Another Christmas Finished...

Hello all

Hope you had a fabulous Christmas yesterday to those of you who are from my side of the world or are enjoying your festivities today for anyone on a later time difference. I enjoyed a great Christmas Eve and Christmas day surrounded by loved ones, with lots of good memories and food.

Lily slept a lot of Christmas day after a restless night Christmas eve. Perhaps she was hoping to spot Santa on her first Christmas lol Either way, I started the day yesterday very tired. I haven't yet had a chance to go through and upload my photos from the past couple of days but hoping there is some good scrapbooking inspiration among them. Perhaps a few to be deleted too as my nephew was running around taking random photos... using the multishot option on my camera so there are about 20 of almost the same thing lol

I wanted to share a recent creation that I made which was part of the gift for my mum for Christmas. It is my first completed Toilet paper mini album and I made it into a Gran's Brag Book style mini album with photos of Lily.

I used the Authentique uncommon collection as its perfectly girly for the theme of a new baby girl. That teamed with some pretty pink and white embellishments and the whole thing came together fairly quickly. Although not quick enough for me to finish the second one I have in progress for my nephew Caiden. My sis is keen for the finished product after seeing mum's album yesterday.

Otherwise, I've been doing a little bit of creating in between time with Lily and preparing for Christmas, although nothing else I can share just yet. Will hopefully get some crafty time in during the next few days.

We have very little planned for this week so it will be a nice relaxing week at home. It will give me some time to play with one of my new christmas presents... Adobe Photoshop Elements. Excited! hehe

Wishing you all a safe and happy festive season.

Holly x

Layout to Share

Hello

I just remembered that there was a layout I did earlier this month that I never got a chance to share. May have a little something to do with going into labour on the 3rd. The layout was for the current challenge over at Zeus & Zoe where the challenge is Shine and Sparkle. Here is the challenge criteria:

For this month's challenge I have made it very simple. I would like to see a Christmas project with at least 3 elements that sparkle and shine… they can be 3 of the same type of elements or 3 different elements as long as you have at least 3 sparkle and shine elements on your creation.

This could be anything metallic and shiny… think recycled jewellery, gold or silver buttons, charms, foil paper metallic inks or embossing powders just to name a few... or sparkle and bling elements like glitter and rhinestones.

 

Easy, hey? So I could not help playing along. Here is my layout:

 My sparkly items are the glittery my minds eye paper and die cuts, some randomly placed rhinestones and even the sparkly and shiny balls in the photo of our christmas tree.

Materials: My minds eye paper & die cuts; Manor house creations flowers; Adorn it alphas; Other - flowers, circular die cuts.

 

At least that is the first of my holiday layouts scrapped for the year. Although I am at least getting into my December daily. I'm a few days behind but have been taking notes so I don't forget what we did on what day. Mostly it is all about Lily though lol

 

To make sure I hadn't already done a post on this layout, I had to go back through my last couple of blog posts and I came across the post on the 2nd of December. It made me laugh because at the time I was quite uncomfortable and what I now know for sure was pre-labour and I was watching videos on youtube of heavily pregnant women dancing to bring on labour. What makes that amusing is that I did spend about 40 minutes that afternoon playing Just Dance on wii... you know... just in case! And I did go into actual labour within 8 hours... just like the video suggested! haha Maybe a coincidence but amusing to think dancing may have been the thing to get miss Lily locked and loaded for arrival!

 

Holly x

Lily Update & Some Exciting News

Hello

Thank you to those of you who left lovely comments following our exciting news with the arrival of our daughter Lily last week. I cannot believe it has been almost 10 days since her arrival. She is doing really well and had her GP appointment today and has gained a little over her birth weight so that's a positive. She is also 2cm taller already. My days seem to fly by at the moment getting into the routine of motherhood, but every moment with her is precious so I don't mind.

And of course I know a mother is blinded by her child's beauty but I am so amazed at how perfect and beautiful Lily is. Almost have to pinch ourselves sometimes to think we created such a lovely little person hehe

Now for some scrappy related news to share. I have a couple of exciting things to share. Firstly, if any of you get Scrapbooking Memories magazine, you would know it is the much anticipated Masters edition this month. Well I'm not a master... but I did give it a go for the first time this year and am very excited to see an honourable mention in the bonus magazine. Unfortunately I cannot share my creations until the magazine is officially on sale on the 26th but I will post up my 4 entries after that date, including the double layout that I got the mention for.

Oh and I was even excited to see the preview for next edition included a sneak of one of my upcoming published layouts hehe I showed my hubby that he is again famous in a scrapbooking magazine with one of our wedding inspired layouts due in next issue :)

Now for my other news. I am very excited to announce that I am joining the 2013 Scrapmatts design team. There is so much talent on this team so I feel truly honoured to be joining them. The full team is listed below:

New Members
EVGENIA PETZER (South Africa)

HOLLY CONNORS (Australia)

SANDI SMITH (Canada)

KIM EWINS (Australia)

TANYA PRIVALOVA (Ukraine)

LINDA THOMPSON (Australia)

RENEA HARRISON (USA)

LAUREN TOMACEK (Australia)

VICKY VARVADOUKA (Greece)

HELEN TILBURY (South Africa)

Returning Design Team Members
ANGELLA PEARDON (Australia) DT Co-ordinator

JENNY GARLICK (Australia)

RENEE IVESON (Australia)

ANNE PATTERSON (Australia)

SONIA THOMASON (Australia)

SHARMAINE KRUIJVER (Australia)

Be sure to check out all the action at the Scrapmatts Ning site.

No actual scrappy shares today but in between adjusting to mummyhood I have done some crafting. Just no finished projects. I am working through my December daily album, plus another mini album featuring some new release A2Z scraplets, and the toilet paper mini albums that will be part of a christmas present so just a whole lot of mini albums right now.Will share some pics soon.

Hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Holly x

Our New Arrival - Lily

Hello

Well it is with great pleasure I get to share the news of our baby's arrival. Lily Lavina Connors arrived on Monday 3 December. She was due today so a bit of an early arrival. Just couldn't wait to meet her mummy and daddy perhaps :)

We could not be happier or prouder of our perfect little bundle of joy. She is so tiny and precious. She weighed in at 6 pound 4 ounces, or 2.83kg so a very tiny bundle. Even the 0000 clothes are big on her as I didn't expect to need anything smaller. She was 47 cms long.

We arrived home yesterday afternoon after less than 48 hours in hospital. Initially I was considering staying a bit longer as she took a bit of time to get the hang of feeding but all is going well now and we have settled in at home as a family. She gets a bit restless at night so one thing we need to work on now is getting into a routine where night time is sleep and not the reverse lol But otherwise all is going very well.

Proud daddy Simon

Mummy

Thank you to those of you who have already wished us well on our pregnancy journey and the many of you I have on Facebook who have sent lovely comments of congratulations on Lily's arrival. Expect plenty of updates as this is going to be one very spoiled little miss hehe

Holly xo

December Daily & Other Projects

Hello

How are you all enjoying your weekend? It's another hot one here but that's to be expected now that summer has actually arrived. And I'm feeling every bit of it at almost 40 weeks pregnant. But I do still love summer.

Very sore and achy today. I think the baby is definitely moving into position but who knows how long til the big arrival. I am keen to get things moving today and had a bit of a laugh at some videos on youtube of women trying to induce labour through dancing. Unfortunately with my pelvic girdle pain/SPD, walking or stair climbing and all those type of things are a wee bit too painful, but lets hope the wait isn't too much longer. For now though, here is a funny video of a 40 week pregnany woman trying to induce labour with some vanilla ice dance moves:

At least I've had plenty of time to do scrapping over the past few days in my attempts to take it easy. My December daily is up to date so far, since I started it a week ago when the tree went up. Here are my completed pages so far:

November 25th and onwards

With the journalling insert flipped over:

 

1st Dec - Journalling in a handmade envelope:

 

And as per my post last week, my first toilet paper roll mini album is almost done. All it needs is photos, journalling and a few embellishments once our baby arrives and its ready to go to its intended recipient as an extra christmas present. Lets hope she doesn't read my blog posts. If so... mum... stop reading now or you'll ruin the surprise.

 

 

I am also making a boy themed one featuring my new nephew but have run out of toilet rolls for now. But I've already cut out all the tags and pp to do it so it'll come together quickly once we get a couple more spare rolls.

Could not be happier with the way the one above has turned out so far though. I will post some better pics once they are both completed but it is looking incredibly sweet and with a collection I love, Authentique Uncommon. So perfect for little girls!

Anyway, I think its time to go do some more scrapping in case things really do happen soon with bubs. I'm hoping all these aches and pains are a sign that we are near. Will keep you all posted.

Holly x

The Bump

Hey there

Well its December already and the shops are already crazy with people getting ready for Christmas.We went to pick up a few things this morning and it was kinda awful lol But that could have something to do with me being pretty sore and sorry with only 5 days left til bubs due. I almost finished my christmas present shopping, with the exception of one item that thankfully I don't have to go to a shopping centre to get. We also picked up some last minute baby items to save worrying once she arrives.

The other night I decided to do a bit of a just because layout. It's been a while since I've done any layouts for any purpose other than DT stuff so it was fun to scrap something random. This pic I chose to scrap was a brave one. Not really one to go around flashing my belly in its huge state but its important to record my pregnancy in its full glory lol The pic was at the almost 31 week stage so a while ago now. I guess I should do another bare belly one before the big arrival.

 Materials: Coordinations cardstock; Kaisercraft miss match mini pad & collectables; Scrapmatts chipboard kite and branch; AC thickers; Adorn it alpha stickers; other - flowers, twine.

Anyway I'm about to drag hubby to an advance screening of Pitch Perfect. It looks pretty funny and I'm a Glee fan so I like the dorky singing theme. Thought it was best to get in one last movie date before the big arrival.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend so far.

Holly x