Shimelle Starting Point for Subtle Backgrounds

Shimelle posted this starting point a wee while back and to be honest I finished the layout a week or ago too. It is the first layout in ages that I have misted on or used a mask for so it is a bit of a red letter layout.

In my usual disorganised fashion I didn't take a photo of the layout before I added to the starting point!

 

You may recognise these thickers as quite old Amy Tangerine ones. I have two packets of this pattern in varying degrees of used up and am trying hard to use them before opening any of the new ones from the recent CHA. The remainder of this layout comes from scraps of my Wildberry Court add on from the Block Party kit. I adore the Crate Paper background page. I decided to draw upon the red and pink in my daughter's skirt for the background piecing and embellishment. I love these Pink Paislee  mistable hearts and while I had the pink mist out I had a go at a simple ombre mask on some white cardstock. I am pretty happy with how it turned out.

The picture is from one of our many trips to this playground. There are lots of fun things to climb on and a pond with turtles and bridges and a reflexology path for hours of fun. Like so many playgrounds here there is no shade, so a hat and sun block are a must.

Two posts in one day! There must be something wrong with me!

A very special elephant

This layout came together really quickly. I pulled the photo out of my stack of photos to scrap and the elephant jumped out at me. I knew I had an elephant or two floating around from the most recent Amy Tangerine collection and everything fell into place.

This layout is another Roller Rink plus add ons effort with the addition of some Tim and Beck alphas, MME word stickers and the yellow airmail washi. The journalling card is from OA's Sidewalks collection and it just seemed to fit the theme perfectly.

I totally got my Shimelle on with the repeating elements in my embellishment clusters. I am so in love with the MME enamel dots. I hope they remain part of future lines as they are so versatile.

The playground shown in the layout was a real part of my childhood and I am so excited it has become part of Scarlett's. We lived on the other side of town from my grandparents when I was little and it always seemed to take forever to get to their house. We always knew when we saw the elephant slide that we were nearly there. My grandparents have moved a couple of blocks since then and the playground is now just around the corner from them. We always stopped and played with Scarlett there when we visited my grandparents. She talks fondly about the elephant slide... elephants are most definitely one of her things.

We have had a few Internet issues this week and so I am very excited to get back online and blog. Our laptop couldn't see our wireless feed and would not connect to the Internet. So while we could still get online on the Ipad and phones it made accessing photos impossible. Suddenly it started working again late yesterday for no apparent reason. 

We have been having a bad run with appliances this week. The bulb blew in our extractor fan and the bulb shattered and cut the wires causing the whole hood to become live. I got a nasty shock off it and then my husband managed to trip power to the entire apartment trying to discover what was going on. Nothing like some unexpected drama.

We have a public holiday here on Tuesday. Hubby has taken Monday off so I think we are off to try out the new Legoland that opened just over the border in Malaysia on Monday. I am hoping that there will be enough rides for Scarlett to go on that she will enjoy it. Although I think she is tiny, (well she is in the bottom 25% for height in New Zealand) most locals tell me how tall she is! Fingers crossed she will be tall enough to have fun.

Have a super weekend!

Wearing Her Out

I believe I am a bit of a Mean Mummy. I find I run a tighter ship when Tet is away. Scarlett goes to bed earlier. She is expected to do a little more when she is getting ready for school or an outing. It is so worth it though. She is sleeping at least 90 minutes more a day this week and we have had a lot of fun. There is nothing better than a child who wakes up with big smile on her face!

Yes she really has been waking up happy!

Scarlett does not go to school on Tuesdays. We always try to do something fun on those days. She decided she wanted to go to a park a bus ride away from our house. She loves the bus. She would ride the bus with me everyday if she could. She smiles at and talks to the other passengers, talks about all the things she can see out the windows and just loves every aspect of public transport. 

Tiong Bahru Park has a really great playground. It has a big train climbing contraption which is all on a lean. Scarlett loves the "wobbly train" even if she is too scared to do too much in there. She loves the slides and the ladders though and it keeps her happy and occupied. We left our trip a little late and some of the equipment was too hot to touch by the time we reached the playground. There is a lot of grass and winding paths to explore so we were kept more than occupied for a good ninety minutes. Scarlett especially likes standing on the little bridge and watching the turtles.

I was amazed that we had the entire playground to ourselves for the length of time we were there. There were a number of people using the wider park facilities but no other children. It was very warm though.

Scarlett loved running around and exploring... and I like to let her think she is unsupervised. I can always see her but I think it is good to give her a sense of freedom. It is a joy living in a country where children are so safe. 

She is a very sporty wee tot. She loves to swim, take gym classes and ride her scooter. She will start ballet next month and she can hardly wait. I made a layout this week to celebrate her active self.

I love the look of the stacked paper squares. I find it is my go to technique especially when I love so many patterned papers in a kit. The Elmwood Park kit is just chock full of beautiful patterned paper. I am in love with all the reds this time around.

Miss S will be home from school soon. I had best get a snack ready and try and get another couple of mini book pages completed before she returns. We have been making a lot of smoothies lately. She loves putting all the fruit and yogurt into the blender and turning the blender on. Two year olds and noisy machines - surely a match made in heaven!

Bakeries and Mondayitis

I have found, just lately, that I am getting that feeling in my stomach that I used to get on Sunday nights when I was working. You know that little pang that the weekend is coming to a close and the nose will be pressed firmly to the grind stone in just a few short hours? It is not so much that my nose is pressed to the grindstone on a Monday but more that Tet and Scarlett both head off to work and school at 7.45 and there I am in the empty house. Life really is telling me I need to get busy organising a kick arse CV and trotting it round the local international schools in the area. If only a little fairy would come and wave their wand and present the thing tied in a ribbon I would be so much happier...

We had a very relaxed weekend for a change. The only organised activity we had planned was Scarlett's gym class on Saturday morning. 

Once that was over the rest of the weekend stretched before us like a blank canvas. I had recently read reviews of a new bakery that opened not far from us run by a French Baker with wonderful pastries and coffee. We decided to head there after gym to see if the hype was justified.

I had pretty high hopes but my expectations were well and truly blown out of the water. We decided to order a croissant, pain au chocolat and a Salted Caramel pastry as we had already eaten breakfast. I added a couple of lattes to the order as we were offered a table in the very crowded restaurant by a super attentive waiter. We had thought we would have to take away so that was a nice surprise.

The croissant was delicious. Buttery, crisp on the outside and meltingly soft on the inside. Just a total delight! The pain au chocolat looked beautiful but Tet and Scarlett devoured it in record time so I can only take their word that it was delicious. The absolute triumph was the caramel pastry. It was totally moorish. Not too sweet but caramelly and delicious with a wonderful buttery flavour. The coffees were also delicious.

So the next morning we felt like going out for breakfast and long story short we headed back to the bakery. This time I took some photos of the food before we ate all of it! We ordered a couple of the caramel pastries, a chocolate brioche for Scarlett and an almond brioche for Tet and I to share. We also grabbed a lemon curd tart to go with our flat whites.

The caramel pastry was calling my name so I was halfway through before I thought to take a picture. Just as amazing as I remembered from the previous day. I had no expectation that the other treats would be as delicious but they looked promising.

The almond brioche was enormous. We definitely needed to share it. The pastry was topped with marzipan and slivered toasted almonds and a sprinkling of icing sugar. It was just delicious! The brioche was melt in the mouth and the almond flavour was strong but not overpowering. The contrast of the crunchy almonds and the squidgy brioche was perfect. Scarlett loved her more modestly sized chocolate brioche and declared it yummy and soft. The best treat of the day though in my eyes was the lemon tart. It was super tart in flavour and the creme patisserie was just perfect. Both Tet and Scarlett thought it was too tart but I loved it. We also bought a delicious loaf of fig and fennel bread to take home and it is delicious. One of the super friendly staff told me she had eaten it with goat's cheese the previous day and it had been delicious. I had the same for breakfast today and it was divine. 

So the diet is officially out the window and I plan to get fatter and fatter on delicious buttery pastry!

We discovered a great playground at Mt Emily yesterday too so Scarlett had a lovely time playing on the swings and slides. All in all just a lovely cruisey weekend.

I did get up to some crafts but this post is already a bit of a novel so will share those tomorrow. I hope you all had a lovely weekend. I enjoyed catching some of the Queen's Jubilee Flotilla last night on the telly. What a great occasion to mark 60 years as queen!