Just a quick post to share the layout I have finished for my Switzerland album. I have not made much headway with this album, this is only page 2 & 3 of way too many.

I have embossed the strips  of patterned paper with a text embossing folder and then run over them quite heavily with an ink pad. The text was created using my new Sizzix Cherish Alpha dies and my Big Shot. This first photo does not show the colours as well as the second photo which is more true to life.

Whoops forgot to rub the line for the lettering out. Better do that.

Cheers
Julie

What a week we have had.

We set out to upgrade our computer and internet connection.

What a fiasco. We took our computer to the computer people at 9am Monday and got it back at 12:30 today. I don't know weather they just put other people in front of us or if they had a lot of trouble with it, which is what they say, but it should not have been there for all that time. We ended up having to buy a new CD ROM because they could not get the one that was in it to work even thought it was working fine when it left here. We wanted them to reformat the hard drive and reinstall the programs and drivers so that everything was fresh...... what a joke

Telstra was another major catastrophe... Ray complained to them that the speed was way too slow. They did something at the exchange and the speed went from 1.7 to 4.5. The person Ray spoke to at Telstra suggested we go onto ADSL2+ to get better speed. So we said yes. He signed us up for a $130 month bundle which included all our phone calls and 200gb of download on ADSL2+. This was $20 a month more than we were paying for a bundle which basically gave us the same phone deal and 25Gb of download. We were not worried about the bigger download limits because we never get anywhere near our limit anyway, we just wanted the faster speed. what the Telstra person omitted to tell us was that we were already on ADSL2+ anyway after a whole lot of frustrating time on the phone and about 30 phone calls Ray has finally got it sorted out, we have ended up with the bigger download for the price of our old plan but what a trying time. We have wasted a whole week on this. We have got our computer back and we have fixed all the small issues it had re screen resolution, missing drivers etc and the telstra thing was finalised this afternoon so hopefully that will be the end of it.

Ray and I were up early this morning so we took Daisy for a walk along the beach down at Grange.

It was a bit overcast but pleasant enough.

Off to take some photos of a layout I have finished
Till next time
Thanks for dropping by
Cheers
Julie

Hi

A busy week again so far. Yesterday I did the normal running around jobs in the morning and some Photoshop work in the afternoon.

We had Charli overnight because Dave was in Melbourne for work and Cindy had Uni, and then we had her all day today of course. She is such a delight. I can not believe how well behaved she is.

Tonight I watched the final of MKR and was surprised to see the girls beat the boys. I was sure the boys would win but there you go. I think either of them are deserving of the win.

Tomorrow I am working with Ray doing a demo for the scooters and smart car. I am driving the smart car. I did not plan on doing this but they were short and asked if I would. Why not give it a go. I wouldn't have considered it if it was riding one of the scooters but I figure I should be able to drive a car with a little trailer behind it and lets face it Ray will be there too if I have any problems.

I have not done any scrapping so I am going to share a couple of layouts I did not long after I started scrapbooking. It's always surprising to look back at your early layouts and see how much your "style" has changed.

I made this mini album out of envelopes. It contains photos of Cindy & Charli. I gave it to Cindy. She did have it on here desk at work, not sure if it is still there.

WOW how much has Charli changed!!!!!

That's it for this post

Thanks for dropping by

Till next time

Cheers

Julie

A beautiful Sunday afternoon.... where do I start?

Thursday night we had our first dancing lesson with Sue for about 2 years. She had retired but has decided to come back for just one class a week so Ray & I were eager to get started again. It was fun seeing all the people we used to see on a regular basis again and of course our close dancing friends came too. The step she taught us was one to make us think very hard. No easing us into things lightly we had to jump in boots and all with a 16 step move.

Friday night we had a pretty quiet night, we thought we would go to the Dockside Tavern in Port Adelaide and see Jonny Starr. We had not seen either before. What an entertainment!!!!! I don't think we will be in a hurry to see either one again.

Saturday night we had dinner with the friends we are going to Cambodia/Vietnam with in October. There are 8 of us going and the rep from the travel company we are going with came and gave us a presentation on what we will see and answered all of our questions. He was very good and put our minds to rest about most things. When he left we had a Asian inspired 4 course meal. Wendy & Lindsay bought an Avocado Coriander dip which was absolutely beautiful. Brian & Gwen had bought along a chicken and vegetable asian soup, another beautiful dish, Deb & Andre made an asian salad and asian chicken skewers cooked on the BBQ, they just melted in your mouth, followed by a delicious lemon tart made by Brian. What a fantastic meal. I was charged with bringing some chocolate and I have to say there was nothing asian about the chocolate dipped strawberries and banana and the "Favourites" chocolates that I bought along.

Today Ray is DJ'ing at the All Clubs Rock and Roll Picnic at Vigara Winery. I was going to go along too as most of our friends were going but then I realised I would be leaving home at 8:45 and not getting back until approx. 6pm, that was just too long a day to spend there. I am disappointed I didn't go but I know that if I had to spend all that time there I would not have enjoyed it. I had a sleep in until 10:30, spent some time on the computer checking emails and then sorted through one of the cupboards in the walk-in robe, you know the one that hold t-shirts, cardigans, jumpers, pyjamas, scarves and all those bits and pieces. I must admit I did not venture to the top shelf where the handbags are kept, that will have to wait for another day. I had been thinking about doing that for some time and I started doing it this morning by accident but I am glad it is done now. The wheelie bin is full.

One of the things I had trouble deciding what to do with was my Canon EOS500 camera and 28 - 80mm lens and 75 - 300mm lens. I know they are not worth anything now but I paid over $1000 for the camera and one lens, the second lens was extra. I just have not got the heart to put it in the wheelie bin. If anyone knows of someone that would be able to make some use of it please let me know and I would be more than happy to give it to them.

I am going to do the washing tonight. I have been doing the washing at night since we got our solar panels as the power is then drawn from ETSA and all of the power we generate throughout the day is fed back into the grid. We get 52c per kwh feed back and pay about .27c per kwh for power used. We got our first power bill since having the panels put up the other day it was $23.50 credit and we had not had our duel meter working for the full 3 month period. It has been over the summer months thought when you would expect the best generation possibilities.

Here are a few photos from our trip to Kangaroo Island. I will share some more in my next post

This photo shows part of the walk from the car park to the beach at Stokes Bay

 This one is of a tractor that entertained Ray for a good 5 minutes at Snelling's Beach

The view from our accommodation's window on the first night.

That's it for this post. A very long one I know. I am off to do some Photoshop work towards my Assignments and Assessments before Ray gets home.

Thanks for dropping by
Till next time
Cheers
Julie

I know I know......almost a month since my last post. So much has happened that it would be too hard to try and catch it all up here.

I have been to Kangaroo Island for 5 days so have some great pics to share from that but have not got around to sorting them out yet.

I am off overseas in a few months and I had not started my album from the last time I was away in 2009 so I have decided that I must finish the album from my 2009 holiday before I go away on the 16th June.

I have made a start and have finished the front page.

The photo of the photo of the people has come out very dark. It is much better in real life. The 2 people on the left are friends of Anne and Wills that live in Zurich. We stayed with them for a few days here and there while we were in Zurich. I am standing between Anne & Will. I will be travelling with them again this year. Last time I was away from 15th April till 17th May. I will be away from 16th June to the 18th August this time. Twice as long. When I booked for this year I thought I was away for 6 weeks last time and thought I could probably handle an extra 2 weeks. When I checked and realised I was only away for 4 weeks I am now having serious doubts about weather I will last 8 weeks away from Ray, Daisy, Cindy, Charli and home. Ahhhhh well the booking has been made now so lets see what happens.

I will be back soon....promise
Till next time
Cheers
Julie