Tutu Tuesday, 6th April 2021

Well hello there everyone! Happy Tutu Tuesday!

It's been a while since I've blogged. This isn't going to be full of creativity, just words. I'm awaiting new glasses and I've not been dealing with life in general very well lately.  The last month or so has seen me hit a hard wall emotionally and I've stepped back from the whole world so to speak for a while.  But you know what has been said about me, so you can't keep me off line or quiet for too long.  

I know we all have our problems in this world and I've been dealt my fair share over the years.  Last July, when I came home from hospital and had to change my life for the better ie, my diet, my crafting obsession (let's face it, I'm addicted to paper crafting) and a yoyo of highs and lows emotionally, something had to give and it's been my mental state. 

I've been told I wear my heart on my sleeve and has it never been more apparent to me than this last 3 or so months.  I had to hit rock bottom and admit, I need help to work past the emotions that have held me ransom for years.  Somewhere in the chaos of my mind I've been advised that I've been dealing and handling things quite well but when I burst in to tears because I can't even tie a bow easily like I usually do, it's very distressing and obvious, that I am not at all handling things like the average every day.  Yes at the moment, I'll take average over the chaos! 

I am unable to concentrate for a few seconds and am flitting from one thing to another around the house and not getting anything really accomplished, well, enough has been enough.  My long suffering husband has tried to help but he's had to cope through my many bouts of depression for 30yrs.  Lots of things have come to light that I've never told even him, my best friend of nearly 32yrs!!!

I thank the Lord for my church, the wonderful people I have met through KAC (Kellyville Anglican Church) and have been guided to a counselling service that I pray will help me put my ghosts to bed and my past in the past and learn new coping mechanisms for the future.   Not to forget my past but to move on from it and remember all the wonderful not the sad and bad!

So that's it for now.  So glad I'm a fast touch typist or I'd never have been able to type this out so quickly without looking at the keyboard or the screen for too long.    Let me leave you with a life skills tip to pass to your kids, LEARN TO TYPE properly. It's something that can taken everywhere through life in this modern digital age.  Best skill ever. I can type as someone is dictating to me.  So thankful for that at the moment when my eyes hurt so bad.  

I'll be back soon, with some great paper crafting 

projects & new images.

til next time, 

remember, happy stamping, colouring & creating!!

Fabulous Fridays @ 5'o'clock'ish, 15 Jan 2021!

Welcome to a slightly different FF@5'ish post.  

This afternoon I'm taking a walk down memory lane.  This was prompted by a comment my stampin' up! upline made this afternoon.  It made me go and fish out this A4 art journal I have along with the huge D ring scrap booking album full of project challenges.  It was a year long challenge back in 2009. I was a design team member of a now defunct online scrap booking store/forum. 

Each of us design team members were given different weeks of the year and we kept that challenge going for 52 weeks.  I was so proud of myself for talking part AND completing every single week's challenge, all 52 of them  Here are some photos of my work. I decided to keep a journal about the 52 weeks with photos and print outs of all the challenges.  It's something I love to get out now and then.  It's also something to show that yes, I do scrapbook now and then still.  I was quite prolific back then but since the introduction to both pocket page (project life) styled albums and digital scrapbooking, I've not done so many physical pages. One of the week's challenges was to make a journal about this year long challenge

I do find it hard to handle large 12 x 12 pages these days as well so I am sticking to 8 x 6 albums now and they suit me just fine.  I'm currently part way through making an album of my son's wedding.  I know, they've been married a year & a bit now but we can't rush these things  can we. Also, I didn't find any patterned papers that really fit the wedding's theme until last year's  holiday catalogue came out and I bought the halloween products.  Not a fan of halloween but oh my goodness, the papers were perfect to use for a Harry Potter themed wedding album, yay me!!

So here is the front cover of my art journal, as you can see it was called "52 week Pick-Up". This journal is full of printouts of all the week's challenges and samples, many include the instructions/how to techniques as well. It's a fabulous resource even today!  Looking back over some of the scrapped pages I've done sure has been lovely.

 

 Here are some of the challenge pages

 And here's some photos of the finished challenges.  There were page layouts which had to include 'found' objects, do not use patterned paper, card challenges, off the page items like a wall hanging too. This double page layout of my son as a teen is a favourite for sure!  It also won me an amazing prize back then as well.  He took the photos himself, clever lad!

 

 

And how could I not create & share a layout of the Sydney Swans!  We've been members for 18+ years, same seats all that time at the SCG! These are my own photos taken at games and we had to use 'found objects so I've used old brochures and a member card too.

Of course I had to do a layout of Donny Osmond. Within the space of a few years, I finally got to meet him in person, see him live and then see his whole family live in concert and meet them too, 2009, what a year that was!

Of course there were a few card challenges as well. These two are some of my favourite creations.  House Mouse stamps and PSX stamps are still used today though as I'm a Stampin Up Demonstrator, not as much as they use to be.  I must get them out again ;-)

My son Benjamin has always been a great source of inspiration to scrap and journal. In his last 2 years at school he and his mates had a bit of a band going.  This was a layout to spotlight just one in a group photo. I used photoshop to create a black & white photo, layered it over the top of the coloured photo one then erased that black and white photo just where my son was showing. Makes him stand out well I do believe.

And of course another swan's layout. I've used a membership post card and a photo I took myself of Adam Goods & Barry Hall. Oh those were some amazing games to be at!!

  So I think this post has been long enough. Thanks for stopping by.  Wish us luck that our air conditioning will be repaired or even replaced by this time next week, it's a sweat box here in the hovel right now.

Til next time, remember,

happy stamping colouring & creating!

Welcome to a whole new world with Stamp Out Your Art!

Welcome to my new, revamped blog.

After 3+ years of using Wordpress, I've decided to come back over to Blogger.  Mostly because some time next year I'll run out of space on Wordpress then it becomes a paid blog. Secondly, I will be able to take part in blog hops again which couldn't be done with a free Wordpress blog!  Over the next few weeks past posts from my Wordpress blog should start to appear on here. Bare with me as there are around 4+ years worth!

For those of you who are new to my blog, this is the home of my original FF@F posts. It means Fabulous Fridays At Five'o'clock.  That's because for most of us it will be the start of our weekends and that's always fabulous I recon. I started FF@F posts about 7 years ago and they seem to be a tad popular. It's the original Fabulous Fridays At Five'o'clock post!!!

 

PLEASE NOTE: There will probably be quite a few 404 error messages on posts where photos/videos should be. There is nothing I can do about this except slowly, one by one add them in. My apologies for this, it can't be helped.  There are hundreds of photos so wade through.  I'll get there though!

This is where I endeavour to bring you a new post most Fridays by 5'o'clock. Be it am or pm,  you'll have to wait and see!  It use to be I would blog just for my Stampin' Up!  creations.  Now days I have several semi regular blog posts. Tutu Tuesdays, Monday Musings, Thursday Thoughts. Most of these have snippits of my daily life with my hubby, our two lovable fur babies, Nibbles and Pip and the occasional visits from our son, Ben, DIL, Kat and grandson, Aiden!

That's all for now, pop back soon, and remember, you too can have great creative ideas!

So, 'til next time, remember...

Happy stamping, colouring & creating!

 

Thursday's Thoughts, 17October2019

Well hello there everyone.  Yes I know, I've not been very 'consistent' in my blogging lately but honestly, there have been days lately where I've not been able to concentrate and days where I've spend most of it driving hundreds of kilometres. 

I am just a tad tired at the moment.

My thoughts today?  They've been a bit all over the place but I'm gradually putting some of them into their 'compartments' or 'files' in my head and getting on with life.   My father has been a huge worry and he's not helping by being given a new driver's license for another 5 years. I honestly thought he wouldn't pass the eye test but he did, sigh. This now sees him 'procrastinating' even more on sorting out the house, having a clean out of and generally not leaving the place looking like a shrine to my mother. She's been gone nearly 13 years and still some things have not been sorted. Boxes in the garage that haven't been unpacked since they moved up there 20 years ago!  I'm so over it.

Any whoo on with some things that really did cheer me up big time....

Something very happy for me was that my son and his fiance have all their wedding favours done and in their possession now, my work for that side of the wedding is very happily and satisfyingly done! They love all that I did, yay!

So besides being up at my father's again and doing the driving for him, I also got to go to a dinner show at Lizotte's Live and Cooking venue in Newcastle.

AND I got to meet in person, prior to the dinner and show, Neil Byrne & Ryan Kelly!

Yes the very same well loved fellows who are "Byrne & Kelly" .

Oh my goodness, how beautiful are these two gentleman and so very funny too!  To mention talented is an understatement!  I'll leave you with some photos I took and one of me with the lads at the meet & greet too.  If you've not listened to any Byrne & Kelly music, do your selves a favour and check them out on Youtube. If you like Celtic Thunder, you'll love Byrne & Kelly for sure!   Ryan & Neil are the 2 founding members from Celtic Thunder!



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They were so sweet and bent down to get this great photo!

til next time, remember,

Happy stamping, colouring & creating!

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Thursday Thoughts revisited! 10th October 2019

This is another repeat of a post from 14th March 2019.  As you may have guessed, although I'm not that new to Wordpress anymore, some things can still baffle me and I found this post got saved as a page instead of a post too.  Like this week's Monday Musing had.  Glad I figured it out and am rectifying this.

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Well that's rather interesting to wake up to.  Both Facebook and Instagram are down, crashed, not working. LOL I have to laugh because Facebook can be my biggest time waster, are you like that?

Anywhoo, I thought of a new post theme, Thursday's Thoughts so I'm running with it this morning.

I have to say, there have been so many thoughts running through both mine and my dear hubby's heads a lot lately.  Something that has almost 'engulfed' us these last 2 years is the horrible saga about our beautiful Jacaranda tree.  You may recall me talking about the neighbour who was insisting that we have it removed completely before he would agree to a new fence.  All this has seen us end up being taken to the Australian Land & Environment Court back in early February.



I am so very happy and relieved to say that we won the court case and not only do we keep our tree, the neighbour has been given a deadline of 14 days to get 2 quotes to have the small section of his drive ground down level, not replaced as he has been insisting.  He then has 90 days to get the work done. Should he fail to meet those deadlines, we do not have to pay one cent towards the 50% cost of the grinding. PLUS, he can't contest or dispute the findings, they are final and can no longer claim anything from us again.   We are just about to find out from the fencing contractor when they start building our new fence.  What a huge relief.

The Judge also commented on how cruel the owner of next door had been towards my health conditions and the fact that when he came to our home and sat under our tree, see there in the photo, he witnessed first hand the whole of our little home in full shade from our Jacaranda.  The fact that I also had the best photo of the neighbour's driveway date stamped back in 2009 showing the drive way looking exactly as it is today, well, he said it was a no brainer, that the tree had not cause any further movement since then. NUFF SAID!

The judge also said that the complaint the neighbour was making about our cat enclosure were unfounded and had nothing to do with the tree and that the council did not have to be advised that we had it built as it was not a 'permanent' structure.  You can see it in the photo below our tree.

To say the Herbster and I are over the moon is an understatement.  So many of our friends have been praying for us and for a favourable outcome on this that we can't thank them and our Lord Jesus enough for looking out for us.

So that's my first Thursday Thoughts post. I'll leave you with a photo of a little fella who's been watching my computer screen as I've typed this.

'Til next time. remember

 happy stamping colouring & creating!

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Monday Musing, 23rd September 2019!

 

Well if I blinked I'd have missed the last week or so!  It went by so fast that I'm wondering if it really did all happen LOL. 

I'm feeling a little worse for wear though so I am having a very quiet Monday.  I've been trying to get out of my creative 'slump' but all I seem to be doing is sorting, filing, putting things away and culling! Not just crafting things either, all around the house!   I start looking for something and get sidetracked by something else and the next thing you know I'm culling again.  Sigh sigh sigh!  Doesn't help I forgot to take a hat to Melbourne last week and lupus/fybro myalgia are being a bit bothersome!

The Herbster and I have had a fabulous time though we are both a bit tired and sorry for ourselves.  Too funny, we were up at 4am to go to Melbourne last week as my Thoughts on Thursday post explained. But I also had to be up with him at 4.30am on Friday.

Here's my SailorMan as he's been affectionately known as for the 30yrs we've known each other, yes 30yrs as of a couple of days ago!  This is in his refurbished workshop up the back yard where he creates those huge model ships. Doesn't do anything by halves does he? No model boats under 12ft long.  That finished one just under the bench, the Yamato! It's 14ft long and took 8 1/2 years to create right from the hull up!  You can see some of his pieces he's working on currently of the Kirishima.  Yes he's a world war two history buff!




Guess what?  Neither of us heard our alarms!!  5.30am and the Herbster's running down the hallway going sh*t, quick get the kitty meds and lets wrap that kitty up like a burrito and get it into him, I'm going to have to drive to work!!!  When he's lecturing/teaching, he starts at 7am sharp in the lecture/simulator rooms on the navy base.  Once a sailor always a sailor, must be on time!!!! I just hope he didn't speed through the back streets of Surry Hills and Paddington on his way to Randwick barracks, LOL, he's done that before, oops!



So why did we have to be up that early again?   This little fellow here, yup the 'all kinds of speshul' Mr Nibbles the Ragdoll was going in on Friday to have his yearly complete clipping (and vet check, vax and claw clipping too). He has to be sedated because he's terrified being at the Vets.  I was a tad worried because last week was quite horrible weather wise. When in Melbourne we baked, when in Sydney we were freezing.   Nibbles didn't mind, he has been hiding himself under any throw blanket or bed doona he can find LOL.  He went in a Ragdoll, came home a temporary Siamese ROFL.



  

He's very active again and quite vocal. Plus I feel looks rather handsome too! Miss Pip doesn't recognize him and has been hissing at him ever since. My the tables have turned. Nibbles the bully has become the bullied and Miss Pip is being the bully.  Ah cats, they are so unique and funny and so hard to work out some days but we love them and I think they love us and each other. They have a funny way of showing it though sometimes ;-)

Anywhooo that's all for this Monday, I do have to get dressed and go up to the shops for some fresh fruit & veggies.  I hope you all have a great week no matter where you are or what you are doing!

til next time, remember,

happy stamping, colouring & creating!

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Monday Musing - 16 September 2019

Hello there,

Yes, musing on Monday again.  Had a fabulous weekend, it was Aiden's 4th birthday party and so much fun! See that photo of him in the Buzz Lightyear tshirt?  That was my Ben's Tshirt which had been saved in a draw for nearly 22yrs!  Aiden did many tshirt changes through out his party but he finally put the Buzz one on and stayed in it!  How that warmed my heart!  We played totem tennis, we laughed, we ate pizza and cheese and crackers and dips and Aiden and I shared a pink musk stick lolly too. Ah he loves his GinGin and Herbie like he loves all those around him who love him so much.

  

  

  



Father and son got to battle out the totem tennis and yes Ben, ya mumma's arm did bruise, but not too bad, a bit like having a vaccination shot, I'll live ROFL.

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HOWEVER...

... the last few weeks have been hard. Really hard.  You see I took my father for a check up with his urologist 2 weeks ago and last week for his 3 monthly oncology check up.  Within the space of those 2 appointments, I saw my father, my Daddy, deteriorate into this feeble old man (his mind is still a 'naughty boy' mind though LOL)  He was completely different from one check up to the following one.  I've not cried, I think I've done so much of that but this time, I don't know. I think Dad and I both knew something wasn't quite right and we talked about it and we agreed with his oncologist's assistant that we expected there to be a return of the cancer in his right lung.

Well no said Roland when he walked in to to have a closer look of all the scans. No no, no no, we can't be certain.  You see your father is in this research trial, the radiation treatment was nearly a full year ago but it is still doing it's 'job', this shadow could still be the scarring forming.  But Dad was really breathless that day.  He said he's usually like it when he has to get up earlier than he usually gets up. Well to me getting up at 9am is not early but for Daddy it is, he's usually up about 11am'ish.  Anyway, Roland said Dad needs to get back to his respiratory specialist because this not being able to breath and the fluid/phlegm he can't seem to cough up from his lungs (it gets stuck in his throat) needs to be checked out.  Dad's on some antibiotics to help with what infection the oncologist feels is there.  A referral has been sent to Wyong hospital and Dad's letting me know when that appointment will be.

Now  to make matters worse, Dad can receive calls on his landline but for some strange reason no one can hear when calls are made out from his landline. Dad's paying for all these phone calls only to be hung up on because they can't hear him.  Talk about funny in a way because it's Dad's that going deaf! I feel the need, the need to call Optus faults and let rip again.  If I have them say to me on you'll have to get your father to call I will freak'in loose it!  I had more than 5 months of that at the beginning of the year.  Don't tell me that B/S all over again.  We know where that landed don't we!  Yes with the Telecommunications Ombudsman!!!!!

Between Dad and my sister, using her mobile is a comedy of errors.  You see my sister is mildly intellectually handicapped so relies on my father, as he does her.  She doesn't drive either, never has. My sister and I agree that we don't like Dad being on his own when she's got to/wants to go out. My sister can be quite independent but she doesn't handle change/technology/bad news very well, doesn't and can't mentally repeat things she's been told that she needs to tell others, she just hands my father her phone but poor dad can't hear properly on a mobile phone, sigh.

Talk about caught between a rock and a hard place!  My blogging, my crafting, my regular FF@F'o'clock'ish and Tutu Tuesday posts have taken a back seat for now.  I drove nearly 800ks in the last two visits and back. Taking Dad to oncology is not like in Sydney. I've got to drive up the day before to Chain Valley Bay North, then drive down to East Gosford, then drive Dad back up to Chain Valley Bay north then drive back home to my place in Sydney.  It's a lot of driving when the sun is getting warmer and bright sunshine hurts my eyes so very badly.  I have my own 'issues' and the sun makes them worse. Think lupus SLE and fibromyalgia for a start.

Any-who, if you read this far, thank you.  Writing some of this down helps me get out some of my frustration and grief without having to repeat myself.  I'm trying to cope as best I can but summer is coming. Our Ben's wedding is 30th November and the ceremony is outside.  I think I need a new hat!  A nice red one to go with my outfit I am wearing. Yes?  Yes, a new red hat may be perfect!

Bye for now, and remember,

happy stamping colouring & creating!

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Thursday's Thoughts, 29 August 2019

Well good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good day!

A short but sweet post today to say hello and thank you all for following along with me in my little world of all things paper crafting with a sprinkling of life at the affectionately named 'Hampson's Hovel'.

I can't believe we are almost at the end of August too.  It's been a full on year so far and there's no sign of it letting up. In fact, it's only going to get busier!  Ben's wedding is 94 days away (or is it 93 now?) and I've finished making all the wedding favour boxes.  Now to mould those chocolate frogs and fill the bean boxes too. Ah, having a Hogwarts themed wedding has been a lot of fun to work on.  They loved the invitations I created for them which I can finally share with you now that they've all been posted out!

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I had the brilliant idea of making them look somewhat like a 'howler'. If you've seen the Harry Potter movies, you'll know that Ron Weasley's Mum sent him one whilst they were in the great hall one time.  I loved that idea and so did the happy couple so I ran with it somewhat.   I even found them a gorgeous Hogwarts brass seal which they stamped into dark red wax on the backs of their envelopes too!





Each invitation also had an 'RSVP' ticket like those ones from platform 9 3/4's, sorry, no photo of those as they are full of wedding details, so you'll just have to trust me on that.

Thanks for dropping by. Do pop back tomorrow as I have scheduled a Fabulous Fridays @ Five'o'clock post for you too.  Next Tuesday's also got a tutorial ready to go as well.

Til next time, remember

happy stamping, colouring & creating!

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Thursday's Thoughts, 15thAugust2019!

Well howdy doody all, Thursday again!

I wasn't planning on posting today but I thought what the hey, I'm on a roll this week.   As things have been settling down after the last 2+ yrs of uncertainty at our little 'Hovel' we are realizing just how much we are over living where we are.  The Herbster and I have been actively researching real estate sites lately. Shame we can't buy right now, that rich Uncle died 6months before my Mum did and he spent it all before he went LOL. ☺

Thursdays lately seems to be my day for catching up with Cathy & Stuart Daulman's podcasts "After Dinner With the Daulmans"  Do yourselves a favour and have a listen, I love them, they so make me chuckle and snorty snort snort!   AND Eps 14 I got a shout out, thanks Daulmans, that was a lovely surprize!  Very entertaining whilst I am experimenting and playing at my crafting desk.



So the Herbster & I are still doing the 'slow crawl' as it were, with culling and chucking things out, donating things and generally downsizing our possessions.  For a 2 bedroom cottage, we've accumulated a lot.  Doesn't help we've an office tacked on to the back of the garage up the backyard that had become a dumping ground.  We are diligently, each Saturday, spending a hour or so checking out if items 'spark joy' or not.  My goodness it's hard to say no to books, any kind of books at that, however, we are being really good. Anything damaged after all the flooding, it's going, going gone! This last week is the first week in ages our recycle bin hasn't been choc-a-block.  We had debris from the high winds filling the weekly bin and that kitty climbing gym to built. But we'll be back at it this coming weekend!

I've also been playing with some new Stampin' Up products coming 4th September 2019. Oh my, I've used puff paint before but this new stuff, hands down, is much better than any other I've used.  Watch out for tomorrow's Fabulous Fridays @ 5'o'clock'ish!

That's all for today, until next time, remember,

happy stamping, colouring & creating!

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Monday Musing, 12thAug2019!

Hi everyone! 

Well what a wild and woolly past week we've had over here on the south-eastern side of Australia.  And it isn't over yet they tell us! Not a lot of people equate Australia with being freezing cold but yes, we do get snow, we do get under zero temperatures (celcius)  even here in Sydney too! So glad we didn't have a footy (AFL) game to go to over the weekend because I do not think I could sit at the SCG (Sydney Cricket Ground) in our member seats. Check these news photos out, only a couple of hours drive from where we live in the far north west of Sydney's outer suburbs!

Blue Mountains residents woke up to a winter wonderland today (Saturday) as cold weather saw snow fall overnight.

Blackheath Weather reported a dumping 5cm deep about 7am while Katooomba was also covered in snow.

The Bureau of Meteorology was predicting a maximum temperature of 5 degrees Celsius for Katoomba on Saturday, with the temperature expected to climb only one degree higher for Sunday's maximum.

 

The wind has been so bad, I've swept up 2 otto bins full of debris from around the back of the house as well since last Wednesday. Glad the bin was emptied Friday morning.  Yes it is that time of year for the Jacaranda to drop it's leaves/seed pods. And yes it's that time of year we do traditionally get high winds, particularly leading into September.  But this has been unusually arctic the BOM tell us and don't we know and feel it!  Kind of glad I don't own that house up in Katoomba these days!  However, how pretty does this scene look!  I use to live not far from that place. Two snowy winters living in Katoomba was enough for me not to want to live there for ever ☺ Though I do prefer the cold.



Saturday morning we did have some sunshine so hubby and I spend the morning building our kitties a 'climbing gym' from wood left over from our recent house repairs.  We nipped to Bunnings and bought extra sand for their sand pit and another sheet of artificial turf to go over where the 'problem child', Nibbles, started to dig holes a month ago. This saw him end up at the Vet's in an emergency. He was sedated, xrayed, bloods taken and a few other things done to him.  Daft kitty got too much of that fine dirt in his bowels and blocked himself up. Eww!!  But, hundreds of dollars later, he's fine again and he can no longer dig in the dirt.  He's found a new love of his sandpit LOL.  They love their new structure!  Now if the wind would die down, they may just spend more time out there instead of under my bed's doona!

Yes, Pip's a bit of an 'acrobat' ROFL.

The Herbster was very happy with the results of our recycling of discarded wood!  Me thinks Mr Nibbles is happy too!

And little Miss Pip loves that she still has the logs in there too!

I hope you have a wonderful week, thanks for stopping by, watch out for a new tutorial soon!  I'll be using some new Stampin' Up! products. Not long til it's all for sale.  That will be on 4th September, it's not that far away!

til next time, remember,

happy stamping, colouring & creating!

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