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Monday, May 31, 2010

Did I totally forget to tell you who won?

Yes I did!
I'm so sorry!

So the very lucky winner of Giveaway #1 Fabulous Flowers and Bling is.......

*** THE PRICKLY PINECONE ***

Congratulations!!
Please email me your postal address and I will gladly ship off your goodies!

Busy Beaver

That's what I've been over the weekend.
A quick recap of some of the things I've accomplished:
  • Made 2 card. Here's some sneaks: 

  • Worked on some DT committments

  • Accepted a Guest DT spot (yay!!)
  • Made a quilt (my first)
  • Decked out Munchy's room in bunting galore
  • Watched Moodle master the art of sitting up for the first time

  • Worked on some blog graphics (see the new pages at the top, and the new buttons on the side?)
  • I'm sure there were other things........
Mainly I achieved these things because Munchy is staying at her Grandparents in the country for the weekend. She is certainly enjoying herself. When she rang last night she said to us "I can't come home yet, I'm going to stay here for 50 million weeks" Hhhmmmmm.........

I told her there was a surprise waiting for her in her bedroom and she changed her mind slightly. She said, "I'll come back home and see the surprise, and then I'll come back here, ok?"

Wanna see the surprise?


It's the bunting! She loves it as much as I do!! And while I was photographing her room, I thought I would show you a couple of other shots:


Pretty decals on the wall, an unmistakable "B" on the door so she knows where her room is, and there's a sneak of the quilt I made. Want to see it closer?


It's pretty simple as far as quilts go, but given it's my first attempt, and given I decided to just teach myself (didn't read any instructions or anything - call me brave, or call me stupid?) I think it turned out pretty good.


Lots of toys in her room, but this lot actually belong to the Moodle.

Don't forget to come back tomorrow for some winners!
:-)

Saturday, May 29, 2010

Where the heart leads

I'll follow.

And it lead me straight into doing this collage. For no particular reason, other than just because. But I guess that's the beauty of 'art' isn't it?


I used an old atlas for this. The heart is quite thick, mounted on cardboard and it depicts a portion of Africa. I collaged a lot of ocean and sea pictures for all the pale blue around it, and then I used some aging techniques to make it a bit more 'vintage' and a bit more 'me' :-)


And just because it always looks a better in context here's a shot of it hanging up on our wall.

But where is the time going I ask? It's almost the end of the month again, so I better draw out another winner of a prize from the May Madness Giveaway.

Today's prize is #4 Remarkable Ribbon. And the winner, chosen by Random.org is.......

*** Jen ***

(Obviously, I've already got your address Jen so no need to email me again. I'll pack it up with your other prize!)

Only one more prize to draw - the one that everyone wants to win it seems! So do your last-minute blogging about it, or whatever it takes to get all your entries in. Because I'm going to draw the winner for Giveaway #1 Fabulous Flowers and Bling on Monday.

Oh, and I haven't heard from Amy or Stralunata yet either. If I haven't heard from them by Tuesday I'll be re-drawing their prizes too.  So I'll re-open the comments on #2 Smashing Stamps, and #6 Sticker Sensation in case you want to pop some more entries into them on the off chance they don't contact me.

Friday, May 28, 2010

Sweet lollipop (flowers that is)

I thought I would try a new-to-me challenge site this month - Candy Shoppe Designs. Why? Because they're super funky! And the prize is a kit from The Magpie Club, and you know how I'm loving them (see the post below :-)

So all you had to do for this challenge is use lollipop flowers on your creation. Easy peasy right? Here's what I did:


I cracked open some ye olde Sassafras Lass and some water-colours and went to town! Cut a bizzillion circles to make into bright colourful lollipop flowers and relied on some favourites like typewritten journalling and washi tape. I just had fun :-)


I'm still experimenting with my new sewing machine, and I haven't got everything right yet, so hence, it sometimes skips a beat. But I think I've got that problem figured out now.


Ok - I better go now. The Studio Calico reveal is about to happen any moment and I'm now a subscriber. Yay! :-)

Thursday, May 27, 2010

A bit sketchy

I think I've done more sketches this month than in my entire scrappy life! I don't do them often because I can't seem to take them any other way than exactly as they are drawn. But I guess that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Anyway. Here's the sketch from the Magpie Club this month.


Well I drew a big breath and got stuck into it. I even managed to use another photo of The Man. I fall into that trap like many other parents and seem to make layout after layout about my kids (well, they are pretty cute!) but tend to ignore the other 'boring' photos of him or myself. It's probably not that, it's probably more to do with the fact that we take 100's of photos of our kids, but hardly ever turn the camera around.


I asked The Man after it was finished if he was offended by how girly it turned out. He said, yes the colours are pretty soft and feminine but at least I used woodgrain which is pretty manly in his book.


I was just glad to use up some papers and stuff that's been in my pile for a while. Like that Prima title. But I did grunge up the edges a bit for more of a masculine feel. And that pale green paper behind the photo and journalling? That's actually one of Fancy Pants' Christmas papers!


I've also mixed in some of the scraps of my October Afternoon collection. I can't believe I haven't used that banner sticker before now given how obsessed I am with banners!

If you're like me and sometimes wish you had paid more attention in Year 9 art because that was the last time you ever got any kind of design or creative instruction then go and read this. It's a whole bunch of design and composition principles for scrapbookers written in easy to understand language. However, she does say she's not 'qualified' in any way, and perhaps there are better resources out there for this kind of thing. But I stumbled across it by accident, and I like it!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Random musings (and some winners)

The countdown is on, the month is nearly over and I've still got lots of prizes to give away. So I better get a move on hey?

So with that in mind, let's get crazy and draw not one but two winners today!

First up: Prize #2 Smashing Stamps has been won by....

***AMY WING from Gauche Alchemy ***

And the winner of Prize #6 Sticker Sensation is......

*** STRALUNATA ***


Congrats girls, please send me an email with your mailing address.
But check back real soon because there's still a few more prizes to be won! You can enter them here.
(In case you're wondering - I do choose my winners using a random number generator)

Now, what would this post be without a couple of layouts to share? So here's some 8.5 x 11" layouts that I did over the last two months for challenges.


This one was for a colour challenge (brown, kraft, green and blue). I've used materials from a couple of different Kreatorville kits for this layout, including the packaging from Prima and Jenni Bowlin Studio. The recycling makes me happy. Not too sure about this layout though (apart from the smiley photos!)


And if you're talking about recycling then this layout definitely makes me happy. All the strips are from off-cuts that have been sitting on my desk for ages. Most of them are actually the manufacturers strip that's on pretty much all patterned papers these days. I just stuck them all on, painted over the top with some gesso for a bit more unity - and called it my background :-)

And guess what?
I've finished my Week in the Life album! Yay!
Can you believe it ended up being 40 pages long. Sheesh!
But I'll leave that for another day :-)

Monday, May 24, 2010

Clean and Simple?

I admire people who do layouts that are minimilistic, and I do love the clean look.
It's just that, well, whenever I try to emulate it I seem to fail dismally! I cannot for the life of me stop adding more embellishments or journalling, or decorations, or patterns or just....... more!


I totally scraplifted this layout from a digital one by Karla. You can see her beautiful, serene, lovely, almost monotone layout here. And it seemed like it was going to be so easy to recreate. Well, I got the elements all in the right places - but it just lacks the ooomph that hers had. Oh well. Learning, learning, learning :-)


On the plus side, I did get to use this lovely Basic Grey paper for the background that I've been hoarding for the longest time. I knew it would be perfect for a 'boy' layout! And I teemed it with my January Kreatorville kit and some jute and called it done :-)


No paint, no glimmermist, no layers, no doodling, and hardly any journalling.
I love it when other people do it, I just don't think it's me :-)

Saturday, May 22, 2010

A bit of this and that (and a winner)

Lots of fun stuff to share today.

Firstly, I have been working my little behind off trying to do my Week in the Life album. I'm up to page 17 and I've just started Thursday!! It looks like it's going to be a long one! But I'm having so much fun and I'm just totally loving the process rather than caring what the finished page looks like :-)

That saying, here's a couple of pages to show you how it's turning out:







I'm getting to use up a lot of scraps and recycled materials and stuff that's been in my stash forever, and play with my punches - I'm having a ball! And yes, it includes a lot of doilies, ninja rabbits, and washi tape :-)

Secondly, I'm in love with this prize that's on offer at Lilibee's blog:


Oh, what I wouldn't do to get my hands on that! Well, for a start I would blog about it :-) Go here and find out how you too could win.

And speaking of prizes........ today I'm drawing the winner of Giveaway #5 Naked Chipboard (ooh la la)

And the winner is....... drumroll please..........


*** CLAUDE from Life and Tribulations ***

Congratulations Claude. Please send me an email with your postal address and I'll pack up your prize and get it ready to send once I've drawn all the prizes.

3 prizes down, 5 to go :-)
Go here to enter the other giveaways

Friday, May 21, 2010

Inspired by Interior Design

Have you ever been inspired by something seemingly totally unrelated to scrapbooking?
Well I certainly won't take credit for this idea because it wasn't mine. But about 6 months ago Julie Fei Fan Balzer (you know how much I love her creativity) posted a photo of a kitchen or study or something and talked about how you could turn that photo into a sketch and apply it to scrapbooking. How ingenious is she??!! I drew that sketch in my journal and have finally decided to put it to good use (yes, sometimes it takes a long time for ideas to get from my journal to the page..... and sometimes they never do!)


So this layout is pretty much a direct interpretation of the sketch (it was so long ago, I don't have a link I'm afraid). But there were three cupboards across the top left - which turned into the three photos, and a long bookcase along the far right - which turned into the blocks of patterned paper. And I think the main photo was from a table or something. Sorry - bit hazy on the details of the photo - I just copied the sketch she drew.


I'm also playing along with Prompt #15 Colour Me Brightly at the challenge blog Creative Prompts 4U with this layout. It was a colour scheme challenge - to use the colours red, blue and yellow, so I've used my old favourite October Afternoon, and thrown in some Sassafras Lass as well.


The photos are from our monthly photoshoot of the girls, this one from March (you can see my formal shots/layouts here and here). But I've used some of the photos that were good, but didn't make the cut for the final choice of photo. And the (brief) journalling says "it takes many attempts and lots of photos to try and capture the perfect shot"

I recently also posted the layout I did where I used someone's outfit as a source of inspiration. Have you ever turned a different source of inspiration into a scrapbook layout? I'd love to hear about it.

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Second Winner

I've decided it's time.

Time to draw another Mad Madness Giveaway winner.

So by random chance (chosen my Munchy) the prize I'm drawing today is Giveaway #3: Delectable Die-cuts and Bling. 

And chosen by a Random Number Generator (for reals this time!) the winner is......

*** JEN from Jen Shears Designs ***


 Congratulations Jen - shoot me an email with your address. But I'm not posting them just yet, because there's still time to win more!

Speaking of which, the following people more 'free' entries into any prize they want (if they want)
More comments = more entries :-)

5 entries for Kelly Massman
4 entries for Peggy, Karen B, Sarah Lou and Aussiescrapper
3 entries for Chloe
2 entries for Valerie and Jen
1 entry for Blondeone, Sarah, Pam, Mandysea, Tettiz, Illy, Carrie, RStovall, and Lynnette Davis

There are still 6 prizes to go, and plenty of time to enter so hop to it!!

A Magpie Layout

A little while ago I was lucky enough to win myself a kit from The Magpie Club. It was filled with some lovely Crate Paper Season collection, with a bit of American Craft and Pebbles Inc papers, and some Lily Bee embellishments.


I added a few random things like a brown paper bag, some notepaper, ticket stubs and paint, but all of the main elements on this page came straight from the kit. What I loved dearly were the sequins that came in the kit! If you look closely you can see I've scattered them in with the paint splatters.


I took a layout by Jana Eubank as my inspiration. I looked at her layout (which you can see here), turned it into a sketch and then made my own. Since I did this while my sewing machine wasn't working, I had to do some hand-stitching. I am less than thrilled with the results. But the good news is that my fantastically understanding and supportive Man went out and bought me a new sewing machine! Yay!! I have already put it to good use on 2 layouts. That's what a sewing machine is for isn't it?


And who says scrapbooking should be just about capturing the important moments? I want to remember the everyday things that happen that we're much more likely to forget in the future. With that in mind, I've dedicated this layout to capturing this phase Munchy seems to be going through where she wants to eat Vegemite on everything! She would eat Vegemite for breakfast, lunch and tea if we let her. We almost have to buy it in those big catering jars! And no one else eats it - just her.

Does anyone else have kids who just get stuck on eating the one thing over and over?

Stop to leave me a comment (if you want!!) and then head straight on over to the ARTastic Challenge Blog right now. It's their 1st birthday celebrations this month and there is a TONNE of prizes to be won - over $300 worth in fact. There are lots of challenges, quizzes and competitions so it's lots of fun too. I'll see you over there because that's where I'm going too :-)

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Merely

a couple of things to share today.

Firstly, this layout I did for the current BASB challenge. It's all about how little Moodle gave up breastfeeding at 14 weeks old. We had been struggling since she was only 5 weeks old so I guess in some ways I should feel a sense of achievement that we were able to last as long as we did. But in a lot of ways I still feel the frustration and disappointment of not being able to go longer, especially since I was able to breastfeed Munchy without any problems for 8 months.


The 4 'ingredients' I chose were: kraft cardstock, polka dot paper, buttons, and sewing. Go on over to the challenge site to find out what I'm talking about.


Most of the products I've used here are from my February Kreatorville Kraft kit. Love that Sassafras Lass yellow/orange patterned paper I've used in the background - even if it is from such an 'old' collection!


I'm not quite sure on the splash of bright blue in this layout, I wanted something just a bit lighter I think. But I'm so glad I got to use my Pink Paislee Pixee Stix glitter in the centre of these flowers. I'm not much of a glitter girl, and this came in the kit, so I'm happy I've used it for something. I'm sure I will use it more now.

Also, check out this massive giveaway from Blue Moon Scrapbooking.


All the details on how you can win this are found on Lynette's blog post here. But hang around a while and browse her blog - she's got some major inspiration, and a few more challenges going on too :-)

Sunday, May 16, 2010

circa 1983

As promised, today I'm sharing version 1 of my DT submission for this month's From Screen 2 Scrap challenge. About half way though making this I realised I no longer wanted it to be my entry, and I ended up doing another one which you can see here. There was a few reasons for that - like I used a red title instead of a green one (part of the additional criteria of the challenge), and I wasn't really depicting an important woman in my life (although it is a photo of my mum with my sister and I, so I was going to try and tie it in somehow). But mainly it was because I didn't like the title I gave it!

Does anyone else really struggle with trying to think of imaginative and unique titles, or something witty, or something meaningful? I know I do a lot of the time. And then sometimes I use a title because it sounds good, but it no longer really matches my photo or what I wanted to say about the photo. Well that's what happened here.


I was the eldest child, and I'm sure like all eldest children it must have come as a bit of a shock to me when my sister came along and suddenly everything changed. But I don't remember ever having any real feelings of jealousy or sibling rivalry or anything like that, and I realised that might be the impression the title gives. I ended up putting all my journalling in the bottom left corner to explain this very thing.

But let's move on......

I've used a lot of Cosmo Cricket Material Girl papers here, with a good measure of Sassafras Lass Apple Jack thrown in too. I even managed to pull out a few stamps on this one - something I need to do more of.


There's still plenty of time to get your own entries into Shazza for the May From Screen 2 Scrap challenge. There are lots of yummy prizes up for grabs, and even a random draw. Just to remind you, all you need to do is create a layout or card or absolutely anything inspired by the movie poster for Fried Green Tomatoes (which you can see over in my sidebar there on the right) and use the theme of an important woman in your life. And if you like you can incorporate any or all of the optional criteria for some bonus points, which are

1) Have a green title - 1 pt

2) Use Green and Red as 'feature' colors on your layout - 2pts

3) Have a tomato on your page - 3pts (can be a teeney weeney one!)

It's always awesome to see new people having a go at the challenge each month, and it would be such a thrill if any of my followers gave this one a go - I'm sure there would be extra May Madness Giveaway entries for you!!  And tell Shazza I sent you!

Saturday, May 15, 2010

Today I am

Picking my jaw off the ground after seeing this layout by LG.

Playing with my new Koi water-colours.

Going to a wedding in Sherwood Forrest (not quite, but close enough)


Finding the time to do the Pink Ninjas Blog Hop.

What are you up to?

Friday, May 14, 2010

She's a tummy sleeper (and the first winner)

Firstly, I'm sure you just want to know about the first winner of the May Madness Giveaway......
I used a random number generator (ie. my Munchy) to chose a number between 1 and 8 and she chose 7. So today I'm drawing the winner for Prize No.7 Rub-on Roulette. That actually made it really easy, since there's only one entry! So the winner is...............

*******   KAREN B!!!! *******

Karen, please email me your mailing address. But, I'm not going to post it just yet because who knows, you may win more!

And for all the rest of you, never fear. There is still another 7 giveaways to go!! They may get drawn at any given moment, so you better get to and put in all your entries :-)

Meanwhile, back in scrappy land - I need to show you the rest of the layout I gave you a little peek of yesterday. Ok, here it is....


Yes, yes, yes, I know - still using my October Afternoon :-) And I will, until every last inch of it has gone! So that means, there is still another completed layout on my desk ready to show you, and more scraps left to use, so you better get used to it!!


This close-up shows you lots of little details of products I've used. Not only is there washi tape and a ninja rabbit poking his cute little head out but it also shows you some of the old rub-ons I used on this layout (because that just so happens to be the current prompt at The Creative Type!) There is some old Kaisercraft rub-ons (the white border strip at the bottom of the photo), some old American Craft rub-ons (the little butterfly) and some old Basic Grey rub-ons (the swirl underneath the title, which you can see in the next close-up). I always feel good about using up more of my old stash.


The journalling tells the story of this photo which is how one day I heard Munchy sneak out of her bedroom when she was supposed to be having a nap. I ignored her because she was quiet so I just kept on doing what I was doing (which of course, was scrapping!) but I could tell she was watching me. But after a while I actually heard a tiny little snore, and I found her fast asleep on the floor with her head and hand poking around the corner of the doorway. So very cute.

I instantly grabbed the camera :-)

Thursday, May 13, 2010

I haven't quite

made the handmade pledge yet, but I have made my first Etsy purchase! And I'm so excited because it's here already - talk about speedy delivery :-)

Today in my mailbox I got this:


which I bought from Pretty Tape. Yep, there's a big ol' doily stamp, some kraft ring stickers, kawaii ninja rabbit labels (!) 16 pages of cute Korean deco stickers, and.......... some lovely washi tape. I've been hanging out for some for the longest time, and now it's in my hands ready to be put on anything and everything :-)

Now I'm going to get stuck into this:


my Week in the Life album. I told myself earlier that there was no possible way I could complete this album without washi tape and ninja rabbits. Hhhmmmm, it seems I have run out of excuses :-)

I have already put them both on this:


More coming soon......

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

I'm sew so sad

That I can't get my sewing machine to work right now.
All I did was take out the needle to clean it (lots of sewing through double-sided tape on all my layouts had gummed it up a bit!), put it back in again....... and now it's not working. Hhhmmm, does anyone know anything about sewing machines? Could it have anything to do with the fact that it's got to be about 50 years old??! This sewing machine was given to me by my mother, and it was her mother's before that.

In celebration of what could be the end of my sewing machine's life, here's a layout I haven't shared with you where I put my sewing machine to really good use!


At first glance you might not notice. But all those blue and red lines that make it look like notepaper are actually all sewn on. It just started off as a plain piece of Crate Paper (the b-side from a paper in the Orbit collection). I got the idea from a little project Rubyellen did where she was writing love letters to her husband on the sewing machine. It was from a few months ago so I don't have the right link to the specific project I'm afraid, but go and visit her blog anyway. Lots of lovely stuff.


You all know how crazy I am for getting journalling onto every layout I do, so this is just taking it to the extreme :) I've journalled all about how we decided on Moodle's name, and then pretty soon after she was born she gained a nickname anyway!


All the embellishments are just fussy-cut from a piece of Sassafras Lass Sweet Marmalade paper and topped off with some SL brads. And the alphas are Cosmo Cricket.
A simple layout, but I love it so much :)

To spread the love, I'm giving the following people 2 free extra entries into the May Madness Giveaway (if they want to claim them).
 - Claire
 - Sarah Lou
 - Chloe
 - Peggy
 - Aussiescrapper
 - Blondeone
 - Tettiz
 - Anazelia
 - Karen B.
I'm giving away these extra entries to these lovely and loyal supporters of my blog for recent comments they have made. But I truly do appreciate each and every one of you - the commenters and the lurkers alike :) And of course, everyone is still free to enter as many of the giveaways as they want by following the rest of the 'rules'.

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