Get Picky, The Phone Call.

Morning everyone, hope you are all well and enjoying this new week, here is my Get Picky layout, it was a gorgeous sketch and I just had to use these photos of Nate and I, his faces are just too cute, the "e" in the title is black but this is because he got to it with a black marker.  Not sure if you can see the pin in the bottom right hand corner but Tracy from My2angels makes them, they are just gorgeous and add the perfect touch to finish off the layouts.

Poor old Maxi, this is the love and attention he gets from Nate on a daily basis, and at 14.5 yrs old he handles it super well and just loves this boy.

I cannot believe this young man is 4 on Thursday, the time as you know just flies, and this photo is going to definately go on his 21st photo collage, he just loves veges and all things good, he would rather eat a carrot than a biscuit, (gee I wish his mum was like this). So when dear Barb gave us some parsley it didn't last long.

I got the most beautiful phone call this morning, Michelle from Texas. USA called, wow, what a buzz hearing this gorgeous girl and her amazing acsent....although she says I have one too. She sounds super gorgeous just as her picture dipicts and thank you Shell I am still on cloud 9.

Hope you all are enjoying your week, look forward to catching up soon. Love Melxx

Dearest Dearest Friends

Wow, have I really been away from you all for so long, firstly, I have to thank each and every one of you, you are the reason I have woken this morning with such a wonderful energy and resilience even I cannot explain, the support, well wishes, cyber hugs and prayers worked and I am so very grateful to each of you, you really are my strength through my troubles. I am going to spend the next few days returning to your blogs to thank you personally, but there is so much more to scrapping I realise now, it is about documenting the memories but it is also about the friends you make with this obsessive hobby, I have truly missed you. For those of you who know my troubles, thank you again for your kind, thoughtful and encouraging words, you girls have moved mountains for me. I do not know how I can ever repay you. But I arrived home to stay for good this morning, we have cleaned up downstairs and I have salvaged some scrapping stash (this was the most important) so I am ready to scrap again. Whilst at mum and dad's I did a layout, a just for me as I had no internet and it was so amazing the feeling to sit and use my glue and paper again, this really is a blessed hobby.

Notice how he always puts the bung in between his 2nd toes, he is so cute. I got home to a gorgeous package a couple of days ago from Michelle in Texas, USA and she sent me these gorgeous papers and ingredients for Smores which I cannot wait to make. Michelle you are beautiful, Nate loves the car keys and the decorations will adorn our Christmas tree this year.

This was the photo of our visit with Santa in early December, Stanley is on the left and the old hog (14.5 yrs) is the right. They were all so good this day.

I look forward to visiting you all, give me a couple of days I am assured each of you have lots for me to catch up on. I cannot wait.

I really mean this when I say I feel like you are my sisters. I love you. Melxxxxxx

Sketches 4 all, Crate Challenge Layout, Christmas Photos, Page Maps2

Hello everyone, hope you are enjoying your weekends, wet again here, we had 2 dry days though which was nice to get some washing dry....Well we had our busy week here, we went to see Frosty and Nate had a great time, and Thursday I stayed home and did the layout above which was for the colour challenge on the Crate Blog. I treasure it when Nate comes up and kisses me and says " I wuv you muumm" so I just wanted to document these great shots I took using my other hand.....

This is the great photo I got when we went to our local shopping centre for their photo shoots with Santa. It was great. They said it was such a success they will do it over 2 days next year. I was on a waiting list until the Friday before this shot was taken so feel lucky I made the cut....
Stanley is on the left and Maxi (his dad) is the greyer 14 yr old hog.

Bought myself this book as an early Christmas present a few weeks back and just love it, the layout for the Crate blog challenge is from this book, I have completed 2 layouts so far using it, it takes me out of my usual style and I am enjoying using it.

At Sketches 4 all this month, there is so many fantastic prizes up for grabs, you just have to come and join in, I have just won the ECHO PARK BOY papers and am stoked as I just love them. The above layout is for Fia's sketch challenge, and again the prize is just amazing, and I also have a great rak up for grabs to the winner of the "Scrap your traditional colours for Christmas" challenge. All you have to do is create a Christmas layout using the colours you love for Christmas, I am a red green and gold girl but there are some amazing colour schemes in the GALLERY.  Just press HERE to check out this sensational challenge blog.

Love to you all, I hope you and your family's are well, thank you for being my extended family, you all mean the world to me. Love Melxx

Get Picky Inspiration Challenge, Anna's craft cupboard

Hello everyone, hope this post finds you all okay and the weather isn't creating too much havoc where you live.....for all the overseas visitors, it has been raining fairy consistently here for over 13 days and in some parts of our country their are terrible floods and people are trapped in their towns. We are okay here but the yard is a mess and everything stinks because of the dampness.

The layout above is for the GET PICKY INSPIRATIONAL CHALLENGE this month, it was a beautiful Audrey Hepburn Quote. I guess for me, I just love how Nate and I can sit anywhere and be silly and act crazy, he is so much fun and I really enjoyed using the WRMK papers for this layout.

Over at Anna's Craft Cupboard, they had a gorgeous sketch by Wendy Smith this month and again I used up some WRMK papers to show how Nate tries to fool me into thinking he is asleep. The arvo sleeps are not happenning so much anymore and he perhaps lays down 2 arvos at the most depending on the energy he has expended. Just another milestone I guess.

This morning we went to a little show and story telling morning tea at Riverlink and Nate met Frosty the Snowman, Mrs. Claus and some Christmas Elves. He had a great time. We had our Ladies' group Christmas party yesterday which was just wonderful and Monday a High Tea at a friends place - she is an awesome cook and I just loved the awesome delights she made so its home tomorrow...yay!

This is me and "the Junior Hog" Stanley, although I gave his mop top a cut just this week he still needs a bit more cut off, I love the way he shows the white in his eyes when he looks at you. He is my older poodle Maxi's son and is 8 years old. I will post the photo I got recently of the two fur kids and Nate with Santa, it turned out beautiful.

Only 17 sleeps until Santa comes, scary hey. Love to you all. Melxxx

Artastic December challenge, Frosted Designs.

Hello dear friends, hope this post finds you well and happy, well it may be Christmas but there is no stopping the challenges they just keep coming, and this month at arTASTIC it was a doozy, for the full diva demand points you have a stable, gold embossing and and angel displayed on your page. I called in the big guns for this, prima papers, my a2z window which is actually looking into my stable and I gold embossed the word child and the star above the "i", the angel is on the right and is cut from a diary I once had. Hope you like the end result.

I just love arTASTIC, Shazza always manages to set "out of the box" criteria and I always really have to think about my layouts. Isn't this pic of Nate super cute....he is so gorgeous with his angelic face when he sleeps.

Friends Deb and Ange are on the DT for "Frosted Designs" so I participated in their Blog hop today, it was great, so much eye-candy and great prizes too. The layout you need to create has to incorporate bling or sparkle. I created this layout of "Angel" she is good friend Amanda Taylor's beautiful dog and I added kindyglitz to all the flowers and the trail of the butterfly and was totally guilt free as their is no Nate in this layout....

In this pic Nate is flying a kite but he let go of the string and it just flew off and luckily I caught him laughing his head off as he ran after it. We had a wonderful day at the park. We have tried several times since this day and unfortunately there has not been enough wind to fly the kites again. So I guess this makes this day extra special.

A few weekends ago we went to the O'Neill yearly Christmas get together and Nate got to catch up with my cousins kids, it was just wonderful, here is Harriet and Nate just looking out over Wivenhoe Dam. I had a great time catching up with my cousins, Aunt's & Uncles, and to see our kids playing together was just priceless. This photo is just another example of Nate growing up. Wow he is growing into a little man right before my eyes...SLOW DOWN......not too fast.......just a little longer.....

Love to you all and your families. Melxx

Bo Bunny Challenge, A2Z sketch challenge & Wedding photos

Morning all, not sure what is happenning but I just seem to be getting up earlier and earlier, Nate stays in bed until 8am and I am up around 5am. It is raining here and apparently is not going to stop in the near future, so their may be a great chance to get lots of scrapping done.

The above layout is one I did for the "Bo Bunny" Challenge - which was design a layout and say what you love most about YOU. I had these one handed photos I took of Max and I so just had to use them. Now the gorgeous flower I made using a great tute from Julie Dudley which you can find HERE, these are my new fixation. The round yellow crepe paper flower is from Chelley Bean Designs and the little flower centre and gorgeous ladybug pin are from Mel Pizzinga Designs.

This is my layout for A2Z for November, I used the gorgeous We are Memory Keepers papers "Maple Grove, this is a picture of Nate sitting on our wooden seat up the back yard eating star fruit.

And here are some gorgeous pics of my sister's wedding, Nate was the page boy and really did a great job, my sister looked simply stunning.

This is the pre Ceremony photos of Julie and Morrie's wedding, Nate  looks debonaire and little Lolita (Morrie's Granddaughter) looks stunning.

And this is after the ceremony, no music just lots of Boogie happenning. Just love the shirt hanging out, it's a boy thing.....

Love to you all, hope you are all happy and you and your family's healthy. Love Melxx

Sketches 4 all Rak challenge, Handmade by Suzanne

Hi everyone, hope you all had a fabulous weekend, we did, started off with a fantastic day Friday, Saturday we had a Christmas Party for local Charity I volunteer for and Sunday I took the 2 dogs and a small boy to have their photo taken with Santa, our local shopping centre put on a day we could bring our animals to sit with Santa too, the boys (all 3 of them) were fantastic.

The above layout is for my challenge for Sketches 4 all for their 1st birthday celebrations,

The challenge is: Make a Christmas layout using what you call the traditional colours for Christmas. I am a red green white girl, what are your traditional colours,  once you create your layout just post it in the Sketches 4 all gallery HERE and you could win this Rak from me.

Please post the tag: MELCHRISTMAS

This is the winning RAK

The layout below is one I created for the "Handmade by Suzanne" sketch challenge this month, I used the gorgeous Sass Lass papers and my favourite flourishes at present "Flourish with a Bling" just love there awesome gloss finishes. I hope you like the layout: The gorgeous border punch blue paper side and bottom was courtesy of Cathy Cafun....

And you know I cannot leave you without a pic of Nate:

Santa couldn't make the Christmas party for the Charity but Mrs Claus was on hand to distribute the pressies, Nate and I had a wonderful time.

Love to each and all of you. Melxx

Sketches 4 all - 1st Birthday blog hop

Sketches 4 All is having a Blog Hop starting today and runs for a couple of days!

Here is the gorgeous sketch for the 1st Challenge:

The idea is to take inspiration from the sketch and make it your own, I hope you like my layout of "surprise surprise" Nate up a tree (no hands mind you) lol!!!! No wonder I am grey, he is not up high, but they just don't see any fear........

This is my depiction of the sketch with a bit of a spin on it, I tried the technique using the leftover letters and then painted and misted over them. I used the stunning Nikki Sivils papers and made some little scroll flowers and I hope you like it.

After the Blog Hop they are having a Birthday Celebration with more RAKS been given by the DT and all you have to do is join in any of the DT challenges - this will end on Dec. 6th!!

My secret code letter is "E" and if your joining on the Blog Hop in order you should have came from Stacy

From my blog you will visit a fantastic card maker who has tried for the first time a layout, she is extremely talented - Jackie

There are some amazing prizes, not including RAK's from the DT members also.

All you have to do is:

1. Take inspiration from the sketch above and post your layout in the "Sketches for all "gallery  - write your name in the gallery details about what you think the mystery word is from gathering all the (random) letters from each blog?  (Mine was"E") and while you're there become a follower.

2. Leave a comment on each of our blogs.

3. Become a follower on Sketches 4 All blog.


Hope you enjoy the Blog Hop.  Love Melxx

Had to leave you with these two contrasting photos of my boy and my friend's Great Grand-daughter Natasha..........Just makes me laugh.......he is such a little man already......

Here I am acting like I just don't give a Damm!!!!!!

 I seriously think my boy has a good chance of winning an Oscar, he is such an actor. lol...........

Anna's Craft Cupboard Sketch, Sketches 4 all, Cosmo Cricket Showcase

Morning dear friends, hope this hump day finds you all well, we are keeping ourselves out of trouble this end, the weather is windy and drizzly here today, so you know this is perfect weather for........scrapping...

The above layout I made for the gorgeous sketch challenge at Anna's craft cupboard and I made both of the layouts using the NOOK 1934 circa Cosmo range of papers and they were really gorgeous. The above layout is to document that whenever we go driving, you will go under a bridge or overpass at some stage and not at all but randomly Nate will yell out "DUCK" and it always makes us laugh. He always manages to catch me when it is not expected too.

I recently had to get rid of this drum set, (not because of the shocking noise) but because both the side drums fell off and the plastic broke and Grampsy just could not fix it because of the flimsy plastic so I can honestly say, this little drummer boy gave it his best bash.....

I was once again honoured by both of these layouts appearing on the COSMO CRICKET BLOG, and this certainly made my day.

I was super happy Monday night because ALTYAN won X-Factor, he is so humble, a fantastic singer and of course very easy on the eye too......

7.56am here Nate is still sleeping, so I have a good chance to do my blogging, talk to you all soon, good friend Ann maree has given me the names of 2 wonderful christmas movies Nate might like, "The Grinch" and "Elf", so I might have to invest in these this week, I love Christmas movies....and it is so so close now.

Love you all. Melxx

Get Picky 2nd November challenge

Hello dear friends, hope this post finds you all in great spirits and all your family's are well. Monday again, I actually don't like them, but today we stayed home all day, I got to make the above layout for GET PICKY No. 2 Sketch for November. I have had these awesome Crate Paper papers for ages and have never made a layout with them, that is really terrible, but I kind of bought them knowing that I would use them when Nate goes to school and thought they may not be available by then so I was better off buying them now.....well that's my story and I'm sticking to it. I love these random shots Aunty Jan took of us sitting on the lounge one night and the title is "My mummy, My teacher". I hope you like it.

We had a lovely weekend, went kite flying on Saturday arvo at the local park, Nate had a blast, and Sunday went to Wivenhoe Dam to catch up with dad's side of the family, this is a yearly event, Nate got to play with all his cousins (well my cousins children) does that make him and them 2nd or 3rd cousins???? Heaps of fun. We watched X-Factor last night, GO ALTYAN!!! so the final is tonight.

Okay some problems with Blogger this end, so I will leave you and off now to visit all your wonderful blogs to check out what's happenning around the blogging world. Love to you all. Melxx

Scrap the Boys, Cosmo Cricket Showcase

Hello dear friends, hope this finds you well, and you have all had a wonderful week so far. We had a lovely Tuesday lady's day, Wednesday Aunty Jan and I scrapped for half a day, dear friend Amber told me she is having twins......and today we wrapped Christmas pressies for a local charity and this was so much fun, Nate helped out and the lady's just love him, so it's been full on here.

I made the above layout for this month's 2nd Scrap the Boys challenge this month, it is a stunning sketch and I used the gorgeous new Cosmo Cricket range of papers I got in The Nook kit this month, and the round part of the layout is chipboard, I inked it, then stamped on it and clear embossed over the top, I was super happy with the result and got the honour of being on the Cosmo Cricket Blog and had this layout showcased so this was a wonderful start to this week.

The above photos were taken at Cathy's house (I hope you don't mind me posting Cathy) but when I saw them my first thoughts were "Where has my baby gone" I know we all talk about how time seems to just be beyond comprehension the way it travels so fast, but here is my baby sitting driving a car (not well though) using X-box - wow, guessing we all feel this way about our kids, I miss my baby....he is now a little man....

Love to you all, enjoy the rest of this week and the weekend, I am looking forward to seeing your gorgeous projects, will visit over the next few days.  Melxxx

Sketches for all, Jillibean Soup

Good morning dear friends, cloudy thank goodness today, it was sooo hot yesterday, little cooler expected today?? Hope you and your family's are all well.

The above layout is my DT layout for Sketches for all and I just had to use this pic of Nate in the bath and me feeding him strawberries, Aunty Jan was taking the posed photo, this is not something I do on a regular basis but it was a fun example to show Nate later on that his mum really does spoil him. The layout's title appropriately reads "Feeding the monster in the bath".

Now this is the sketch that we used to create our layouts, now if you would like to have a go, I would love to see your interpretation. There is a fantastic prize too. I used the gorgeous Jillibean Soup Monster Stew papers, I am just loving the bright colours in them, if you would like to enter the sketch challenge just go HERE and I look forward to seeing what you come up with. Sketches for all is a great site with approx 13 challenges going on at the moment, lots of prizes, and the challenges are STAMPING, TAGS, ALTERED ITEMS, and heaps more.

How cute is this photo of my boy doing the vacuming (big bird he calls it) this is a photo this mother just could not resist, boy using Dyson - no pants - PRICELESS.  (a future 21st photo album shot to show his friends) A mum has to do what a mum has to do. By the way, he vacumes every day, he just loves it, so I am guessing that by age of 6ish when he is old enough to manouver it properly he won't want to do it anymore????? 

Off to the old lady's group this morning, I always look forward to their jovial antics, I so look forward to seeing them smile. Hope you all have a fantastic day, love to you and your families. Melxx

White with 1, Meeting Cathy Cafun

Hello everyone, hope your weekend has started well, it is soooo hot here, it must be going to storm I think, we are popping over to a friend from Lady's group to have a swim with her and her grand daughter, which means I will probably start a diet tomorrow once I see myself in my swimmers for this summer. lol

I had the opportunity yesterday to meet up with someone I met online through this wonderful hobby, I just loooooove her work, and to see some of it in real life, wow well what can you say, she blows me away and not to mention her amazing scrap area......Oh wow------ It was Cathy Cafun, and I was excited but a little scared as I had a little drive to get there, but found her place okay and well to say "we hit it off" I think justifies the fact that no scrapping was achieved. lol we just talked but we have said that next visit we will scrap.......I got to meet her beautiful children, and Nate just loved them as you can see below.

Cathy is on the Design Team for White with 1 and this month the challenge was to do a layout with white and yellow and journalling straight on the layout itself, you know this really challenged me, there is a little extra colour in the ink I used to highlight the edges of my handmade flowers, I used Sass Lass papers here, and I cut up tape measure and the pics are Nate playing on his swing out the back.....he is always wanting to go higher and higher. The chipboard circles and sass lass paper from the Mix and Mend range is from Tracey at My2angels.

Cathy and me

Brittany and Nate playing X-box. He told me last night he is going to marry her......she wants to be a doctor so this mum is all for it....she is just gorgeous to boot....good choice son.

Nate's new friend Luke. What a gorgeous boy, so polite and great with Nate. Thanks Lukey for teaching Nate how to use K'nex, and sharing your hot chips with him and showing us a little more about Cosplay.

Aunty Jan is coming down tonight so I am going to do a layout.....Hope you are all well, will check out your blogs over the next day or two, Love you all dear friends. Melxx

Scrap the Boys,

Morning everyone, Hope this post finds you and your family's well and happy. Well it looks like a fine and sunny day today after the downpour we had during the night. Nate and I are going to Storytelling at Riverlink Shopping Centre kids program today, he gets to make a fairy wand and some other crafty things. He really won't care he just loves crafts and there are other little boys going too......

The above layout is for Scrap the Boys this month. You know I just love my Sass Lass papers, can't go wrong with the amazing array of colours, and I got a baby pin, threaded on of My2angels camera charms on it and really like the effect. I have had these Sass Lass letters for quite a while, you know when you just hoard something because you really love them, well it was time to get them out and the amazing cutout of the superhero was from a cut out of a card in a rak from Glorygirl - thanks Julie. Oh and the flourish is by Flourish with a bling.

I hope you like my layout, and again thanks to all of you, by visiting your blogs I have my mojo back to better than ever, you all motivate me to get into my scrapping with your wonderful craftiness and talent.

Thank you so much to the lovely girls who gave me blog awards this week, you are both very special to me, I you all have a fantastic Wednesday and will hop over to see you soon. Love Melx

These are a few of my fav things, Nikki Sivils

Hi everyone, well what a lovely weekend it turned out to be, sunny, very warm, and yay no rain.....got some washing dried. Went to the outdoor movies at our local park last night and saw G-Force, it was good.

Had a quiet day today, did some blogging, got some challenges ready for the week, and Nate is sitting here watching Racing Stripes so it is wind down time here, I may get some scrapping in tonight.......

The layout above is for "These are a few of my favourite things" challenge blog, the theme is do a sport layout, now Nate being so young I have no sport pics as such so I hope the above layout qualifies but I can assure you if tree climbing was a sport.....he would be very good at it. I used 2 lines from Nikki Sivils papers, Tree Love and I am actually not sure what the blue piece is from, I have lots of trouble finding them over here and won the pages you see here.

This is a card I made recently using the beautiful Bisous papers. Hope you like it and look forward to catching up with you soon. Love Melxx

Get Picky

Hi everyone, hope this post finds you all well and looking forward to a wonderful weekend. (Looks like a wet one here) a storm is rumbling outside as I type this and it is only 11.30am.

Above is the gorgeous inspirational photo (gotta love those colours in the lollies) from GET PICKY for their 1st challenge of the month. It totally did the trick for me, and my mojo soars when I see these bright colours. I can let my imagination go a bit. My layout of "Nate at almost 4" is using the gorgeous bright Sass Lass colours, I bought him a real tape measure a while ago and it got caught and broke (it was only $1.99) so not to go to waist, I cut it up, and that is it on the layout, Nate thinks it is going to be fixed by Uncle Col so I will have to get one soon before he remembers........lol

A while ago for Nook challenge they asked us to make a card using something old on it and it couldn't be the usually shape, so I cut out the car and used some "ends", have no idea what they are for but they were in my "fixing/man thing box" I have with nuts and bolts and screws in.......but anyway that is them sticking out from the middle of the wheels.

Okay off to do some blog hopping to see what you have all been up to, Nate is watching Buzz in Toy Story, it is raining now outside, housework is done,  I always look forward to Friday nights, my Channel 2 crime shows are on at 8.30pm and Luther is on at the moment and not only is he cute, it is a great show to boot......Love to you all. Melxx

Artastic, Nikki Sivils, sketches 4 all, Purple pumpkin

arTASTIC challenge blog this month has the amazing painting "The Beach" by Chris Wake (below) for inspiration:

I used the Indie Girl papers from my Nook kit here and I didn't have a pic of Nate and I on the beach, must get one this summer, and did you like the little Purple Pumpkin buttons I used for the flower centres?

The criteria for 6 pts is to add a sandcastle or bucket and spade to the layout (3pts)

add some seagulls (2pts)

a family photo at the beach (1pt)

I would love you to join in this month.

I was honoured in October to be Guest DT for Sketches 4 all and Fia has asked me to stay on as DT member and I humbly said YES, they have some fantastic challenges and an amazing DT. I will let you know my November Challenge list soon.

I love Nikki Sivils so when Sketches 4 all had a Nikki Sivils challenge, good friend Michelle Hodges said they were having a contest using her great products I made a layout and was just blown away to have won, but even more blown away that Julie Tucker-Wolek honoured me by showcasing the layout on Nikki's blog. Press HERE for a sticky.

Went to Amanda's for a scrap day yesterday and guess what - I did a layout I was super happy with so I think she helped me get my mojo back. YAY - thanks Amanda.

Good friend Samantha Hauzer who owns Purple Pumpkin designs has this amazing competition going, I just have to tell you their is still some amazing prizes, here is the link and a pic of the stunning prizes is below.

So it's Melbourne Cup today, the ladies from the Tuesday group are coming over for the race day celebrations. Hope you all have a lovely day and thank you all so much for supporting me through my no mojo October, but Novemeber is here and I am excited about the new month. I will be visiting you all later tonight and tomorrow. Until then. Love you all. Melxx