#Whichonewouldyouchoose

Our local calendars by Emay Images are back in stock :-)

These calendars are so popular at Christmas time as they make the perfect gift. They are easy to post, they are practical and they have gorgeous photos of Orange NSW and surrounds.

We have one included in today's #Whichonewouldyouchoose giveaway! 

Comment on this post, visit facebook or enter on Instagram! (@m_group_retail)

Or do all three :-)

Which one would you choose?
Tell us which one you'd like and share the post with the comment "Which one would you choose?"
We will pick a random winner from a random post throughout the week. You'll win the item that you chose. How good is that? We won't limit the winners each week there could be one or ten that just adds to the fun. So make sure you comment on and share each photo each day to increase your chance of winning!
When we pick a winner we will comment on the photo so that we can tag the winner making sure that they don't miss it!
(Open to Australian residents only)

#Whichonewouldyouchoose

Do you know that we have lots of exciting things happening over on our facebook page. 

We'd love for you to come over and join in :-)

https://www.facebook.com/McCarthyDesignsandOccasions/

This is our current giveaway!

Which one would you choose?

Tell us which one you'd like and share the post with the comment "Which one would you choose?"

We will pick a random winner from a random post throughout the week. You'll win the item that you chose. How good is that? We won't limit the winners each week there could be one or ten that just adds to the fun. So make sure you comment on and share each photo each day to increase your chance of winning!

When we pick a winner we will comment on the photo so that we can tag the winner making sure that they don't miss it!

(Open to Australian residents only)

If you aren't on facebook then leave a comment on this post and we'll include you!

For another chance head over and follow us on Instagram too :-)

Find us @m_group_retail

Congratulations, Thanks & Love

Due to some issues with commenting on my blog, I have entered everyone who commented, liked or shared my give away post on FB and here.

CONGRATULATIONS to Angela Hanley on winning the French Market Basket.

Thank you to everyone who entered and thank you for all  of your support and love that you show me, it really does make my day :-)

Theses gorgeous metal tags are available in store in packs of 6, there are 4 designs and are $7.50 a pack.

You can find them here

Have a great week!

xx

Give away - Win a French Market Basket

It must be time for a give away, I haven't had one for ages and it is the end of the financial year and my little business has made it through :-)

So, to celebrate, the winner will be drawn on Monday morning 1st July 2013 at 9am AEST (I will announce the winner here on the blog).

One lucky person will win their very own French Market Basket (Style 3a)

To enter you must do the following

1. like this status on Facebook (Click on here)

2. Share this status on Facebook (Click on here)

3. Like McCarthy Designs & Occasions on Facebook (Click on here)

or

1, 2 & 3 - if you aren't on Facebook, blog about this give away (leave a link for the post in your comment)

4. Leave a comment on this post making sure I know who you are so I can contact you if you win :-)

(Give away open to Australian Residents only)

Good luck and have a great weekend

xx

Win - Digital Scrapbooking Software

I have been playing around a bit more with my digital scrapbooking software (now that I have lots of time resting with my feet up).

I thought I would try putting together a wedding album for us and then I decided to export it as a movie. 

I am so impressed with the software you can export to print, have your album professionally printed, export to DVD or as a movie.

If you would like a chance to win your very own copy of My Memories Suite digital scrapbooking software head over here. Give away closes tonight.

On a personal note I am doing well so far. Thank you for all of your lovely wishes and prayers. I had a follow up ultrasound on Monday morning and the stitch looked like it was doing it's job with the closed cervix measuring 26mm (improved from 13mm). Bub looks great and continues to kick around energetically with lots of fluid around him still.

I am making sure I take it easy and have my feet up most of the day.

Thanks again, you are all so lovely

xx

PS:  I saved the movie in a low resolution so I didn't clog up your internet. You can save it in a much higher resolution and it looks fantastic.

My Memories Suite Giveaway

A little while ago I was contacted by the lovely Liz at My Memories Suite asking me is I would like to review their digital scrapbooking software and perhaps give a free copy of the software away to one of my wonderful readers.

To be honest I loved the idea as I have been so slack with our photos ever since I bought a digital camera. Our photos never get printed and therefore my scrapbooking has been non existent for many years. So when Liz contacted me I thought this may be the perfect solution and I was more than happy to test the software.

At the moment I have a lot on my mind and in order to get me interested the software had to be user friendly, not complicated and responsive. Fortunately My Memories Suite is, I have only just scratched the surface of what can be done but I am very impressed. I made a very basic album and I still think it looks great. The following few pages truly took me about 10 mins to put together. 

There are so many templates and so many features to use. You can add text to any page, you can format the text with so many styles you can add embellishments, shapes, video, music and narration. I have played with the software a bit but there is so much more to discover and I was just so excited to share it all with you and give you all a chance to win a copy for yourself.

The following is taken from MyMemories.com

MyMemories Suite v3 software is a complete digital scrapbooking solution that provides a comprehensive powerful set of creative tools no other scrapbook software can offer. With its intuitive workspace and enhanced time-saving features, this application is perfect for a beginner to create a complete album in minutes, or to empower the design pro to build a scrapbook album masterpiece.

Making a Scrapbook

MyMemories Suite will help you create your beautiful pages from scratch or build an entire album using one of the many professionally-designed scrapbook templates provided within the scrapbook software. A large collection of papers and embellishments are also included and available at your fingertips to help you make each page uniquely your own.

If this were any other scrapbooking software, you might be finished. But with My Memories Suite, the real power-and fun-of this software is just beginning. There are so many ways to save and share your memories, you will wonder how you ever got along without it.

So for your chance to win your very own copy of My Memories Suite software head over to their website and then leave a comment on this post telling me which layout is your favourite.

The give away is open to everyone (international readers as well) just make sure that I have a way to contact you if you are the lucky winner.

Giveaway closes a week from today, 

Midnight Wednesday 17th October 2012 AEST.

For extra entries you can

Follow me

or 

follow MyMemories Suite on their Blog- http://blog.mymemories.com/, 

Facebook- http://www.facebook.com/pages/MyMemories/140359372717593 or

Twitter- http://twitter.com/#!/mymemoriessuite

Just leave me a comment letting me know.

Good luck and thank you to Liz and the team at My Memories Suite for this fantastic offer.

xx

UPDATED 19/10/2012
This give away is now closed. 
Congratulations to Laura on being the winner of the My Memories Suite digital software.

Endless Wardrobe

The lovely and generous Trish recently hosted a fabulous competition that I was lucky enough to win, Yay!!!!

Endless Wardrobe was kind enough to provide the winner with a gift voucher to their online store.

I am so excited and thoroughly confused there is so much to choose from.

They have a great range and great prices you should pop over and have a look.

I am a huge fan of online shopping, I find it is particularly good on a Friday night when the Footy is on. I can sit next to hubby while he watches and I use my laptop to shop :-)

Thank you to Trish and thank you to Endless Wardrobe for my great prize

Hope you all have a great weekend

xx

Personal Planner Winner

Thank you to everyone who entered the giveaway for a chance to own your own Personalised Planner.

  

Congratulations to Jane who blogs at Life on Planet Baby

I am sorry to those who missed out but the planners are reasonably priced and would also make a great gift so pop over to Personal Planner Website to have a look.

Thank you for all of your well wishes over the last few days. I am feeling slightly better but still not 100% 

Nicholas is on school holidays for the next three weeks and we have my 4 year old nephew staying with us again this week. So I plan to spend some time with them but also some time just taking it easy. 

I hope you all had a lovely weekend. We visited a local cafe called the Bee Keepers Inn, I always enjoy stopping there and I have a few photos to share with you tomorrow.

Congratulations again to Jane and thank you to Personal Planner for sponsoring the giveaway.

xx

Personal Planner Giveaway

 I am really excited about this giveaway as I really love stationary and I like to be organised :-)

The lovely folks from Personal Planner Australia contacted me to see if I would be interested in trying their products so after a quick sticky beak at their website of course I said yes.

I had a great time ordering my planner, you can choose from lots of different styles and colours

You can choose what month you want your planner to start and what year

You can choose what layout you want your planner in

You can choose what you want on the bottom of the pages, a 'To Do List' or an 'Idea of the Week' just to mention a few.

Then you can choose what you want at the back of your planner, do you want a yearly planner, what year would you like it for, do you want ruled pages, blank pages, there are so many options.

If you are super organised you can add all of your important dates throughout the year and your Personal Planner will have them in there when it arrives and best of all your information is saved for next time you order!

Are you as excited as I am?

Would you like one for yourself?

If you would like a chance to win your own Personal Planner this is what you need to do:

1. Head over to Personal Planners Web Page and hit the big blue 'Like us on Face Book' button.


2. Head over to my Facebook Page and hit 'Like' 
I'm sure you have all done that already though :-)


3. Come back here and leave me a comment letting me know it's all done!

How's that? Too easy! 

You don't need to follow my blog, you can leave anonymous comments as long as I can contact you if you win and  the giveaway is open to anyone anywhere!

Personal Planner are happy to ship internationally :-)

So what are you waiting for go ahead and enter!

Giveaway closes Monday 25th June 2012

9am AEST.

I'll announce the winner later that day.

xx

Long weekend and a winner

We have a long weekend here in NSW for the Queen's Birthday so we are taking advantage of the extra day and we have been playing with concrete.

If you have been around for a while you will remember that just over two years ago we ripped up our back deck that used to look like this

Bit by bit we cleared and levelled other areas in our backyard and used the extra dirt and old pavers, etc to fill in the void below the old deck.

We worked and worked with lots of dirt and rubbish everywhere for weeks

We spent some time researching paving options and in the end decided to make our own using this plastic paving template and concrete. 

It was a much cheaper option and the result was just what we wanted.... rustic. 

We decided early on to go with a rustic and aged style that way any mistakes could be passed off as part of 'the look'

Finally it was all done, you can read more about it here. 

Over the the last two years some of the pavers sunk. We knew this would happen as the dirt underneath compacted further and we knew that the paving would need to be redone.

Fortunately not all of the paving has to be replaced just the area under the pergola where the deck used to be. 

So that is what we have been up to and what we are doing today. It isn't pleasant because it is so cold out there and really, I have no enthusiasm for this project considering we've already done it once before :-(

But it will be nice when it's finished.

Before I head out to brave the weather a big 'thanks'  for all of your lovely comments on my art work. 

It was a bit of fun and very easy to do. 

Tamarah from Shabby Vintage Junk is the lucky recipient of the set. 

Thanks Tamarah for your lovely encouragement I hope you enjoy the art.

I hope you all enjoy your Monday and I do hope you are doing something more pleasant than I am.

xx

Blue & Green Art - Giveaway

Last night I was experimenting with some paper doilies and paint in preparation for a photo shoot that I am styling soon (very exciting!!!)

So I got through painting  the yellow doilies

Then as I was mixing the turquoise paint I got a little distracted

I just loved the colour, 

it was so pretty, 

so I grabbed some canvas and painted it, 

as you do :-)

I liked the streaks in the paint showing the different shades of colour so I left the canvas just like that and went back to my original job, 

Unfortunately I was a little distracted and tried to rush my doily painting and left the doily on the paper in the same spot I painted it so most of them have stuck to the newspaper and I will have to start again, doh! 

That'll teach me for getting distracted.

The yellow ones are ok, 

probably because I hadn't gotten distracted yet :-)

Anyway, back to last night. 

After I rushed through the turquoise doilies I grabbed some of this

Mixed in a little of the paint and grabbed some more of these

and ended up with this

I am really happy with how they turned out and I just love the colour. 

The thing is I have no where to put them. 

So I want one of my lovely friends to have them. 

Each canvas measures 15 x 15cm 

and you can have the set of three.

Just leave a comment on this post and I will announce the new owner of an original "McCarthy Design" 

:-)

on Monday.

Oh and one last thing, I usually try and spend my weekend computer free for the most part but I have so many gorgeous pics and some great quotes that I find during the week that I would love to share. So I think that I will make Saturday my "Favourite Pic of the Week" day and Sunday can be my "Wise Words of the Week" day.

What do you think?

Have a great weekend and for those of you lucky enough to have a long one. Enjoy!

xx


PS. Giveaway is open to anyone, just leave a comment and make sure I have a way to contact you.