At My House...

Hello there Blog Friends. I thought it was about time to play along with Lou's "At My House" again. I have only played along once, quite a while ago, and had lots of fun.

So, today, at my house, we are...

...enjoying the yummy aroma of banana cake wafting through the house. This tasty little cake will be topped with lemon icing when it has cooled... just in time to sneak a slice with a little afternoon cuppa

We have also been...

...getting crafty and making...

...pop up cards.

I so love the school holidays, the words 'home schooling' echo round and round in my head during every holiday break with the girls, even though while they were mashing the banana for the cake they were asking me questions about my childhood, starting their sentences with "Mummy, in the olden days...". (Too funny! I remember saying that to my mum and dad, but I thought they were a little older than my mere 31 years!)

I love having twins, but the saddest part has been losing them both at the same time when school begins, which has been this year. They are such treasures to have around, I am loving and savouring each moment (I know... get off the blog woman and get back to them... yes, I am on my way ;-) ), but in all fairness, they are on the floor beside me having a tea party.

Anyways, thanks again for checking in, be sure to pop over to Lou's blog and have a little peek into some other houses this week. Bye for now.

Happy Everything to You! and Market Preparation

Good morning all. We have been busy little bees at our house, enjoying the holidays, and soaking up every last minute with Dear Hubby before he headed back to work yesterday after two weeks off. So, it's back to reality now, though it is a lovely one with the girls still here with me for another week til school heads back :-)

I have been creating up a bit of a storm in between visits to the cinema and long chillout sessions out in the yard, in preparation for the upcoming BrisStyle Indie Mother and Child Markets . I am nervously excited about my first market and madly putting the final touches on the presentation for the set up of my little space at the BrisStyle CoOp stall. While I have made lots of new card designs, I have been surrounding myself making mulitples of some of my favourites, and my impatience at getting them all prettied up in their little cello bags and put into their display boxes leaves me without the opportunity to take snaps of them all.

But, I do have one to share today, a simple one layer birthday card using one of my new favourite stamp sets...

... I have made a few of these, each with different ribbon. There is a little sparkle on the cake that doesn't show up in my pictures, but is subtle and pretty up close.

Thankyou for stopping by to see what has been happening, hope to see you again soon ♥

Card Ingredients
White Cardstock - LSS, Stamp Set (On A Pedestal), Melon Mambo Ribbon, Crumb Cake Ink, Real Red and Old Olive Markers - all SU!, Rouge and Rose Coral Ink - Colorbox, Crystal Stickles - Ranger

♥ {Happy I Do Day} Cards ♥

Good afternoon all. A very quick share today as Dear Hubby is madly building his new tool box in the garage, with two little inquisitive munchkins hassling him each minute to build a car out of the boxes from the tool box, so I should really save him ASAP.

The light wasn't great for these photos, sorry, as we are having a bit of a cloudy and wet week here.

Smiles and bye for now :-)

Card Ingredients: White Cardstock - LSS, Stamp (Word Play), Kraft Cardstock, Heart Punch - SU!, Ink - Pinecone Versacolor, Edge Punch - Apron Lace by Fiskars, Ribbon - Spotlight, Patterned Paper - American Crafts and October Afternoon. 

Holiday Snaps

Hi there blog friends. We are home from our holidays and feeling truly in awe of the beautiful country we get to call home. The weather and scenery was just gorgeous. There is just something about being able to drive along the beach with hardly anyone around, and pick any spot you want to stop, throw in a fishing line and have a little dip. Here are some happy snaps from our time away...

...I think they had fun...

...it's like a Where's Wally shot... look, way down in the left corner... there they are!

A rare moment... I do prefer to be behind the lens.

Tahlia feeding a dolphin for the first time

Lara's turn

A beautiful tree Dear Hubby spotted on our journey through a rainforest track

 All good things must come to an end :( but it is nice to be home too.

Thanks for stopping by, I will be back later in the week with a crafty post, til then, bye for now.

Cards-a-Plenty

Hello there Blog Friends. I am madly trying to compartmentalise (is that a word?... well it is now) my thoughts as we are off on Saturday for a little family holiday for the week, so I am needing to be organising clothes, groceries, house stuff, car stuff, stamp orders stuff... etc, but at the moment all I can really focus on is card making! I am very excited to share that I will be participating in my very first market on Saturday 9th October - the BrisStyle Indie Mother and Child Markets over at Hamilton, so I am already diving head first into creating so I have enough stock and am all organised. I do tend to be a little bundle of nerves in the company of adults... kids... no worries, throw me in a room of 50 of them and I am in my element... but adults... I am a bit of a basket case! So, I figure if I start planning and get my act together early, then hopefully my nerves will calm themselves down on the day... well that's the plan anyways;-)

Seeing as I will be absent from my little blog for a little over a week, I thought I would make it a post full of photos of the current workings of my little SweetSimplicitee space. I do hope you see something you like.

How cute is this little rubbery monkey!

I am also loving this little sparkly acetate tree. I haven't added the Ingredients list for these cards as there are too many things to list and I really must start writing myself lists and packing stuff, but if there was something you wanted details for, please shoot me a quick email and I will get back to you as soon as I can :-)

Thankyou for popping in to see what has been filling my days. Enjoy the rest of your week, I will be back a little later in the month. Bye for now.

Earthy Collection

Hello again Blog Friends. I pulled a bit of a late one last night, with dear hubby at work til 2 in the morning and a quiet house to myself after the girls went to bed, to focus on an idea that has been floating around in my head for some new card designs. I have wanted to make some more Earthy/Recycled/Natural kind of looking cards, still in my clean and simple design. Here is what I have come up with...

I made 10 cards in total with different sentiments and pictures, I will share a few today and a few more throughout the week.

Well, what do you think? I would love to hear from you, please leave a comment if you have a spare minute.

Smiles and bye for now ;-)

Card Ingredients

All cards: Cardstock - Kraft by SU!, Close to Cocoa Ink by SU!, Versamark ink, White Embossing Powder - LSS, All Ribbons and Buttons from Spotlight

Plus...

Elephant Small Wonder Card: Stamps - Wild About You Set and Whimsical Words Set by SU!

Elephant Congrats Card: Jungle Pals Stamp Set by Sassafras, Signature Greetings Stamp Set by Papertrey Ink.

Giraffe Welcome Card: Jungle Pals Stamp Set by Sassafras, Nursery Necessities Stamp Set by SU!

Cute As A Button Card: Baby Button Bits Stamp Set by Papertrey Ink. 

♥ Happy Father's Day ♥

Happy Father's Day to my girls' beautiful Daddy, and the love of my life, and to my dear Dad, Lloydie. I was lucky enough to get a visit today from my Dad and share a yummy lunch with him and Mum. Tomorrow, we have a quiet day planned spoiling our Daddy and taking him out for lunch. All in all, a rather perfect weekend I would say.

A big Happy Fathers Day wish to all the lovely Daddies out there, enjoy your special day :-)

Bye for now.

{On A Roll...}

Hello there blog friends, I am on a roll this week, three posts in one week! Clearly, I have too much time on my hands ;-)

Another creative post today, I have had some new Echo Park papers sitting around on my shelf for a few weeks now, and just hadn't had a chance to play with them, but I got a little crafty time yesterday so I decided to use them.

I have strayed away from using patterned papers on my cards lately, and have been reaching for my stamps a lot more, so it's nice to break out some pretty papers every now and then, and let them be the feature... goodness knows I have a big enough collection to get through!

I am so in ♥ with this funky tree paper!

Have a lovely Friday, thanks for stopping by :)

Card Ingredients

Little Bundle of Joy: Patterned Paper - Echo Park Sweet Summertime Series, Kraft Cardstock - SU!, Punches Three Stamp Set - Retired Hostess Set by SU!, Soft Suede Polka Dot Ribbon - SU!, Wide Oval Punch - SU!, Versamark Ink and White Embossing Powder - LSS, EK Success Large Corner Rounder Punch

Happy Birthday: Patterned Paper - Echo Park A Walk in the Park, Kraft Cardstock - SU!, Perfect Punches Stamp Set (new 2010/2011 Catalogue) by SU!, Old Olive Wide Grosgrain Ribbon - SU!, Wide Oval Punch - SU!, Versamark Ink and White Embossing Powder - LSS, EK Success Large Corner Rounder Punch, Adhesive Pearl by Ruby Rock-It - Spotlight

A Box of Cards

Good Morning all. I have something crafty to share today. Yesterday was the beginning of the new Stampin' Up! Catalogue here in Australia, so, while I am a day late (due to sick little munchkins since Saturday night - they are both good again now:-) ) I do have a project to kick off the new catalogue launch, using some of the new goodies that are available.

I really like making these origami boxes. I have filled this one with a set of 10 mini cards (each measuring 3 1/2 inches square)

There are only 9 cards in the pictures, as there are 9 stamps in the set, but I doubled up on the thinking of you bird one to make it 10 neat.

Thankyou for checking in, hope to see you back here again soon. Smiles, bye for now.

Ingredients:

Stamps - Cute by the Inch (Hostess Level 2 Bonus Set), Patterned Paper - Newsprint Designer Series Pack, Cardstock - Very Vanilla, Ink - Basic Black and Riding Hood Red, Ribbon - Real Red Narrow and Wide Grosgrain, Punch - Scallop Square * ALL BY SU!

Additional Supplies - Flourish Stamp - Autumn Leaves, Black Textured Cardstock - Bazzill