ROCK IS DEAD!!!!!!

Blog Hop winners

2011-08-08T14:27:00.004-04:00

With a little help from random.org, I have my winners from the Practical Scrappers blog hop this weekend. It's a day for winning - guess who won spools of all three of The Twinery's new colours (*****so excited*****). There were 24 people who commented on my post, so without further ado:Congratulations Shalah!!!

Congratulations Mara!!!
I have just contacted both ladies and will arrange the prizes just as soon as I hear from them.

Hope everyone is having a great Monday ;-)

Practical Scrappers Blog Hop: Two + one = a family

2011-08-05T00:01:00.007-04:00

Thanks for joining us for the Practical Scrappers Blog Hop. You should have started the hop here at Practical Scrappers. And you should have reached me from Caz's blog. We're sharing projects that relate to the number TWO for the crop since it's our SECOND anniversary at Practical Scrappers! This was quite a challenge for me, we've missed all of our niece's and nephew's 2ND birthdays (well except the 10 month old), we forgot our 2NDanniversary (my Gran sends us cards every year now, so we remember), so I had to think (((outside))) the box. My layout is about our "family" increasing in size. It's been just the TWO of us for 13 years, but come Christmas time, there should be three of us!!! And suddenly it all feels so real!

I've also got a prize to give to TWO of you who visit and are a follower of my blog and Practical Scrappers blog. All you have to do is leave a comment letting me know you were here. I'll be giving away some goodies from my friend DeeDee's Etsy store. TWO of you will get this assortment of purple, red and blue handmade clouds. I have used them on many layouts myself and have ((loved)) them!And here's my layout. This is from my 20 week scan last week. Baby Homer is a little girl.......You should be able to see from this mosaic how I created this layout. I basically took LOTS of chipboard 2's and adhered them to a sheet of cardstock. This wasn't too much of a stretch for me - I have quite the extensive alpha collection - mostly Thickers ;-) I then painted over the numbers with black acrylic paint, waited for that to dry and then applied a purple wash to the page. I love the effect. This is not the first time I have done a layout like this, check out a couple of my others here and here.
Next up on the blog hop is the amazing Carolina. We have an extremely talented group of designers, I know you'll enjoy checking out their blogs, here is the full list again in case you need it! There are lots of amazing layouts featuring the TWO theme and lots of prizes too!

Don't forget to leave me some love and become a follower here and at Practical Scrappers to go in the draw for my prize!!! Kylie xxx

Sketchmania and Counterfeit Kit layouts

2011-04-29T06:00:00.001-04:00

If you're looking for the April blog hop for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge, my entry is here (or scroll down).

These next two layouts were also done with my April Counterfeit Kit, they were based on sketches for Sketchmania at UmWowStudio.

This is last weeks sketch and my take on it:I've got to tell you, I like the bird I did on my Ulysses Grant and I at the Capitol layout better than this one, but overall, I'm satisfied with the way this page turned out. And I love this photograph - Craig and I had so much fun taking them.

And this is the sketch from this week and my take on it:This layout is much nicer in real life. I promise. We had no sun the other day when I took the photograph and I had waited a couple of days to take it too. Where has Spring gone? The picture in the layout is from my trip to Austria in 2003 - another shot from Schloss Schronbrunn. Wow, I'm finally getting some of those photographs scrapped lately!!

One Sunny Day - Eyelet Challenge

2011-04-28T18:57:00.002-04:00

If you're looking for the Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop, my post is here (or scroll down).

So I realised I have a few layouts that I have done this month for my design team duties at Practical Scrappers and Sketchmania that I haven't posted on my blog. Last Tuesday the Challenge Me Tuesday feature at Practical Scrappers was eyelets. Now, if you've been by this blog regularly, then you'll know that I {{{{{LOVE}}}}} setting eyelets - it has a lot to do with smacking them with my hammer - quite invigorating if I do say so myself. Well, a couple weeks back, I was having a bit of a stressful day and I decided that I would go for broke with the eyelet setting for the Practical Scrappers challenge and that is how I ended up with this:Nope, I have no idea how many there are. If you want to count them, go right ahead, be my guest. I love how this layout turned out. The colours are so beautiful in real life. And yes, the desired stress relief was obtained, I'm a much calmer person nowadays ;-)

If you want to check out the rest of the layouts that were submitted to Practical Scrappers, that post is here. There is also a competition on the site today.

Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop - April

2011-04-28T00:00:00.001-04:00

Welcome to the April Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop. Hopefully you have reached from my friend Tara's blog, if not, follow the link above to the Counterfeit Kit blog page and start from the very beginning. The ladies that partake in this challenge have a lot of talent to showcase and it will be worth your while.

This month's blog hop challenge was to scraplift one of the Master Forgers, the design team for the Counterfeit Kit challenge. I chose this layout here by Lisa. Here's my take on it:This picture of Craig was taken last winter on the first day that we noticed the sun - seriously. I pulled it out about a month ago so that I could compare last winter to this winter and finally got around to scrapping it. Of course, while the sun turned up in March this year, it's been absent for all of April ;-)

This was another fun month with the Counterfeit Kit - I got nine layouts completed, two of which I just realised haven't even been posted to my blog yet. I'll get on to that in the next day or two. For now, here's a collage of all the layouts I've completed with this kit.

The next stop on the blog hop is Glinda the Razzled Scrapper. Thanks for stopping by!!! Kylie

Up high above the clouds - Memorabilia challenge

2011-04-16T14:57:00.004-04:00

One of the mini challenges from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge is to use memorabilia on a layout. I am actually very good at doing this already. And have all sorts of ephemera from our trips on my layouts. One of my favourite things to use on a layout is actually pressed pennies - because you get an embellishment that is unique to the pictures you're scrapping and where you are.
Anyway, here's my layout for this challenge - a picture of Homer and I at the top of Blackcomb Mountain after crossing from Whistler on the Peak-to-peak gondola. I included our gondola passes on the layout.I'm not sure where the patterned paper on this layout came from, but the ledger like paper is part of the Echo Park For the Record line. The canvas hearts are cut from Prima canvas paper. The clouds are UmWowStudio and the alpha letters are Cosmo Cricket. Thanks for looking. Kylie xxx

hey, if you comment, can you let me know whether this picture and the other pictures on my blog appear blurry to you please? If I click on them, they're in focus, but they appear blurry to me. Am I saving my pictures at too high a resolution for Blogger? I'd prefer they all looked in focus without enlarging them - if you know what I mean ;-)

Bella Blvd giveaway over at Practical Scrappers

2011-04-13T18:44:00.001-04:00

Practical Scrappers is featured Bella Blvd products today and tomorrow and have two awesome giveaways - it's really easy to enter. Check the giveaway out here.

Ulysses Grant & I at the Capitol

2011-04-09T16:21:00.003-04:00

I love the colour scheme in this layout! I wanted to highlight the statue of Ulysses Grant in front of the Capitol building, so I decided to scrap this layout with teal colours. Everything, but the twine from The Twinery is from my April Counterfeit Kit. This photo was taken in Washington in November. The chipboard bird under all that twine is from Stampin Up - I included a whole sheet of them in my kit, so may try covering one in twine again (maybe some different colours) because I {{{love}}} how he turned out. The background "paper" is actually canvas - I *think* it's Prima, but cannot be 100% certain and it doesn't have any manufacturer's markings on the back. The alpha letters are Cosmo Cricket - I put lots of them in my kit because I picked up about 7 or 8 different colours for $1.29 a sheet at Archivers last month. The ribbon for the flowers and buttons are also Stampin Up. The acrylic journaling spot arrived in the mail from my friend Marlene eariler this week as part of a swap and was immediately included in my kit. Thanks for checking my layout out, let me know what you think of my birdie. Kylie xxx

If you have some twine Wee Memories currently has a challenge up to use some of it!

Glasses, No glasses

2011-04-09T11:09:00.003-04:00

Every time we take photographs outside Craig and I have a discussion about his glasses. I hate the fact that he has transition lenses. I guess they're protecting his eyes and all that, but I like to see them! Selfish? Probably. Actually, yes, definitely. But his transition lenses really aren't conducive to GREAT scrapbooking moments ;-) They also sort of freak me out a little. This layout is about that argument. If I am wearing sunglasses, I will almost always take them off or put them on my head for a photograph - so you see my eyes. It annoys me when we have otherwise great pictures that are ruined by Craig's expensive Armani framed black boxes. He has a new script for lenses at the moment, so I live in hope ;-)The layout uses Echo Park paper from my Counterfeit Kit - the only thing not from my kit is the yellow twine from The Twinery that I used for the banner. I had intended to put some twine in my kit, but in my haste to photograph it and start scrapping with it, I must've forgotten. Oh well, that's been rectified now ;-) Especially on the layout I did immediately following this one - which I will post later. I am really enjoying using this kit up - I'm not sure how much longer it will last - the colours are such a great combination for me. And I'm loving how these layouts are turning out. Kylie xxx

Another apple picking layout.....

2011-04-08T17:54:00.004-04:00

Last month I scrapped a couple of pictures of Craig apple picking last fall with my Counterfeit kit. I thought the pictures of me apple picking were particularly heinous (especially one where I realize the apple I just bit into had a spider living near the stalk - it's the bottom pic in the layout below), but I decided to scrap them to go with Craig's layout. And I absolutely love, love, love, love, love the layout that I created. I used my Counterfeit Kit. Well, the embellishments at least - I didn't use any patterned paper, but using cardstock still counts as using up my stash (especially as I have a mountain of it). Here's the layout:And here are some close ups of the embellishments:OK, the bright green buttons are Jenni Bowlin, there are also some Stampin Up buttons in there - the rest are probably from mixed manufacturers. The title alphas are thickers, the little letters of the photos are Cosmo Cricket (this is getting a little old - I should copy and paste the same list as my last two layouts). The chipboard birds are Maya Rd. The paper hearts are UmWowStudio. The gnarly old tree is a Spooky Tree from Magistical Memories that I have had in my stash for ages. Thanks for checking out my page - leave me some love! Kylie xxx

Palazzo Vecchio - GYSO #14, 23 eyelet challenge & Counterfeit Kit

2011-04-07T19:19:00.004-04:00

This layout uses my Counterfeit kit - the scraps of paper from my last layout too - I NEVER use scraps, so I'm more than impressed with myself. It also uses this weeks Get Your Sketch On sketch and 113 eyelets. The eyelets are for a challenge to use at least 23 eyelets on a card/layout over at Scrapbookers Anonymous. I {{{{LOVE}}}} setting eyelets - I won't lie to you - so this challenge was right up my alley ;-) Here's the sketch I was following:And here's my layout featuring a photo taken in Florence in 2003. We were visiting the Palazzo Vecchio (which is the building Michealangelo's David originally stood in front of) and couldn't take pictures of most of the artwork or statues, so Craig snapped this picture of me in one of the hallways. we had just come out of the most amazing room that had 100's of maps in it - all over the wood paneling and in all the drawers and cabinets - some of them were 100's of years old - they were amazing. I love maps/geography.The paper on this layout is Echo Park, the green title alphas are AC Thickers and the red alphas are Cosmo Cricket. TFL Kylie xxx

Schloss Schronbrunn - Sketchmania & Counterfeit Kit Layout

2011-04-06T16:53:00.004-04:00

This is my first layout using my April Counterfeit Kit. It is done using this weeks Sketchmania sketch (#39):The photograph in the layout was taken, by yours truly, in Austria in 2003 when Carina came to visit me in Vienna. We were visiting Schloss Schronbrunn - the summer palace of the Austrian royal family. The gardens were absolutely amazing - the palace was lovely too - but it's the gardens I remember. Oh, and the toilet - Carina and I both hopped in the stall at one stage because it was the first time either of us had seen a self-cleaning electric toilet - you know, the ones with the plastic sleeve around the seat - it was pretty cool back in 2003. The other thing I remember about this bit of site-seeing is that I saw my VERY FIRST SQUIRREL in the garden at the palace ;-) Anyway, here's my layout:
That is Echo Park paper - you can see both sides ;-) Maya Rd Bingo markers, Hearts from UmWowStudio, Maya Rd chipboard bird, ribbon from stash and the letters are Cosmo Cricket. Kylie xxx

April Counterfeit Kit - A Little Birdie Told Me

2011-04-05T20:24:00.004-04:00

This months Counterfeit Kit Challenge is to forge this kit by Front Porch Kits:The kit is absolutely gorgeous!!! I had some of the Echo Park papers that were included in it, so I've been chomping at the bit all day to get home and throw my kit together. Don't you just hate it when real life (i.e. work) gets in the way of your scrapbooking? Anyway, here are the pictures of my kit - I'm not going to apologise for the light - the truth is, I wanted to get the photos taken and start scrapping straight away, so I never checked what the colours were like on the computer before I dived into my kit. See.....I've already started using it!!! Here are my papers:And my embellies. I went with the whole "A Little Bird Told Me" theme and added lots of chipboard bird and bird embellishments into the mix. The last couple of months I don't think my kits have had enough embellies for my taste, so this month i threw in lots more!!!
Here's a collage of some close-up shots of those embellishments. I love the colours in this kit!!!!And last, but not least, a little plug for my friend's Etsy store. The clouds, hearts and chipboard swallow in my kit are made by my friend DeeDee and can be found here at UmWowStudio She's honestly not paying me to say that either - I just REALLY enjoy scrapping with her embellishments and encourage you all to take a look ;-)As I have done for the previous month's kits, I plan to pull cardstock as I need it - so haven't photographed any of that. So, I've already created a layout with this kit, but alas, I can't share it with you all until tomorrow. If you haven't played along with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge yet, I highly recommend it and encourage you to give it a go!!!! Kylie xxx

What do Ephemera, Verona and my Counterfeit Kit have in common?

2011-03-19T18:58:00.004-04:00

This layout!!! That's what. We're having a crop today at OSU. I was a little bit late starting, but the first challenge I decided to do was one from Tricia to create a layout featuring ephemera. Something I have lots of. So I decided to create a layout using a postcard from our trip to Italy in 2003. I like to buy postcards when I know that we haven't been able to take the best photographs and I just scrap them instead. This layout is about the Arena in Verona - it is the largest, best preserved Roman arena that is left and they host live events there. There had been a concert the night before we visited and there were work crews dismantling the stange and seating while we were there - so I bought the postcard.I also still had the tickets we purchased to enter the arena (8 years later and living in another country - I think I'm good!). Anyway, this is another layout created with my March counterfeit kit (my 6th). I also used some of the prize pack I won from Bursts of Creativity that arrived in the mail this week (I'm going to blog about that a little later). Right, time to post this puppy and get working on my next challenge.....

More March Counterfeit Kit Layouts

2011-03-16T20:48:00.000-04:00

SQUIRRELS!!!!!!! After 4 years in America I still get excited every.single.time. I see a squirrel. Craig too. I'm in good company. And we saw a few today - we've had a thaw and lots of rain and today.....shhhhhhh.....don't tell anyone, but we had sunshine. I don't want to get too excited, but this evening after work we went for an hour long walk and lots of squirrels were out, cardinals too. It was lovely. Anyway, this talk of squirrels has a point - here's a layout of one:This squirrel was on The Mall in Washington DC and yes, we're bad, we fed him human food. McDonald's fries. Bad human food. You know how in Disneyland they have McDonald's fries stations that sell nothing but fries. There's one on the mall in Washington DC too. And this fat squirrel lives there. This layout was all my Counterfeit Kit. Go me! The layout is called Adapt because as a geneticist I'm always on the look out for adaptive behaviour - it drives evolution dude!
Taking of science (that wasn't planned BTW), here's a picture of me and my hero. I have a picture of Albert Einstein on one side of my computer screen at work and my mate Charles Darwin on the other side. So while in Washington DC, we made sure to go to the National Academy of Sciences building and have our pics taken with Albert Einstein. What a beautiful statue of him. I loved it, it's in a little grove almost directly across the road from where the Vietnam memorial is. This is another layout done with my Counterfeit Kit.I added some Jillibean soup Atomic soup paper and embellies to this layout so it was a little more science-y. The colours look good together, I'm just not convinced that I should switch that busy background crate paper patterned paper out. It's the paper I built my kit around and I love it and desperately wanted to use it - I went through all of my printed photos looking for inspiration to use it, so I should just leave it alone. But I don't know if I can....... What do you think?

Take Flight - Echo Park, For the Record & Sketchmania #35

2011-03-16T07:50:00.001-04:00

I got my first pack(s) of Echo Park paper last week. For the Record and A Walk in the Park. I haven't even opened the A Walk in the Park pack yet, but used the For the Record line to make this weeks design team page for SketchMania #36. This month's prize for participating in SketchMania is really good, so if you haven't yet had a chance, you should check them out. This is the sketch I was following:
And this is what I did with it:And a close up of my film strips - I was actually attempting to follow the sketch you know....
This film strips were a pain in the butt to make because I didn't have any thin transparencies and had to resort to heavy duty transparency which my die and cuttlebug couldn't quite cut through - enter my exacto knife (yay me!!!). I shouldn't complain, this was a fun layout to do and I really like the finished product.

March Telephone Scraplift - Counterfeit Kit layout

2011-03-13T16:33:00.008-04:00

I take part in a Telephone Scraplift every month, where the first person lifts a layout, the next lifts theirs, the next lifts theirs etc etc. This runs concurrently with several groups - all using the same original layout as inspiration. It's always fun at the end of the month to see what each group came up with and how similar or divergent the layouts created are. Anyway, the reveal won't be until later in the month (actually it'll probably be April), so I can't post my layout here on my blog - it's a secret; But I did use my Counterfeit Kit to create the layout, so I am posting a sneak preview (which I can link to for the prizes at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge blog - I desperately want to win this).I'm really happy with how this layout came out - I used winter photos on it and didn't think at first that my kit was up to the challenge, but it was.

Anyway, this is my telephone scraplift layout from last month: And this is the layout I was lifting. I don't know whose the original was, because I don't pick them. This picture is my niece Paige and her bike. I cut the tricycle image out with my Slice and the clouds are from UmWowStudio. The ribbon is prima.

Make sure you come back next month when I can reveal my layout. Kylie xxx

White House - GYSO #10

2011-03-13T16:23:00.005-04:00

This is this weeks sketch from Get Your Sketch On. I didn't play last week, so definitely wanted to have a god this week with my Counterfeit Kit.I got some new Graphite Glimmer Mist in the post yesterday, so I got that out to play with - everything but the green buttons is from my Counterfeit kit. I used the same Prima felt gate I used for this layout of Craig at the White House as a mask - Missus Wookie, I know you used yours the same way - you can see that some of teh original brown glimmer mist leached out of the felt - I like how it looks, but will have to be careful about what colours I use if I use the gate as a mask again. I really like how this layout turned out - I love those green buttons from Jenni Bowlin - this is my second pack of them. Well, truth be know, I just like anything that colour green. I'm not picky. Anyway, leave me some love, Kylie xxx

Fruity - Sketchmania #35 & Counterfeit Kit layout #1

2011-03-09T07:40:00.002-05:00

This is a layout for Sketchmania #35 over at UmWowStudio using this sketch:I used my Counterfeit Kit to do the layout too - my first layout using the kit. I'm going to come right out and say that this wasn't the direction I thought this particular sketch would take me in - I had envisaged some of that gorgeous large rosette ribbon that several companies have out at the moment. However DeeDee and I were having a conversation about what constitutes a banner the other day and I had seen a layout with a similar line with clips and suddenly, with the whole "Into the Woods" theme that my counterfeit kit is supposed to be following, this layout was born:The detail shots show that I used stamps - I stamped onto the wooden veneer I'd pulled for my kit using red staz-on. Besides the clothes pegs, all of the embellishments are from the kit - oh and the stamps, they weren't there, but they were both from unused sets, so I figured I'd play with them ;-) Oh and eyelets - but hey, who's counting?I had wanted to make the title "An apple a day does not keep the goofy camera face away" - it's a long standing joke between Craig and I that he looks like this in all his pictures, but I settled on "Apple Picking", he later decided the title needed to be "Fruity" - as in, he's fruity, so I added this arrow to keep the man happy.All in all, a great sketch and a great layout - who knew the kit I chose would be this versatile?

March Counterfeit Kit

2011-03-06T08:48:00.006-05:00

I had so much fun playing along with the Counterfeit Kit Challenge last month that I'm playing again this month. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do this first part of the month, but I should have some time in a couple of weeks to churn out some layouts. This month's inspiration kit is "Into the Woods" by Studio Calico:I canceled my own subscription to Studio Calico a couple of months back. I love their kits, but found I wasn't using them fast enough and I wasn't such a humongous fan of the colour palette a lot of the time. Don't get me wrong, there were kits I have absolutely loved and used everything in them, but there are many others that have sat untouched. I'm being honest with myself when I say that the above kit would probably have been one of those that sat untouched - except for the Fabrips and that wood veneer paper - elements I just love. I always loved when Studio Calico would have wooden products in their kits. So, I decided to change the colours up a little for my kit. I have trouble using bold patterned papers, so decided to build my kit around a couple of bold papers. That's the two crate paper pages that are the second sheet of paper on both the top and bottom rows. I love those papers, but have had them for a while. So, here's my kit:It's mostly that aqua green/blue with a splash of red on some of the pages. I haven't pulled cardstock, but will probably pair the papers with lots of kraft elements - which you can see in the photograph. I have a couple of sheets of half-finished Studio Calico fabrips in there. Some wood veneer, a sheet of cork, Maya Rd star shaped trinket pins, Jillibean soup cardboard arrows (and a couple of stars). A mostly finished Sassafras red alpha, untouched Artsylicious alphas - the lower case letters are in the pack on the other side and some So Sophie adhesive letters. Here's a close-up on my embellishments:And because I'm being brave, I hunted through my stamps looking for a bumblebee or a squirrel and stumbled across lots of stamps that have never been used. I pulled these two sets by Stampin Up out and hope to use at least one of each set this month - that shouldn't be hard, right?Of course, Studio Calico have four add-on kits as well. I thought of making a couple, but I'm a realist - I actually want to use my kit up this month and although I'm a rather prolific scrapper when I get started, I think I'll stick to just the one. I'm REALLY happy with how this kit turned out - these colours have me inspired - now I just need to use the kit!!! Kylie xxx

Homer's - Pixie Dust Paperie February Challenge

2011-02-28T18:12:00.004-05:00

This is a layout I completed on Saturday for the Pixie Dust Paperie February Challenge. I stumbled across this blog and kit club through Practical Scrappers last week. When I saw this sketch, I just knew I had to have a go at it. I'm trying to finish off my album from our trip home to New Zealand for Christmas 2009, so decided to use this photo of Craig and his immediate family. I had such fun creating this layout - I don't normally scrap with this sort of colour palette, so it's waayyyyyy outside my comfort zone, but I like the final result.The paper is from the Studio Calico documentary line, the Fab-rips (fabric strips, they aren't paper) are Studio Calico too. The Bingo card is by Tattered Angels. The clouds - which I am running VERY low on thanks to a GIANT stuff up by my "friends" at the US*bleeping*PS are from UmWowStudio. The wheel is KI Memories, the chipboard buttons are Jenni Bowlin. The wooden bingo markers are Maya Rd, there's some Tim Holtz acetate film in there and then a page pebble from the Making Memories giggle kids line and some Close to My Heart metallic tabs. Wow, I'm surprised I remembered all that!! Here's a detail shot of my embellishment cluster.Like I said, I'm really happy with how this layout worked out - this was such a fun sketch to work with. Thanks for coming by and checking out my page - leave me some love ;-) Kylie xxx

Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop!!!

2011-02-28T00:01:00.002-05:00

Hi, I'm Kylie!!! Welcome to Rock is Dead for those of you who haven't been here before. This is my post for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Hop. You should have come to me through Michelle at A Creative Operation. I'm so excited to have stumbled across the Counterfeit Kit Challenge and even more excited to show you what I have done with my kit.
This was my kit on February 5th when I started.
And these are the layouts I have managed to make with it this month. There are these nine, plus the layout I created with the Scraps of Darkness sketch. I'm pretty darn happy with how this kit worked out for me. Although I'll admit that I don't think I'll be scrapping red and black or maroon/crimson and black/grey pages again in an awful hurry. I'll be more "weary" of my colour choices in March.Ok, this is the Scraps of Darkness Sketch for the blog hop:And here is my take on that sketch. Homer and I at my sister's wedding in October 2004.I actually ended up scanning my Jenni Bowlin Bingo card for this layout because I wanted a bigger card that was black and white, not that off black and cream - I think this is my favourite layout using my kit.
And a couple of close up shots of the details:I just love that rosette ribbon. The felt swirls are more of my cut-up Prima border that I had desecrated for an earlier layout. Normally I'd trash something like that because I'd be happy I had used even a little bit, but this month all my scraps went back into my kit - which is a good thing, because nothing is going to waste, but then again, I have so much......And finally, the pièce de résistance, a photograph of what remains of my kit. I added a lot into it as the month progressed, but I'm pretty happy with how I managed to whittle down my stash. I just wish I'd used those metal embellies, because I fear they will never be used.....Alrighty then, that's it. I can't wait to play next month. Can't wait to see what Meridy and Bethany come up with - is it the 5th yet?

Thanks for visiting. The fun isn't over yet though!! Lori @ Frugal Scrapper Extroadinaire is next on the list for the blog hop. Please visit her page and leave her some love. Kylie xxx

Christchurch and more Counterfeit kit layouts....

2011-02-26T16:06:00.003-05:00

I'm really stoked at how many layouts I have made using my Counterfeit kit this month. I think these next two layouts take the total to 10 - which isn't too shappby. Especially as I barely have any of my kit left and I did manage to use some of the flowers I pulled out of my stash, in spite of myself ;-) This first layout is to go with this one of Craig that I did last weekend using my kit. Once again, it's a layout using an iPhone pic - lovely isn't it. Craig says I smile with my eyes too much - well, at least I don't grimace at the camera. This shot was also taken at the same time the pic of Craig was taken - we were celebrating 10 years together with dinner in May 2009.I had this sheet of polka dot paper in my kit - the paper is Doodlebug designs and all those polka dots are glitter. Arghhhhh! Anyway, try as I might I couldn't think what to do with the paper and then I settled on this picture of Brent topping the paddock next to the house on Christmas Eve 2009. Believe me when I tell you I get a perverse pleasure out of scrapping a picture of my brother-in-law on glittery paper. His brother got a bit of a laugh out of it too. Topping (a farming term for mowing - I guess) that paddock is sort of a tradition before Christmas, because the Homer's and every dog they own "golf" in there every Boxing Day. When I say the dogs play, they fetch the balls. Someone always ends up chasing after them on a quad bike though... This particular year, nobody even got the golf clubs out - we went skeet shooting in another paddock instead.Those green dandelions are from Hambly - I'm sure I've had those rub-ons in my stash for a good 4 years ;-) Glad to have used them! I do have one question though, does anyone else have trouble with adhering stuff to Doodlebug glittered paper - I had to resort to liquid glue in the end to get everything to adhere.
This next "layout" was for me - it was cathartic. I have had this paper with a map of New Zealand on it for many years - I had intended to scrap pictures of Craig and I at Cape Reinga using it - I don't even have those pics in the US though, so I'm not sure when I was gonna do that ;-) Anyway, the journaling is about the Christchurch earthquake this week - how we found out about it, how we reacted and how sad I feel. I took a picture of the paper just after I started so you can see what it looked like beforehand:This is the finished product :-(Thanks for looking y'all. Leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Toy Soldiers - GYSO#8

2011-02-25T18:33:00.010-05:00

This is this weeks sketch over at Get Your Sketch On.I was really excited to scrap these pictures of Craig and a mime dressed up as a toy soldier that we took while in New York City. I love the photos and I know Craig had a good time posing for them. Here's my layout:Those that know my husband will be wondering how the heck I managed to convince him to let me put one of his Lego figures on a scrapbooking page. Actually, it was surprisingly easy. What wasn't easy was his reaction when I told him I was cutting up his jeans as an embellishment. They were in a terrible state!!! And we bought some new ones this evening on our way home, so he shouldn't complain. This saves me having to go to the thrift store to buy some random person's jeans for my pages. The paper here is Studio Calico, the black ric rac and paper are from my stash. The embellies are of course Lego. Here are some close ups of the little army figure. Stealing this from my husbands Lego stash didn't even put a dent in it.... The pics in the collage are taken with the flash on, I forgot to take close ups while during the 10 minutes of daylight we experienced this evening after I got home from work, hence the apparent colour difference.I know he's pretty bulky on my page, but no more so than a lot of other embellishments I use, so I'm not too fussed. Besides which, he's a perfect complement.
Thanks for checking out my page, leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Red Nose Day 2010: Sketchmania #33

2011-02-23T21:48:00.003-05:00

I'm a guest designer again this week over at UmWowStudio for Sketchmania #33. This is my layout:These are pictures of Matheson wearing his Red Nose for Red Nose Day. Red Nose Day used to be to raise funds for research into SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) in New Zealand. We have one of the highest rates in the modern world. However, in teh past maybe 10 years there has been no Red Nose Day - I'm not sure why. This year it was resurrected by Cure Kids and is to raise funds for all their research programmes. Cure Kids is the fundraising arm of the New Zealand Child Health Research Foundation - I know this because they funded my PhD scholarship for research into childhood leukaemia. They are therefore a charity very close to my heart. There's a song to go with Red Nose Day too. It's VERY catchy - the television ads used to have the whole of New Zealand singing along (literally). I posted a link below - but it's to a newer version. Terri, I'm sure you found me a link to the older version, but I can't find it.
Back to my layout. The stitching was done with the help of my new Sew Easy tool (Tara, you were right!) and the stamped babies clothes on the line - yes, stamping!!! - is a Stamping Up wheel. The letters are Jenni Bowlin. The music notes are Maya Rd painted with MM paint. Here's a wee close up of them:OK, this isn't Hammond Gamble's version of the Red Nose Day song that we all listened to through the 80's and 90's, it's Anika Moa's new version - recorded for last year's campaign. I like it, but I wish I could find one of the old TV ads with Judy Bailey's big hair on YouTube........OK and just because I can, here's another Little Button Nose layout with the words to the song that I did as part of LOAD back in January of 2009:

More Counterfeit kit layouts: Sketchy Thursdays sketch and HMITM #165

2011-02-20T10:07:00.007-05:00

This is this weeks (2.17) sketch from Sketchy Thursdays: And here is my take on it. This layout was done using my Counterfeit Kit. Pictures of me from my sister's wedding in 2004. Ignore that dorky look on Craig's face - that's the best the man could do - It's OK, my sister's and I made sure we had him practice smiling for our wedding. Goofball! I have actually scrapped that picture for a Blog Hop for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge that's taking place on the 28th, so come back!
This next picture is of some GCD paper that I had in my stash and added to my Counterfeit kit first - yup, it was the very first sheet of patterned paper I grabbed and I built my kit around it. But, I have been struggling to use it - I seriouslyhave. Well, last night I discovered it was double sided. The back was a lined sheet of shimmery paper with the most amazing texture. I know I should have used the flocked side, but I'm weak. The aim is to just use this stash up right?You can see the other side of that paper here in this layout. This is a photo of Craig I have had printed for ages, along with several others from our meal at Sarava that night, they were all taken on my iPhone. I had completely forgotten what we were celebrating, so had to ask Craig if he knew - sometimes the man shocks me - apparently (and the dates on the photo fit perfectly) we were celebrating being together 10 years. The fact that he remembered this and I didn't was somewhat humbling - but I'm over that now ;-)
Anyway, this LO started off with two photos - the other one is even goofier, but I couldn't get it to work. I was following a prescription from the How Much Is Too Much challenge #165 this week Love is in the Air. I failed with the two photos, but my colours are predominantly red and an off black (almost brown), I have my 14 hearts, I have clock hands as arrows (14 to be precise - check out the detail picture below), no flowers, but the hearts are cut from Basic Grey floral paper that was also in my counterfeit kit (go me!) and I have ribbon!! I love how this layout turned out.The clock hands and clock face are Tim Holtz, the bingo card and letters are Jenni Bowlin. The bling is Kaiserkraft. I love that this layout looks completely different from the other red or maroon and black layouts I have been doing lately and yet still uses my counterfeit kit. I'm only a "little" sorry I didn't use the flocked side of the paper ;-)
Here is a close up of my hearts with the clock hand arrows - I love the symbolism of this on a layout where we're celebrating 10 years together. Yes, I use 14 of them - I know, that may seem excessive, but I have an excessively large stash too!!! LOL.
Anyway, thanks for looking. Leave me some love, Kylie xxx

Counterfeit kit layouts and GYSO#7

2011-02-19T11:40:00.004-05:00

These are a couple of layouts I created last night. This first layout is for Get Your Sketch On #7 and also uses my February Counterfeit Kit.The paper is GCD - it's a die cut sheet of paper with a scalloped edge - I don't like the edge, so I taped it up on the back so I can have a straight-edged 12x12 sheet of paper. The pictures are of the Fairmont Banff Spings - the hotel I stayed at during my Keystone conference in Canada earlier this week. The pins and baubles are Making Memories, the clock is Tim Holtz and thickers are American Crafts. Oh, the journaling block is Jenni Bowlin.
This next layout also uses my Counterfeit Kit and is for the Putting Pen to Paper Challenge that required a layout with no photos. I guess this is sort of Valentinesy (yes, that's a word - I invented it and I'm going with it). We had a terrible, horrible no good very bad day yesterday and making this layout made me feel just a wee bit better ;-)Most of kraft coloured elements on this page are Maya Rd as are the ribbon and the pins, the corrugated cardboard elements are Jillibean Soup. There are a couple of Basic Grey elements on there too. The cork is from my stash. I like how this one turned out. Can anyone tell me how I can get the colour on my browser to match the colour in Photoshop and Picasa?
This next layout is of my mother-in-law on Christmas day 2009 with all her loot. I think it's the first layout I have done for the Counterfeit Kit Challenge that exclusively uses the kit I put together ;-)I cut up the Prima felt border for the bird and swirl. I used some more of the mirror elements I made too. I really like how this one turned out. I think I have 5 more sheets of paper left in my Counterfeit Kit, so I had better hop to it. Have a great weekend all. Leave me some love, Kylie xxx

Just got back from making lots of scrapbook-able memories in Canada.....

2011-02-17T19:04:00.004-05:00

....and a great conference too! Thought I would share some things that have happened while I was away.
This layout (below) was featured on Practical Scrappers on Valentine's Day. Which you can see here. It was my February Chocolatier layout for CropChocolate.
I also made the top 5 at Get Your Sketch On again this week - which is sort of, kind of, cool ;-)
And, this week (and next) I am a guest designer on my friend DeeDee's sketch challenge Sketchmania. This is the sketch for this week:And this is my take on it - Craig at the White House during our trip to Washington in November last year.You'll notice my mad, awesome, misting skills (not!), I made the gate mask out of a Prima felt gate that I had left over from an old ScrapGoods kit - I know I have already used a couple of those gates that I got free as a DT member, so I wasn't too upset with re-purposing it and still have it to mist with in future. The ribbon is Maya Rd. The metal clock face and the film acetate are Tim Holtz. The key is random and from my stash. Thanks for looking and leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Smiley - GYSO #6

2011-02-09T21:00:00.003-05:00

This is the sketch this week at Get Your Sketch On. It's a great sketch, because there are so many ways it could be interpreted.Anyway, here's my take on it. I managed to use some of the things I had put together for my Counterfeit Kit Challenge kit: the paper, some of the flowers. Hey, I used flowers!! I'm shocked too ;-) It's great to use up bits of my stash I didn't envisage using too!And here's a close-up shot of all those flowers and buttons. I ***think*** I like how this layout turned out, I'm just not sure.... LOLAnd here's a detail shot of a layout I can't share with you all just yet. I really enjoyed doing it - in spite of the fact my misting leaves a little to be desired. LOL. I had hoped to use my Counterfeit kit on this one too, but I don't have that much discipline. I had bits and pieces on my desk - but they're still on the desk ;-)Anyway, thanks for checking my layouts out. Leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Spring 2010 - Sketchy Thursdays sketch

2011-02-06T20:10:00.005-05:00

This is the sketch from Sketchy Thursdays this week.I'll be honest, it didn't exactly jump out and grab me, but I thought I'd give it a go anyway. Then, they announced that some of the layouts from this weeks sketch would have a chance at being published and I thought about it and thought maybe I'd try to get a submission worthy enough, but the reality is, I decided quite some time ago now that I am going to scrap for me. So I dived into my dwindling supply of printed photos (unless you count pictures from Italy - they seem to be multiplying) and grabbed this set, of Craig in Spring 2010. I had trouble deciding what to do with the page because the blossoms are pink and that's a man sitting under them. Well, at least he'd have us believe he is ;-) Anyway, I decided to sand/distress some Core'dinations cardstock with a pink core and use that as a photo "mat". I then sanded another area for the Maya Rd tree rub-on. The blue ribbon is supposed to lend some masculinity - all of which I took away again with the pink heart pins (also from Maya Rd). I do like the way this turned out though - in spite of the fact that it was a pain in the butt to do all that sanding and to photograph the darn thing.All in all, another sketch I enjoyed completing and another set of photographs scrapped. Excellent....

Diet Coke Addiction - HMITM #164

2011-02-06T13:53:00.003-05:00

The challenge at How Much Is Too Much this week was to scrap about your favourite drink. With a countdown: 5 embellishments, 4 patterned papers, 3 word title, 2 circles, 1 photo. This is my layout:It probably didn't shock some of you that I scrapped about Diet Coke - and yes, I'm addicted. Now, the 5 embellishments: The coke bottle was part of a Cosmo Cricket spin the bottle embellishment I've had forever, the canvas love tag is Prima, the red spoon - it is an old cardboard spoon for eating ice-cream came from a kit a while back (I have no idea which one though), the brads and buttons are from my stash and I have no idea who makes them. I did use a few of the little "mirror" embellies I made for my Counterfeit Kit Challenge this morning. There are a couple of Maya Rd wooden bingo pieces in there and some Making Memories baubles. The ribbon is Prima too. I think that's at least 5 things???? 4 patterned papers: I technically have 3 from the Basic Grey Ambrosia line - this really is the only BG line I like (well, excluding the Basics) and I buy it whenever I come across it. There are also some grey and black cardstock pieces from my stash. 3 word title: Diet. Coke. Addiction. The alphas are thickers - surprised anyone? 2 circle: Yeah, might have gone a bit overboard there..... 1 photo: One photo on the layout, but I took about 60 before I settled on this shot. Embarrassingly, all those cans of coke are empty and were sitting on our bench in the kitchen waiting to be taken out. There were more. ***gulp*** Anyway, that's my challenge entry. Thanks for looking, leave me some love. Kylie xxx

February Conterfeit Kit Challenge - my kit

2011-02-06T09:59:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks back Tara pointed out a new blog to us all at OSU called the Counterfeit Kit Challenge. The January challenge was already well under way, but a few of us decided to give it a go "next month". Well, "next month" is here and Missus Wookie reminded us all yesterday that we were going to do this - she's even offering some RAKs for her own supply for those of us on OSU who do the challenge. I certainly don't need Missus Wookie to relocate her scrap stash from London into my apartment, but I do need to start using my stash, so I am happily playing along. The added bonus is that the kit that was chosen this month to counterfeit is something I instantly liked (well, not the ribbon that looks like a centipede - insects in my craft room I can do without! LOL). The kit is from Scraps of Darkness and is called The Telltale Heart. This is a picture of the main kit:And here is what I pulled from my stash to make my kit:
I think technically, I'm supposed to pull cardstock as well - I didn't because cardstock is generally not something that I have trouble using up. What I need to use up is patterned paper and embellishments. Here is a better shot of my patterned papers:And here is a better shot of my embellishments. I was going to pull a lot more flowers, but if I'm being completely honest with myself, I don't use them all that much. I will be absolutely delighted if I simply use the flowers that are pictured below.The kit from Scraps if Darkness contains some diamond shaped mirror pieces in a little package in the top right. When I was in San Antonio a couple of years back, Jen Barkdull had a package of mirrors in her scrap supply and I raided them and used them on a few pages at teh crop, so I really wanted to include some in my kit, but didn't have any. I posted asking whether there would be a tutorial to make some on the Counterfeit Kit blog and one of the readers did experiment with making them and posted the tutorial on her blog. Thank you so much Kindle Lover. When I read the post this morning I hauled my butt out of bed and made these for my kit:They are just CTMH window charms and tin foil (aluminium foil to you Yanks and yes, I spelt the word correctly!!!). So, this is my kit. There were add-ons, but they didn't really appeal (which means there were more flowers and the like) and glimmer mists and screens as well. Well, I have mists and screens and might even use them with this kit, I was just too lazy to pull them. Now I have the kit, I hope to use it ;-) Thanks for looking. Leave me some love, Kylie xxx

Niagara Falls - GYSO#5

2011-02-03T21:47:00.004-05:00

Ahhhh....scrapping every day. It's so therapeutic. This is my entry for the Get Your Sketch On sketch this week.And this is my layout - it's the first picture I have scrapped from when my cousin was here last September - me, posing for photos at Niagara Falls. I love laying on the grass. Grass is one of those things I miss, so, so, so much about living in an apartment in Cleveland. Going everywhere barefoot (especially on the grass) is another thing. Anyway, my layout:The alphas are AC Thickers, the rub-ons are 7 Gypsies and the circles and stars are part of the Basic Grey basics line. the incy wincy letter stickers are Jenni Bowlin. The pearls are Kaisercraft. Incidentally, those green thickers are my favourite thickers so far - I got them in a studio Calico kit and love them! This was another great sketch and fun to do.

5 & Growing like a weed....

2011-02-02T20:30:00.002-05:00

But Miss 5 is not the weed. Cryptic huh? Not really? Well, I try..... This bad weather is good for one thing and one thing only - we're coming home a little earlier and we're staying home. No gallivanting around the countryside or shopping (or maybe that's just because I'm saving my pennies for when I go to Canada NEXT WEEK). Anyway, as I was saying, staying home = scrapbooking. This evening I have done two layouts. The first was this Sketchmania #30 sketch.I had originally envisaged using a scenic shot from our trip to Italy (yes, I've been scrapping those pictures lately too) and having it look like the photograph was taken through a window - I may still do this - but I didn't have anything that "worked", so I modified my idea a little for this picture of Darrian and her Birthday cake. I love my brothers kids because they really are so simple - you've never seen a kid as delighted with cake as our Darrian this day. The other thing she really loves is underwear - it's cute. Anyway, the layout:The brown ribbon is Prima, the pinky-red ribbon is Dear Lizzy from American Crafts (I love it), the tag and pins are from my stash, the pebbles are Making Memories - giggle kids and oh...some love line (can't remember which). I'm really happy with how this one turned out.
This next sketch is this Sketchy Thursdays sketch:I love the flowers made out of Stampin Up polka-dot ribbon and I love that kid - she's got so much sass ;-)That's another Maya Rd envelope ;-) The ric-rac is from CTMH and the alphas are Thickers. Thanks for looking, leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Have wheels will travel, Sketchmania #29

2011-02-01T21:35:00.006-05:00

This layout is my entry for Sketchmania #29 at UmWowStudio. This is the sketch:And here's my take on it:This was my second attempt at the sketch (the post before shows my first attempt). I got started and then got sidetracked with different ideas both times - which is a good thing. Right?!? I had originally thought to put the photo mat with the glimmer misted bikes/tricycles to the right hand side of the page, but went with this configuration instead. My scalloped circle takes the place of the scalloped base page in the sketch. I cut the bikes and trikes on my Slice - I'm glad I've kept that thing out the last couple of weeks, I tend to be using it more now that I have my hands free kit. The colour is a little washed out - but I didn't want to use my flash. It's a lot more pink and brown IRL, I promise!
What I REALLY want to be showing you right now is my February Telephone Scraplift layout because I am so happy with how it turned out. But Tara might kill me if I did that!!! Y'all will just have to wait!

Wonder

2011-01-26T21:54:00.005-05:00

This layout started out as a sketch, but it didn't quite end up that way - best laid plans and all that. I'm actually too embarrassed to post the original sketch - it differed THAT much. Anyway, I am really happy with how it turned out - the photograph doesn't quite capture the colour, but I'm never home in the daylight, so......
The picture is of Alice gazing at the Christmas tree on Christmas morning 2009 with so much wonder in her eyes.Pretty basic layout really, the alphas are Jillybean soup, the dandelion chipboard is from UmWowStudio - now that I have used it, I think I'll be ordering another one! Anyway, thanks for looking!

I love magnolia's - Sketchy Thursdays sketch

2011-01-25T21:06:00.005-05:00

I've never really been "into" sketches before. Sure, I've participated in sketch challenges, but normally only because I was coerced into it, but this past week I have used several and have enjoyed the challenge of taking a sketch and making it my own. I discovered Sketchy Thursdays yesterday because my friend DeeDee is in the running to be their guest designer for February - DeeDee is currently behind by 3 votes, so if you're reading this today, go here and vote for her! That's an order! LOL.
Anyway, I decided to do their sketch this week. It didn't immediately "speak" to me like the couple of sketches I have posted in the blog posts before this, but I am VERY happy with the way it turned out. I'm also happy to have finally scrapped these pictures of my climbing in a magnolia tree last Spring. What do you think?The kraft envelopes and pins are Maya Rd - if you're thinking "My goodness Kylie, you've been using a lot of those Maya Rd envelopes lately", then you'd be right. Yes, yes I am - it's so that I can buy LOTS MORE Maya Rd after CHA ;-) The alphas are thickers - duh! The ribbon for the flowers, tulle and cork are all from my stash - I have no manufacturer's details......
Anyway, this was the sketch I was working from, in case you were wondering.Do you like magnolia's? I know that my mother-in-law can't stand them, but I think they're my second favourite flower (after sunflowers), I love them. I love springtime too - especially here in America where there are lots of deciduous trees. I miss my evergreens in wintertime (especially when everything is so **bleepin** grey in Cleveland), but there's something about blossoms in springtime........

GYSO#4 - Amy & Me

2011-01-24T20:58:00.005-05:00

When I saw this sketch from Get Your Sketch On this morning, I immediately thought of the Maya Rd wheel embellishment that I used in my layout below. I built the layout around it - that and my green hat. I love my green hat - I bought it for myself and wrapped it up and put it in my stocking from Santa. I don't have a scarf to match......yet, but I'm working on it. Anyway, this was the sketch:And this is my layout:Amy and I at Windsor Mills covered bridge on Boxing Day, this photo was taken just after I spun my Prius out of control around a corner and narrowly missed a snow drift. Oops. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds, I was turning the corner as I spotted an Amish buggy and was busy pointing it out to Amy as my anti-skid braking system kicked in ;-)
Anyway, the layout - you might be able to see that my hat is still green in the photograph - I have my husband to thank for that - he's shown me how to do it several times and yet, he still does it for me!!! The paper on the layout above is Cosmo Cricket Wanted - I added my own green stickles though, over the green colour that was already part of the wood grain. The wheel embellishment is Maya Rd as is the kraft coloured envelope, wooden embellies and pin. The letters are American Crafts thickers and the white ribbon is American Crafts Dear Lizzy. Thanks for looking and as always, leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Sketchmania #28 and my favourite layout in a REALLY long time....

2011-01-23T20:34:00.004-05:00

I'm really not sure what it is with me and all these sketch challenges (and blog posts) lately....... But I am enjoying myself. This is the sketch for Sketchmania #28 over at UmWowStudio. And this, this is my take on it and yes, I love it. One of my favouritist layouts in a really long time....The picture is of Craig and I in New York on New Year's Eve. The brown flowery ribbon is Prima and I love it, the letters are a Jenni Bowlin bingo card. The cream coloured resin roses are Making Memories baubles, the fabric is Heidi Grace (I think), the clouds are more from Dee Dee's UmWowStudio Etsy shop. The colour is a little washed out in this picture because of the lighting, if I remember, I'll photograph it again. For the moment though, thanks for looking and leave me some love. Kylie xxx

Edited to add: Why are the colours on my screen on my blog not the same as the colour of this picture in Photoshop or Picasa??? I know I said the colour was a little off, but not THAT off. The brown cardstock is supposed to be a beautiful chocolate brown colour. Grrrr.

Bubble Boy - Get Your Sketch On #3

2011-01-23T13:20:00.009-05:00

I am enjoying scrapping so much at the moment and I've enjoyed using sketches (***shock horror***) and the couple of challenges I have taken part in in the last wee while. Scrapping has once again become my outlet - I have missed it so much.
This next layout is for a sketch at Get Your Sketch On, I stumbled across their layout sketch blog a couple of weeks back, I believe that the layout sketches have evolved from the Get Sketchy card sketch blog. This is only their third week of posting sketches and they have a great contest running at the moment. Check them out, they have some great prizes on offer each week and a big $100 gift voucher at the store of your choice contest that's running through Valentine's Day.
This is GYSO #3, the sketch I followed for the layout below:And here's my layout. Craig blowing bubbles with a big, kick arse, bubble wand on Boxing Day 2009. My sister-in-law's father made it and kindly left it for us to play with. We had a blast. The base paper is KaiserCraft and I cut the scalloped page from half a page of the Monsters line by Reminisce. The pins are all Maya Rd, the journaling spot is Jenni Bowlin, the felt heart was an idea I scraplifted from one of the entrants of the Practical Scrappers challenge last night - Erin I think. The hem from those jeans are the last I have of them - I bought them about a year ago - I must remember to buy more next time I pass a thrift store. Those red brads at the side are from an old ScrapGoods kit for those of you that remember - gosh that seems so long ago. Anyway, thanks for checking my layout out, go over to Get Your Sketch On and check it out.

A couple of other pages I did today and Sketchmania #27

2011-01-22T22:29:00.005-05:00

Now, for some other layouts I did today and photographed with the Practical Scrappers challenge layout below.Some of you will be aware that I have a pile of rub-ons sitting on my desk that I am trying to use up and then, then I am never going to buy rub-ons ever, ever, ever again. Until I buy them again. LOL. Anyway, I **think** I saw a layout like the one below on the Studio Calico blog a while back and I have had it in my mind for a while, to scraplift it. Basically, I took three almost complete packs of 7 Gypsies rub-ons, piled them on around my photo placement and went to town. I REALLY like how this page turned out. The paper is Basic Grey Basics Missus Wookie. I love messing with my mother-in-laws gnomes. I have moved them all over her yard at the farm over the years. I even put one in the letterbox one day and when she checked the mail the next day the mailman had put it on top of the mail and the newspaper. My niece Alice thought it was a great joke to move the gnomes with me while we were there last Christmas.
I have been a busy girl. The other thing I did today was sort through my stash of paper scraps getting rid of patterns and pieces I knew I would never use. There are scraps there that I bought with me from New Zealand **gasp**. And I found some last remnants of this Cosmo cricket paper - was that the Wanted line? That was my favourite paper line EVER. Do you still have some Missus Wookie? Can you tell I'm trying to get our trip to NZ scrapped? This is Craig and his father playing golf - I love when I can get him to do the journaling. I did have to glimmer mist the felt bracket in order to make the colour "fit" a little more. But this is another page I REALLY like. The golf tees are in fact the tees they played with that day. Craig was like "Where did you get those from?" and I was like "You handed them to me as soon as you got back doofus". He saved them for me and then just forgot. I love that he collects stuff for my scrapbook pages.And, this next layout, another YELLOW layout is for Sketchmania #27 at UmWowStudio. The colour is a lot nicer in real life. I painted the outer border and sewed the inner border. And despite the colour, I like this one too. And I love the picture of Alice on the slip 'n slide.As always, thanks for visiting my blog. Leave me some love. Kylie

Practical Scrappers Challenge

2011-01-22T21:51:00.004-05:00

I stumbled across an announcement for a one hour challenge at Practical Scrappers today and decided I'd log back in at 9pm and give the challenge ago. I believe Tara even joined me - with only 15 minutes notice. And she did well!!!
Anyway, here's my layout. The colour is a bit off, but I'm happy to have it done and really like the finished product. Most of the products are Jenni Bowlin (paper, journaling spot, yellow letters), the clock face is Tim Holtz which I bought this morning. Ribbon is American Crafts. Thanks for looking.

Edited to say: I have no idea what time I finished this at, but I commented on Tara's blog as I was uploading my photo. The time stamp on my comment says 9.44pm, so I'd guess this took me about 40 minutes.

A layout for my wonderful friend Tara.....

2011-01-20T21:16:00.006-05:00

A few days back I wrote the S?OTD (scrap question of the day) over at OSU - What is your least favourite colour to scrap with? Why? My reply to that question: Mine has got to be yellow - hands down without a doubt. Why? It's just too damned happy and bright - it's nauseating really. Yellow is just a colour that I have never really liked or appreciated. Yes, I know, I over think things. My, **ahem**, friend Tara then challenged me to create a layout using yellow - the way she did it, she knew I'd damned well have to do it too. I'm nothing if not, up for a challenge ;-)

Thing is, Tara also gave me some wonderful inspiration in the form of this layout. From this blog. I really liked the layout, in spite of it's inherent nauseating yellowy happiness, so I decided to scraplift it. I used a picture of my nephew Matheson taken on the day he was born. We have such dreams for him......The paper is Jenni Bowlin, as are the yellow butterflies and alpha stickers, the clouds are from UmWowStudio on Etsy, my current favourite Etsy store, the ribbon is Prima and the pearls are Kaisercraft.

I really do love this man......

2011-01-19T20:33:00.005-05:00

Some of you may be aware that I am part of the Chocolatiers - the "design team" at CropChocolate. It's not like the old design team back in the ScrapGoods days - goodness I enjoyed designing for them :-( Basically, you get credit for their store, spend it on what you want and upload layouts using their products - not so hard eh? I'm really lucky to have jumped on the bandwagon when I did though, because there are a lot of people who missed out. Anyway, they've (CropChocolate) decided to change things up a bit - by issuing challenges to the chocolatiers - you have to make a layout/card/whatever that meets the challenge. The very first challenge was "Valentine's Day". Oh how I cringed, I dislike Valentine's day to the max!!!!!!! And yes, it's because it interferes with my birthday, I'll admit it, I'm a bad sport ;-)

Anyway, in the end I scrapped a layout that I had a tonne of fun making, using this picture of Craig:I realise that there are no pictures of our trip to Washington on our other blog, but we'll get there eventually.

And here's the layout:
The reason I enjoyed making it so much is that I finally used my stamping dies by Making Memories - I got to smash the shit out of something in the name of scrapbooking. I might like the stamping dies as much as I like eyelets and I love eyelets. I love whacking those little bastards!!! I really do......
Mind you, Craig was getting a little pissed off with all the hammering....

New Orleans....

2011-01-15T13:45:00.004-05:00

I'm plowing through the photographs from our trip to New Orleans in May. I came up with a list of layouts I wanted to create, pulled the pictures out into piles and having a "game plan" seems to be working for me right now - normally having a list would put me off ;-)

So, here are a number of the layouts that I created in this past week. There are lots more - I'm at 21 layouts for the year so far. Yay me!! I'll leave you to it. Enjoy!
Thanks for looking. While I know some of these pages are a lot simpler than what I would normally scrap, I have really enjoyed just using my stash and getting our memories down in my scrapbook. Leave me some love!

4 layouts in 3 days....

2011-01-06T20:04:00.005-05:00

It's a new year!!!! And I feel like a new me. To say my creative side hasn't had an outlet lately would be a lie. My creative side has had an outlet as long as lab work is considered a creative outlet ;-)

Yeah..... I know.....

Anyway, here's a couple of layouts I have done:
This first page is using a picture that was taken on New Year's Eve on Liberty Island (in case you never guessed). We bought it......and I scrapped it before Craig had scanned it. Yes, I gots me in trouble ;-) Anyway, all the little goodies were from my stash, one of the embellies is a pressed penny. The clouds are made by my friend DeeDee and can be bought at her Etsy store. Anyway, for my second page in months and months and months, I was impressed.....
This next layout is of Amy and Craig riding the Ferris wheel inside Toys R Us at Times Square while I was standing outside in the below freezing temperature queuing for cheap Broadway tickets ;-) It's for the telephone scraplift over at OSU. I hate the title. And I can't believe I cut out my photos - how 1990's scrapbooking is that?
I did this one while dinner was cooking this evening. It was for the current Sketchmania challenge on DeeDee's blog. This layout made me bawl my eyes out. And Craig. I have lots of pictures of Gizmo from our trip home to NZ last Christmas but I haven't been able to scrap any of them - I think it's because I was already mourning him when we came back to the US and I had the pictures printed. In spite of the fact he was still alive, he just wasn't the same puppy love we left behind in June of 2007. Anyway, now that he is in a better place and buried with the good dogs overlooking the farm it was really easy to scrap this picture of him. Our family kept telling us he had changed and wasn't quite the dog we left behind, but I wasn't prepared - and then, when Craig's parents had him put down in October I just felt guilty - I'd already said goodbye in my heart. Scrapping this picture reminded me just how much I loved that little bundle of love. He'll always be our very first baby. We had a cat before him, but we were Majik's servants, not her parents. Gizzy was our snuggly little baby. One day we'll have little human babies of our own and it was him who taught us just how much love we had to give..........

Some more layouts.....to prove to myself (and y'all) that I still know how to scrap....

2010-08-29T14:23:00.004-04:00

I have been planning this first layout for a while and tomorrow morning it all came together. I'm almost embarrassed to admit how much I enjoyed the Twilight series of books. I saw a layout with a picture like this in a magazine last October and have wanted to lift the layout ever since. I walked to the supermarket yesterday morning and bought myself a nice red apple, Homer took the photo for me and I had bought the paper at a Twilight Crop (stop laughing) at Archivers in June. And here you have it.....
I'm really happy with how it turned out.
The next few layouts are from our trip to Chicago, I've made a concerted effort in the last couple of days to try and finish this album/trip up.
I couldn't resist doing this next two page layout in pink and black. If you call a dinosaur Sue, you're asking for it.These next two photographs are a two page layout too. The first are the photos while we waited for our deep dish pizza and the second is the pizza itself. All these pictures were taken with my iPhone.And another pizza layout - this is my Birthday cake made for me by my friend Scott who owns the local pizza parlour. The funny thing is that I punched those candles out. 31 of them and then counted and recounted. I put them on my layout, counted and recounted - and I had a witness as I was scrapping with my friend Amy. There were 31. And then, after I had misted around them and removed them there were only 30. I found the 31st candle on the floor a couple hours later and I was pissed. Nonetheless I added a misted candle to make it 31.
Craig and his brothers at Christmastime, using my Studio Calico kits....
And me, during Spring, another Studio Calico layout....
As always, thanks for visiting, leave me some love.....

Scraplifting and Sketchmania #8

2010-08-27T07:18:00.001-04:00

Marlene challenged everyone over at OSU to go blog hopping and lift a layout from one of our friend's blogs. I had already decided I wanted to lift one of Valerie's layouts a couple of days ago when I saw it, so I knew EXACTLY where I was headed. The following layout is my lift:

This is actually more of a "copy" than a lift - because I used the same paper, packaging and wooden elements as Valerie did for the background, sun and clouds. I didn't even have to come up with my own title. I loved the way it had all come together on Valerie's layout and her sun....so I just copied that and built the rest of the layout from there. They say imitation is the biggest form of flattery - I hope you're blushing right now Val ;-) You can see the original layout here.
This next layout was lots of fun - I loved all the pictures that I took of Craig when we were up the Willis (Sears) Tower in Chicago and you know what.....I am going to scrap as many of them as I want. I know that I should have weeded them down. But they make me happy, scrapping them makes me even happier and goodness knows I have plenty of stash to spare. This is the reason I can fill an entire album with a 3 or 4 day trip - although in my defense, we can pack a LOT into a trip like that.

This layout used some adhesive photo/film thingees I got in a Studio Calico kit a while back. I have had some great use out of these (the Mirror Image layout a couple of posts back) and really enjoy using them. This is a very simple layout, some American Crafts Flair and Cupid thickers and just like that, it's finished. Simple, fast and I think it's really, really cool. Martha - check out all that white space!
My next layout was another quickie - but I like it too! I had the American Crafts Flair (they are the button-like embellishments) sitting out on my desk and I had this Sketchmania sketch in my head and before you come say "Get those babies on a page Kylie", they were adhered and I was journaling about my Birthday and Valentine's Day and how much it sucks that Valentine's is the 14th and my b'day is the 15th. I even used the same pack of Cupid Thickers - so these two layouts can sit face to face in my album.

Not bad for a Thursday night of scrapping huh? I really do feel like I've got my groove back. Watch out scrapbooking world!!!!

Punch drunk????

2010-08-26T19:11:00.004-04:00

This first layout is my entry for Sketchmania #6 on DeeDee's blog. The layout is not only inspired by the sketch, but by all the border punches I have used/purchased lately.

The envelopes are Maya Rd. Thanks to my friend Chere' I always seem to have the latest and greatest Maya Rd - I love their products though, so she really is the BEST of enablers. I swear that the background on this layout is black and that there are actually people (namely Craig and I) in the pictures, it's just that I didn't realise the lighting was off until I had the photo on the computer and well.....by that stage I wasn't going back to re-photograph it ;-)
These next three layouts all use some of my new border punches. I am really loving the new system from ek and I am convinced it's them who are making the Stampin' Up punches now too. Oh and of course, my very first Martha Stewart product - the butterfly border punch.

But back to the layouts:

My Gizzy puppy on our first day at the farm - we gave him a bath and a haircut - we used to pay someone to groom him, Craig's Mum couldn't see the point and tortured Craig and I by making us hold him still while she cut his hair. She has since seen the error of her ways and now pays for somebody else to groom Gizzy (Gizzy 1, Mother-in-law -5). The paper here is Basic Grey Max & whiskers and it's cute - especially for Basic Grey paper (which I am normally not a fan of - the Ambrosia collection being an exception).

These next two layouts are Craig and I up the Sears Tower in Chicago. Marlene, I think it was you who asked what Craig was lying on in a similar photo in my last posting - it's the floor of a glass box that juts out the side of the tower 108 stories above street level. Do you see how my husband looks all relaxed and I look like I'm about ready to jump back inside the "real" building if someone so much as whispers "Boo"? Yeah. Enough said.

The patterned paper in these two layouts isn't actually paper, it's vinyl from Making Memories Slice. I had the package out sitting on my desk reminding me to use it. I guess I thought I would cut some designs out using my Slice or Cricut, but when I realised I could do coordinating girl and boy pages with it, I just used it as paper. Except the butterflies were a real PITA and using self-adhesive vinyl on elements that are supposed to stick off the page was not my smartest move ever. But it worked out.......in. the. end.

So there you have it, lots of punched borders, and this from someone who hates punches.......shocking huh?

Guess what? I'm scrapping!!!!

2010-08-22T14:46:00.007-04:00

That's right, scrapping! You heard me right ;-) And, I got a message from an e-maginery friend, D2 telling me it's about time I updated my blog. So here we go......

I should warn you now that this may be a loooooooong post.

DeeDee (D2) has a blog and runs a sketch challenge called Sketchmania. This is my entry for her latest sketch. Check it out here. There is an awesome prize right now from Crop Chocolate.

And here are some other layouts I have done lately - by lately I mean I did some of them at a crop in late June and the rest have been done in the last week or two.... Most are photos from our trip to Chicago in February for my birthday.
The cardstock on this Skating in the Park layout was part of a Studio Calico kit - it's Coredinations cardstock with the wood grain embossed on it - I sanded it back so you could see it clearly. The chipboard is all Maya Rd.
I love this layout - I got the idea to stitch the "mirror" in mirror image from the Studio Calico gallery.
You can see the date that I did this next one. It's a lift and I put the date on it because I plan on seeing much more of the USA. I only plotted places that I had been that I had stayed at least a night - otherwise Ohio would be a giant mess ;-)
I have a picture of a layout in my idea book which I cut out of a magazine ages ago that has a title made out of clear letters. I got these letters recently from my friend Missus Wookie in a swap and I knew straight away what I would use them for. It's not so clear how awesome they look in the photo, you'll either have to come to my house to see them IRL, or just believe me ;-)
Oh, I love this next layout - the picture is from our swap boat tour in New Orleans in May. We don't really do rollercoasters - because Craig isn't a big fan, so when I got this Studio Calico paper I knew EXACTLY what I would use it for. I really like how this one turned out.
Another idea I saw in a magazine....I've bought more border stamps since then (I did this one last weekend), so I think I'll be repeating the effect....
A different angle for y'all to see the different punched border strips. I really like this layout - heck, I'd be stuffed if I didn't like my own layouts ;-)
This is a six page layout of Craig ice skating in Chicago. There are two transparent pages between two pages backed with black cardstock. It's a relatively simple design - not a lot of embellishment for me - but I did stitch snowflakes on all the pages. Not an easy feat on the clear pages as I had to hide the knots etc. This is another layout from last weekend......
This one was last night, for my Chocolatier duties at Crop Chocolate - I uploaded it with instructions on how I made it in the SweetTalk section at CropChocolate. Now, if you've never been to CC, you should pop on over there and have a look (just not today, they're closed Sundays). It's like a deal a day site (like Peachy Cheap or Flowers to Flourishes), but it's more like a deal every hour or two and you can add everything together in a single shipment and save on shipping. If you sign up and buy anything, make sure you let them know I referred you!
And that's it. I've done a few other pages, I've just put them all into my albums already and can't be bothered taking them out and photographing them.

Leave me some love! Maybe next time I won't wait so long to update this blog ;-)

Maybe.

Dismantling (or ripping up) a page and starting over...

2010-06-19T09:28:00.004-04:00

Do you ever finish a page and then think "No way" and start it over again from scratch? I never have. I have thrown tantrums, especially when stickles were involved, and screwed pages up and thrown them across the room! But I have never got to teh finish line and then thought "Na uh, I'm doing this one over".

Until now.......

You might recall seeing this layout a couple of weeks back:

It was the first layout I had done in over 3 months and I put it in a shadow box next to some other layouts of my nieces and I was reasonably happy with it. But it looked awkward and out of place and really very haphazard compared to the layouts it was hanging alongside.

Well, at some stage this week while I wasn't able to sleep because of my cough or sore throat or earache or the heat (take your pick!) I lay in bed and had the sudden thought "Stickles!!!!!!". Yes, there were exclamation points in my thought too. Well, last night as we were going to bed I said to Craig "Take that shadow box down and put it on my scrap desk will you, I'm gonna re-do that layout of Dillan". And I did, this morning....I managed to salvage all the bling that didn't transfer over, so in the end I am down some grommets, some adhesive and a piece of kraft coloured cardstock, but I think you'll agree it was worth it:

The stickles haven't dried yet, but I think this is much more in line with the other layouts that this will hang beside. Yay for Tim Holtz distress stickles!

And here are a couple of other layouts I did last weekend:

Yes, it's VERY yellow, but I really like how it turned out - except in my version you can actually see mine and Craig's faces ;-) I've had that patterned cardstock for forever and I think this was a really good use of it. The thing I don't like about this page are those flowers. I don't really like Prima's nowadays - I used to use them on EVERY layout .

And, the first of my photos from Chicago - this is a sort of lift from a layout in Scrapbooks ETC way back early in the year. The layout I saw had the American Gothic statues photographed from all different angles. We might actually have been on the plane to Chicago when I saw it, so I made Craig take similar photos and really like how this one turned out. I used some adhesive alphas from Making Memories which I got super cheap on CropChocolate for the mask and mixed my own paint. I was trying to get the colour as close to denim as possible - I therefore mixed some ink from one of my SU re-inkers in with the paint - yeah, not a good idea - the ink soaked into everything once the paint was on the page - you can't see the near disaster it caused, because I'm pretty handy with white paint and my signo pen, but I was seething!

Right then, I'm going to post this, I might then consider getting out of my pyjamas, but as I am recovering from being sick, I am going to recover at my scrap desk. Scrapping makes me happy!!!!!!!!

Saturday morning scrapping and another swap kit layout

2010-06-12T13:31:00.002-04:00

I'm not feeling the best today - I feel much better this morning than I did last night, but I have a head cold. Well, if an extremely painful throat and earache constitute a head cold. And to make matters infinitely worse, I can hardly speak! Ridiculous!

So, I'm still in my PJ's and I retreated to my scrap desk. And these two layouts are the fruit of my mornings labour...

Most of the elements on this page are from an older Studio Calico kit (February???). I used all the wood veneer up from my kit, so I cut my own circles using my Creative Memories circle cutters and some wood veneer I bought a few months back. The picture of me is from New Orleans and my hair was a mess in the humidity! The picture was taken a couple of hours after we had finally arrived. We're in the throes of planning what could possibly be our best trip ever right now, so I'm all about "travel". I guess it's not a secret (although we haven't told Craig's Mum - she's not expecting us for Christmas this year I don't think) but we're going to meet my sister and her family in Europe (probably Prague) the week before Christmas and then travel through Germany going to the Christmas markets and then spend Christmas Day in Salzburg (and do The Sound of Music tour). I went to Salzburg in 2003 while I was doing some work in Vienna for my PhD and I fell in love with the city. I have always wanted to go back and take Craig. Repeating The Sound of Music tour with my sister is just an AWESOME bonus! Would you believe our Imogen has never seen The Sound of Music? Time to rectify that methinks!
This second layout is for the second Swap Kit group at OSU. I saw some layouts in a Scrapbooks Etc magazine lately that were all about how couples met and were quite heavy on the Journaling. It might have been the February/Valentines addition. A girl had written a "Note to Self" about the night she met her boyfriend and I just laughed thinking about the night Craig and I first met. For those of you who weren't there, I DID NOT like him, one single bit!!!! My friend Margo even slapped him across the face (Go Margo!!!!!). It's funny to laugh about it now. Craig and I were both VERY drunk - it's funny, it's embarrassing the antics we got up to that particular night - Craig and I separately, not together - but I really do believe that we may not be here today unless the two of us had made complete fools out of ourselves that night ;-) That's basically what the journaling says.

I used the die cut birdcage that was part of the kit as my mask for my Glimmer Mist and also misted the chipboard. I didn't really like the patterned paper when I had it in front of me, so there is just a small strip of that under the photograph. For those of you involved in the Swap Kit, I think it's self explanatory where the other elements are.

Thanks for looking, leave some love!
Kylie

Swap kit, lots of my mate Dillan and a few recent layouts

2010-06-05T14:25:00.009-04:00

This first page is one I completed this morning. It's for a swap kit swap at OSU. The way the swap works is that 10 people contribute different components towards a page kit. The paper is chosen first and then everyone comes up with coordinating embellishments, die-cuts, etc etc to make a page kit. This is my first page here:

I really liked the patterned paper, but not so much the rest of the kit. In fact, I think my own contribution didn't even match the kit ;-) There was lots of colour....... so I had some trouble coordinating things, but it's another page scrapped.

This next page was one I did earlier in the week. I have a new Slice and it stopped working last weekend. I fixed it on Tuesday evening when Making Memories got back to me - it was a quick fix - a little bit of WD-40 goes a long way.....
These next two pages were completed last weekend. I got my stamps out! Fancy that. I really enjoyed stamping and making my own embellies too! The gumboot stamps are from CTMH and I love them! I also love the picture - Paige is such a dork - wearing her gumboots on the Slip 'n Slide, in spite of the fact they REALLY slowed her down.
I made this page after seeing something similar in the Studio Calico gallery - well, similar except for the journaling. Craig and I haven't been seeing eye-to-eye lately, so this layout was quite cathartic.
My father-in-law in his tractor just before Christmas last year.
The last four (???) pages were done using elements from my May Studio Calico kit, these next few were done in March, they're really here for my sister-in-law Deanna, because she likes seeing my pages.

Happy Birthday Sweet Darrian was a lift of a layout my friend Valerie did using the February Studio Calico kit. She's very talented and inspirational ;-)

I've got my groove back......I think ;-)

2010-05-30T09:21:00.006-04:00

We had a really nice day yesterday - relaxing around our apartment, soaking up some sun, we went to see Iron Man II, we had dinner in Shaker Square accompanied by live music and I don't think Craig and I had a single argument (it's amazing what some sleep can do for a grumpy arse husband!!!). Oh.....and amongst all that, I scrapped! Yay me!
So when I sat down to scrap in my pyjamas yesterday morning, I decided that I needed to use up my Studio Calico kits. I had three unopened kits sitting on my desk (***gulp***), so I started with the top of the pile - which was May's kit. I had a quick look at the Studio Calico gallery for some inspiration and then dove straight in.

Bubble Boy

This first layout of Craig playing with the bubbles on Boxing Day uses the chipboard circle-ey thingee that was in the Studio Calico kit, but nothing else - everything else is from stash. There's no journaling as this will be alongside several other pages that I have done about all the bubble fun we had over Christmas. I really like the colours and how this one turned out. I just wish the top row of the rub-on text behind my title wasn't so obnoxious ;-) Ok, I just checked Studio Calico and the circle thingee is called a Head Start Bubbles Mini (Buzz & Bloom).

Destination Love
I loved this paper the instant I saw it - I love the map of London. However, I have scrapped all the pics we have of our last two trips to the UK, so I decided to do something different with the paper, rather than waiting for a picture the next time we go to London. So I printed one of the pictures from our Christmas card photo shoot (those are the cards that were never sent) on linen coloured cardstock and did this page. The alphas, patterned paper and the grey Hambly acetate are all from the kit. The rest is from my stash (yay me!). The ribbon is all the new Prima and it's gorgeous - but way prettier in real life.

In a Galaxy far, far away....
Nothing on this page came from my kit ;-) I'm not really sure what came over me, but when I saw these metal sprocket/gear like elements on my Clip-it-Up yesterday I knew exactly which photo they would go with. This is the 3rd or 4th time I have ever used mist on my pages - I own a single bottle of Glimmer mist which I got in a secret sister swap back in 2007 - so I'm pretty proud on myself. I realise that some of you misting experts will thing it's a pretty pucku job, but I can but learn.......

Sexy Chick !?!?
My younger sister will probably have quite a lot to say when she sees this layout, but if people insist on pulling dumb faces when they are having photos taken with my camera, I will use the pictures on my pages. It's really rather simple. I like how this page turned out - it uses the kit as well as a lot of stash. There is the grey Hambly acetate again and the paper is American Crafts - I thought I was clever with the birds and the title, but I realise I'm probably only amusing me. The rest is all from my stash and most of it I couldn't tell who the manufacturer is. There are quite a lot of clear elements in there and the ribbon is the new Prima again (I got 2 yards of each of the new styles - thanks Chere').

Just your hobbit feet and you by the sea:

This is mostly the Studio Calico kit. The wood veneer and buttons are from my stash. I realise the title is probably grammatically incorrect, but I didn't have enough of the large alphas to highlight feet or your of hobbit if I changed it to Just you and your hobbit feet by the sea. I hope that line made sense. the picture was taken on our last day in New Zealand when Craig realised that while he'd gone fishing at Lake Hawea and out of Ngunguru he hadn't actually been for a swim in the sea or even dipped his feet in (I had). So we made a quick dash to what passes as a beach but is really a tidal mud flat (but boy does the water warm up in summer), so Craig could dip his feet in the sea. It was raining, so while Imogen hopped out of the car with him, he was all alone when he took these pictures of his ugly feet in the sea.

Thanks for looking, leave me some love...... I hope to do some more scrapping today and might even post some pictures of my pages sometime ;-)

My first layout in nearly 3 months.....

2010-05-23T19:35:00.007-04:00

I don't know why I haven't been scrapping. I guess I haven't been in the mood, I've been stressed and tired and busy and was sick and so.....I just didn't scrap. Today I remedied that situation.

I just wanted to throw lots of elements on a page, so I created a page of Dillan to put in a 12x12 inch shadow box frame. I have been planning to do pages of Dillan, Darrian and Paige for months, to match a couple of layouts I have of Alice and Imogen hanging above my bed. Some of you will recall seeing these pages.....

And here's the page of Dillan to go with them......

And here it is in the shadow box frame......

And hanging on my wall, don't they look good - hopefully I'll get some pages of Paige and Darrian done to go with them in the next few days.

And the view from the bedroom doorway!

Yay, I scrapped!!!!!

Some layouts I did.......

2010-04-24T09:32:00.001-04:00

I haven't scrapped in a VERY long time, but I promised my sister-in-law Deanna that I would upload the rest of the pages I did during LOAD in February. So, here are the pages I did then and have done since (in no particular order) for you Dee.....

I'm also using a new blog editing program, so bear with me..... Especially as I figure out what this pictures will look like and where I'm placing them. Why does Windows Live Writer not have a .mac version? What do the rest of you use?

This picture is a digital layout of Uncle Craig and Paige - this pic was taken just before we left the Homer whanau at Lake Hawea.

Lacock, a small town we ate dinner in when we went to Stonehenge in 2008. This was the inn we ate at. This town is where the village Harry Potter's parents lived in was filmed for the Harry Potter movies. The whole village is owned by the National Trust.

My whanau at the Drake family Christmas, or rather those of us who hadn't pissed off back to Ngunguru early the night before ;-)

A couple of layouts from our trip to Italy in 2003. I was hoping to get this album all finished at some stage soon, but as I haven't been scrapping, I guess not. LOL.

Craig and his Saveloy's on our first day at the farm. He had composed a song about savs in the weeks before we flew home, so I made him record it for prosperity (posterity?) and the voice recorder is in the top right corner of the page. This was a scraplift layout I think. Maybe for March???

This is a swap kit layout - where 10 people all contribute something different for a page kit and then we have at it. This is Imogen and the journaling is about how she pulls ridiculously stupid faces every time the camera comes near her. Incidentally, once everyone finishes their layouts with the kit, we have voting on the OSU forum and the person with the most votes gets a $5 RAK from all the participants. This was the winner in the particular group it was in and the RAKs this time around were awesome.

I think you've probably all seen everything else..... Maybe you haven't seen this one Dee:

LOAD - February 14 and 15

2010-02-16T06:25:00.001-05:00

Here are my layouts for the last couple of days.... This first layout of Darrian is from Sunday. I was too engrossed in the Olympic games to really be terribly enthused about scrapping. So, I rearranged all my journaling spots and was telling Craig that I wanted to re-organise this area "here" on my scrapbooking desk and get rid of one of those plastic compartmentalised containers, because I never use anything in them. I followed that statement closely by the words "In fact, I'm going to use something from that container now". And I did.......
I had been picking up this picture of Darrian nearly every day for LOAD - I wanted to scrap it, but didn't feel like I had the correct elements - and then I saw these little blue and white flowers (yes, there are white on there as well). They are plastic and I have no idea where I got them from (although there are green and orange ones left in the container now) - I used all the blue and white ones up. I stickled around the edge of the journaling spot to get it to match and I think teh crochet ribbon is Maya Rd (although I'm just guessing). There is more of a gradient of flowers in real life - it's because the white ones don't show up so well.....
This next layout is of Paige, hiding out with Aunty Kylie sitting behind Grandad's ute at the camping ground sneaking an ice cream - her mother knew we were there, just not her sister. It was a quick page because I wanted to just vegetate last night. The shaped paper is Kaisercraft and the felt ice cream is from Sassafras Lass.
Once again, thanks for looking!

LOAD – February 13

2010-02-13T19:08:00.002-05:00

Do you know that Marshmallows in America are different than in New Zealand? Well, it’s true. I hate American marshmallows and I know I’m not the only person who thinks marshmallows aren’t created equal, because I once carted some bags of marshmallows to the UK for Missus Wookie and her kids because they prefer the US version over the UK version. Mind you, I thought the UK version was almost as god as my beloved Pascall’s.

What has bought on this marshmallow tirade? My Birthday present from my Mum arrived today and I read the little green customs slip – there are marshmallows in the bag and I am determined not to open the package until Monday – but it’s REALLY HARD knowing that those pink and white fluffy lumps f sugar are in this house!!!! Only two more sleeps….. (it’s only been 3 hour so far – LOL).

So, I scrapped about my love of marshmallows…… mind you, the pictured marshmallow is a Regina marshmallow, not Pascall’s, but, they roasted well and they’re still better than any I have had here in the US. I did this page using a page kit that we were given at Scrapbook 911 in San Antonio last June. I not really a fan of all this matchy-matchy Teresa Collins paper, but I like how the LO turned out.

LOAD - February 11 and 12

2010-02-13T10:53:00.005-05:00

Sorry that I haven't updated my LOAD posts for the last couple of days. On Wednesday (the 10th) I was doing pages for our circle journal that I do with my sister-in-law Abby. I had forgotten about it, so was playing catch up so we could get it in the mail Thursday morning. I did do a two page 8x8 spread for it and the cover page, but I won't be posting them here as that's not fair to Abby and her family. It would totally suck if they saw it first here.....

So here's my page for the 11th - the prompt for LOAD in Thursday was to scrap a conversation with someone. I decided I would transcribe a couple of videos that I have of Darrian - we interviewed each other over the Christmas Holiday. It took forever to get the first "interview" down, so I didn't finish that aspect of the page until last night while I was watching the Olympic opening ceremony.

Anyway, here is the first page from Thursday:
And here is yesterday's (Friday's) page to complete the two page spread - the interviews with Darrian. The flowers are cut from the last of my Sonoma patterned paper scraps by Scenic Route - one of my all time favourite lines. The text circles are cut from a page from a dictionary that I got in a kit once (very fitting I thought). The yellow crochet trim is from my stash as are the brads. The title is AC thickers.

Anyway, thanks for looking. Leave me some love!

LOAD – February 9

2010-02-09T20:37:00.002-05:00

Today’s layout is a quickie – it’s a scraplift of a layout that was posted during the October LOAD challenge. The challenge today was also to scrap a page in 30 minutes. 30 minutes is about all I could allow myself, I have lots of work to do and didn’t get home until late (because I was at Diane’s visitation – such a creepy word). Anyway, I set the timer and this is what I came up with in just over 30 minutes:

The butterflies are cut using the Beautiful Wings Embosslit from Stampin’ Up. The embosslit folder was in today’s mail from Jen Barkdull (thank you sweetie). It’s new and I love it. I was a little surprised at how small the butterflies were – but pleasantly surprised – they are just the right size for what I wanted the folder for. You can’t see the embossing here because the colour is quite washed out, but they are indeed embossed and look really nice in real life. If anyone else is thinking of buying an embosslits folder to use with the Cuttlebug, I went plate A, B, folder and paper, but this was still a little loose – the folder came with a little foam pad and when I stuck this between the plates as well it helped and also meant I didn’t have to prise the butterflies out.

The paper is Office lingo from Pink Paislee and the title is thickers (what a surprise!!!). Thanks for looking – now off to do some more writing – gah!!!!

LOAD – February 8

2010-02-08T20:04:00.002-05:00

Being a Monday night, this is TV night at our house – Chuck and Big Bang Theory. I **love** Monday nights – it’s a shame about the rest of Monday……

So today’s layout is a quickie. It’s supposed to match Saturday’s layout: Jungle Gym. I never really intended to have matchy, matchy layouts, it just sort of happened that way. The colour is a bit off because of the lighting in our apartment. The main overhead light is being really funny – must be the old wiring, because sometimes all five light bulbs are lit and sometimes it’s two, sometimes it’s none. Crazy huh?

Anyway, the blue alpha is K&Co, the green is AC thickers (duh!), the journaling spot is Maya Rd, the owl is Kaisercraft (still making good on the die-cut challenge I made myself), the rub-ons are Lily Bee.

I’m not sure if I’ll have a layout tomorrow, our friend Diane died in her sleep last Thursday night and so we are off to her visitation (we sooooo don’t do this where I come from). She was 40 and the solo Mum of a 13yr old – Kathryn.

Anyway, leave me some love and thanks for stopping by y’all.

Oh yeah and……Who Dat?

LOAD – February 7

2010-02-07T16:01:00.003-05:00

Here’s today’s layout – it’s a two pager. Two pages used to be standard for me, now they’re a bit of a rarity. ***Mental note*** do more 2 page layouts!And here are pictures of the single pages:

Those of you who have seen Chere’s Christmas card photo will realise that I copied her idea to take photos with the Christmas lights wrapped around us. It took some convincing to get Craig to agree to do this photo shoot with me, but I did the hard work (vacuumed the floor so we could sit on it), he only had to set the camera, tri-pod and remote up. As you can probably tell, we have A LOT OF FUN!!!!

If I had sent ANY Christmas cards last year, one of these would have been the photo I might have used. As I sent no cards, Craig and I are so far, the only people to have enjoyed them ;-)

The journaling spot is MM, as are the pins, and the denim is from the jeans I bought at Goodwill yesterday – they sure are getting some mileage out of their second life!

OK, here’s another couple of layouts I did yesterday. The first of of Imogen – honey, if you’re reading this, I’m sorry the page is pink – it’s just that the monkey told me to do it. Yup, I designed my page around a monkey! The title reads (to me): Love this lil’ monkey. Craig would like to know why I have a page with the title “This monkey” – in fact he has asked more than once!

The flourishes, monkey and “love” are all die cuts from ????? (I through the sheet they came from out – it was a Valentines line from last year). The blue paper and lil’ red letters (he, he) are Doodlebug, the thickers are thickers from AC.

OK, this next page is our Paigey again. I really struggled with this, but LOVE how it turned out in the end.

Craig’s family are all hunters and one of the highlights of the year is the first day of duck shooting (May 1st). Craig’s younger brother does all the work setting up the Mai-mai and coaxing the ducks onto the pond at Waitahuna and then his brothers turn up and miss all the birds (Marc is a far better shot than the older too and far more serious about his hunting). Anyway, Paige’s Grandfather taught her to say “Duck, duck, BOOM!!!” over Christmas – she was wearing these duck pyjamas at the time. Anyway, it was cute. Very cute. I can just imagine the day she learns to play “Duck, duck, goose” and the arguments she might have with the other kids about how the game is really played ;-)

I don’t know where the transparency is from, but the ‘boom’ is Doodlebug, ‘duck, duck"’ is AC thickers, the little black ducks are SU stamps, the crochet trim is from my stash, the rub-ons are Maya Rd and they are on AC flair. Did anyone see the AC flair on Flowers to flourishes daily deal on Friday – I really regret not buying it (but I’m sticking to my budget).

Anyway, thanks for looking. Leave me some love!

LOAD – February 6

2010-02-06T15:30:00.002-05:00

Here’s today’s layout – this is the reason I wanted to go to the thrift store for jeans to cut up…. I had seen a digital mask of a jeans cuff used in this same manner to border a photo and decided I was going to do that too one day….. The die cuts are Kaisercraft (I’m on a big move to use die cuts on every page right now to use some up – watch this space). The blue letters are AC thickers, the green letters are a K&Co alphabet I got as my “prize” for the swap kit one time. Rub-ons are Lily Bee – you can barely see the inner circle, but it’s a light green the exact same as the brown outer circle.

This freakin’ computer is only registering about every second letter I type. Arggggh! Craig are you sure we need to wait to see if Apple are coming out with a new processor?

OK, I have some more layouts to share……

Wanna see?

This first one is a lift of this card from Scrapbooks Etc, I ripped this out of the magazine when I was in NZ, because I didn’t want to bring the whole magazine back. I’m hoping one of you will be able to do me a favour and check which issue and the page number for me. It would have been one of the last two issues last year – I want to submit my LO to their “You made it yours” column. Here’s the layout…. I’ll be honest and tell you all that I had so much fun doing this layout. Far from being a PITA, using all that ribbon was rather cathartic and of course, I can buy more now right?

Ribbon is various sources – too many to name! Journaling spot is Maya Rd, the scalloped border was my Tonic punch (wow, I do use my tools) and the title….AC thickers ;-)

This next layout of Paige was done using bubble wrap. I dipped it in paint to get my “bubble” effect for a page about blowing bubbles. If I had known I would have some much to say about blowing bubbles, I would have moved the pictures and paint more to the right of the page. It feels a little too “left” for me – not quite balanced. But I a not going to start again, funnily enough.

Oh, the page…. Title is thickers (in case you couldn’t guess). The paint is all from Crackhead. The clear plastic bubbly thingees are CTMH.

Thanks for looking. Leave me some love! And if one of you wouldn’t mind the Scrapbook Etc reference….

LOAD – February 5

2010-02-05T22:46:00.002-05:00

I got my first Studio Calico kit in the mail today. At first, I wasn’t too impressed and then it sort of grew on me…..

I decided I would do today’s LOAD with the kit, I’m hoping I can use a lot of it up rather than adding it to my stash. I figured I would scrap a picture of one of the girls, but wasn’t sure which/what picture. And then, I was looking at Imogen’s school calendar (she does the artwork and the school sells the calendar’s to her parents/relatives as a fundraiser). Anyway, the calendar’s have always had these “Fun Facts” each month. So I started reading the fun facts because I was procrastinating doing my LOAD and in June, I came across this gem: I realise it’s a little hard to read, but it says: The average 4 year old child asks over 400 questions a day (fact). And you know what, that’s our Alice to a T.

Here’s my layout:

LOAD – February 4 (but not 3, because Tara would shoot me…hee hee)

2010-02-04T21:33:00.002-05:00

Craig wouldn’t cooperate with me this evening, so I didn’t cut up a pair of his jeans for a layout, like I had originally planned. Yes, we had words. And yes, he won – sometimes I do concede my point. Rarely. Anyway, I’ll have to go to the thrift store and buy some jeans to cut up – so the original LO can wait until Saturday.

This is today’s – quick and simple. A picture of Dillan and my brother Daniel. Dillan thought he was pretty hot stuff sitting at the big table – the high chair came out when the food was delivered. LOL. Now, I know I missed showing you all my layout for the 3rd, but that’s because it’s my telephone scraplift layout and it’s a secret. And it was almost a complete lift, so I can’t share until the LO’s are revealed over at OSU. I’m sure Tara wouldn’t really shoot me if I did show you all, but you never know………

Love ya T!

LOAD – February 2

2010-02-02T20:20:00.003-05:00

The Bubble Baby……

Paige had had enough of the water slide…So her Mummy to her inside and got her dressed – and back she came in her skirt, her hat and her gumboots…..And the water slide was dry…..but she still wanted to play!And the adults were blowing bubbles and taking photos…And then this happened…. And Aunty Kylie loves the Bubble Baby photo so much, that this happened…. This is my layout for the second day of LOAD. It’s a 12x12” photo, I sewed around the edges in red cotton (the colour is off a bit). The die cut sun and bees are Kaisercraft, the blue button is CTMH, I decorated them all with stickles. The transparency is Hambly.

TFL! Have a great Hump Day tomorrow……

February LOAD Challenge

2010-02-01T20:05:00.002-05:00

Yup, I’m crazy and I’m doing it again – the Layout A Day with Lain Ehmann at 5 Things (that used o be ScrapHappy).

Today being the first of February, I have just completed my first layout – the challenge was to scrap about a “new beginning” and well, I scrapped a picture of Dillan, the very first time I met him – that’s something “new” right? And, it’s done! In time for Chuck and Big Bang Theory – I love that all the nerdy comedies are on on the very same night!

So, here it is:

Tune back in tomorrow for more from me and my LOAD!

December Daily – rua

2009-11-06T20:25:00.002-05:00

Rua is two in Maori – I don’t know why, but I wanted to! This is part two of my December Daily journal.

Day #14 – the white Christmas tree and ornaments are from a card making kit I bought from a store here in Cleveland that was closing down. The thing I like best about this little book is that it’s using stash!!!

Day #15 – I cut the clock face out of a journaling card and the patterned paper is actually fabric and is adhesive – I just folded it in half and it stuck on there beautifully – I think it’s Love Elsie.

Day #16 – this is the day before we leave the country – so I thought a journal spot with a packing list on it would be apt. This travel card and the one for Day #18 are from Tattered angels travel bingo cards pack. Day #17 – this page is another clear pocket – I figured we could just chuck all our boarding passes etc in it once we are finished with them. A quick and easy way to document the day!

Day #18 – I’m not sure whether this page will get any more “embellishment”. We’re never in a timezone that is experiencing the 18th, so we don’t actually need this page – but I threw it in there anyway. Perhaps Craig and I can play Bingo on the plane ;-) Day #19 – You wouldn’t know it, but those are green sparkly letters and that bling Christmas tree is gorgeous IRL.

Day #20 – This glittery ornament is another element from the Christmas kit swap that I mentioned in the previous post – I’m loving using these things up!

Day #21 – This is my niece Darrian’s birthday and also the day we go “home” to the farm. I glued the canvas house on in such a way that we can slip things like our boarding passes or the receipt for Darrian’s birthday present behind it – maybe even in the windows. I’m not sure when we’ll celebrate Darry’s birthday, but I’m keeping a little Bingo card in there at the moment and can move it to whichever page is the day we have cake!

Day #22 – Nothing too exciting to say here….

Day #23 – or here! The calendar was already printed on the page – I just circled the appropriate date!

Day #24 – Another pocket page. The 3D Santa is honestly something I would never put on a scrapbook page, so this is a perfect opportunity to use stuff like this up.

Day #25 – currently the last day of my journal – but I have definitely decided to extend it until at least the 31st (those pages will follow in another post…..one day!). Another clear file page. I have a couple more pre-made pages behind it that I’ll utilise either for the next few days or as “extras” – I hope I need em!

Now, some of you have commented that you don’t think you have enough going on in your lives to fill up a journal for the month, but I suspect if you did this you will. There are Christmas ornaments to document, decorations around the neighbourhood, school and church plays, making food for Christmas, your Christmas cards, your Christmas letter, holiday parties at work/school, shopping, gift wrapping and then, all the everyday things that you might do within the month. Craig and I may sound like we’re having a busy month and I have planned accordingly, but besides the two shows we’re seeing, there is really nothing too exciting on our agenda until the 17th and once I get to the farm, all I want to do is lie on the grass out the back under the clothesline with my dog and sleep for a week – I might even take a photo to add to my book ;-) All I’m saying is give it a go – it can’t hurt right?

TFL! Have a great weekend and leave me some love!

December Daily journal

2009-11-05T22:18:00.002-05:00

A couple of years back I saw Ali Edward’s December Daily album in her column in Creating Keepsakes. It must’ve been 2007. I was in awe, but thought there was absolutely no way I could make an album of my own – who has the time? Well, like anything, I feel that if you make the time to take the time, you will get it done! Ali is sharing her 2009 December Daily on her blog and when I saw her base pages, I realised just how very simple they are! Yes, she has a gorgeous album, it’s a true work of art already, but she’s also a professional scrapbooker ;-) The base pages are really quite simple - I decided not to stress the finer points too much and just make an album. I started it last night after dinner and finished it this evening around an episode of Dr. Who and Bones.

I think this is the perfect project for me for December, given the fact we’re out of the country for most of the month!

Here it is….

Excuse the blurry pictures – I wanted to get this uploaded and well…..it’s just so dark here at the moment. We’re expecting our first snow flurries this evening. Blech! Oh and everything is red – I promise!

The base album is something I got in a kit a few month’s back – I discarded the packaging, so I have no idea who makes it! Oops! Everything else is from stash. The cover is grey with a black linen binding – the black design is a transparency from Hambly that I have cut to fit the front cover and glue dotted on.

Gosh – it’s bulky before I add my pics and journaling and ephemera – I might be in trouble! **gulp**

Day #1 – I know we’re going to see Wicked on this day – hence the musical paper. Not really a Christmas themed show, but worth documenting nonetheless.

Day #2

Day #3 – A Star Wars themed Christmas? Not quite – we’re going to see Star Wars in Concert on the 3rd. I glued the Death Star to the page underneath in such a way that it forms a pocket that we can stick the program or our tickets in to. Craig chose the Storm trooper as the embellie.

Day #4 – this is a tag I got as part of a Christmas kit swap a couple of years back. It’s small, but I don’t know that we’ll do much on the 4th ;-)

Day #5 – this is a clear page protector – I guess it’s for a 5x7 inch picture. I can fill it with a photo and there is a journaling spot stuck to the front of it. The journal spot was a RAK from Melinda I got in the mail yesterday – great timing – thanks Melinda!

Day #6 – the felt Penguin is from a swap last year of handmade felt embellishments. I believe Kathy made it, but don’t quote me. It’s stuck to a page that has a pocket on it – I slipped a piece of paper in there so you could see it better in the picture.

Day #7 – pretty simple, scalloped edge and cut down journaling spot for the #. This is actually the only Christmas themed paper in the album I think (??).

Day #8 – plain and simple…. Journaling spot bird is Jenni Bowlin

Day #9 – another simple page and a great way to use that canvas tag from Prima if I do say so myself!

Day #10 – a couple of Christmas themed journaling “spots” I got from Melinda glued back-to-back to create a page.

Day #11 – simple….but you never know what this might transform into!

Day #12 – this is another of the pre-made pages from the album. I put this one here, because this is the day of my work Christmas party and I hope to get lots of pictures to go on it.

Day #13 – I had this felt clock in a package of Christmas felt from Fancy Pants (damn, I just realised I wanted to use the pre-cut “25” from this kit and never did). I like how it turned out. It’s on an acrylic page that I cut down myself. The 13 is glitter thickers. If I had anything small ephemera wise this day, I could possibly pin it to the clock face??? But must remember not to take it on the plane with me if I do – my sister-in-law had the needle from her cross stitch confiscated at airport security once.

Okay – that takes us halfway through the month – you’ll just have to believe me when I say the rest is finished. I’m only going until the 25th in case you hadn’t already gathered that. Although….I’m sorely tempted to extend to the 31st. Oh……I will……if the album doesn’t close I’ll chuck a rubber band around it and call it part of the experience! We leave Craig’s parents on the 31st and go North for a late Christmas with my family – I can’t extend the album until the 8th when we leave New Zealand – there’s just no room! What to do? What to do???????

My first Halloween layout….

2009-11-01T17:51:00.002-05:00

My labmates and I as the polymerase chain reaction. You can read more about it here. Or, if it’s the science you’re interested in, Wikipedia does a good job of explaining it here: Polymerase Chain Reaction.

The colour balance isn’t right because it’s already dark here – we had a spectacular sunset though – all that smog ;-) I took a line art drawing of double-stranded DNA from Google images and used it as a template and stitched that double helix on the left-hand-side of the page. You may not be impressed, but I am! There is almost an entire skein (if that is what it’s called) of embroidery floss in that baby!!! The lettering is all American Crafts fabric covered thickers. TFL!

A month of creativity……and now a wee break…..well, maybe!!

2009-11-01T11:18:00.003-05:00

I did it! 31 layouts in 31 days – which was never really going to be a challenge for me – or so I thought - after all, I do that regularly. But it was! The challenge here, was the layout a day bit – as in, scrapping every day and uploading on that day!!! And it was a challenge!!! When we do LOAD at OSU, we cheat a little and I don’t think we really realise just how hard it is to create a page every day over the month. I can always get ahead or play catch-up at the weekends! That said, I had a blast and I’m back on track to have 365 layouts in 365 days by the end of the year! I’m 6 layouts behind! Now, if I was counting pages, I could rest on my laurels for a bit, but alas, I am not! And…..I’m rather concerned that I leave the country on December 17th!!! I miss the 18th completely – I will never be in a time zone where it’s the 18th……….maybe I’ll go digi for those last couple of weeks – although we probably weren’t going to take the laptop….I’ll keep you posted!

So…wanna see the rest of my layouts for the month? Here they are:

Craig and I at The Top of the Rock in New York. I really, really, really, really like this LO – it makes me happy! And I’d tell you what was from what manufacturer, but I can’t be bothered going and finding out – although the chipboard hearts are Magistical Memories and those are dew drops on the female heart.

The Joust – ha ha ha ha ha ha – I should have taken a picture of the back of this page – it’s an absolute bloody mess! I mean it’s bird’s nest central – the tension on my sewing machine needs to be adjusted – which has absolutely nothing to do with the world’s geekiest Halloween costumes – which I’ll be posting on The Craig and Kylie Files when I’m done here.

Volterra, Italy, 2003. This was the view from our room at the monastery. Yup, we stayed in the practicing monastery. We hadn’t arranged any accommodation and when we arrived rather late in the day after driving through Tuscany, the monastery was suggested as a reasonably priced place to stay. It was glorious! The priest that checked us in even pointed to the two single beds in our room and told us there would be “No bambini, no bambini!!!!” It was the funniest abstinence lecture Craig and I have ever had. Anyway, if you read the Twilight books, we were in Volterra before the vampires and the drive up to the hilltop fortress is really just like Stephanie Meyer describes it in the book – except we weren’t in a yellow Lamborghini.

Another picture from our Italy trip – the very next sunset in fact. Siena. I just love looking at the colours from our Italy trip. At first you think “Oh what awful colours”, because they aren’t terribly vibrant, just a lot of terracotta, marble and granite – but they really do have a beauty all of their own. I plan to be scrapping a lot more of that trip in the coming weeks.

And last but not least – a page of Craig and I in the park a couple of weeks back – I’m really loving those negative painted titles!!! And, those leaves are flocked! They are from an old ScrapGoods kit in the fall of 2007 – yay me!! How’s that for using up stash?

So that's it, it's over! It was fun though. I expect I won't be scrapping every day this week...that's the wee break. And the maybe? Well, I just signed up for another challenge - 365 layouts in 365 days - uploaded 7 layouts a week. Easy huh? ...........we'll see..................

I hope you all had a Happy Halloween! Have a great day and thanks for visiting!

Oi Spaceman!!!!!

2009-10-26T21:37:00.002-04:00

So, from me with giant pickles to Craig with a giant turkey leg. Or perhaps it’s actually not that giant – we just don’t see a lot of turkey where we’re from. This is Craig’s first ever turkey leg:

I cut the turkey using the Animal Crackers Cricut cartridge that “The Crackhead” sent me to cut a squirrel out with. Then I painted the turkey with stickles – those of you who have seen me throw things when stickles haven’t played nice will be proud – they didn’t play nice this time either, but I dealt with it without throwing anything. I must be growing up! The thickers are some of the new halloween glitter ones, journaling spot is Jenni Bowlin and doing the Maya Rd ribbon that way was a cool idea I got off of one of the Crackhead’s pages she shared with me – it’s a gorgeous page, so I hope she shares on her blog – although perhaps not…..

And here is today’s page – it’s simple, because I went shopping after work and was late getting home – but I now have sensible shoes to wear to work. I also have three GORGEOUS satin and taffeta dresses for my nieces to wear on Christmas day. I think I’ll scrap the conversation I had with Alice about the dresses as I was shopping. I rang her Mum to find out what size she and her sister are wearing and they weren’t home, so I tried Craig’s Mum. She wasn’t at home and wasn’t at work either, but we got hold of Craig’s Dad. He’s a farmer, he never had daughters, but he was babysitting Alice, so we’ll forgive him for putting the 4 year old on the phone so she could tell us what size her and her 18 month old sister wear. It was so funny…..she knew she was between a 4 and a 5 and that Paige couldn’t fit a 2 yet. Oh my goodness – she even told me what colours Paige looks good in. I have to scrap it, it was so cute! She definitely DID NOT want a matching dress to her sister either! Anyway, this isn’t about them, it’s about me! And my page! And my love of the doctor……

And if you don’t know who David Tennant is, then there’s no hope for you!!!!!!!!! He’s number 10 and although I like the others, he’s MY doctor.

And if you’re like Dr Who? Dr Who? You hit the nail on the head. Two words: BBC America (unless you don’t live in America), then I think it’d be just BBC, or in New Zealand Channel One………..OK, I’m leaving………..my space-time continuum needs work…………..

The last couple of days worth of layouts….

2009-10-24T18:15:00.002-04:00

So, here they are the last few days worth of layouts. It’s all good too – no more digi ;-)

This is Wednesday’s layout – it’s my sister Terri-Anne at our older sister’s wedding. What you can’t see is her whooping big tongue stud – in case you were wondering, I’m not a fan! LOL. This was really a very simple layout because I did the stitching while So You Think You Can Dance was on. And for the record, yes, I think I can dance. And I do! I think I would have made an excellent synchronised swimmer too! This must be Thursday’s LO, the 22nd. That’s mine and Craig’s wedding cake. And I really like this layout – it, like the layout above is far brighter in real life. I have a HUGE issue with this photo, but I won’t share, because I’m so pissed off at the photo and there is nothing I can do about it now!!! It’s nearly 4 years ago. And for those of you who know that the middle tier of this cake was dropped the day before this shot was taken (my Aunt actually called to ask whether she and my Grandmother should even bother coming to the wedding after it was dropped while in their care), no that’s not what I’m annoyed at. I’m annoyed that I scrapped this picture and not another one I had, because this picture…..oh I’m gonna tell you….I can’t keep this to myself and I know it’s stupid and neurotic, but I’m annoyed and my workmates tried to convince me it doesn’t matter, but it matters to me. OK, look at the picture carefully. Above the grooms head there are two red hearts and the top most heart has two whopping great big bloody flies on it!!!! Can I get a “Ewwwww Gross!!!”. I guess this is the joy of an outdoor wedding in the middle of summer and nobody ate that heart because it’s been lacquered over and is in a frame sitting in a storage container with all my worldly posessions in Mosgiel, but gross!!! And I checked, I have a professional shot of teh cake and several others that my friends took and guess what? No flies!!! Yup, it was a 1 in about 15 photo thing that I would ever see the flies, but now I know they were there I’m just annoyed…. Really annoyed! Like Oh my goodness, annoyed!

Moving along……..

You know, I tell people I’m neurotic and they don’t believe me……..

This is my layout for yesterday, the 23rd. And it’s my telephone scraplift and Tara would kill me if I revealed the whole thing, so here’s just a snippet: You gotta love the chocolate ice cream all over that child’s chin!

Here’s today’s LO – well one of them, I’ve done a couple more this afternoon. But this is the one I have uploaded to Flickr for my LOAD challenge.

I have a thing for dill pickles lately. I really like them. Last night after dinner Craig and I walked to the supermarket for junk food. He got a bag of chips and I got a jar of pickles. However I am yet to find a pickle that is as nice as the cafeteria grade pickles we get at work. The one I ate in this shot was the same – delicious! When people say they’re buying their lunch at work I always ask them to get me a pickle and on the rare occasion I buy my lunch, you can bet I have a packed lunch in my locker, I’m just craving pickles. And no, I’m not pregnant!! Thanks for asking!

Alrighty, now you know, I’m neurotic, I hate tongue studs and I’m addicted to dill pickles. Have a great weekend y’all!!!!

Day 20: Another digi layout

2009-10-20T19:37:00.002-04:00

Yup, another 100% digital layout. And not because I’m a convert, but because the digital kit I made the layout with was a prize and you can’t turn down free stuff!!!! And after my first layout I was a little bit intrigued about how these digi kits work…..

So, the kit is from Pixel Gypsy Designs and the designer is called Ami Collofello and the kit is Roundabout paper and embellishments.

And here’s the layout: And here are my thoughts, in no particular order. Except they will be in order because I’m gonna number them! 1. This is a really fast way to scrap pics – picture taken Sunday, scrapped Tuesday! Impressive! 2. I will be printing this out – although the digital paper has quite a bit of texture and I’m unsure how this will look. There’s only one way to find out though, right? 3. I always thought you’d have to be a computer whizz to do this stuff, but as long as you know a couple of things, it’s easy. I haven’t seen/read a single tutorial (but I am familiar with photoshop). 4. I’m still not completely convinced this is scrapbooking. 5. Craig hates this! 6. This might be the last time I do a digital layout!

TFL! Have a good one!

This needs no introduction….

2009-10-19T20:04:00.002-04:00

Today’s layout:

I swear I don’t normally talk this much!!!!

All the lettering is thickers, the shapes are AC vinyl shapes and the speech bubble has flock on it – it’s an upside down sticker. Flock!!! I know! I don’t normally do that either ;-)

A week worth of LOAD……

2009-10-18T14:54:00.003-04:00

I actually updated The Craig and Kylie files before updating my scrapbooking blog today, so leave me some love! For a blog that was started so our family could follow our doings, I gotta say, they never comment!

So, I haven’t updated my LOAD layouts here this week. Oops!!!! Here they are though:

This was Tuesday, #13 for the 13th…. The prompt the day before had been to scrap about your title. It was National Business card week last week supposedly. I don’t have a business card, so I scrapped about how I love my job but wish I was paid more! LOL! The layout is about me, so everything is green and the only design principle involved was: if I like it and it’s green it’s going on my page! Wah lah!!! An embellishment sneeze!

Wednesday the 14th:

I painted the frame around the picture and then sewed the skull design in pink embroidery floss. The layout looks way better in real life than in this picture. But I have to photograph the layout the day I do it to upload it to the Flickr gallery, so there’s nothing for it and I can’t be bothered taking the shot again for all y’all! I love you…..but only to an extent!

For the skull I took an image of a Stampin’ Up stamp and enlarged it on the computer and used it as a template for the stitching and then stitched it while I watched So you think you can dance.

This is Thursday the 15th then……

This is a lift of a layout I saw in an old Scrapbooks Etc magazine. I have lifted the LO before and this is a lift of it again. Darrian. What a sweetheart!

Which leads to Friday and my very first digital layout ever! This is completely digital using a free template from Jessica Sprague. I couldn’t watch the tutorial for the layout, but fortunately I know my way around Photoshop, so things went smoothly once Craig told me to do everything in Layers. I like it. I’m not convinced this is where I want to go with my scrapping, but I will definitely have this layout printed 12x12 and may add some embellishments to it. But the challenge for the day was to go digi and I did!Saturday the 17th: Craig the week we got our first digital camera. We bought the camera ahead of me going to Austria and our big trip around Italy. The day after we bought the camera we both ditched the lab early and went up to Moeraki to play with our new toy. We got some amazing panoramic shots which I must scrap and then there are the pictures of us playing among the boulders.

And today’s layout! Phew! This is Immy after we have climbed Rangitoto – which is a dormant volcano on an island off the coast of the city my parents live in. We were stupid and took the long way to the summit on this day – the long way through the black volcanic rock lava fields during the hottest part of the summer. We should have taken the direct route through the forest. Oh well…….. she sure was one hot little chicky when we got to the top. Of course the rest of us were hot too!!!! But those shots are too embarrassing to share! The flowers and the cardstock really are almost the same shade in real life. And the thickers are brand new glitter thickers that arrived yesterday.

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for looking at my layouts! Have a great day!

Monday 12th: This LO took me 15 minutes….

2009-10-12T19:46:00.003-04:00

And no, it wasn’t planned. It sort of just came together in my head as I was walking to my scrap desk.

This is Duke. Without insulting my mother-in-law, who is currently trying to sort tenants out for our house in New Zealand and is going out of her way doing so (aren’t I a butt kisser????), this dog is possibly the dumbest dog I have ever known. But he’s cute, he’s loyal and he’s loveable. And, if you have time to kill, he LOVES to play fetch. LOVES IT! At least he stopped eating stones……

And here is a layout I did yesterday about my new Nose Goblin Dobby. I think you will all agree it’s VERY simple for me (yes Martha I CAN do that). But I really, really, really like it. And Dobby!

And these next three layouts are just examples, because I’m about to suggest to someone they use circles for their pictures and I realise these layouts aren’t in a gallery that is publicly available….

The other woman!!!

2009-10-11T16:10:00.002-04:00

Now if that title didn’t get your attention, I don’t know what would!!!

When we were at the Ohio Renaissance festival last weekend, Craig spotted this “wench” – I think I’m allowed to call her that. And had to have his picture taken with her.

Unfortunately I never checked the position of the sun before taking the shot – this is after Craig spent about 30 minutes faffing about in Photoshop trying to make it look much better – believe me, it does!!!

And here’s a close up of her sign! It looks just like her – boobs and all!!!

So after Craig had posed for his picture with her, she reached into her bag and produced a scarlet letter to pin on his chest! He was so proud!!!! It was an “L”. I’m not sure what the “L” is supposed to stand for, but I favour “Lecherous Cad”. Here’s the layout I did to commemorate the moment:

I’ll have you all know I’ve been planning this layout for a week – I was just waiting for his lecherous cadness to fix the picture for me so I could have it printed. There are lots of layers of velvet and lace and sheer fabric on there – I love it!

The cardstock is the swiss dot from Bazzill, the paper and chipboard buttons are Jenni Bowlin, as is the jounaling spot. The velvet ribbon is all Maya Rd and the rest is from stash. I love that wooden “L” with the prima wings behind it!!!

Now, I’m off to update the other blog, the other neglected blog, with pictures of the Ren Faire. TFL all y’all!!!

October 8 through 10:LOAD and some other recent pages….

2009-10-10T15:24:00.003-04:00

I’m really not sure why I haven’t uploaded these next few LO’s onto my blog as I upload them to Flickr for the LOAD challenge I am in, but I keep forgetting – forgive me!

This was my October 8th LO:

Craig and I in front of the Alamo in June in San Antonio (I guess I mean that the Alamo is in San Antonio in case people reading this don’t know that – not that the Alamo has moved some time in the last 200 years and could actually be anywhere else). The Alamo die cut was something I did at Scrapbook 911 in anticipation of making this page. I have a daylight shot I want to scrap too, but it’s really not “speaking” to me!

October 9th: I’ve wanted to scrap these pictures for a while, I just didn’t know how to – yesterday I decided to use Halloween paper, hence the skulls, but in the end I went the “REALLY BAD MUG SHOT” route and scrapped them like that. I guess the hearts are supposed to be like jailhouse tattoos – I didn’t have better embellies and really wanted to add a little colour into the mix! This man will learn one day that if he poses for dumbass pictures, I will scrap them and I will share them on the internet! With a wife like me – how can a man go wrong?????

And today’s LO:

I had an email about Paige and Alice the other day and their Mum says they’ve been squabbling a bit – Paige has learnt to walk (and bite) and she’s stubborn to boot! Sounds like fun times in the Homer household! This LO was a scraplift of another LO in the Flickr gallery for the LOAD challenge I’m in.

I have some new, REALLY cute, pictures of Alice and Paige, but I tried printing them at the pharmacy yesterday and they turned out sucky. I’ll get them done at Scrapbookpictures.com – problem is, I placed an order the day before I got the pics, so it might be a while. But check out Paige’s face in this photo of her on her Dad’s farm bike:And here are some other LO’s I have done over the past week, they don’t count for LOAD, because the challenge is to do a layout every day – I can’t store them up – but I thought I’d share nonetheless.

I think I ruined this LO by putting the line of brads and bone rub-ons on the RHS. But I’m not re-doing it!

This layout is a scraplift of another layout in the Flickr gallery too. A quick and simple way to showcase Craig’s “chipmunk cheeks” after his wisdom teeth surgery:

Thanks for visiting y’all! Have a great day!

October 7th: Today’s LOAD layout

2009-10-07T20:18:00.002-04:00

I was gonna use this picture to scrap my “goals”, but I have another one to do that with and quite frankly, I couldn’t be naffed coming up with some goals to scrap about. Actually, that’s not true – I have goals, I just can’t be bothered to verbalise them right now!

So here’s a LO about my new haircut – my hair doesn’t even look like this any more because it’s grown out quite a bit.

OK, the paper is Kaiserkraft, the journaling spot is MM noteworthy and I think the brads are too (????). Thickers for the title. Velvet ric rac from Maya Rd. Thanks for looking all y’all!

October 4 through 6:LOAD

2009-10-06T20:56:00.002-04:00

I’m so tired! I still have a damned cold and I still scared I’m gonna lose my voice (Hello??? Could you imagine??) and even though I have bits of tissue stuffed in my nostrils right now and probably look like I’m possessed, I thought I’d share my LOAD layouts from the last three days. That’s Sunday, Monday and Tuesday (today).

We went to the Ohio Renaissance Festival this weekend, so my Sunday layout was completed just before midnight Sunday – it’s none other than ANOTHER mosaic page – they are my go to, quick and dirty pages at the moment. Geri, I know you’ve asked several times and I’ve kept it a secret, but here’s the answer to how I can line the little squares up Wish in the Wind.

And here’s the layout – another picture of our Paige – although “our” is a rather lose term when you consider I have never meet the wee thing!

The flower is Prima, as are the pearls and the pebble. The journal spot is Maya Rd (but I bet you all knew that!).

And here’s yesterday’s creation:

Martha – get a look at all that white space!!!! It was VERY hard not to fill it. VERY HARD. This is Darrian at about 18 months when she stayed with her Uncle Craig and I in Dunedin. She’s not some sort of freaky contortionist, I was changing her nappy (that’s diaper for you Yanks) when Craig snapped this pic.

And today’s masterpiece is Alice. Remember when I said I was getting sick of scrapping Craig and his friends a while back? Well, I’m sick of little girls now! I know I joke about having kids so I can scrap them, but there’s only so much pink that I can take!!!!

Ok, this LO is for a 12x12” shadow box. I have 9 shadow boxes that I want to mount on the wall 3x3, so I have been making bulky LO’s with kraft cardstock and one prominent (or is that predominant) colour. This is Alice’s:

And yes, Craig started the Gollum impressions about 1 nanosecond after I finished placing the title. I love that man, but sometimes he infuriates me. I know it shouldn’t have, but it sort of ruined the layout for me. And he’s gonna read this tomorrow and feel REALLY guilty!

So Craig, when you read this and wanna suck up to me, I need a new layer for my Clip-it-up!!!! Love you Honey!

Oh and the rest of you, thanks for looking!

October 3rd: LOAD #3, this feels like cheating

2009-10-03T08:41:00.002-04:00

Most of the grunt work for this LO was done last night. All I had to do this morning was sand my page and adhere my title and journaling spot. This is my niece Alice’s 4th birthday. The cake is pink and Alice was wearing pink, but I don’t have any “little girl pink” coloured paint, so I printed the pic in black and white.

You know, I really should be embarrassed that I have so many packs of thickers that I could do this without stretching myself, but I’m not! You, my blog readers, would know I was lying if I said I was embarrassed anyway!

Craig actually helped. He knows resistance is futile and that the faster he gives into my will, the faster he can get back to shooting things on the X-box. So he adhered all the 4’s as I stood at my Clip-it-Up pulling them out of packs without removing them from where they were hanging.

Here’s the LO from a different angle: And a before shot, so you can see the colour groups I raided for these thickers…..this is where you’ll get some idea just how many thickers I own…..

Yup, from pink all the way through brown I didn’t have to touch a pack of thickers! LOL. TFL!

October 2nd: LOAD #2, check out this cutie pie!

2009-10-02T18:43:00.002-04:00

This is our niece Paige, who we’ll get to finally meet in December. Yay!!!!!!

October 1st: LOAD #1

2009-10-01T20:19:00.003-04:00

I’m taking part in a Layout a Day challenge…….again! LOL. This one is hosted by Laine at ScrapHappy.

So here is my first layout for the month of October, it’s of Sue, who was my brother-in-law’s dog. He got her for his 5th birthday. She died not long after these pictures were taken. If you can see the growth on her neck I can assure you that it was benign and that the vet removed it, but it grew back and in the end, it was better to just let it grow – that thing was heavy though and at the end, as she got older it almost dragged on the ground.

The paper and fabric is Daisy from Love Elsie. TFL!

Lots more September layouts….

2009-09-29T20:26:00.002-04:00

I’m not feeling all that well this evening, so I’m currently wrapped in a feather duvet sitting on the couch playing on the computer with images of the layouts I have done this month. It’s been raining here in Cleveland for what seems like eons, so it’s dark and rainy when these pics were taken and some of them were taken through the clear plastic page protectors in their albums because I couldn’t be faffed removing them to take the pics.

Once again, the LO’s are in the order I did them, it’s just that there were other LO’s in between. I’ve been trying to wrap up a few albums that only needed a Lo or two lately, so these will jump all around, but once again, it’s mostly our UK trip from last August.

That said, this is a LO from Philadelphia. These pictures were taken just before Craig rolled his ankle while re-enacting the scene from Rocky where he runs up the Art Gallery stairs.This LO is of the ANZAC memorial at Hyde Park corner in London. I made the poppy out of felt using an old ScrapGoods template for the petals. It was actually the New Zealand Returned Services Association who started the original movement to sell poppies on ANZAC day as a fundraiser and now they are used for veteran’s fundraisers all over the world A reference of course to the John McCrae poem “In Flanders Fields”. For those of you who don’t know, the silver fern (it’s green on the leafy side and silver on the underside) is a symbol of New Zealand as iconic as our Kiwi, which is why I used that paper. And a close up of the two pages. The second page includes a verse from “For the Fallen” which is read aloud every year at ANZAC services all around the world.

“They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.”

A little more light hearted then, Maria and Will, Beauty and the Beast, all dressed up to go to Cam’s wedding. Um, a LO to document our trip to the London Museum of Natural History…..all our pictures suck the big one, so this is a postcard that we bought for me to scrap. Incidentally, I do this a lot! Scrap postcards that is, sometimes there is just no way that our pictures live up to the beauty of a place and sometimes, we can’t get all the tourists to move out of our damned shots! So I just buy some postcards! So, I was in Ireland visiting with my friend Frances while Craig and his mates were gallivanting about Europe. Francie was doing a post-doc at Trinity College and this is her magnificent fumehood! Only a geek would REALLY get it, but Francie’s enthusiasm for her beautiful hood would convince anyone just how special it is. Where we come from, nobody has their very own fumehood. Not that I need one, I have a cell culture hood instead – Francie is a REAL chemist!!! I’m not a fan of this next LO, but it was on the camera. It’s one of those LO’s I felt obligated to scrap to close out an album – namely our trip to San Diego with my sister and her family in April 2008. The album is now all scrapped – I just need a 12x12 picture for the front page and then it can be filed in the “finished” stack of albums! These were the only two pics we took during our day trip to Mexico.

Because I needed a little “cute” in my life! I keep pictures of my nieces printed and on hand and when I’ve had enough of Craig and I and all our doings I like to break things up with a little bit of pink or a cute face. This is my niece and our cat Majik when Immy was staying at our house in 2003. Gosh….so long ago!Immy, honey, if you’re reading this, this is the time I convinced you that Majik could talk to me and I understood everything she said! Ha ha ha!!!

Back to London….these next two are rather self explanatory! I used stamps on the Tower Bridge LO – I’m very proud of me!!!! And yes, I’m addicted to mosaics at the moment! That’s OK, I like them and far from being a PITA, they’re actually a whole heap of fun!

Well, once again, if you’ve stuck with me this long, thanks for looking at my stuff. Leave me some love and….I think I’m going to sign up to do a LOAD challenge in October with Laine at ScrapHappy, so you should see plenty more of me!

Playing catch up!!!

2009-09-28T21:16:00.002-04:00

So, we’ve been without the internet at home for nearly three weeks. ***GASP*** Which means that I have had plenty of time to scrap because I haven’t been on the internet every night, all night.

Anyway, I have been participating in a layout a day (LOAD) challenge that my friend Betsie started. I just haven’t been uploading my pages. I am currently at 46 layouts for the month of September, several of them are two page LO’s!

So here goes nothing……I’ll put these in in the order they were done, this isn’t necessarily everything, it’s just the LO’s that I have pictures of. You can imagine that I have had to put a lot of LO’s straight in albums otherwise my stack would be too big.

Muggles – made with an Harry Potter ap that I have on my iPhone

Geri said that she’s waiting for the pics to change just like in the movies, well, on my iPhone ap you take 4 consecutive pictures and because Craig and I changed poses, they do move!

This next LO is of my tooth that I had removed in July. The actual tooth is attached to the page. What can I say? I’m crazy that way! Check out the Lo my friend Jen did of her son Jesse’s first loose tooth.

This one is another swap kit LO, where I got the components of the page kit from 10 different people and then I have to use something from each contributor to make the page.

These next 50 million or so layouts are from our trip to the UK last year for our friend’s wedding. Most of them are of the bachelor’s party/trip to Tallinn, Estonia.

OK, so this is actually Finland. Helsinki.

This is Estonia though. Good Times is a reference to our friend Will who signs his emails that way. He took these next pics. Back to Finland. These are self-portraits as Craig and his friends split up in Helsinki to see a pit of the city for themselves, by themselves. I’m surprised they all made it back to the ferry!!!!

This next one is really just for fun! There was a challenge on our boards, OSU, to use your stash. Specifically stash incorporating the theme “B’s”. I chose brads and had a blast making this page. Yes, that is a gay strip club.

The ferry trip to Helsinki and another swap kit LO: Back in Tallinn:

And at the wedding in London. This is for a challenge to use different fonts for a layout title. I have this exact same picture taken at our wedding.

This is getting exhausting! I hope you’re all still with me!

Over to Ireland now, my friend Francie and I were in Dublin (where she was doing a Post-Doc at Trinity) while the boys were in Estonia. We took a train out to this little seaside town, Howth. I had the most AMAZING crepe there! And a great barbequed sausage! I sewed the frame around these pictures.

I REALLY like this next LO, it’s using a Bazzill in stitches template. Unfortunately the lighting sucks in our apartment on a rainy Monday evening, so it’s a bit blurry. But I wanted to share it nonetheless. And….I really like the green!!!!

Craig wanted this next picture of the alcohol and cigars that were consumed in Estonia scrapped for him. I was really at a loss as to what to do, but I like how the layout turned out in the end.

I’m almost finished, I promise! But I still haven’t posted even half the layouts I have done this month!

All the New Zealander’s that travelled to London for our friend Cam’s wedding. Admittedly, several of them actual live there.

And last, but not least a layout I did yesterday of some pictures from last autumn. One day my children are going to catch on to the fact that I used the American spelling for splendour, to save room on the LO and yet I used the word Autumn to describe Fall. See the things I agonise over while I scrap???? I was quite impressed because I used some embellishments on this LO, the felt trees, that I bought on Saturday. Using my stash as it increase….impressive!!!!

If you’ve stuck with me this long, please leave me some love. TFL!

Happy Birthday Homer

2009-09-12T09:31:00.003-04:00

The following LO is for a couple of challenges. First, it’s part of my whole LOAD thing. Which I am trying to do for the year – I’m behind by about 20 layouts for the year so far….. Second, it uses a sketch from a challenge blog that I’ve recently started following: The Shoe (If the shoe fits, scrap it!). It’s technically a scraplift of this LO, which I absolutely fell in love with – I think I’ll be lifting this LO again! And Third, but most importantly, this LO is for the Swap kit over at OSU.

Let me explain the swap kit – I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before. There are normally 10 people who contribute to the page kit. Someone does paper and then we all contribute to match that paper. In this group there was: Cardstock, Metal (safety pins), Brads and eyelets, Bookplates, Chipboard, Die cuts (I hate these at the best of times and ALWAYS find this the most challenging element to incorporate), Flowers (what I wrote for die cuts, but the second hardest to incorporate – especially if the rest of he kit is “masculine” colours) and ribbon. I think there were only 9 of us for this kit. I supplied the cardstock – and promptly ruined an entire sheet of white swiss dot cardstock, ruling it out by attempting to doodle my squares on – I should have practised first.

Anyway, here is my LO – sorry it too so much waffling to finally get here:

The pictures are from Craig’s birthday dinner – we were going to New York the very next day, so there was no way I was making cake AND packing, so we went to a Brazilian restaurant in Shaker Square for dinner. Craig ordered dessert, but I didn’t. When I slipped away to the bathroom I requested the candle, so when his dessert came out with a candle he was VERY impressed – I think he thought that it was ESP or something ;-)

The pictures were taken on my iPhone – I had a lot of them printed out this week. I think the proportions are a little distorted, but all in all I’m really happy I decided to print them and start scrapping them.

Thanks for stopping by and looking y’all!!! Have a great weekend!

Some recent layouts and one especially for Deanna!!!

2009-08-24T19:46:00.002-04:00

Where are my photos Dee??? You know, the one’s of my nephew??? That would be the same nephew who is 1 in a months time. The nephew who I have seen photos of the week he was born and in his Christmas portrait, but not between those times and certainly not this year!!! This whole year Deanna! Am I tugging on your heartstrings yet? I realise that I’m the one who lives on the other side of the world and that once you’ve had one child you don’t photograph the next as much, but can you cut me some slack already???Send me some pictures of our boy!!!

As a little incentive…if you do…when you do…I’ll make you an album of his pics! But I need them in order to make the album. K? Capiche?

But you wanna see a LO I did of his big sister? We took this pic when you guys were in Dunedin for the family reunion. Darrian was watching her Uncle Craig like a hawk!

And…..here’s one that only my scrapbooking buddies will understand…

I should really be embarrassed about the temper tantrum I threw, but I’m not. And Joyce my dear, I was not throwing the LO at you. I promise!!! For anyone who is interested, the butterflies are Maya Road rub-ons on Core-dinations cardstock which I have sanded to reveal the colour before applying the rub-ons. I really like the effect. And yes, the green is much brighter – it always is ;-) That war paint is stickles – I had the damned stuff on my fingers, so I thought I might as well apply it somewhere useful!!!

These next layouts were down the weekend before last during the online crop at OSU which I hosted.

This is from a challenge to create a mosaic: The pictures were taken just after Christmas this year in Shaker Square, which is like 100 metres from our front door.

This LO is from a challenge to do hybrid scrapping. I created my own rub-on using Graffix rub-ons of the Les Mise’rables logo. The pictures are all from online – I’m not THAT bad!

What do you think? I love Graffix rub-ons!! And it’s so much fun to create your own!

OK, this LO was a quicky – it was for a create a LO in 30 minute challenge as well as a challenge to use 5 different shades of monochromatic cardstock. Is anyone surprised I used green??

Why do I always want to type monoallelic instead of monochromatic???? Geek alert!

Most of my scrapping buddies have seen this next LO. But I want to post it for those of you who haven’t – because I REALLY love it. It’s Craig with his muppet Neo.

And a closer shot of the second page:

Thanks for looking at my LO’s all y’all. And Deanna………my photos!

Hoop Layouts

2009-08-16T15:14:00.002-04:00

We’re having a crop on OSU this weekend. One of our very talented ladies, Erin, hosted a class to show us all how to make Hoop Layouts. Erin had been to a class a few months back and learned to do it herself (you can read about that here) and so, she was sharing the love! The “hoops” are wooden embroidery hoops.

Here is my first hoop LO, it’s 9 inches. Craig and I took these pictures yesterday evening, so it was god to print and scrap them straight away.

And here is my second LO, which is in an 8 inch hoop:

And the last hoop, a 7 inch hoop, and a picture of yours truly:

And, because I am terribly organised today (I know, I’m shocked too), here they are hanging on the wall in our apartment, together….

Thanks to everyone who voted for me in the Practical Scrappers contest, I won!!! Yay! I never seem to win anything, so I’m VERY excited!

Please vote for me....

2009-08-13T06:30:00.005-04:00

I entered the weekend challenge at Practical Scrappers with the LO below and now I need your votes! You can vote here. For me. Contest #2, LO #3 (and my friend Stacy is #1, Contest #1 if you feel that way inclined). Voting closes Saturday, so race on over ;-P Thanking you muchly.

Boating in the Baltic

2009-08-09T22:02:00.003-04:00

I wasn't going to leave this LO on here, but seeing as some of you have commented on it, I feel compelled (Gee whiz Jen Barkdull and Dr. Saenz - how rude!!!). I was having a hard time getting gmail to cooperate with me last night, I kept getting signed out as I was trying to send an email. So I uploaded the file I wanted to send, the LO here, to my blog, downloaded it to my iPhone and sent it from there. Of course, if I'd asked Craig's advice I could have just file shared it to my iPhone, but it was bloody hot in Cleveland yesterday (and today for that matter) and I was crotchety! Very crotchety!!!
Anyway, this blog is about scrapbooking, not the weather or crotchety wives. I did this LO for the weekend challenge at Practical Scrappers. I know I'm beginning to sound like I stalk that website - but I don't **think** I do. Anyway, the challenge was to use letter stickers and at least 3 photos on a LO about summer. Somehow, I confuddled things up in my mind and thought it could be a summer theme, so I changed the rules a bit ;-) The layout is of Craig and his buddies in Estonia in their underwear rowing a boat. Don't ask me why, but these guys like to take their clothes off when they're around each other - I have way worse pics than these. The thing is though, it's August and that is the Baltic Sea and there is just no two ways about it, that water must've been freezing!!! Besides which, they're lucky nobody arrested them for indecent exposure. I guess it wouldn't have been a 'real' bachelor party without someone taking their clothes off though. And I've got to share something with you all. When I saw these pictures I discovered to my mortification that my husband was wearing his ugliest baggiest disgistingist brown boxer shorts while cavorted half naked half a world away from me and I was so ****embarrassed****. They went in the trash right then and there. So.....if you're ever sending your husbands to Estonia for a bachelor's party, make sure you pack his good gruds. K?
Most of the paper is Jenni Bowlin, there are some grungeboard elements in there and I have no idea who makes the stickers, if it wasn't so disgustingly hot in my apartment I'd get off my butt and check for you all. But no. Anyway, TFL!