My turn to vote

Ok - so its not as big of a deal as voting for a President, but i take voting very seriously. So when i moved to Switzerland I was rather sad that i missed out on voting in elections back in Australia. I could of done an absentee vote for a bit but it was a little too complicated. Anway so when i was able to become Swiss i jumped at the chance. Not only to have the same citizenship as my husband and kids, but also that i could vote, to make a difference in my new home. So a year ago I become Swiss (didn't loose my Australian passport for those curious to know) and now i can vote. 

Switzerland is a great place to be if you love to vote. They vote on everything, and i love it! So today (well i filled out the form and posted it a week ago) we are voting in no less then 7 referendums and 1 election for our village's "president". Pretty cool. 

Another Friday Fill in 

1. My stomach .... probably feeling a lot better than the rest of you right now! 
2. Chicken Nuggets .... is what I ate the most of on Thursday. 
3. The yard .... is non - exsistent we live in an apartment.
4.  My craft room .... is where I'd rather be at any given time.
5. The smell of .... curry cooking ..reminds me of... my Grandmother.
6.  A good sleep .... is what I need right now!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to ... playing on the Wii, tomorrow my plans include .. going to the Grocery Store, Craft store, making some cards and writing a huge list of the things i need to do .... and Sunday, I want to scrap and rest!

Happy Thanksgiving

I wish all my American friends a very happy Thanksgiving. Hope you are all enjoying eating lots of yummy turkey and everything that goes with it!

Even though i do not celebrate Thanksgiving, I think the idea of giving thanks is a brilliant idea. And so with that in mind i have been thinking today a lot of what i am thankful for. And the first obvious is that i am thankful for my beautiful family. My husband who is ever understanding and supportive, my children who bring a smile to my face on the dullest of days, their unconditional love. But i am also thankful for my friends, who are my family here in Switzerland. Without having my own parents and sister here i found that my friends have really become my family and without them i do not know what i would do. I am thankful for living in a fantastic country, it is safe, tidy and just beautiful and the perfect place to bring up children. Even though it couldn't be father from my family in Australia, it is the perfect place for me to be at the moment, today, and I appreiciate everything that that allows me to do and be. 

A note to my swapers - I asked the guy at the Post office yesterday when i can expect that your packages should arrive. He said up to 21 working days since i sent it. So it is getting close to you i promise. But i was then told my an American friend yesterday that to never send anything by B post to the States, it takes forever. So i am really sorry that i sent it B-post and i have for sure learnt my lesson. Happy Thanksgiving!

2 things from my kitchen

So i thought i would quickly show you two things that i really love in my kitchen. 

1. Soda Club 

I love fizzy water. Really did not like it when i first came to Switzerland but i do now. It can get pricy though. So we converted about a year or so ago to a Soda Club machine and bottles. We don't put in any of the flavoring that you can buy with it. Just fill it up with the lovely Swiss water from the tap and keep them in the fridge. When we need fizzy water, just put it in the machine and press the button a couple of times and hey presto! Fizzy Water! This last week i finally bought some new bottles - and I so love the colors i chose. Its nice to bring some bright colors into the winter season!

2. The second thing i love is my sink! We were lucky enough to renovate our apartment 2 years ago and we chose pretty much everything. Again very lucky. After looking at loads of sinks we finally decided on this one below. It has taken me two years to start to use it properly though. Last night when i was chopping up vegetables for a soup I thought hey i should be using the attachments for my sink for this. So i put on the silver trays on each side of the chopping board and off i went. The chopped veg was moved to the right and the stuff I couldn't use went to the left, easily tipped then into my green bucket for compost collection. 

It's snowing!!!!!

So it did snow over night. 

Not as much as it was thought to of, but during the day has made up for it. I think it has been non stop snowing for the past couple of hours now and does not look like it will stop anytime soon. My poor Father in law who will have to clear it all away in the morning. 

Anyway with all this snow i am getting in the holiday mood! So I think the holiday decorations will be coming out next week for sure.

Friday Fill-in

aw this on Emilie's Blog and just had to do it too. A great Blog call Friday Fill-in

1. The last band i saw live was ... i have no idea - never really been to a concert except for The Fugee's way back when.

2. What I look forward to most on Christmas (well its suppose to be Thanksgiving - but I am Australia/Swiss so don't celebrate it) ....... is having my husband around for 3 days in a row, with no business calls/emails and 100% of his attention for the kids and I. He is relaxed and happy. I love this!

3. My Christmas/Holiday Shopping is .... taking up a lot of my thoughts at the moment. I really need to stick to my list and get it all done. Saturday the shops are calling my name!

4. Thoughts of ..... how much snow is really going to fall tonight ...... fill my head

5. I wish i could wear .... pretty dresses - somehow i don't really think they suit me and they don't fit into my life at the moment. 

6. Bagpipes ... don't get heard around very much

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to ... eating yummy soup, sitting down to catch up on some writing and watching the snow fall, tomorrow my plans include... having a girly morning with my daughter with lots of shopping and Sunday, I want to ... enjoy a great birthday party then lunch with all my Aussie Friends!!

So anyway the weather here has been so frustrating. Wednesday and Thursday we had sun! Wednesday and friend and I even worked on our painting project (we are painting our kids tables and chairs we got from IKEA) on the balcony. It felt almost like spring. However today is rainy, windy and it has been predicted that we will be getting some snow tonight and over the weekend, 5-20 cms (about 2-8 inches). So it will be our first winter snow storm. 

But nothing compared to the storms that they are having back in Brisbane, Australia. A lot of the places i grew up around are dealing with a lot of damage after days of huge storms. Power lost, roofs lost, lives lost. And they are talks of more to come. fingers crossed for all of you there that the weather calms down. 

I am rather sad

I am feeling rather sad today. Even though it has been now a day over 3 weeks since i sent my packages to my swap buddies in the States they have still not received them :(. 

I wish there was something i could do. Fingers crossed that it is just the up coming holidays which is the reason they are taking so long to get to them. 

So Christine and Rachel, again so sorry that they have still not arrived and if they havent arrived by Wednesday next week the guy in the post office is going to get an ear full. 

Desgin your Life week 6 layouts

Here are two of my layouts from week 6 of Design Your life. Week 6 was all about Unity and i found this sketches really easy to follow once I found photos to suit each. We are already into week 7 and i am almost finished those LO's and will post more later on in the week. 

Last night i started to write my first stories from Jessica Sprague's class. I read through the "sparks" and started writing my memories of my birthdays growing up. The system Jessica has created is really amazing and i can see myself really using her way to record memories! When i am finished with my first story i might even post it here. Watch this space!

The difference ...

Angela left a comment on my last post wondering about the difference between the Design Your Life class i am taking with Cathy Zielske at Big Picture Scrapbooking and Jessica Sprague's class Stories in Hand. Well actually Angela there arent really similar at all. 

The Design Your Life class is all about design principals and implementing those principals into our scrapbook pages. Its a fab class (not sure when or if it will be offered again) and i would highly recommend any scrapbooker to take it. I  have learned so much about white space, balance and unity and so much more and i really think that my pages are looking a lot better. 

Jessica's class Stories in Hand, on the other hand is totally about telling the story. Nothing to do with design. I am also really loving this class. Havent had a lot of extra time to really give a lot of attention to it so far but i am loving what i have done so far. Hopefully tonight since i have almost done my layouts for this weeks class at DYL i will catch up on my Jessica Class. 

Oh so many classes, so little time. 

Hope that answered your question Angela!!

More Design Your Life layouts

While i am off at my first ever crop tomorrow, enjoy two of my most recent layouts from my Design Your Life class with Cathy at BPS. Really loving this class and getting so much out of it. 

Jessica Sprague's Stories in Hand

This week has just been so busy with so many events and projects to do. But the most exciting thing so far this week is for sure Jessica Sprague's class Stories in Hand. Here is my binder after day 1. Still have a lot of cutting and hole punching to do but it is already looking fab! 

This would be such a great gift too!

Scrapping the Music

I have for awhile been looking at the blog Scrapping the Music and have been thinking, this will be the week i give it a go. But Sunday seems to come around so quickly and i miss my chance again. 

Well not this week :) 

As soon as i saw the song, which I had never heard before, I just knew the perfect photo to use on my layout. 

So here it my take on this weeks song "Click, Click, Click, Click" by Bishop Allen.

A big thank you ......

... to my swap buddies! Christine and Rachel!!!!

Both packages have arrived and I could not be 

happier. I just hope my packages arrive soon and that you love them as much as i love mine. 

Thanks so much! I havent wanted to take them out of their boxes yet though, just keep going back to them and looking at them. But should do that tonight and start using them!

Here are my goodies from Christine

and more goodies from Rachel. 

I turn my head for one minute and .......

..... this is how i find Dylan. I was still in the playroom, but concerntration talking to Alexandra and we turn around and find him in the dolls house. 

My scrap space

So i have been a reader of the 

I'm an organizing junkie

for awhile now. I thought that this month would be a good time to jump in to her monthly organizing! This month was the craft/sewng room, which wa

s perfect timing because I have been redoing my space. After a trip to IKEA and some help from my friend P

hyllis I am almost there.  I will note here that my scrap space is a corner in my kids playroom, so it was a challenge to get the right set up. 

BEFORE:

as you can see, my space was a huge mess

AFTER:

here is my new cabinet. I still need to find some storage

 baskets for the bottom but other than that i am really happy with this storage piece

This is a look inside the first fold down compartment. 

I have stored all my flowers in jars on the top left, by color, the smaller jars to the right hold my small embellishments again by color. The wooden boxes hold from left to right, Misc tools, Altered Art matierla, Adhesive, Xyron Adhesive.  The metal containers on the fold down part hold my ribbon - my fav part of this cabinent is that its metal!

These metal containers are magnets so they stay in place when its closed. I just love them and have used them also in other places in my space. Here they hold my loose ribbon, again by color. 

Here is the second compartment - top right. 

This holds my Xyron Sticker machines and also some catorgarie draws. I am mainly organizing by color, but i felt that there were certain things that i would want to find not through my color system so i have made the following catergories. Holidays (including easter, halloween, christmas, new years), birthdays, travel and seasons, and the final draw holds family, baby and kids. 

So that is the first part, as you can see the photos are not the best, so i will have to wait for some sun (we are stuck in fog presently) to take some better photos of the rest. 

It is for sure still a work in progress as i need to work a little in it to make the final decsions. Also i need to buy some more paper storage and need to find photos boxes that can hold my photo catorgries. Difficult to find here.