As always I seem to have fallen way behind with blogging and now it’s got to the point where I just have no idea what to blog about as it’s been so long and so much has happened in the past few months.

Most of you (if anyone is still out there?!?) catch up on our life through Facebook and I sometimes wonder what the point of blogging is now but then I look back on my blog and I like to flick through the older posts and have a read. I also enjoy reading other peoples blogs so I’ll continue in my slack way, bear with me if you want too. Sometimes I also have a little worry at the back of my mind about writing and sharing in such an open forum but then again I’m not sure how exciting my rambles would really be to some hacker! lol

The past few months have been a blur of sickness, pregnancy, birthday parties, party planning, day to day chores, life and yucky old Winter. This pregnancy has been a lot harder than it was with Grace so theirs been a fair bit of couch time and just trying to make it from getting up in the morning to falling into bed at night. I’m hanging out for some warm sun and fun in Summer, bring it on!

During June/July we celebrate a lot of family and friends birthdays, they seem to all cluster together and we are just going to the last party this weekend then there’s a break for a month or so.

I turned “30” in June and celebrated in style with a Winter Wonderland party which although the planning and organising almost did me (flu’s, pregnancy and party planning don’t mix) in it was a fantastic way to see in another decade! We celebrated with all our friends and family and had a blast!

Then a few weeks later Grace turned “4" and we planned a Strawberry shortcake party for her. It was meant to be a small party but somehow when I get started things get bigger and bigger and soon we had 15 kids plus parents for a full on party! Loads of fun though, we enjoyed the warmest day on record for Christchurch in July (23C) so it was fab.

The colours for the party were hot pink, lime green and red and it all came together so well! We had face painting and a treasure hunt, a strawberry themed afternoon tea.

The cake was a strawberry butter cake with lemon frosting then rolled fondant.

Each child got a wee goodie bag.

The table all ready.

Will try to blog again sooner but I’m not making any promises! lol

I do have a few pages to share, I haven’t been very creative in the scrapbook field but I’m trying hard to get Grace’s baby story told before the next one arrives so bear with me

Ever since we moved in to our home I’ve wanted to give Grace’s room a makeover. We decided we would wait until she was ready to move into a single bed to decorate. I also had difficulty finding a design scheme to use. After a trip to Hanmer Springs one weekend I came across this soft toy in a gift shop and immediately new that the colour and shabby chic look was exactly what I wanted.

We originally had her in a smaller room and planned to keep her in there with my craft room being the bigger room however when we got her king single bed we decided it would be better to swap the rooms so she had more space. We decided whilst we had to move out for earthquake repairs it would be the perfect time to move her and get her new room decorated.

The room was the lime green I’d used for my craft space so that had to go. I wanted a brighter yet warm tone so after 5-6 test pots we settled on Resene’s Ice cold. Ironically even with it’s name it was the warmest of all the test pots we tried. I never wanted a pink room for Grace, just a colour that would compliment pinks and other colours and also a colour that could last her until she was much older.

We had painted her previous room in this colour so knew we loved it with the pinks etc. We got the new space painted and it looks fab!

I’d been collecting bits and pieces for her shabby chic girly room for awhile. I was inspired by Megan’s beautiful decorated letters to create one for Grace. I was lucky enough to find the diamanté “Grace” when road tripping to Timaru.

I created these wee canvas’s for Grace within weeks of her birth and thankfully they fitted in her new room perfectly. A friend kindly gave us the butterflies and they’ve all come together well.

I ordered these prints awhile ago and finally got them framed for Grace’s room.

This one says “She went out on a limb, had it break off behind her and discovered she could fly.”

I thought I’d better finally share this post (It’s been sitting in the draft folder for months!) as I’m now onto sorting out a colour scheme for the nursery. The new baby will also have this aqua shade on the walls, I just need to find another soft toy to work off hehe!

There has been a reason for the lack of blogging lately and it’s been a new addition to the family. They may not be here yet but have been playing havoc with me all the same. I’ve been extremely tired and nauseous for the past few months so have just been trying to keep our world running smoothly. I’ve had such wonderful support from Craig, couldn’t nor wouldn’t want to do it without him! He deserves a medal!

We’re so excited about the news, we were always going to be a one child family but last year something changed and suddenly we both wanted another.  We are very much looking forward to our early Christmas present. Grace has been showing such a caring and sensitive side to both me and her unborn sibling we can’t wait for her to become a big sister.

Recently a very much loved preschool teacher left Grace’s preschool to begin a new life in Australia. Grace developed a real affinity with her during the time she was settling in at preschool and over the past year so we were all sad to see this lovely lady go. I wanted to do something special to let this teacher know how much she had meant to Grace so I decorated this little 6×6 Dusty Attic frame. Grace choose the pink theme and I found this lovely quote that seemed perfect.

“The best teachers teach from the heart, not from the book".

In the weekend I was lucky enough to share the day scrapping with friends at a Scrappin Patch crop. It was lovely to spend the entire day creating and I was surprised at how many layouts I completed as I hadn’t been feeling the best.

I adore this first one, I love the shabby chic look of it and it captures the photo and memory perfectly. I’m really getting into the beautiful bright yet shabby paper ranges being released lately, I love the feminine look with doily’s, pearls, butterfly’s and lace.

This one looks much better in real life, it’s so hard to capture the white title properly and the soft tulle ribbon but here is my best attempt. I hand cut the red lace background from a piece of paper then layered it with the sweet strawberry paper.

Finally I got some of the snow photos from last years big snow dumps scrapped. It was Grace’s first snow so it was very exciting for her and us, we had a ball playing and enjoying all aspects of it. I found this BoBunny winter papers that went perfectly with the photo colours. The purple and lime green came up in them all. I teamed them up with some BoBunny stickers, hand cut paper and bling for some wintery pages.

I’ve had this photo in my pile for a few years then on Saturday the papers just seemed to work with the colours, it was a quick and simple layout but I love it. I can’t believe Maddi and Grace were ever that small?! I also got to use this cool lemon glittery butterfly that has been in my stash for awhile.

Or so I’ve been told by several friends lately, I’m amazed anyone still checks to see if I’ve posted!  So here is some things I’ve been creating lately. I haven’t been scrapping much but a nice little pile to share seems to have accumulated.

This layout is my absolute fave of late, I’ve been having some friends around to scrapbook on a fortnightly basis. We scrap n chat and it’s great fun! At the Scrappin patch retreat I learnt how to splatter paint in one of the classes I took and gave it a go with some black and silver paint on this page, loving the messy effect.

All the way back in February I made this layout, I was inspired to scrap our memories of February’s life changing earthquake by the beautiful layouts Vicki has done to capture her story of the events. I completed this for the 1st anniversary of the quake.

I REALLY struggled to get this together and can’t say I love it but it tells of our experience. I didn’t want to use any bright colours and tried to keep it sombre but I found it hard to make it work.

I used a brick wall embossing folder to create a brick wall effect for the title, it seemed appropriate as bricks seemed to be falling all around. The journaling is long and is mostly what I wrote as a previous blog post about the event. I hope to scrap several more pages so Grace can remember in years to come, not everyday you go through such hard stuff.

Finally just some cards to share, check back soon for another load of layouts I completed recently.

A year ago we attended  the wedding of some good friends who went through the mill trying to keep there wedding on track after the February 22nd Earthquakes. Despite last minute venue changes, the earth shaking, rain, and some marquee flooding  the wedding was beautiful and memorable as was the bride so I felt it about time that I did a layout to capture the day.  Today is their 1st wedding anniversary so a fitting tribute!

Last night at the Scrappin Patch crop I completed this layout using their March monthly sketch.

I love this page, the soft blue/greens and how feminine it all feels. I even managed to find a lovely wee umbrella to add, a sweet touch that reminds me of the day as it poured and poured with rain and the marquee flooded but the Bride kept smiling.

I was lucky enough to be awarded a blog award from Vicki. Thanks a bunch Vicki, always nice to know someone reads what I write.

The Liebster Blog Award is meant for those blogs in Blog Land that have 200 or less followers. Liebster comes from German, meaning dearest or beloved but can also mean favourite. This award is such a wonderful way to show appreciation for those people who do beautiful work and inspire you but have a small following. As part of the tradition the award is passed along to five other blogs that have motivated and inspired you.

To accept the award you must:

1. Link back to the person’s blog who gave it to you and thank them.
2. Post the award on your blog.
3. Give the award to 5 bloggers (less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.

So here are 5 blogs that inspire me:

Janine – Such a sweet person and a blog that inspires and gets you to think about everyday things.

Vicki – A faithful commenter on my blog and I just love her scrappy style, such a inspiration to see!

Megan – Not the most regular blogger around but when this busy lady shares her amazing creations it’s worth the wait!

Michelle – Another kind and thoughtful lady who makes the world of blogging and scrapping such a friendly place!

Hannah – She has a great scrapping style, outlook on motherhood and posts that make you think.

Today has been a day of staying indoors and taking time out, Grace needs a day to chill out and relax and stop her sniffles becoming a cold. It’s been miserable weather outside so a perfect day for indoor fun.

We caught the first episode of Masterchef Junior the other night and Grace has developed a love of Masterchef. We watched the last two seasons of the Australian adult version and are hooked. Although the junior show is great should 10 years be able to cook that well?!? Blows my mind!

Anyhow because of staying home and being inspired if not a little scared of the talent on Junior Masterchef we decided to try our luck at making some homemade pasta this afternoon. Grace was excited the other night when I told her I had a pasta machine in the cupboard and has been keen to give it a go. I haven’t had a lot of success in the few times I’ve tried it in the past but today with the help of my own wee masterchef it’s work perfectly. I used this simple recipe that I found.

Then I was wondering how we could turn this pasta into our dinner, thinking about what was in the garden and remembering our mass of basil we made pesto. I’ve never made it before and had no idea how easy it is, defiantly be whipping it up again soon. Wonder if you can freeze it? I used almonds instead of pine nuts and blanched them, another easy skill I learnt today. So for dinner tonight in our is fresh pasta with basil pesto, grilled chicken and salad.

The other day was a dear friend’s birthday, we share a love of good food and she’s into more natural products so I decided to try my hand at some homemade vanilla essence. Then I whipped up some amazing smelling vanilla sugar, teamed them with a new Julie Biuso recipe book and it was a cool gift.

Another foodie share was what I made for our family to enjoy for Valentine’s Day. They were some chocolate & raspberry cupcakes with red decorations and little banners I found and printed from the internet. Delivered them around and they were a hit.

It’s also been the season for jam making and such delights. I’ve made several batches of jam this year. Firstly after some raspberry picking over our summer holidays I made a few jars with our haul before they all got eaten with ice cream. Then we bought buckets full of apricots and stewed them and at the request of Craig made jam as apparently you can’t have Easter hot cross buns without fresh apricot jam! lol Then after apricots the plum harvest was ready so I made bottles of my Dad’s delicious plum sauce, however I have done something wrong with the vinegar amount so I am yet to re-boil it and add more sugar, bugger!

So it’s Monday night and I thought it was about time I gave my blog some attention. I’m just going to say in regards to the blog post gap like many times before “gosh how time flies!”, seriously it’s March this week!?!

We’ve spent a lovely relaxing weekend in Hanmer Springs with some very dear friends. We rented a home together and enjoyed just hanging out, letting the kids play and taking some time out. The plan was to check out the new and improved hot pools but the weather was good and we got lazy so never quite made it…oops! hehe

We had a few wanders around the township and on one of them I purchased this tea towel. A fitting purchase to the end of a long emotional week for us in Christchurch. I’m going to lace it onto a canvas and hang it somewhere.

I glad to see the beginning of a fresh new week, as helpful as it was to feel the sadness and upset again via the media etc. and grieve for what we’ve lost as a city on Wednesday’s earthquake anniversary it is now about moving forward where we can and rebuilding our future.

We attended a memorial on the banks of the Heathcote river called “River of hope”. There were little spots all over the city along the riverbanks where people gathered to share a few moments of silence and throw flowers into the river as a sign of remembrance.

It was a very special way to remember those that have passed and those that are left with a whole in their lives from either lost loved one, a beloved home or a crumbling city. We got our girls involved in picking the flowers and sprinkling them on the river and explaining what we were doing, they even stayed quiet in the 2 minutes silence. A little bell rung then there was silence followed but a soloist singing the national anthem in Maori as we threw our flowers onto the water. They had a tree of hope where messages of hope and love were attached to its strong trunk and they will be recorded and captured for generations to come

Such a beautiful sight, watching many hand picked flowers drifting slowly on the current down stream. Like my dad said, something we probably won’t see again.

A fitting way to remember and move on from what was a dreadful day and a very tough year for so many. I feel blessed that we have escaped so much of the damage from this natural disaster and feel for those who haven’t been so fortunate.