Australian Scrapbooking Cruise

The land legs are slowly coming back into action but the head is still spinning. Some may say that is normal but I don’t think so….
For those of you who debated coming on the cruise – you really should have come. It was a fantastic experience. The group of girls all got along well with each other and what made the trip more special was how they made my girls feel so very special and included. Little Caitlin spent just as much time in the scrapping room as I did at times. Lorelle did a great job facilitating and getting us all aboard and arranging everything like she did. Big Congrats too Lorelle as she just found out she was pregnant just before the trip so she did an awesome job considering how much that can take out of you.
One of the highlights and probably one of the best from a scrappers point of view was how we had the conference room to ourselves. They were able to bring as much stuff as they liked and trust me some of them did, and leave it set up 24/7. The only times they cleared their tables was before one of my classes which soon meant it was covered again. They were totally spoilt with product from Kaisercraft, Prima and American Crafts and the classes seemed to be well accepted even if I do say so myself..LOL. From the amount of girls who are eager for the next one I guess that is true.
Most of my classes were in the morning which left the afternoon to do not a whole heap but a lot of lazing around the pool deck area. With the excewption of the first day where YES I admit it, I was a little sea sick, enough to call maintenance cause I blocked our sink….. ewhhh yuck… yep but it happened – I was then OK after that.
The only tour we went on was to the Great Barrier Reef and when you have 5 of you that is about all we could afford but it was well worth the $$$ to see the girls enjoy it so much, and an experience that you don’t get to do everyday if at al, especially out to the outer reef. So glad they are competent swimmers and we taught them how to snorkel last year. . With the exception of the little pink piranhas, well not really but these pink fish kept chasing us and if we crossed into their territory they actually bit you – It freaks Jess out a bit everytime she saw one and we reversed up and went the other direction pretty quickly – thank goodness for flippers. And believe me the little nip you got from them actually hurt – one got me on the leg. Little mongrels.
As always out there the fish are absolutely gorgeous and very very colourful. The reef itself, well you can certainly tell it is damaged but still pretty in spots.
Food on board was unbelievable – I really don’t need to look at food for a week to wear off the effects of how I feel and how much I ate the past 10 days. Food 24/7 whenever you want it. OMGosh – and I don’t think I actually want anymore seafood for awhile. Blood is overloaded with fish oil. It was great.
Have to love Ellie’s quote – “TOTALLY SHOULD HAVE EVERYTHING WHITE” – the main dining room is like 5 star service with white table cloths etc and when you have three kids – that is not as you can guess the most appropriate colour. Quite amusing and even Ellie wished it was another colour when things just wouldn’t stay on her plate.
Classes

We had women of all of different scrapping styles and abilities but it was great because if they didn’t finish something in class there was no pressure as they knew they had the whole rest of the day and trip to catch up on anything they wanted to.
Anyway I can finally share the classes we did. By far the biggest hit I would say was the Cruise ship album I designed.

The girls seemed to love the idea of filling it in each day. We put the basics together on the first day and then with little xiary tags made available for the rest of thet rip they kept updating it each day. By the end of the trip many had a fantastic keepsake of their cruise and time away. Definately will have to make it become a kit for future cruises.

Other classes I took were the following

Just Walk Beside Me - Kaisercraft Duchess Range. Its a little hard to pick up this pic but it has pearl strips running around the Victorian border shape.

Just Me - Prima Double Page Layout

This layout was inspired by one Tracie Hudson taught at the recent SA Scrapbooking Conference which I just adored. We couldn't get hold of all the papers she used so had to recreate by making and painting frames but the girls had lots of fun.

All I Want for Christmas -Kaisercraft Belle Range

A Box Full of Friendship - American Crafts It really was a fantastic experience. Yes another one of them. This year has certainly been full of them and I will post up some photos of the cruise shortly. Seriously someone should do something about limiting the number of photos one can take on a holiday as you have to go through them all when you return and work out which ones we actually want to keep. Also camera should not be allowed to take more than one photo at a time....lol....

CROP for A Cause Details

NEXT CROP 4 A CAUSE WORKSHOP: 12th December

TIME: 9 am - 10pm

WHERE: Barrabool Hills Community Church, Province Blvd, Highton

FANCY DRESS - Christmas Theme

COMPETITIONS: Layout / cards / BTP so get creative - theme Christmas. Start creating now - no rules - no particular products have to be used. Enter once in each category only. (Bring on the day ) Prize for each category.

LIMITED NUMBER OF SEATS AVAILABLE (90)

PAYMENT TO BE RECEIVED BY 30th NOVEMBER

Once again going to ask that you start collecting a few items that you could donate for hampers so that we will have hampers to disperse again like last year for needy families in the community.

PRICE: $35 for Basic scrap and Chat - DINNER is included in this cost - and yes it will be a fantastic Christmas feast especially being held up at the church with the Winters looking after us again. - Gosh they are sooooo good to us.

There will be the option to purchase additional kits at an additional cost but I am still finalizing these. Realise workshop is getting close - so will open it up now to you all if you want to get your name registered and pay for the basic scrap and chat ($35). You can let me know later if you want to participate in the planned classes or purchase kits when they are put up on the site.
Bank details are as usual (please put your name on the details as it makes it easier for me to track back and please email me the date you deposit anything) BSB: 063551 A/c 10141667
Looking forward to catching up with you all really soon

mel

For all those who have a DREAM.

If you have girls then you have probably heard this song (many times over) - but this is the song that is going through my head at the moment and I can't get it out. Maybe it has to do with my three little girls singing it non stop - but I sure hope as they grow up these words stick in their minds.

Try to forget that it is a teeny bopper singing this and CLOSE YOUR EYES and listen to these words (or read them below) and for any of you like myself who have dreams you want to see fulfilled - I sure have a list of them - I hope this means something to you as it did for me.
Ive always believed if you dream it you can do it but unfortunately it doesn't necessarily happen overnight - as the song says - its about the climb.

ENJOY!!!!

The Climb lyrics
I can almost see it
That dream I am dreaming
But there's a voice inside my head saying
"You'll never reach it"

Every step I'm taking
Every move I make feels
Lost with no direction
My faith is shaking

But I gotta keep trying
Gotta keep my head held high

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb

The struggles I'm facing
The chances I'm taking
Sometimes might knock me down
But no, I'm not breaking

I may not know it
But these are the moments that
I'm gonna remember most, yeah
Just gotta keep going

And I, I got to be strong
Just keep pushing on

'Cause there's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be a uphill battle
Sometimes I'm gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

There's always gonna be another mountain
I'm always gonna wanna make it move
Always gonna be an uphill battle
Somebody's gonna have to lose

Ain't about how fast I get there
Ain't about what's waiting on the other side
It's the climb, yeah!

Keep on moving, keep climbing
Keep the faith, baby
It's all about, it's all about the climb
Keep the faith, keep your faith, whoa

Now to share afew photos from my past trip that i have kept saying i will post and somehow keep finding it hard to get time to sort them all out.

I have managed somehow though to finish and send away my first ever photo book. I sure hope it turns out OK as it wasn't cheap but it will be a great memento of my time in Kichaka. Here are a couple of the pages. As you can see no real scrapping, i have left the photos to do all the talking.

I know these are just animals but when you see them up so close and personal it really was such an awesom experience. Below is the group of us that got to share this experience together.

Kichaka video

As I am still going through and attempting to edit all my photos but I just wanted to share with you the following video that Tracie somehow has managed to already put together. Good on you girl - thanks so much. Can you believe we took 7348 photos (and that is with some already edited and deleted. That is a ridiculous 35.9 Gigabyte of space required. Thank goodness I had the external hard drive to store them all on. LOL - this is what happens when you have a bunch of scrapbookers together each with a camera in their hands- regardless of whether you really need the photo - it is taken anyway - just in case you may need it later on.

Until i get a chance to put one together myself, this little video will give you a glimpse of how absolutely beautiful Kichaka was and why the experience will last a lifetime for all of us who were a part of this adventure. We may have been strangers at the beginning but we left each other knowing that we had formed friendships and have memories that will last a lifetime. And after watching IF you are wondering why at the end of it it says Mel and Brenton ("throw a brick at it") - you'll have to ask B about that one - it may have something to do with a question of how to get the hippo's out of the water......LOL. No i didn't say it and NO WE DIDN'T DO IT....

Thanks you so much Glenda, Debbie, Tracie, Carol, Cathy, Erin, Laura, Tami, Mike and of course Brenton for being a part and sharing yourself and this time with me. I so hope we can meet up again at some stage.

They say you leave a part of your heart in South Africa at Kichaka when you visit and I can honestly say this is true. See for yourself.....

Kaisercraft Class in SA - BE YOURSELF

Well I am still going through all my photos and realised that we took waaayyyyy too many photos between us. Between the 8 of us there was a camera snapping almost all the time. Its going to take a few days to sort through all of these but until i manage to share more of them with you i have just realised that i can now finally share with you what the projects were that i did with the girls in Johannesburg and Cape Town.

I used the Pennyroyale Collection - Q1 release from Kaisercraft. There are so many elements in this paper range that you can cut out. Although I absolutely love all the pretty flowers etc (OMGosh and Prima were there and did a class too) - i found with this range there are so many bits and pieces that you can cut out and use instead. Now saying all that we still used bits from other products in the collection as we wanted to spoil the delegates and give them as much as possible. Enough to wet their appetite for the Kaiser product. Kaisercraft in the past hasn't been readily available in South Africa so for many of the attendees it was the first time they have used the products. The response was fantastic and from comments received they loved the class.

As there was so much product in the kits we thought it may be nice to show them how to use one of our wooden products and make the following Hanging Keepsake.One of the requirements for this was to bring photos of THEMSELVES as i really wanted to get them to create something to remind themselves that they were special. YOU are you for a reason. There is no one quite like you – thankfully some may say.
We spend so much of our lives trying to please others and gain acceptance from them and quite often forget each one of us has so much to offer others.
We need to get back to just being ourselves and quit trying to live up to what other people expect of us otherwise we can actually go through life not really knowing who we are.

Funnily enough I have discovered in the scrapbooking industry its the same. People spend so much time and effort trying to impress others, feel like failures if they aren't published or on DT's and always comparing themselves and their work to others.

I know and admit that before this convention when i was asked to do it i did the same thing and wondered if I was the right person for the job - although i wanted to jump at the chance - that old self doubt stepped in for awhile. For some reason here in Oz if you tend to make something of yourself and actually achieve something people are always ready to knock you back down to earth and after a few other situations such as that this year I really didn't want to have to deal with it again. Thankfully I have some wonderful friends who are extremely encouraging and kept telling me that I could do it. I thought yikes! help - Im not a Heidi Swapp or a Donna Downey or any BIG "name" just me MEL. But Im learning along the way too and have discovered that people can relate to my imperfections and after all - all I can be is myself.

Who really defines who we are anyway. At the end of the day the only person I am going to have to answer to is God and explain to him what i have done with my life.
I love this quote.
When I stand before God at the end of my LIFE, i would hope that i would not have a single bit of talent left, and can say " I USED EVERYTHING you gave me"
I encourage you all to do the same and use what you have got and to be yourself.

Who I AM? Its got nothing to do with what I have done but who I am.
Once we get a hold of that fact its like a huge weight is lifted of us.
We are special just as we are. We are all different and we all have differet talents and even on this trip I learnt sooooo much from others. We all have so much to learn but in doing so lets not try to be someone else.
So there you go - this is me, some people like it and others as i have discovered don't but that is something not in our control and we don't have to go through life trying to impress others.

BE YOURSELF and have loads of FUN along the way.
I certainly am.
Here is a couple of other pics from one of the classes.

Thank You South Africa

What can i say. There are times like this that its so hard to put into words how I feel.
We are at Singapore airport - counting down a 12 hour stop over and just thought i would drop a quick post. Only another 26 hours to go and we should be touching down in Melbourne. Soooo looking forward to seeing my family and friends again but still drying my eyes from saying goodbye to you all. I know the tears will start again once i look back on my photos.
Thank you so much Glenda (for an opportunity of a lifetime), all the helpers and all you beautiful delegates who particpated in the conventions in J'Burg and Cape Town. You made both Brenton and myself feel so welcome that it was soooo hard to leave. Also to all the other wonderful teachers who were part of this trip too - i feel so privaledged to have been asked to teach alongside of you and i know we have made friendships that will last forever. (How do we arrange to meet again....LOL - miss you already).
It was literally a dream come true for myself. Not only visiting Sth Africa, the safari, the places we see but actually speaking in front of soooooo many of you and actually ENJOYING it was something i never thought i would do. Like i said though - if you can DREAM it you can do it. Never forget it. If it is something you really believe and want to do - go for it. If its meant to be you will do it.
Thanks for all the encouragement you gave me and i truly hope you all keep in touch.
I am no different to any of you and felt so honoured to be asked to come over.And for those of you who read this - i truly hope and pray that you remember you too can do anything you set your minds too as well.
Always remember to just BE YOURSELF and have loads of fun doing it.
what a trip.
thank you so much for all the memories. and i promise photos will be posted as soon as i go home and sort out the 10,000 + we have here.
love you all
Lis

Quick Update

Can't put up too many photos just yet as we still have to go to Cape Town but just want to let you all know that the girls here are just fantastic and its been all fun. Can you believe i actualy managed to speak non stop for 3 hours. So for all of you back home who were praying for my nerves - THANKS HEAPS. Besides the few butterflies in the tummy i actually had fun and really enjoyed it. The best bit is always getting to walk around and talk to the people afterwards but I survived the first one so ready for the next session this afternoon.
Heading into J'Burg this morning so should have some photos to share later on.
Here is a fun one we took last night when we went out for dinner at Tribes restaurant.
More updates to come when i can share withous spoiling any surprises for the Cape Town girls.
Mel