Setting The Table

My mother-in-law, Helen, always creates the most amazing Christmas table spreads each year. In Australia we take a very relaxed approach to Christmas, probably due to the fact for us it's in the middle of summer and could be boiling hot. Before I started dating Ben most of my Christmas lunches/dinners were BBQ's. Ben's family has European heritage though and they do a massive Christmas spread with two or three different roasts, a whole array of hot vegetables, dumplings and so on. I am in awe of the effort Helen and her family go to every year and wanted to capture that in a LO.

 

 

The papers are Kaisercraft and I was lucky enough to win then during one of Nadia Cannizzo's giveaways. I wouldn't normally use this range as it was a bit traditionals and flowerly for my liking but I have ended up loving this LO so thanks very much to Nadia. All the paper elements on the LO have been hand-cut by me. The chipboard is from Scrapmatts. I had purchased the baubles pre-painted red and the leaves pre-painted green so didn't even have to alter them other than to put some backing paper behind the baubles.

 

 

This is my final design team submission for The Lollipop Ladies as my term ends at the end of the year. The inspiration sweet for this fortnight was a gingerbread house. It made me think of food/decorations/home, hence the theme of my LO. The added challenge was Christmas which is pretty easy to incorporate. :) $10 voucher and guest DT spot are up for grabs so please stop on by and show us what you were inspired to create.

 

 

I have used the fantastic ScrapFriends Sketch Challenge #8 as my inspiration for this LO. If you are ever looking for a sketch to inspire you then this is where you need to go. Besides monthly sketch competitions there are also additional sketches uploaded and they all look amazing. I think I stayed pretty close to the design this time.

 

 

 

Finally, Frosted Designs is running a twelve days of Christmas competition and Day 6 required six strips of washi tape. Mine are a little bit hidden, but there are six in there (three are in the close up above)

 

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and best wishes for the new year!!

 

Christmas Tags

Just wanted to share a couple of quick Christmas tags I made for presents. I made these at my mum's house and she has quite a few different supplies to me, which is sometimes good and sometimes frustrating.

 

 

Above is three strips of washing tape with lots of sparklets. This is for Frosted Designs 12 days of Christmas #7 which needed seven sparkling snowflakes.

 

This one was for #2 which needed two stamps.

 

This one was for day #3 which needed three inks/mists/paints. I initially tried three mists but didn't like the way her brand dried so went over it with three different Distress inks.

I think it's safe to say tags are not my area of experience. :)

I'm on the Scrapmatts Design Team!

I'm sure that any of my regular blog readers will know just how much I love Scrapmatts chipboard. I use it on so many of my LOs. They recently had a DT call for 2013 and today I can officially announce that I have been selected as part of the team! I still can't really believe it.

 

 Scrapmatts is my favourite chipboard company because they are an Australian company; their products are innovative and well-priced; and their owners are lovely friendly people. Being part of the design team means I get early access to new release designs and also FREE chipboard in order to showcase their products. I'm totally looking forward to getting to play with all my new goodies when I get back from my holiday to America. :)


Here is the list for the test of the lovely ladies I will be designing with next year:

New Members
EVGENIA PETZER (South Africa)

HOLLY CONNORS (Australia)

SANDI SMITH (Canada)

KIM EWINS (Australia)

TANYA PRIVALOVA (Ukraine)

LINDA THOMPSON (Australia)

RENEA HARRISON (USA)

LAUREN TOMECEK (Australia) <---me font="">
VICKY VARVADOUKA (Greece)

HELEN TILBURY (South Africa)
 

Returning Design Team Members
ANGELLA PEARDON (Australia) DT Co-ordinator

JENNY GARLICK (Australia)

RENEE IVESON (Australia)

ANNE PATTERSON (Australia)

SONIA THOMASON (Australia)

SHARMAINE KRUIJVER (Australia)

 

Visit Scrapmatts



The Hats

I love scrapping Christmas photos all year round so it's only natural that I would do a whole heap of Christmas layouts in December. This was one of those photos I snapped on the fly just because my camera was next to me and I ended up loving the way the light was shinning through from the window. My journalling is about the multiple 'hat' traditions my family has for Christmas.

 

Mainly Kaisercraft papers here from a few of their different Christmas ranges as well as some brads and mini-blooms. Chipboard florishes are from Scrapmatts.

 

 

This is my DT LO for The Lollipop Ladies. The sweet inspiration this fortnight is candy canes with the added challenge of spirals. I have used a lot of red/white stripes from the candy cane and have the twine looping in spirals as well as the spiral button from Evalicious. How are you inspired by candy canes

 

 

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and our sponsor this fortnight is: Mad for Markers*

A choice of 3 of her M4M digi stamps.

I have also combined this challenge with the wonderful December challenge over at Once Upon A... Sketch. The theme for this month was 'It's December...' so as I mentioned I've journalled about Christmas traditions. Below is the sketch for this month, which I have rotated counter clockwise.

 

 

Lastly, Frosted Designs is running a twelve days of Christmas competition. I'm not sure if I will get all tweleve challenges completed but thought it would be fun to try. The challenge for day 4 was to use four different patterned papers.

Panning for Gold

I am certainly not one of those scrappers who finds it hard to scrap about themselves. I think it might be because I don't have kids yet, so there are a limited number of readily available subjects for me. This is a LO of me panning for gold at Sovereign Hill which is an open air museum in Golden Point, a suburb of Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. Sovereign Hill depicts Ballarat's first ten years after the discovery of gold there in 1851.

 

 

So this LO was created for the fifth and final Scrapping Sleuth competition over at Scrapz.biz. It was such a fun competition, I'm sad to see it end. I used their November kit for this LO and created my first ever zipper flower! This week I went with the follow five things as my guesses for the common items: 1/ Bird, 2/ Arrow, 3/ the word fun, 4/ washi tape and 5/ a die cut. The sketch for this week:

 

 

 

Frosted Designs is also running a 12 days of Christmas competition and the challenge for day one was to include a bird in your creation, so I'll enter this one over there too.

Christmas Activities

December is such a busy time of year, as I'm sure everyone is well aware. Ben and I have been busy trying to get everything ready for our trip to the United States as we leave 27th December. (Speaking of which, how do I get my hands on these magical 40% vouchers for craft supplies I hear my US friends talking about?)

 

Anyway, I thought I would share a couple of photos of what we have been getting up to during December so far as personally I love seeing all the different ways it's celebrated. First up we have the Christmas tree. Ben and I put it up on the 2nd this year and went with a purple and silver theme.

 

 

Last night we had my work Christmas party. We booked a couple of tables and this big event the Gold Coast Convention Centre was throwing. It was quite fun and good to have an excuse to get all dressed up. This is the group shot of most of the people from my office (yes, it is mainly women).

 

One of my darling husband and myself. I've re-cycled a bridesmaid dress from three years ago, so quite pleased I was still able to fit into it. How lovely is the corsage? Ben organised it as a suprise for me, he apparently even took my necklace to the florist so they could match it. :)

 

Finally, just me and some of my buddies clowning around. :)

 

I've also been attempting a photo-a-day thing via Instagram. Going left to right, top to bottom we have:

1/ The advent calendar all set-up for this year.

2/ The Christmas tree goes up.

3/ The local shopping centre Christmas tree after ten-pin bowling

4/ Some of the decorations scattered around the house.

5/ The family tradition of wrapping musk sticks to put the tree.

6/ Doing some Christmas shopping.

 

 

What have you been up to in Decemeber? Can someone make me feel better and say they haven't started their shopping yet either? :)

 

Small and Precious

Another LO of my friend's little baby, Harvey. They received some devastating news regarding his health recently so I'm thinking of making up a little album for them. This LO made me remember how much I hate using the Mr Huey's white mist - so long to dry, can't write on it and can't use rub ons over it. :(

 

 

Inspiration for this LO was the Scrapz.biz Super Sleuth competition round 4. My five common items for this week:
1/ 'Smile' - in the journalling
2/ Hexagon shape - in the white misting
3/ Mixed alpha title (3 fonts)
4/ Clouds - washi tape top left
5/ Decorative edges (either top and bottom of the page or scallops)

 

The sketch for this week was:

 

I'm also entering this into the competition over at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge. Their theme for Decemeber is 'generations'. I was all set to do a photo of myself and my grandfather but then Harvey's cutness won out. I think most people will do older generation but I went with the new generation for my photos.

Santa Visit

Who says only kids can visit Santa? :) (Apparently adults don't qualify for the free gift/lolly though) Here is a quick LO of the photo Ben and I got with Santa last year. We had been checking out the various packages available at diferent shopping centres and decided they were too expensive until we came across this Santa. They didn't sell any packages at all, just took your email address and emailed you the photo they took, plus they took a photo on your own camera if you had brought it along. I had mine in my bag anyway of course, you never know when you might need it in December. ;)

 

 

This is my design team LO for Unstampabelles who have the theme of Christmas for Decemeber. I'm sure you're probably creating Christmas themed papercraft at the moment anyway, so why not pop on over and submit it? We accept any kind of papercraft at all so long as it doesn't contain stamping. There is a great prize pack up for grabs this month too from HuggiesCrafts.

 

All items are from the Raspberry range and are completely co-ordinated:

9 x 12 x 12 papers

1 packet self-adhesive Rhinestones

1 packet self-adhesive Pearls

1 Packet of brads

1 Packet gem brads

1 packet basic brads            

2 packets assorted Ribbon, 5 x 1 metre per pack

2 packets rub on’s

2 packets alpha stickers.

 

 

My LO was also inspired by the fantastic YummyScrap palette over at Scrap Friends this month. Loading it up here though I've just noticed it looks a lot different on my laptop to the colours that were showing on my photo which was what I was working from as I created the LO. :(

 

Sweet

What is this - a LO that's not created with Kaisercraft papers? Yes it is! I purchased the November Ticklez kit from Scrapz.biz with my winnings from the Super Sleuth #2 round and it has the lovely On Trend range from Crate Paper in it. Different to my normal style but I totally loved working with it.

 

 

This was inspired by the fantastic sketch over at Scrap Friends. I play along with their sketches every month and didn't want to miss this one. I love how much detail they put in the sketch and how many layers they always have. Makes it very easy for me to create more complex pages than normal.

 

 

 I've just realised that the word over at Bird is the Word at the moment is 'Sweet' so we'll enter this over there too. Always good when you can double up entries I think. :)

Finally, I just wanted to share the current massive Christmas giveaway over at ScrapFriends. Wouldn't that make a great Christmas present to yourself?!

 

 

My First Car

I purchased my first car back in 2002 and didn't bother to take photos of it until just before I traded it in back in 2006. Yes, that means I have had these photos sitting around waiting to be scrapped for the past six years! I've written a little but about my love/hate relationship with this car on the stripey paper which can be hidden behind the photo. I loved the pop-up headlights but hated the fact it alwaysbroke down and was so expensive to service.

 

 

This LO was inspired by the current challenge over at The Lollipop Ladies. This fortnight the inspiration sweet is the yummy racing car lolly, shown below with an added challenge of stripes. I would love to see your intepretation of the theme. Are you inspired by the racing theme (I almost did a LO about Go-Karting), is it the bright colours contrasting against the white, do these lollies remind you of a kids birthday party?

 

 

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and our sponsor this fortnight is: Annabelle Stamps

 

$10 Voucher (thanks to Andrea).

 

I was also inspired by the current sketch up at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge. It's been too long since I've played over there!

 

 

Finally, the current challenge at Use Your Stuff is to use patterned paper. There's not cardstock on this LO so it qualifies. The papers are ones I've had in my stash for a couple of months now too.

 

Scrapmatts Christmas Cards

With only a month until Christmas I figured it was about time to start working on making some cards. Plus, the Scrapmatts challenge for November is to make three Christmas cards or tags. I've teamed the chipboard with different Kaisercraft Christmas paper ranges and rub-ons.

 

 

I've used different techniques on each card. The one of the left uses a name plate which I painted white and then used a rub-on along with an ornament which has some glimmermist sprayed on it. The middle one I've coloured using Twinkling H20's. The florish has liquid pearls on it and the ornaments themself have dimensional magic over the top. The final card on the right has been coloured with ink and then has UTEE over the top to give it the gloss finish. I love how easily the chipboard takes each different colouring technique.

Treking

I originally planned to scrap a mini-album of our honeymoon trip to Thailand however I haven't made any progress on it for months now so have resorted to scrapping single pages instead. We did a trek through the northern mountains in the early days of the honeymoon and it was an incredible experience.

(Removed for publication consideration)

Oh, I've just realised this could also count as a monochrome LO! Don't forget that is our current theme over at Unstampabelles this month. I would really love to see some more scrapbooking LO entries over there and you have until the 30th of November to get your entry in.

This LO was inspired by the Scrapz.biz Super Sleuth #3. (I won last week and picked up a $20 gift voucher - YAY!) This week was much harder to pick the five common items. I went with 1/ Word – 'Lazy'; 2/ Sticker/rub-on with writing; 3/ Paper scraps circle; 4/ Doily and 5/ Paint splatters. You can see most of those in the close up below and 'lazy' in in my journalling.

Here is the sketch provided for this week.  The sketches at Scrapz.biz are typically very basic and I normally struggle knowing how to expand upon this. However, I think I'm getting better and it's good to be able to compare the sketch to the three DT examples as well to see how they interpret it.

You'll notice lots of chipboard on this LO too (ferns/leaves; butterflies and scroll under title). All of the chipboard has come from my favourite manufacturer, Scrapmatts. Not only do they make fantastic designs out of good quality chipboard, they are also an Australian company and some of the loveliest people. I almost always sign up for one of there classes when I go to a craft show and their kits for those classes are jam packed with goodies. They are currently running a DT call and I'm planning on putting in an entry. You've got to be in it to win it right?

Candid Shot

I have had this photo of my sister in my stash to scrap for probably at least 6 years because I thought it was beautiful but nothing really went with the colour combo. Today I remembered the Blae & Ivy collection from Kaisercraft and set to work. :)

 

 

This was created for the Scrapz.biz Super Sleuth competition #2. This time I think the five 'clues' were stitching; the word 'surprise'; twine; spotty paper and a cluster of three buttons. You can see all my elements in the detail shot below. Though the blue spots are faint on the journalling paper they are there.

 

We also had to use this sketch:

 

 

Finally, I've used the word 'Summer' in my journalling which is one of the chosen words over at Bird is the Word. I love how easy it is to incorporate this challenge blog into my layouts and I'm not sure why I dont enter there more often.

The Big Pineapple

I am awful at scrapping chronologically! These photos were taken in 2008 during a quick escape to the Sunshine Coast. The day was overcast and stormy, that white sky is pretty realistic and not a result of photo blow out. Australia has a number of 'Big Thing' tourist attractions and the Big Pineapple is one of them. We have also driven past the Big Prawn (Ballina) and the Big Banana (Coffs Harbour) on seperate holidays but not stopped at these attractions.

 

 

The challenge for this fortnight over at The Lollipop Ladies is inspired by pineapples with an added challenge of triangles. I think my pineapple inspiration is pretty clear and I've added triangles between the two photos.

 

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and our sponsor this fortnight is: Mad for Markers*

(thanks to Sammi).

A choice of 3 of her M4M digi stamps.

Over at Use Your Stuff the theme is 'travel'. Given my photos are from a vacation I thought this would count. Both sets of orange paper and the lighter green ones are scraps I've had in my stash for ages.

Happy Travelers?

I really like this LO, though I'm not sure if I like this one AND it has a lot of journalling or if I like this one BECAUSE it has a lot of journalling. I've written about the memories this photo evokes for me, not just your basic details like most of my journalling has been recently. Photo is a bit of an older one of me and my siblings from 2006.

 

 

I went for a few more layers than normal. My favourite chipboard manufacturer, Scrapmatts, is currently having a DT call and I'm thinking of including this LO as one of my submissions so I've used a lot of their beautiful products.

 

Colour scheme has been inspired by the beautiful YummyScrap over at ScrapFriends for this month. I was originally planing on using an old pink/grey/black Kaisercraft range for this but once I started pulling out my papers I went in a totally different direction. I am LOVING yellow toned backgrounds at the moment. 

 

Sketch is from The Scrapbook Store. It was such an interesting design and different from my normal style that I just had to give it a go.

 

 

Natural Bridge

Wow, I really am scrapping a lot of photos of my mum and dad recently! Don't worry, I have different subjects in mind for the next two LOs. :) This is another page from our day exploring the national parks at Mt Tambourine. Natural Bridge is a beautiful waterfall and you can actually walk down into the cavern where the waterfalls pools. You used to be able to swim in the resulting lake but not any more. I'm thinking about going back again at night as apparently the cavern has an amazing glow worm colony living there.

 

 

This LO was inspired by the current competition over at Scrapz.biz which is Super Sleuth #1. It's quite an interesting idea for a competition: 3 DT samples are displayed at the start of the week. You have to guess which five elements are common to all three LO's and then create your own page with those elements. I'm not sure if I'm right, but I went with:
1/ 'Discover' sticker
2/ Feather
3/ White cardstock background
4/ Journal tag with journalling
5/ Banner/ pennant shape

 

ScrapFIT's Step Class #10 is to create a layered banner. The sample LO looked so great I just had to try my hand at this. I started with some calico fabric pennants, then added some washi tape, then paper pennants, then some feathers on each end and finally some bling for a finishing touch. I think that should definately cover me for a least two textures. :) I was thinking about doubling this up with their washi tape challenge too but I'm not sure if that is allowed.

Cherish

Don't you just love those happy snaps you take that work out even better than expected? This was just a quick snap of my parents while we were ten pin bowling but I love it.

 

 

The challenge over at Unstampabelles this month is monochrome. I took a bit of leniancy and incorporated a fair bit of white and black along with all the red. I took this as the perfect opportunity to use my new rolled flower die from Die-namics, they are so easy to create. The die I purchased creates two sizes and was only $13.

 

The sponsor this month is Anne of Cardmaking Online, who has very kindly offered a $25.00 gift certificate.

 

 

My sketch inspiration this month comes from Once Upon A... Sketch. I haven't played along with them since July so I thought it was definitely time to play with another of Nadia's beautiful sketches. There is no theme for the journalling this month. I have included a rub-on for my journalling in the top left, but also have 'Mum and Dad, Sept 12' under the love journal tag. You can just see it in the detail shot above. I have rotated the sketch to the left and moved the title to suit.