Quotes

Done using Photoshop. I just realised I've forgotten to put the black borders around the quotes. Will go back and do that and re-post them.

This one is is dedicated to my husband and daughter.

I had fun with this one. I like the gold look to it.

Something we should all remember to do...

Hope you all have a great Sunday.

Movies

Brian and I have just finished watching Donnie Darko. I wasn't sure what he would think of one of my favourite movies but he LOVED it. It touched us both and I'm so happy we got to share it together. We have pretty much the same taste in a lot of movies but there are differences too. He's not really into some of the fluffy romantic comedies that I occasionally like to watch.

Another movie that we both love is Equilibrium. Not a lot of people like this movie but we found it awesome.

There's a movie I watched years ago called Pi (I think that's what it was called from memory.) I gave up on it half way through. It's one of those movies you really have to watch carefully and do a lot of thinking while watching it. I remember watching it alone. I'd like to get hold of the DVD and watch it with Brian and see what we both think of it.

A few other movies I like, that are more or less along the same vein as Donnie Darko, i.e. they make you think, are -

• 12 Monkeys
• Brazil
• Memento
  
• City of Angels (love this one)
  
• Mulholland Drive
• Jacob's Ladder (I saw this many years ago and loved it)
• Lost Highway (Brian wants to watch this one again, with me)
• Contact
  

Actually, the list is endless.

I also love murder mysteries that give away enough clues so if you watch it carefully you have a chance of figuring out the ending. I'm like that with books too.

Saturday evening

The movie Donnie Darko is going to be on in about 20 minutes. I love the movie and Brian hasn't seen it yet so we'll watch it together. I'm curious to see his reaction.

Finally finished my book (T is for Trespass). I tried to make it last as long as I could and now that it's over I feel a bit empty. I've decided to re-read N is for Noose (Sue Grafton again.)

I've been going in and out of my scrap room but still can't seem to find my mojo. I'll try again tonight.

I wish I could find some very cheap watercolour crayons. They are so darned expensive to buy new. I want to do some work on canvas and think they'll work better than paints for the projects I have in mind. Oh well, I'll keep looking. I found a lovely set at an online store. Their street store is not that far from where I live but the crayons are over $400.00. Guess my idea will have to stay on the back burner for a long time lol

I used to have such a great selection of art supplies...every type of pencil, charcoal, erasers, etc. A few years ago Jade became interested in art and I let her use all my stuff. I certainly don't regret it as she produced some gorgeous work but she wasn't quite as careful with my supplies as I was (sorry Jade lol). A lot of things were either used up or lost along the way.

Well, I'm off to watch my movie...

A couple of digital layout backgrounds

A couple of Christmas layout backgrounds I've made using Photoshop.

Our Family Christmas Traditions


Christmas is Here

This and That

Brian played the guitar when he was in his early teens. Over the years we've both talked about how we would love to play (me for the first time.) I've seen some plain acoustic guitars for ridiculously low prices. No doubt the low price will reflect the quality but hey, it's not a bad way to learn. We're going to use the Internet to learn together...it should be fun.

Over the last couple of weeks the two of us have been nutting over an idea we have for a business venture. Unfortunately it takes money to make money so we are going to have to do a lot more thinking. I'm not going to say anything else about it but it's certainly exciting and involves design.

On January 1st I'm going to add a new label to my blog - "Weight Loss". I need to make myself accountable and I figure my blog is as good a place as any. Brian wants me to list his progress too as he's decided he needs to lose a bit of weight.

The weather cooled down a bit today but it should reach 40 again by next week. Eeek!

Argh, my candles...

I just had to put this photo on my blog. I finished tidying my scrap room and noticed my candles. Yesterday they stood tall and proud. This is what the heat did to them lol

Boxing Day

Hot, hot, hot! The temp is 44 degrees Celsius today or 111.2 Fahrenheit, the hottest Boxing day on record. It's just crazy.

I'm really enjoying my new Sue Grafton book. It's always great to have a good book on the go.

I'm missing Jade (of course) but am so happy she is getting to spend some quality time with Aaron. They have friends dropping in all the time. Aaron's house is like a "meeting place" ... the place where all their friends congregate lol

Because of the heat during the day, Brian and I stayed up most of the night and slept through the worst of it this morning. I got into my scrap room and started cleaning it up and throwing out a lot of junk I've been collecting for goodness knows what reason. It's starting to look a lot neater. Another hours work and it should be much more manageable. Then I guess I'll take some photos, just to prove to myself that I actually did get off my butt and cleaned.

On Christmas day I spoke with one of my nephews. He’s 8 years old and totally adorable. He’s into real estate ... yep, I did say real estate! He knows everything about it, what areas are the best, what to look for etc. He Google's it all the time and reads the real estate section of the newspaper LOL At my sister's Christmas party, Jade found him on the computer. She sneaked up because she thought he might be looking at something “naughty” but laughed when she saw that he was checking out houses! Seriously, if we were thinking of selling and buying we would certainly ask for his opinion.

Moxie and the box

Moxie has been acting so darn cute. I've had a small purple cardboard box sitting in my scrap room for about a year. He's obsessed with it. Whenever he can get in there (I usually keep the door closed when I'm not in there) he goes to that box and tries to chew on it. Well I decided I'd give him a little present (Christmas and all that ;) ) so I gave him the box.

OMG, he's over the moon. He wont leave it alone. He's managed to squash his entire body into the box. He fell asleep in it for a little while during the night...too funny. He's slowly making his way around the top rim, biting off little bits of it. I just had to snap some pics (actually twenty two of them but I'll only bore you with four hahah)

Just my ramblings...

It's hot, stinking hot. The forecast says that we will have the hottest Christmas in 90 years. Argh! Needless to say our air conditioner will be running constantly for the next couple of days.

I found a game on Facebook and although it's fun it's driving me up the wall. It's called "The Impossible Quiz", need I say more?

Today Brian found some school buddies on Facebook. It will be great for him to be able to keep in touch with them. They're all ex coworkers (teachers) and I know he misses them a lot.

I'm going to have to hide the chocolates and other sweet stuff that's in our home. Brian has a sweet tooth at the moment and I feel like slapping him LOL He's constantly munching away and not being very quiet about it either hahhaha (I'm afraid the heat brings out the devil in me.)

I made this quote in Photoshop. I'm going to print it out onto some thick cardstock and use it as a diecut in a layout.

Life is Now

Christmas Eve

Some photos of Moxie snooping around my Christmas present lol He's such a curious little thing.

Jade spent the day with us. Tonight she and Aaron are going to a friend's house for dinner and they leave at 6.00am to spend Christmas day with Aaron's family.

This year we were not going to have any presents. Unfortunately, with neither Brian nor I able to work, money is scarce. However my sneaky husband and daughter, without my knowledge, have been buying little things over the past few months and putting them away for me. I was gob-smacked when they handed me a beautiful box full of little wrapped presents. The box itself is a beautiful shade of green and is slightly embossed with roses. I'm going to use it in my scrap room to hold my latest layouts. They bought me the new Sue Grafton book "T is for Trespass" as well as a few much needed things - facial moisturiser, body scrub, face scrub, deodorant, a little packet of notelets and a thin stemmed vase. I am so over the moon. They have really made my day!

Cheryl and Bruce, Aaron's parents, gave us a beautiful "Lucky Bamboo" indoor plant and my friend Paula sent me two packets of acrylic stamps that are way too cute. Another friend, Mitch (who is actually one of Jade's best friends) sent us over a box of chocolates and I received a gorgeous handmade card from my friend Leslie and a beautiful card from my friend Suz. Boy do I feel loved :)

Last week Brian and Jade went to a Christmas party at my sister and her finance's home. Helen and her best friend Lisa spoiled us with the most incredible hamper full of gourmet goodies and some money. We tucked into some of them during the week but kept most of it for today. Brian, Jade and I happily munched away, enjoying all the lovely flavours :)

The Christmas party at my sister's house sounded like everyone had a fantastic time. It ended up with everyone covered in flour and eggs which were thrown over her upper balcony onto the guests below. Brian said it was one of the best parties he's ever been to. One thing I can definitely say about Helen and Brent...they know how to par-tay!

Brian and I are really feeling the spirit of Christmas this year...it's such a wonderful feeling.

When Jade left I bawled my eyes out. I didn't think it would hit me so hard at all but the realisation that I wouldn't see her on Christmas day really threw my emotions into a whirlwind. I'm over it now thank goodness. I just want her and Aaron to have a great Christmas, no matter where they spend it.

I can't wait to phone my mum tomorrow and see if it's snowing in Ireland :)

MERRY CHRISTMAS

I want to wish my family, my friends and anyone else who reads this blog, a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS. It's already Christmas Eve here in Australia. May you all have a safe and happy day and for those who keep the faith, may God bless you.

I hope that the new year sends all of you much happiness, love and health.

Layout Template - Together

I've been playing around with Photoshop (again) and made this 8.5 x 11" background for a layout. I kinda like the way it turned out.

Family stuff and layouts etc.

Jade made Sushi yesterday and we had the rest of it for lunch today. It always tastes better the second day as the flavours seem to penetrate through the rolls and the seaweed becomes a lot softer. She and Brian went over to mums house with Michael and Liam. Michael and Brian were looking after mums lawns so Jade made the Sushi with Liam. When she came home she said that he was such a sweetie and so eager to learn. Spending time with him has reinforced more, her desire to become a teacher.

Jade cleaned our kitchen today and got on her hands and knees and scrubbed the floors. For a seventeen year old she's amazing. We didn't even have to ask her to do it. She always does stuff like this and it means such a lot to us. Our daughter is one special girl :)

Brian and I watched Die Harder 4.0 and really enjoyed it. We've always been fans of the Die Hard movies and this one didn't let us down.

I managed to start a layout (at last!) It's a fairly plain one but at least I feel like I'm getting my mojo back and it's a great feeling.

I'm writing this blog post while offline and will upload it when my Internet connection starts working again. It's stopped working completely now. Whenever I plug it into the telephone line it shorts out. Looks like we'll have to get it fixed sometime soon...hopefully really soon.

I've been playing with Photoshop again and am getting a little better at it each time I use it. I've made some overlays for layouts, some pretty cool quotes that I'm going to print out like diecuts to attach to my pages, some digital papers and some overlay photo frames. I really want to learn how to manipulate photos to make them look a bit better and get sharper colours. I guess that's my next thing to learn.

That's it for now.

Quotes

Three quotes I did using Photoshop.

Destiny - a post taken from Jade's blog

I love to read Jade's blog. She writes both beautifully and from the heart and doesn't mind me reading anything she writes. We have no secrets and an incredible relationship. She wrote a couple of new posts and I asked her if I could share them on my blog.

"DESTINY by Jade

She smiles as the day smothers her face with warmth
His fingers somewhat digging into her back
They exchange a stare that burns into the soul
A kiss that lights the universe
Fate has taken charge
together they lay, together they share
Happiness lingers around them like an exquisite perfume
A song as beautiful as their emotions is secretly sung
They converse without a word
They adore each others presence
They are passion, without a single hint of lust
They are love in the purest form
They are Destiny
Forever"

This is Jade's second post...

"Just a reminder - by Jade Sometimes certain events make you realise where you fit in this world.
Sometimes they are good.
Sometimes they are bad.
But no matter what they are they lead you on your way to becoming who you are, and who you will become.

Treasure your memories, because in the end it's all you have.
Of course in the days to come you will experience new things and live different moments, but in the end once the day is over, these things become a thought, a picture, a smell... within your head.
A memory.
beautiful.

Life will never be easy. But you are the only one who can make it what you want.
You are the only one who can change and create your existence.
We all have all the options in the world.
Stay true to yourself, be whoever you want to be.
Aspire to change the world, even if it's in the smallest way possible.
Everything adds up in the end.

Appreciate every single person in your life.
Believe it or not, every person you come in contact with will change who you are.
Some people will be a part of who you are.
Make sure everyone knows just how much they mean to you.
Don't put it off, you may never get the chance again.

Take chances.
You never know how beautiful some things can turn out to be.
Taking a chance is not a waste of time.
It is a step forward.
If it doesn't work out, its another experience you may never forget.

Never let anyone tell you something is impossible.
They are lying.
Everything is possible if you truly believe in it.
Always believe, even if it just makes you smile.

This is life.
live it."

I'm so proud of my girl and her beliefs and values in life.

Fonts

There are just so many fonts that I love so I've decided to have a section of my blog just for fonts. I'll share one of my favourites with you. This one is called "The King & Queen font" and can be downloaded from DaFont (click for the direct link).

My Family

I have the most wonderful family in the world. I don't just mean Brian and Jade but am also talking about my mum, my brother and sister and their families. I am so blessed to have them. We all would do anything for each other. Thank you God for giving them to me.

Great Scrapbook Shop - Scraptivate

Tonight while wandering around the Internet I came across a lovely scrapbooking site. It's called Scraptivate and is located in Joondanna, Perth. I love the look of the site ... it's easy to navigate and to read and has all the essential things like a blog and a great design team. There is an online shop as well as a "bricks and mortar" shop. I highly recommend taking a look at the site or, better still, take a trip to the shop. You'll find that some very well known Australian scrappers work there :)

***Please note I am not affiliated with this store. I just believe in giving credit where it's due and found this to be a lovely site.***

Layout - Beautiful - digital

Here's a layout of Jade done in Photoshop. As usual, the white border is only there so it looks nice on my blog lol.

Beautiful

Tuesday evening

Jade has been home all day and she made some lovely vegetable fritters for dinner.

My computer is really bugging me. I can't seem to connect at any more than 28.8kbps (I'm still on dial-up.) Do you know how frustrating that is? I phoned the help line and they gave me some commands to enter into my modem but it hasn't worked. Grrrrr.

"Psyche" is about to come on TV. It only started on free to air TV last week and I really enjoyed the first episode. Jade's been watching it on Foxtel at Aaron's house and she loves it. Hopefully tonight it will be as good as it was last week.

Brian got his ATM card back. Some nice person had handed it into the bank.

I'll leave you with a quote I made using Photoshop. It's dedicated to Brian and Jade.

That's it for now. More later...

Scraproom Chaos

I'm a hoarder...always have been. I've realised that it's time to clean out my scraproom and I don't mean tidy it, I mean CLEAN it out. I collect everything from the smallest scraps of paper to every type of medium to small cardboard box I can find. I keep them with the intention of altering them but I never seem to get around to it.

I'm going to decide on a size and get rid of any paper under that size. So far I've been keeping pieces of scraps that were about an inch by an inch. It's ridiculous and time for it to go. Can you tell I'm trying to talk myself into this lol. I guess the main reason I hold onto things is because I never know if I'll be able to afford to buy things in the future. I now see that it's a stupid reason because I've accumulated so many things that take up so much room, I can't seem to get to the stuff I really want to use.

Another thing I'm going to start to do is to USE my stuff. No more keeping things for the perfect page to come along. Far better to have a few really nice pages with pretty embellishments than to have a box full of embellishments and loads of pages with hardly anything on them.

My scraproom is pretty small. Jade has offered to swap rooms with me. She wants a small bedroom that's easy to keep clean. I need a bigger scraproom. However I haven't decided what to do as yet. Her bedroom has one dark purple wall and three mauve walls...not my favourite colours. I can also see that if I take her room I will just start to accumulate things again. I'll have to have a think about this.

Tonight I cleaned up my room and though it's now tidy it's still way too cluttered. I guess it's time to get rid of some cardboard boxes...

Art Journals and Creative Healing

Some time ago my friend Sharon Soneff asked me if I would make a journal for her new book. I declined because of some personal things that were going on at that time. I am so pleased to see that her book "Art Journals and Creative Healing - Restoring the Spirit Through Self-Expression" has now been published. Sharon is an incredibly talented woman with a wonderful faith in God. She is both real and inspirational.

This is Sharon's second book. You can read about and purchase her book here.

Her first book "Faith Books & Spiritual Journaling" can be found here.

Congratulations Sharon.

Monday ramblings

I phoned mum this morning. It was so lovely to hear her voice and to hear her laugh. She's missing us as much as we are all missing her. Her sister is doing so well, thank God.

On Friday Brian went to an ATM machine to deposit a cheque and guess what he did? He left his card in the machine. He's at the bank right now, hoping that someone has been nice enough to drop the card into the bank. I doubt anyone could use the card as they wouldn't know the PIN number but Oh! what a hassle.

Jade had a nice time at Anita and Dale's engagement party. Both Jade and Aaron are going to be in the bridal party.

Moxie is living up to his name. For the last week or so he has been fixated on something under my bed. He squeezes himself under the bed but forgets his tail is showing. I don't know why but it's irritating me lol I get him out and not more than five minutes later he's back.

Today they aired Oprah's Favourite Things. My friend Julie lives in the town where they shot the episode (how cool is that.) It looks like such a lovely place. I must say I did love the fridge/freezer.

Layout of Jade - digital

Still playing around with Photoshop and loving it. Only problem is that I'm still forgetting to write down how I do things lol. This is Jade on her 17th birthday. No journaling...I just wanted to keep it really simple. I'll do a paper layout and include more photos and journal on that one.

One thing that I love about digtal scrapbooking is the way you can pull colours from the photo and use them on the page. It really brings everything together. If and when I print out my digital layouts they won't have the white border around them. That's just to make them look nice for my blog lol.

Birthday Girl

Great free Photoshop brushes

If you are looking for some awesome Photoshop brushes in any and every category imaginable, then you can't go past deviantART. If you go through the resources section you'll find extras for many graphic programs. A lot of the brushes include .PNG files so if the brush is incompatible with your version of Photoshop, you can still use the pictures.

I know there are heaps of digital scrapbooking sites that offer free downloads but what I particularly like about deviantART is the wide range of subjects, most of which have nothing to do with scrapbooking but can still easily be used in your pages.

Layout - Brian's 45th birthday - digital

Here's a digital layout of Brian's 45th birthday. I'll still be doing a "paper and glue" layout as I have quite a few pictures to use. I used Photoshop 7.0 and some digital elements from the Designing With Digital book and CD.

Happiness is in a Birthday

Set of Quotes

I'm making a set of quotes using Photoshop. These ones will all have the same background (I might just change the colours of the squares for each different quote subject.) Once they're all done I'm going to print them out and bind them into a small book.

I kept the colours and background really simple, mainly because I hate wasting ink lol. I just can't justify using a lot of ink on the background (OK, I'm very frugal hahah) I kinda like the clean, uncluttered look anyway.

Photoshop stuff

I'm still having fun using Photoshop but realised that I haven't been writing down how I've done some things. Doh! From now on I think I'd better jot down some notes as it's a bugger trying to figure it out again.

I do remember how I did one thing so I'll post it here, more for my benefit but who knows, it may be of help to someone out there.

• open photo
• make new layer
• copy photo and paste into new layer
• select all
• image - adjustments - desaturate (this will turn the top layer black and white and the original background layer will remain coloured)
• select the eraser tool
• Use it on parts of the photo where you want the colour to show through (i.e. lips) The opacity is at 49 percent. Zoom in to parts of the photo when erasing to make it easier
• image - adjustments - inverse
• save

Free Fonts

If you're anything like me, you like fonts and they're even better when they are free. I came across a really good site. The first link takes you to a page with 40+ free professional fonts. The second page is from the same site but links you to articles with free font links.

40+ free fonts for professional design - Smashing Magazine

Smashing Magazine - Articles by Topic - Fonts

If you are looking for a huge range of the best free fonts available on the Internet, you really can't go past DaFont

Photo of Jade

Jade was playing around with the camera and snapped a heap of photos of herself. I adjusted this one in Photoshop and love the way it turned out ... her hair looks so pretty :)

Quotes, Layouts and stuff...

Greg and Janelle, if you are reading this I will find the address and send it to you :)

I have a thing for quotes and over the years I have collected heaps of them. I've started making these little boxes of quotes using Photoshop. It's a great way to learn how to use the program and make use of all my quotes at the same time :) One day I might get around to printing them out and making a little box to hold them all.


Well I didn't end up seeing the doctor today. I totally freaked out and couldn't do it. He understands why this happens to me and was fine with it. I'll still be seeing him this week but don't yet know which day it will be.

I came across a site called Rate My Space. Basically people upload pictures of their homes and the rooms within. It's fun looking through rooms and a great way to get ideas.

Here are a couple of layouts I did ages ago. I don't think I've shared them on my blog before.

2007 Resolutions
(I Can't believe it's nearly time to do one for next year)

Helen's Engagement Ring

I updated my blog template

I finally updated my blog template to the new version. It's much easier to use as far as adding links, code etc. but I did lose some of my links and had to redo them.

The thing I like best is now you can click on a label and you'll be able to see everything that goes with that label. The old version only let you see the last twenty posts associated with a label. More later...

Monday

It's 1.20am and I'm still wide awake. Today my doctor will be visiting me and I'll find out if I will have to get an angiogram. Hopefully not. I've been taking the tablets the doctor prescribed and I've been doing everything he said to do. The chest pains I've been having are a lot better. Personally, I'd like to give it another fortnight and see how things go. I really don't like the thought of a catheter going through my groin and up to my heart. I've had enough tubes stuck in me to last a lifetime lol.

We ate the rest of the chicken pastries that Brian made yesterday and they tasted even better.

As Christmas is just around the corner I thought I'd share a photo of Brian and my mum. It was taken in December 2004. The two of them are so close.

I hope you all enjoy your week. I'll leave you with this quote...

Tandoori Chicken Parcels

It was getting late last night and we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Brian said he would whip something up and this was the result. He has named them "Brian's Tandoori Chicken Parcels" and they tasted yummy.


Basically, he just marinated some chicken breast fillets in a pre-made Tandoori sauce and then baked them in the oven. Then he wrapped them in some puff pastry and cooked them till the pastry was done. They tasted awesome as they were but we both agreed they would be even better with some plain yogurt as a dipping sauce.

Yep, idiots do exist

Last night some loser called my mobile phone three times. The first time my hubby answered it and no one spoke so I took the phone from him and a man (well the voice certainly sounded like a man 20+) said "You're dead" in a really low voice.

He phoned a couple more times. I wouldn't let hubby answer because I wanted to tell the guy to "rack off" (which is a nice way of putting what I really wanted to say to him.) Each other time he just said "You're dead" again and hung up before I could say my piece.

Seriously, why do some people think it's fun to do this to people? This is the second strange person I've come across in the last month or so. The other person was one of the most paranoid and nasty people I've ever come across.

OK, enough venting...

Another digi layout

Last night I tried making another digital layout. It didn't take me long to finish it and Brian likes it but I'm not so sure. I want my digital layouts to look real, as if they were done with real paper and real embellishments. There are heaps of great digi kits out there but I'm still on a slow dial-up connection and the kits are way to large for me to download. Bugger!

Oh well, I'll keep plodding on and may try reworking this layout a few times to see if I can get it to look real. If nothing else, I'm finding this fun. It will never replace hands-on scrapbooking for me but it's nice to have something a bit different to do.

Jade has shown a lot of interest in it. She loves playing with Photoshop and said she's going to give it a go.

HERO - My lovely Brian