Birdie ATCs

I painted up a couple more ATCs for the All-types-of-art-athon over at ATCsForAll. Australia birds are one of my favourite themes to paint and I think I've actually used the lineart for the crimson rosella previously but I had an extra copy lying around so decided to use it. It's been quite a while since I've painted anything but it wasquite fun so I might get back into it.

X-mas with Pa LO

I was looking over the inspiration LO's at Scrap Jacked recently and was again inspired by the work of Bec Miller. I'm not a very up to date scrapbooker, so there photos were from last year's Christmas but it's better late than never, right? :)

I've never done the pleated paper thing or made pattern paper flowers. The flower was a lot easier than I'd expected but the pleating was a LOT harder. Still, it's always great to try new techniques.

Below is Bec's LO that I jacked.

If you're looking for some last minute inspiration for your Christmas photos, please don't forget The Lollipop Ladies Pudding Challenge ends in 4 days! The prize this fortnight is The prize this fortnight is a $10 gift voucher to Annabelle Stamps.

1920's Lady ATC

I've been home for Christmas and mum is really into Artist Trading Cards after I introduced her to them a few years ago. The forum I used to spend a lot of time on is having an 'All-types-of-art-athon' which is basically an excuse to go craft crazy for the new few days as you can create ATCs or inchies or chunkies or anything else your heart desires. You then load them to the forum and see if anyone wants to trade with you. I'd been feeling like I wanted to get back into some hand drawn art for a while so I decided to whip up a card. The athon goes for quite a few days so I'm not sure if I'll continue with some more cards once I get home or if the scrapbooking bug will bite again when I'm back to my supplies.

Anyway, after all that rambling, here is my 1920's Lady card.

Happy Holidays

To all my readers, I wish you a safe and happy festive season. I hope you got to spend it doing exactly what you wanted to. Best wishes for the coming year!

My brother, sister and I on Boxing Day 2011.

Decorating the Christmas Trees!

2011 has definately been the year of decorating the Christmas tree for me. It started with my family Christmas tree the first weekend of Melbourne while I was down for a wedding. My sister specially went out to buy the tree so I could take part in the decorating this year. I think my brother felt left out though, he came through a couple of nights later around 4am and accidently stumbled and took out the tree. :)

We flew back to the Gold Coast and put up our own Christmas tree the following weekend. I chose a simple gold/silver theme this year, but our lights and the star are multicoloured so it still looks funky at night. Poor little tree only managed to get one present underneath it. I thought I'd picked a winner of a present in getting Ben a new wallet since his old one is getting a bit worn, but he came home and shock the present and somehow guessed right away what it was without me even letting on that was what I was thinking of getting him! :(

Finally, we're back home in Melbourne for Christmas and we got to decorate Ben's family's tree too! This is the wonderful face my husband pulled when I asked for a nice smile. :( It was a lot of fun to be a part of their family tradition this year.

Just to finish up this very photo-heavy post, I wanted to share this photo Ben and I had taken with Santa at one of the shopping centres we visited today. So many of the big ones try to make a mint from this and charge $30+ for photo packs. This centre took the photo for us on my camera for free. Now that's what I call the spirit of Christmas!

Gold Coast '98 LO

I'm spending the next week in Melbourne at my mum and dad's place and I felt like scrapbooking yesterday. This lead me to two challenges. The first is that the only photos I have done here are the ones I chose not to take with me when I moved out 5 years ago. The second is while my mum has a huge craft room, she's more into ATCs and card making so a lot of the supplies I consider staples were not available. I decided to view this as a challenge and a chance to use materials I wouldn't normally have access to.

This LO uses photos from a family holiday to the Gold Coast in 1998. Looking over the photos I was struck by two things: how badly I used to fram my photos (these weren't re-printed, they were cut from 4x6) and how little the theme parks have changed between 1998 and 2009! I have based this design on the Get Picky sketch challenge for this month.

Christmas Morning LO

Good morning readers. It is with a touch of sadness I write this entry, as it showcases my last Lollipop Ladies DT submission. My term has unfortunately come to an end and they will be looking for a new DT at the start of the year. It's a great one to try for if you're just starting out working on design teams.

The inspiration over at The Lollipop Ladies was a beautiful Christmas pudding with the added challenge of Christmas. I took inspiration from the colours and the holly cluster at the top. The photo is one of my favourites of my siblings and I, a selfie taken at breakfast last year.

I have combined this LO with the challenge over at Once Upon A... Sketch. (I've decided I love challenge blogs that let you combine challenges!) The challenge over there this month was journalling about your Christmas traditions. On this LO I've journalled about the Christmas morning routine we have. It's only been in effect since my siblings and I were old enough to have partner's Christmas functions to attend as well, but I do really enjoy getting the start the day with just the 5 of us. We have so many different Christmas traditions, like mum making her fruit salad (and always running late because of it and somehow blaming us), the relaxed BBQ dinner at Nana and Pa's house, spending Boxing Day over at Chris and Tracey's house with the annual bocce tournament and watching the cricket. It's funny how as a teen you hate these things but once I moved away and wasn't able to get home for a few Christmases you really start to miss them. Anyway, the challenge also had to be based on the sketch below. I've rotated it but otherways stayed true to the design.

Just in case I don't post anything else before then, have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Wedding Card

I ran a bit short of time for my submission to The Lollipop Ladies this fortnight (I thought it was due next weekend!) so had to settle for a card rather than a LO. The inspiration was milk bottles with the added challenge of mostly white. Given I recently attended a friend's wedding I couldn't go past whipping up a wedding card.

Now I know it's hard to find time to make cards/LOs in the lead up to Christmas but I hope you are expired but the criteria this fortnight. The prize this fortnight is from Mad for Markers (thanks to Sammi).

Lil Red Rocket Giveaway

Lil Red Rocket is having a giveaway! I was lucky enough to get in quick and purchase some of their buttons during the last sale. They are good quality so I highly recommend their products. This draw ends Sunday 11/12/11. They will be having a boy themed give-away after that.

Weekly Weigh-in: Week 3

In terms of enjoyment, this has been a good week. In terms of dieting/exercise, this has not been a good week. Combining the work Christmas party wine tour last Saturday with a trip to Melbourne for a friend's wedding this weekend and associated catch ups with family has resulted ina massive jump in my weight. This probably wasn't helped by the fact I completed the weight session at the gym on Sunday but followed it up with a 5km run on Monday and couldn't walk for the next 3 days due to muscle pains. I think I need to ease my way back into it a bit more.

A friend at work has suggested we train to compete in the Gold Coast half-marathon mid next year. I've only ever taken part in school fun-runs but agreed anyway. There is a training plan provided so I'll start on that and hope having a set cardio routine helps with the weight loss. I might look at adding weights in the new year.

Week 3
Weigh-in: 75.2kg
Progress since last week: +1.7kg
Overall progress: +0.9kg
Fitness goal: 3 x 40 minute runs
Food goal: better effort at healthy snacking at home.

Also, please don't forget this week's Lollypop Ladies challenge: toffee apples and acetate. Entries close on Tuesday.

Christmas ATCs

Wow, how long has it been since I last did some Artist Trading Cards? Mum was hosting a 'Christmas' swap with the critera being NOT hand-drawn or painted cards. I decided to get back into the swing of it considering how many different scrapbooking paper ranges and embellishments I have with a Christmas theme. It was a challenge to ge thte design principles happening again.

Sorry for the bad scan, I had to do it in a rush before I flew to Melbourne to give them to mum.



Weekly Weigh-In: Week 2

I'm squeezing in the weigh-in early this weekend because I have my work Christmas party starting at 10.30am. We're doing a wine tour in an area that also specialises in fudge and cheese, so I think my weight may go up by the end of it. :) I was doing really well with my goals for last week for the first two days: I went to the gym for 5km runs on both Monday and Tuesday and only snacked on 5 Malteasers at work. Wednesday and Thursday I didn't get to the gym because I start work at 8am (I normally go to the gym around 6am) but I did play centre for netball rather than goal keeper so lots more running. It all came crashing down on Friday though. I only went to the gym for 20 minutes on the cross-trainer as the running had been giving my trouble with my calves. We had an 'offline day' at work, which is esentially a planning/catch-up on work day but they always involve a lot of sugary snacks and take-away for lunch.

Overall I did make some progress and lost 0.8kg which is encouraging. I'm also keeping track of measurements for my waist, butt, thighs and arms and it appears I lost all of that from my thighs so my goal now is to spread that loss around a bit more. I'm hoping if I go back to adding in some weight work at the gym that will help. I'm also going to focus on eating healthier at home. It's previously been common for me to come home from work and have a handful of chocolate biscuits and some ice cream before dinner. This week I've picked up extra fresh fruit and some yoghurt.

Week 2
Weigh-in: 73.7kg
Progress since last week: -0.8kg
Overall progress: -0.8kg
Fitness goal: Continue with 3 gym sessions, one to include a weights session.
Food goal: healthy snacking at home.

We are the Apples of his Eye

This photo is one I've been meaning to scrap for a while now, because I don't get too many ones of most of my family all together anymore. It was taken after we had gone out for breakfast and bowling for Father's Day last year. Not a bad effort for a self-timer effort. :)

The background was fun, I love getting to mess with paint and I use really bubble wrap rather than the Kaisercraft stamp (though I'm starting to wonder if the stamp would be easier). The cute button down the bottom is from Lil' Red Rocket, the two flowers are from Pretty Paper Petals (so upset this store closed, I loved their stuff).

This is also my entry for The Lollipop Ladies DT. This fortnight we were inspired by toffee apples. I went with the green/red/brown/white colour scheme and used a lot of circles in my LO.

The added challenge was to use acetate. I've use a little piece for an embelishment, as you can see in the close-up below.

You can add your entry any time in the next two weeks to be in the running for a $10 gift voucher to Annabelle Stamps.

Weekend Weigh-in

In the lead up to to my wedding I was going to the gym quite a bit because I wanted to look my best on the big day. I started 2011 weighing around 71kg (I'm 175cm, just so you can put it into perspective). For the last month or two before my wedding on the first of May I was going to the gym 5-6 times a week, plus playing basketball and netball as well. This resulted in me getting down to 68.5kg and looking like the photo below which was taken whilst on honeymoon. Would you look at those abs?! I had totally forgotten I had them. :)

In the 6.5 months since the wedding I have not been to the gym once and netball attendance has become sporadic. I've also started snacking on a whole lot of junk. As a result, my weight has soared to 74.5kg which is the heaviest I've even been (I managed to gain 1kg just this past week!). I've decided it's time to take action and get my butt back into shape. I work best with some kind of accountability and right now I don't have the funds to pay a personal trainer to provide that so I'm going to detail my fitness goals for the week, and hopefully my weight loss progress, here. If I can work up the courage to get back into my bikini I might add some 'in-progress' photos too.

Week 1

Weigh-in: 74.5kg

Progress since last week: 0kg

Overall progress: 0kg

Goal: attend 3 gym sessions

Food: no snacking at work

Unleashed LO

My husband is down in Melbourne this weekend for his best mate's bucks party so I've been left to my own devices since Wednesday night. I decided to fill in some of the time by attending a scrapbooking class at my LSS. It's been AGES since I've done a class. The last couple of times I've had the time I haven't liked the pages that were due to be taught. Anyway, I couldn't go past this fantastic design so I decided to sign up and do another page of Ben's lovely doggie Bonnie.

Class was by Lynda of Addicted to Scrap, who now teaches at The Stampers Hut in Ashmore, QLD. Papers are by imaginessence.

Giveaway Winner

So my blog giveaway ended over the weekend and I only had two entries. :( The winner was Toni Cartwright, with the runner up being Crafterkhush. If you could both get in touch with me by email at loz_ritchie @ hotmail.com and let me know your addresses, I'll get the prizes out ASAP.

You Make Me Happy LO

It's been a while since I've worked with a palette of such mixed and vibrant colours, but a couple of the challenge for this month called for just this. I had a great time using up some of my left-over paperscraps making the background on this LO. The banner is differing fabrics and was such a pain! The big orange flower is by Pretty Paper Petals, the green button by Lil' Red Rocket and the other two buttons by Ronnie Doll.

The first and primary challenge I made this LO for is The Lollipop Ladies blog. Inspiration this fortnight is sour gummi worms with the added challenge of sparkles. The prize this fortnight is from Mad for Markers.

The colours of the gummi worms also tied in nicely with the Get Picky inspiration challenge #13. This challenge has the addition of having to use fabric, which can be found in both the banner and the flower.

Lastly, I used the sketch at Handmade by Suzanne as my inspiration.

Young Crafters Unite Blog Hop

As you probably already know, since I'm assuming this is why you're here, Young Crafters Unite is having another blog hop. You should have come from Jessica's blog, Country Scrap.

The current challenge for this month is to create a masculine themed card. I thought I'd whip something up using some of the scraps I had from the Blue Awning range. The chipboard is from Scrapmatts and the saying is from Kaisercraft.

 

While I've hopefully got some new visitors to my blog I thought I'd also take a chance to promote my blog giveaway, which is ending this weekend. Full details can be found here.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again. If you're following the blog hop you should be popping of to Scrapping and Life by Alanna. It's a blog well worth checking out, she's a lovely lady and does beautiful work.

Byron Bay Lighthouse LO

If it wasn't for the last minute I don't think I'd every get anything done! :) Here is one last entry for an October challenge, this time for Scrapbook Savvy's October Sketch challenge. Even though the sketch itself is pretty simple, the design really appealed to me for some reason. I again went with a painted background, so I'm now two from two when doing LO's about Byron, I think it might be the hippie-town influence. The adorable chipboard is from Scrapmatts, I picked it up at the craft fair last week. The details of Ben's proposal are included on the blue tag hidden behind the photo.

Here is the sketch. I used it more as a guide than something to follow exactly. The LO also had to have a decorative edge, which allowed me to play with my new Martha Stewart punch on the brown cardstock.

Treasured Moments LO

There's a brand new challenge up at The Lollipop Ladies so I can reveal my DT submission for this fortnight. The inspiration this fortnight is chocolate spiders with an added challenge of thread. Chocolate spiders are normally made with peanut butter which I'm allergic to and I'm none too fond of regular spiders so I was a bit stuck on this one. I decided to go with a chocolate/brown colour scheme instead and used another photo from my wedding.

The prize this fortnight is a $10 gift voucher to Annabelle Stamps. We haven't been getting too many entries recently so you'll be in with a good chance if you submit an entry. :)

Don't forget I'm having a blog giveaway with the prize pack below up for grabs. All you need to do to enter is spread the word about the giveaway and post a comment on this blog post. Entries close 6 November!

21 - Stuck?! Entry

I had some friends over for a crop last night and started working on this LO. I now understand why people don't get too many pages done while on crops, we spent more time talking/laughing/eating pizza than crafting! :) Anyway, I decided to finish it up today. It seems to be missing something and Ben thinks it's too plain as well but I can't figure our what else to add. Maybe some paint splaters?

 

 

Anyway, the photos are of my brother, celebrating his 21st birthday. He's the troublesome one in our family but he has a good heart, I think it's just taking him a little longer to mature than for my sister and I. Papers for the LO are from a mix of manufacturers. This is also my entry for the Stuck?! October 15th challenge. Here is the sketch I had to work from:

Edited 31.10.11: I took another crack at it and added some more details, such as the banner to the top right, outlined the numbers and added some bling to the big patterned paper circle. I think it looks a lot more complete now.

 

Thanks for looking at my many blog posts today! It's been a very busy weekend for me, I also completed my DT entry for The Lollipop Ladies. Sneak peak is below. Don't forget the current challenge with the Boogey men lollipops for inspiration is still open, I'd love to see some more LO entries.

Brisbane Craft & Quilt Fair

I went to the Brisbane Craft & Quilt Fair yesterday with two of my friends. They are both more into beading than scrapbooking so we ended up having to stop at almost every stall there! :) We signed up to do two classes, the first was a beading/wire work class to make a bracelet and the other was to make a wish bear. It's fun to try out new hobbies at these expo's.

I was able to complete the whole bracelet during the class. We had to make the wire beads from a length of wire, so that was a cool thing to learn. We only had time to complete this little heart from the bear kit. 

I finally got the depth of field thing to work in this photo! :)

This is what the bears will eventually look like if I get around the completing the kit. It's from Krazy Kreations.

I also managed to pick up some great new products at the fair. I got that Martha Stewart corner punch set for $30, looking forward to a chance to use it. I also finally caved in and purchased some Liquid Pearls. If anyone has some tips for how to use these please share them. And of course I had to pick up some new Scrapmatts chipboard!