Into Scrapbooking? Check out these freebies

I’ve fallen in love with digital scrapping of late, and here is the place to catch up on the bestest ever freebies available online at the moment.

Scrappy Freebies is the name of the blog, and Mrs. E is the person to thank (profusely) for this glorious cornucopia of scrapbooking bliss.

Here’s a tiny selection of my favourite finds from Scrappy Freebies.
Who knew there were so many?

Laurie ~ His Potty AdventuresBel Vidotti - Sea Life

Nicole ~ Flair Date PiecesJenny’s Scrapblog ~ Adventures for boys

Go ahead and fill up your hard drive with your faves!

Feelin’ the Lurve

Wow, I’ve received the “I Love Your Blog” award, from The Freebie Blogger. Isn’t it cute?

Thank you Wendi

The rules of the award are:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of those you have nominated.

My Supercalifragilistic Seven are:

1. Tonya, at A Day in my Life,
2. Jane from His Boys Can Swim!,
3. Author of Magneto Bold Too, Kelley,
4. Keyomi from A Rollercoaster Ride Called Life,
5. Keeper of the Cheerios, Miranda,
6. Anissa from Hope 4 Peyton,  and {{{drum roll}}}
7. The lovely Willow, from Apron Strings & Angst!

Hope you all had a good weekend, people.

A new reality unfolds…

I was doing some bloghopping this evening & loved what Kirsten at The Soccer Mom Files is working on at the moment.

It’s a new reality show detailing the love-life of…. well, you’ll just have to go see for yourself.

Let me just say that I’m gifted with foresight, and there’ll be enough adultery, blood and betrayal to satisfy the most lowbrow audience.

Here’s the first episode… er, post… and you can go on from there.

Enjoy!

Blog-love

I really want to say a HUGE Thank You to Tina from Mummified x Five for thinking of me with the lovely Superior Scribbler Award.

The rules for this award are:

1. Post the award on your blog.
2. Link to the person who gave it to you.
3. Link to the originating post.
4. Pass the award on to 5 people.
5. Post the rules for the recipients.

So, here’s my fab five:

1. Nicole at Planning with Kids, who may or may not have given birth by now… All the best, Nicole!
2. Susan, the the Lil’ Mommy that Could,
3. Tiff at Three Ring Circus,
4. BoufMom9 at Who Says 8 is Enough?, because I admire her stamina!
5. Cloudsters from Mum’s the Word (or Pa)

Thanks to all my lovely friends for your company and support

Award time

The perfect way to ease back into blogging, with an award ceremony and a bit of linklove for my friends who have sent me love while I’ve been sick.

Although to be honest, I’ve been considering letting the whole thing blow and eloping with my pillow.
We’ve gotten to know each other really well in the last 3 weeks.

I’ve got a few awards to hand out before I do that though, so don’t write me off just yet.

So, to The Smile Award. Because I’ve really needed some smiles lately. Thank you to Tonya for choosing Kidzarama for this award.

Tonya is an Aussie Mum living in California, and currently visiting famiily back here in Oz at the moment.

Hope you’re having a great time, Tonya!

I hereby nominate:

1. Willow at Apron Strings and Angst, for her lovely comments, tweets & emails over the past few weeks.
2. Trish, because she’s been in need of smiles lately. ~ And shares them so readily herself.
3. Lauren of Can You Be a Part of My Life?, for her sense of humour and support.
4. Mummified x 5’s Tina, because she gets our weather before we do and it’s good to have someone to commiserate with.
5. Kate at Picklebums, another Aussie mum. I just love the name of her blog, it gives me the giggles every time.

Thank you all for your patience and lovely words while I’ve been so ill.

The kidz were kind enough to bring home a nice virus each and shared them with me last week, but it looks like we’re all on the road to recovery finally.

We’ve still got out kitty~camper in the back yard, and I’ve been spending some time laying in the sun with her.  She has a very gentle, healing energy, and it’s perfect timing that she’s turned up just now.

But more about that later…

Here’s the rules for the Smile Award ~

1. The recipient must link back to the award’s creator (http://www.thebabblingsofmere.blogspot.com/)
2. You must post these rules if you receive the award.
3. You must chose 5 people to receive the award after receiving it yourself
4. You must fit the characteristics of the recipient of the award, as posted by Mere.
5. You must post the characteristics of a recipient.
6. You must create a post sharing your win with others.
7. You must thank your giver.

Characteristics for the Smile Award ~

1. Must display a cheerful attitude. (not necessarily at all times–we are all human)
2. Must love one another
3. Must make mistakes
4. Must learn from others
5. Must be a positive contributor to blog world
6. Must love life
7. Must love kids

Mona Lisa, the Preschool Edition

Ever wondered what the Mona Lisa would have looked like if Leonardo da Vinci had painted her just a few years earlier?

Now you can discover the answer for yourself, and keep the kids occupied at the same time.

Laura at All Dressed in Blue has a wonderful art project that any child can tackle.

Use pencils, crayons, textas, paints or oil pastels to create a fun version of the lady with the mysterious smile. Or any other classic painting you feel like hacking into.

Now I’m off to listen to some Natalie Cole. I’m going to be humming the tune all night.

Mona Lisa, my artistic kidz have made you,

You’re so like the lady with the mystic smile…

Paper Mache How~To with Humour

Back in April I mentioned that we had been doing some paper mache (or papier mache, for those sticklers like Carrie out there).

I was planning to write about it, but our camera broke, so there were no photos.

Just today I was at Molly Chicken, the site whose how~to inspired me, so I thought I’d share the love and send you on over to say hello to say hi to Lynn.

What really made me go and look at her site in the first place was the title of her paper mache post. I won’t tell you here, you’ll just have to go see for yourselves.

Let’s just say that I tried doing what she suggested and found the crafting much more fulfilling.

Ever the interfering rebel experimenting crafter, I couldn’t resist using some differently~shaped containers and paper colours for our paper mache efforts and this square one is my absolute favourite.

It now sits on my desk, slowly filling up with crafty bits.

Won’t be long and we’ll have to make some more containers for my junky bits creative equipment.

I’ve been collecting interestingly~shaped containers, so the results should be really fun.

Blogging Prompt #3

Today, how about tripping on over to Google and taking a squizz at what comes up for a search on “boomerang”?

Okay, now choose the 131st result and read it.

If it’s unthinkably inappropriate for some reason, try the 113th or 311th result.

That’s your inspiration for today, get creative and go to it!

Edited to add: ~My apologies that this didn’t publish on time. I got the date wrong when scheduling.

Craft Round Up

I thought I’d do a list of some of the best craft posts that I’ve found over the past week.

Hope you are as inspired by them as I was…

Lusi at Fiskars Craft had a fantastic indoor treasure hunt with her 3 children, which would work well outside, too.

She and the kids created treasure maps and various special destinations in the house to trek through on their way to ‘discovering’ the buried treasure.

Nan posted about some lovely woollen pieces that she’s been working on over  at Nannybird Crafts, including a dish~cloth dress, and a cute “tie one on shawl”.

Makes me wish I could crochet or knit or something. ~See? I’m not even sure which is which.

Over at Crazy Stamp Girl, Jen has come up with a cool 10 rubber stamping ideas for children. We don’t actually have any stamps, but it’s definitely on my wish list to get a small collection of cute ones.

Chris posted a list of great butterfly crafts at Kid Crafts Magazine, that her 5 year old daughter enjoyed. I thought that the butterfly flier was especially creative.

I also found a new blog, Simply a Mom. Hope has written a great post on putting together a rainy day box.

This box and Lusi’s treasure hunt would have been perfect for our last school holidays, as it rained 13 days out of 16.

We were extremely waterlogged, and Wren & Mr Bump both had severe cases of cabin fever.

Luckily, these holidays have been very different.

We’ve had a night away in Newcastle to see Disney on Ice, ferry trips, an archaelogical dig (more on that next week), sleepovers and Grandma’s and visits to lots of different parks.

Plus they both seem to have gone through an “emotional” growth spurt and are treating each other much more nicely nowadays.

Which makes all the difference, doesn’t it?

While You Were Sleeping…

I really have no reason for the title of this post, save that I love the movie and a lot apparently happened in the blogosphere while we were away. Just like it did for the poor schmuck in While You Were Sleeping.

And Bill Pullman was really cute back then.

Amazingly, I’ve received no fewer than three awards in the last week, all while I was absent from my post here at Kidzarama.

Now, the first thought that I had was that I should have a break more often if this is the sort of thing that happens.

But then I began to wonder:  Am I being rewarded for not blogging?
Hmmm… Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you.

Paranoia aside, I really am extremely touched to have friends who love me enough to admit publicly to knowing me.

I plan to take my time in bestowing these special awards upon others, one at a time.

So hang around over the next few weeks and you may just be one of the lucky recipients.