Lifetime of Memories

It's finally my turn to reveal my LO as guest DT for The Lollipop Ladies Challenge #46 - Turkish Delight. The photos are of my husband's maternal grandparents on their wedding day. I came across them when my mother-in-law was compiling a photo montage for her father's funeral so this LO is bittersweet. I've held on to the photos for about a year, waiting to get just the right products. Lots of Imaginarium Designs chipboard on this one, plus a Charms Creation heart and Kaisercraft fabric flower.

The Lollipop Ladies challenge this fortnight is inspired by Turkish Delight with an added challenge of squares. I only managed to go with rectangles but stuck with a white and pink colour scheme. Entries close in 5 days and you could win 3 digi stamps from Mad for Markers.

This LO was inspired by the wonderful sketch over at Sketches with a Twist. I have rotated the sketch 90 degrees clockwise but kept most of the elements. The twist was to use stitching. I have sewn down the lace and middle paper strip, plus there is the stitching from the Charm's Creation heavenly heart.

My 28th Birthday

Nothing crafty to show from last weekend but that's because I had my family fly up from Melbourne to celebrate my 28th birthday. Mum and Dad come up on Wednesday and we went to the Asutralian Outback Spectacular. It was quite an entertaining show and the meal is pretty good.

I had taken some time off work to spend with them so we all went bowling on the Friday after enjoying high tea at Royal Pines.

Unfortunately, Ben's brother scheduled his engagement party that weekend in Melbourne so he flew down while my brother, sister and her partner flew up to spend the weekend with me. We went to the football as I'm a pretty big Gold Coast Suns supported. They're a hard team to follow though as the stadium was celebrating it's 1 year birthday and they are still yet to get a win there. :(

I managed to talk my family into posing for some old time photos. I thought the serious one matched the theme but the smiling one is much more suited to our family.

We spent the last day just enjoying the beach and great Gold Coast weather. You can tell I'm the local because I'm all rugged up and complaining it's too chilly out of the sun. :) I think I ended up getting a little bit sunburnt on my nose.

Anyway, it was a great way to celebrate my birthday. Now I just need some time to recover from such an action packed weekend before the next one. Hopefully I'll get some crafting done then.

The Lollipop Ladies Challenge #46 - Turkish Delight

The Lollipop Ladies latest challenge has gone live. This fortnight our challenge is based on those yummy gooey cubes that are Turkish Delight!

With the additional challenge of Squares.

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and our sponsor this fortnight is: Mad for Markers*. Sammi has increased the value of her sponsorship to a choice of 3 of her digi stamps.

* Prize will only be offered if 7 or more entries partake in the challenge.

My DT LO doesn't go live until next Wednesday, but here is a sneak peak featuring Imaginarium Designs chpboard and a Charm's Creation heart:

Don't forget the competition is open to any form of papercraft and the theme can be widely interpreted.

Jet X

It's another LO featuring my sister and her partner. They can up to the Sunshine Coast for a wedding in 2010 and drove down to spend two days with me and Ben. We've done most of the tourist attractions on the Gold Coast now so for some reason I agreed to go on an exteme jetboat ride with them despite knowing I get sea sick. We made it back to land just in time!

I loved the bold red/white contrast in this picture. This one was created for the Kaisercraft May Saturday Sketch #1. I have used their Lovestruck paper range, which as you can see is easily adaptable to non-romantic LO's as well. I really like the bold colours and intricate patterns in this range. I've just tried to research it and it looks like this range may have been released in 2009! :O

The sketch called for some strips of paper with journalling on top but I decided it was finally time to try the paper rolls technique. I think it looks quite effective and Ben really liked the effect. I've learnt you need to be careful what kind of paper you use though. The yellow is by another company and is a bit thicker so it didn't hold it's shape as well.

Below is the May #1 Kaisercraft sketch I had to work from. You also have to make sure 80% of the work is Kaisercraft products. I've used their cardstock, papers, pearls, rhinestone and fabric flower. Alphas are American Crafts and doilies are from The Chip Chop Shop.

Charms Creations Blog Hop

There are so many great blog hops happening at moment and I've just found out another one is about to start next week! Charms Creations have decided to run a blog hop starting Friday 25 May 2012 in the lead up to their next sale on 1 June 2012.

You've probably seen some of Charm's work around the net recently, from her lovely lollipops which started it all to the heavenly hearts or her latest addition the super star. She also does wonderful runners or the cutest Charm's Critters.

I recently purchased two stars and a heart at her last sale. I used one star in my recent Laser Tag LO below. I've also used the heart in my Lollipop Ladies guest DT LO for later this month, so you'll have to wait to see that one. :) 

Christmas Crazy

It's finally my turn to reveal my LO for The Lollipop Ladies this fortnight! I love Christmas and it's one of the few times I get to see my family so I always take lots of photos. This LO features my sister and her partner, Leeham. Papers are a mix of Kaisercraft Christmas ranges, mainly from back in 2010 I think. The photos are from 2010 as well so I thought they suited.

The inspiration for this fortnight is the freckles below with the added challenge of spots. There are still five days to enter this challenge and the blog accepts very wide interpretations of the challenge. It's open to all forms of papercraft so you can create cards, LO's, OTP items etc. Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and the sponsor for the $10 gift voucher this fortnight is: Annabelle Stamps.

I used this great sketch from Scrap With V for this LO as well. It had such a great design that I didn't really have to change it much at all. The main circle looked a bit plain originally, so I added the Scrapmatts chipboard and Kaisercraft pearls and I think it finished off the LO perfectly.

Die Cutting Machine Recommendations?

I have been considering getting a die-cutting/embossing machine for a while now and I'm hopping that some of my readers will be able to help me. I'm sure you have experience with a variety of different brands so if you have a few moments would you mind sharing your thoughts on whether they are a worthwhile purchase or not? Which brand would you recommend and why? Also, I know that some brands of dies can only be used with certain machines. Is there a general guide anywhere that lists compatibilities?

Any assistance is greatly appreciated. :)

Moment of Happiness

I figured while I'm still going through an 'exploring new styles' phase of my scrapbooking I should pop over the Scrap Jacked and see if any of the designs there captured my imagination this month. I find this site invaluable when I want to try something new without as much fear about the end result because you have some idea of what the finished design should look like. For this LO I was inspired by Mandy's wonderful LO.

 

The background is a mixture of purple Glimmermist and green Twinkling H2O's. The green panels are rubber stamped with Versacolor ink and green Twinkling H2O's. The rubons are all Basic Grey. In real life the whole page has a shimmer to it which is quite nice. For the title I was inspired by Angela's recent work in which she used a quote as her title. My quote reads "This very moment is a seed from which the future of tomorrow's happiness grows". I thought it was appropriate given the photo was taken on the day of my wedding.

Above LO was my inspiration, created by Mandy.

Lollipop Ladies Reveal Freckles

The Lollipop Ladies have just revealed their inspiration picture for challenge #45 which is the freckles below. The added challenge was to use spots. I was part of the design team for this challenge blog late last year and they have invited me back to be a guest DT member for May.

The Lollipop Ladies is open to all papercrafters so feel free to enter a LO or a card or an off the page project. My reveal doesn't go live until next Wednesday, but here is a sneak peak of the LO. I hope it inspires you to create an entry.

Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and the sponsor for the $10 gift voucher this fortnight is: Annabelle Stamps.

 

Laser Tag

I hardly believe it myself, but I manager to create TWO LO's yesterday. I didn't finish this one until just before midnight so thought I'd wait until this morning to share it. After doing a couple of serious ones recently I wanted to do something silly and crazy. I've had these photos since November 2010 and picked up this great Bo-Bunny paper when it first came out with the intention of using it with these photos but it never happened for some reason.

I have succumbed and purchased some Charm's Creations (two stars and one heart which I've used on one of the guest DT LO's). These colours of this star just seemed to match perfectly. The robot die-cut was a gift in an embellishment swap I took part in but there's no name on the back. I am loving these red vinyl thickers at the moment! The journalling is on vellum because I didn't want to cover up the light blue paper. The brads holding it down actually have little stars printed on them so they match perfectly. :)

This LO was created for the Stuck?! sketches May 1st challenge. It's been ages since I've played at Stuck. I rotated the sketch to the right to better fit my photos.

Anyway, my holidays end today and I'll be back to full-time work from tomorrow so I expect my craft productivity to significantly reduce again. It's been so much fun being able to sit down a create every day and I think I can really see the benefits in my LO's. I've also really enjoyed being able to comment on a lot more blogs and meet a whole heap of new people. Big hello and thanks to all the new followers and comments I've gained in the past two weeks. :)

Smile

So this is actually my third LO for this weekend but the other two were created for The Lollipop Ladies as they have asked me to come back as a guest designer for May so you'll have to wait until later on the month to see those. On to the info about this layout, your eyes are not decieving you, I actually have purchased and scrapped with a new release paper range! The beautiful purple paper and the flower paper is from Basic Grey's Plumeria range and the yellow is from their PB&J range. I originally purchased the purple paper for the orange octagon print on the reverse but it didn't suit my LO in the end. There is some Kaisercraft paper and rubons too because my work just wouldn't be complete without them. Chipboard birdcage is from Kaisercraft, beautiful florish is from Imaginarium Designs (I'm slowly working my way through the incredible prize pack they sent me a few months ago).

I think I'm slowly getting the hang of these busy cluster designs. Basically, I just pull out everything in my stash that colour co-ordinates and then try to stick it down, walk away for a short time to get fresh eyes them come back and repeat x 3! :) If anyone has tips/advice or wants to share how they make their clusters I would love to hear from you. The beautiful hand-made flower is from Lil' Red Rocket, there is a crochet doily from The Chip Chop Shop cut in half and hidden under the cluster. I think the problem might be that I don't like covering up my supplies. Here is a close-up of my cluster:

This LO was created for the May challenge over at Once Upon A... Sketch. This is truly one of my favourite challenge sites and is very popular. They have a fantastic design team. The theme this month is 'Mum': We would like you to create a layout and interpret the theme "Mum" however you like based on the following sketch. You can journal as little or as much as you like, but your layout must incorporate this theme and the sketch. My journalling is hidden on a tag under the photo.

I'm also entering this LO in three other challenges this month. The Paper Variety's May challenge is to include a handmade flower. I also stumbled across a new challenge blog called Southern Girls Challenge for Australian and New Zealand crafters (internationals are still welcome to participate). Their challenge for this month is to create something girls. With all the flowers on this LO I think it fits the bill. Finally, Bird is the Word has 'smile' as their word this month.

Help Charity with Cat Softies

I can't sew but I know a lot of you other crafty people can so I thought I would share the Animal Welfare League Queensland's latest charity initiative, Craft 4 Cats. AWLQ’s animal welfare work is almost solely funded by the community through donations. With one single cat or dog costing an average of $500 to put through the rehoming process, and approximately 300 dogs and cats being rehomed each month, AWLQ could simply not do this work without the generosity and support of the public.

 There are two ways to get involved in the project:

1) Make a Cat Softie

2) ‘Adopt’ a Cat Softie

AWLQ has a number of different softie patterns on their website or you can create any kind of softie you like (knitted, crocheted, sewed, felted etc). Whichever way you choose, make sure you check out the examples they’ve provided and read the ‘tips’ section first. This is to ensure that all the softies made are of consistent size, style and quality.

If you choose not to make a Softie, then you can still get involved in Craft 4 Cats! All you need to do is ‘adopt’ one of the handmade Softies for a small donation. All the Softies will be available to adopt for a donation of either $10 or $20 (depending on the size and the detail of the creation). They will be posting photos of the Softies up on their website as they come in, so there will be plenty of opportunity to ‘adopt’ a Cat Softie that’s just right for you!

Example softies:

Wedding Selfie

Are you ready for something pretty different from me? I've been a regular subscriber to Australia Scrapbooking Memories from about the time I started scrapbooking however the last couple of issues haven't captivated me like normal so when I saw Australian Scrapbook Creations in the newsagent I picked up a copy. The copy I picked up happened to be their technique edition and it's taken over me a week to pour through it. They have such a great variety of styles in the magazine and show larger photos to allow you to really examine the details. Looking through the magazine inspired me to try a new style and when I saw this great tutorial by Helen Tilbury I just had to give it a go.

I was really happy with how the background ended up looking and was actually a bit disappointed that I ended up covering so much of it up. I even took a photo to show you what it originally looked like. If you like these kind of backgrounds then Helen's work is definately worth checking out, she is creating some amazing LO's at the moment.

This LO is also based on the sketch below from Scrap Friends. I fell in love with the sketch as soon as I saw it and their design team has created some wonderful inspiration.

The ScrapFIT workout #67 is to show a fun and unique way to use a doily. It's not really unique, but I used a doily as a mask for my black paint on the background. The paint killed the doily but I love the bold effect that resulted.

First Wedding Anniversary

Today is my one year anniversary with my darling husband, Ben. Since the traditional first anniversary gift is paper I couldn't go past making him a mini-album to celebrate our first year of marriage. It's pretty simple in design because we had originally decided against exchanging gifts so I made this the day before our weekend away in 12 hours.

I used the Kaisercraft After Five range becuase the neutral colour scheme made it easy to match photos from the whole year. There is four chipboard tags and three cardstock tags to make the album sturdy but not too bulky. I was able to use the 6" paper pad and the journal tags to complete the whole thing. Chipboard number, mini alphas, bling, alphas and flower are also Kaisercraft. Alphas are American Crafts. Doilies by the Chip Chop Shop. Ribbons were already in my stash.

In case you're a sucker for detail and want to get an idea of every page, here are individual photos of the whole thing. Probably best to click on the photo for the larger version is you want to see the details. I really like the effect of the full page photos. How young are we in that first photo, it was taken oven 10 years ago now! The very back pages contains my thoughts for the future and a copy of our wedding vows.

To celebrate our anniversary, Ben and I spent a couple of nights at Mount Tamborine, QLD. It's only about a 30 minute drive from where we live but is very different to the Gold Coast. The Gold Coast is mainly known for it's beaches and theme parks. Tamborine Mountain is beautiful rainforests and sweeping views with a very arty focus. We spent the weekend visiting a number of different art galleries, coffee shops, wineries, breweries, cheese shops and fudge shops. We stayed at The Escarpment Retreat which was just lovely. Big four-poster bed, fireplace, double spa, you could hear so many frogs during the night (I LOVE frogs!), beautiful grounds to explore. They also have a 'home cinerma' experience which was quite enjoyable.

I wanted to share a photo of these goat sculptures from one of the cafes. They also had sheep and dogs for sale. I didn't even look at the prices for these guys though, as a palm sized version was $450!