Back from USA

Well my blog has been rather quite for a while....again...yes, been to the USA again to visit our daughter and her family, lots of wonderful photos taken just have to find the time to scrap them now and that has been proving difficult as its getting to that time of year...spring cleaning....sound like fun..NO, but has to be done.  About the only place that probably won't get done is my scrap room because every time I tidy it I can't find anything!!

We did a rather indirect route home from the USA and visited Thailand, a place I never wanted to go to but it just happened!! I came home really happy that we'd made the effort and thoroughly enjoyed finding out about all the history and culture, it certainly has an interesting background...not to mention some very good tailors.

Now, its back to scrapping, I've actually finished 3 of the 4 articles that I did when in Perth, Western Australia at classes run by Trisha Green-Ladouceur, who was awesome, but still have 1 to go and only a few very basic instructions for it, so may just have to wing that one and see how it turns out.  Have decided I am very anti classes where things do not get finished during them, it is so frustrating when you don't have photos of each of the completed pages as a guide to finish something off, not to mention time wasting, so all future classes will have to have a 'complete in class' tag attached to them before I take them on.

Well I did get a layout started today, well, did a bit of fussy cutting and threw some Gesso on, used a stencil, now left it to dry, really don't know where I'm going from there but am off now to scout around some of my favourite blogs for inspiration.

Lets go Camping

This is a project I did for Pam Callaghan's blog ideasforscrappers.blogspot.com  pop over to her blog and check out all her great designs, templates and other items from contributing artists.

Henry's early years have many camping memories already and although due to a posting to the other side of the country they have decided to sell their caravan, I'm sure they will have another in the future to continue exploring the great outdoors and increasing Henry's memories.  I have done the best I can to capture some of the memories of a couple of their trips, one to the Pacific North West (WA) and the other to Oregon.

I decided instead of doing numerous pages I would do a layout with a mini book on it.  This mini book although only being basically made of 2 folded sheets, contains many turn over pages, tabs and pockets so it will be an interactive and interesting item for Henry as he grows up.

For the cover of the mini book I used an old favourite stamp of mine and embossed it with fine detail black embossing powder, dried with a heat gun.  Then coloured in around it using Pan Pastels and finished with a fixative.

The book is just to pieces of cardstock 5" deep by 11" long, folded in the middle and 2 holes punch and thread through with twine.  I adhered the back of it to the layout with Terrifically tacky tape as it needs to be strong because of possible future use.

The pictures below show the various pages where you may be able to see the tags and pockets and journaling spots.

Watch Me !!!

Dear little granddaughter Sofia showing how clever she is sitting up alone and pushing herself around, great subject matter for scrapping thats for sure.

This was done for the DT on www.miraclemommasdesigns.blogspot.com

Using sketch No. 19, loved using this sketch I found it so easy to create my style of layout without having to even think much about it.

EXPLORE!!!

Something my dear grandson Henry loves to do....be outdoors.

This layout was done for my role as a contributing artist for www.ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com
I based it loosely on a template from the same site which the author Pam did a while ago whilst putting my own slant on it.  I love her templates and use them often.

Lets go on a short Hike!!

This is my daughter Erin and granddaughter Sophia whilst on a short hike to a beach not all that far from their home in WA, USA.

I don't very often try to scraplift layout's done by my favorite scrappers, many inspire me but I find it is too hard to even begin to to their layout's justice.  This design belongs to Stephanie (Steph) Devlin, and amazing artist whose work I love and she's Australian as well.  Steph is on the Prima DT and well deserves that honor with the great work she does, I never miss a day checking out her blog and because she's Australian I plan to go and do classes with her later this year between my 2 planned trips to America.

Firstly I am going to visit my daughter and her family for both hers and grandson Henry's birthday's.  The second trip is to help my daughter bring the children home to Australia for Xmas and a long stay, her husband who is in the United States Army cannot come at the same time but will be following a little later.

On this layout I used Gesso on the pink background to soften it and blend it in with the whole layout.  The vine is cut using a Martha Stewart Punch, the embellishments and of course the paper is Bo Bunny..love that range, the punch around the outer edge is an EK Success punch, while the chippy embellishment is from my stash which I also used Gesso on to create texture and then dappled it lightly with metallic rub ons.  The hearts were cut on my cricut but not totally successfully, I say that only because I couldn't get them to look anything like the wonderful hearts on Steph's layout.

One Sweet Smile

This layout created for www.ideasforscrapbookers.blogspot.com

This is my granddaughter Sofia, she is so photogenic and I have many photo to choose from, so loved scrapping this one taken when she was at the Tulip Festival at Mt Vernon in WA, USA.

I loved used the Pan Pastels for the background page, I have been playing with them for a few weeks now on backgrounds, but only using lighter shades.  This time I have chosen darker shades and tints and I still need to play a lot but I really like the effect.  Also love the Crafters Workshop negative image stamp down the right hand side, love how this looks like it has been drawn on the page.  Of course I have finished off with my favorite thing...Prima flowers.  Oh...the Super 8 punch was used to punch the edge around the inner white cardstock.  Hope you enjoy viewing.

MMD DT layout

On the MMD DT the oh so clever Heather Landry creates one of her wonderful sketches and we have to interpret it our way.  This is from her Sketch number 17.

Titled - Celebrate Spring
Features my eldest grandson who lives in WA, USA, when they visited the tulip fields recently, only the pic is taken in the daffodil patch.

What a crazy couple of weeks!!

Well I feel right now like saying stop the world I wanna hop off for a bit, I have crammed so much into the last 2 weeks and am now realising that I have a bad habit of taking on too much.  Firstly a jam packed scrapbooking trip to Perth in Western Australia, 4 hrs flying time and a 2 hr time difference, then 2 full days of scrapp classes, 6 in total, starting at around 9am and finishing around 11pm both days, then of course there was the scrappy shopping and the must do clothes shopping....so came home really fulfilled and happy with what we'd done, but also very tired.

The crunch was....I only had 2 days at home to unpack, wash, re pack, mind my gorgeous grandson for a day and leave home at 3.50am the following day to head back to mainland Australia to the State of New South Wales with my hubby to attend a 'bird show'...yes, he breeds finches.  My sister and brother in-law came up to stay a weekend with us as they don't live far away from where we were, we did the wine show, visited some wineries and yes...shopped...well until hubby said enough!!

Then it was back home to get my DT layout done and another for my role as 'Contributing Artist' on another blog.  Just finished and finally have time to breath...well for 30 mins when I have to hop on the treadmill before cooking dinner...lifes just too busy sometimes, but, only as busy as we allow it to be I guess.

I'm now going to go post the layout which was my 1st for the Miracle Momma Designs DT as its the first chance I've had to be able to post it...

MMD Design Team Post

My first layout for MMD Divas design team will be up here on the 16th May, well I hope to get it done, can't put it up before that but unfortunately thats the day I leave for Perth leaving home at 4am so it may have to wait to go up here, but will be on the MMD blog on the 15th.

Playing with the gorgeous G45 Little Darling's line of paper

What better way to use it than on an older picture of Will, trying to catch up on a few of my many older pics of the children, I have so many and yet I prefer to do the new ones as my daughters get them to me, so this was a good day when I went through my pile of older faves and chose this sweet one of Will to do.

3 of the latest pics of people you are going to see a lot of on my blog as in my gallery on Scrapbook.com.

My 3 grandchildren who are the most special little people in my life -

 Henry, almost 3

                   William (Will/Billy/Wimmy) 1 yr old















Sofia 8 months

HAPPY DANCE time....yay!!

I've been asked my Heather Landry to be on her design team at 'Miracles Momma Designs', there is a link in the side column as I've followed her work for a long time and love the sketches she is creating, and can't wait to participate with the next sketch.

Happy Dance again.....
The wonderful Pam Callaghan has also asked me to be a contributing artist on her blog 'Ideas for Scrapbookers'.  Pam is a much published and amazing scrapper, her blog really is about helping you not only with the ideas but instructions on 'how to do' the project, amazing templates to work from and instructions on how to print of the template in Photoshop Elements, again, can't wait to work with Pam.

I have been on a design team before but it was a long time ago and I feel like I am really starting over, hoping I am up to it, but if enthusiasm counts for anything then I am going to be fine and have a ball.

She is so cute...a title and an understatement......

I have so many beautiful pictures of my 3 grandchildren its hard to keep up and I have pretty much given up having time to scrap any of my many trip photos, maybe one day as I know the photos will get fewer as they grow up.  Although with 2 of them living in America my daughter is very good in keeping the photos coming so we can see them as they are growing up.

I have a couple of lovely friends online who not only inspire me but help we with any information they think may help or I ask for, they are Gerry van Gent and Iris Uy Babao (sorry if I spelt that incorrectly Iris).  Gerry has for some time been using just white cardstock for her starting block and with Pan Pastels becoming so popular right now I had to try them, both ladies use these and again I thank them for their inspiration and help.

I've used pink for most of the b/ground but have used a mask (brand unknown) in top left corner with the blue Pastels.  Fussy cut the border from Cup Cake Paper and of course a lot of Prima flowers, stamps and embellishments.  Iron look strip is Dusty Attic and the tiny little white lock is Melissa Frances.

Where has the time gone!!!

The last month and a half seems to have just disappeared, not much scrapping time as I hit the roads and beaches and the treadmill in a crazy effort to trim down to a more healthier weight....and that has meant little or no scrapping, but my mojo is back and I'm more organised with the fitness regime and ready to fire again.  Done a few layouts which I'll load just a couple of and be ready to take off.

Prima has hit the stores

Been up the North of our State for a few days and found an awesome scrap store in a small town.  They took me out the back of the store to their newly unloaded Prima products....boy, talk about gorgeous, I left the store a little poorer but very happy with my bag of goodies, now to get using them.

Been busy busy busy, a few pages created and will share over the weekend, but check this out!!

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8354ebd2869e2016302ea7f70970dIt's arriving in stores, whoa can't wait to get some of this !!

Family - 3 Generations

Love this picture of little Sofia only a month old, my daughter Erin and myself, to enable the '3 generation' picture.  I remember when I had  Erin's photo taken when she was a little girl, with myself, my mum and my grandmother, she was lucky to have a '4' generation photo, but hope when Sofia grows up she will cherish this photo.

Used the gorgeous Kaisercraft paper range and kept it simple because the photo was so important to me, as much as I love to explore new techniques and the layering and 'pretty' look, I went basic with this.  I think this is ok to do, to me its like doing 'boy' layouts...no way will I put flowers on a boy layout, I just have set ideas about things like this which is why I can't say I have 'a style' of any particular kind..hope you enjoy it.

My First Trip

My daughter Erin and her family flew down to Arizona to have Christmas with her husband's family and while there did a road trip.  Part of that was getting a train into see the Grand Canyon, the train had the usual 'hold up' by cowboys etc and they family loved it.

This was Sofia's first trip and Erin said she travelled really well, this picture was taken on that train trip.

It was the first time I've attempted to use G45 paper, it's always seemed to be in the 'too hard basket' for me, just didn't know what I would do with it.  Well when I saw these gorgeous Pixie line papers I couldn't resist them.

I realised the 'way' was in fussy cutting, something which I enjoy a lot, so this page is full of it, pieces from about 4 different papers on this LO, and it was one of those occasions when I had to go, whoa...enough, hope you like it.

The journaling is actually on the little blue bunny card on the book, I tried to make it part of the book.  And it simply read, My First Trip, and explains it was on the train going to the Grand Canyon...she won't remember of course, but pretty cool place to see at her age...I thought Magical was a good title for that and also for the gorgeous picture of my daughter with Sofia.

My Sweet little Granddaughter Sofia

As I promised I am hoping to keep the layouts coming to my blog.
I couldn't resist this Kaisercraft paper line when I saw it at our LSS, it's so girlie and cute isn't it.

I actually fussy cut the paper circle with the flowers at the top, away from the inner circle and the outside edges. I then used a 2nd piece of paper for the inner circle and a 3rd piece for the squared outer piece. Fussy cutting takes ages and drives you a little crazy at the time but gosh its well worth the effort.

All the embellishments, the little girls, flowers and some of the leaves, are all from the same Kaisercraft paper range. The green chipboard frame is from Dusty Attic...love their stuff, I painted this with Making Memories 'Celery' paint.

PRINCESS

Putting in the Kilometres

Well I'm doing really well in my fitness routine, trying to lose weight and am dieting but eating sensibly, the exercising...well, I know what it means to become addicted to it, am working my butt off literally, did 6 kilometres on the treadmill today but still found time to do a layout. I will be posting that shortly, so hopefully I can keep this blog up to date now. Although, my slideshow I had with all my work on it disappeared when I had trouble with my blog and I doubt I will have time to re do that, hope to get another under way soon.

I'm almost back !!

Well after not updating my blog for some time due to family health problems and a 2 month trip to America to see my daughter and her family, also managed to have a get together with 5 of my American online scrapping friends...now I hope to re jig it a bit and get it going again, may put some of my LO's which have missed out...wow!! so many pictures of grandchildren during that period, some scrapped and heaps not.

My husband has just had an operation in Melbourne for his back so hopefully things will start to look up now.

In November my friend and I went to Melbourne to do Prima classes with the amazing Ingvilde Bolme and Sharon Laakanon. What amazing ideas they have and although doing a class with Ingvilde was the highlight as I've been a long time fan of hers, I must say that Sharon's class was awesome, as you all know I like 'pretty', well Sharon does 'pretty' so well and we made a beautiful canvas mini album.

We were so happy with the classes in Melbourne we both jumped at the opportunity when another of my long time favourite artists was coming to Perth Gerry Van Gent....yes we are going!!! 2 days of classes with her and the other artist while not my style but absolutely amazing in the field of mixed medic is Finnibair (on Scrapbook.com), she is so amazing in her own style that I'm sure there will be heaps we'll take away from the classes so am looking forward to her classes as well.

In the meantime I am just hanging out for all the new Prima goodies to come on the market after there release at the recent CHA in America. Along this line, I have been lucky enough to have a great scrapping friend in America who sat up until Midnight to catch the HSN show which showcased 'We R Memory Keepers' Lucky 8 punches, they sold for that show only at half price and immediate release, they won't be in stores until July....sooo lucky and I now can't wait for them to arrive, these punches cut out the lining up problems that can occur with border work.

Well that's a brief summary of my 'missing in action' time. Whilst catching up on my scrapping is of utmost importance to me I will endeavour to get back into my blog.