You Inspire Me

I loved this photo of my grandparents when I found it a couple of years ago and have been waiting for the perfect chance to scrap it every since. It was taken in 2007 at my younger brother's Debutante Ball which I didn't manage to attend. Scrapmatts chipboard butterly and fern, Lil' Red Rocket fabric flower.

This was inspired by two challenges. The first was the Punky Scraps #45 challenge just released. It was a 'get picky' challenge which I always enjoy. Here is what I had to chose from and what I actuall used:

Kat- Kraft cardstock - Nope

Marie- a photo of yourself - Nope

Kerry- 3 of something - The handmade brown flowers

Jolanda- Masking and something Red - Nope

Tamara- Not sure what this was meant to be

Cheryl W- something metal - Flower charm below the blue flower

Celina- something lucky - Nope

Misty- fabric - Blue flower and lace

Ashley- green paint - Background and chipboard

Kim- something pleated - Nope

Mandy- stitching- handmade or faux - On the lace

 I also managed to complete this by the skin of my teeth for entry into the Once Upon A...Sketch challenge. This month was to finish this line "I miss...". Tell us about someone you are missing right now and why. Your journalling can be as long or as little as you like, but we want to hear all about someone you are missing. I hid my journalling behind the photo, it pulls out from the top.  Here is a close up of the journalling when pulled out.

 

The LO is based on the wonderful sketch by Nadia which is also part of the OUAS challenge:



Canvas Gift

I don't normally do too many OTP things but on Sunday everything just aligned: I had some left over chipboard from Scrapmatts, I had this canvas and stand left over from a year ago and I wanted to make a gift for a friend who is going through a rough time.

There are some stunning examples of mini-canvas art on the internet, I was really inspired by some of them. I have kept this one pretty simple to keep the focus on the quote which related to my friend recently telling me she was going through counselling to become the person she wants to be.

Here we have a close-up of the flowers, the dark brown ones are actually singles that I joined with a brad and scrunched up while wet with gold Glimmer Mist. I was very happy with how full they ended up looking... and happy to re-discover the gold Glimmer mist. You know you have too many supplies when you start losing track of things even when they're put away.

I also wanted to showcase these cute chipboard shapes from Scrapmatts. I'm not normally a birdcage kind of girl, but they came in the extra sprue from the class and I thought it went well with the design. The photo also shows off the ribbon I put around the edge to finish it off. I'm trying to add more of these subtle touches to my work.

Craft and Sewing Show

I went to the Craft and Showing Show at Brisbane yestday with a good friend. It was such a good day browsing all the stalls and doing a couple of classes. We signed up for the last two spots in Angella Pearson's Scrapmatts class (sold out in 10 minutes!). Scrapmatts are one of my favourite chipboard companies, they have such versatile products and are very well priced. The class cost $20 and included materials for the three cards I made below plus a whole heap of extra chipboard and cardstock to make more cards at home. 

I'm not too happy with the photo because it doesn't show just how vibrant the colours of the cards really are but I couldn't get a better photo in the overcast light.

My friend is into beading, so we also signed up for a beading class. I actually did alright with the class this time and was making good progress, unlike the last time I tried this. My friend and I have an arrangement though where she gives me her kit from the scrapbooking/card making class we do and I give her the kit from the beading class oncewe're done with the class. :) Last thing I need is to start ANOTHER hobby!

I was trying to stick to a budget this time so I didn't pick up too many new purchases. I bought a couple of new pieces from Scrapmatts (I think they only sell at shows so the change to buy more is one of the reasons I go to these shows every six months!) and also got a generous little gift pack because I had RSVPed on their Ning site. I spent $2 on a couple of die-cuts which I'm thinking of using as misting masks, another $2 on some metal charms. Bargin of the show though was some hemp cord I found at a bead store. It looks just like twine (maybe a bit thiner) but rather than paying $5 for 10m because it's the 'in' thing right now, I got 12.8m in four different colours for a total of $7!

Oh, don't forget my button giveway here. Last giveway I'll be running since they get no interest. LOL

It's All About The Shoes

It's been a while since I've done a wedding page so here is another one. These wedding shoes were such a source of stress for me. I knew I wanted purple shoes to match the colour theme of the wedding but while purple shoes were in fashion the seaon before and the season after my wedding, I couldn't find them anywhere when I needed to buy them. I needed to have closed toe shoes as I had damaged my toenails playing basketball and all I could find were strappy or peep toe shoes. Finally, to make it extra hard I wear a size 11 shoe. I ended up custom ordering them from Shoes of Prey, and they are now the most expensive pair of shoes I have ever bought. The first pair were actually too big, but the company let me send them back and they rushed me through a replacement pair which arrived two days before the wedding.

This was inspired by the shoe challenge at Punky Scraps. How cool is the inspiration picture below?

I have also entered it into the Scrapz.biz Scrap Write Now challenge SWN077 which needed brads to be used as bullet points in the journalling.

Finally, the Weekend Warm-Up at ScrapFit is is to get messy and make a LO involving splattering or dripping something. 

March Giveaways!

Couple of good giveaways I wanted to share with you this month:

Lime Tree Creations are a fantastic crocheted embellishment blog. I just love the range of trims available.

Eye Candy Magic is by Sam. Whilst she no longer sells her work she still has fantastic monthly giveways, just look at the range of goodies available this month.

Lastly my own button giveaway is up and running.

Benny

It has been a while since I scrapped a picture of my darling husband all by himself so that was my task for this weekend. Once again, Ben didn't like the photo I used but I told him this is pretty much how he looks every day so I love it. :) I'm happy I finally got to use the big flower as I think I've had it in my stash for about 5 years! I also used some lovely Imaginarium Designs chipboard.

This LO was inspired by two challenges. Scrap with V has this stunning photos as there Inspiration Picture for March. I went with the large yellow/orange flower and the blue background.

I also used this wonderful sketch from Handmade by Suzanne:

Green Glade Designs Giveaway

I love fabric buttons and I recently found an Australian supplier of the components to make my own. This has results in me going button-crazy and making WAY more buttons than I am ever likely to use myself. I figured the only sensible way to reduce this supply is to have a giveaway. :) I thought I might also use it to test the waters to see if people would be interested in buying any of my hand-made embellishments.

Here are the supplies I am offering for the giveaway: 14 x 23mm buttons, 6 x 19mm buttons, 4 handmade buttons, 3 sculpy clay stars and 3 sporting ball stick pins.

How to enter:

1/ Become a follower of my blog

AND/OR

2/ Post the above picture and a link to this page on your own blog/facebook page.

3/ Leave me a comment letting me know which of the above you have done (you'll get two entries if you do both) and which item from the giveaway is your favourite.

Entries close 9pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Saturday 31March 2012. Winner announced Sunday 1 April 2012 and they will have one week to contact me with their postal address or the prize will be re-drawn.

Personal Best

The challenge over at Once Upon A ... Sketch this fortnight is to scrap about what you're good at. I'm not one of those scrappers who hates to scrap about themselves but I did struggle for a while trying to work out what I was good at. Inspiration struck when I remembered I'd been wanting to scrap my personal best at bowling for ages now. In case the journalling is a bit hard to read, I bowled 240, 223 and 182 for the night! I actually bowled this last year back on 28 Feb 2011 so it's taken me a while to get around to putting it on paper. I also haven't bowled anywhere near this well since. :(

 

(removed for publication)

 

The photo I've used with this LO wasn't actually taken on the night I bowled the PB. It was taken by my brother during one of our catch-ups. I love the angle and the lighting. Below is the sketch Nadia created. The extra pieces of paper I have sticking out on the right hand side are the 'Star of the Week' certificate and score card I kept. They can slide in and hide behind the background paper.

Holiday

I got an early start on my crafting this weekend and created this LO on Friday night. Used the Kaisercraft Merry Melodies range again because it was still out on my desk.  I think the Kaisercraft florish worked into the design perfectly. I also used a Lil' Red Rocket button, which means I only have one of those cuties left. :(

I swing between wanting to create LO's which are simply pretty and LO's which capture memories and recently I had been thinking that I should be scrapping more of the older photos I have which are currently just sitting in a shoebox.  When I came across the March challenge over at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge I thought it would be perfect to achieve this goal. The challenge is to Scrap some memories of a spring break (or another school break) that you experienced. In Australia we have a 5-6 week break over the summer/Christmas period and in 1999 my family travelled to Merimbula in NSW. There is hidden journalling behind the top photo which has some of my memories of this tip.

I also combined this LO with the ScrapFIT March Sketch Workout. The sketch just instantly inspired me. I enjoy working with simple designs like this.