Have you met Ella?

That seems to be the words on everyones lips, well their blogs and tweets anyway.

Ella Publishing

A creation by Lain Ehmann and Angie Lucas - formally of Simple Scrapbooks have some up with a new Publishing company that will focus of e-books! From what I have read, they will be reasonably priced too. Cathy Zielske is designing them all. And scrapbookers such as Stacy Julian, Rebecca Cooper and Wendy Smedley have been mentioned as future authors!

So what do you think about it all?

I think it is a fantastic idea. Something that I will for sure buy. Living in Switzerland, however beautiful, clean and safe it is, does have it down sides. It is expensive to buy scrapbooking magazines and books. So if I can buy things over the internet and print out if i need to here at home - PERFECT!!! It will save me money, time waiting for things from the States to be delivered and well that just makes me happy! Plus there will be a free eZine released every month!

So what are you waiting for, go over and sign up to their mailing list

And if you want to hear more go check out Paperclipping

American Crafts reveal

Mellypea at Two Peas is putting up videos of all the new realeases from CHA!

Of course I have been waiting for the American Crafts full product reveal and Mellypea has put up part 1 of 3 of he American Craft reveal.

Check out:

Blue Skies

Merry Men (think thats right)

Their Halloween and Valentine's collections

Catching up

I am playing catch up on my photography course with Karen Russel. I have been reading and downloading the lessons but just not 100% completing and uploading the assignments. So today my goal was to get weeks 2 and 3 up (thank goodness it's break week) and here are a couple of photos from those assignments.

I love this photo of Dylan. Using a fast shutter speed I was able to freeze the motion of water. He loved that i just left the hose and let him play. He gave me that look, am I really allowed to have free rain of the hose?!

Then this evening I worked on Aperture. I love this photo. This first flag is in focus and the rest of the photo isn't. The photo has a shallow depth of field as I used a wide aperture (f1.4).

While looking for baskets

Of course, when you go shopping for a specific thing, you can never find it. Yesterday we all headed to Interio, a home decor store. Rolf took the kids to the outside ball pit and slide while i had 20 mins to myself to find some baskets for our shoe rack. I did not find any baskets that would fit (well i may of been able to, but forgot to bring the piece of paper with the dimensions on it - yes silly me - but hey I have been sick) But I did find some other things that i loved!

I did not buy them, started with a new theory of taking a photo of them first going away and thinking about them before buying!

Look at these chopping boards (i actually do need new chopping boards!) No cross contamination can happen with these ones - one for fish, one for meat, one for veg, the fourth one i can't figure out but maybe for dairy?

And then i came across these great soap dispenser and place for a sponge! Love the retro feeling and it came in some great colors!

How to manage a testing 4 year old?

We are 3 weeks out from the end of summer holidays. I am very much looking forward to the routine of back to school, and with two kids at playgroup/pre kindergarten twice a week I am going to have 2 days to myself. I will miss the school holidays though - it has been fun not having to be somewhere at a certain time on most days. But routine really suits my kids. Alexandra has been a little testing over the past weeks. Not sure what it is exactly but something needed to be done and I think we have found the answer:

The flower!

Inspired by watching the Super Nanny one night on TV, I made this flower with Petals. I used a large sheet of black cardstock as the background. Cut out green cardstock for the stem. White for the pot, where i stapled a cut up page protector to be used as a pocket to store the petals. I drew a petal template and traced around it on pink cardstock. A yellow circle out of felt for the center and here is my good behaviour chart.

Everytime Alexandra is a good girl she gets a petal. To be more specific, We have divided the day up into 3 sections: Morning, Lunchtime/Quiet Time, late afternoon/evening. So she knows that around 11.30am, 3pm and 8pm we will discuss how she has been behaving over the past couple of hours. If she has been good she gets to add a petal, if she hasnt then she has to take one off. If she has though been really naughty (like running off in a car park or a huge tantrum for no good reason) she has to take one off there and then.

So far it is working well. She is really proud of getting petals and hates having the petals taken away. We have gotten up to 6 petals at one stage but a testing morning today means we are back down to 4. I must admit I am yelling less, trying to take deep breathes when she is testing me and try to get down on her level and explain why it is why it is. Hopefully by the time school starts we will be through the worst of it!

Got to love parenting dont you. You think you have it all under control and then they go through another phase. I am really learning what works for other kids doesnt always work for Alexandra. Every kid is different.

Any one have any other sort of bahaviour charts or systems that work for you and your kids? Would love to hear them!

Trying to make myself feel better

So i scrapped.

Well actually this was from Monday when i wasnt feeling great but not too bad. Trying to convince myself that i wasnt ill. Got inspiration from the cover of CK August 09.

I used a monthly kit from Dani Peuss, not sure if it was this month's kit or lasts. And of course had to add some thickers! I have never used a tag like that on my layouts before and really like how it looks. Used a pop dot between the flower and the tag!

Feeling a little bit better this afternoon. At first did not know if it was the coke i drank at lunchtime or whatever i have passing. But now 6 hours later I am still feeling ok! Not 100% but much better than yesterday!

not feeling 100%

I was on a roll there for a bit, blogging everyday! But yesterday I woke up feeling terrible. Today hasn't been much better. So very very tired, sineus pain, headache, cough oh the list could go on. So feeling sorry for myself. And just my luck the weather has turned beautiful and all I want to do is go to bed. Here's hoping I wake up all better tomorrow!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

catch up day

Today was catch up day:

Caught up on laundry!

Caught up on bills!

Caught up on a couple of to do lists including writing up the recipes we love in excel so no more excuses of not knowing what to cook (want to make them into a book once I am caught up on other projects)

I also compiled my list of half finished projects so that I don't start any others till I finish them.

Got to talk to my dad, my sister and my grandma

Talked with Rolf about our Australian trip but didn't book flights .....yet

Packed the swimming bag ready for Alexandras first swimming class tomorrow.

So I am ready for a new week!

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Finally we go to the Transport Museum!

Yesterday we headed out with Fiona with Harrison and Logan and Natasha and Nate to the Transport Museum in Luzern. We had a great time despite the weather playing games with us. Typically it starts to pour with rain and get harder and harder when i am pushing a pram with two boys in it from the carpark to the enterance!

We had a great time exploring all there was to see. Here are a couple of photos of my kids from the day.

Dylan playing with the cars

Alexandra played with the cars too.

Walking like they were in space!
They had a ton of scooters outside for everyone to use. They were all different sizes so there were some for everyone!

We will be back for sure! Especially as we found out that the yearly pass isnt that expensive!

Is it just me or ...

is anyone else jealous of Mr Maker's Doodle Drawers?

Wouldn't they be the best drawers to hold all those scrapbooking embellishments :)

(For those of you who have no idea who Mr Maker is - he makes crafts for kids to do andwe watch him every evening on the BBC kids channel Cbeebies!

Scrapping the Music

I have been looking at the Scrapping the Music challenge blog for months now saying I will participate in another challenge but the week somehow gets away from me. This week however when i stopped by the song I heard was one I loved and instantly a layout came to mind.

Here it is: You really know how to dance.

No matter how many times i tried to scan this, it just didnt give justice to the layers. Think next time i will be photographing my layouts.

Storing those punches

I read a post over at Scrapbook Obsession today about how she organizes her punches and thought that i would share how I organize my punches.

I have these rails and baskets from IKEA, they are so cheap and were easy to put up (well they were for me as my husband got the job to put them up!) I really love having my punches right there above my workspace. My larger punches are up the top, smaller ones just below and then those that don't fit hanging on the metal rods are in the basket below the smaller punches.

The only down side is that i have little marks (which are there because I am not so careful when taking them off and putting them away) on my walls from some of the punches - but that doesnt bother me at all cause it's hidden when the punches are in the place. Got to compromise somewhere!

Before I had this I used to store them in a little tote just like Erika over at Scrapbooking Obsession!

Loving the Sneak Peeks!

Have you been loving the sneak peeks the manufacturers have been giving over the past weeks getting ready for CHA at the end of the month? I sure have been really excited about some of the lines that are being released.

Today i saw that Cosmo Cricket have sneaked their new lines:

Loving this one from the Earth Love line:

This one from the Boyfriend Line

And this one from the Jolly by Golly line

American Crafts have also given some great sneaks over the past weeks.

Loving all the new Thicker Fonts but these are for sure a fav:

Loving this from their Halloween collection, especially as it has the OCT 31 date on it - just happens to be my son's birthday!

Also love this made from the collection. Think i am going to use it as inspiration for Dylan's birthday invitations.

Love these stamps as well as the pens for stamping as well as the pink Embossing dryer.

What are you fav sneaks?

Shades of Summer European Edition!

Today starts the Shades of Summer European Edition! I am sending out the first box today down to Spain - so watch your mailboxes if you signed up!!!

So they are on their way

Update on my paper storage and a layout!

Not sure if i ever updated after i did some organizing of my cardstock and patterned paper and my monthly kits. So here are some photos.

I have organized my cardstock by color. I have mostly Bazzill Cardstock, but have started stocking up American Crafts Cardstock too. I really love AC Cardstock as I use AC pattern paper a lot so i love that it is easier to match! Just wished someone here in Switzerland would start stocking it and I didnt have to keep getting it from the UK.

At the front of the cropper hoppers above are 3 file folders. I love them, and don't know what i did without them. The hold my current projects that i am working on and so if i get a spare moment I pull one of them out and work on a project. It also works well for me to stop myself starting more projects that i can handle (which i am well known for doing)

Here is my pattern paper. I sort firstly by manufacturer, which really works for me. Then there are some papers that i don't have enough of to sort that way so i sort them by color or multi color/ pattern.
This is my new kit club organizing system. I have used 12 dividers with each month labelled on each divider. As a new kit comes in each month, i take out the old kit and replace it with the new one. I then try and use the old kit for a couple of days and then the leftovers are then sorted into my regular stash.

Each section in my cropper hopper has a zip lock bag in the front of the papers. Here i store all the scraps that i want to keep together. It's really working well and I have them also in front of each month for my kits.

And finally I started scrapping again and have a layout to share! I used the July kit from Dani Peuss and that ribbon is from Making Memories.

Today I finally was able to take my photo for Shades of Summer and will be sending on the glasses tomorrow!

Why is it .....

.... that when i want to take my photo for the Shades of Summer the sun disappears.

I promise, promise, promise to get those boxes out to the first people on my list on Monday. I really have no excuse as I live above a post office.

And in true Switzerland style - of course i could not find two of the same glasses. So they are different shades of pink :(. Hopefully though I will be able to find some more so they can all match.

Is it too early to plan for Christmas?

Yes you read right!

I have started thinking about Christmas. Not sure what started it. Maybe that we are now under 6 months till Christmas, or maybe it's that we have been planning our Christmas holiday to Australia these past weeks. But whatever the reason, I really need to be organized this year. No last minute presents, all well planned out is my goal this year.

We are going on a road trip for a couple of weeks before christmas so i have to have all my presents done before then. And as we will not be in Switzerland for christmas this year i have to make sure that all the presents are bought, wrapped and delivered for all the famiyl here, before we head down under in the middle of November. Yes the MIDDLE OF NOVEMBER. Thats when i usually start thinking about christmas.

So things on my to do list this month:

1. Make a gift list

2. Figure out what gifts i want to make

3. Start process of making calendars.

- choose photos

- choose design

4. Start making Yearly highlight DVD - super easy now i have my seasonal highlights set up from Library of Memories.

5. Make Holiday card list

6. Start looking around for 25 days of christmas album.

7. Start gift suggestion list for our presents (my parents and grandparents always want to know what to get the kids! The gifts have to be smallish and light cause we have to bring them back home from Australia - not an easy task)

So do you think i am crazy? Do you usually make Christmas gifts? Any ideas you want to share?

Enjoying my Photography course!!!!!!

I am really really enjoying my photography class with Karen Russell. Everything so far is going great, and she gave such a in depth critique on my first assignment.

So here are three of my photos that i submitted for our assignment last week on composition.

Summer is here!!!

As of this weekend, we are on Summer holidays!

Alexandra had her last day of Swiss playgroup on Friday. After the summer i have one girl in pre Kindergarten and a little boy in playgroup. Where does the time go.

To celebrate the start of summer, the weather actually played and was beautiful yesterday. We went to the Badi and hung out with some friends who just happen to be there too. Great minds think a like.

Will be sending out the Shades of Summer Glasses later this week - so those who have signed up here in Europe watch out for an email sometime before Wednesday!

WOW ....

Check out this

Ck has apparently been sold and a lot of layoffs have occurred. It is unfortunate about the layouts, especially in these terrible economic circumstances, but hopefully this is the shake up CK needs.

Look what arrived yesterday .....

Good Morning everyone, I had actually planned on blogging everyday over summer, but have already missed a day. Yesterday was super busy and I am not sure where it went :). We had a 4 year old birthday party, parent teacher meeting and 4 guests over for dinner. But one the of highlights was for sure this package i got in the mail:

I read about Pink Paislee having a warehouse sale on the Scrapbooking Obsession blog. I just had to buy it, even with the international shipping. Well what a surprise when the package arrived yesterday morning! It had soooo much stuff in it. A ton of pattern paper, 5 or so transparencies, 2 packages of chipboard, brads and ribbon. A ton of alpha stickers, a ton of rubons and 2 sets of stamps. Now i just can't wait to get scrapping with these goodies!