Have I ever mentioned

Just how much I love babies, new ones especially. I love the way they smell, they softness of their skin, the noises they make, even when they cry. So imagine how happy I was today when a friend allowed me to photograph her 9 day old baby, so beautiful and fresh. So without further adieu meet Stefan.

Now I realise I have a lot to learn in the baby photographing stakes but hey, I'm so willing to learn, especially if it means I get to have lots of snuggles.

The banned band cat.

Meet Mr Whiskers. Paddy decided that him and the guys he jams with needed a band cat and that that band cat should live at our house...Big mistake...there are already two cats and one dog here, more than ample for a husband who wanted no pets at all, so you can imagine his reaction when he came home to another kitten in the house. i must add that he was one very cute kitten who took and instant liking ot sleeping on my shoulder and following me around every step I took. Me attached, never. Any way Mr Whiskers, now renamed Patrick has gone to live in another home and I will have to find something else to practice taking photos on.

But he is cute isn't he???

Seamus' first game of cricket for 2011, and all I can say about it is bring on the footy season. I actually think he may just agree with me too. Watching cricket is fine for the few minutes your kid is doing something (I'm talking the few minutes out of hours and hours) the rest is akin to watching paint dry. I know there are many cricket lovers out there who would have me drawn and quartered for that statement but heck I've watched snail races more interesting. At least with a good game of footy there is always something happening. Thankfully none of the boys have shown any interest in the game beyond school boys so I tolerate it while it is on for their sakes. Good coffee and chatter always gets me though,lol.

Playing with frames and textures

Playing

With Rita's newest action velvet cream available  http://www.thecoffeeshopblog.com/2011/02/coffeeshop-velvet-cream-pspse-action.html What do you think? Frames are hers also.

Bool Lagoon

Ok, right at this moment I really should be tucked up in bed, so tired, but I thought I would quickly put up some photos taken today our at Bool Lagoon. a  local wet land area (that is actually wet for the first time in years) It was pretty windy and the clouds didn't lift and give us great light until it was time to leave but still had a great day. Thanks to my photo buddy Sarah, good to have some one to talk camera to(someone to talk photogrpahy to who's eyes don't glaze over when you start talking f stops :-)Teeny tiny things, pulled out my extention tubes but it was quite windy and I was hand holding, fun still though.

The boys.

On Saturday Naracoorte celebrated with the annual food and wine festival. Paddy and  few mates got together to do a bit of busking and ended up pulling in a neat $100. They were very impressed for their first try. the boys have been doing a bit of song writing and need equipment to record it so it went back into a microphone and some other gadget. Happy that they have the nous to get do a bit of work for the things they want instead of  expecting things to be handed to them, a good ethic for life.

 Some shots of Joe and Seamus in the back shed, aka, the man cave.

I know it is very cliche to say that I don't know were time is going and it only seems like yesterday that they were babies but it is so true. Seamus my baby, is 12 tomorrow.



Drivers beware

there is another P-plater on the road

One very happy and excited young man.

What a difference time makes

This is the Naracoorte creek in December 2006 taken at what is normally a large water hole.

 The same Creek January 2011 (not exactly the same spot but just a few hundred meters downstream)



Water water everywhere

A few quick pics from around the area of our local creek. Normally this time of year it hardly warrants being called that, more like a long stretched out puddle, but with the flood water coming in from various other creeks and rivers and a decent downpour of rain the other day it has burst it banks well and truly.

 The two submerged metal handrails are normally well above the water, they are what you hold to step down onto the small bridge to cross the creek. that debris collected there is on the edge of the top railing.

 At the very back of this stretch of water is normally where the creek runs.

 Normally grassy area

 I have written in red where the path normally runs, behind that green sign that says creek walk. It is normally no more that a couple of meters wide at this point, and at times it almost dries up totally. That slab of cement to the right of the sign is a bench that you sit onto look down into the creek.

 Behind the pumping station (for you locals) a normally grassy area

another area that is normally dry.

Although the floods have caused devestation in some areas our little flood has not yet done any major damage and is actualy quite beautiful. We are amazed at the amount of wildlife it has bought into the water system,  frogs, fish , yabbies, birds etc. It has also bought people in the town much closer as every one has a common interest to chat about. 

Ducking in

Seems all I ever do lately :-) Just sharing a card and the two youngest boys reluctanly doing  Santa hat photos, can I hear a cheese...

The little Holly fairy is a digi image from  http://digitalpenciltoo.com/

Great copic tutorials

Right here on the copic oz website. This weeks tutorial is  colouring poppies, lovley.
http://copicoz.blogspot.com/

See that

On the side bar of my blog, no not the December daily logo although I will share a bit about that too, the sweet little banner that says I am copic certified, yay, more details and photos of the weekend to follow. Been such  a slack cyber girl lately.

bit of this and that

  A little bit of card making. stamps SU bird cage, HA greeting and darkroom door, background.

Copic colouring practice 

I even made a start on my Christmas cards. digi stamp CC's sugarplums.

And made the neighbourhood kids some goody bags (with my silhouette of course)

Another Christmas card, grunge paper background, stamps HA and SU and various die cut snowflakes also cut out of the grunge paper.

And a layout of my sweet nephew.

Pulled out my itop brad maker again for the felt brads (they still make me happy) and some SU corduroy buttons (not sure why SU would even think to discontinue these little beauties, so much texture, yum) Felt scallop border cut with a quickutz border die. Stamps Technique Tuesday, love Ali Edward's designs.

And this makes me so happy. Our little plum tree in the backyard has fruit on it in it's very first year, not much mind you but still exciting for us. I love watching the trees blossom and the fruit start to grow, kind of satisfying.

two more

Firstly are some photos taken last year of Seamus. He loves all his holidays, Christmas, Easter and even a holiday that is not traditionally ours, Halloween. All he wanted to do last year was carve a pumpkin but at almost $30 for an imported pumpkin there was no way that was going to happen so we decided to make our own tradition and carve a watermelon instead. It was cheap, fun and best of all we got to eat the middle afterwards.

Photos were printed on an art mat paper by ilford and although you can't see it here look like velvet where the black is, quite cool stuff. The little spider, bat and pumpkin are cut with a die from felt, some sticky backed stuff that I found a couple of years back at craft store that has been hiding down the bottom of my fabric box ever since, so glad I found it as it is awesome stuff and die cuts so cleanly. Back ground stamp is a really old one from hero arts. title cut with some BoBunny paper using the silhouette and cobweb cut with the silhouette as well. 

ETA that little bug at the top right hand corner of this layot is not part of the holloween theme, just a visitor as I was photographing it outside,he he.

The next layout is totally inspired by this gorgeous layout by the extremely talented Nichol Magouirk. So nice for me to be able to use pink. I had printed this photos off last week and the next day walked into my lss to find these papers by KI memories that were the perfect match, love it when things come together like that.
title cut with my silhouette from one of their files, butterflies cut with felt and paper using a couple of SU dies and the brads were made by meeee, love that I found out how well the ITop brad maker works with felt. so cool. I did another layout a coupe of weeks ago using them to and it made me super excited (will share that one later). Stamps are PTI (and the matching places please die) and hero arts(September).
Have a large load of towels waiting to be hung out so HooRoo.