A couple of cards
Thought I'd post a couple of cards I've finished lately. The top one is the card I made for Ian and Karen's wedding (using the Cuttlebug to emboss the chocolate metallic card, before adding a white rubon and some highlights).

The one below is a 'thinking of you' card I made for a lady at WW who is in some desperate need of kindness at the moment. Marilyn did up a care basket, and I made the card. I hand cut 3 little butterflies out of the patterned paper and attached to the card with Pritt. The 'stitching' around the patterned paper is one of my newly purchased acrylic border stamps. I really like this colour combination, and the papers are gorgeous.
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Bryde's 30th Friends Album

My plan was to create one of these 'Friends' chipboard albums for each of my friends turning 30 this year. So far, so good. I finished one for Kirsty, and then sent it off without taking any photos of it. I also half made one for Mel, but am waiting for some photos from her before finishing it off. Each album is a different colour scheme. Here are some photos of the one I made for Bryde, and a matching card. These albums take a lot of creativity to finish, but I love the new stamps I had on hand for this album. Will post the brand and details when I remember them.
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How Fast the Year Goes....
I can't believe how fast this year is flying; we're half way through July already.

I finally got around to scanning in the layouts I have completed over the last couple of months. Well, actually I think I did all of these in March...

firstly, two layouts for my 'The Kearneys' album, starting with probably my favourite layout from the whole post (and it just so happens to be her birthday today):



A layout about the activities from my last post:



Finally got around to creating a layout for this great photo:

some February love-themed ones for my 'Us' album:






some cuties for my 'Animals We Love' album:





Thanks for looking. Hopefully I'll have more layouts posted next week, when I scan in the results of our 2008 Get Scrapped Getaway.....
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Huge Weekend

This last weekend was a huge one for me. Mainly because I haven't drunk as much all year, as I did between Friday and Saturday nights. Friday night we had a couple over to watch the cricket (at least that was the excuse), and it turned into lots of scotch and shots. Then on Saturday night I had Linda's hens night. We went to McGuires first, where we were shouted a tray of shots after being inconvenienced by a drunken yobo. This was then followed by a few more drinks. Needless to say I spent the majority of Sunday on the couch recuperating. Linda seemed to have a great time, and given she didn't get home until 4am, was looking very sharp Sunday afternoon.
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The Scrapping Bug has returned
After an absence of a couple of months, my scrapbooking bug has returned. Maybe it was something to do with being stuck inside all last weekend, but I was on fire, finishing 5 single layouts, and 1 double layout (including getting started on my 2008 in Review album).

I was inspired to start this 2008 in Review album by the latest copy of Simple Scrapbooks. I liked the idea of doing a layout for each month, with some bullet-point journalling. It allows me to scrap photos that I might not otherwise scrap.

I don't really like how this layout turned out, and it was one that I had sitting ready to go for ages. I did some experimenting with texture paste (to adhere the 'australian' ghost letters, and to stamp the question mark), but I didn't really like the messy way they turned out. I chalk it up to practice.

This is probably my favourite layout from the weekend.

I have never scrapped a layout about myself. So I thought as I'm almost turning 30, it might be an opportune time. Jason took this candid photo while we were waiting for Renee to get her camera for the photos on the following layout.

Renee and I had a great time when she came to stay for the Australia Day weekend. I loved catching up with her and having a lot of laughs (and food)! The layout used one of the TLC Hot Fudge kits, which I'm not a huge fan of, but it really suited these photos.

This layout also used a TLC kit, but one of the older QuikPage kits. Again, I had this photo and kit set aside for ages, and finally finished it.
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The Mackay Floods
It is really hard to believe the amount of water we had this last weekend. Records show we had over 625mm in as little as 6 hours, which not only breaks all Mackay historical records, but Australian records as well. For those who understand some civil engineering geek speak, it equates to almost a Q500 event (1 in 500 year occurance interval). This can't be proved though, because of a lack of historical data.

The damage to parts of Mackay was substantial. A couple we know had the flood waters rise through their house, up to the light switches. The flood itself happened so fast that from the time it overtopped the kerb & channel, to the time it hit the light switches was a little under 20 minutes. Given the short amount of time, there was little most could do, but watch.

Our house, and subdivision in general, went unscathed. These photos were taken from the garage, and show the water up to our front boundary.



These photos are of our back yard (apologies for the poor photography, but the light was poor, and I was having to take it through glass to protect the camera from spray).


Poor Sam couldn't get out to go to the toilet (luckily the little trooper just held on until the waters receded). He kept stepping down into the water and jumping back up on to the deck.

Fortunately the sun is now shining.
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Dragonfly Photo Frame

On her blog, Ali Edwards sets some "weekend creative" challenges. One that was particularly inspiring to me was the 'Punch Collage' (February #2). I really saw this as a great way of making a small piece of original home decor. Rather than using a butterfly punch, I used a dragonfly, and selected an assortment of cyan/brown papers to suit the colorings of our bathroom. I am really pleased with how it turned out. I will take a better photo once I have found a way to hang it.
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Some more completed layouts

Here are another two layouts I have completed. One is for Grandad's National Defence Medal presentation, and the other is when we met Ben's puppy Rogue back in September last year.
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Finally.... back into scrapping
It's been a while, but I've finally got back into doing some scrapbooking. I scraplifted the dots idea on the Jessie layout from one I saw in a magazine. Each 'dot' was punched into the foreground cardstock, with the contrasting colour cardstock adhered behind. Needless to say, with all that hole punching, Jason had had quite enough by the end (it's done with hammer and punch).

This one is a layout we did at our Get Scrapped Getaway this year, but I finally got around to adhering the photo. I love this range of Basic Grey papers. This layout was also the first time I used stamping with transparencies; a technique I will definitely use in the future.

This one is the layout I provided for Caitie and my first mini-GSG. Again using Basic Grey papers, but one of the new ranges.
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Mel Home for the Weekend

Mel came home for a visit last weekend. Because of all the family she had to catch up with, we only got to catch up on the Sunday afternoon, and did so, by visiting the Gordons. Originally Mel was going to bring Sam up to meet everyone, but a last minute brother's engagement party, meant he was unable to come. It was great to catch up with Mel though, and she even bought Emma and I some fudge from Margaret River. Of course, Mel fell in love with little Charlie, and I think it has made her even more clucky.
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Toons Road Bridge


Went for a site visit today up to Calen, and in particular the Toons Rd Bridge. This bridge is by far the scariest thing I have ever driven over, hence the reason it is being replaced. Half way across (when the timber was creaking), I started thinking that the 'Cars Only' sign didn't apply to the Toyota dual cab ute that I was driving. The surrounding area is quiet, and beautifully green at the moment.
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A pat on the back...
I received the following email from one of my clients today:

Fiona,
Your presentation drawings of Gordon/Carlyle roundabout are first class. Comments are usually only given to the designer when there is a problem rather then giving a compliment on their work. Well done.
Regards Colin

It feels great to get a bit of acknowledgement for the hard work that goes into these projects. Myles was cc'd in on the email, and it was ultimately forwarded on to the Qld Operations Manager, who also congratulated me. Definitely an ego boost.
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Another Cutie

Linda & Imelda asked me to meet them at town to provide a second opinion on the dress Linda has picked out for her wedding in March. I have been sworn to secrecy, regarding its details. Aunty Kaz came too, but spent the majority of the time trying to wake Reed up, without any success.

Afterwards we went to Subway for lunch (Kaz had to leave), and finally Reed woke up. He is in such a happy phase at the moment, so it was easy to catch some really good shots of him. This one was my favourite.
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Charlie at 12 days old

I went to visit the Gordons' today. Little Charlie has been quite grisly during the day, and the photo above is from a rare moment in time where she was sleeping. Her uncle Craig was down for a visit for the weekend too.
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Roses


Jason has been away for a number of days in the past two weeks. He went off to a Cad Managers course in Melbourne for 3 days last week, and is currently away for 4 days this week, in Perth, for an MX Conference.

Imagine my surprise when Rita bought this delivery around to my desk this morning. Card reads "Miss you. Love Jason". What a sweetie. Working in the same office ever since we started dating has meant that the potential for surprise flower delivery is very very small. This particular bunch was very well received, as I have had a horrible flu-ridden weekend, and even took yesterday off work.

Jason later told me that he and a guy from the conference were out in town, and Jason said that he needed to find a florist so he could send me some flowers. They guy suggested that wasn't such a good idea, as Jason would probably beat the flowers home and/or they would be dead by the time they reached Mackay. Jason then informed him of the magic of 'Interflora'.
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Introducing Charlie

Andrew & Emma are now the proud parents of

Charlie Hermoine Gordon.

Born 23 October 2007 at 4.01pm.
Charlie was 8lb 3oz and 50.5cm long.
She is such a sweetie, and is really good at sucking her thumb/fist, while making little froggie noises.
Congrats Em & Andrew.
You will make such good parents.

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Dilbert Speaks to Me

I especially love today's Dilbert. This one really speaks to me as the owner of dual-screens. On occasion now, I may just have to let out an evil laugh.....
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Grandad's National Defence Medal


Yesterday, Grandad was presented with his National Defence Medal, for his service to the Navy in the late 1940's. There are almost 1 million Australian's able to receive this medal, yet many know nothing about it. Twelve other men, and one woman were also presented with the medal at this ceremony.

The meaning behind the design of the medal : The red represents the rememberance poppy. The three red stripes represent the army, navy and airforce. The black edge stripes are for those who we have lost, and the two white stripes represent peace time, as well as war time deployments.
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When she sleeps....

Jessie has been barking a bit lately, and I think it has something to do with the warmer weather. So anytime she sleeps, she looks like an angel. I came home sick from work on Wednesday, and Jess was sleeping on Sam's chair. Rather than getting up to look at what I was doing in the kitchen, she flipped her head around, and ended up falling down between the cushion and the back of the chair. After a bit of squirming, she must have realised that it was quite comfortable, and proceeded to sleep like that for the next couple of hours.
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A Short Babysitting Service
Last night we had the pleasure (and no sarcastic tone intended), of looking after Toby and Ben for a little over half an hour. If it had of been any more than that, I'm not sure what Jason would have done. I had been at WW, but came early because of this dreaded flu, to find Jason dragging Ben around on the floor mat with Jessie's red rope. Who says you can't play dog games with small children.

Within the half hour they were there, we learnt the following:
  • Always have chippies & poppers on hand (these boys are always hungry or thirsty)
  • A yoga mat can double as a picnic blanket in the middle of the lounge
  • The Simpsons are hypnotic to tiny humans (Jason plans on taping as many eps as possible now just in case)
I was even left with a little bit of Toby's artwork : he used my magnetic message board on the fridge to draw what I believe is a person, but I'm not sure who.......
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50km (almost) Bike Ride
Early yesterday morning, 5 of us left the Botanical Gardens for an almost 50km bike ride through Dumbleton, Pleystowe, Walkerston and back to the Gardens. It was actually 46.7km to be exact, but I figure I can round up. I was expecting it to be hard, and believe me, at some times it was (especially the Dumbleton hills), but I quite enjoyed it. I have learned that a 'Floodway' sign is your friend, and a 'Crest' sign is your enemy, and that there is no way to protect your backside from the pain that ultimately occurs after a long ride like that.

The 5 of us all work at CW, and in the photo, from left to right : Me, Peter, Steve, Denise, and Andrew.

It has spurred us on to try something else next month. Tough decision between an all day hike up Mt Dalrymple, or a ping-pong tournament at Andrew's place. I think after waking up this morning I am leaning toward the latter.
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Grandma's Garden

Went to visit Grandma this afternoon, and she has this amazing array of flowers at the moment.
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My New Baby
I finally took the plunge and purchased my new baby : an Olympus SP-550 ultra zoom (18x) advanced digital camera. I was looking at going for an SLR, but didn't think I could warrant the extra funds required. This one seems to have everything I need and more, and came with a full size tripod. I intend to have more of a play on the weekend, and annoy the dogs (and Jason).
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Kristen & Brendan's Wedding
My cousin Kristen and her fiancee were married on the weekend. The ceremony was held at Dolphin Heads Resort, and it was a fantastic day for a wedding. Kristen was glowing, and the proceedings went off without a hitch. To take a look at some more photos, have a look here.

Jason and I sat at Uncle Ian's table, and I am pretty sure it is the most I have ever seen him drink, which probably led to the most I've ever seen him talk. He is now in love with Jason, as they seem to have one thing in common : an apparent dislike for people in general. It looks like we might even be invited to a Sunday family banquet in the future. Way to go Jason!

Theo also suprised me. Not having heard much from him ever, he stood up and gave a toast to his sister in the form of a poem which he had written that day. It was really good. Even Aunty Wendy's toast was beautiful. She sang a couple of lines from 'A little ray of sunshine', which had a good majority of the guests tearing up. Uncle Ian, and Kristen & Brendan gave really nice speeches too, both had some wonderful words for Grandma which I thought was fantastic.

We stayed the night at Dolphin Heads, and enjoyed a hot buffett breakfast the next morning, before going home to the very excited fur-babies who had been left alone all night. Fortunately they survived.
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