Too much history

It was History Day at my son's school last week, and I really shouldn't have read Things your History Teacher didn't tell you this year (although it's a great read) as I was especially cynical about the Kindergarten's depiction of the first Thanksgiving, and the third graders singing Yankee Doodle.  My son's class also sang The Grand Old Flag and the Nifty 50 States song.  Sense a theme here?  I'm sure knowing the 50 states in alphabetical order will win him a pub quiz one day but trust me, there will be some serious Kiwi indoctrination going on once we're back in NZ. 
For my last hurrah, it had to be a page celebrating this wondrous event: lots of colour and a slightly haphazard layout.

Last hurrah?  Today I gave into my husband's gentle prompting, and packed up the scrapbooking supplies.  Two big boxes and a small one left over, so I was pretty pleased with that.  Pity the poor men who have to lift them though.  I didn't throw too much out as I went; I'd done a big clean up a few months ago before visitors and donated heaps of the crafty stuff to school. 
I have committed to a scrap relay sometime this month, so have my crop bag packed.  That was the hardest thing: trying to predict what I'd need for a LO I haven't seen yet, but if I started to plan it properly, today wouldn't have happened at all and there would have been more not-so-gentle prompting tomorrow.

Then and Now

Ahh bubbles.  They don't pop like balloons, and they don't leave you soaking like water guns.  A perfect leisurely way to spend an afternoon.
This was a Then and Now challenge: choose a page you like, and do it again to show how your style has changed.  I don't have copies of pre-digital photos (who does?) so I took some more of the same thing.

The captions read: Express Yourself, Be a Dreamer, Imagine.  Husband snorted at the time but he should see the crap I put on now (like the previous post!)  I remember how hard it was to tear perfect circles out of vellum. 

And yesterday.  Scraplifted from Anna White-Sharman: sketch, colours and all.

Back from stress leave

Changes here: I resigned from the design team as I was feeling too stressed creating perfect layouts every time instead of my usual hit and misses.  I still haven't (and never will) get the hang of misting and sewing, but I'll blunder along here and be pitifully grateful for any complimentary scraps that get thrown my way.
Just in time too, as we start packing this weekend to move countries, and even though I'm entitled to take 100kg on the plane with me, I'm not too sure how I can do it with two kids, clothes for a month, a car seat and a mountain buggy as well.  Husband is coming a month later - hmm, how did he manage that?  That's right, I wasn't going to stay on this rock a minute longer than I had to.

Last night I was challenged to use a 'girly' theme for a boy page, and luckily I'd just bought some beautiful Panama Lounge paper from Grant Studios (snaps to Warehouse Stationery).  I tried to tone it down with blue embellishments and it sort of worked. 

I think there's a market for reality titles though - 'Best friends for 30 seconds before going off in different directions for an hour' might be more accurate.