simply serendipitous

Pretty, pretty, pretty !!!

2009-11-23T19:03:00.005+11:00

Well, after lots of encouragement from my good friend Leesa, today I have finally participated in an online forum and card making challenge.

I have really enjoyed making my cards for this challenge and love the cards that I have created.

I further challenged myself by using only papers that are left over from other projects.

All that I added was the ribbon, buttons and lovely Green Tara flower.

Of course, the finishing touch to each card had to be my absolute favourite , that is of course, stickles.

Hope you like them too !

Life is good.....

2009-11-14T17:17:00.002+11:00

How happy I am...the sun is shining, the birds are singing, I can hear squeals of laughter of children playing.....and to top it off, I feel truly blessed to have the love of my beautiful family and faithful friends, who have been there when I have needed them most.

How can you tell a true friend from the rest ???
They are the ones who are with you , not only through the good times , but more importantly when times are hard...they are the ones that walk alongside you , encouraging you , caring for you , never judging you , waiting to catch you should you stumble or fall.

Thankyou friends ( you know who you are !)

Happy Mothers Day

2009-05-10T19:41:00.002+10:00

What a lovely day...breakfast in bed , cocoa pops , lovingly prepared and delivered by Charlotte.We had a lovely day , just spending quality time together. As if I didn't feel blessed enough , Sarah cooked a beautiful meal for dinner. Thankyou girls...you are both beautiful daughters...how lucky I am .

life was never meant to be easy , but.......

2009-05-07T20:33:00.001+10:00

God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.

I don't quite know just what to say........

2009-02-09T06:45:00.002+11:00

Surreal and frightening are the only words that i can think of to describe the past couple of days.

And there are simply no words to express my grief and sorrow that I feel as I hear of the terrible loss of life as a result of these fires.Thank God that we are all safe.

And to Marie and Brian , 'thankyou' just does not seem enough to say to express my gratitude for all that you have done to help us.

On Saturday, Brian came over and helped me to try to prepare to deal with any spot fires that may occur....Clive and Charlotte were not here as they had gone down to our caravan at Eagle Point on Friday .We never would have thought that we would be in danger of a bushfire where we live....we don't live in a bushy area .

There were a couple of small fires near us , the closest being aproximately 300-500 meters away in a paddock behind my friend Danielle's property......way too close for comfort.That fire came within just a few meters of a house....very lucky indeed.

Within half an hour of this , we left our home ,we had been told that we were to be evacuated.

Sarah , myself , our 2 dogs , 1 cat and bunny rabbit went to Brian and Marie's home where we stayed for the night before returning home the following morning.

To Marie and Brian , thanks once again for all that you have done. And not to forget Leesa who came over to Marie's on Saturday night and helped me by just being there....thankyou Leesa , it means so much.

Enough said.

Been A While.........

2009-01-22T09:05:00.003+11:00

Belated Happy New Year to one and all.

I'll keep it short and sweet...had a lovely 2 weeks holiday, looking forward to the year ahead , having lots of fun at Simply Said !!!!

Leesa is coming to teach me how to upload images to the blog very soon...can't wait to share my creations with you all.

Bye for now,
Samantha.

Christmas is nearly upon us..........

2008-12-04T20:17:00.003+11:00

Hi everyone !

Like everyone else, life is very busy right now. It's a crazy time of year isn't it. I'll be glad when the big day finally arrives...the weeks building up to it are so crazy !

Last week was very busy craftwise . At Simply Said in Warragul, Marie , Leesa and myself made a gorgeous Advent calendar each...to check them out go to http://marieshiel.typepad.com/said_simply/ .

Over at Arti.licious (http://marieshiel.typepad.com/artilicious/) the November ATC swap ended. We all did beautiful doodling ATCs for the November challenge...it is lovely to be able to swap with each other and appreciate each others art work!

It was very exciting today when Marie, Leesa and I received ATCs from the Rachel Greig Photo Booth Ladies Swap.What a buzz to receive all those gorgeous ATCs from other participants from not only Australia but around the world too!!!

Also, just to let you all know , I have tried to get some photos on my blog but as you can see it didn't quite happen.I am still trying to pin down my daughter to show me what to do, but for those of you who have teenagers would know,it's social life first and home second.So I will try some more...maybe she will get tired of me asking her, and just to do it.

Must go now...I have a fun packed day tomorrow....I am going on a school excursion to The Melbourne Museum and Imax Theatre with a group of grade preps (yaaaay !!! lol) ...Note to self, make sure to pack headache tablets.

Bye for now, Samantha.

All Good Things Are Worth Waiting For

2008-11-13T21:11:00.000+11:00

Well it diWWell it has taken me a while to get back on my blog to leave a post, but here I am at last !!! Better late than never.

I have been trying to change my background to this lovely new one ( thanks Marie for telling me about it ) and found that I just could not do it without a little help and so tonight I was extra nice to my daughter Sarah and she kindly did it for me.....Thanks Sarah !!!! Now all I need to do is try to keep her at home long enough to do a few more little additions to my blog for me.

I've also been quite busy since my last post.Craftwise I've joined Marie and Leesa at Simply Said for our regular Wednesday Morning ATC meeting / workshop / morning tea /animated conversation and lots of laughter......it is soooooo much fun ! OK we might not actually get a great deal of work done but we all certainly have a great time together. This weeks meeting I was running on adrenalin...I didn't get to bed until 1:00 am the night before...I was finishing my ATCs for the Photo Booth Ladies Swap that Marie, Leesa and I participated in.It was my own fault really...we had about 2 months to create 9 ATCs for the swap...i made the last 8 of these on Tuesday night !!! That is just like me to leave it to the last minute...but then again, maybe I do my best work under pressure...mmmmm, that sounds like a good explanation...I think I'll stick with it, lol.

On Monday I ran a workshop at a local indigenous group where some of the members created their own Doodling Page ...A La Nicole Finlayson ( thanks Nic).I was so impressed by the work that these lovely people created, and they all said how much they enjoyed it too. I have been invited back in a fortnight and cannot wait to see them all finish their artwork.I am hoping to get some photos of their work to put on my blog.

I finally bought myself a Cuttlebug this week ( yahoo !!!) Up to now I have been fortunate to have the use of Danielle's ( thanks so much Danielle !!!) but it was quite a buzz to finally get my own...especially for my 6 year old, Charlotte, who is an avid crafter.Next on my list is the Slice Machine...can't wait for that !!!

I certainly have been blessed to have "fallen" into this beautiful world of papercraft....I have met and/or become friends with so many beautiful souls....you know who you are !!! It has been the best thing to happen to me in a long time and I am bursting with so much joy that I want to be able to share it with you all.

I think that I had better go now as I am beginning to ramble a bit . Thankyou for taking the time to check in and read my blog and an especially big THANKYOU to all my crafty friends who have been so encouraging and supportive of my journey...words are not enough to express my immense gratitude to you all !!!

Bye for now , Samantha x

omg....i can't believe it !!!!

2008-11-01T21:20:00.000+11:00

Well, here I am..... I can't believe that after a lot of thought and procrastination (and gentle encouragement by my friend Marie at Simply Said) I've finally set up my 1st ever blog..... and all by myself too !!!

I must tell you that I consider this quite an achievement as I am most definitely not technologically minded whatsoever.

Here's hoping that it will continue to be so easy to do !

I hope that you will enjoy visiting and sharing with me my recently new found love of creating beautiful cards , A.T.C.s , scrapbooking and more.......I am so excited ..... my journey has begun.