New Stash!!

It has been such a long time since I bought any new stash. I was pretty excited to see all the new ranges coming out and had to buy some!!

 I've been looking for awhile for some papers to scrap my Iceland photos with and love the look of this range by a new company called Authentique.

Blues and greys on brilliant quality cardstock.

My favourites though are the new papers from My Minds Eye...they're just GORGEOUS! Embossed with glitter over stunning patterns, how on earth do you cut up one of these sheets!! Would love to buy more of the matching embellishments but they can get a bit pricey so determined to try make my own.

Sunshine

Breeze

Rosy Love

 

Amsterdam in Pictures!

Well what can I say about our lovely trip to Amsterdam!! Firstly would you believe it's the first time we've been on a plane together, and our first trip to Europe! Hard to believe considering we always seem to be running around like headless chooks to different countries, just never at the same time!

Typical Canal

Amsterdam was gorgeous a lot prettier than I imagined, albeit really wet!! The heavens completely opened up on us a couple of times but when it was dry.....lovely!!!

Our hotel was right beside the flower markets. Mid week though they were fairly quiet. Still saw a lovely range of flowers though.

Kenny doing what he does best!!

bike parking tower!

Now if it's one thing you can't miss it's the bicycles!! I've never seen a city so catered to being bicycle friendly to the point where its all a bit manic.

Have to say though that one of our highlights was watching this woman struggling with her full size Cello and super impressed when she managed to get on her bike and ride away!! Oh and she was also wearing heels!! IMPRESSIVE!

The Seven bridges

'Seven Bridges' is one of my favourite canal photos I took, it really captures the intensity of the canal structure in Amsterdam and how much the city uses it, plus its really pretty. Make sure you click on it to see the photo full size.

Classic bridge

A Canal boat cruise really is a must in this City, its really the only way to truely appreciate it's beauty. And after hours of walking around a great way to give the feet a break.

Lifting bridge

Fresh Corn on the Cob

We managed to find the local farmers markets too where the smell of fresh corn drizzled in butter was just too much to go past!!

Our final afternoon was spent sitting in cafe watching the world go past ( on bicycles of course) and enjoying a glass of wine and some nibblies.

Twisted Sketch #111!!

So much to write about!! We went away for a couple of days to Amsterdam and had such a great time. first though here's a layout I did for Twisted Sketches last week. Take a look at the sketch here....

The twist on this weeks sketch was BUTTONS!!! Here's my layout:

I kept the layout pretty simple using one sheet of patterned paper. Used my favourite blue glimmer mist. Used the sewing machine to sew some wavey patterns along the bottom of the layout which I highlighted with BUTTONS.

Twisted Sketch #109!!

Well first up a bit of house keeping, the Twisted Sketches website has had a little problem with its domain host so has had to move site. It can now be found on www.twistedsketches.org, make sure you spread the word!!

Secondly I've been so flat out lately working on getting through my ETM and Body Combat Qualifications that I haven't had much time for scrapping or anything else!!! I'll post about that another time, more about scrapping now.

I finished this layout at 1:30am Wednesday morning, the day its meant to go live, but I really enjoyed doing it and am pretty happy with the finished result

This weeks inspiration can be found here

I used my Emmas Shop collection from Crate Paper......

 

Twisted Sketch #107!!

Another amazing sketch from Twisted Sketches to be inspired by! Have a look at it here....

I LOVED THIS SKETCH!! The problem I had was my mind was racing and kept going off in different tangents. I kept changing my mind which photos to use and then of course that changes what papers you want to scrap with....etc etc.

This weeks twist was 'time' which lead me to thinking about how much Kenny and I value each moment we have with our boy Samurai, he's getting quite old especially for a Rottie so each birthday is a major milestone for him.

For his 12th birthday I made him a very special victoria sponge cake and gave him a whopping piece to eat.

Twisted Sketch #105!!

I'm a couple of days late blogging this layout but at least it was on the TW website on time!

This weeks twist was 'Summer' so I immediately set out to look for a suitable photo....I found a fun family photo that I've wanted to scrap for ages taken in Australia last time I went home for a visit.

Have a look at the sketch where I got my inspiration from here.....

and heres my layout,

Iceland - Grimsvotn Volcano!!

What an incredible last day!!! We headed over to the glaciers on the other side of Reykjavik to do some serious driver training....and crikey that was fun. Started off driving ever so carefully, really worried about damaging these incredibly expensive trucks...then after being yelled at profusely by Gisli I began to realise how indestructible these trucks practically are!

We spent most of the day burning around learning how to get 'unstuck' in the snow. How to drive safely over minor crevasses, most importantly though I guess what NOT to do!!

After a days training and seeing as we were in the area we decided to head up to the active volcano to say g'day!! it'd be rude not considering we were in the area!

small step for woman kind

big step for scrapping layout!!! 

We stopped off numerous times to have a look at the ground, couldn't see too far ahead of us as the higher we got the thicker the fog.....a very strange atmosphere! It was quite exciting seeing the changes to the glacier the closer we got to the volcano. You need to remember, we're ON A GLACIER that is usually completely WHITE!!! All that black muddy stuff you see is actually ash!!!

The amazing thing was you could dig into the ground and feel how warm it was! Really bizarre!

Emil showing us
where not to stand!

The closer we got to the crater the more crevasses appeared we even found these gorgeous ice caverns, the fun bit was crossing over the ice bridge to get to the other side!!




Luckily there were no trolls hiding underneath and we managed to pass safely.




We got to the top and kept walking out, probably a lot further than we should of , but it seemed like a good idea at the time ;o)



We crossed larger crevasses still and then we spotted her!! The top!

The frozen lake completely blasted away and there still bubbling away in the middle is the top of the volcano, seems small and insignificant in this photo but it really was massive, and just mind blowing to think that the hole above it was completely frozen and level with the rest of the top!!

Managed to grab a quick photo of me before we legged it....we heard ice crashing down underneath us so figured it was time to move!! Love my big puffer jacket, had to borrow it of one of the guys as it was FREEZING up there!






Spent the night in this little geologists hut at the bottom of the glacier, it even had a matching toilet!!

So ..... had an absolutely thrilling week, full of all sorts of emotions. Pretty knackered when I got home, had a nice hot shower and was brushing my hair in the mirror when I think I caught a glimpse of a woman I used to know; strong, active, confident. Maybe she's still there after all??!! Will have to make the time to get to know her again J

Iceland - Antarctica Training

What a week!!! I’ve been lucky enough to meet and train with some of the amazing people that Kenny has worked with going to the Poles. I also got to know the most incredible female explorer, Felicity Aston.  Look her up here to get an idea of what some women are capable of....truely inspirational! Make sure you show your daughters, nothing is out of reach for them!

The red truck was my baby to play with for the week!!

My week started off at the Arctic Trucks factory, I was introduced to the trucks we were going to be using in Antarctica and we had a reminder lesson on basic climbing skills. Then the real fun began as we headed up to the glaciers to throw a truck down a crevasse!

Check out the 'monster truck' fueling stop, could you imagine seeing this at the local BP???

As for my week, it consisted of a lot of 'firsts'

The first time I saw glaciers ....beautiful!

The first time I looked down a crevasse ....nerve-wracking!

More importantly the first time I abseiled down a crevasse .... exhilarating!!

Top of crevasse

The idea was to practice rescue techniques should the worse happen and we lose a truck down a crevasse. The guys from Arctic Trucks had already been out and found a large crevasse to use, they were hoping that the truck would crash though the crevasse and maybe reveal a cathedral crevasse underneath as well as total the truck to give us a really good rescue scenario. 3 times we threw this damn truck down the crevasse and each time it ended upright on its wheels, looking like it had been driven in!!! NOT what we were hoping for!!! But it did give us a good laugh though.

Crash Attempt 1

Crash Attempt 2

Crash Attempt 3

Never known a truck fight so hard to live!! In the end the guys ended up just turning it over...hehehehe

We learnt how to abseil down safely and use specialized rescue equipment to cut people out of the car, quite an intense training session and hopefully the skills I learnt out here will never be needed!

After a long cold day we headed back down the glacier to a 'country cottage' to spend the night, the best part was a hot tub outside powered naturally but the hot springs in the area, the perfect way to end a busy day. Oh and a nice glass of red!!