"Here, Waiting For You"

For thirty years my neighbours Karen and Les shared their lives together, and when Les passed away a year ago, his absence left a significant void in Karen's life. They were each others soul mate.

One year on, and Karen and her daughter are moving overseas to start a new life. The house they're moving to is one that they have stayed in previously. And so when Karen was getting her belongings organised for the big move, she was thrilled to come across a photo of Les enjoying a hot cuppa on the very veranda of the home she's now moving to. It made the decision to move feel right - that although Les will never live in this new home with them, he is as Karen said, already "here, waiting for us".

That night after my neighbour relayed this to me and showed me the photo, I had an inspiration to make a layout. I could see it perfectly in my head. A few days later I asked Karen for the photo so I could scan it, and I set to work on a little gift for her.

Of course, once I began the project, I found the papers I'd matched the photo with inside my brain didn't actually suit the photo in real life. I went through my stash and found a new set of papers to use (Bo Bunny 'Time Piece') but I couldn't find the right alpha for the title. Thus I decided to Photoshop it into the photo itself.  The suitcase was a last moment add on to symbolise the move overseas.  Ultimately, it looked nothing like I had originally intended, but such is life, isn't it?

Exceptionally boring details: The layout was mounted on an A4 sized canvas block, and there were a few mistakes made with attaching the cardstock to the canvas. Namely, I cut the cardstock to A4 before considering I needed cardstock to line the sides of the canvas block. I bound the sides with strips of cardstock and the striped paper, then when I laid the A4 cardstock sheet down, I found I'd cut it askew and it didn't quite meet the edges. It looked pretty rough, as you can imagine, so I decided to just go with that and sand the edges of the cardstock as it has a white layer in the middle that shows through with a wee bit of sanding. Kind of hid the mistakes (or added to them? Whichever way you want to look at it...)

"Time Flies"

Within a day of publicly declaring I have not a scrap-happy bone left in my body, I developed an urge to create a new layout. Kinda figured that would happen.

This photo of Bree was taken via camera phone while we were on holiday in Taranaki a few weeks back. I loved the pic because Bree radiated with carefree laughter as she ran across the beach, and - if you squint really hard until you go a little cross-eyed - you can see this expression in the photo. It was a good moment. On an otherwise bleak bleak scrap of windswept Waitera beach.

The colours of the photo were edited to try and be all arty (and attempt to cover up the fact it's a bad pic taken on a low resolution camera phone that insisted on capturing the moment about 1.5 seconds after the moment had actually passed).  My real camera died on holiday and attempts to perform a zombie conversion on it have failed. Thank goodness we still have one working camera in the house  - thanks for doing a good job of taking care of your stuff Char!

The journalling says:

Run, laugh.  Throw yourself into life and hit the ground running.
Don't look back, unless it's to smile upon fond memories.
Time flies and quicker than you realise.
Soon you'll be all grown up and "too big" to run carefree and laughing.
Live in the moment and keep on smiling.

The papers and chipoboards alpha are 7 Gypsies.

When the Get Up And Go has Got Up And Left

Don't you hate it when the well of scrappy inspiration dries up? This has been an issue for me over the past few weeks, and although I want to create a new page, I just can't get the creative gears in my head moving.
Short of chucking my brain in neutral and rolling it down a hill, attempts to jump start my inspiration have been attempted. And failed.

I've wandered through scrapblogs, thumbed through scrapbook magazines, flicked through the stacks of photos all printed out and awaiting a layout...  To no avail. My brain is dead.  Well, as far as scrapbooking is concerned anyway. (Actually, some might theorise that my brain is in fact dead, and it's only the electrical impulses from my nerves that keep my limbs moving.)

Though in saying all of this, I did finally finish a page for Bree's Kindy Portfolio this morning that I have been 'getting around to' for two or so months now. It was a forced effort and in the end I was sticking all the pieces down while I sat on the lounge floor with Bree climbing my shoulders and sliding down my back and Indie wiggling his way on to my lap every other minute. Things get messy in such circumstances. In particular; my handwriting. But, at least it's done...

Anyway, on to other things... Here's a long rambling question:

Do you find yourself printing out photos for several layouts that you want to make at once, then re-delegating them all to the 'actually I can't be bothered with that one right now, I feel like creating a different layout instead' pile? And then printing out entirely new ones??

This is another of my dilemmas. Maybe I need to start buying some normal photo albums, because I have a massive massive load of photos still sitting in their photolab folders and awaiting their scrap pages. Several are of the same photo but in a variety of sizes or with a variety of photoshop enhancement applied to them. It's a Things To Do List that just keeps growing.

  'Hmm. I'm not happy with this one as a 6x4 in sepia after all. I might cross-process it and a couple of others from that day, reduce their size and do another multi-photo layout.' 

 and then, two days later..

'I don't feel like doing this page at all any more. It's sunny today and I feel like creating something with a more summery theme. I have some beach photos printed already, but they're not the right size for what I have in mind. I'll need to print off fresh photos...'

This is less about having the right photo, and more about me stalling because the get up and go has simply got up and left.

Oh well, now that the Kindy portfolio page is off my shoulders, perhaps I'll get on with a new project tonight?

... That is, if I can decide on the right photos... ;)

"Breaking Free"

About two months ago I had a sudden inspiration to submit a layout to NZ's own scrapbooking magazine, Up2Scrap. With so many beach photos up my sleeve, I'd been meaning to make a new summer page for some time but always found other projects to start on first. The magazine submission was my driving force to finally get something done.

Of course, I created a page, didn't like it enough to bother submitting it (like most of my stuff, it's too 'safe and dull' to display anywhere other than my own albums and my blog!) and so I tucked it into my album and kinda figured I'd come back to it and work on it some more... Redo it completely perhaps..

Submission date is now closed and I never got around to reworking this layout. I'm reasonably certain I never will, thus I've decided to post it to my blog. I LOVE the photo - Char is usually quite introverted and here she is jumping around on the beach like she doesn't have a self-conscious bone in her body. For that reason it's one of my most favourite photos (taken by the girls on auto-timer by the way).

I used a cross-process effect on the photos to help their colour blend better with the layout, and to give the scene a kind of surreal feel.  Then I decided to make the photos into Polaroid style, as Polaroids are fun, spontaneous and have a sense of nostalgia which is also the feelings evoked for me by this photo. Nostalgic because this is the beach where so many of my own childhood summer memories took place.

The card poking out from the right of the main photo holds hidden journalling.

Paper - Simple Stories '100 Days of Summer'. Chipboard flourishes - Fancy Pants

Indie and the Robots - another as-yet-incomplete!

I had a burst of inspiration to put this together over the weekend, but then ran out of steam when it came to the title and journalling. As seems to be my habit, I'm posting it up although it's unfinished.  Why?  Because I'm impatient to make a post and I don't want to put up the last layout I did for my mum of one of her childhood photos, as it was a rush job I'm not at all proud of, as much as she seems to love it...

Anyway, I digress as usual!

Here's the so-far-untitled-and-incomplete Indie layout, featuring papers from Kaisercraft's K-bot range.

 The photo as it is on the layout is so much better than the way it has come out in this photo of the photo. Doesn't help that I seriously need to clean my camera lens!

I have an idea of what I want to write for this, but need a nice peaceful moment to get it together. So far, every moment has been crammed full of kids-on-the-go or my own attempts to recover from a day of kids-on-the-go (ie, that 'me time' after the munchkins have gone to sleep at last, when I sit and stare blankly at a wall and try to simply recover from the day. Lately that 'me time' has lead to me falling asleep where ever I happen to be sitting. The couch... The floor...)

Time to go, the Teen is nudging me to hurry up so she can get back to facebook, the Lily Bug (aka Bree) is pulling the house apart because she's bored and no one's taking any notice of her...

"Little Lady Muck"

I have had this paper set aside with this photo for months now, in a drawer within my scrapbook closet labelled "works in progress". I loved how the colours of Bree's outfit and the greenery behind her matched up so nicely with the colours in the paper, but had no idea where to go with it from there. Finally while the little dude was having his daytime nap yesterday, I decided to get on with it. 

At the same time, I hauled out Bree's own scrapbooking box (sheets of A4 paper in a variety of colours, stickers, pictures cut from magazines, glitter, felts, stamps) and encouraged her to "come do some scrapbooking with mum". Of course, sometimes her idea of scrapbooking and mine are two totally different ideas. She loaded her stamp pad full of small glitter stars and dumped it all on to the carpet. Then trampled stampy ink finger prints all over the carpet while trying to pick up the stars. But that was her little game and she enjoyed doing it, and the ink did scrub off for the most part... Silly me for not putting down a play sheet first, but hey the carpet's munted anyway. :/

So, here's what I came up with:

Originally I thought to make a clean simple layout with the photo mat cut all nice and straight - I even tried to measure it all up, but the effort to cut in a straight line frustrated me. Using the edge of the scissors, I roughed up the photo mat and then cut the strips at random widths for the loose weave.

The journalling was going to be within the circle flower thingie, but once I thought of what to write, I could see I was going to waffle on far too much for it all to fit. Twisted strips of brown paper into twine. Finished it off with splatters of brown paint.

The journalling:

Anyone looking at this photo would think you're a little princess. 
All High Teas and frilly flouncy dresses. Yeah right!
You love to run barefoot through muddy puddles. Dresses annoy you
by the fact that they trip you up when you're climbing trees.
This dress stayed clean for the photo due to clever diversion tactics and bribery..

Project Self Destruct

When the lad came home from work last night declaring he had plunder, then set about showing me (with great deals of excitement) a whole bunch of fibre optic cables and speaker wiring and cords and plugs for gods-only-know-what, I thought he may have lost the plot just a little. It was all stuff that had been on a direct path to the work skip but it was - so I was told - all good useful stuff.

I thought he was nuts and groaned inwardly at the thought that my clutterbug tendencies had somehow gone viral and spread to my other half, but then he revealed this...

This baby has a digital photo frame inside it, but it can play videos as well as display photos. For a fraction of a second I thought to rip the housing off it so it's not so chunky, but then my slow-to-click-but-I-get-there-eventually brain realised... This big clunky box will look AWESOME once I pimp it out!!

Actually, it'll probably look absolutely rubbish and I'll wish I'd handed it on to someone with creative flare to make it look stylie and awesome rather than cheap and nasty...   But sod it, I'll give it a shot anyway!

My initial thought was to use up what's left of my Graphic 45 Steampunk Debutante papers on it, but as I look at that big red button in the middle that says "press here" a little voice in my head says "do not press the red button!" Because you know, it's always the self-destruct button...

That's right folks, I'm sensing some industrial sci-fi/alien hardware theme going on here...

I'm. So. Excited. I. Could. Just. About. Poo.

That's all for now, but stay tuned - I have a new layout update on the way. (Yeah I know, you're so excited you could just about poo, right?)

"Nosey Parker"

After an hour or two of rifling aimlessly through a thousand printed photos and a significant stack of patterned papers, I was ready to give up all hope and go to bed. It was around midnight after all... As I began to pack away the chaos of scrap supplies I'd spread around the lounge floor (where all my scrapbooking is done), I noticed a couple of photos I had thrown upon a sheet of polka paper. 

Hmm... This might work... 

^^ That there was the voice of the sneaky little Insomnia Worm that lives in my brain, coaxing me to stay awake another hour or two as the night was still young and besides, the recent changeover to daylight savings meant my body clock still believed it was only 11pm. 

Convinced - oh so easily because I'm a pushover really - I looked around for something that might work with the polka dots. Or at least something that hadn't been packed away already. The lining of a cardboard box, some sandpaper, ink, and a sheet of stripey paper. Meh, that'll pass with a push.  

Quicksmart, photo edges were sanded. The box lining was separated so I had a mix of flat and corrugated paper. Everything - including the sandpaper - was arranged in slap-dash manner behind the photos.  The flat pieces of cardboard box were cut into journalling strips then edged with torn scraps of stripey paper. An overkill of ink applied to the edges of the 12x12, and splotched here and there. Title cut from letters in a magazine a couple of days later. Finished.

The journalling says:

You're such an inquisitive little dude.
Bet you're gonna be one of those kids
who takes stuff apart to see how it works.


I just hope you'll be able to 
put dad's model cars back together again.

I think the patterned paper is My Minds Eye, but it's all a hazy sleep-deprived blur now....

"Believe"

A layout inspired both by a late night conversation with Char and the latest Scottie Crafts challenge.

It makes me sad when she is having a struggle with her self-confidence, which was the gist of our heart-to-heart. I wanted to create something that would remind her to stay strong. And believe in herself. And with the latest challenge at Scottie Crafts to 'create a project using your favourite scrapping manufacturer' in mind, I made this using (mainly) Fancy Pants - in particular the 'Roadshow' collection which I find myself using frequently (lucky I stocked up on the range!) as I love it so much. And Basic Grey alpha which is also a fav.

 Usually I struggle a bit with journalling on a LO - which is odd as I have no problem rambling inanely the rest of the time - but given the givens, this time the journalling was the first to be put together (albeit hastily scribbled and unedited). A page from a worn and weathered copy of Anne Rice's Memnoch the Devil was one of the last details to be added, but then I struggled to find that right finishing touch. The top left area above the journalling needed something, and the leafy flourish from my pack of FP Roadshow Rub Ons screamed to be selected. Finally I realised if I cut the flourish and placed the majority of it above the journalling to give a bit of balance to that side of the page, and allowed the rest to trail out from the corner of the photo for continuity and to balance out that area, it would probably be as right as I'd ever get it.

End Note: Stay tuned next time for two off-the-page projects using papers from Graphic 45's 'Steampunk Debutante' and Bo Bunny's 'Et Cetera' collections!

End Note 2:  Thanks Scottie Crafts for the RAK sent out for my entry to last month's challenge. I already have a project in mind for it... ;)

"Believe" created with:

Fancy Pants 'Roadshow' papers, stickers and rub ons. AC cardstock. Basic Grey alpha. Prima flowers.

"Even Angels Will Fall" (or a section of...)

I'm loving Basic Grey's 'Out of Print' collection at the moment, having used one of the paper's in in two LO already. Here's a wee preview of the latest...


















                                     I cut out some of the feathery paisley leaf-like (what IS it?) shapes from  this paper and decided they'd be suitable as whimsy kind of wings to add on to Char's back. She was actually wearing black wings, but they didn't show up in the photo. I'm also loving the My Minds Eye papers that are behind the photo - they just seemed to go so nicely with the colours in the 'wings'.

Char came up with the title for me. 'Even Angels Will Fall'. These photos were for a Bebo competition, where she was portraying a lost/fallen angel, or something to that effect...



Although the layout is 95%  finished, there's still something not quite right that I can't quite put my finger on. Maybe it's the lack of journalling, or the title placement. Meh, it's in the 'things to get back to figuring out' pile, where it may likely sit for a really really long time.

Okay, time to go. Visitors have arrived, and past history has taught me that if you remained zoned out on the computer when you have guests over, they soon wordlessly leave again... *shamefaced*

Getting back into the (scrapbooking) closet.

Picture this: You're having an 'Eureka moment' where you have a clear-as-bell inspiration for a new layout, and all day you've been itching - positively itching - to get started on it. You have to wait until the kids are asleep (because attempts through the day to pull your scrapbooking gear out while they're awake have crashed and burned) but finally, the moment comes where the last wee munchkin has tottled off to sleep, and you have the whole night stretched out before you with nothing on the agenda but putting that layout together...

But the key to your scrapbooking closet has vanished into thin air.

*facepalm*

I have spent the entire night searching the house. I've searched locations where the key couldn't possibly be (the washing machine, the jeans I haven't even worn in the past week, beneath the back steps, behind the toilet...) and I've returned to the same locations over and over just in case the key suddenly materialises in the most obvious place. It is nowhere. I'm beginning to wonder if it was in the kangaroo pocket of my hoodie when we went to the park today, and fell out on the rugby field when I was having a race with Jarrod to determine who would make coffees for the rest of the night.

I'm having withdrawals. I'm drowning. I'm slowly but surely losing my mind.

And this is precisely why we need a bigger house.

If we had a bigger house, I'd be able to dedicate an entire room to my scrapbooking supplies, rather than a wooden closet. And then I wouldn't need to worry about a stupid ornate little key with a bright blue keyring that you just can't miss!! Arrrrrghhhh!!

// end rant.

EDITED TO ADD: The key was found in the morning, when Bree revealed she had put it in Indie's back pocket. And yes, there it was, in the washing machine, in the bum pocket of his pants!

"Clucky"

This week I've churned out more layouts than I have in several weeks, and for two of those three layouts I can thank Challenges!

This was the Scottie Craft challenge:
Step 1:  Choose a colour palette from Design Seeds to base the layout on.
Step 2: Pick a designer who inspires you.

For the colour palette, I went with 'Feathered Hues' as I love the warm mix of chocolate brown and teal, and I had just the range of papers in mind to go with it. (Well, colour match isn't quite right, but it was the closest I could find!)

Chosing a designer was difficult, as I'm not well read on scrapping designers, so I flicked through a few of my scrapbook magazines until I decided on Rachael Scholy who I found on page 16 of Scrapbooking With the Experts. She describes her style as 'funky shabby chic' and I was inspired by her suggestion of using bling to frame or highlight objects on the page. I used this idea by framing my pregnant belly with self-adhesive pearls with a swirly shape that cupped the belly quite nicely (I cut the design in half). The way the pearl flourish curls around back into the photo could sort of resemble a baby in fetal position, don't you think?

I had the general concept in place but was quite frankly stumped as to how it was all going to go together on the page. Too much over thinking, not enough sleeping. In the end I borrowed from the layout style on page 39 of Scrapbooking Memories Vol 13 No 5.

End Note: There are five birds on the page. One to symbolise each member of the family.

End Note 2: The submission date for the challenge was Sep 15, midnight. It was 11.20pm when I began writing this in order to put up the link, and then Indie decided to wake - arggh! The link was put up with ten minutes to go. Nothing quite like working under pressure...

Products used: 

Fancy Pants 'Happy Together' papers and rub ons, Zva Creative Pearls, Basic Grey (I think?) chipboard alpha

"Little Dryad"

This layout was put together a couple of days ago for September's challenge on the NZ Paper Chase blog. 

The challenge is to create a layout based on a sketch, and to add something altered, or a frame to the photo.

I've been wanting to make a page with this photo of Bree along with the striped Kaisercraft paper for some time, and the 'frame' element of this challenge gave me the push to get a move on, with an inspiration to make a swing out of twine and willow branch to form a kind of frame. A sheet from Basic Grey's 'Out of Print' collection was used to resemble a strange assortment of leaves/branches for a whimsical twist.

I tried to leave the edges of the striped paper clean and tear-free, but it just looked too flat, so I had to scrunch, sand and tear them. Probably should have stopped there. The black ink I went on to add makes the page look a bit like it's been plucked from the smouldering remains of a burnt out building.
Probably should work on improving my range of ink colours.

The size of the alpha was annoyingly big, so 'Little Dryad' had to become 'Dryad', but it was all I had to go with, and then I was one 'd' short so a 'p' had to suffice. Would've been a good idea to have used the scissors on those two letters to make them match up better...  Probably should work on building up my stash of alphas.

In fact, it probably would have been a good idea to go to bed at 1am instead of trying to get it all finished in one burst.  Meh.  Too many layouts are collecting dust in the 'incomplete projects' drawer of my scrapbooking closet because I have decided to come back to it the next day. You know how that day never comes...

Anyway, I will be making another post shortly with another layout of made for  the challenge at Scottie Crafts. It's due by midnight tonight, and I am currently stuck on my title and where to place it. Titles. They kill me.

The Genealogy Project

For several months I've been collecting papers and embellishments with a vintage/retro theme, in order to one day find the right kind of time, inspiration and confidence to create a scrap album of my family history.

Today I felt inspired to do what I sometimes do from time to time - scatter the papers across the floor, layer photos on top, and see if I'm brave enough yet to put a layout together.

Not today.

I've rehashed over my own childhood history, mulled over my one childhood photo album, filled mainly with photos of my first two and a half years, and most of which feature me splashing about at Whangamata, sitting astride a horse (or my beloved elephant stuffed toy) and riding my trike around the garden of my first childhood home.

I've scanned my mother's photos from her own childhood, and those of my siblings who were busy living out their lives long before I was born (being the youngest of five on my mother's side, I was an unexpected late-comer to the party, and as I'm also the product of my mother's second marriage, my sisters and brothers are all older half-siblings.)

 Along the way I've learnt snippets of family history I would never have known, had I not the occasion to discuss the photos with mum, thus stirring her to share tales of the past.

The man in the top left photo is my grandfather. Mum remembers him doubling her on that bike. She was far closer to her dad than to her mum (who was ill-tempered and emotionally detached), and was devastated when he passed away - she was only 17.
Left center: My grandmother and my little uncle Wayne. He died when he was just two and a half years old. This is the only photo of him.
Bottom left: The wedding of my brother Tony and his wife Anne. They're still together today. The little girl kissing Anne is my sister Tracey. The bridesmaid looking in the door way is my sister Karen.
Top right: My mother's first husband, Fred Butler. They both remarried after divorcing, but a part of her never really stopped loving him. Next to him is my brother Tony (who, for the record, I've only ever met twice. The second time was at his fathers funeral.) The super-stylie lady to the right is my mum.
Middle right: My uncle Peter and Prince Charles. Uncle Peter died several years ago in - I think - a motorbike accident.
Bottom right: My sister Tracey who is 9 years my senior and closest to me in age.
The gorgeous child in the middle is my mother.

I hope I'll start a new scrapbook with these photos sooner rather than later. I just want to make sure I get it right. So, I'll wait just a little longer yet...

"Remember This Moment"

I've been dying to use this paper from Simple Stories '100 Days of Summer' collection bought from Scrapbook Outlet NZ, but in the past few weeks I've been too busy blogging at my other blog to do much in the way of scrapbooking. Fortunately mum came to stay for a couple of days last week, and she always inspires me to create another layout. And so, at last, I did.

It's incredibly simple but the paper itself was so pretty, I didn't want to clutter it. Though in hindsight I wish I'd made an actual effort to keep my title straight!

Originally I wanted to use a beach photo for this particular page, but despite having taken 3.5 millions photos at the beach last summer, not a single one seemed to quite fit. And then I came across this photo Char took of herself and Bree, and I realised there was no other photo in my collection that would work so well. I mulled on it for a few days, then remembered my box of Fancy Pants 'Happy Holidays' chipboard stickers and knew there'd be something amid it that would suit. I wanted a flourish and was willing to cut one out myself if need be, but this one from the collection went nicely.

A trip to NZ Scrapbook on the Shore (where they were having a 50% off EVERYTHING sale!!!) is where I sourced the flowers and one of the papers used to mat the photo.

I distressed the papers used to mat the photo and as it's pretty much impossible for me to cut a straight line, it's just become part of my style to NOT have straight lines, even if they look like they should be... And laying down lettering in a straight line? Seems impossible for me, even when the paper has ruled lines printed on to it! Meh, I give up. The oddity and unevenness is just a part of who I am I suppose, and this is certainly reflected in my scrapbooking...

The journalling and title is inspired by Char's on-and-off struggle with depression/ teen angst. And my own, I suppose, when I really think about it. (Seems to be a recurring theme far as my journalling is concerned....)

Only now that I'm posting an update on this latest layout do I realise there's an important detail missing from it - a centerpeice for the flower. And here I was thinking that for once I've managed to finish a project in one sitting without needing to come back and fix something up!

"Desiderata"

I have bittersweet feelings towards this layout. I began it earlier in the year, but as I began gluing down flowers and applying rub-ons, I realised I was desperately unhappy with it. I'd written a couple of lines from the poem Desiderata onto a plain paper flourish, then changed my mind about where I'd glued it down... Hindsight's a bitch.

The layout sat unfinished for a long time as I puzzled out how to fix it, but finally this I have had a kind of epiphany. I removed the flourish and added the row of photos up the top to try and balance out the page. The paper flourish was originally plain coloured, but I traced it on to patterned paper and cut it so that part of it encased the photos at the top, and the rest wrapped around the photo at the bottom. (Again, not keen on where I placed it in the end but meh....)

Finally I scuffed up the surface of the paper (I had ripped it accidently when removing the flourish, so that became my starting point), tore and scuffed the edges, added a couple of stitches and sewed on a metal rosette that once belonged to a belt.

Linking at Our Creative Space :)


Paper: Fancy Pants "Roadshow"
Embellished with Fancy Pants "Roadshow" card & rub-ons, Prima flowers, vintage lace, metal rosette from a broken belt, hand stitching. Paper flourish and journalling strips cut created from "My Minds Eye' paper.
Alpha: Cosmo Cricket 'Tiny Type'

Slack, Slacker, Slacking...

I have become so SLACK lately at finishing something I have started. Or even putting a finished project away properly! I left my Bollywood Princess LO perched on a bookeshelf, and it fell - into the clutches of Indie, who promptly tore off the journelling strips and crumpled them up in his chubby little fists. Fortunately the rest of the layout survived unscathed, and I wasn't too disappointed about the journelling strips as I'd planned to rewrite them anyway, but have I done this yet? No. I stashed the layout in a drawer in my scrapbooking closet and put it on the 'things to get around to eventually' list.

Not cool Callie. Not cool.

And, I have so many more layouts yet to photograph and upload here. It's another task I keep putting off.

I will get on to this. Now. Quicksmart. Or perhaps after I've made another coffee...

Stay tuned...

Indie loves to wander through the beautifully designed playground at Hobsonville Point, and Basic Grey's 'Out of Print' collection worked really well with the 'lines and circles' style I used in this layout (the lines and circles were in turn inspired by the fall of shadows cast by the sculptures in the photos).  

Here's a hint, stay tuned (oh non-existent followers!) for the completed layout in a future update...

"Craazy"

When Bree got hold of Nan's glasses and tore around the house all cross-eyed and topsy-turvy, I had to get a few photos - of course! And promptly turned them into a scrap page before the pics became just another set for the 'things to do list' that has now turned into a full drawer of photos...

By some divine miracle I had the perfect supplies for this layout. Two of the papers from the Pennylane range by My Minds Eye (which I bought on a whim and wondered what I'd ever do with them) worked fab with the colours and print in the Bree's top. I cut the embellishments from the same paper, sanded the edges, and then for something a little different I also sanded the surface of the paper.

Created with My Minds Eye 'Pennylane' paper, Basic Grey chipboard alpha stickers 'Jovial' & Pioneer lettering stickers. Handstitching. Vintage lace.

"Summer in a Nutshell"

We made the most of the beach as much as we could over summer, and our days spent there were fun, crazy, impulsive... And I wanted this layout to reflect that. Hence the big bold polka dots.

Originally the whole page was polka, and at the time I thought the black filmstrip would be an interesting contrast to the vibrant summer polka. I also loved the way the curves of the filmstrip worked beside the photo's mid-air sand. Of course, I was wrong. I wanted a fun vibrant summer feel, but I'd taken the wrong turn at Funsville and ended up in Crazy Town. 

Unfortunately I'd already begun applying rub ons and affixing chipboard before I realised this. Typical. Rather than bin the project, I tore it in half-ish and stuck the bottom half to plain blue cardstock. The chipboard 'SUMMER' left behind a final layer when I tried to remove it, so I cut around the letters and decided it would be interesting to use it rather than the original chipboard.

All in all, it's crazy, cluttered, and pretty much looks like I threw everything onto the page and glued it down wherever it landed. Meh, if the clown suit fits...

Started: April 2011
Reworked & Finished 30.05.2011

Created with:
Paper: AC Cardstock, My Minds Eye (I think?)
My Minds Eye "Breaking Free" rub-ons
Craftworks alphabet stamps.

Yellow makes me happy...

Today on the way home from the park, Bree and I had a discussion about the seasons, and when we got to Autumn and I started telling her how the leaves of trees turn yellow, red, golden, brown etc and drop to the ground, she told me "I hate brown. Brown makes me ANGRY! Brown makes me SAD! But I love yellow mummy. Yellow's my favourite colour. Yellow makes me HAPPY!"  It was a cute moment.
She also pointed out a hole in my lesson: that not all of the trees have lost their leaves. This led me to explain evergreens. And then she noted that the grass is still green, which in turn led to a discussion regarding the difference between lawn grass and trees... By this time I was sort of stumbling on explaining plant anatomy and whatnot to a three and a half year old, but before it became all too complicated (for me :P) we had reached home, and the topic of conversation soon turned to FOOD!

I love that Bree has reached the age where we are able to have these discussions with her. She took so long to begin speaking in the first place, but of course once she started...

When I grow up I'm gonna be.... A dinosaur!

Had an interesting conversation with Bree this morning where she stomped around the room like a T-rex (or Bree-rex as we call her) and told me she was going to be a dinosaur one day. Then stopped, and said in her most solemn quiet voice "but, I can't be a dinosaur one day Mummy."

Why? Because she had just realised little girls really can't grow up to be dinosaurs. Much as she may will it to be, it's just not possible.

Anyway, I just recently bought a couple of Dinosaur papers from my favourite source of scrapbooking goodies so once I take a satisfactory shot of her doing her Dino Stomp, I'll be scrappin' it. :)

"Bollywood Princess"

I love that eureka moment when I realise I know exactly where I'm going with a layout, and it can be pieced together quickly and with relative ease. Such scrap epiphanies don't happen all that often, but I suppose that's what makes the magic all the more special.

 

I chose the bold colours to continue the Bollywood style of the photoshoot, although under any other circumstance I wouldn't be appealed by intense pink by any stretch of the imagination! As my wiser though not always better half pointed out, were it true Bollywood, it would be even more OTT and probably with a significant display of gold to boot.

The supplies used were Prima 'Paisley Road' papers and rub ons. I'll get back to you on the lettering.

Time Keeps On Slipping...

Charlotte has recently turned 16, and although she's still in the newbie stage of her 16th year, suddenly I am viewing of her as a 16 year old, especially in regards to decisions that make or break or social life. I'm not sure what it is about being 16 that makes a child seem so much older suddenly. Has she changed so much from who she was a couple of weeks ago, when she was 15? No... But a cosmic shift seems to have occured nonetheless.

Bree is starting kindy in a few weeks and reminds me regularly that she is three years old, and next year she will be four. She then sets about planning her fourth birthday party, and reminds me so much of her big sister who was also 4 once upon a time. Before she suddenly became 16. (She leapt from 4 to 16 in 0.12 seconds. Seconds, not years I tell you!) Soon I will have to surrender her to the likes of school. Time is slipping by too fast for my liking.

Indie has begun singing along to his favourite nursery rhymes. Sometimes he seems to croon in tune, or enough so that you can actually tell which song he is singing. Also, some of the words come out plain as day, even though he won't speak a word outside of 'ta' and 'mama' otherwise (I lie, recently he's begun saying 'dook' for 'look' and 'rah' for 'run'.). During Twinkle Twinkle he'll say "wah-wah" for "wonder" and during Wheels on the Bus he'll say "rah-rah-rah" for "round and round".

My point to all of this (and I'm oh-so-quickly loosing the point as the time scoots closer to 2am) is that I would like to have moving pictures on a page layout. Or a little doofer that plays for example, a soundbyte of Indie's singing when you open a flap on the page (like the card Nan bought Char for her 16th). Yes that's right, this is where all of my 1am ramblings have lead to. And I think I'm on to something here. Someone needs to make a chipboard-thin LCD screen that you can slot a memory card into, and stick to a scrapbook layout. Is that crazy 1am talk, or am I on to something profitable here? (If so, I have first dibs on the whole All Rights Reserved thing.)

So, at the same time that I'm wishing I could find a way to scrap the little videos I've made of Indie's singing sessions, Bree's rolly pollies and that section of time between coming home from school and sitting at the computer, where Char tells me about her day, I'm also painfully aware of how quickly my children are growing up. These cute idiosyncrasies that make them who they are today will change a little tomorrow, and a little more the day after. I will never be able to keep up with or remember them all, much as I try. Every day my children are born again. A little different from the children they were the day before. It is inevitable that unless I can write or scrap daily, I will forget all the many many daily precious moments I tell myself I will remember forever.

And on that note, I'm going to bed. I realise I'm literally squinting at the monitor and wondering why the letters have begun to dance a wee jig across the screen.

"Radiant"

When I was a child, one of my happiest memories was one of the simplest.

On weekends, I always woke before my parents, but on the odd occasion I would wake early and enter the lounge to find mum already seated at the table, reading the morning paper. On these mornings the newborn sun would always be streaming through the window behind her, bathing the room (and my mother) in a deliciously warm golden glow. She'd greet me with a smile, and I'd tuck the treasured moment away into a peaceful corner of my brain and smile in return.

When I looked at the photos Bree snapped the last time we were at Nan's, I instantly recalled this particular  film-roll of memories and knew exactly how I could scrap it. Thanks Bree for giving me back a lovely moment of my childhood! (Even if she did grab the scissors while my attention was elsewhere, and snip the page!).

This layout came together in a wee frenzy of inspiration - until it came time to gluing it down.

The glue had dried right up.

 Desperate to get it finished asap, I decided to hand-stitch everything in place. It took much longer than I had anticipated, but I really enjoyed the process. I felt more 'connected' to my project. Have now decided to hand-stitch layouts as much as possible - gluing is such a soul-less task!

Photos by Bree, age 3. (She's gonna be a photographer one day!)

Materials Used:
Paper: Fancy Pants 'Roadshow'
Embellishments: Prima packaging, corrugated cardboard, vintage lace, vintage drawing paper, fabric flower, plastic foliage, hand-made flourishes, stitching.

"Priceless"

Photos taken sometime during the Summer when I was preggie with Indie.
It was one of the bestest best days at Cheltenham. Tide at the perfect level, Bree having the time of her life splashing about without freaking over small lapping waves, speedboats, other people (overcast crap day - the beach was ours alone). It was awesome.



Mental Note: This photo is terribly out of focus. Must update it...

Materials Used: My Minds Eye papers, Fancy Pants 'Happy Holidays' chipboard stickers, & some mighty-handy Craftworks alpha stamps.

"Big Enough To Climb"

Poor Indie really wants to be able to do everything his little big sister Bree does at the park. But he still has a bit of growing to do yet...

Aww don't worry Jack, one day you'll be big enough to climb the beanstalk!

 

Fancy Pants "It's Your Day" alpha & Elements. Puffy star stickers from E Thing, stars cut from Indie's birthday wrapping paper
Paper: unsure.

"So High Mummy"

Another awesome fun moment at the park (Hobsonville Point) which I had to scrap. I'm not at all satisfied with how this turned out, but was so eager to get stuck into Bo Bunny's funky new 'Ad Lib' range that I didn't stop to do much in the way of thinking.


Initially I wrote journalling straight onto the background paper, but mucked it up so covered it over with a journalling card. 


My choice of alphabet style was pretty restricted so I created my own in Photoshop using the Black Rose font, and printed it onto photo paper. I cut the embellishments from a paper in the same range.

Papers & Embellishments:  Bo Bunny's 'Ad Lib' range.

"Pumpkin Patch Love"

Pumpkin Patch Love - Created 6.05.11
Photos taken @ Hobsonville Point, 02.05.11

AC Cardstock, PP tags, and the rest came on a sheet bought from the $1 specials table at NZ Scrapbook.

"Char"

Here is the first scrapbook page I ever put together, created approximately 19/12/2010.

After spending a long long time deliberating on how to actually go about making a scrapbook page, I sat down one evening and this all just kind of fell onto the page. As you can probably tell! I thought it was great at the time, but now I just itch to completely rearrange and fix it. But I won't! *eye twitch eye twitch*

However I did go back and add some of Char's childhood letters to mummy (and one of my school lunchbox letters to Char) into the wee envelopes...

"It's An US Thing"

Typical. I showed this to Char and the first thing she said was "It's ANUS thing???" Go me for spacing my words too closely and not even noticing that 'AN US' is basically 'ANUS' with a gap!!! And typical that it's the first thing Char notices :P Since taking this photo I've since added a couple of apostrophes so that it reads "It's An 'Us' Thing" but it still clearly looks like anus. Ah well, it fits with our sense of humour. If I were to really change anything, it would be to center the title. Now that really bugs me

"LOVE"

I had this in my head for a few weeks and when I finally got around to putting it together, I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I absolutely love this photo and really like the simplicity of the layout. The red of the cardstock is actually deeper than how it photographed and the photo not so pink (or is it just our monitor??).

Materials: AC Cardstock, Kaisercraft script printed paper, Prima flowers, Fancy Pants 'Roadshow' rub ons.

"Bree"

I absolutely adore these photos and when I found these papers I knew they'd be perfect to go with the shots. I bought an extra sheet so as to cut out the dragonflies, but that's where the inspiration dried up. Each time I sat down to try and put it all together, I was stumped. I was trying to shove far too many dragonflies onto the page and it was cluttered, messy, and not at all as I invisioned it to be.

It was Jarrod who came to my aid, but clearing everything off the page, and placing just a few dragonflies at opposing corners as he had noticed something I'd missed entirely - the dragonflies were flying in formation at the corners, and thus the extras I cut should follow suite. Awesome. So I guess I can say this page was a collaboration between Jarrod and myself. (I'll turn him into a scrapbooker yet...)

I do wish I'd tried harder with the handwriting though!

Kaisercraft paper & dragonflies. Rosies Studio chipboard embellishment. Basic Grey chipboard alpha.

"Big Blue Park"

This was my second attempt at this layout, was turned out marginally better than the first. I wanted it to be as playful, fun and sporadic as the day itself had been on our outing to what we call the 'Big Blue Park'.

"Big Blue Park" created 11.04.11
Bazzill cardstock. Bo Bunny 'lazy daisy' rub-ons & journalling pad. Cosmo Cricket ready-set-chip alpha in 'red line'.
I created this layout twice. The first time, I used only random cut strips of paper and a black marker pen. I hated it (admittidly, I did quite literally throw 90% of it down and glue it where it landed.)

"Indie: Worth the Weight"

Once again I spent many days staring at the various papers, embellishments and photos, trying to decide which pic to use and how it would all go together. One afternoon when Indie was having a nap, I looked at it again without the late-night haze before my eyes and it all just clicked. Have plans to make a series in this colour-scheme from the Indie baby bump shoot. One day...

I do wish I'd used the close up shot we had of Indie's birthweight in place of his first-born photo, as it would have fit better with the title (which I only thought of after putting the rest of the LO together). Hindsight eh?!

Materials used: AC Cardstock, Kaisercraft paper, Fancy Pants 'Happy Together' rub ons, Prima flowers