Starting to 'explore'

So, about 8 weeks ago I signed up for a new Shimelle class.

We were travelling still in the first week, so I knew that it was unlikely that I would be up to date with the class...  What I wasn't really expecting was to be so short on mojo for so long that I would miss the 'live run' of the class all together...  But, that's what happened...

Over the last couple of weeks I've ordered a bunch of photos to try to kick myself back into action.  Well this weekend it worked - I managed to get together 3 canvases that I wanted to hang in the apartment:

The middle one ended up lenthways (without the small photos) instead of across but I didn't take another photo.

Then I managed to work through 4 of the explore prompts yesterday.  Here's my playbook:

  

I managed to take my self portrait - just before I started working through the prompts actually when I came home from having a new haircut (a good Swedish hairdresser experience for a change!!) - it's a kind of weird shot, but I was ok with that...

I don't have a printer at home, so it will have to wait until the next time I order prints to go into the book. And, I wrote my note to self (only have a shot of half of it for some reason:

  

Next up, was mapping it out.  A shot of all the maps I spread on my desk:

And my page with some map pieces and circle:

And lastly the most 'perfect' part of my life - and no, it's not strictly SO, but the way we live and work and travel and play together so well:

Then, I felt like some 'freestyle' scrapping - so yesterday afternoon and this afternoon got these layouts complete:

So - hopefully the mojo's back and next weekend will bring some more creativity...

Summer break

So, I've been absent for a while again, I'm a bit slack at this blog thing!

We've been away on Summer Break - having been away from home for essentially a year (except for the couple of weeks I went home to pack up our apartment) we decided that we should head back to Oz for a visit...  Stupid really at this time of year, because it's winter there!!  We've had the longest winter of our lives - left just as spring was starting in 2009 to head to South America, where we spent 3 of our 5.5 months in Cusco (at altitude in the Andes) not exactly warm!  Then headed back to Oz in March 2010 - just in time for winter to start...  Heading off for Europe July 2010 - and up to Sweden where summer is not exactly what we're used to and was very short lived before a REALLY loooonnnnggggg winter - and so, of course why would we not keep up the trend and avoid summer yet again..?

Crazy - but we needed to see friends and family and have a taste of home for a minute or two...  

So we fly in - have a day in Melbourne before flying up to Mildura for 5 days.  Chill there for the week, I play in the scrapping room a bit with my step-mum and SO plays in the back room on his computer (with dad across the room doing the same thing)...  Did some shopping for essentials, a couple of lunches/dinners out, and a couple of visits from step-siblings and kids and a quick catch up with an Aunty and the 5 days was all over...

Heading back to Melbourne we had dinner with a friend, before I headed for an all day scrapping day with girlfriends.  Gee I miss that - the camaraderie and laughs and inspiration and friendship in a room full of scrapping women - here my crafting is very isolated, and it was a real boost for me to be able to fit in a day full of those girls this trip.  A day of running errands and visiting my grandparents and then we were off again for 5 days in Northern NSW with SO's parents. 

Trips into the nearest towns around them a few times, breakfasts and lunches out, a visit to SO's grandparents to take them out for lunch and again in the blink of an eye another week of our visit was gone...  Back to Melbourne for a weekend of catch ups with friends and our week in Melbourne - kicked off with some family time, some more errands, doctors and dentists visits and a couple of days in the Melbourne office.  Friday night drinks with friends and some weekend family time and suddenly our time in Oz was up...

Three weeks seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, too little time to catch up with people and everyone caught up with in groups, so very little of the meaningful individual catch up time that allows you to actually know what's going on in people's lives and what has actually changed in the time we've been gone...  But at least a taste of home and the people we love...

Flying back 'home' to Sweden we stopped in Bangkok for 5 days to have a bit of a holiday - and some much needed sunshine.  I did some (quite little) shopping, some swimming (or at least splashing around) and some sun bathing (I never do that!!).  And the one touristy thing that we did was go to visit the 'Tiger Temple'.  Such an amazing experience for us both: