Scrap the Boys September Challenge

I love how this turned out! I'm rarely this happy with a finished layout.  :)

Ok, I am cutting it a bit fine here, it being the last day of September and all, but I have managed to get this layout done for the Scrap the Boys September Challenge which is based on this ink splat background.

My take on this involved swiping my Staz-On across the page in roughly that kind of splatter shape and adding some orange glimmermist and stamps to it too. 

I was playing with some freestyle sewing on tags, which turned out kind of crappy so they are disguised a little here. I’d also recently bought some heavyweight rag watercolour paper and wanted to see how my glimmermists and such behaved on it – the scalloped bunting and the scrap piece with the circles cut out of it are the results of 4 glimmermists, some copper embossing powder and kindyglitz mixed into this lovely paper where they have all bled together and made a bit of a sunset effect.

Materials used: Crate paper, washi tape, shipping tags, Greatest View button, Kaisercraft Technologic paper, Basic Grey stamps, Amy Tangerine Thickers, Marmalade glimmermist, copper embossing powder, twine, Archers watercolour paper, Mini Market alphas (OMG is this the first actual complete materials list I have done?  :) I never remember what I've used!).

Have a lovely long weekend watching or avoiding the football depending on your preference!

You fill up my senses

I love scrapping about things that I could never convey in conversation to anyone. I have always been a much better writer than a talker; I like being able to edit and perfect what I want to say instead of tripping over my words and getting flustered and sidetracked and embarassed.

One thing I could never do without sounding like a complete banana, is explain how much I love being in nature. The solution (as with any question in life) is to scrap it of course.

I don't often do 8 1/2 x 11's but wanted the photo to take up nearly the whole page to give the sense of being enveloped by the bush.

Lots of Amy Tangerine stickers on here, some skeleton leaves, washi tapes, thickers and other bits and pieces.

Hope you are having a crafty long weekend!

Thought for the day...

So true, don't you think?

Hugs to my friends who are going through some rough times. xx

Source

My 'glass half full' girl

These photos of Holly Dolly were taken just before she was due to have plastic surgery on her finger to repair a crushed nail bed after she got her finger caught in the pram as it was clicking open. You can kind of see the giant bandage on her finger.

You wouldn't know it to look at her... despite spending nearly TEN HOURS waiting at Westmead Children's Hospital with NO FOOD OR DRINK she was amazingly chilled out and happy. Me, on the other hand... I thought I was dying from lack of food and coffee! I didn't want to eat in front of her so we stuck it out together. I was so fidgety and frustrated, whereas she was just content to sit, and play, and explore.

I was taken aback by her patience... she always sees the bright side of everything!

This layout was created for the Scrap the Girls September challenge, where the theme was sport or action photos.

Stay crafty!

White with 1 September Challenge... White, Orange and Black

Here's my go at the WW1 challenge for this month... white, orange and black! Nice colour combo but I thought it might be a bit overpowering or too halloween-y if I used to much stuff on my layout, so I went minimal and used some Marmalade glimmer mist over a clear embossed rain cloud stamp.

I added a bit of spotty washi, some strands of hessian and a Basic Grey brad, and the orange strips of paper under the photo of my hubby are bits of one of Holly's daycare paintings (I love that she is crafty but really, I have 4000 artworks hanging up everywhere and I'm running out of wall space!).

Show Us Your Stuff Challenge... September

This little layout was put together for the Show Us Your Stuff challenge, which this month is a quote:

"The world is filled with undiscovered wonders.
Come, little one, let's find them out together."

I thought that was a really sweet line and immediately thought of some old shots of Tyler and I at Austinmer Beach exploring the rock pools. 

We were there for ages and although he was turning blue and shaking with cold he didn't want to leave! Maybe I started something... he is fascinated with rocks and shells and is quite the little collector. A bit like me I suppose! I've added lots of little mostly circular embellies to this one to represent all the shells and creatures and snails that are found in rock pools.

The handmade element necessary for SUYS is the wooden dragonfly and I heart U Rainedrops from RaineCloud! :)

Stay crafty,

More retreat goodness!

Last week I shared some of the layouts I completed at retreat recently - here's a few more!

This is probably my fave of the whole weekend - my father in law in his heyday, looking very James Dean! There's some awesome Sarsparilla rub-ons from October Afternoon, bits of flyscreen in the back there, some chipboard covered in rusting powder, trinkets from Little Scrapbook Shop and more.

This one of hubby when he was a little guy... still got some journalling to do here.

My Nan, mum, auntie and uncle all looking retro fabulous :) 

My 3rd birthday... how cute is the cake?

Love how bright this one turned out! I bought a lot of Amy Tangerine stickers and alphas at retreat and have used a few on this layout.

This one from the very creative Anna Painter's class... again, I haven't done my journalling yet (naughty, naughty!). But considering the shot of Holly was taken at the children's hospital just before she had plastic surgery on her finger, I figured I should journal about that little incident!

Well there are a few more to share but I'll leave those till next time...

Stay crafty!

Vintage Eye Candy... 1884 Plant Catalogue

Source: myaloysius.tumblr.com via Leonie on Pinterest

Kraft It Up September Challenge

I love this earthy, natural palette that is the basis for this month's challenge at Kraft It Up!

I thought I would channel the amazingly talented queen of minimalist scrapping, Louise Nelson, and try and do a really simple layout. I often tend to fiddle too much with my layouts and add too much stuff when I should really just leave them be, so this style is a bit challenging for me!

And I never scrap photos of myself, so this is a bit new for me too! Especially photos of me smiling where my braces are so obvious. Two and a half years and the end is still not quite in sight... but hopefully after Christmas I will have beautiful straight teeth!

The feather is from Words or Whatever, covered with a bit of white ink and embossing powder, and the alphas are Amy Tangerine thickers. 

Let's Get Shabby challenge #38

My entry for this month's Let's Get Shabby challenge, with the theme of 'windows or doors'. I thought this would be a good opportunity to scrap a photo that I wanted to be hidden a little, behind a 'door'....

This photo was taken in ’99 when I had some modelling photos taken – I’ve always been kind of proud of these photos and kind of embarrassed at the same time, even though I know there’s no need to hide them (hence my title!).

I've used a mask and some inks and mists on aqua bazzill as the background, and (most of) a kit from D'Lish Scraps. The little door is from Urban Lily and I've misted and stamped it with a Tim Holtz stamp.

Stay crafty!

September Pages 2 Scrap DT projects - Basic Grey Plumeria

Hello all, I wanted to share the layouts I have done this month for Pages 2 Scrap using the beautiful Plumeria collection from Basic Grey.

This collection is so soft and sweet with shades of lilac, apricot, aqua, mossy green and neutrals. I found it really versatile; I have done some girly layouts as well as two of my son, so it's not too pretty for a boyish layout. The co-ordinating buttons that came in my kit are gorgeous, I think I used all of them and will be buying some more from Pages 2 Scrap!

First up is quite a simple layout of my little pup Nyx. She is a 6 month old Aussie Bulldog and is so goofy. I have seen a lot of layouts using hexagons and wanted to use the honeycomb-like Moonstone paper to add some hexagonal elements. I've added some depth with some white ink on a piece of bubblewrap I used as a stamp.

I've used the floral cardstock stickers from my kit to frame the photo, and used some Thickers in addition to the Plumeria letters for the title.

My next layout uses the 'Grandma Jane' paper; this is a really soft and subtle polka-dot print that could be used for so many styles of layouts. I added a few messy strokes of purple paint to it first. I was going for a washed-out Instagram kind of effect with this photo of Tyler with a kangaroo, and found the 'Velvet Loom' paper worked well as a shabby distressed kind of base. I ripped it into strips and used my trusty Versacolour Bark ink that I use on everything to give it an aged effect, then added some of the cute cardstock stickers and some washi tape.

That little acrylic leaf in the corner is a bit of an old Christmas decoration and again I've used some of those beautiful sparkly buttons.

Next up - I like this layout because it looks so neat, and usually I have serious trouble being neat! The 'Dusk' paper has a lovely candy stripe pattern which reminded me of parties, and I wanted to use the lovely bright layered trim piece from my kit - the orange buttons and the wavy papers underneath them all come as one layered piece, making it so quick and easy to build up your layout.

I've made a string of flags from co-ordinating ribbons and the two little flags near the photo are just toothpicks and washi tape. The big floral cardstock sticker behind the photo made a perfect frame and I love the little stamp shaped stickers in the Plumeria collection as well.

Ok, next one! This page is quite busy, there is a lot going on, but think it still (hopefully?) works.   :)

Here I've used a photo of my Converse sneakers. I have had them for over ten years and still wear them pretty much every weekend. I have certainly got up to some interesting things in these shoes and they are still holding up even though I've been meaning to buy a new pair for ages!

I've used a piece of kraft card and trimmed it to a folder shape, and used one of the buttons from my kit and some string as an old-style file closure.

Inside there is a bunch of photos of me in my shoes over the years, and each is stapled to different notepapers, each with a bit of journalling.

I've used the reverse of the 'Grandma Jane' paper laid over a sheet of Crate Paper 'Wildberries' as the base and used a lot of the cardstock stickers from my kit, how cool are those huge roses! I've added some Kaisercraft rub-ons, some pink glimmermist and another of the fabulous layered trim pieces - this one had pleated netting in it, so I added a little more pink netting underneath the 'folder' to tie in with it. 

And... here's my last one! I have had an idea kicking around my head of a layout about Holly and her many hospital visits. For this I used the reverse of the Plumeria 'Dusk' paper and a piece of the 'Velvet Loom' paper to anchor the photo.

More cardstock stickers, buttons, her hospital bracelet and some Elastoplast bandaids make up most of the embellishment. I've also punched some 1 inch circles and journalled some (certainly not all!) of her mishaps! I've used the last one of those layered trims here too, cut in half this time, and some more hexagonal elements cut from the 'Moonstone' paper.

Look at that black eye. She's a rough nut, just like her dad!

Stay crafty everyone!

My (sorta) smash journal bucket list

Ok, it's not actually a Smash journal but I was going for the same kind of concept :)

I picked up this awesome Sarabinders mini ring binder at retreat a few weeks ago for two bucks (bargain!). It has a strange 6-ring configuration that doesn't work with a normal hole punch - you can buy plain paper inserts to fit, but I thought it would be much more fun to make my own pages. They turned out too pretty to cover with photos and embellishments so I thought I'd give some proper journalling a go, seeing as how I usually avoid it like the plague.

So now I finally have my bucket list somewhere else other than my head!  :)  I like the fact that there's no consistency to my colours or altered pages so I can easily add more later without it all having to match. 

Some of the things on my list - see the cherry blossom festival in Japan...

...go stargazing in the outback...

I've never touched snow - at 31, I think this one is way overdue!

I have wanted to learn guitar ever since I saw Jack Johnson in the Domain a year or two ago.

I've still got a few spare pages and will certainly add to this as the years go by. I've used a mixture of paints, glimmer mists, distress stains, kindyglitz, stamps, inks and probably a few other things to decorate the cover, and covered it all with PVA glue to seal it.

Have a crafty weekend!