I could have sworn it was winter?????

Living in Queensland there is always opportunity to use beach or ocean related chipboard, so I was excited to receive the fabulous anchor and chain from Molossi in my pack for August. 

Despite being winter, my son and his mate hit the beach in early July for a day in the sun, sand and water.  The outside temp was a pleasant 23 degrees and the water temp was not far off at 20 degrees.  Resulting photo shoot seemed like the perfect excuse for a this layout.

 

For step by step direction on how I put this layout together, drop over to the Molossi Designs blog . 

Along with this one there are stacks of other new layout and card instructions loaded there from others on the Molossi Design Team.

thanks for stopping by

 

card class and a little visitor

The car is packed and ready to head to Brassall this afternoon for our card class for this term at school with some of the teachers and staff :)  Here is a peek at what we will be creating this afternoon -

My preparations were almost complete yesterday when I started to clear the scraproom of my mess and file away any scraps into the hanging files I have in a 4 drawer filing cabinet at the back of my scraproom.  I keep my patterned paper scraps in the top drawer of one cabinet and the cardboard scraps in the top drawer of the cabinet beside it.  The other drawers are full of plastic boxes housing my chipboard lettering & shapes as well as die cut shapes and stickers and all the other little bits and pieces.  My brother in law brought me home these cabinets when they were being discarded from his work during an office refurbishment and I just love them.  However, this little visitor found coiled up underneath my patterned paper scraps yesterday afternoon was not so welcome.

I am still waiting for an official decision from Wildlife Qld but the general consensus from those in the know is that it is only a brown tree snake and only mildly venomous.  Our concern was that he was an Eastern brown and therefore highly venomous - in fact the 2nd most deadly snake in the world.  The disturbing part of this story is that we actually evicted this fellow from exactly the same spot about 10 days ago - hubby bravely donning his welding gloves and grabbing him and taking him to the bushland at the end of our driveway.  The fact that he is back just 10 days later in the same spot  has led to him being driven 5 kilometres away this time before his release!  Hopefully he not a homing pidgeon and won't be returning this time.

I now have an hour before school pickup is due and I'm free to re-enter my scrap room safely so I'm off to play! 

thanks for stopping in.

One door closes another door opens

This quote was one used often in my family home when I was growing up.  It covered so many different situations - from walking away from a bad situation and looking to a brighter future to taking on a new challenge which required leaving behind the safety of what I knew. 

Some time ago I took a class at Big Picture Classes where I came across a blog link to one of their teachers - Jennifer Mohler.   She had started a project which she outlined on her blog (click her name to go there and check it out for yourself) called 100 Life changing moments.  Her story inspired me to start my own list of life changing moments and to start scrapping my life in the hope that my kids will, in years to come, understand a little more about who I am and how I got to the point of becoming their mum.

This layout is a result of that list and I thought the old quote I grew up with summed up this point in my life really well.  Add to this that Molossi had sent me some wonderful chipboard to play with in July which featured all kinds of hardware including doors, locks and keys and I was ready to have some fun. 

This layout tells the story and shows the pictures of my move from NSW to QLD in 1991.  I was lucky enough to have 2 parties - one with family and the other with friends to celebrate this bold move away from my family home, lifetime friends and everything I knew.  It was scary but exciting at the same time.   I didn't know at the time but these photos would also be the last ones I would have taken in this house as a couple of years after I left the house had to be demolished due to termite damage and a new home now stands in it's place.  For this reason also - these photos with those I love in them are very special.

The journaling for this layout is hidden behind the large Molossi chipboard door on the right side page - it opens on hinges to allow the journaling to be read.  The smaller doors, locks, keys and the gorgeous chipboard hanging sign which the title is displayed on are all from Molossi's stunning range of chipboard.  Follow this link to check out their entire range or ask your local scrapbook retailer if they can get you some - www.molossi.com.au

thanks for dropping by and checking out what I've been scrapping - I'm off to finalise the last card for my school card workshop this Wednesday so I hope to be back to share those cards later in the week.

Molossi have just sent me a beautiful new bag of goodies to play with for August so you'll be seeing something else with their stuff real soon :)

bye for now.....

The first of many

The May/June eisteddfod season has come and gone and thanks to the wonderful photography from Dance Vision I now have another couple of USB's full of wonderful dance images to scrap from.  Thank goodness for Hope from Dance Vision who had to teach me how to open their rather clever (but confusing for some of us) USBs.

So, this layout featuring my daughter and her friends from Dance Time Studios in their 10 & Under (yes, I do have to keep reminding myself they are only 10 years old) Neo-classical group to a song called "Pure Imagination" is the first of many I'm sure I will be scrapping over the coming 12 months.

The chipboard I have used here is from an old stash I had of Basic Grey chipboard and it went so well with all the colours I was using.  Add some lettering from Bella, some sparklets from Kaisercraft a die cut made from transparency and run through the cuttlebug with an embossing folder for a bit of added interest and a couple of handcut flowers from a Kaiser range of paper and the job was done.

I'm thinking as the last couple of layouts I have done have been about either my daughter or myself, it might be time to go search the files for something of my hubby and my little man and get a masculine style layout together - I've still got some yummy chipboard from Molossi to play with including motorbikes and barbed wire - I'm sure I can find a photo to suit :)

Thanks for dropping by, I hope your scrapping time is bringing you some joy this week

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 :)