Cuddles going cheap

As its so close to the end of the month I thought I would try to get a few challenges in while I still have time!

As you may have noticed I have been busy completing a belated baby album for my middle daughter (who is now ten) Unfortunately when our computer broke we lost most photos taken from her baby and toddler years which is so sad - I only have two baby photos of my son also!

This month I have been eyeing off the Berry71Bleu challenge - to use die cuts in your layout.
The prize this months is a stunning paper collection with extra dies from Heartfelt creations. I have been eyeing off some of their products for quite some time, especially their die and stamp sets!

I decided to use a double page sketch from this months Page maps after seeing it used for a couple of other layouts. Of course I only had three photos - but it was perfect just the same!

 

I used several die cuts from the Kaisercraft pitter patter collection, including the stork, pram, title, tags and flower

You can enter this great challenge at http://berry71bleu.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/julys-challenge-to-die-for.html

Lasting memories "cluster" challenge

I cant believe July is almost finished already!!! Guess its that time again to post this months final challenge over at Lasting Memories

This months theme was 'together', and this weeks challenge is to use a cluster.... Theres not long left now but make sure you get those entries in quick! There should be a lot of ways to add a cluster to your layouts...

Here is my example. I started this layout with a yellow background page and some leftover paper scraps from a recent Kaisercraft collection  - I decided they matched perfectly, and then found a few flowers and some twine to go with it. I added a very cute photo of my daughter when she was small, and I think this one took me about ten minutes - with most of that time gluing the twine on...

Dont forget to come and have a look at what the rest of the design team have done!

Scrapmuch July challenge

 

 I was so glad to do a couple of days scrapping with my bestie this week! Dont think I have entered a challenge over the last couple of months as it has been such a busy time....

Lately I have been abit more focussed on finishing coordinated albums, while I love my individual pages, when I flick through my albums they just look so hotch potch with mies of different styles and colours... I have been creating this album from my middle daughters baby photos using Graphic 45 baby to bride and Kaisercrafts pitter patter! I love the soft colours (but they dont photograph very well at all....

I always love the double page sketches at Scrapmuch, so I thought I would start there - you can enter this fantastic sketch challenge at:

http://shopscrapmuch.blogspot.ca/2015/07/sketch-y-friday-with-team-a.html

Lets Scrap July 15th challenge

Its the middle of the month, which means a new challenge over at Lets scrap! I loved this gorgeous sketch and found the perfect paper to work with it...

          Come and join in at http://www.letsscrapsketches.blogspot.com.au/2015/07/new-sketch-7-15-15.html

My DT assignment for this one used a few family photos which I have been hoarding for quite some time from my grandmothers 70th. 

 

June DT work

Whew what a long and busy month.... Filled with internet issues (we switched to the new national broadband network, only to discover the internet was slower than dialup!) and beginning a new business - just sending out our first invoices -exciting!!

As I have not had much time for scrapping I have only done a few DT layouts.....

I made a small nursery rhyme album for a close friends little daughter - This is for the "together" theme over at Lasting Memories this month. I decided to make this page about family being together at bedtime and used a cute cutout of reading a bedtime story together!

Dont forget to join in this month at Lasting Memories!!

 I have done a few reveals over at Lets Scrap using their amazing sketches:

 

May stuff

I have been so busy lately, whilst I have done a little scrapping I just havent had time to upload, post and photograph!!

The first challenge of the month I am entering over at Stick it down



And this is my entry:

The mood board challenge over at D lish scraps this month was also perfect for working on this album....  All those peaches and blues.....

Come away with me....

                                                                                      

Cant believe April is almost finishing!! Still so many challenges I havent gotten done - trying to pick up a few final ones. Above is this month challenge image from A2Z Scraplets.  The balloons along with the blue and pink reminded me of the hot air balloon in the Graphic 45 "Come away with me collection"  Also come with me/ come away with me - same thing right?? I tried to keep a circular element in the middle of the page like in the inspiration photo.

I initially had 5 photos to showcase this caving trip but I noticed the mid month challenge over at Picture This. The challenge is to use 3 photos and 'travel'. Well this is definately a travel layout, so I decided to use the criteria from Picture this as well. Im actually very glad I only used the three photos, any more would have been too cluttered.

This layout will be going into an album I have created for the Thailand tour we did last year. My sister lived in Thailand for awhile with her Thai husband and became very fluent in the language. She is also a fantastic organiser.... when she had her wedding there she decided to run a Thai tour to entice the guests to come to the wedding. The prices were very reasonable and everyone had a fantastic time. She is amazing at finding those special little hidden gems that tourists never see, and she was a seriously amazing tour guide so she decided to run another tour the year after, and now another coming up (so exciting)

By the way In case anyone is interested her tours are amazing, and family and everyone friendly... the next one is running in January 2015 (9th to 24th) and will be a massive bargain at around Aust $1200  (30 - 32 000 THB) per adult and under $500 for a child (final costing and itinerary not quite finalised) You can find her webpage here:
https://www.facebook.com/nukzuthaitours?fref=ts

The photos I have used show one such hidden gem we visited on our last tour - a very unique caving experience. Completely off the usual tourist trail you could don a lifejacket and float through this spectacular cave. The kids and adults all had an amazing time and luckily someone had a waterproof camera.

My scraps and more sketches - April

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          
Tonight I decided its time to finally get my last layout done for my cruise tropical travelogue album... I had a look around for a suitable single page sketch and discovered the one over at My scraps and more sketches. It worked perfectly for my few remaining materials and my single photo of the girls singing karaoke together. My blurry nighttime photography is absolutely terrible - but I just wanted to get this one in the album and stored neatly on the shelf (Its the first completely coordinated album I have made for myself and Im glad to have it put away!!!)

I am also entering this one over at Clique kits challenge because, well ,anything goes! And as its heading towards the end of the month I dont want to miss entering because I was slow to find some fancy pants products I wanted to use.... but if I have time I might sort it out.

New challenge at Lasting Memories and more

 
 


Its time for a new challenge over at Lasting Memories!!!  This weeks challenge is the first one of May - which has a theme of "Life affirmations". This weeks theme is gratitude - someone or something you are grateful for.... When I think of being grateful three main people come to mind, a friend (who I dont have any photos of at present), my fiance and my sister.

As I was still feeling very inspired by some other challenges this month (even though I have already entered) I decided to go back to my sea themes from Scrap around the world this month and use this photo.

When this photo was taken I was a widow with three children under three. I was having a very tough time with the kids and no help. It was almost impossible to maintain friendships as we couldnt visit anyone and the kids required so much supervision I didnt ever get a chance to stop and chat. My sister at the time lived up in Cairns and was working at a Barrier reef tour operator as a scuba dive instructor (If you are ever in Cairns dont miss the "Passions of Paradise"). We decided to head up and visit and she offered us a free trip out on the reef on the boat. Then she also looked after the kids so that I could go snorkelling and scuba diving. It was an amazing trip, the highlight of a really tough few years.We took this picture with the underwater camera....

I started with a sketch from Cest Magnifique this month, flipped it to suit my treasure chest and made the mixed media background in the shape from the sketch background. I used the treasure chest and sea elements instead of the flowers and watch.

I just couldnt quite get this layout to photograph well.... so Im adding a lot of detail shots! I had a lot of fun with this one. I tried out the technique of melding the photo into the background for the first time and went nuts with pen and pencil shading, tracing and adding texture - I was very inspired by the technique challenge over at Scrap Africa this month to use pencil on your layout. Even though I had already entered once I still had some ideas left! I started by drawing this treasure chest and shading in some shadows. I then traced and shaded many of my design elements with a black pen i.e seashells to give them more texture and traced circles from a stencil with black pen too.

Scraps n Pieces April

While blog stalking Athanasia (She is amazing!!) I came across the challenge site Scraps n Pieces - I hadnt seen this one before, and had to press translate to read it but was totally mesmerised by this months mood board.... The picture of the city with the masking is just stunning and wanted a layout just like it, except for the small fact that I dont exactly have those colours, stencil or anything to mask BUT I did my best anyway!!



I took inspiration from the being me, the purples and blues and the city background. I started with my trusty "count downey" template which I am completely and utterly in love with and stencilled with hues of blue and purple, added some matching photos of myself and built it up from there with items from my scraps bag. This is what I ended up with:

Prima/ sketchabilities April

 

                                  

For this challenge I combined the Prima PPP with Sketchabilities #137. Im actually very disappointed with this one - it looked perfect where I had the elements, but when I glued it down I accidentally move it slightly to the right and everything wasnt quite in the same place, and then it didnt look perfect anymore!!! Grrr

I used Primas Bedtime stories collection, along with some random Prima flowers and followed the sketch up until gluing it down.... You can enter these challenges at:

http://prima.typepad.com/prima/2015/04/aprils-bap-ppp.html

http://www.sketchabilities.blogspot.com.au/2015/04/sketch-137-design-team-reveal.html

D lish scraps April challege

             
Its been raining for days and this photo is shocking but its all I can seem to manage right now!! This gorgeous moodboard is the april challenge over at D - lish scraps and its stunning. I got a little frustrated with this one as I have gold feathers and doilies but just cant find them anywhere... I even set aside a doilie the other day and it has magically disappeared... guess I should organise my scrapping stuff a little better!

I had this awesome photo which was perfect for the challenge colours and the background which I had made for something else but the stencilling wasnt quite right - but colours perfect for this and worked around what I could find. I have to say that deep colours are often very hard to get hold of. I tend to use alot of deep blues and purples and can never find them for projects...

Scrap the boys April

        

For this months challenge over at Scrap the boys I was inspired by both the colours and image number 2. I wanted to attempt to recreate the blurred lights in the city but failed miserably lol. The multicoloured cities looked great before the unremovable silver splotches.... but hey. This is how the finished layout turned out

Prima BAP/ Berry71Bleu

For this layout I decided to combine this months Prima Build a page sketch  - designed by Keren Tamir with the gorgeous spring moodboard over at Berry71Bleu and the beautiful Prima Fairy Rhymes collection...

I was inspired by the pinks and peaches from the moodboard, as well as the lovely florals and I used twine to represent the twigs from the nest. I flipped the sketch and followed it reasonably closely! I went over the flowers with golden glitter.

Prima products used:
Fairy Rhymes collection paper pad
Fairy Rhymes collection flowers

I added this lovely photo from my childhood - Looking at a bug on my arm lol

13 arts/ Red carpet studios/ Frosted designs

Today I saw the new challenge over at 13Arts - I keep meaning to play along as I always love their challenges- but they always seem to end before I get to them, so I was very determined to get this one done!! This months challenge is quite simple - to use your favourite colour. I have to say that I just love deep colours - especially this royal blue! I decided to use it with a reasonably new stencil I love, its called "Count Downey" and looks like a cityscape in numbers. I did one layer with the blue then another layer on top with modelling paste and let it drip. I decided to join in with the challenge over at Frosted Designs this fortnight - which requires the use of splatters. I splattered my royal blue quite liberally all over the layout before adding some papers and embellishments to finish. I added a funny quote of my sons and a photo.

I have also decided to enter over at Red carpet Studios. Their movie this week is "field of dreams" and the requirement is to create your own background.

Artastic, Scrap Africa, Lets get sketchy

 
My initial inspiration for this piece came from a combination of the challenge over at Artastic - using the inspiration piece shown above (Frozen music by Roy de Maistre) the challenge requires using swirls, and the challenge over at Scrap Africa which requires using a pencil and suggests some amazing ways to do so in the article above.

I decided not to be quite so creative and follow the inspiration picture by hand drawing some swirls in pencil. I later went back over them in felt tip pen as they were not so visible after painting!

I then went searching to find some papers which matched my swirled background and came up with these three journalling cards. I decided that I would tell a funny story I have been meaning to journal for some time.

Afew years ago my daughters trained at a local gymnastics club with a group of very talented children. One in particular was very much a perfectionist, trained alot of hours and was particularly successful. My daughter, Aelira was a couple of years younger and clearly envied and looked upto this girl. She would always come home and tell me that her and the other girl were the best of friends, did everything together, and how much the other girl disliked my other daughter, Michelle.

Afew years later, I was talking to one of the other parents about the friendships and strains within the group and was told by the other parent that Aelira and her "best friend" had never gotten along. I dont think so, I said  - I think you mean she doesnt get along with Michelle??

Later on I asked the girls about the story, and the truth came out. Aelira had pretended to be best friends with the girl for years, but the girl found her annoying.... but she got along with Michelle quite well. The conversation went something like this:

Aelira: Well, I wanted to be friends with her because she is so pretty, but she just thought I was annoying....

Me: Aelira, you are just as pretty as her

Aelira: No Im not

Michelle: Well, Im way prettier....

This little conversation gave me a good laugh and I wanted to record it, its a good little insight into their personalities.

I decided to use a sketch from Lets Get Sketchy, but swap the 3 photos for the 3 journalling cards. I keeping with the other challenges I also added some prima fussy cut embellishments which looked hand drawn with pencil, and some cut out pencils and some extra doodling.