I found...

a new home for some of my purple stuff. 

First, a short interlude - some purple flowers from the garden of my old house:










Thank you to the visitors who signed up for my first blog candy.  I had to take a few names out of the draw because they didn't follow the guidelines, but after that I used random.org and had it choose an integer (took me a while to figure it out...)  And then I couldn't get it to do a print-screen for me!   Probably would have been infinitely quicker to draw a name out of hat... ah, well...

Congratulations to Ramona.  Please contact me via the email address in my profile and I'll post off your goodies as soon as I can get to the post office.

A rare double

I came across some photos of our Saint Helena daytrip that I printed out ages ago and filed in a safe place for a rainy day... Well, it was rainy today and I finally got around to scrapping them!! It's also the first time I've done a double page layout in around four months.

This is the double:



I can't work out how to do the 'click on picture to enlarge' trick, so I've got a few detailed shots as well. (If someone knows how to do it, can you let me know??)





I'm entering this in the following challenge blogs:

# Design Dollies ~ Elements Challenge
* Three circles - buttons and vintage brads
* The color GREEN - mostly used olive green with a touch of kiwi green as well
* 2 different kinds of ribbon - two different widths of grosgrain + torn paper to make a gingham ribbon
* Inked edges - inked the edges of the book pages and the monogram

Simon Says ~ Vintage with flowers
I used vintage colours, old book pages, string, gingham trim, inking, and also Pink Paislee 'Vintage Moon' paper for the background.

# Method Playground ~ Challenge 62 ~ Heat embossing
I used Colorbox fluid chalk on the monogram and heat embossed with clear Moonglow powder, then I inked the edges with white Brilliance Ink and embossed again with the Moonglow powder.

Loving life in the comfort zone!!

This week's colour challenge at Design Dollies is smack-bang in the middle of my comfort zone, and sometimes that's a nice place to be.   I *love* orange, brown and white together.  I based my layout on the current challenge at Sketchy Thursdays:





Also loving the delve into my old stash - the Autumn Leaves paper and the WRMK alphas have been floating around for ages!  I loved altering the chipboard to suit my layout - with my favourite Making Memories paint ('Chocolate', of course) and my new favourite 'Vintage Photo' Distress Stickles... and of course I had to add stitching because a KB layout is never quite right without stitching!

Remember the Days of the Old Schoolyard?

On the weekend I scrapped some layouts for the Scrap Boutique  February cybercrop.

I hosted the Sunday Roast, and it was fun!! It's basically like a blind scrap, except the forum members nominate some of the 'ingredients' beforehand. The criteria included: yellow and white, stitching, chipboard, flowers and buttons. The title "Your Smiling Face" is taken from the Cat Stevens lyrics of the 'Old Schoolyard' in keeping with the theme of the cybercrop.

This is my layout, which I really enjoyed creating. I *love* yellow at the moment, so much that I've totally run out of yellow buttons! Time to hit the op-shops and markets again I think!



Manon hosted a colour challenge ~ to create a layout using the school uniform colours of the subject photographs. I didn't have all the right colours in my stash, so I used one of her actual uniform shirts out of the rag bag. The journalling tucks in the 'pocket' created by the collar. ** school logo blurred for privacy **



Em hosted the sketch challenge ~ and the extra criteria were to use a large format photograph, and a number and/or alphabet border:

Another card :)

I've really been slacking off when it comes to cards, but I'm still a bit ahead of my average of one card a week. Here's another one, right in the middle of my monochromatic, green, comfort zone!!





# ABC Challenge ~ O is for ~ One paper
# Cards for Men ~ Challenge 4 ~ Green

My 'one paper' is Basic Grey from the 'Infuse' range. I received the image in a swap last year, so I don't know which company makes it. Might be Stampin' Up but I'm really not sure.

Boutique scrapping

Just another layout share, some more layouts for Chels at Scrap Boutique.  I'm enjoying my time as a Guest Stylist, so hard to believe it's half over already.

This one features more Basic Grey 'Origins' - it has to be one of my favourite Basic Grey ranges ever:





And, for a change of style, a layout using Pink Paislee 'Cupid':

A card

I made another card this week:



# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ lavendar, grey, ivory
# Design Dollies ~ Elements challenge ~ in honour of a special woman
# The Secret Crafter ~ Challenge #71 ~ Mother's Day
# Quixotic Paperie ~ Challenge 14 ~ Something for Mum
# Simon Says ~ Recipe challenge
1 image - Fancy Pants heart stamp
2 patterned papers - MME Tres Jolie 'Lavende' and Making Memories 'Noteworthy'
3 embellishments - raw chipboard letters, Kaisercraft pearls, organza ribbon

Not too shabby...

This month in the Scrap Boutique newsletter there was a mini-feature on shabby-themed products.  I enjoyed creating this shabby-chic inspired layout:







I must admit I find this style of scrapping very challenging and I'm never quite satisfied that my layouts look 'shabby' enough to really fit the genre, but it was fun experimenting.

Playing with Dollies

This is my entry for the latest Design Dollies sketch:



Last month I took a zillion photographs of my little model and her new sundress, and now I'll probably have a zillion different layouts as well! I used some lace and ribbon on this one, so I'm also entering it into The Pink Elephant challenge this week.

UPDATE 18/3/10: My layout was chosen as one of the weekly winners at TPE, and I am the proud wearer of this cutie:

Happy Valentine's Day

Well... we don't usually observe St Valentine's Day in this household, but it's still nice to acknowledge the date! I made a little Valentine's basket and chocolate slice as a special treat for my daughter:



I had a tough time photographing this one because the light was terrible!  The photograph above shows it empty, and these ones show it full:





Credits:  Heart basket template from Create4Fun 



I'm entering this one in a few different online challenges:
# Simon Says ~ Love
# Cute Card Thursday ~ Challenge 99 ~ In the Name of Love
# The Pink Elephant ~ Challenge 53 ~ Mushy Gushy Valentine
# Crazy 4 Challenges ~  Challenge 24 ~ Red
# Stamp Something ~ Something Cute ~ I chose a cute Prima stamp.
# Stamp with Fun ~ Challenge 45 ~ Hearts

Here's the recipe I use for Mars Bar slice:

3 x 65g Mars Bars
90g butter
3 cups Rice Bubbles
200g Cadbury milk chocolate

* Melt Mars Bars and butter together.  (Supposed to be on the stovetop, but I just nuke in the microwave...)
* Mix in the Rice Bubbles
* Press the mixture into a lined slice tray.
* Melt the milk chocolate and spread evenly over the top.
* Refrigerate until set and then cut into bite-sized pieces

Easy!!



And... just so my true Valentine doesn't feel left out and unloved, I made him a little card too.  And if he's quick, he might even get some of the Mars Bar slice!!



# Design Dollies ~ Elements challenge ~ Love, but no pink or red
# Humble Pie ~ Diecuts ~ I used Spellbinders 'Labels 8'
# Simon Says ~ Love
# Cute Card Thursday ~ Challenge 99 ~ In the Name of Love
# The Pink Elephant ~ Challenge 53 ~ Mushy Gushy Valentine
# Charisma Cardz ~ Week 6 ~ Think Male
# Creative Inspirations ~ Challlenge 47 ~ Leftovers.
I used Basic Grey 'Origins' paper, leftover from these projects.

Loving summer!

I haven't been doing a whole lot of creating this week (lots of reasons...) but I have been fluffing around on the computer a bit at night! Over at Digital Doodling there's a fun challenge to try out some fake magazine covers and share the result. Everyone who shares their creation can join the giveaway ~ see my sidebar for details of the prize :)

This is mine:

Create Fake Magazine Covers with your own picture at MagMyPic.com

I also took a look around at the The Pink Elephant blog hop and was inspired to join in the challenge, which is to re-visit a favourite challenge from 2009. I chose Challenge #28 (Summer) because I have a heap of new summer photos to get scrapping with.

I used a current sketch from the Stash Stomper at Scrap Boutique, designed by the fabulous Em Straface.

Here's my layout:



# Diecuts R Us ~ Challenge 25 ~ Love
# Humble Pie ~ Love
# Simon Says ~ Love
# Stamp Something ~ Love Somethings
# By the Cute and Girly ~ February challenge ~ Love
# Stamp with Fun ~ Challenge 45 ~ Hearts
# Fussy and Fancy ~ Challenge 2 ~ Hearts

I don't own any heart stamps (how sad is that?) but I thought the little Grant Archival butterfly stamp fit in very nicely with the handcut paper hearts.

Moving along...

I've been blog hopping with Brenda this week, and I had a go at the Sir Stampalot challenge too. The theme is "moving" and I've done two projects.

The first one is a card:



I'm also entering this card at:
# Design Dollies ~ Sketch
# Pollycraft ~ Challenge 33 ~ Things with Wings


And the next one is a layout:



I'm going great guns on my resolution to use more of my old stash items; very happy with how this one came together :)

Loving the earthy colours of Origins

A friend reminded me today that it's been three days since I last blogged.

I'm having fun in my Guest Stylist role over at Scrap Boutique. In January Chels sent me some of the gorgeous Basic Grey Origins range to work with, and these are the layouts I created:










These layouts are on the store homepage this week. I just love the colours, so perfect for me with the browns, greens, yellows and earthy tones.

I've done one more layout using this range, but I can't show anyone just yet.

In the meantime, I made this bookmark for the Monday colour challenge over at the Design Dollies. No Origins in this one (though I was tempted!) The colours this week are kraft, ivory and green:



I used some Prima packaging (just love it so much!) and a tag that I got in a Scarlet Lime kit in 2008.

Ferocious!

My friend Manon has set an inspiration challenge for the February Stylist Challenge at Scrap Boutique - I was drawn immediately to the gold and ornate touches of the picture she chose. I hardly ever use gold in my layouts, so of course I had to try :)





I'm entering this one in these online challenges:

# Design Dollies ~ Elements challenge ~ vintage
I used lots of distressing with gold ink, torn edges, rumpled papers.  I made some 'paper lace' punched from the old book paper.   Lots of sepia tones in the papers and ink.
# Secret Crafters ~ Challenge #68 ~ Hearts
I think you can see the heart in the detailed shot? I cut it from the flocked K&Co paper, and stitched around the edge.
# Polka Doodles ~ Week 4 ~ Non-traditional Valentine project
# Fussy and Fancy ~ Challenge 2 ~ Hearts
# The Creative Type ~ Prompt #25 ~ incorporating type in embellishments

More 'Lazy Days'

At Scrap Pile, it's challenge central at the moment!

Our six-week Lazy Days of Summer competition continues into the third week. This week the theme is 'Christmas 2009'.  Here's my sample layout:






I had lots of fun making this one, though I was a bit over the blanket stitching by the end... and back in my monochromatic comfort zone too!

Red stuff

I'm loving RED at the moment... I seem to be working my way through my older stash in colour groups.  Not surprising really, because all my scraps and leftovers are stored in folders and ziplocks by colour.  When I need a bit of a particular colour, I just grab that folder and see what's in there that I can use up.


This one is for my Scrap Pile February technique challenge, incorporating negative space:






I also made a card this week:



# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ red, black and one neutral
# Humble Pie ~ Flowery challenge ~ I used five flowers
# Create 4 Fun ~ Week 5 ~ Sketch
# Sketchy Colors ~ Challenge #9 ~ red and black


Credits: Bazzill embossed cardstock, Cherry Arte paper, Spellbinders Labels 3 and Labels 8, Kaisercraft stamp, Bella gems, Kaisercraft flowers, Green Tara flower.

Purple stuff

*** Blog candy has closed - drawn on 28th February ***

Over at Scrap Pile  I'm hosting the inspiration challenge for February.  This month I chose a picture I came across on Etsy:



Source: http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=38195311

This is the layout I created:



The colours really drew me in.  I've been making a huge effort lately to push myself beyond my comfort zone so I thought something purple would definitely do that!!  As much as I wear purple, and like purple, I still can't seem to scrap purple!!  It never seems to fall into place like the other colours I use.  I also used lot of older stash... that's something else I've been making a huge effort to do.

And on that note, I had a bit of a stash-tidying frenzy this week and I gathered together some goodies which might be better utilised by someone with a knack and appreciation for purple!!  Everything is new and unopened, and in tones of purple or lavendar.


The picture shows is what I've got in there so far.  I've also got some papers and some ribbons which I'll pop in there, and I'll be adding a few more goodies as I go along. I will post anywhere worldwide.


This is the first time I've hosted a blog candy.  Here's what I'd like you to do:

1> Please leave a comment on any one of my other blog posts from January or February this year.  (I really would appreciate some feedback or suggestions on any of my recent creations.)
2> Please leave a comment on this post letting me know that you'd like to be in the draw, and which other post you commented on.  (Not necessary for my friends who visit and comment a lot ~ you know I'll already recognise you!!)
3> Please link me up in a blog post or your blog sidebar with the picture. **There's absolutely no need to become a follower, but if you want to I'd be interested to know who's watching me!!**

I'll keep this open until 27th February and draw a random winner on 28th February.

February already!

Where did January go?? First of the month, so it's time to share some of the challenges that I've prepared...

Over at Scrap Boutique, it's my turn to set the monthly themed challenge. I've chosen "Gathering Together", and here is my layout:



I've also set a card challenge for February (check the forum for details). Here's my sample card: