Standing Up

So I signed up for the Stand up and Scrap contest. I have no illusions of winning but could be a bit of fun and may stretch me a little. The first challenge involved brushes and the second one asks you to use different patterned papers. Neither of these are my strength. I am a fairly clean and simple scrapper so I am finding it difficult but I guess that's the point. I won't be able to show all of my pages until we're done.

I do have some LOs that I CAN share.

This one is for the quote challenge at MDM. I kept trying to add more to it but it didn't feel right so I guess this is it. :) Holly also posted it on the MDM homepage as Masterpiece of the week which is very cool.

This one uses Lauren Reid's Spookiest kit. I am not a big Hallowee person, but I guess since I now live in America I should expect at least one LO each year that shows Thomas in a costume. This is my first one. I am glad I scrapped it though because I just had those photos sitting there from Oct 2006 and thats where they would have stayed if I hadn't tried to create a Halloween LO.

This one uses a bunch of Lauren stuff, including her NZ Naturals kit which I love. Very simple and understated with muted grungy colors. Gorgeous. I also used her wonky templates (which I will HAVE to use again) and her new Mistaken alpha. I really like this one and have to create more pages about the everyday things.

So that's about it from me tody. I have an offsite meeting for work tomorrow and Friday but hopefully I'll fit some scrapping and blog browsing in at the end of the day. I can't be away for too long. :)

Off to think about the next Stand Up challenge now... hmmmm...

Thanks for stopping by

Nicole

Mojo Kickstart

I am blogging on Mojo to Gogo today for Lauren's team. Drop by and check it out. Today my little piece is of mojo is some water pics I took with my brand new camera. Did I mention I bought a brand new camera? :)

My weekend was nice and relaxing. I really felt like I had a weekend which is very nice. Kei played golf ALL DAY on Saturday. He was gone from 9am to 7pm. Not that I'm complaining, I mean it might be his last opportunity for a while.

Thomas and I hung out at the park near our house. They had an organic baby fair which was fun. Lots of people trying to sell their holistic wares - chirpractors, midwives, lead testing etc. It was a good way to kill a few hours and really tire Thomas out. He took a 3 hour nap when we got home!

Yesterday was quiet and restful. I even took a two hour nap while Thomas was sleeping.

So nothing too exciting to report I'm afraid. I may have some news to share later this week. ;)

Have a great Monday
Nicole

Girl Talk

I posted on the Girl Talk blog today. Drop by to see a preview of Dani's new kit and read more of my witty banter. :). Here's a teaser.

See you over there

Nicole

A Sad Day in Digi Land

For those of you who have not heard, My Digital Muse will be closing it's doors on November 1st. Hollly has made the difficult decision to focus on her photography and retire from digital scrapbooking.

While I will miss the community at MDM, I am glad Holly is making this decision for herself. I am also glad that MDM will not be continuing without her. I just don't think it would be the same.

I definitely had lot of fun on the team as one of the original CT members. It was my very first CT and I think I grew as an artist and gained more confidence in my abilities. It was also fun hosting the photography challenge. If you haven't seen this month's you still have some time to enter and win a GC to spend on all the bargains appearing in the store over the next few weeks. Click here for details. I don't think I'll do one next month so get in while you can. :)

October should be a fun month on the site with lots of specials and goodies to go around. Make sure you drop by and bid us farewell.

Work continues on my other CTs. I have been on a little bit of a scrapping slump lately and took a rest for a few days. The good news is that I think some of my mojo has returned - just in time for the first Stand up and Scrap challenge. It's a tough one but I have some ideas brewing. I have no illusions about winning the competition with more than 500 participants, but I will definitely have fun and learn something in the process.

Here's a couple of layouts I completed this week. I have another that I can show tomorrow with Dani's gorgeous new kit. I will also be posting over on the Girl Talk blog tomorrow so make sure you check it out.

This first LO is for the challenge on Nancy's blog this week. It uses a whole buch of photos I thought I had lost in the CF card disaster so the $40 recovery was definitely worth it - especially if I happen to win the challenge. :) Of course I haven't won one yet, but you never know... Whether I win or not, I have managed to create some great pages thanks to the challenge prompts. I don't usually use much yellow in my pages but I love this one. So much fun.

This one is for the current challenge with Jen Wilson's new line. A little more feminine than usual.

Oh, and one of my LOs is being lifted over at JW this week. I won a $5 GC for the honor. Just in time to purchase some of the new goodies. :) I love being lifted. It's so much fun to see what others do with my basic design. Some of the Lifts with a Twist pages are amazing!

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great day and... don't forget my challenge. :)

Nicole

Great News!

My photos are saved! I paid $40 for a program that rescued my photos - even some that I had deleted off the camera on Friday (not that I wanted to keep them but good to know I can salvage if I ever want to).

I am so happy. And the $40 was worth it - even for just this little gem.

I am off to return the card today. I ordered another (different) card through Amazon which should arrive in the next few days and then I can start using my camera again - (almost) worry free.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes. I think it really helped. :)

Having a spa night with the girls this evening which should be a lot of fun. I of course won't get any more scrapping done - I think it's been about 5 days which is a lifetime for me. Just need to get out of this funk. Hopefully my mojo will return just in time for Stand up and Scrap which begins tomorrow.

Anyway, just wanted to share the good news. Must get back to work now.

Thanks for stopping by

Nicole

Good News and Bad News

The Bad News
I finally received my brand new Canon Digital Rebel XTi and I LOVE it. But there is a problem. The camera arrived on Friday so I ran out right away and bought a SanDisc 4gb CF card so I could use the camera right away. I made sure I did my research about the right card and read many sites that said the Extreme II was a good card for personal use.

On Friday afternoon I played around with the camera and it was working beautifully. On Saturday I had my son's 2nd B'day party and, when I reviewed the pics on Saturday night I was so happy with the results.

Then I went out on Sunday and took some more pics at a local fountain with my boys. When I tried to review the files that I had just taken I got an "Image Corrupted" message. I looked throught he rest of the pics and about 50% of them were missing - including a whole bunch from my son's birthday party.

I am devastated. I have since read some reviews on Amazon that mention a bad batch of this type of CF card. I found a card reader at work and I am going to try and recover some of the files tonight. I hope I can get some more of them back because there were some of Thomas eating cake that were so precious.

So far SanDisk hasn't been very helpful. They sent me an email with a list of "why this may be user error" responses which just made me mad. I am going to try some of their suggestions tomorrow and then send them a nasty message.

I can't believe it - I have had my camera for two days!!! Anyway, apologies for the long whiny post. I just had to vent.

The Good News
1. I did get this photo of Thomas in his Blues Clues ears. So cute! If I can recover some more photos I'll share them tomorrow

2. Thomas' birthday was a lot of fun. The weather held out and the kids had a great time (now if I can only recover the photographic proof). Only down side - someone gave him a gift that is, in a word, obnoxious. It's very loud and has no volume button or off switch. They are due to have a baby very soon themselves so I may have to re-gift somewhere down the line.

3. I am on a winning streak. My luck in didgi land has been in a full upward swing the last couple of weeks. Good thing too, because my mojo seems to be on a little hiatas right now.

• I won a weekly challenge for Jen Wilson's Attire/Accessorize contest which means my LO was voted the best one for that week. You can see the LO here.
• Then I won some cool photo overlays from Traci Murphy just from posting on her thread at My Scrapbook Art.
• And then on Saturday night I won a book from Nancy Comelab. Looks pretty cool too, all about sourcing your inner creativity which I really need right now. I also exchanged a few emails with the lady herself. She is such a sweetheart and has been going through a tough time lately. THEN she left a comment on my blog. I was a double winner - well triple if you count the emails.
• Then I was browsing my blog list today and happened across my own LO at Lifts with a Twist! Yes, people are lifting me this week. I feel so honoured. Click here to see the post.

4. So I have been winning all over the place. What I haven't been doing is scrapping. There may be a reason for that too, but I can't officially share it quite yet. It's also very good news and some of you may be able to guess. :)

5. It's my Mum's birthday today - Happy Birthday Mum!

So I guess I ended this one on a positive note. That's me - the ultimate optomist. :)

Have a great day everyone. :)

Nicole

The big day has arrived!

My camera is coming today - whoo hoo! I usually work from home on Fridays but since I am having the camera delivered to the office I just HAD to come in so I could take it home and start playing. It feels like Christmas.


It's also grab bag weekend at MDM so maybe it IS christmas. :)

We are having Thomas' birthday party this weekend and the weather is looking a little dodgy. I certainly hope it clears up so we can enjoy our time at our UNCOVERED picnic area at the park. It's close to home so our house is the backup venue, but I paid to reserve space at the park so I hope we can have it there.


Is this bad? I had someone come in to clean my house on Wednesday. I always feel so guilty especially because Wednesday is my day off and I did spend sopme time sitting on the couch while she cleaned. Oh, and I forgot to give her a tip -ooops! It just doesn't cross my mind. You don't tip very often in Australia and it's certainly not expected so sometimes I forget. I don't think she did a great job anyway. I am still finding things that she didn't even touch - like the windowsils in the kitchen. Next time I'll just clean myslef when I can find a spare 5 hours...

Wow, this is a boring post. :) Best finish it off with a couple of layouts. Click on the image for credits.


This one is for current lifts with a twist challenge. The original is by Davita who is on Lauren's CT. For a little background: Thomas was given this necklace as a present at his friend Riley's (he calls it his "Birthday Present"). He wouldn't take it off for about a week. Then he found a headband of mine, took of his shirt and this was the result.


This one is for the MDM SOTB challenge - to scrap a new place in your hometown. Somewhere you have been meaning to visit for some time.



Well, that's all folks. have a great weekend.

Nicole

Huge!

This is HUGE! I just placed an order for a brand new Canon Rebel Xti Digital SLR. I can in all honesty say that if I had not become so addicted to digital scrapbooking then I would not have a $700 charge on my credit card right now. I tell my husband to blame the digi scrapping community - especially the enablers over at My Digital Muse with their beautiful photos.

I am so excited! It should arrive by the end of the week - just in time for Thomas' birthday party on Saturday. Not that I am thinking for a moment that I will learn how to use in just one day.

Anyway, look for some blurry photos on Monday as proof of my new purchase.

Layouts

I have completely lost track of the layouts I have and haven't posted on this blog. Here are a few I am almost sure I haven't posted before but please forgive me if any of this seems repetitive. ;)

I created this one for the current challenge on Nancy Comelab's blog. The challenge was to create a layout about an event in your life without using photos. This was a tough one for me. Thankfully I had a lot of time to think about while I sat in traffic for almost two hours yesterday on my way home (yes, two hours! There was an accident that closed down all but one lane of 1-5).

I forgot how helpful it is to actually have some time alone to think (Now how's that for looking onthe bright side of rush hour traffic :)). I have been planning to document Thomas' birth story for...ohhh.. two years. I still plan to write EVERY detail down but I think this will be a great LO to accompany it. It really talks about the roller coaster ride of feelings during his birth. I love how it turned out. Click on the image for a larger view, credits and better look at the journaling.

This LO is using the new exotic adventures kit - a collab by Nancy Comelab, Chrsitine Renee, Tiff Brady and Emily Merritt. Such a cute kit! Click on the image yada yada yada.

I tried something new for this one. I actually used my tablet PC as a tablet and created my own "hand-cut" shapes. I really like the effect. The papers are from Tara Sroka at MDM. Again, image is clickable for more deets.

And this one's just pretty. I used Dani Mogstad's Saturday Market kit. The kit is pretty and girly (although I have used it for a boy LO) that I just had to scrap some pics of my favourite flower.

That's about all I have to report today...and that's enough right? Thanks for stopping by. :)

Nicole

Some Monday Mojo

Posting on Lauren Reid's CT blog this morning. Head on over there and prepare to be inspired by some amazing artwork.

http://www.laurenreiddesigns.com/teamblog/

Back to regularly scheduled programming tomorrow.

Nicole

Big day in the Ishida house!

My baby turns two tomorrow. I really can't belive it. He is growing up in a blur and I need to stop and watch him more often so I don't miss anything.

The BIG news... news that he'll be mortified that I shared with the world in 18 years... He peed on the potty for the very first time. I was doing a jig in the bathroom. So exciting!

It all began when we were when he asked for a big sticker - we give Thomas little stickers for sitting on the potty but he has been told that he only gets a big sticker if he pees. I am all for bribery if it means Thomas is out of diapers more quickly. :) Anyway, he sat on the toilet and then it happened. I don't know who was more surprised. When he'd finished he said "more"? So I guess it was an enjoyable experience.

Anyway, just had to stop by quickly and share the news. Those of you with children will understand what a huge day this is. Those of you who don't have children are probably thinking "Why did I just read a whole post about someone peeing?"

A quick photo and LO to close. The photo is for my photography challenge on now at MDM. The topic this month is "3 is the magic number" - Submit any photo where the subject or composition relates in some way to the number three. You could have a photo of the number three, three objects, three strong components that make up your image, three colours, three divisions anything that relates your image in some way to THREE.

Here's one of my photos (although I took MANY more - just couldn't stop).

And my latest Favourite LO (Click on the image for credits).

Thanks for dropping by and indulging my excitement. :)

Nicole

Totally Ever So Not Fair

Today's blog post title brought to you by Lola of Charlie and Lola fame. My grammer isn't quite that bad. Very cute children's books and a TV show to go with them but I have only seen it once. Thomas likes Charlie and Lola (and secretly I do too).

But that's not the unfair part. Begin rant now...

I am 32 - not that old, but old enough that I sometimes need to take a moment and do the math to remember how old I am. And old enough that I should not have to worry about pimples any more! I am so tired of waking up in the morning with an eruption the size of vesuvius planted on my cheek, chin, forehead etc. etc. I mean when did the rules change? I was told in high school that I would grow out of it. That Acne is a temporary thing suffered by teenagers (like the teenage years were punishment enough on their own).

I have tried everything - creams, lotions, scrubs. At the end of the day I feel that I am now in my 30s and Acne should be a thing of the past. Come on universe, cut me some slack here. I deserve it.

Rant over.

And, no, I am not posting a photo today. :)

Had To Make a LO...

... based on my last post. I love Manda J Designs. She is a new designer at MDM and if you haven't checked her out, you should. (Click on image for full credits)

Anyway, wanted to post before I go to bed.

Nighty Night

Nicole

So Proud

Thomas got into the cupboard where we keep the pots and pans the other night, pulled out a saucepan, found a wooden spoon somewhere on the floor (no, that's not usually where I leave my wooden spoons) and proceeded to "cook" something. He was yelling out to me in the other room and saying "Look Mummy, I'm Cooking".

Of course at this point I'm thinking I have the most intelligent child in the world. I mean he's not even two yet and he knows that saucepan plus wooden spoon means cooking. Especially impressive since he probably learned this from watching me do it.. oh.. three times in his entire life!

But then the thing that happened next pushed him into the genius category. He looks at me and says, clear as day, "Mummy, take a picture!". My heart sang with joy. I have a child who like to have his photo taken... at least for now.

Here are the resulting photos. A little blurry, but definitely worth pulling out the camera for this milestone moment.

This is one proud Mama. :)

Nicole