Remember 2011 - Mission 7

After the dramas of my last LO, I'm happy to report that I actually LOVE this one! A lot of the challenge blogs have been setting topics of either looking back at 2011 or looking forward to 2012 this month. I was hesitant to do one of these style LO's but recently remembered I enjoyed doing a re-cap for 2009 (completed in 2011 but better late than never I guess) so I decided to give it a go. 2011 really was a big year for me, so I've only been able to include details of the major highlights. There are 5 photos in the pocket and each one has some extra journalling on the back.

For those who like to be able to read journalling, here is what I've written:

I know a lot of people who were happy to see the end of 2011 but for me it was a pretty great year. Health: After being diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010, mum was able to stop chemo by 2011 and appears on the road to recovery. Personally, I was the fittest I’ve even been prior to my wedding but also the heaviest I’ve even been by the end of the year. Career: I started my PO2 permanent position on 3.1.11 and secured a PO3 permanent position by the end of the year, I was also the Court Advisory and Prosecutions officer for Burleigh. Scrapbooking: I started having friends over for crop sessions. I landed a spot on my first Design Team, The Lollypop Ladies. I had my first LO accepted for publication, due out in 2012. I was the most successful exhibitor in Scrapbooking at the Gold Coast Show. Activities: Ben and I spent a day kayaking to South Stradbroke Island in March. I rode Puffing Billing (in April) and went to Werribee Open Range Zoo (in December) with my mum and dad. Ben became a Gold Coast Suns member and we went to six home games together. I continued to play basketball and ten-pin bowling and started playing indoor netball with some girls from work. Wedding: I married the love of my life on 1st May. I had two hen’s parties (one on the Gold Coast and one in Melbourne). We went to Thailand for our honeymoon, which is somewhere I’ve always wanted to travel to and was my first overseas holiday. I can’t wait to see what 2012 will bring!

This one was designed for entry into a few different competitions. Firstly, Once Upon A... Sketch had their journalling criteria as "Hello 2012 or Goodbye 2011".  They were the real inspiration behind me finally completing this LO. I love the style that most of the DT and entries have for this challenge blog, they are all so detailed and full of layers. I always find myself trying the mimic that style with my entries. Of course, I also love the big focus on journalling and think I definately qualified this time. :) You need to combine the journalling criteria with Nadia's lovely sketch below: 

Second challenge entry is an easy one. Bird is the Word's chosen word for this fortnight was 'Remember', which I've used as part of my title. I've never played along at this blog before but a lot of the people I watch do so I thought it was time to try it out.

Finally, this is my last entry into the Scrapz.biz 2012 Biggest Loser competition. This was for Mission 7 which focused on Punches, Dies & Embossing Folders. Given I only have 7 punches and no dies or embossing folders it didn't take me long to tidy my collection. :) The challenge was to use those items to create your own embellishments. I've used my scalloped circle punch to create the paper pattern flowers. I've also used all four of my edge punches.

Biggest Loser 2012 Completion - 8/14!

1. Your Desk - completed.

2. Cardstock - completed.
3. Patterned Paper 1 - completed.
4. Patterned Paper 2 - completed.
5. Scraps - completed.
6. Basic Tools
7. Punches, Dies & Embossing Folders - completed.
8. Stamps, Ink Pads & Embossing Powders
9. Alphas
10. Chipboard
11. Rub-ons, Stickers and Journal Cards - completed.
12. Embellishments
13. Buttons - completed.
14. Ribbons

Greeting Cards - Mission 11

Mission 11 of Scrapz.biz Biggest Loser 2012 was focused on rub-ons, stickers and journal cards. I have a small collection of each of these and they really do need a good sorting through as I think I will be throwing some of these out simply because I can't see me ever using them. So far I'm at the stage where everything is piled on my desk though. :) The challenge was create a card or two using a bingo / journaling card, at least one sticker/ rub-on from your stash

This is an extra card I created (which I actually did first), but upon reviewing the critera I realised it didn't fit at all! :) Loving the Lil' Red Rocket journal spots at the moment, bit sad there weren't any availabale in the latest sale.

Family Portrait - Mission 13

Do you ever have one of those LO's that just doesn't work for you? This was one of them! I've battled with this LO for three days and am now admitting defeat. I wanted to scrap this family portrait from the early 1990's but just couldn't decide what colours to go with. At least the photo itself kept making me laugh while I struggled. I honestly have no idea whether we had tried to dress up for this or if we had just wandered into the studio during a normal shopping trip. I'm the one in the purple jacket in case anyone was wondering.

Anyway, this LO was created for the Show Us Your Stuff January sketch challenge. I'm not sure what I was going for with the purple ribbon flowers but they are my hand-made embellishment.

This LO is also my entry to Mission 13 of the Scrapz.biz 2012 Biggest Loser comp. Don't worry, entries have to be in by Jan 30th so you'll stop seeing entries for this comp soon enough. :) This mission was focused on buttons. I already keep my buttons nicely stored in by colour in zip-lock bags so no extra organisation was needed. The challenge was to get creative and do something a little different with your buttons on a layout. As you can see, I've decided to use mine as a frame.

Biggest Loser 2012 Progress

1. Your Desk - completed.
2. Cardstock - completed.
3. Patterned Paper 1 - completed.
4. Patterned Paper 2 - completed.
5. Scraps - completed.
6. Basic Tools
7. Punches, Dies & Embossing Folders
8. Stamps, Ink Pads & Embossing Powders
9. Alphas
10. Chipboard
11. Rub-ons
12. Embellishments
13. Buttons - completed.
14. Ribbons

Charms Creations Giveaway

Charm's Creations are a cute little embellishment range and they are promoting their upcoming Feb 3 sale with a giveaway. I really want a chance to win one of their new Charm's Creatures (the little blue guy in the image)! I also had a chance to check out their sneaks album recently and it's got a lot of bright funky designs.

THE PRIZE:

1 Charms Creature - worth $15 {your choice of colour}

2 Lovely Lollipop Packs - worth $9 {your choice of colours}

2 Heavenly Hearts - worth $6 {your choice of colours}

2 Super Stars - worth $7 {your choice of colours}

Including postage the total of the prize is over $40!!! {43.60}

Kisses - Mission 5

Another LO using a wonderful pre-wedding photo by Daniel Sheehan Photographers.  I seem to be going through a patch of making just 'pretty' LO's, rather than ones which are containing meaningful journalling.

 

This LO is an entry to two challenges. It was created for Mission 5 of the Scrapz.biz 2012 Biggest Loser challenge. Mission 5 focused on tidying up paper scraps and the challenge was to create a layout entirely from your scraps and the page must have a banner. I made my mum an album for her 50th birthday back in 2010 using the Pennyroyale range from Kaisercraft so I still have heaps of scraps left over. To prove even the large background paper was made from scraps I took a photo of the back to show how I pieced it together from scraps of 2 pages of the same pattern I had left over.

I have also made this one as an entry for Scrap Jacked. I love scraplifting LO's from this site, it's such a great way to experiment with different styles and techniques to what I normally use. The last two times I've played I used Bec's LO, today I went to Kylie Symons' beautiful LO as seen below.

D'oh! As I went to enter this LO at Scrap Jacked I discovered they need to be exclusive creations. Oh well, I'm very happy with the LO I created and I think that's better than possibly winning prizes anyway. :)

Lil' Red Rocket Sale

Lil' Red Rocket is having a sale right now! They produce limited quantity handmade embellishments. I purchased some in their last sale and found them to be very good quality. If you're looking for some cute little buttons in particular you need to stop by, I think the prices are very reasonable.

Here is what I've ordered from this sale:

All images remain copyrighted to Lil Red Rocket.

I can't wait to start using these in my LOs. :)

Merry Christmas LO - Mission 3

So recently I think I've been a bit depressed in that I'm coming home from work and spending 4 hours on the computer doing nothing really before heading straight to bed. Weekends were spent almost entirely on the computer and housework was piling up. I decided I need to be pro-active to change this and decided getting back into my scrapping was a good way to go. This weekend I've managed to create TWO layouts and also cleaned almost the entire house and put away the last months worth of clean clothes. Hopefully I can keep this up and get the motivation to get back into the gym as well.

On to the information about this LO. It's another one for Scrapz.biz Biggest Loser 2012, mission 3 this time. The clean up part of mission 3 was to sort out your patterned paper into 'keep' and 'give-away' piles. I couldn't bear the thought of giving away any of my paper so I skipped the clean up stage, despite really needing to put some new purchases away, and went straight to the scrapping. :) This was originally going to be for Mission 5, which is to create a LO entirely of scrap paper, but as I made the background I realised it was looking a lot like the Unleased LO I'm previously made in a class so I decided to make it my Mission 3 submission instead. Criteria for Mission 3 was to scraplift a LO of your own and use a minimum 5 patterned papers. I've used a range of Kaisercraft Christmas papers as I have a number of these from multiple years. I love the photo of my brother and sister and I, taken by myself this year.

Biggest Loser 2012 Progress
1. Your Desk - completed.
2. Cardstock - completed.
3. Patterned Paper 1 - completed.
4. Patterned Paper 2 - completed.
5. Scraps
6. Basic Tools
7. Punches, Dies & Embossing Folders
8. Stamps, Ink Pads & Embossing Powders
9. Alphas
10. Chipboard
11. Rub-ons
12. Embellishments
13. Buttons
14. Ribbons

Engagement Party LO - Mission 2

This LO has been a major headache for me. To start with, I decided to use one of the new Kaisercard cardstocks I purchased yesterday but I didn't notice when I bought it that this one had already warped. Given I then misted the background and put acrylic paint over it it's now VERY warped. It's based on a lovely sketch from Scrapz.biz but for some reason it just didn't come together for me. :( Anyway, the photos are some more from my engagement party in September 2009. Top photo is with my brother and sister, middle is the cake and bottom two are with my grandparents and Ben's grandma.

This was created for the Scrapz.biz Biggest Loser Mission 2. The focus of this mission was cardstock. I don't keep too much cardstock. I store it in two pockets of my accordian paper storage folder, ordered by colour gradient and put new purchases away quickly so I didn't need to re-organise it. The second part of the mission was to create a LO using cardstock as the base for your layout using the following sketch by Nati. Since I normally use cardstock as my base I thought this one would be easy.

I also combined the sketch with the latest challenge from Punky Scraps. I've been watching Punky Scraps for quite a while but it seems I've never managed to get around to creating a entry. This is for Challenge 39, which was to pick at least 3 suggestions from the following list by the DT:

Kerry: Since it is the month of fresh and shiny new starts I'll choose something shiny

Cheryl: in the same vein as kerry, since you might wish to turn over a new leaf in the new year, let's have something to do with books
Misty: stenciling or masking
Jolanda: Use some charms
Ashley: have some negative space
Celina: Use silver or gold
Marie: Use Stickles
Kat: bubble wrap

There is a whole heap of shiny things on this LO (title alphas, glimmer mist, star). I used some hand-cut masks for misting the stars in the background, they only show up in the light though since I misted blue-gold on the blue background and it dried lighter than I expected. There is some negative space in the top right of the page. There is gold throughout the LO. I've use red Stickles to highlight the emblishments and finally bubble wrap for the background.

Enjoy the Moment - Mission 4

Here is another completed challenge for Scrapz.biz Biggest Loser Competition. This one is for Mission 4- Patterned Paper 2. The tidy-up part of this mission was to sort out the patterned paper you had decided to keep. I already keep my paper pretty organised, with the older stuff sorted by colour and the newerstuff sorted by manufacturer. The challenge here was to scrap a layout using 4 different patterned papers to create a patchwork background using the below sketch of Sheree's as an inspiration.

I again managed to use paper scraps for the circles. I decided to distress to cover up how badly I hand cut them. :) The butterfly is from a $2 shop and the wonderful time quote is from Lil' Red Rocket. Here is the sketch we had to work from:

My Scrapz.Biz Biggest Loser Progress:

1. Your Desk - completed.
2. Cardstock
3. Patterned Paper 1
4. Patterned Paper 2 - completed
5. Scraps
6. Basic Tools
7. Punches, Dies & Embossing Folders
8. Stamps, Ink Pads & Embossing Powders
9. Alphas
10. Chipboard
11. Rub-ons
12. Embellishments
13. Buttons
14. Ribbons

Sydney Getaway

My husband, Ben, turns 30 this Wednesday. He was adamant he did not want a party to celebrate so I suggested a quick getaway instead as I thought it was a milestone worth celebrating. At the very last minute he agreed and chose Sydney, NSW as his destination. We stayed at the Sir Stamford on Circular Quay and enjoyed a lovely three days wandering around the harbour.

This is the view of the Sydney Harbour Bridge from the Botanic Gardens right near our hotel. I was playing with camera angles and the self-timer for this one.

Another self-timer photo, I've edited this one in Picassa.

As we walked around The Rocks we actually ended up walking under the Bridge. I liked the angles of this shot.

I have so many different shots of the Opera House from this trip. I became obsessed with the ferry boats they use from transport and often tried to capture them in my photos.

The Bridge looked amazing lit up at night. I've taken this photo after attending La Soirée at the Opera House, which was an incredible performance. 

We hopped on a ferry to get from Circular Quay to Darling Harbour on the last day of our trip due to my fasination with them. I managed to not get seasick so I think it was a success! The original photo was a bit washed out so I played with it in Picassa too.

Scrapz Biggest Loser 2012 - Mission 1

I had heard of the Scrapz Biggest Loser Competition last year but didn't have a chance to participate. This year however my scrap room is getting quite out of control to the point where I'm putting off scrapping because I don't want to clean it up first. I decided that meant it was time to join up and clean up.

The first mission went live today and was fairly simple: clear your desk. Put everything that doesn't belong on your desk in its rightful place. Below you can see how my desk started the process (and perhaps understand why I was putting off cleaning up).

The second part of today's challenge was to do a quick LO based on this sketch:

I was all set to do a LO using another one of my wedding photos but then I realised I've been doing a lot of those and wanted a change. I found this picture of me and my pet cat, Artemis, who still lives with my mum and dad in Melbourne and decided it would be perfect. I couldn't resist funky-ing up the background a bit with some acrylic paint and adding some bling. The kitty chipboard is from Scrapmatts.com. The paper's are all REALLY old ones I've had sitting around so it looks like I'm using up my stash already. :) 

The most amazing part of this challenge is the fact that I actually cleaned up my desk again after completing the LO! See:

This year's comp will start on January 8 and will run until January 21. Every day for the next fortnight, Scrapz.biz will guide you through a step-by-step overhaul of your scrapping gear and give you a challenge to use up some of your old stash.

1. Your Desk - completed.

2. Cardstock

3. Patterned Paper 1

4. Patterned Paper 2

5. Scraps

6. Basic Tools

7. Punches, Dies & Embossing Folders

8. Stamps, Ink Pads & Embossing Powders

9. Alphas

10. Chipboard

11. Rub-ons

12. Embellishments

13. Buttons

14. Ribbons

Whilst I think I'm generally pretty organised I can surely use a hand in some of these areas, plus it's always good to go through your stash on a regular basis. You never know what you might re-discover. :)