Believe

The very talented Ali Edwards runs a class on Big Picture Classes each year called "One Little Word".   The idea is to choose a word in January each year and keep this word as your "focus" for the year - reflect on it, try and make it real in your life throughout that year.  If I could choose a word for my daughter right now - Believe would be it :)  I created this layout to show her how much we all believe in her and her talents.

As you all know, I'm lucky enough to be on the Molossi design team and October's little packet of goodies included this gorgeous scripty title - Believe and the ornate frame.  Immediately I knew what I wanted to do it was just a matter of finding the right photos.  As with all little people, selfies are a big part of their electronic devices - so, under the guise of backing up her ipod I managed to grab these couple of shots from her collection.

The flowers are a mixture of Bo Bonny - those gorgeous blue flowers, and some stunning mulberry flowers available at Scrap of Difference.  The papers are a mixture of Kaisercraft and Echo Park.  A small metal corner embellishments from a cheap store many years ago and some washi tape gives a pull out highlight to the hidden journaling card behind the focus photograph.

Again going through my "older" bits and bobs - I found a packet of small transparency cards from Bella - I have printed onto some acetate and hidden behind one of these cards the believe quote.  A piece of floristry wire wound around a pencil gives a bit more to the floral cluster and the edges of the spotty paper were inked with black.

thanks for stopping by - Happy Halloween - next time we blink it will be Christmas xx

More cards

With school holidays upon us in Queensland it is sometimes hard to find time to escape to the scrapbook room for any length of time and concentration.  However, sometimes enough time to create a card or two can be enough to recharge the creative batteries before going back to the ever busy schedules of an 8 and 10 year old's social calendar on holidays!!

First is a few cards I made with a range of chipboard borders I received in my kit from Molossi recently.

 

Next I played with a Spellbinders die that I purchased some time ago.  I have Pinterest to be a wealth of inspiration when it comes to playing with a new investment like a layered die set!

The pink card is one I made and the purple one is my 10 year old daughter's copied version :)  These sets of dies make cardmaking a breeze.  Add in the poppy die cut from Memory Box, some leaf die cuts, a few beautiful blooms and a bit of patterned paper and inks and the job is done. 

 

Thanks for dropping by

 

School photos

It's that time of the year again when the school photos and the soccer photos all arrive back from the photographers.  Each year I start these projects and I'm sure each year I struggle with how to make the same uniform colours look like a different layout!

This year I decided to use the Kaisercraft paper range called "Class Act".  This made it easy to create the layout as all the papers blended easily and it even supplied much of the elements for the embellishments.  I simply added in some vinyl lettering for the title and a couple of die cuts and the layout was primarily done.

 

Now I just need to find the mojo to complete the class groups in the same ranges!

 

Elegance

My daughter has been dancing since she was 5 years old and I have tried over the years to scrapbook each of the groups and solo dances she has learnt and competed with.  This year is her last with the under 10s groups and it was fun to pull all the wonderful photos of one of her song and tap groups, "Elegance” , taken over a 3 year period and prepare this layout. 

My chipboard pack from Molossi this month included a terrific little park bench which was just perfect for replicating a photograph taken on stage by Dance vision with her "sleeping" on a park bench in the routine.  The chipboard fence also from Molossi added the old English feel of the song and for me works well with the theme of the routine.


Thanks for dropping by and checking it out - I'm heading back to the scrapbook room to play with a whole new range of fun chipboard pieces from Molossi which have just arrived - stay tuned and I hope you can drop back some time and see some of the new layouts :)

 

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.....