I will be missing for a while.....

because our world has been turned up side down. A couple of weeks ago our daughter Debbie was diagoised with Acute Leukemia and will be in hospital for around 8 months receiving treatment after which, she will spend a further 2 months for a transplant. Debbie and Craig have 2 little boys 6 & 3 with special needs and are going to need extra help in the months ahead.

We have been considering moving back down closer to our family and friends and this latest event has made the decission to move ASAP much easier. So we have put our house on the market and now the waiting game starts.

In the meantime, we will be travelling down to Brisbane mainly during the school holidays to help out with the boys and give Craig and his family a break and also to give our precious daughter all the support we can.

Not only that, it will also give us quality time to strengthen our bond with our grandsons. When you live so far away, 9 hours by car, we only get to see these gorgeous, loving boys a couple of times a year.

So I don't know when I will be posting agian. My scrapbooking has been put on hold but I am journaling so there maybe a mini album in the future.

To all my wonderful scrapbook friends who have visited my blog, I say a warm thankyou and I hope that you will all still be around when I come back.

It's so Confussing.......

whenever I take a photo. I don't have a SLR but my camera does have manual settings - it's just that I get so bamboozled with the aperture and shutter speed that I revert back to AUTO. I would love to be able to snap those perfect shots and I do realize that using the manual settings I can get a greater shot.
Well, thanks to Kayla Lamoreaux of Digiscrap 101 I found a link to muddyboots where I found a link to this awesome site.
There is a SimCam where you can try out different apertures and shutter speeds to see what effects they have on the "sample" image. I found it a lot of fun as well as learning to understand the applications.
All of the links I have given you today are packed full of tutorials to help everyone from digi scrappers to hybrid scrappers to beginner photographers so I highly recommend you go take a look for yourself.

Gotta be quick.....

if you want a chance of winning this Mandala Reflections Board. For more info on how to win, click on the image in the "Candy Bar".








It is designed for card makers but really, anyone who crafts with paper will be inspired by this board. I can already think of several ways I can use it. So, if you would like to know more about this board, then I suggest that you visit ikki's cuttlebug cupboard where you will find more inspiration and heaps of great tips on how to use your Cuttlebug.

If it looks lika a snake.......

and it moves like a snake, then it must be a snake. Well not exactly. A couple of days ago, I was about to fly out the door to rescue my washing from a pending storm but I stopped dead in my tracks. There, under the clothes line, was this reptile warming it's belly on the pebble concrete. At first I thought "SNAKE" but it didn't look quite right.



Bec took a photo of it and researched it on the web and found it to be a Burtons legless lizard. Their average length is 29cm and this one was a monster at around 60cm. Mind you, I had no intention of getting the excat measurement.

I've said it before.......

"I'm Back". Well this time I think I have out done myself. When I looked at the last time I posted I was shocked. So many reasons (or are they just excuses?) why I have been away for so long. I am a very organized individual (NOT) and well, life has been very busy and so much has happened - all good.

At the moment I am working on an album that I want to document a trip/holiday we had last year. I am trying to follow Noell's Task Batching to help me finish it in record time. At the moment I am tackling the journaling, next will come the photos and finally the embellishments.

If you are looking for a site that is packed full of video tutorials, examples, techniques and very entertaining podcasts, then I highly recommend that you visit Paperclipping.

Well, that's all from me today - better not go overboard on my first post in eons.
Now back to my Task Batching and to finish my cup of tea before it gets cold.

p.s. It's good to be back.

Find something good in each day and enjoy...........
Irene