Weekend wanderings: Scrappy, a lil crappy, and lots of happy!

Hello!  How was your weekend?  Ours was rather mixed... For me, there was quite abit of scrappiness.  :)  After agonizing over my crabby data, and having alot of difficulty deciphering the trends, I decided to give my brain a break and did this:

At first glance, you should be able to guess the topic, since I went crazy with all the pear motifs I had, stating with a patterned paper kindly donated by my friend, Jo (who also gave me the ribbon and some of the flowers too!)... (The boy is pretty fussy with food, but pears?  He loves them so much, we sometimes use it as a bribe to make him eat his oatmeal!)  The giant pear was cut out from the paper, and I sandpapered the edges and distressed them with ink... then I topped it off with a stalk and a leaf!

The hubby was saying I should do a layout for myself, since most of the pieces I've been doing were for others, so I took his advice, and added my favourite embellishment, flowers all over (some were from another friend, E... Thanks!), even though it was a layout about Junior J (The leaves were cut out from a patterned paper, and were again, distressed with ink.)  And I layered the blooms like crazy!

This time I tried adding teardrops as well, and I really like how they give an additional dimension to the project...

And since it was related to eating, I took one of the feeding spoons we've been using (if you stare hard enough, you'd realize there are teeth marks on the spoon!), stamped a heart at the bottom using Staz-On ink , and added a flower rub-on as well... so that we can have a memento of one of our favourite spoons.  (Its PVC free, so I guess it'll probably be safe with the papers!)

So here's how it looks (But WAIT!  Scroll down since there were more changes made later...)!

Click to view journalling...

Update: The hubby felt that the layout was a little bare (which I thought was odd, coming from a guy who usually likes things plain and simple), but I took his opinion into account, and added a few more details.  Firstly, I punched out and used 2 little yellow butterflies on the page.  Then I stamped some flower patterns onto white AC cardstock (on the textured side, to give the stamped image some texture) and layered some using foam dots and topped it off with a button:

To add a faint bit of colour to the smaller flowers, I coloured the centres yellow, using a watercolour pencil, and then used a moist cottonbud to spread the colour outwards (didn't use a paintbrush since all of mine are pretty lousy).  Some of the smaller flowers I "popped" out as well, and I cut up an October Afternoon sticker to form the vine.  The leaf was basically an AC rub-on, with part of the same OA sticker layered on top. :)  I had to restrain myself from adding brads to the flower centers, in case the detailing detracted from the title. :p

So the final final piece looks like this!

Patterned paper (American Crafts: Blue Skies- Feeing Alright,

Letterbox- Sincerely, MAMBI Celebrations)

Rub-on (American Crafts: Parcel), Stickers (October Afternoon: Farm Fresh)

Lettering (American Crafts: Thickers- Rocketeer, Remarks- Roosevelt)

Buttons (Basic Grey: Nook & Pantry), Flowers (Prima)

 Brads (American Crafts: Glitter, Basic Grey: Origins, Doodlebug: Crushed Velvet)

Teardrops (The Robin's Nest: Sun Shower)

Stamps (Bo Bunny), Cardstock (American Crafts: White)

And still on the topic of scrapbooking (sorry, its just so fun that I can't help it!), my friend Jo did this really gorgeous notebook for me:

Ain't it pretty?  I grabbed this photo off her blog, with permission,
since I've yet to meet her to get the notebook!

I'd wanted one to write my blessings in, so she designed the cover based on my request... :)  Thanks girl, you are one talented scrapper!  (Do hop over to her blog, to see more notebooks that she designed for others!)

Ok, I'll quit babbling about scrapping now, and move on to the crappy bit:

:: The dog left a few presents for us (both large and small crappy ones) on the kitchen floor, so we had to mop the floor numerous times across the weekend...

:: The boy was out of sorts on most mornings.  On days he was supposed to wake up early, he refused to wake up, thanks to those night wakings that are still pretty frequent.  Then some days, he'd wake up 1.5 hours before he was supposed to, and would ensure (by crawling and head-butting) that he'd woken both his parents up as well. 

:: Junior J was also rather difficult during the past few meals.  He spat.  He threw oatmeal at the dog.  He dumped lego into his cup of water.

Blue plastic water, anyone?

Not enough?  He slathered oatmeal on himself (Hear the gasps of horror from the grandmas?).  He pushed broccoli into his belly button.  And to top it off, during dinner last night, we went to eat Taiwanese noodles, and the boy promptly upset his cup all over the table at the start of the meal!

:: Wait, that's not all! During that same meal, the hubby dropped the diaper bag, and our huge water bottle leaked, all over the restaurant floor, forming a puddle that trickled 2 tables away (I did say the bottle was huge. And it was more or less filled to the brim.)... The diaper bag contents (and you know these bags usually hold loads of kid-related paraphernalia) were all soaked.  And the waitress was understandably rather upset that both father and son had taken turns to help soak the furniture.  I think they'll probably ban us from the place in the future!

BUT!  There were loads of stuff to be happy about this weekend too...

We managed to head down to the zoo even though the hubby was on call on Saturday, and signed up for membership passes. :)  The boy had fun on the boat-ride there, always leaning out and looking at the water...

And he got to pat the goats and horses too! (We saw other animals of course, but that I'll leave for Wed's post.)

We also managed to have a short evening walk at Upper Seletar Reservoir Park, where Junior J insisted on running along the grass verge...

And we really gotta thank God for the weather.  Though it rained both days, the weather was fair when we were out.  And we even got to catch a sunset at the reservoir! :)

I hope everyone had a good weekend... And thank you to those mums who posted all their helpful tips on how to keep Junior J occupied when I'm cooking.  Those were really great tips! :)

PS: And oh btw... this post over at American Crafts made me extremely happy (This, as well as winning a giveaway at one of our local scrap stores!  Okok, no more scrappy stuff!)  Have a great week ahead!

Thankful Tuesdays: Thoughts on tiredness

Pretend feeding himself on a better day, in Klang

I've been feeling rather tired these days.  Junior J has suddenly started sprouting canines and molars all at once, and has been waking me up quite a few times each night, wanting to drink milk.  He's also started eating less, and the spitting has started again (this was after a week of having a pretty good appetite, which led us to being hopeful he'll reach 9 kg soon, BUT!).  I've tried all sorts of ways to ensure he eats, and some days, I just feel like I'm a failure at  this motherhood thing.  And to top it off, I'm currently finding it a huge struggle to write that crabby dissertation of mine.  I read all those journals and think and stare at my laptop screen, and the correct words never seem to come to mind. :(

All this has been making me feel quite down, but each time I see a sunset, I'm reminded about God's love and care for his creation, and how constant and enduring is His love for us.  And that comforts me and helps me to keep going. 

I'm also thankful for the rain we've been getting, that helps to ease the really hot weather.  (Except for yesterday's downpour, which was way too much.  There were flash floods everywhere!)  The rain plus hot weather has caused some of our plants to burst into bloom:

And these pretty flowers cheer me up somewhat. :)  Oh, and my MIL is here this week... She's been cooking and taking care of Junior J so that I can work on my dissertation, and I've been so grateful for her help! 

What are you thankful for this week?