July catchup

Whilst I've been very quiet on my blog for the past month I have been busy scrapping away.  School holidays have been and gone in Queensland and this is week 2 back to school for my little muchkins.

In June, Molossi sent me a wonderful package of great chipboard to play with - cogs, kids on scooters, motorcycles and barbed wire.  Whilst I love my flowers, it's fantastic to do some pages with these more masculine style chipboard pieces.  Here was the resulting page - Scooter Patrol

I had fun playing with texture paste, some distress inks and even pulled out my poor Pazzle die cutting machine which I hate to admit gets no where near enough of a workout in my room :)  The scooter boy & girl and all those wonderful chipboard cogs are all from Molossi - drop by their blog and see the step by step instructions to this layout and also the wonderful inspiration from the other designers - Leanne has used some of the barbed wire chipboard on her layout this month featured here - it's magnificent - http://molossidesigns.blogspot.com.au/

Other than my work with the Molossi chipboard, I've also had a play with some Dusty Attic chipboard - also available from Molossi.  Here is a layout I created last month featuring one of my besties.  We met in highschool and I'm lucky enough to have her living close by and she also shares my passion for scrapbooking - it's lovely to be able to catch up weekly and scrap the night away

There is still journaling to be done which will pull out from the olive green punched piece on the right hand side but nothing like a UFO to work on when inspiration doesn't happen.  These photo was taken at Michele's daughter's engagement party - a great milestone!

Well off to do the usual school run so I'll be back in a day or two with some more scrapping to share.

thanks for stopping by xxx

WARNING! Children unattended in your scrap room could leave you with a dint in your stash

OK, so I knew this before I said yes to them going in there on Sunday morning for some quiet time with the little friends they had stay over but figured, hey they know the rules of what they can and can't touch.  Here is the result of just one of the layouts my little man scrapped - all featuring his favourite skylander characters - 76 eyeballs on just one layout.  I asked if there were any left and he said - of course, I didn't use the ones with coloured eyelashes :)

 

 

Apparently bling is another favourite product of the 8-10 years age group.  I recently re-sorted my clip it up into colours - I think I'm about ready to do that again after this weekend's scrap fest.  Brayden now has 3 layouts proudly displayed on the coffee table in the lounge area.  Casey gave the 2 layouts she did away to her best friend's baby brother and sister - she had created them for the kids who apparently loved them - one was of Thomas the Tank and the other was of the Snow and Lalaloopsie dolls :)  The friends took their 3 layouts each home with.  Wish I could be as productive as they are with a few hours in the scrap room.

 

However, even amongst all this creativity from my little people I did finally get out to the scrap room myself to play and not just tidy up after them.  Sadly, I can't show just yet as it is a gift for a friend but I will be back later to day to share with you my latest layout for the Molossi Chipboard team. 



Cards and a fun challenge

This week saw me holding a card class at my children's school for some of the staff.  This is something we try and do once a term and we aim to complete at least 3 cards in the afternoon.  As everyone is becoming more and more comfortable with the various tools and procedures we have been able to make the cards more and more difficult.  Here are two of the cards we made this week

I found a similar card to this on the internet whilst browsing Pinterest but I'm sorry I can't remember which of the many I pinned was the greatest inspiration :(

 

This card started as one of our Friday night challenge cards.  We each select a card we have pinned and then everyone who wants to play has to create a card using the initial pinned card as their inspiration - needless to say no card ever looks the same at the end.  Here are two others I have created this week using the same method.

 

On other news - the Scrapbook and Papercraft Expo is in Brisbane this weekend.  This is a fabulous papercraft show and well worth the trip into the Southbank Exhibition Centre.  I'll be heading in on Saturday and am looking forward to catching up with friends I only get to see at Expo time and all the wonderful new products on display.  I'm super excited this Expo to be meeting the faces behind the folks of http://www.molossi.com.au/ (Molossi) who I now design for with their chipboard range.

 

The remainder of my weekend will be spent watching 10 year olds dance at our local Ipswich Junior Eisteddfod - kicking off by leaving tomorrow morning at 6am!!!  The things we do for our children :)  Honestly though, watching them up there doing their thing could bring no greater joy and let's face it - a whole load of new photographs to scrapbook!  Sad when the official photographers all know me by name - indication that I spend just a little too much money with them each year???

 

So, whatever the Queen's birthday weekend means for you - enjoy and stay safe :)

 

 

First design team layout for Molossi

I received my very first Design Team kit from Molossi the other week and tore open the padded bag with great excitement.  My 10 year old daughter was even hanging over my shoulder eager to see what goodies were inside.  I must say we were both thrilled with the contents.

My first layout using the kit included two pieces of chipboard - one a title block and the second a gorgeous flourish.  Both screamed weddings to me which bought me to a bit of a dilemma.  I've been married for 12 years and scrapbooking for 10 years but have always been waiting to be a better scrapbooker before I took on my own wedding album - anyone else share these thoughts about special photos???

However, I dove in and I'm happy with the end result of my layout - Two Hearts that Beat as One.

 

for step by step pictures on how I've created the layout including some techniques on colouring the chipboard pieces - go to the Molossi Designs blog by clicking on their name here.

 

Thanks for stopping by - it's cold here in Kholo this morning so I'm boiling the jug, making the coffee and retreating for a couple of hours of creative time in the scrap room to play with the remainder of the Molossi kit.

 

 

Design Team - Molossi Chipboard!

I am thrilled to announce that I have been lucky enough to join the Design Team at Molossi Designs to feature their chipboard range.  I'm so  as excited about this opportunity and showcasing the wonderful new chipboard designs Molossi produce.  Chipboard is a relatively new addition to the Molossi range and is growing on a daily basis.  They have a wonderful blog http://www.molossidesigns.blogspot.com.au/ - pop over and check it out and also a facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Molossi/205866299435293?ref=ts&fref=ts#!/pages/Molossi/205866299435293?fref=ts
.

I look foward to sharing more Molossi news in the coming days, weeks and months :)

Thank you Suzanne & Josh for the opportunity to join you and the other designers - I can't wait to get stuck into it.

Back to school and back to busy

Well school has been back a week in sunny Qld and we are back to our usual routines.  The dance eisteddfod season kicks off in a little over a week and I'm sure the next time I look up we will be preparing for Christmas concert.


Scrapwise I've been busy playing with the new nestabilities dies I received a few weeks back and learning the tricks to making the most of them.  Pinterest has been a blessing and a curse these last few weeks as a troll for inspiration using these dies.  Here is a couple of cards I've scraplifted from Pinterest using the Nestabilities Decorative Label 8 die and the ornate squares dies - looooove both these dies. 

this card was inspired by one by Shellypop.com which I found via Pinterest on the Splitcoast Stampers website - always a wealth of inspiration!  So easy with the use of just two of the ornamental squares dies, patterned paper, cardstock and a varnished butterfly cut from a Prima patterned paper.

These two cards were created using the Nestabilities Decorative Labels 8 dies - again simply stunning dies which do all the work for you.

 

This card was inspired by one again via Pinterest from Splitcoast Stampers and the artist I was inspired by was Beate Johns.

 

I did however have a problem with this die in creating the shaped card idea which I studied many a video from Spellbinders on.  However, I was lucky enough to follow a link from their website back to the blog of one of their talented design team - Linda Lucas.    I sent Linda a message enquiring how to get a clean cut through the back of the card and she very kindly got straight back to me and told me to cut the die once, remove from the machine and rotate the die 90 degrees and then feed back through the machine a 2nd time - it works!!!! so simple and fabulous result.  Thank you so much Linda for this help, has made it much easier to get a great result with these intricate dies.  If you've never investigated the Spellbinders website - do yourself a favour.  Go to their blog and they have heaps and heaps of step by step tutorials on how to recreate the gorgeous cards and layouts on display there and of course the stunning work of Linda and the rest of the Spellbinders Design Team.

 

I continued on the card run this week with a quick few cards created from a tutorial by Jane Clark for Aussie Scrap Source using an older paper but again a die - this time the Tim Holtz film strip

Next was a challenge between my girlfriend Michele and I at the end of a crop night to create one more card inpsired by something we saw on Pinterest.  I must say neither card ended up looking like the one that inspired us but isn't that was being creative is all about??  Here's my card

and my final card for the week - again a Pinterest inspired one.  This one for a male birthday

Again the die cutting machine got a work out with the stars being from the Couture Creations star collection.  Freehand banners, a Kaisercraft happy Birthday stamp, some patterned paper, ink and a few buttons and of course a bit of embroidery thread.

 

So, with all this cardmaking you might ask if I've given up scrapbooking - no, definitely not.  This week's scrapbook page is another to add to my book about me.  I am gradually creating pages on all the important people in my life.  I used a quote challenge over at Mad About Scrapping to help me finish this layout on a dear friend whom I've known since I was a teenager.  The quote was "Friends are like stars, you don't always see them but you always know they are there".  Perfect for this particular friend as we go many years without seeing each other but I treasure him and his friendship very much.

Some of the Kaisercraft Tropicana range used here, some handcutting, Tim Holtz rosette die, Bella cork lettering and Martha Stewart border punch.

 

Thanks for stopping by and leaving your comments - they mean so much xx

 

 

 

Birthdays, banners and butterflies

This week at our house is dominated by friend's birthdays - we have 5 to celebrate this week! and one of our girls celebrates her birthday next Monday.   So, it was back to the scraproom to create some kids cards that will hopefully put a smile on the dial of the birthday girls and boys.

I did notice when I went to photograph them that there was a bit of a butterfly theme happening for the girls and banners for the boys - I suppose when you are on a roll you just have to go with it.

Add to these lot two a butterfly card which I've posted here previously starring a Purple Pumpkin embellishment and another card which I forgot to photograph before I darted out and handed it over the other day featuring an embossed background similar to the pink and black one above but all in whites and pinks and my butterfly theme is complete :)

One of the young boys celebrating is a Trash Packs fan - I have never come across this range before so I had fun researching a character to feature for his card.   I have found recently that where I usually reach for flowers to complete a feminine card, washi tape is my go to product for masculine stuff.  It added the perfect finishing touch for both the boys cards this week.

Tonight being Friday means I can escape back to my scrap room and am relieved from school holidays activities for a few brief hours.  Let's hope my mojo kicks in and I can actually scrap a layout before I return to my never ending April of cards ......