Wow it’s been ages!

It has been a whirlwind month for me. Just busy busy! Getting orders filled for the Perth Trade and SIA have kept me off the streets for about 5 weeks now! That’s a good thing as I am happy about being busy and keeping things going here at Collections. Speaking of Collections I have a make and take demo night at Scrapbooks from the Heart in Canning Vale. I have made a sweet little wreath for you to display or perhaps give to your mum on mother’s day if you haven’t already got something nice to give to her. We will be using some new paper, chipboard circles, chipboard floral bouquet and some transparency. We will embellish with a small bird from the nesting bird range. I hope you can join me and fellow scrappers at Janae’s store tomorrow night. Give them a call on 9456 4515 and see if there are any spaces left. I will be taking some inspirational samples for you to see.

On another note, I spent last weekend in lovely chilly Melbourne - no offence it’s always freezing when I go over and I have to wait until I get home to thaw out! Okay I haven’t been over in full summer! Anyway I had a wonderful time at Scraptacular teaching 5 classes back to back (I did get one nights sleep in between). Julie Marshall and her team were so lovely and I was loving all the beautiful samples in the store, which have so much inspiration. When I get some time and Julie please send me the photos, I will post some here on Nirvana. Thanks to all the lovely girls who attended and you were all a pleasure to teach. Hey it was great to catch up with some friends as well at the same time. I did have a few hours on the Sunday before flying back to visit the Victoria Markets. I think I have been to Melbourne at least 20 times and never have had time to go on a Sunday as I have always worked Paperific and that is always on a Sunday. Well I loved the markets, didn’t do the retail merchandise but did the food hall. It was amazing! Loved all the stalls with mega rib eye steaks and those flavoured sausages, not to mention the seafood and my very favourite, French lamb chops trimmed down to bone and meat – no fat. You people in Melbourne are spoiled for meat and vege selection and really cheap prices! What have we got here?, well we had Peters icecream factory outlet now that is closing and you have that as well, so more good reasons to go back to Melbourne! There is not a lot to report only my hard drive failed last week and I lost a lot of photos and almost all of the last 6 months of designs. Luckily I did back up the latest designs (I completely forgot I did that!) and I was really happy to find that disk I burned. My IT guy said to me “you only have to back up once”! Well I will buy a terabyte portable drive and back up the LOT in one hit.

I did manage to squeeze in an hour of soap making on Sunday last. I made a delicious batch of Rosemary and Peppermint Essential oil cold pressed soap with lots of wonderful shea butter, olive and rice bran oils which create soft creamy lather. I am waiting on an order from Sydney to fulfil my need to make a really wonderful leave-in conditioner, which I happen to think are brilliant for your hair, especially if you have dry hair. I did get a chance earlier in the week to make some of those aroma diffusers – ones that you like to smell.. like rose for the bathroom and I made a lemongrass and west Indian lime essential oil one for the WC. Thanks Jen Jones for parting with some of those reeds, now all we need is some decorative bottles.

Thanks for looking.....Julie