed my parents' and Ray's parents' wedding photos on the wall, so might manage to get some more photos organised for the walls today, thinking about painting up some cheap pine frames and putting up some more recent photos of the kids.
Oh yeah, and now I'm 40.

flu bites

I don't know when I have ever felt so bad with flu, sinus pain unbearable, headache constant, and anyone have a spare lung? I think I coughed up one of mine. I have so many cold-flu tabs and codeine tabs inside me I rattle when I walk. I think it will be off to the Dr for me today. No scrapping, no reading, but I have watched a couple of Katherine Hepburn movies, so that is a consolation.

did it

what else would one do whilst suffering the miseries of flu on a cold June afternoon? perhaps this has unreasonably affected the choice of name for this blog - I hope I don't live to regret that one! so I have joined the blogging bandwagon - what now?