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Christmas eve in Sydney

So school's out and we are finally on school holidays. Lots of end of school stuff went on last week, but it all seems a long time ago now, and we are finally getting into the Christmas spirit.

Today I was at the fish and fruit markets at 7.30am buying the salmon and prawns and salads and fruit for tomorrow. With that all finished by 8.30am, it left a pretty long day ahead of us. So the girls and I caught up with friends, jumped on a bus into the city with the main aim of visiting the David Jones Christmas display windows.

It became a fun festive adventure, wandering through the busy city. Here are some photos from our day.

Martin Place Christmas tree:

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Martin Place is looking very festive with the stars and banners:

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Pitt Street Mall had these groovy Christmas trees:

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Bush firemen:

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The bush fire service Santa was also found in Pitt Street Mall:

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Free Hugs man.... (if you don't know about him, see HERE):

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We did make it to David Jones. The window story this year was The Nutcracker:

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Beer Bottle Busker (see him HERE, but today he was playing Christmas songs outside St James Station):

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Lindt Cafe (a trip to the city is not complete without a stop here):

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The girls decided to try their luck at busking in York Street while waiting for the bus home. They sang the same Christmas song over and over and collected $2.15 between them.

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I'd like to wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy, prosperous and healthy new year.

Thank you for visiting my blog this year. I look forward to bringing you more craft and scrapbooking ideas and classes in 2008.

Enjoy the holiday season.

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Until 2008

Cheers

Fiona

x


RAK winners and some Christmas projects

Thank you ladies for sharing your Christmas traditions in my last post. I've loved reading what everyone does for Christmas... there are lots of different festive activities, but we all seem to enjoy this time with family and friends.

I had a couple of projects in the latest Scrapbooking Memories. First one is the layout below using Piggy Tales papers, Maya Road sheer letters and Autumn Leaves stamps.

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The second project in SM was a card using Urban Lily Oh So Merry paper and a stamp from Autumn Leaves.

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The gingerbread for the gingerbread houses has been made. I did share my recipe last year... Robyn S who left me a comment reminded me of this fact. Thanks Robyn. The recipe can be found HERE, along with the icing to hold the house together. The Nordicware Gingerbread House Mold which I use to make the pieces for the house can be found at Alfresco Emporium.

Now, onto the RAK winners of the little Maya Road people keychains (drawn randomly, in no particular order)....

Trace G: "My favorite tradition is driving an hour and a half to go find the perfect Christmas tree and then cut it down ourselves. The day also includes a sleigh ride, hot chocolate, and some cookies. Those reindeer are beyond adorable.
Happy holidays"

Julia: "My favourite tradition is decorating our Christmas tree while watching Carols by Candlelight and all singing along at the top of our voices."

Robyn S: "I love everything about Christmas. I now make gingerbread thanks to your gingerbread recipe you posted last year. This is a tradition I am starting. Thank you, love you blog."

Yvette: "Our favourite tradition is having the kid's photo taken with Santa. Not such a big deal, except the *children* involved are now 23, 20 and nearly 17! We are off to see the big fella tomorrow night and the kids are so excited!"

Thanks again to everyone who left me a comment.

Hope you're all having a festive week.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona

x


graduation and other things, including a RAK

Emily's year 6 graduation dinner was held the other night. A lot of work went into the coordination of this night. There was a decorating committee, a food committee, a 'security' committee and even a cupcake committee. The school hall was transformed into a fabulous venue for the kids. The theme of the evening was 'Reach for the Stars', so we did out best to make it as starry as possible. Here's the hall when we'd finished decorating...

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I made the centre pieces for the tables. They were terracotta pots painted black with silver glitter on them. The pots were filled with sand to hold the mini balloons, then black crepe paper was crumpled on the top to hide the sand.

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The cupcakes looked fantastic. Fondant starry shapes were placed on top of the iced cakes.

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Emily looked beautiful. She was soooo excited about the evening.

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All the kids had a fantastic night. Their only complaint... their evening was too short. I think they could have kept dancing for another couple of hours!

With the graduation dinner behind us now, it's time to relax... not. Christmas shopping was officially started on Tuesday, still quite a bit to do there. And we still have to make our gingerbread houses, which I'll be starting very soon.

I made these ribbon baubles yesterday for a few friends. They are clear plastic baubles which I found in my local art store (and have also seen them at Spotlight). I've bought them in past years and filled them with lollies for kids Christmas gifts, but this year I thought they'd look pretty with ribbon in them. There's also a sneak of some new ribbons coming the Ribbons Galore very soon.

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And lastly, I think we have enough time for a very quick RAK before Christmas. I have some of these little sets from Maya Road which I'd like to send you.

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Leave a comment before Sunday telling me your favourite holiday tradition (or just leave your name in a comment), and I'll put the names in a hat and pick a few out.

That's about all for this week. Hope you're all having a great week.

Bye for now.

Fiona

x


Santa earned his money on Friday.

Twelve months ago... Emily reluctantly sat on Santa's knee having the traditional Carter girls Santa photo with little sister Phoebe. After the photo session she asked how many more years did she have to have a photo taken with Santa.

I suggested that next year it might be fun to have a Santa photo with all her school friends. They would be in year 6, very close to leaving school and it would be a fun photo for them all to have.

Usually Emily has a little memory problem. She never remembers when I ask her to put her shoes away. She never remembers to help with the dishes when I ask her. She never remembers to clean the bunny hutch when asked. So imagine my surprise when two week's ago, she actually remembers my suggestion from a year ago, and starts arranging her friends for a Santa photo shoot.

So last Friday was the planned day. I volunteered to "help". After school the girls caught the bus up to Chatswood. I met them at the bus stop and escorted them to Santa.

I'm not sure if Santa was pleased or frightened at the sight of these nine 11 & 12 year old girls appearing in front of him.

They cuddled him, he asked what they all wanted for Christmas. Then they asked him what he wanted to Christmas, and he said a song. With that the girls burst into song "we wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas". Their song filled Westfield, people were looking over from the food hall above to see where the beautiful singing was coming from.

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Finally they were arranged around Santa. A couple of really nice photos were taken. The photographer asked if the girls should look at the photos. Why not? I thought.

What happened next I was unprepared for. Not everyone was happy with their photo. Now these girls all get along very well, they are very respectful of each other. So it was suggested another photo should be taken, because everyone should be happy with their photo.

Back to Santa they went, and another photo was taken. They checked it. Another one was taken....

....and then another....

...and another...

About 8 photos were taken. That's about six times poor Santa had to cuddled and sat upon by these girls. He remained VERY jovial through the whole experience. This Santa obviously received top grades at Santa School.

Finally a photo was acceptable. It was printed nine times, the girls waved Santa good bye, happy with their photo folder and Santa goodie bag.

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It was worth the effort. A fantastic memory captured for many years to come.

Hope you're having a festive week!

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona

x


very random ramblings

I feel the silly season is here. Not much spare time at the moment for blogging. There's lots going on in the Carter household and many end of year activities at the girls' school. Christmas shopping hasn't started yet, although I've seen a few Christmas "wish lists" around the house.

I'm busy making table decorations for Emily's graduation dinner coming up soon (will post photos when I have some). Emily has just over 2 weeks left of primary school. She is so excited about starting high school next year, which is great.

There have been quite a few "proud mummy moments" lately. Here's a few:

Yesterday we attended Presentation Day for the girls' school. Both girls received awards. First up was Phoebe who received the Academic Book Award for her class. After the ceremony she was allowed to choose a book and have her certificate placed on the inside cover.

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And Emily received the Public Speaking Debating Award for the school. She was so excited. She speaks beautifully and can speak in front of an audience with ease, which is such a fantastic skill to have. We now lovingly refer to it at home as the Argument Award, something she's particularly good at, and obviously a requirement for debaters :-)

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A few weeks back, Phoebe ran in the State Relay Carnival out at Homebush. She was part of the Under 10's 4 x 100m relay team for her Little Athletics club. They ran well, finished third in their heat, but missed going onto the final. She was happy to be out there and part of the action. That's her below just starting her run.

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We were up at Hawks on the weekend. The weather wasn't great, but it was so nice to be away for a few days. Not much photographic evidence that we were there apart from these photos of the girls.

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{mental note for next time, remind Phoebe to remove white socks before we take photos}

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We've been visited by a few kookaburras in our back yard recently. There seems to be more around than in recent years. I took this photo while standing in my kitchen, looking through the shutters. He sat on our clothes line for ages (we think he was stalking the bunnies!). It's so nice to hear them too, laughing away so close to the city.

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Are you still with me?

I've created a few things with some new Paper Salon papers.

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These are a few Christmas cards made as part of my latest on line class. The patterns and instructions are included in the class.

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That's about all for now. Thanks for visiting and reading my blog.

Hope you all have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona

x