Once upon a ...sketch

You simply must participate in the blog hop over at Once upon a ... sketch to celebrate their 1st birthday.

Yes, there are lots of prizes up for grabs, but the best bit is you get a glimpse into the creativity of some of our fave DT members. Like you, I have checked out the blogs of some of these designers before, but by hopping to all of them I think I may have found some new favorites and have certainly picked up some great ideas to use in the future.

Hop on over really fast, it finishes at midnight on 5th April.

March 1st Journalling criteria/theme: All about me!

The focus of your journaling and the theme of your layout has to be based on YOU and something/s that you are really good at. Don't be shy! We are all good at something as small or as big as it might be.

I had a problem working out if there was anything I was really good at, this is the reason I completed the layout after the deadline. 

Biggest fan

When I sat down with my cuppa and had a think, a long think, I worked out that I spend most of my time being a mum. Now I am not the best cook, nurse, teacher or coach that my kids have, not by a long shot. But I realised that I am always taking them to and from their activities, supporting them and their class/teams/club to participate at their best and helping out when I can. I am the first mum with their hand up when they need extra parents, I change my schedule at the drop of a hat if the kids have a presentation at school or an excursion or sporting event. I spend hours guiding the kids through their Cub Scout achievement badges and love it! 

I am their support, their encouragement, their biggest fan. 

This is what I am good at!

This photo was taken on Saturday 11th Feb before the kids played their first games at the Warragul Junior Basketball Tournament. Over the course of the weekend their teams didn't have much success, but they all got lots of court time and experience, and most of all - had lots of fun.

March Daring you to scrap

Another great challenge from Daring you to scrap - use photo strips or polaroids

Loved you then

There were some fantastic links to  tutorials to create your own photo-strips or polaroids but as yet I don't have any photo editing software so I went 'old school'.

I found these photos of Scott and I hiding in a box of sentimental goodies that I just couldn't part with. I remember the day we took the photo many moons ago in 1997. We were walking through Dandenong and stumbled upon a photo-booth, hardly what you expect to find in a back arcade with near no shops or passing traffic. 

In a single moment the camera captured our new sweet love, and 15 years later that love is stronger than ever!

I have used cor'dinations cardstock, a Hambly grid screenprint, Kaisercraft pearls, ribbon, a jewelery tag and my trusty Dymo labeller. I can't remember which manufacturer the pp is from, I think I got it from Kmart about a hundred years ago, but can't be sure.

I'm a proud Mum

Have I mentioned what a proud mum I am lately? 

My children have been excelling this year, they are really outdoing themselves.

Starting back at school was really easy, with both kids loving their teachers and having a few special friends in their classes. They were desperately missing the routine of the day and wanted to get back into their sports and activities.

Just last week Connor and his under 10's freestyle relay team made it all the way to the Sale regional swimming meet. They came second at both the Zone and District competitions and finished just outside the time needed to make the Sale final. What an AMAZING effort from four young boys who don't consider swimming their fave sport, and were competing against swimmers from very successful swim clubs.

AND Connors under 12A Reserve basketball team 'The Gladiators' are through to the - wait for it - Grand Final next week! Woo-hoo, they have played really hard to get this far, losing the semi-final last week and coming back to win on Tuesday. For most of the team it is their first season in under 12's and its a whole different ball game from under 10's.  It doesn't matter how they play next week, they are all winners in our eyes, but fingers, toes, arms and legs crossed for a win our way. Lots of thanks to Shane for coaching xx

And Savannah has been a STAR herself. Hats off to my little girl for coming home with an extra special award from school last Friday.  My little girl was running her heart out in the 1500m when she noticed one of her friends had fallen behind. Going back to check on her she found that she had bad asthma and needed to walk and use her puffer. So, instead of racing off ahead and finishing the race Savannah walked with her friend, slowly, hand-in-hand to finish together. She got the Principals Award for helping others in need, but she got extra kisses and cuddles from mum and dad for being a great friend. You can always train to run faster in next years Athletics Carnival but it takes something special to show kindness and compassion.

She has also shown a great dedication to Cubs this year. Already one term in she has completed both her level 1 Cooking and Level 1 Masks and Sculptures badges. There is a long list of badges she is working towards, and knowing just how DETERMINED (one eyed, pig-headed?) she can be I am sure they will be accomplished in no time! We are very lucky to have such wonderful Cub leaders in Rob, Geoff and Jason - thank you all for your hard work.

Playing catch up...

It seems this month I have been playing catch up, and I am not getting any closer to where I wanna be! I haven't got any challenges done yet, but I have managed to finish some projects. Gotta get out my camera manual, the pics are all a bit blurry and I can't work out why. I have a feeling little fingers may have been playing with my new toy, so apologies in advance.

TC Cortina

I picked up this Kaisercraft kit at Fat Cat just before they closed their doors for the last time (sniff, sniff).

I've never really been one to use kits, since I like to add my own personality to a project, but thought it might be a great way to play catch up.

Cory was a beautiful beast, all original, nearly no rust, complete with vinyl roof and rear venetian blinds. Sadly it wasn't made for baby capsules and prams, but we sure did drive a lot of miles (yes, miles) together.

Little Miss Chatterbox

This is a layout I started many moons ago but never quite got finished. You know how it it, you start a project and don't like the way it is going so you put it aside for a later time and some fresh eyes?

Playing catch up is fun, I just want the layouts in my album so I'm pulling no punches and just going with it. I liked the graphic block style but it was lacking, so I raided the button stash and added hand and machine stitching.

I thought my little chatterbox could talk then, 7 years on she has mastered the art of talking both with  her mouth full and underwater.  Now that takes practice!

Don't mess with these Gangsters

I was very happy with how this layout turned out and have another work in progress with the rest of these photos taken on our holiday. 

 I have used MME kraft from the Life Stories range. It gave a classic old world feel to the layout and blended perfectly with the sepia prints. 

We girls felt really pretty and a little flirty in our costumes, so I went to the haberdasher and picked up some fringe and pearl trim, similar to our outfits. Since you can never have too many layers I got out my Fiskars punch and  went to town with it. 

My flower cluster includes some beautiful Prima and Kaisercraft blooms and some handmade silk flowers. I found a pearl flourish and cut it into smaller pieces and used it to ground them all together.

If you haven't had a go at making your own little blooms yet they are really easy. There are heaps of great tutorials on You tube, try this link.

I found the fabric I wanted in an op shop for 20c and used some buttons from my stash -see, pretty and economical.

If you are ever on the Gold Coast make sure you drop into Old Time Photos and have some fantastic family fun! Not only is it great to dress up in period clothes (they have items to fit everyone, hey, they fitted me!) but they also have amazing sets and the staff are friendly and efficient. Better still the rates are really reasonable and the finished product is awesome! This was the best way for us all to spend a rather wet afternoon and we came home with a very memorable souvenir.

I have come to realise that I have taken more photos since my children were born than may actually be necessary. No - I don't mean they aren't all important, but I do mean that perhaps I need to start deleting from my memory card before I upload. At this rate I am running out of storage very fast and I am not going to print half of them, and then I'd be lucky if I scrapbooked 10% of them. 

I'm sure all you compulsive clickers are like me, we go out for the day and take a million and one photos because we don't want to miss anything. The problem lies when we get home and upload those million pics. It is overwhelming to select only 2 or 3 photos for a layout, or worse still is feeling obliged to scrap multiple layouts from the event.

Well, today I am going to make a stand and say NO MORE! I want my children to be able to flip through an album and remember the places they have been while it is still fresh in their minds, and not have to wait forever for me to get around to scrapping it. I'm gonna work smarter, not harder, and take an Ali Edwards approach. I will go crazy and buy heaps of divided page protectors, slide the photos in and add a journaling/title block.

Please don't make that face - yes, you! - the single person reading my blog! I will continue to traditionally scrap the most important and my favorite photos with lots of pretty patterned paper, fancy new embellishments, AC Thickers and my most favorite Glimmermist and stitching. I will, I will, I promise! But I need to play catch up, and fast, since the To Do list is growing much quicker than the Completed list.

Scrapbook Retreat

I spent last weekend in a sprawling house at Phillip Island with 7 like minded scrappy ladies - there was lots of food, lots of laughter and to my surprise lots of scrapping.

Photo taken at The Purple Hen winery on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Sharlene is missing since she stayed up all night Friday scrapping and needed a nanna nap.

Here are a few of my creations from the weekend.

First up we were set a challenge by the lovely Leesa to decorate a pillow box that Sharlene die-cut for us. Although its not what I would normally work with I went about it in my usual manner and crafted a little flower using Nestabilities dies, some calico and glimmermist.

To add some sparkle a dropped clear seed beads into my dimensional magic while it was still wet and was very happy with the outcome. In the right light it looks like little drops of dew have fallen onto the leaves (in my head anyway!).

Pillow box challenge

Aren't we clever? Every pillow box was decorated differently, with a little bit of each personality shining through.

I got busy scrapping some layouts and to my surprise I finished quite a few. This is unusual for me, since I can start a layout at home and simply push papers around for the whole weekend. Come Sunday night I'm sick of the sight of it all and just stick it all down, wherever it may have ended up.

In addition to completing my layouts for Kraft it up and Scrapbook Savvy sketch with a twist challenges I managed to finish some layouts just for me.

The kids' first day back at school for the year is always a momentous occasion and in response to Connor's cries of "Mum, didn't you take this photo last year?", I grabbed out camera and started snapping away. In grades 3 and 4 this year they won't let me walk them into their new classrooms so I clicked madly before we left for school.

This is the resulting layout - First day back @ school

In a challenge to myself I am going to scrap a layout for each month of the year. January was crazy busy for us; we managed to fit in a Queensland holiday, Australia Day celebrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, a birthday (love you Scottie) and the usual day to day comings and goings.

With so many photos you would have thought it would be easy to create a dynamic and exciting layout showcasing all of our fun? Correct? Far from it. Yes, I have met the requirements of my challenge, but really hope I can do a better job of presenting it next month.

January

I'm feeling pretty good about my Australia Zoo layouts. Since I like to mix up the page sizes in my album I used a smaller layout size as a kind of 'cover' page for our adventures. I tried to keep some continuity in the pages that follow by using the same patterned papers (by Bo Bunny Zoology) and lots of textural elements.

Saturday morning on retreat some of us ladies sought out the local haunts looking for a bargain. Lucky for me I picked up some hessian place-mats, an old curtain remnant and doilies at the op shop (plus some great CDs to listen to in the car on the way home at the garage sale). We had a coffee at the Cobra Lily florist and cafe at San Remo and they sold me some cool floristry mesh that was almost Khaki green - a tribute to Steve Irwin himself.

My op shop finds were quickly chopped up on our arrival back at the house, and I had instant tactile, frayed, outdoors-ish lollipop flowers ready to go. I was so glad I kept the badges we got on the bus trip there, they scrapped up a treat.

Australia Zoo

Thanks ladies for a really nice break away from the ordinary. It was great fun to share ideas, tools and products, meals, bunk-beds and lots of laughs.

I learnt that Skinny Milk does not come from the cows who run to the milking shed and that you haven't had too much to drink while you can still fussy cut.

Bring on Retreat 2012 Part II.

More February Challenges...

Show us your stuff - use the sketch and include paper dolls for extra chances to win

You create art

I made this layout because I have a very 'arty farty' little girl who likes to create all the time. We have boxes of her pictures, sculptures, mini books and other little projects. I may need to go through them and store them digitally since there is so much art, using the originals for gift wrap.



I have used the bonus technique to make some pretty little paper girls holding hands at both the top and bottom of my layout. I also made my own flower stamp by recycling some styrofoam. I simply sketched a shape I liked and cut out around it with my craft knife. I stamped with Versamark ink and used clear embossing powder. When I spritzed the image with my Glimmermist it added a little more embellishment.

At the bottom of my layout I have inserted the definition of ARTIST in my scrapware circle grid.

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Scrapbooking top 50 Australia - February Cyber Crop - A novel approach - Vicki's Genre Challenge

Fright Night

I love how this layout turned out! Lots of eyelts so my big bite came in handy, and some simple honest journalling.

No, I didn't finish it in time to upload (Feb 26 deadline) and now that I read fineprint I didn't even follow the instructions properly, but still I am very happy with my little witch and zombie. They were very frightening indeed!

February Challenges

OMG! What an incredible month the Design Teams are having in February. Myself and fellow scrappers are really inspired by the creations that are popping up on all of the challenge sites, and the mojo is flowing!

White with 1 - white + lemon + 3 photos

Splash

This is definately one of my least fav layouts in a while, but its another moment scrapped and in the album.

The photos are of Savannah having a great time at Wet'n Wild on the Gold Coast, where we holidayed over Summer.

I have used Echo Park patterned paper (a popular pick from my stash lately), done some swirly embossing, added tuelle for texture and randomly stitched some sparkly crystal beads onto my layout.

The photography is poor but I promise to keep practising.

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Scrap the girls - Love in the title, turquoise as the dominant colour and chipboard

Right now you love

Once I got my head around the very strict criteria for this month I loved, loved, loved what I ended up with.

 I found a beautiful Prima bloom in my stash that was just the right colour, had some chipboard flourishes (yuk, they must have come in a kit) and got to work with the vintage music paper. Since I can't read music I have absolutely no problem in ripping it up for a collage, and in case you don't see the theme developing, I LOVE glimmermist. I used it to paint the flourish and to spritz my background.

Just conincidentally I took these photos of my lovely when she asked me to listen to her sing. Yes, it was Katy Perry and then Lady Gaga.

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Kraft it up - include Love and pink

Promise, Cherish, Forever

My hubby and I are fast coming up to our 13th wedding anniversary and it dawned on me that I have NEVER scrapped a wedding photo. So without further ado, here's my take on this months' challenge.

I am really enjoying using my We R Memory keepers divided page protectors at the moment, they are particularly great for using up scraps. I've included an old LYB transperancy (I think I've had them for 5 years or more), a cute doily my friend Di picked up at a garage sale and a bookplate I found when cleaning out the drawers. Told you I used lots of scraps!

I finished this layout on retreat with some like-minded lovely scrappers. Again, my photography is pretty dodgy, but its definately a much more pale pink cardstock than in the picture.

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123 Challenge - use the word 'fresh' or 'free', the colour fuschia and fraying or frills

Farm Fresh

I love how this layout turned out. I have incorporated FRESH in my title, since life here in rural Gippsland really is farm fresh, the colour fuscia with my glimmermisting of cardstock, fabric and book pages and fraying and frills were created with my little ruffle.

These photos are of the little golden pumpkins we grew in our vegie patch last season and my goat Souva (Souvalaki by name only!) and her beautiful little billy kid born at the start of January. I will have to take some more pictures of this layout, they really don't do it justice.

My lollipop flower was admired by many on our recent retreat, what I didn't tell them was just how easy it was to make using an old dictionary, some felt and random glimmermist colors.

Another new technique I have been using lately is to take a journal block and stitch.

This one was from MAMBI and was cute to start with but now I think its even cuter! Again my Dymo labeller has come in handy for strip journalling (I'm sure I have used it more for scrapping than school labelling).

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Scrapbook Savvy - sketch with a twist

Play

At 8 years old I still have to push her on the swings, but you see the joy in their eyes when they feel like they are flying and its definatley worth it.

Another retreat layout!

This itty bitty 8" x 8" page size was ideal for the smaller photos in the sketch, and I find by mixing up page sizes in my albums I can utilize all the little bits and pieces I would otherwise throw away (....gasp I hear you say, but who really, honestly uses all that they put away for a rainy day?)

The Fancy Pants Lilac House line has been a good 'go-to' for my pretty little girl layouts and many vintage projects that I have worked on. And my cabbage rose? This is the last of a big batch of satin flowers I made up some time ago. Its good to know they have all found homes in and amongst my creations, but now I need to hop to it and make some more! Love, love, love all the Prima resin shapes, including this fancy corner sconce.