Have to love being on leave - especially days where one does just about nothing at all. Well that isn’t strictly true, Tamsyn got bored so we baked chocolate chip cookies  - slightly burnt underneath but on the whole - not completely inedible. I created my first ever digital scrapbook layout and well that was about it for the day.

Photo’s taken by Tamsyn

<— feeling a little bit jaded this morning - for some reason we seem to believe partying over long weekends is a fun thing to do…our motto “sleep when you’re dead”. Contemplating enducing a cardiac arrest just to get a bit of shut eye. Nah, it wasn’t that bad - and hey, this coming weekend is a long one too - whoohoo… party on!

I went to the scrapbook convention on Saturday, been eagerly anticipating it for months (literally) - they had organised two international people to come out and teach us, Tim Holtz and Jayme Shepherd. If I’m brutally honest and compare it to last year’s….it wasn’t quite as good, but was still a helluva lot of fun. Mind you, the woman that won the A3 photo printer, plus a die-cut machine - probably figured it was the best event ever. They had a lot of give aways, some really awesome stuff, sadly I didn’t get anything, not even the tiniest thing. Probably bad karma or something. ‘Course I’m not bitter about it, *bloodypeoplethatgetnotoneprizebuttwo!*

Tim Holtz is a lot of fun and everyone at my table thoroughly enjoyed his class - we ended up elbow deep in ink, glue and his amazing product called grunge board. Came home with this little beauty for my efforts.

Jayme’s classes proved to be a little stressful for a lot of people (present company excluded - naturally) - she kept having to convert inches to cm’s and there was quite a bit of cutting and putting of pages together. A shame really because the products she provided us with we really very pretty.

Even though I didn’t manage to win anything *stillbittteraboutthat* I came away with a lot of stash to add to the ever growing pile. I was so inspired by all that I’d seen and made that I decided to create these…I think they’re terribly cute. Wouter’s response… they’re cute but what are they for? Men!

For those of you who think like him - they’re a way for me to display my ribbons. This way I actually use them instead of them skulking away in a dark corner for years.

Bagheera had a fun weekend too, we came home Sunday afternoon to a lounge full of feathers, and a very proud looking kitty lurking near her kill. I did ask her very nicely to please keep the next one outside. She has also agreed to stay in her dedicated spot in my room when I’m busy creating…..

Although the ribbon did prove too much for her and she tried to start a ribbon collection of her own.

All in all - a lovely weekend

Anyone that scrapbooks is hyper aware of using acid free paper, acid free glues, making sure the photographs don’t come into contact with anything that might contain acid. So when you discover that something - which I might add only seems to be active at night and seems intent on eating its way through your paper is living in your scrapbook room - you tend to get a little bit freaked out.

I have no idea what it might be - I did do a bit of research this morning on paper eating bugs but I’m not sure if my monster in the scrapbook room is one of them. All we can think is that whatever it is, is coming from what used to be the kitchen cupboards. My major concern is of course my scrapbook pages and paper - with the amount of paper I have in my room, these paper eating insects could turn into something like this and take over the house!

And people wonder why I’m scared of mantis’s.. do a ‘giant scary insect’ google image search…. predominant insect…. THE PRAYING MANTIS!!!!  *shudder*

If anyone who reads this has an idea of what it might be and how I can get rid of it, please let me know - our lives depend on it! ‘k so that is a bit dramatic, lets just say my life and scrapbooks depend on it. I’m going to buy a doom fogger and fog the bastards out…. just hope that works.

Not that I nag…much. My one goal this holiday was to get my scrapbook room sorted and after some gentle hinting, ingenious clues, loquacious comments and whispered pleas in the dead of night I got my much anticipated shelves.

Originally we were going to put up three shelves but once the bottom two were up, it became very apparent that there wouldn’t be enough space for my printer so the top shelf got axed and the second shelf raised a notch.

Then the great sort out began.

As you can see - there was much to be done.

Must say I’m really looking forward to spending time in here.

(you have been warned)

For a long time now I have coveted the personal die-cutting machines one can buy - the cricut, craft robo, sizzix, there’s a lot of them on the market. However they’re all extremely expensive (even more expensive than say a wok) so I haven’t attempted to buy or hint for one. That was until Making Memories brought out this little beauty, the slice.

It was launched in February at the CHA show in America - gosh what I wouldn’t give to go to one of those, and only recently became available to the public. I threw caution to the wind and treated myself to an early Xmas present.

The basic kit doesn’t come with the cute storage unit or the 12×12 glass mat.

Here are my first impressions of the slice.

It’s cute… very, very cute. A little noisy at times and if you’re thinking of getting away with not gluing (you get a dinky little tube of quick drying repositionable glue with it) the paper down on the glass mat - don’t. It doesn’t work - I thought it might if I pressed down on the machine but all that happened was a very sad crumpled looking mess. Reason why I tried is I find peeling the paper off the glue difficult at times and there is the potential to mess up small bits you may have cut. I guess with a bit of practise I’ll get better at it.

My first attempt wasn’t terribly successful, then again I did decide to go for one of the more intricate designs on the card. My initial impression is the machine battles to cut through really thick cardstock although it claims to be able to cut through virtually anything.

My second and third attempts however were far more successful and another personal recommendation - if you can afford to buy the 12×12 glass mat do. The mat that comes with the starter kit is really small and whilst it’ll be great if you’re taking it on crops and suchlike - it isn’t that great when working with larger pieces of paper.

Another tip - if it seems to have gone wonky and is cutting some strange hieroglyphics - it could be one of two things, either the battery is running low or you haven’t ‘homed’ the blade. Took me several failed tries to work this one out.

The battery didn’t seem to last all that long, but perhaps it is because it has only been charged once. The manual says that you need only charge for an hour and then it is ready for use again. Of course you can also use it whilst connected to the mains but that kind of defeats the whole ‘cordless’ aspect of it.

It may not be as fancy as the expensive ones on the market and you are limited to the shapes on the card, but I have to say there are a lot of choices on the various cards available and for now the two I have (basic card 1 & 2) should keep me busy for a long time.

On a local note.. the American sites don’t recommend we (South Africa) purchase directly from them, we should rather go through a local agent. Something to do with the voltage - well turns out all you need to do is purchase a universal plug adaptor.

Am I glad I bought it? Hell yes!!

“used hot dog carts for sale” - someone stuck that into google and I came up as 9th on the list, 9th. Pretty damn amazing. I’m pervading the web in all sorts of ways - I won’t mention the google search that someone did awhile back which brought up my page… lets just say I was mortified.  Lots of erm, suggestive words, positively disgusting.

On a scrapbooking note, I have a website that I visit regularly which has a wealth of information on it, if you’re into scrapbooking and haven’t discovered it yet, now is your chance.

My scrapbook room….. is starting to take shape. Wouter has promised he’ll put in a work surface for me and a shelf above that, on the left hand side where the book case is at the moment. We have a lot of offcuts from the various cupboards we’ve had cut, so we’re going to use some of that. We also recycled the old cupboards from the kitchen, and let me tell you they were dirty, urgh. Much scrubbing on my part to get the grease off.

When you compare it to what I’ve been working with - well there is no comparison.

I have an idea I’ve posted this picture before.

Thought I’d give a plug to my favourite South African online scrapbooking shop. Unlike the US, we don’t have all that many online shops, which is a pity - perhaps in time there will be more. Our shops also, quite obviously, do not have the range that the overseas ones do - but Ingrid’s shop is better than most and her prices are very competitive. The other upside to purchasing from a local shop - the goodies arrive in a few days… not weeks. So if you’re looking for somewhere local to get your scrapbooking fix, I really recommend www.yourscrappingshop.co.za.