OK so what to do with all those beautiful Christmas cards, you can’t just throw them all away can you!  Why not get creative and turn them into something else?  A couple of years ago now I found this very clever idea over at hellomynameisheather, Heather has a free pattern to dowload but really all you need to do is cut out 20 circles.   So once you take the decorations down, don’t put your beautiful Christmas cards in a box or throw them away turn them into next years decorations. 

I found my Creative Memories Custom Cutting System and Precision Pen were perfect for this project.

Start by cutting out 20 circles and one triangle.

Once you have cut them out you will need to fold them using your triangle.

You asseble the globe in four rows using five discs at a time.

Starting with five discs, glue them together to form row 1 making sure your edges meet neetly.  At this point I got some ribbon and tied a big knot in one end and threaded it through the centre of my discs to use for hanging.

You then add five more discs and so on.  Before I added the final row I added a bell to give the glob a little weight at the bottom, this was done the same way as the ribbon at the top.

And there you have it, a very easy way to turn this years beautiful cards into next years trimmings.  You could use solid colors at random to give a nice effect or just use one colour card all over, they will all look great.

I imagine this project would be great for school kids it’s just getting them to keep their old cards that may be the problem.

Have fun and let me know if you make them so I can come and see your creations.

TTFN

G’day everyone and Happy New Year.  I trust you all have hangovers following the consumption of copious amounts of French Champagne and sore legs following hours tripping the light fantastic at some amazing New Years Eve ball.  Me, well I spent the night in, I know, how boring is that? 

I worked yesterday so I was a bit tired and I was also feeling a bit sore and sorry for myself following my first few one-hour walks with Jo, my new personal trainer (not that I intend paying her in anything other than black rubbish bags and cheese).  So Lee and I decided a quiet night was appropriate; we did take the boys out for a lovely meal at the local Chinese and then stopped off at friends for a drink. 

Once the local fireworks went off we rushed home to be with Red the wonder dog.  On arrival we found he had somehow broken into the house via an open window and locked himself in the loo!  Next door had a thumping party going with fireworks launching at random and it just completely freaked the dog out.  He has shredded the net curtain in my lounge room during his attempts at being a, not so stealthy, cat burglar.

So what did 2008 bring to our lives?  What did we learn in order to make 2009 even better?  What are our plans?  I ask this of all my lovely readers, reflect and review and lets hear all about it.

My year was lovely.  Nicholas began high school, which was a total success, and he was grown amazingly now talking with this deep and meaningful voice.  Bailey grew, both literally and personally.  He is now taller than his mother and has made and kept wonderful friends whom he visits daily.  Lee grew like me, around the tummy!  He’s enjoyed his new job and our new/2nd hand 4WD.

As for me I’ve had a blinder of a year.  With the change to my hours at work I have been able to do a lot more with my Mum and Dad as well as visit friends and get my house in order.

One of two big changes happened in August when I joined Creative Memories as a consultant, this brought so much to my life.  My weekends are now full on and I spend a lot of time planning timetables, designing projects and teaching classes.  I also get to scrapbook even more than I did before which of course is my favourite past time.  Now that can’t be bad can it?

The second big change to my life this year was having my hair cut very short.  A short, spiky and a little out there hair cut has been something I’ve always wanted but I was far to scared to do.  I was always too worried that I may somehow look ugly with short spiky not-pretty hair, I even thought people would think I was aggressive or angry.  All my life I’ve had naturally blonde hair so as a girl it was grown long to show it off, for my wedding I had it long and curly and I’ve probably spent three quarters of my life with a very safe and well-cut bob.  I always felt my hair had to look pretty or stylish or more to the point… boring!  A few years ago, following lasik eye treatment, I suddenly felt better about myself, somehow liberated and these past few years I’ve realised that I’m not plain or boring and my hair should reflect that.  I’m not sure why but my new short spiky hair also makes me feel more confident. 

I must tell you though that it also revealed a few things about some people I know.  Interestingly two ladies commented, “So do you still like your new hair cut?” revealing to me that neither of them secretly liked my new, not so conventional, hair cut at all.  Funnily enough both of the ladies sport that very same “safe” bob and full makeup that used to be sooooo me!   These two women are also just like the old me, they want everyone to like them and worry if they are not best friends with everyone.  NOT the new me, no, I will no longer be afraid to express myself regardless of how unpopular that may or may not be.

And what of 2009?  What will it bring for me?  Well I’m hoping to expand and grow my Creative Memories clientele.  I’ll be running lots of classes and hopefully by years end I will have, at the very least, doubled my customer base.  I have already set my class timetable out for the year and have set a date for two school holiday classes where both parents and children are welcome.

I’m also going to be looking very closely at my day job.  I always had a five-year plan for this job and those five years are up.  Bailey is now in grade 6 and next year he will be on his way to high school, which means the boys will have left the house by 7.30 each morning and wont be home until a little after 4pm.  So it’s time to start looking for a job with more hours, the 9.15 start has been perfect while the boys have been at primary school but it just won’t be necessary next year.  I may even undertake some further education and make a complete change to my occupation.  Not that there is anything wrong with being a bank teller but it is a bit boring and can be rather unrewarding with constant pressure to make sales and then getting very little in the way of remuneration.  I don’t envy anyone in a sales job, it’s really hard work, always chasing the next sale the moment the last one is done. 

OK well that’s my wrap up for the year.  Thank you all for visiting and for leaving great comments and thank you also for the friendship, I appreciate each and every one of you and hope we enjoy yet another very bloggy year together.

TTFN

Day one. 

No bread, potato, pasta or rice. 

One hour walk with Jo and the dog.

Three hours working in the garden.

Did have small amount of chocolate, but it was very small.

Over and out.

OK over the past six weeks or so I’ve enjoyed way too much of the good life.  First up a wonderful two week holiday in Tasmania earlier in the month when I didn’t cook a single meal in all that time other than a few bits of toast for breakfast each day.  In other words we eat out A LOT!  Then came the pre-Christmas dinners, end of year functions and a huge Christmas Eve breakfasts with the girls and boys from work, all grand and filled with even more restaurant meals.  And this past week I’ve enjoyed much merriment in the form of Christmas dinner and the follow up Boxing Day lunch at Mum’s.  Have I also mentioned the copias amounts of chocolate that I’ve had to consume in order to keep the children from over indulging and making themselves completely sick!

What I hear you ask does all this have to do with that famous line uttered in outer space?  Well I’ll tell ya!  This morning I monged around in my nightie till gone 1pm, it is the holidays after all.  I decided that I’d better pop on some visitor friendly clothes just in case someone popped in.  I enter my walk in rob and scan the rack, nope nothing there fit for a lazy Sunday.  On the shelf I see a cute navy polo, mmm yes that will do, now where are those 3/4 pants that look so nice with that T, ah there they are.  Ug! Oh!  Eew!  Ouch!  What the?  Are these my pants?  I ask myself, they feel a bit, well um tight!  Hmmmm!  A quick check of the shelf and there’s that other pair of summer fun, loooose fit, made for the weekend pair of pants.  What?  Oh dear these pants are also waaaaaay too tight, even for the weekend when I hope I won’t be seen by anyone. 

That’s when those fateful words fell from my lips.  It appears I may have over indulged just a bit the past few weeks and may or may not have put on just a few kilos.  Well ok I’ll be honest; I’ve put on loads of kilos, especially around my rear end.

So with the long summer looming and the thought of not being able to wear anything but a tent on those boiling hot days I’ve decided a quick, very quick actually, diet is needed.  Tomorrow morning I’m heading down to the chemist and I’m going to put myself on one of those shake diets.  I know, I know, they are not perfect but I do believe they are good for a kick start and they are guaranteed to work as long as I don’t snack in between and have a dinner with no pasta, rice, potatoes or bread.  I’m giving myself a month and hope by Australia Day weekend at the end of January I’ll be back in my cute 3/4 pants.

Now why am I telling all of you this rather boring stuff?  Well it’s simple, I need to be accountable to someone and if not my husband, who could also do with losing a few kilos himself, better it be the entire bloggy world.  So I’m charging you, yes YOU, with keeping me honest and on track.  I trust you will post regular words of encouragement and berate me should I slip and forget myself.  You need to be tuff on me, remind me often and send out spies to check on me just in case I’m sneaking off behind the computer for a quick glass of wine or a Turkish delight.

Oh and I’m going to walk the dog everyday as well.  I think the walking will be the hard bit actually as that’s what I find hardest of all.  I get home from work and all I want to do is sit down, not get changed into my walking gear and head out into the hot Aussie sun.  So I’ll be seeking your support both emotionally and physically.

Wish me luck,

Oh what a day, woken at 6am with Nicholas in our bed nagging us to wake Bailey.  The funny thing is Bailey had his pj’s on at around 8pm the night before and wanted to get to bed early so he could be the first one up, as it was we had to make some noise around 7am to wake him.

A flury of paper and cards, the air filled with oooooohs and “OMG look what I got”, kisses and hugs and before you can blink it’s all over bar the cleaning up.  The boys received, thanks Kevin, a new computer, which is sooo much faster and has a huge memory to store the all-important “homework” and their favourite YouTube clips.  We are all very spoilt in our house now with two whiz-bang computers to fight over.

Following a lovely bacon and egg breakfast we went to my Mum and Dad’s for lots of present swapping with my family then on to Lee’s family for even more present swapping and then spent the rest of the day at my sister Penny’s home.  Penny and her husband Ross were were charged with the responsibility of preparing this years family feast and what a delicious feast it was.  We started around 3pm and didn’t finish desert until gone 6 o’clock, what wonderful afternoon filled with so much yummyness.

Today I’m contemplating a very quick visit to the post-Christmas sales.  I have found this amazing shop called Provincial Home Living and I would love a set of their bright red beautiful place mats and maybe one or two other little bits and bobbles.  Although it is now 9.25 and I’m still in my nightie, I’m on my second cup of coffee, Lee and Bailey are still fast asleep and I do feel really relaxed so maybe I’ll go tomorrow!

On the gift front I was so lucky, I received a beautiful blue and white china candle stick from another favourite shop called Ishka, a very nerdy but much loved red, what other colour is there?, 160 gig Passport external hard drive woo hoo, chocolate, sooooo much chocolate, a beautiful white linen shirt and a great read written by author and funny lady Dawn French called Dear Fatty.  My favourite gift of all however would have to by my purple Havaianas and the matching purple nail polish, if you have never experienced the pure joy of wearing a pair of these wonderfully soft thongs you really must visit their web site and get yourself some true foot love!

I have a few days off now, not back to work until Tuesday afternoon yeay!  I hope each and every one of you had a very special and happy Christmas day filled with lots of love, presents and chocolate.  I’m off to put the toast on, play with my new toys and maybe head to the shops.

TTFN

Thank you to everyone who left me such lovely comments about our trip to Tasmania, the post took ages to write as I had over 700 photos and choosing just a few was almost impossible.  So I’m glad you like it.

My new whizz bang computer has got a nasty virus and so I’m using the old and slow and not so whizz bang computer in the boys play room.  It’s that slow to boot up I can make a cuppa and drink it in the time it takes to open and download my e-mail.  So please excuse the lack of posts untill my lovely fast computer is back to good health.

Speaking of good health, Merry Christmas to all of you and I hope you each get very spoilt by Santa and his merry elves. 

I will make this my last post for this year, unless of course something very important comes up and I feel I have the strength to fight the boys for access to ”their” computer. 

Stay safe all of you and see you in 2009.

Merry Christmas,

Bailey, Nicholas, Lee and Maddy xoxoxoxoxoxox

***NOTE FOR Krissie from Head for the HIlls.  I’ve tried to leave a comment on your lovely blog a few times now but there is a problem with the comments box and it won’t let me “post”.  So please don’t feel like I’m ignoring you, Merry Christmas.

G’day everyone, we’re back from our two week trip around the beautiful island of Tasmania.  If you ever get a chance to go to Tassie I strongly recommend you do, we will be going back often as there is still so much to see. 

I won’t bore you with lots of details I’ll just let you travel with me… enjoy!

I sailed to Tasmania on this little beauty with our car.  The journey was made even better when a very nice friend who works for the Spirit of Tasmania upgraded my ticket to a cabin.  Woohoo I even had a porthole!

The boys followed the next day on one of these babies, they had no luggage as it was all in the car with me so we saved a fortune on their airfares.

Launceston and a visit to Cataract Gorge.

You’ve all heard of the stories of Yetties up in the hills, sightings of giant panthers left in remote parts of the country after WWII and of course who can forget the myths surrounding a “two headed Taswegian”!

We then learned a couple of lessons…

Lesson one - Don’t let your husband and kids talk you into eating dinner at the “world famous” Harley Davidson Museum.  $160 later they’re all smiles but I’m not so sure about my sore hip pocket!

Lesson number two - When you travel an hour off the main road to see a beautiful Lavender farm

try to time it so the Lavender is FLOWERING!  Very disappointing afternoon, we had taken a one hour detour which of course multiplies to two hours when you have to go back down the same windy road to re-join the motorway!  Not to worry though as shopping in the cute gift shop helped ease my pain.

More beautiful vistas and a visit to Grindelwald Swiss village.

Our next few days were spent on the East coast of Tasmania and it was so relaxing and beautiful we changed our bookings and stayed an extra day.

One of the good things about travelling off peak is that you get the entire beach to yourself!

We leave the beautiful east coast and continue South to the historical town of Richmond, home to Australia’s oldest bridge built in 1823, Richmond gaol and some beautiful churches.

At the very bottom of Tasmania we left the mainland and visited Port Arthur.  This was one of Australia’s first convict settlements and well worth spending an entire day exploring the area.  We arrived at 9.30am, finished our day at 6.30pm and then came back at 9pm for the 90 minute Ghost Tour.

Part of the day was spent exploring two islands, The Isle of the Dead and Point Pour where the boy prisoners were kept.

The boys were punished if they were caught swimming as they were considered to be trying to escape, so this beautiful beach was out of bounds!

In 1996 a gunman shot and killed over 35 people at Port Arthur, 20 died here at the Broadarrow Cafe.  A few years later the cafe burnt down and is now a reflection room.  I cried for about an hour, I was so moved.

 We begin to head north now and our next stop is the city of Hobart, home to the finishing line of the annual Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race, fantastic seafood and who could forget the Cadbury factory!

 We now head west into wild mountain ranges, hydroelectric scheme, huge rivers, windy roads and more beautiful vistas.

Our destination is the west coast and the tiny fishing village of Strahan and the resting place of Lee’s great grandfather.

Here we take a six hour boat cruse out to Devils Gates and then down the Gordon River, home to the Huon Pine.

 We now journey north and into the Alpine region of Tasmania where the weather can change from warm and sunny to bitter cold in minutes, as we quickly found out.

The following day the view of Cradle Mountain was spectacular, what a difference 24 hours made.

 North again and we head for the little town of Stanley, home to The Nutt!

We spent the last three days in Devonport visiting Lindy and Tim who are related to my husband via their great grand fathers.  We did a lot of family tree stuff and had a wonderful three days.  Finally our journey must end and we head back to Victoria.  What a great holiday.

Now you can’t go to Tasmania without seeing some wild wildlife.  Here is just a sample of some of the flora and fauna we encountered along the way.

With so much wildlife all around it’s inevitable there will be a bit of road kill and the boys would spend a good ten minutes discussing what they thought the last victim on the road may or may not have been.  I couldn’t finish without mentioning the satelite navigation system, it was brilliant. 

OK well that’s my holiday now I need to go and do just a little bit of washing, oh well only 52 weeks till the next trip!

TTFN

OK with just about every job on the list done and some extras that were not planned on I’m happy to say the last job of the day will be to put all the cases in the car and vac… phew!

I’ll be back in around two weeks time with lots of lovely photos and stories to tell.

Stay safe and ta ta for now.

I have now successfully crossed some of my list off however I have also found things to add!

*Charge everything, two phones, the digital camera and two Gameboys.

*Pack chargers.

*Deliver scrapbook orders.

*Buy extra dog food, including bones.

*Write letter to school explaining children’s absence (apparently a conversation with the child’s parent/supervisor is insufficient).

*Pack the car.

OK so with my newfound motivation I’m off.

TTFN

I have bucket loads of stress.  There are only four sleeps until we go to Tasmania on our holiday and I’m not ready.  I have too much to do and I just can’t seam to prioritise like I normally can.  So I’m going to write the list here of all the things I need to do in the hope that it will become clearer which one I should be doing first.

• *Pack.
• *Wash this weeks clothes.
• *Sort, fold and iron last week’s clothes.
• *Dust and vac the house.
• *Organise the dog food for two weeks and see the dog sitters to give them the front door key and the dogs lead.
• *See Jo and give her a front door key so she can check mail, water the tomatoes and play with the dog.
• *Receive my very late scrapbooking order that should have arrived last week and been delivered to my customers over the weekend, grrrr!
• *Place this week’s scrapbook order and get it delivered to Doreen. 
• *Make a list, hahahaha, of things I need to do.
• *Have Mum and Dad over for dinner before we go, it’s already been cancelled and re-arranged once, don’t want to reschedule again.
• *Empty fridge and pantry of perishables.
• *Buy food so we don’t perish!
• *Get suite cases out of garage and fill them up.
• *Make a contingency plan if all dog plans fall through.
• *Plug lamp in to the timer to test that the timer works.
• *Watch my videotape of last Saturday night’s episode of The Bill.
• *Put up Christmas trimmings so that when we get back the house is festive.  This one is highly questionable but I’d like it to happen so I’m adding it anyway.
• *Get boys new runners as the ones they have are not fit for world travel.
• *Lay out all our clothes and make sure we have enough to get through a week without washing.
• *Make sure I pack clothes for all weather conditions, including swimming, unlikely but just in case.
• *Pack washing powder for when we do get to do some washing.
• *Check in with family and kiss them, all of them.
• *Play with borrowed satellite navigation thingy so I can get from Devonport to Launceston to pick boys up from the airport without getting lost.
• *Sleep.
• *Finish this blog entry so I can get started on any of the above.

Wish me luck and I’ll be back in a few weeks with lots of photos and stories to tell.

TTFN

Edited to add:

*Post postal votes so we don’t get a fine.

*Post speeding ticket payment so we don’t get another fine.

*Phone schools to let them know boys will be finishing up on Friday so we don’t get the truancy officer around.

*Pay dentist bill so we don’t get a nasty letter.

*Pay bills for the month of December so we don’t get more nasty letters or late fees.

OK so I think that’s it, now it’s time to stop checking my emails, stop reading blogs, stop looking at facebook to find out who’s doing what with whom and start doing the things on the list.

Going now…

Even later edited to correct spelling mistakes and type this bit!