Love

So I've been stuck inside all day as all of Queensland is currently subject to severe weather warnings. I live on the Gold Coast and we are just about to get possibly the worst four hours of it soon, though possible tornado and flood warnings will remain for the next two days. Kind of ruined our Australia Day long weekend but right now I'm just hoping to get through it without any serious damage.

All of this time inside was the perfect chance to create another LO though. Went with a recent photo of me and my grandparents taken when I was in Melbourne last December. Journalling is hidden behind the layering, the 'love' tag pulls out so you can read it but I wanted to keep this one personal.

I normally avoid flower clusters because they can be very expensive but the sketch I worked from needed some. The green ones I have die-cut from a matching sheet of paper before hand-rolling. The brown one are those simple paper flowers from Kaisercraft but layered up and scrunched.

 

I worked from the Kaisercraft Saturday Sketch #4 for January. Papers are all from the Periwinkle Collection which is beautiful with it's cream/brown/aqua/grey colour scheme and lots of nature images. I've also used rub-ons, chipboard, flowers, mini-alphas and pearl florish from Kaisercraft.

Sharing a Giveaway

 

Good morning everyone. I hope anyone else in Australia is having a fantastic Australia Day. It is wet, wet, wet here on the Gold Coast and our local council called off their celebrations so Ben and I are left without plans. Stuck at home I stumbled across the Scrapbooking Memories blog hop showcasing some great Australian companies. Besides making me consider starting digial scrapbooking (Studio Flergs designs looks great!) I also came across a great giveaway for Flair Buttons that I had to share. Like a lot of people, I have become quite taken with these buttons so couldn't pass up the chance to win 50 from Purple Pumpkin.

 

Frog Pond-ering

I'm going to let you in on a little secret: I'm one of those people that love bad puns! So, with these photos having been taken at the Frog Pond in Boston Common during our holiday and the photo of my pondering away with one of the statues I just couldn't resist going with this title. :) I think this LO is almost there but is lacking that extra 'something' to make it pop. Any advice is welcome.

I figured this LO was the perfect opportunity to use some of the beautiful Scrapmatts snowflakes. I mixed up some texture paste, white acrylic paint, sand and a touch of blue/gold glimmer mist then painted it on the snowflakes to add some texture. I really liked how well they took the weight of the paste whilst still retaining the delicate details.

This LO was created for the Paper Stories sketch challenge, which was extended to include January as well. I drew inspiration from Georgia Heald's example LO for the layered background photo mat.

LOL and Memories

 

This page is a quick introduction to me as part of my Design Team commitments with Scrapmatts for 2013. I went with an older photo of me that I felt showcased my personality well. I think one of my favourite things to do is laugh and make others laugh. I've also listed a few of my other favourite things on the journalling tag.

 

Close up details of the great Scrapmatts chipboard on this LO. The card border has been painted with liquid pearls. The butterflies has been sprayed with GlimmerMist and the bodies covered in liquid pearls The wings have been lifted from the page for extra dimension.

This LO was created for the ScrapFriends sketch challenge #9. It also fits the criteria for Punky Scraps challenge #59 which is to scrap all about you.

 

Our second DT challenge for this month was to create a page with the theme of 'new'. I have chosen to scrap a photo of my husband and I celebrating the New Year in Central Park, New York.

 

Close up of the chipboard used in this LO. I have cut the nested shape into smaller pieces to use it as a frame for the photo. The Christmas stars mirrored the stars on our hats so I've chosen to use them here rather than a Christmas LO.

 

This LO was inspired by Sketch #51 for Keeping The Best. It also fits the criteria for ScrapFit this month which is to use stars. 

I'm back from America!

 

Hello again dear readers. I hope you all had a great Christmas/ New Year period. After getting to catch up with my family in Melbourne I went travelling in America with my husband for two weeks. It was very exciting as neither of us had been before. I took SO MANY photos that I decided to just show off my favourites in some collages.

I will be back with crafty goodness later this week.

 

 

 

We spent two and a half days in Boston and got to see snow which is a rarity for us living in a sub-tropic region normally. I loved doing the freedom trail.

 

We spent six days in New York, including New Years. We tried to do Times Square for the ball drop but weren't keen on standing around for so many hours so went to the Emerald Nuts Midnight Run in Central Park instead - much more fun! Also checked out Wicked on Broadway, the High Line and a harbour cruise. 
 

Lastly, we spent six days in Chicago which was also fantastic. We saw two Bulls games which was the highlight for Ben.

Die Cut Gift Card Holder

 

The challenge over at Unstampabelles this month is to use one of more die-cuts in your creation. I seem to go through patches where I don't use a single die-cut and then other patches where I use them on everything. My DT sample is a gift card holder I gave my brother for Christmas. It uses Kaisercraft papers and die cuts with some liquid pearl accents.

 

If you're wondering why my blog has been quiet recently it's because I'm actually on holiday in America for 2.5 weeks. I'm sure there will be plenty of photos to share when I get back though. :) Hope everyone is having a great start to the new year!

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.