My Heartfelt Thanks...

...to all my lovely crafty blogland friends for their lovely comments, emails, cards and gifts sent following the birth of our little man Thumper. I am sorry that I have not managed to reply individually to many of you yet. You can probably imagine why this is the case ;-), but please know that I really appreciate your thoughts and sweet comments.

Yesterday I took photos of some simply gorgeous handmade cards that we have received here recently, and I thought I'd pop them up here and show them to you.

This 'oh so cute!!' card is by my Kiwi friend Paula. Her bunny is so beautifully watercoloured...I just want to give him a big cuddle. Miss Nearly 7 is also a huge fan of this bunny, and I half expect to find him missing from the card one morning ;-).

This fresh and elegant card is by the lovely Patrice. As an indication of how befuddled I am of late...when I opened this card (not long after receiving Paula's), and sat admiring it for several minutes I was also thinking...gee, I think I've seen this card before...but I couldn't put my finger on where. Suddenly it dawned on me that it wasn't the same card...but the same layout...YES, sleep deprivation is debilitating!

Paula and Patrice are some of the awesome design-team talent behind the Just Add Ink blog, and both had made me their cards using the #56 sketch challenge. How chuffed did I feel to receive not one, but TWO JAI design-team cards in the same week!? Plenty chuffed, let me tell you.

This super sweet 3D card is by the wonderful Leonie. I love 3D cards, and this one is no exception. How cute are those little drawers, and the goodies hanging from them? How patient must Leonie be to have cut them out by hand?! If I tried to do something like that right now, I'd probably slice my fingers off.

Last but not least, this entirely gorgeous creation is by Debbie. When I grow up I want to be able to colour with Copics like Debbie. Her creations are all mini works of art...I am in awe!

SO...as you can see, I have been a very lucky girl! Thank you so much for your beautiful creations ladies, I feel very special and you have all inspired me with your work.

Nearly finished here now. I have been typing this post up for over two hours. First I was feeding, then burping, then smiling and getting our first smiles in return (they melt my heart, but are too fleeting to catch on camera yet). I have a couple of quick pics that I just wanted to add at the end. The first is of our first proper family outing post-baby (actually that's not strictly true, we did do yum cha the week after Thumper arrived...to this day I am not sure how we managed that)...

Last night we headed in to the Canberra Show. Our trip there has been a bit of a family tradition since the year before Miss Nearly 7 arrived, and with the the kids getting older they are enjoying it a whole lot more.

So off we went and arrived at 6pm (it was hot and sunny here during the day and I decided that I'd rather have tired kids than hot, sweaty and possibly sunburn't kids). We had a lovely time meandering through the animal yards, craft pavilions and show bag stands, and finished up by having dinner on the grass around the main arena, followed by fireworks.

I might add here that I didn't actually see the fireworks. Little man Thumper was a wee bit tired after waking and being fed, so I wrapped him up and was rocking him back to sleep DURING the fireworks...and guess what...I did it! I had his head in the crook of my arm covering one ear, and my mouth over his other ear as we had unknowingly parked ourselves quite close to the fireworks...and there I sat rocking to and fro while the fireworks went off over my head. He barely moved a muscle, although he did wake up screaming during the car ride home...sigh!

This morning I caught this sweet moment, no description necessary...

I'll be back with a crafty project of my own to show you...one day...I hope...;-)

Have a nice weekend!

Thanks Beary Much!

I know it has been pretty quiet in here...but I haven't only been feeding, burping and changing nappies! It is just that any crafting is only done in very small increments, over much larger periods of time. My first priority after making sure that Thumper is fed, clothed, entertained and gas-free (the child seems to be very gaseous...and tends to want to keep them to himself, until you try to put him down to sleep...THEN he screeches about it)...is that I get some SLEEP!

Thumper is feeding about four-hourly at present (with the odd period of three-hourly feeds and the very, very odd period of 5-6 hourly feeds - last night I scored a five-hourly...and got FOUR UNBROKEN HOURS of shut-eye bliss...YEAH ME, YEAH THUMPER...). I usually only get two blocks of two - three hours of sleep in any one night...so I'm feeling pretty crusty round the edges....and spending every free moment during the day behind my beautiful eye-mask ;-).

Aaaaaaaannnnyhoooooo, in my non-sleeping spare time (feels like about 36 minutes of it in the last two weeks ;-) I have managed to make up a batch of seven baby thank you cards:

List of Ingredients:

Cardstock: Bashful Blue and Barely Banana (SU) and Stamper's Select White (PTI)
Ink: Tuxedo Black Memento (Tsukineko)
Stamps: Baby Button Bits (PTI), Mat Stack 1 Collection (PTI) and Tags for Spring (PTI)
Accessories: Picnic Plaid Impression Plate (PTI), Spring Rain Luxe Satin Ribbon (PTI), Mat Stack 1 Die (PTI), 2008 Bitty Dot Basics Patterned Paper (PTI), White Buttons (Misc), Tombow Adhesive (Penwa), Foam Mounting Tape (Misc) and Mini Glue Dots (SU).

Now I just have to get my act together and write in them and send them off to various family members! You are probably wondering why I didn't make them BEFORE Thumper arrived, and be all organised etc. Well, that would have just been plain sensible...wouldn't it????...and not my usual modus operandi at all ;-).

In another of my precious spare minutes one day (in fact I may have even been feeding Thumper at the same time) I played with some photos (and made a new watermark). I've applied a bunch of Pioneerwoman Actions to these...don't ask me which ones, or in what order...lets just say lots!

Four days old...

 ...also four days old

 Big yawn...

Two weeks old...

First trip to Sydney - Two weeks old...

Ok....its some two hours after I first started this post (no I wasn't sitting here the whole time), and I've got to go feed the wee munchkin again.

Have a nice day!

Happy 4th Anniversary Papertrey Ink...

Papertrey Ink celebrates its fourth Anniversary this year, and in order to help celebrate they are running a mega giveaway for one lucky stamper! You can check out the full details for yourself at the bottom of the post here on Nichole heady's blog.

All you need to do is select your favourite project from 2010, which features at least one Papertrey Ink product, and re-post it to your blog.

This was pretty easy...my favourite Papertrey Ink project from 2010 is my Up, Up and Away Birthday card, which I posted here in October last year.

 

I love the Up, Up and Away set, and the Papertrey Cloud Dies, and the Sunshine Impression Plate, and the Linen and Canvas Impression plate...well, you get the picture :-).

While I'm here...I also wanted to say a HUGE thank you for all the lovely comments on my previous post. Our new bubby is feeding like a little champion and we are all settling in here very well together.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say hello!