All about the number ...

Yep that's right. The oldest of my two little men turned 8 at the start of December and we celebrated with a party at the local pool. Sounds like a good idea right? I mean it is summer, the weather is supposed to be hot hot hot, the sun is supposed to shine. Well the only thing we got right on that day weather wise was the fact that it was summer. There was no sun, it wasn't your typical December hot day - instead it bucketed down rain. Bucket loads - I am talking a few inches in the space of an hour or so. Originally the plan was to book the pool as well as the inflatable obstacle course for the two hours of Mitchell's party. Sadly, with all the rain that fell, the obstacle course was out of action as it would have been too dangerous considering the pump runs off electricity. That didn't stop the boys though - they had a great time swimming, jumping and racing each other from one side of the pool to the other. Unfortunately my favourite lens was still out of commission but luckily for me, one of Mitchell's friends' mother is a scrapbooker so she took lots of photos for me. Yay for scrapping Mums lol. I made this LO after being inspired by Pip Prosser's double page layouts (Yay for inspiration). I see me in the layout in terms of blocks of cs and pp but it is so not like me to use that many photos on a layout:

Some closeups:
I loved this next pic and even though I had it printed in a smaller size to use on the layout above, I just had to get it printed bigger and use it on a LO all by itself:

I uploaded the wrong picture to the computer as the LO does actually have a title 'It's all about the number 8', hence the title for this blog post. And some closeups:

These are just some of the many left over chipboard number 8's that are lying around in containers. I stuck them all to a sheet of cardstock, painted it with white paint, left it to dry overnight and then sprayed it with multiple layers of various blue glimmer mists from Tattered Angels. After the mist dried, I rubbed some red ink onto my finger and light brushed over the tops of each of the numbers and finished it off with a coat of Pearl glimmer mist. Doesn't look real shiny in this photo but it sure does IRL.
And lastly, where would I be without October Afternoon stickers??? They are the best way to finish off a page. Here I used a lot of different ones from a few of their ranges - even their Christmas one (the word magic). Gotta love that!!!:

I also forgot to share a LO with you that I created a few weeks ago. I was in desperate need of a scrapping fix to break up all the marking and report card writing I was doing at the time, so I went to a crop night with the girls at my LSS. Sadly for you but YAY for me, the LO has already been picked up for publication in the Aussie Reader Gallery in Creating Keepsakes magazine, so I will just have to leave you with a sneak peak or two lol:
I will leave things there for now. Have got some awesome pictures from my Aussie Christmas Photo Shoot to show, but I will do those another time. I really need to get back to covering school books - wtf??? school only finished for the boys and I last Friday so what am I doing covering books now??? Well the truth is that I am off to the USA on New Year's Eve for three weeks as part of a cultural exchange with students from my school. We are spending our time in San Francisco, San Diego (where we will be 'hosted' for 10 days by schools there) and Los Angeles. We get back the day before I am supposed to start school again (thank goodness it is only student free days) which means that I have to be SUPER organised before I go.
Ok, the books are calling me but swing by later because you might be in for a real treat with some photos.
Cheers
Me xoxoxoxox