Last Scrapper Standing

Forever Always presents…. The Last Scrapper Standing 8 weeks of fun filled challenges and excitement running from 4th October – 29th November 2007. The lucky winner will earn a 6 month contract with the Forever Always Design Team, and all the perks that go with it. Contract commencing December with first work being shared in the January 2008 Newsletter. We will also be offering three other participants Newsletter Feature Articles as well! These three positions will be filled with participants who have shown a unique style, amazing creativity and actively participating throughout the competition. However, if they haven’t made it thru to the next round, they will have the opportunity to continue to work on the challenges at their leisure throughout the competition. It takes a great deal of time and commitment, loads of self satisfaction, creativity, knowledge, great skill and personality to be on any design team; however our requirements for joining the forever always family also include. - Be committed to posting in the forum and gallery on a regular basis. - CLEAR HIGH QUALITY scans or photos of layouts. - Be prepared to write articles and step by step features for the newsletter - And most of all be a fun TEAM player. How it works! Eight week competition designed to showcase your talent and dedication in wanting to be a Family member here at Forever Always. Registrations open 20th September and close midnight EST on the 3rd October. As part of registration you will need to upload one of your favourite layouts into the Competition Registration Album. Week 1-2 (anyone who sees themselves on a Design Team) In the first two rounds of the challenge, Forever Always talent scouts Sonia Bowers (FA Store Owner) and Angie Zavitsanos (Original FA Design Team Member) will make selections and forward invitations to the participants who will be invited to continue on to week 3. The scrappers will need to submit their entries based on the criteria set. For this stage of the challenge, the criteria will be aimed at showcasing your scrapping ability. Scrappers do not have to submit to each week, but to have a better chance of progressing it would be advantageous to submit each week. This will determine who among the scrappers will be "in the store." Watch the forum for more detailed rules closer to the date of the contest...we don't want to give everything away!!

{TOO MUCH VOMIT FOR MY LIKING}

I have been vomited on twice in 2 days ooooohhhhhh so gross. On the weekend we went out to see Denis and Kristy after about 50 mins of driving Brie started to whinge so I got her out of the car seat and she projectile hurled all over me...... The poor little thing I don't think the creaming soda her father had given her helped the situation!!! as if that wasn't enough spew Mia woke up crying this morning about 1am, she was asleep in our bed and I rolled over to see what was wrong next minute I was covered in spew again....... and lots of it! She obviously ate something that didn't agree with her as she is fine today.

I have 2 Happy Birthdays to shout out it was Salts dad's birthday yesterday and my Mum's today..... Hope your having a great birthday with Nana and Grandad, and I hope you get cake unlike ME! Lucky the FA girls gave me a cake at the retreat :o) I am making a Banana Cake atm to take over to Old Salt tonight.

I went out to Skye's property yesterday afternoon and took some photos of her gorgeous girls I will share some when I ask Skye if it is ok.

Have a great day everyone.

Amie xx

{Mum do I look PRETTY}

This what Mia said after she dressed herself on Saturday morning..... I just had to agree with her and take a photo! Love the socks with thongs LMAO!!!!

I took this photo of Brie today and I think it is just stunning. Kristy and I were taking photos of Libby and Brie and this morning and decided to dress them up and try and take some photos.... when they were in their daggy clothes they were happy to smile for us (well Libby was) dress them up and guess what Yep you guessed it....they didn't want a bar of it! I think this was about the best I got of Brie all day.

Ok have a great night all,

Amie xx

{ I have been creating with my sewing Machine}

Ever since Sonia gave me my gorgeous bag at the retreat I have just been in LoVe with it! So I decided to make some as presents and to sell here on my blog. So I have been very busy over the last few days making these cute little bags....

Kristy if you like any of these let me know and I will send you one for your Pay it Forward Gift :o)

I gave this one to my Nana as a present before she left, she just loved it

Nana and Grandad left on wednesday morning to go and stay with Mum for a few days and then they are heading to Dubbo to visit with my Aunty Julie. We went out to our favourite tree and took some family photos on Tuesday afternoon, poor Grandad does not handle flies at all they nearly drove him off his head!

Here are a few of the photos that we took, I so need an SLR camera it is really hard to get a decent shot when you have flies buzzing around and 2 little girls not wanting to co-operate for you.

I am so glad that I have a very co-operative husband who poses for me in photos... Check out this gorgeous photo of him :o) I can't wait to scrap it!

Ok I am off to make one more bag before I go to bed as I want to get it in the mail tomorrow.

I will be back with a huge post about a HUGE competition that is running over at Forever Always at the moment.... Are you going to be the last Scrapper Standing???

Have a good night

Amie xx

{Pay it forward}

This is the Pay it Forward gift I received from Sonia it holds my clear acrylic stamps in CD cases and it even came with an acrylic stamp I am so spoilt!!! I brought some more at the reject shop on Friday so I can make some more of them.

Pay it forward or paying it forward refers to repaying the good deeds one has received by doing good things for other unrelated people.

So i have been seeing this pay it forward challenge around a bit ....so I've joined the Pay it Forward challenge. I think it will be fun. I joined over at Sonia's blog.
The idea of this one is the first three people to join me will receive a handmade gift from me. I then have 365 days to make it and send it. The only stipulation to accepting the gift from me is that you must also put this on your blog and get three people each to sign up. Then you make your three people a handmade gift, and so on and so on...I think it sounds great.
Hopefully three bloggers out there will want a handmade gift from me.

Also here is my gorgeous bag that Sonia made for me as a thank you for helping out at the retreat.... I am just so in love with it and have used it every day. I even went material shopping at spotlight on Friday so I will be making a few more of these gorgeous bags.

This is my gorgeous necklace that Sonia gave me for my birthday at the retreat... see I told you I was really spoilt.

Having a lovely time with Nana & Grandad, not that there is really anything to do in Nyngan, but I am just enjoying Nana's company... Salty is keeping Grandad entertained I think they are going Yabbying tomorrow so that should be good.

Anyway thanks everyone for my birthday wishes and I will be back soon with some family photos that we are going to take either tomorrow or Tuesday.

{Happy Birthday to Me}

Today I turned 29..... I received lots of text messages (thanks everyone) as I was in Dubbo picking my Nana and Grandad up off the plane, they have come to visit all the way from NZ so that was a lovely birthday present. I missed out on having a cake so we might have to have one tomorrow.

I am a bit spoiled, Mia and Brie gave me $50 and James gave me $150.00 he must have missed me last weekend when he went and brought the birthday cards. James always buys such beautiful cards I asked him tonight if he read what was in it before he brought it and he said "Yeah it is a good one HEY!!"

You mean so very much to me
sometimes it's hard to say
Exactly how I care for you
And what I feel each day
I've been a very lucky man
To have the love you've shown
To have the special pride I feel
Because you are my own.....
And since your are the one who brings
Such joy into my life
This birthday wish is just for you
My friend, my love, my wife.

Happy Birthday

with lots of hugs and kisses.... isn't he the sweetest :o)

Kay gave me some king size sheets and money to buy some clothes with in Dubbo so I brought some tops as I have pants just needed new tops to go with them.

My mum sent me flowers they are so beautiful. Thanks Mum

Nana and Grandad gave me perfume and I brought my self lots of scrapbooking stuff in Dubbo and a 3 tier cake tray very pretty... Thanks Chrissy for making me want one!!!

I am off to get some scrapbooking done that is due tomorrow....

Happy Birthday to Amie in America for the 13th I hope you are having a great day.

{What a wonderful RETREAT}

I have just had the best 4 days that I have had in ages.....

I will start with Thursday, Leah and I left for Dubbo at about 6.30am we arrived with about an hour to spare so we sat down for hot chocolate.... Leah added her sugar and I thought I did as well but I obviously can't read very well because I added salt to mine and nearly spewed when I had my first little drink. It was really gross and all I could do was LAUGH... Leah laughed more I think!!! we had about 10mins before we needed to board the plane and I thought I would just grab my bottle of water out of the car so we went outside and ran into Jenny Hargraves and chatted for a bit explaining we were going to Sydney for 4 days of scrapbooking (people really look at you funny when you say your going on a retreat) so we said Classes instead... anyway I went and got the water and we came back into the airport and the lady that checked us in yelled at us were we supposed to be on that plane??? UMMMMM YES anyway we ran out the door and onto the plane, she said it was just about to leave without us :0( once we were safe on the plane and on our way to Sydney all we could do was laugh!

We got to the airport and waited to meet our new best friend Briony, I was nervous about meeting IRL and I had Leah with me I can only imagine what was going thru Briony's head..... anyway we all got on like a house on fire and I am sure we are going to be great friends for a long time to come yet :o)

We caught a train to Turramurra station and if I ever have to drag a suitcase up another flight of stairs it will be to soon...... and then got in a taxi only to find that he had no idea where Glengarry house was and we had no address so we rang Kristin and she got on the website to find Sonia's mobile number but by this stage we had found where we wanted to go anyway! I can't believe that taxi drivers have no idea they should all have GPS systems in their cabs...

We were warmly greeted at the door and then I finally got to meet Sonia. Sonia would have to be one of the nicest people I have ever met in my life, she is so happy and bubbly, just a beautiful person all round. I am so glad that I am on her design team, as it has given me this opportunity to meet alot of wonderful people.

Now I have only ever been to 2 other retreat type of weekends my first was Collerina and Leah and I only went for the day and I would have loved to have spent the night, and the other being Louth last year..... both were good but the Forever Always retreat is hands down the best ever!! Sonia should be so proud of herself and family for being able to organise such a wonderful 4 days of relaxation any scrapper could ask for. I definitely encourage anyone who reads this blog to try and make it to one next year they run in Feb, May and Sept, Girls in Feb when I come back I will only be bringing my clothes LOL cause that is seriously all you need to bring when you don't have the luxury of being able to live closer to the city.

Thursday night I got settled in and did about 4 LO's and on Friday I finished the other 2 and painted a ribbon box, and chatted for most of the night.

The only other thing I did was a little bind it all handbag for the girls to play with.... I really didn't do too much as I was to busy chatting and having fun as you can tell by this crazy photo of me and Leah

On the Friday morning I taught a mini album class now this was an experience for me I am such a sucky teacher! lucky Sonia was there to help me ;o) Every ones albums turned out beautifully so the instructions I gave must have been ok!

I sat next to 2 of the nicest ladies, Gran and Di I had so much fun with them and even bribed them into cleaning up my ribbons for me.... it took some bribing but they did a beautiful job and my ribbons look so tidy! They said I need to keep it like it LOL... it wont take long and it will be a mess again.

Gran and Di are not scrapbookers but Briony took some photos of me up singing Skater Boy and the decided they would surprise me and do a LO of me singing, it was just beautiful and I will cherish it forever even if the photos of me are not the best :o(

I was very spoiled over the weekend as well I have participated in 2 Pay it Forwards, I received a beautiful box to hold my acrylic stamps in from Sonia and a crystal ball sun catcher from Paula. Since it is my birthday on Friday I also had a early birthday cake with Paula who is celebrating her birthday tomorrow, Happy Birthday Paula.... and Sonia also gave me a beautiful necklace that she made. On Sat night they drew all the lucky door prizes and Sonia thanked the DT for helping throughout the weekend.... and once again I was spoiled Sonia is so talented she made all these beautiful bags which I had been eyeing off all weekend as it was one of the lucky door prizes and I had been asking how to make them, not that I need to learn now as Sonia made me the most beautiful bag I have ever seen I have used it everyday and everyone has been commenting on how nice it is.

I had so much fun, met so many nice people and I can't wait to meet up with everyone again.

On the trip home we go charged excess baggage $96.00 bloody hell I could have had it freighted home cheaper than that!

Thanks once again to Sonia, Bianca, Gran, Di you all do and amazing job!

It was great to get away but I missed my girls a lot.... Leah and I only sooked it once... LOL it was all my fault though! Leah, Briony and I are definitely going back in May 08, so if anyone would like to come with us I can assure you it is totally worth it!

I am sure I have forgotten something that I wanted to share but when I remember I will, when I get some of Sonia's photos I will share also.

Have a great night.

Amie xx

{Leaving on a JET plane........ LMAO}

I am off to Sydney for 4 days of scrapbooking.....really it is only a little plane!!!

So why have I been sitting here blog stalking instead of packing I hate hate hate packing! I always leave it till the last minute and wonder why I forget things.

Any I will update with LO's and stuff when I get home.

I am going to miss my little girls sooooooo much :o( But I am really looking forward to the break away.

Have a great weekend everyone!

{Fathers Day}

We went out the bush yesterday to get some photos of me to scrap while I am in Sydney..... we only managed a few as my tripod leg fell off and Salt spent the best part of an hour trying to fix it. Grrrr then we ran out of light I was so annoyed. Here are a few of my favorites.

James had a very tired Fathers Day due to the fact that he went out shooting on Sat night and was supposed to come home around midnight, anyway he rang at 1.30am to say that he had found a good patch of roos and he would be LATE..... not happy jan! He came home about 5am, and got up at about 8.30 because Mia wanted to give him her present she had made :o)

You will be pleased to know that my order arrived from 2peas today and I have scrapped 2 LO's this afternoon.... Nothing like happy mail to bring on the MOJO. On sat night all I made was a little notebook like Lee Woodside has been making with her bind it all.

Have a great night.

Amie xx

{A MOJO RETURN...... maybe}

I have totally lost my MOJO atm..... but I have just been blog stalking and I think I have found some inspiration, so tonight I am going to try and get some scrapping done or at least some organising done for the retreat next week!

Anyway I will share tomorrow if it returns in full force......

I found a pretty cool blog the other day Scrapdragon well really they found me Scrapdragon left a comment so I went to check out the blog and found these really cool sketches. So anyway check them out!

Ok off to put the girls to bed and hopefully get some creating done :o)

Mia has just come up to me with Brie in the pram saying " Look at my baby.... isn't she beautiful, I dressed her and your her NAN"...... LMAO I said to Mia I guess I am if she's your baby!!!!