Friday 31 August 2012

Cute

I'm just sneaking this one is by the skin of my teeth! I think my sister will kill me if she ever finds this LO but I couldn't resist using these photos. :)
 

 Created for Kaisercraft Saturday Sketches using sketch #2 for August. I used so many different ranges of paper for this one (Blae & Ivy, Hunt & Gather, Pet's Paradise, Dancing Jewel). Large blooms are Kaisercraft petals which I sprayed with GlimmerMist. Stickers, bling and chipboard are Kaisercraft too.
 
 
Colour choices were inspired by this great Yummy Scrap from Scrap Friends. If you're looking for a new challenge blog check this one out for sure. Attached to a great store, they run colour challenges once a month and also monthly sketch challenges.
 
 

Wednesday 29 August 2012

Blog giveaway ends soon

Hello blog followers! I just wanted to quickly pop in and remind everyone that my blog giveaway ends at midnight Australian Eastern Standard Time on Friday 31.8.12. Details can be found here if you haven't entered yet. All you need to do is leave a comment on that post. Feel free to become a follower or comment on some other posts too if you like but it's not required. It has been a lot more popular than I expected and I now have 80 followers and over 10 000 page views! Thank you so much! :)
 
 
The new challenge over at The Lollipop Ladies has just gone live. The inspiration picture is Sherbies with an added challenge of embossing. Any kind of papercraft, any interpretation of the inspiration is accepted. Scrapbooking pages, cards, ATCs, gift boxes inspired by the colour theme, the label font, the positions of the lollies in a grid - anything you can come up with will be accepted! Feel free to combine with other challenges as well.
 
 
 
**From now until the close of the blog giveaway I will offer one extra entry to anyone who submits an entry to The Lollipop Ladies.**


Sunday 26 August 2012

Go Team!

You may not know this about me, but I am a huge Gold Coast Suns supporter. I'm not sure how it happened. I grew up in Melbourne which is the home of AFL so during the football season there probably would have been a game being played each Friday, Saturday and Sunday but I only attended a handful of matches and didn't pay much attention to the games on TV either. Then Ben and I moved to the Gold Coast and suddenly I was forced to watch every Collingwood game that was televised.
 
The Gold Coast Suns are a new franchise having only joined the competition in 2011. Ben's dad gave him a season membership that year as a Christmas present. I initially didn't attend with him but felt bad that he had no one to go with so started tagging along. Metricon Stadium is a brand new stadium and they really put on a show in terms of pre and post match entertainment. I really got into being a supporter and watching the games live. So much so I did a 2011 Season recap LO.
 
 
 
Unfortunately, during the whole of the 2011 season I was unable to see a home game win at Metricon as they only won three games for the whole season. I started this 2012 season full of optimism that I would get to see a win but week after week it wasn't to be. There was improvement by the team and so very narrow loses but it was still heartbreaking. Finally, in Round 20 we managed to score a win again Greater Western Sydney and the crowd went nuts! This LO is celebrating that sweet victory. The win gave the boys so much confidence they won at home last night as well so we've managed to win three games this season too. Looking forward to what 2013 brings now!
 
This LO was inspired by Olympiad event #8 over at Scrapz.biz. Along with using the sketch below I also needed to include the following: flag/s; stickers (lots of them); something round; the word CELEBRATE or CELEBRATION. I have rotated the sketch to the left to suit my photo. I created two flags (one from a membership bumper sticker and one from washi tape). I have used quite a few stickers which is a big change for me, including some membership bumper stickers we were sent. My something round is the 'special moments' sticker. I have used a sticker in the bottom left of my photo which says 'celebrate'.
 

Saturday 25 August 2012

Open Range Zoo

This is my final double page LO for the Gold Coast Show. Good thing too, as I need to submit all the entries tomorrow. This one is for the open theme. For some reason this year I really struggled to think of what I wanted to scrap. Decided to go with a visit to the Werribee Open Range Zoo in Victoria. The LO seems a bit plain to me but I'm pretty happy to have finally scrapped all these photos.
 
 
Chipboard is from Scrapware, the pack also has a cute monkey and alligator/crocodile. Animal themed brads are from Francheville. Stickers and paper are from a very old Bo Bunny range (I think it might actually be 2005!). Green ribbon is actually from The Body Shop packaging.

 
Oneof the challenges this month over at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge is to scrap about your pet and animals in general. Since I don't currently have a pet I figured this Zoo trip would fit the criteria. Frosted Design's curent challenge is to include chipboard so I'll enter this LO there too.


Wednesday 22 August 2012

Happy Birthday Card


This is my DT submission for The Lollipop Ladies for this fortnight. The challenge was barley sugars and acetate. I went with a card design this time. The acetate I embossed with my Big Shot and then painted the recessed design. The washi tape is a new purchase from Craft Queen which I'm loving at the moment. Sentiment stamp is from Stampin' Up!


Here's another angle to show off the acetate design.


We're always looking for more entries over at The Lollipop Ladies. You can create any kind of papercraft project so scrapbooking, cards, OTP, tags, ATCs, whatever you like to create. You can feel free to take a wide interpretation on the inspiration and can combine it with other challenges as well. Here is the inspiration picture for this fortnight:


There is just under a week to go until entries close so you have plenty of time to create something. Guest DT spots are able to be won each fortnight and our sponsor this fortnight is: Mad for Markers*.

 
A choice of 3 of her digi stamps.

Tuesday 21 August 2012

Bridal Party

One more double LO completed for the Gold Coast Show. I only have the open themed LO to complete now but I have to hand them in this Sunday for judging so I really need to get organised. This one is for the wedding category and I figured I had done enough LOs which focused on Ben and I so this one is focused on the great bridal party we had supporting us on the day.


The photo editing after I took the picture has made my sister's dress appear blue however I assure you it was actually purple hence all the purple in the LO. We look a bit akward in some of the photos because my sister just hates photos and Ben's two brothers were not comfortable posing at all.

Dotty black flowers and the dotty button are by Lil' Red Rocket. Chipboard is by Scrapmatts. Tissue paper flowers by Pretty Paper Petals (still upset this place closed down, I loved their stuff!). Kaisercraft miniblooms and background paper.


 I used three different brands of mist on this page. I've used Tattered Angel Glimmer mist for quite a while now and have four different colours. It's a good quality mist, love the sparkle and quite versatile. I recently picked up the green Dylusions mist for something a bit cheaper than the Glimmermist. It is such a vibrant colour which I love but it also stains your hands and doesn't wash off too easily. Good to have something without glimmer sometimes too. My most recent purchase for a Mister Huey opaque white mist. Have to say, I'm pretty unimpressed with it. Tiny bottle and the one I got wasn't even filled to the top. I've only used it on two LO's and it's already half empty. Coverage is hard to judge as it seems to fade whilst drying but then the colour firms up again and it takes AGES to dry as well so I keep smudging it.


I tried something different this time and was inspired by a single page sketch to create this double LO. I couldn't go past a chance to use this great sketch from ScrapFriends. Hopefully you can see how I've used it in this LO.

Sunday 19 August 2012

Smile - Enjoying Mike's 21st

** Don't forget about my giveaway! **

This is another one for the Scrapz.biz Olympiad, this time for event #5: Weightlifting. Requirements were to use numbers, something heavier than paper and the word weight. I've used numbers in my subtitle, resin cabochans which are heavier than paper and my hidden journalling talks about my sister's struggles with her weight and how that impacted on her self-confidence.

The photo is of my sister and I at our brother's 21st. The doily was made by me using a new die I have just purchased, I can see it being very popular, even if it is tedious to make sure all the holes have been punched out. Charms Creations heart seemed like a good centre for the embellishment cluster. Craft Queen ribbon was just perfect for the colour scheme and I've used some more of the washi tape I just bought. I think I might end up using the whole role within a month the way I'm going!


I'm also using this LO as my half-way inspiration for UnstampaBelles. Their challenge this month was paper flowers, you can see a close up of mine below. The white ones are Kaisercraft miniblooms and the black one I made from their individual petals with the Glimmer Mist and scrunching. There's still time to enter for this month and there is a great prize pack up for grabs. Any papercraft project with paper flowers can be entered as long as you haven't used a stamp of any kind.


Here is the sketch I based this LO on.

Saturday 18 August 2012

Game Night

Just a quick and simple one from me this morning.  I had these photos of my friends and I playing Twister during a game night for a while but my camera doesn't take good photos in low light. I decided the play around with them in Picassa and print them at half size, I think they've turned out quite well. The papers and chipboard really enhance that retro feel. :)


This was inspired by event 3 at the Scrapz.biz Olympiad which was triple jump. Requirements for this event were three photos; ruler or measuring tape and the word hop, step or jump. I've used three photos, some measuring tape is under my washi tape and the word step is in my journalling. The sketch can be found below, I've rotated it to the left for my page.


Don't forget my giveaway is open until the end of this month as well. All you need to do is leave me a comment!

Saturday 11 August 2012

Harvey

I posted some photos a little while ago of my friend's brand new baby. One of the categories for the Gold Coast Show is babies/children so I just had to do a LO of cute little Harvey! I'm actually thinking I might do one or two more so I might need to increase my stash of baby products.

Poor kid has already faced so many health problems and I've journalled about that around the edge of the outer circle. We got the good news just a few days ago though that the last tube has been taken out and he now just needs to put on weight before he can finally come home after spending the first month in hospital. His mum and dad are so relieved.


This LO was also inspired by the second event at the Scrapz.biz Olympiad. You can see the sketch below. The extra requirements were: Bullseye Design; Arrows of any size or style; the word Aim. I think the bullseye and arrows are pretty obvious. I've used the work aim in the last sentence of my journalling.


I finally caved and purchased some washi tape, got it the very day I finished this LO and thought it would be the perfect finishing touch. I got mine from Craft Queen, they have very reasonable prices. The buttons is from Ah Scrap! Papers are all Kaisercraft. Crafters Workshop mask template again.

Wednesday 8 August 2012

The Start of Married Life

Firstly, a big hello and welcome to all my new followers! It seems like quite a few people were taken by my 300th blog post giveaway. I hope you also like my layouts too. :)

Yes, it's another wedding LO from me! We did get over 800 photos from our terrific photographer Daniel Sheehan so I expect to be scrapping these for a long time to come.  I like this photo where we are actually sitting in amoungst a whole bunch of fallen leaves. I finally got to use a whole strip of ribbon roses rather than just a single one!


The main inspiration for this layout is the current Lollipop Ladies challenge. #51 is strawberries and cream with layers. I think the pink/white inspiration is obvious and I've used a number of layers of paper and embelishments.


 
The pink/orange/white colour combo I used for the last Scrap Friends challenge worked so well with my wedding photos I decided to try again with their pink/cream/green theme this month. I really like the effect of the touches of green to just make the page pop.


Lastly, Scrapz.biz if having a scrapping Olympiad with 8 different sketch challenges during the length of the games. The first challenge focused on the Opening Ceremony. The extra requirements are: * Banners and/or confetti * The word START or BEGIN * Something that can be opened. I took a fair amount of liberty with the sketch but hopefully you can see how it inspired me. The banner and word 'start' should be obvious. I went with a key for my 'something that can be opened', as keys are needed for opening doors or locks.


Monday 6 August 2012

Sisters, Friends

*** Don't forget about my giveaway! ***

The challenge for this month over at UnstampaBelles is 'Paper Flowers'. I have used both die-cut flowes and made some of my own blooms from dress-pattern paper, as well as making some lace flowers for variety. You can create any kind of papercraft you like for this challenge, you're just not allowed to use any stamps in the design. There is a great prize up for grabs from Blue Edge Crafts:

There are paper tole sheets, stickers, ribbon roses and butterflies, a Spellbinders Tulips Pendant die and not shown will be a special pack of our new flower paper.

 

 
Since this is a double LO you have probably also guessed that this was created to be entered into the Gold Coast Show. This will be my entry for the Heritage category. The photos are my mother and aunt when they were 6 and 4 back in 1966. Their aunt took them as part of a photo shoot and I think they are just adorable. As soon as I saw them I just knew I had to use the Lil Primrose range from Kaisercraft with them. I thought using their 'collections' pack would make things easier, but I decided I didn't like the white border around all the pieces so I ended up hand-cutting every single one again!

 

 

Chipboard is all by Scrapmatts. The lace flowers I made, they are really so easy to do and look so effective. I think I'm slowly getting the hang of building up multiple layers in my clusters. The one above in particular has a fair bit going on.

 

I've still got two more doubles and a single LO to do for the Show before the end of the month and I really want to get a chance to play over the Scrapz.biz Olympiad so I'm going to head back to my crafting desk now. Hope you have a great week!

PS: Here is the prize pack up for grabs at UnstampaBelles. Go check out entering, it looks fantastic!