Merry Christmas

I have had a pretty quiet Christmas. Went to DH’s no2 brother’s place for lunch and my sisters for dinner. We had a couple of our neighbours over for drinks and nibbles tonight and we’ll have a few more over on New Years – though much lower key than previous years.

I was given this award by the lovely Marnie who said the most lovely things about my work.
Here are the rules to follow through when you receive the award:
1.Post a copy on your blog.
2.Mention who gave you the award.
3.Pass the award onto 6 others.
4.Leave a message on their blog letting them know the award has been bestowed upon them.

So here are the 6 that I would love to spread the love to:

1. Megan - for all her commitment to the Allcraftz community and for understanding how much I love my furbabies.

The two fabulous Allcraftz DTs
2. Hannah - the queen of cards
3. Krissy - the queen of flowers and feminine

4.Ruby - the most talented young scapper I know and such a lovely young lady to boot.

To the last two ladies for making me laugh so hard that numerous hot and cold beverages came out of my nose.
5.Liz - thanks for the laughs and inspiring me to reach out to others with my art
6.Sharon - thanks for being the life of the party on any number of ocassions

Here are some more ATCs that I have made this year for challenges and swaps at Allcraftz

These ATCs were done for a spring cybercrop at Allcraftz

These were another challenge at Allcraftz for Word Card Making Day

This was for the Allcraftz Rainbow and flowers swap

These were for the Allcraftz christmas swap

What a Slacker!!

OMG it is nearly Christmas and how long has it been since I updated this blog. Bad Blogger, Bad, Bad Blogger!! I haven't been doing much but working since coming back from holidays. Nothing interesting has happened to me - except that some blinking Truck ran into my poor old car. But its all fixed and no one was hurt so no big deal.

On the craft side I have really been into ATCs of late so I thought I'd post some of those that I have done.

PS promise I sort out more trip photos and complete my rundown - might have time to breath over christmas.

My Very first ATCs

These are my Heritage and Blue

My asian and red ATC set (Thanks for the pics Marnie)

Outback Odyssey (Second Installment)

Now where was I - thats right Redbank Gorge. Well here is a couple of photos of the gorge

outback odyssey (first installment)

Well were back from our trip through central Australia. We crossed the Simpson from Birdsville across the QAA and French Lines to Dalhousie where we had a couple of days just soaking in the springs. Then through Mt Dare to Curtin Springs and on to Yulara for a few days of admiring Uluru and Kata Juta. Then to Kings Canyon where we spent a couple of days walking up and round the Canyon. It was quite a bit drier and a lot more windy than the 8 years ago. There was no water in the pools around the rock and the waterhole at Garden of Eden at Kings Canyon was probably at least a metre lower.

From Kings were went through the Finke Gorge NP on the boggy hole track to Palm Valley. Before reaching the Boggy Hole track we can up against some foreign tourists bogged down to the chassis in bulldust on Giles Road. Huge signs say 4x4 only, bulldust and corrigations in pictures and words, but they still attempted it in their hired Toyota Camray. There isn't any accessable tow points on the camray but we managed to hook up the strap on the front pull him out off the dusthole and then pulled him back through the hole back in the direction they came.

The Finke Gorge track was new territory for us and was very enjoyable - quite different and interesting scenery right along the track. We had a beautiful sandy (not dusty) camping spot. There was a den on dingos close by with pups old enough to go out hunting - you could see all the large and small footprints round the camp in the morning. I managed to locate the den a got a glimpse of one of the pups. Dad had been quite obvious around the camp the afternoon before.

From Boggy hole we went to Palm Valley where we had one of the warmest days for a while. The track to the camping area has been gravelled since our last trip and it was much drier - no water to cross on the way in - so it was easy driving (boring Mark would say). We did the walk through the valley the next day and then drove on and camped at Redbank Gorge in the West McDonalds. Namatjira Drive had been recently bitumened so no washed out creek crossings between Gosse Bluff and the Lookout and no rocks to get punctures like last trip.

We had specifically bought some blowup boats to go up Redbank Gorge. Last time we really wanted to go up - but the water is so cold there is no way could swim unaided (unless you come from one of the scandinavian countries where I believe it is a much more common practice). So Mark and I and Adam and Larissa carted our boats, paddles, batteries and pumps up the K and a half or so to the gorge. The water was much lower then our last visit but we decided to have a go anyway. We took both boats over the first main pool but left one on the rocks and all piled into one to go up the gorge. It was so much fun and the gorge is just spectacular. After going over a number of rocks with the boat and through a number of pools we got to a section which was just too narrow to get the boat through so we never went right through the gorge. (Next time maybe a wetsuit and surfmat). This was such a great experience I would recommend it to anyone.

I won some more goodies

I won some more goodies at Allcraftz. I won for my layout on an old truck rusting away in the State Forest up the road. The challenge was to produce a LO using a sketch created by the AC4U fabulous forum moderator and including a black and white or sepia/antique photo - Olde Worlde Charme was the Challenge name. I also won a couple of stamps from a challenge, again set by Megan to guess the number of pages of patterned paper she needed to find a place to store. Here's my wining LO.

A Fly landed on my table

I thought I'd add a photo of Fly helping me out scrapping.

ANSD

Allcraftz for you held the first National Scrapbooking day on the 7th of June. It was the most fun you can have with a keyboard and mouse!! Games, challenges, Raffles, classes and prizes and more prizes. I raked in a few prizes for a couple of challenges, a raffle and $50 voucher for being sidekick to Liz who won the fab grand prize.

I did 4 classes, phew, (not that I finished them on the day of course - I'm certainly the turtle when it comes to scrapping). Three great classes with DT Hannah - cards, a Layout and a mini album and a another mini album with Sandra. I also participated in 3 challenges a card sketch(won a prize), a layout about something funny about your body(won a prize here too) and a secret challenge where no adhesives were allowed.

The pictures are of my finished mini album from Sandra's class

Puppy Love

So I have finally got round to changing the title of the blog to reflect our new addition Fly and adding some more photos as promised. This is a layout I did for the recent Talk to the Animals CC at Allcraftz. Spider and Fly look so happy together, but looks can be deceiving. Spider was having a nice sleep on the lounge when Fly jumped up to join him, it was all love, cuddles and bliss at first, but Spider started to get uncomfortable - but there was no way Fly was letting her comfy pillow move. She growled every time Spider moved. I had to go and save our sookie boy. But it doesn't matter how much she bullies him he loves her all the more - must have a yearning for the dominatrix types.

There goes the title

Well I did warn you that I wasn't going to be the world's best blogger. This is only my second post and my blog title is all ready outdated. We are now two offroaders and two dogs. We adopted a new dog a few days ago - a two and half year old female cattle-kelpie cross. She came from the Sippy Creek Animal Refuge on the sunshine coast just off the Bruce Highway 2km north of the Ettamogah Pub. The Refuge has a strict non-Euthanasia Policy. If you want to save the life of a dog or a cat then have a look at their website http://www.sippycreek.com.au/index.html you might find your new best friend.



Our new doggy's name is Fly, in the shelter she was known as "Precious" but we felt that that name was well just too precious!! So now we have Spider and Fly and they get on famously. The picture is of Fly at the Refuge. When I get a chance I will pop in some new photos but don't hold your breath or you might be pretty blue before I get to do it.








On another note got our desert parks pass for the Simpson came yesterday - we will be treking through the desert and central Australia in August, but more about that another day.

Easter Weekend

Ok here I go first post ever. I was encoraged by all the member of a scrapbooking forum I am a member of to get "withit" and start blogging. Don't know how great a blogger I will be. My life is pretty average. We are a working couple and we have an 9 month old puppy - a kelpie x cattle x staffie (x rabbit I'm sure as he never stops jumping). As you can see by the blog title we are into 4WDing and most of our holidays involve offroading and camping - generally going places where dogs are welcome. Our latest trip was to Landcruiser Mt Park at Jimna over the Easter long weekend. The pictures are of some layouts of our weekend I did as part of a week long cybercrop at the Allcraftz for you forum ( http://allcraftz.com.au/forum/ ). It was Spider's (our puppy) 2nd camping trip and he has really got used to bouncing around in the ute - spends most of his time asleep unless it is really rough. One of the couples in out group had a 3 week old Landcruiser 200 wagon - stocko off the lot, standard rubber, no enhancements - it was suprising how well it went especially with the limited clearance. The traction control system which works off the ABS basically does the driving for you - all you've got to do is stear. He did manage to mash a sidestep - but these are always expendable. If I can work it out I'll post some video of it in action.