End of March creations

...where has this month gone??

This is the first month I've been able to complete every single one of the Design Dollies challenges, I just love those girls!!

First, a layout.  I was really happy with how the colours came together for this one.  Basically I just used up a bunch of leftover bits and pieces that were cluttering up my desk, and when it was done I noticed all the spots and dots, love that!!!


Click to enlarge

# Design Dollies ~ Sketch challenge

Edited to add: I had a few questions about the layout - so here's the ingredients list ~
* Kaisercraft papers (the brown spotty one is the reverse side of Home for Christmas - Kris Kringle; the red with white spots is the reverse side of Vagabond - Gypsy) and a smidgen of Basic Grey from my offcuts folder.  
* American Crafts 'Alpha Pals - Champion Block - Black' alpha stickers - I'm pretty sure they are discontinued; my stash is pretty old!!  I added white Signo gel pen around the edges because it told me to, and I always listen to my Signo.
* Making Memories Tiny Alphas with some more white gel pen to doctor up some of the letters.
* Journalling stamp: Li'l Davis stamped with ColorBox fluid chalk.
* Buttons (because I love circles and I love buttons) stitched on with DMC embroidery floss.
* And a bit of that green negative embie (from Kate) tucked in behind the title
* Paper napkin flower, leftover from making J-girl's Easter carton 

Next, some cards:



# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ Red, turquoise, white
 
I made a second card while all the red, white and turquoise bits were all over my scrap desk...


# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ Red, turquoise, white
# Basic Grey ~ Challenge 16 ~ Tutti Frutti
I used Basic Grey stamps on this card (oops, I smudged the sentiment, don't tell anyone...)

A blog award

A little while ago I received a blog award from Penny,  who is an American cardmaker, resident in Italy, and she also does amazingly creative designs with diecuts. Thanks Penny xx

I have to share ten interesting things about me (I always find this really hard!!)

1.  I when I get my nails manicured, I usually choose a French polish.
2.  I love going to the gym and my favourite class is Body Balance.
3.  I enjoy sewing and one of my goals this year is to use my sewing machine for more than just scrapbooking!
4.  I'm a really bad cook. Seriously. But I can make an amazing cheesecake.
5.  I'm a coffee addict (I think I might have shared that piece of imformation previously). It has to be real coffee, not the instant stuff.
6.  The last movie I saw was Avatar - I went with my husband. I'm not on top of everything trendy - the movie has been showing for months and we only just got around to seeing it.
7.  I got a new piercing recently (just tossing that in the list to see how many people actually read my blog ramblings very closely, hehe)
8.  I love creating monochromatic layouts and cards (probably no surprises there!!) and it's one of my favourite techniques.
9. I love all kinds of dairy products - milk, cheese, yoghurt - a major weakness for me.
10.  I'm allergic to aspirin.

Next, I have to nominate ten beautiful bloggers ~ I always have trouble with this too, because I don't know how to narrow it down.  So I am passing on this award to every blogger on my sidebar.  I guess that's taking the easy way out, but I truly think they are all beautiful, that's why I have them there!!

We interrupt our regular programming

...to bring you a J-girl creation!

Over at Simon Says there's a two week Children's Challenge - all kinds of projects are welcome.  My clever girl made an Easter basket.  I can't acknowledge the source because I'm not sure where template comes from; her grandma had it with her Girl Guide materials and passed it on.



This will look even cuter when it's got some goodies in there!

Easter projects - Part 1

I've been working on a few little Easter projects this weekend.

This one is a card for my mother-in-law:



I'm submitting the card for these challenges:

# 2 Cute ~ Challenge 2 ~ Easter
The bunny is also from 2 Cute Rubber Stamps - it's digital image available as a free download for a short time.
# Simon Says (on Paper Craft Planet) ~ Challenge 4 ~ sketch
# Town Scrapper ~ Easter
# Pile it On ~ Challenge 12 ~ Animal-riffic


This one is a decorated egg carton, for my daughter. Click to enlarge on either image.





At our place on Easter Sunday, the Easter Bunny usually hides a bunch of coloured plastic eggs around the yard, and inside the eggs are small treats like jellybeans, small chocolates and children's trinkets. The carton is for placing the eggs in once they have been found.

It was easy to make - I painted the carton first (just the outside), then Mod-Podge'd a paper napkin to add the pattern and texture. I made some layered flowers from the leftover napkin and scrunched them up. I decorated the carton with the flowers, the digi image, rainbow ribbon and some Pink Paislee stickers. Voila!!

I'm entering this one in these challenges:

# Some Odd Girl ~ Stash Challenge ~ Rainbows
# Town Scrapper ~ Easter
# 2 Cute ~ Challenge 2 ~ Easter
# Pile it On ~ Challenge 12 ~ Animal-riffic

The Great Outdoors

Hard to believe that March is almost over, and I'm nearing the end of my Guest Stylist stint at Scrap Boutique. I've had the best fun with Chels, Manon and Em, and all of the Boutique Babes.

The March cybercrop starts tonight, with the theme "The Great Outdoors" ~ a great motivator to get some of our summer and/or outdoors photographs scrapped into gorgeous layouts!

I've set an inspiration challenge (find the details HERE) and this is my sample layout.

Click to enlarge

I'm also entering this layout in these challenges:
# Quixotic Paperie ~ Challenge #18 ~ monochromatic
Lots of orange - Bo Bunny and MME papers, two of my favourite manufacturers.
# Simon Says ~ Spring with glimmer
Bright colours, floral theme, Glimmermist-ed doiley, and some extra bling with Kaisercraft rhinestones and the beads in the flower centre.

** Thank you Leone for the doileys and the gorgeous handmade flower  xx


And speaking of the Great Outdoors, these are the layouts I created for Scrap Boutique, using the new 3 Bugs in a Rug paper range "The Great Outdoors":

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

And just a little detail shot of the A2Z Scraplets chipboard title - I had fun with my paint, Versamark and embossing powders:

Playing with Dollies

Time for a layout share...

# Design Dollies ~ Sketch challenge


Click to enlarge

** Couldn't resist putting digi-monster Spike to work again... that's two layouts I've used him on in less than a week! You can find him at Some Odd Girl, and he's free this month, if you're quick.
** The green photo-negative embellishment was in a little RAK package from Kate around Christmas time - thank you xx


And another one:


Click to enlarge

# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ black, white, yellow
# Design Dollies ~ Bling - three kinds
I used: 1> Kaisercraft rhinestones; 2> Robin's Nest teardrops; 3>staples
# Basic Grey Challenges ~ Week 16 ~ Tutti Frutti
I used: Basic Grey 'Origins' - the yellow paper strip and the yummy black flowers

Scraplifting Adina

Over at Design Dollies, the elements challenge is in honour of Adina's birthday :) It's a scraplift challenge, and I had a really tough time choosing which of her creations to lift. So, I decided to lift her hatpin tutorial and create some of my own:



Click to enlarge

Thanks for the inspiration Adina :)

A touch of green

This weekend I've been going green - not all that unusual for me, but two consecutive projects, both with a green theme :)

The first one is a card -



# Crafty Sentiments ~ Challenge 9 ~ sketch + two designer papers (Sassafras Lass and Kaisercraft)
# Town Scrapper ~ Ribbons (American Craft) and rub-ons (Bo Bunny)
# Simon Says ~ A splash of green

I also used:  Bazzill Dotted Swiss cardstock, and "Sophie Feeding the Birds" stamp by Victoria Case, exclusive to The Town Scrapper.  THANK YOU Phebe for my new stamp!!


The second one is an 8x8 layout. It's been a while since I played over at a Scrap Lounge cybercrop, but I couldn't resist the monochromatic green challenge:

Click to enlarge

I used some more Smooch Spritz (love that stuff!), and just had to play with Spike - a cute digi-stamp from Some Odd Girl.

More MME

I *love* the MME 'Jack and Jill' papers, and I had enough product left over from my Scrap Boutique Stylist pack to make another layout just for fun.

This one is based on Kristy's sketch at Design Dollies:

 
Click to enlarge

PS ~ Translation for my overseas visitors: 'hard yakka' is an Australian expression for 'hard work' :)

Boutique Styling

Chels sent me some beautiful new products to create with this month.  I've been itching to post these on my blog because I loved making these layouts! Here are the first of my Scrap Boutique Stylist creations for March:

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

The second layout uses some *more* photos from the Medieval Festival.  I really like how a change of paper range can alter my approach to how I scrap photographs, even from the same event.

These layouts showcase the My Minds Eye "Quite Contrary - Jack and Jill" collection, co-designed by Zoe Pearn - a Brissie girl!!  I love them so much!!

Two more cards...

# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ red, orange, one neutral
# Create 4 Fun ~ Week 11 ~ card sketch






# The Pink Elephant ~ Challenge 58 ~ Spring
# Fussy and Fancy ~ Challenge 6 ~ Green
# Cupcake Craft ~ Challenge 82 ~ Going Green
# Crafty Creations ~ Challenge 58 ~ Make your own flowers

I was inspired by this fabulous box flower tutorial on the Cosmo Cricket blog ~ I used Graphic45 double-sided paper and just layered a plain Prima Chelsea on top.

Lucky Duck!

I've made a three-in-one card this week:




# Design Dollies ~ Elements challenge ~ "lucky"
# Simon Says ~ Card sketch
# Town Scrapper ~ three buttons

The digital image is Harold Duck, a cute freebie from Ai Factory.


And I've been a lucky duck lately, winning a few challenges and giveaways in some of my favourite corners of cyberspace. This week in the mail I received a Cuttlebug "Moroccan Screen" embossing folder from the Simon Says Blog Hop. Thank you so much Heidi!!

Hmmm...

... not 100% loving this layout, but it's done, and I'm submitting it for the most recent Design Dollies colour challenge. It's part of my personal "overcome purple-phobia" campaign, plus I don't back down from a challenge. There's fairly slim pickings in my stash when it comes to purple stuff now, but this is what I came up with using purple, brown and white:



I'm also scrapping another old photograph from the Medieval Festival, getting through these fairly quickly now, and will have the album finished soon :)

Smooching

Gill sent me some Smooch Spritz in my Scrap Pile DT kit for February.  I had a play around with it and road-tested it for a product review (HERE).  I had lots of fun and will definitely get some more when I can.

I used some of the spritz'd cardstock and also the spritz'd flower to make a card:



# Town Scrapper ~ Spring theme
I used an Autumn Leaves butterfly stamp on Fancy Pants paper scraps.

Renaissance Faire

This weekend I've been working on some design projects for Scrap Pile, mostly playing around with the Graphic 45 'Renaissance Faire' Collection.  This is a series of layouts from photographs I took at the The Abbey Medieval Festival in 2007:

The first one (which is actually the last layout I finished yesterday) is based on Kristy's sketch at Design Dollies:



And the others are all very simple but technique-based:







I also got an idea to create (gasp!) a double layout:



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Intermission

I finally worked out how to activate the 'click-to-enlarge' feature - I researched and found out what I was doing wrong all this time! It had nothing to do with the url or html, and everything to do with the size of my original uploaded image. So anyway, you can click on the double layout to see the detail.

I haven't done it with all of my images yet, because it means uploading larger images into Photobucket, but maybe for future uploads I'll do all of them like that.

Question for the techies - how do I code it to open up in a floating pop up?? Can anyone direct me to an easy tutorial?
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Back to the creative stuff...

I still have some papers and lots of photographs left over for another day, but by yesterday afternoon I needed a change of theme. So, I did a layout that wasn't medieval, but still used the same paper collection:



On top of all that creating, I also wrote up a product review, which you can find over at Scrap Pile --> HERE.

Things to do on a rainy Saturday

1> Wash all my craft/cutting mats.
Most of the paint and glue is gone now, and I can see the guide-lines again!!

2> Play with some new scrapbooking products.
It's a tough job, but someone has to do it! Today's projects all focussed on some Graphic 45 papers, and a series of photographs from 2007. If I get them photographed, I'll be start uploading my layouts tonight.

Sneaky peeks:




3> Teach the little scrapbooker how to heat emboss.
This was fun!! We had inks and fluid chalk and embossing powders everywhere!! She snaffled some of my white paper flowers and experimented with different inks and powders. And then she made a card with her new creations:



On her behalf, I'm entering her card into these challenges:

# Town Scrapper ~ 'Spring'
Jazi used: Mummy's supplies!!  Petaloo flowers for the 'spring' element, and Grant Archival sentiments for the stamping.
# Method Playground ~ Challenge 62 ~ heat embossing
Jazi used: Mummy's supplies!!  Colorbox fluid chalks, Versamagic, Moonglow embossing powder, Gelatins embossing powder

Cardmaking with the Dollies

Something unusual for me - two cards in two days!! Might have something to do with my printer being on the blink *again* but the silver lining is me moving out of my comfort zone again and getting creative without photographs.

I made this one yesterday, and I have to say I had heaps of fun with it, pulling out bits and pieces from my yellow scraps folder. It's one of my new favourite cards.  I also used my brand new Cosmo Cricket 'Tiny Type' alphabet stickers, my new favourite alphabets!!




# Design Dollies ~ Elements challenge ~ Something sunny + yellow


Today I made this card:



I invaded my scraps folders again, and used up some offcuts of Basic Grey lace doiley paper, Rose Moka and  Memento.

# Design Dollies ~ Colour challenge ~ royal blue, sky blue, lime green
# The Pink Elephant ~ Challenge 56 ~ add green

UPDATE 26/3/10: Chosen as one of the winners at TPE!

More sketchiness

I love sketches!!   
Kristy at Design Dollies has another super sketch, and this is my take on it:



I'm also entering my card in these challenges:

# The Pink Elephant ~ Challenge #56 ~ Add green
# Secret Crafter ~ Challenge #72 ~ Stitching



And, another sketch from me this month too.  Over at Scrap Pile, I'm hosting the March Sketch challenge.

Here it is:



Digital Credits:  Rhonna Farrer: 'Color My World' border, Jessica Sprague: 'Echoes of Asia' die cut, Katie Pertiet background papers, Kate Teague journalling card

Quite a contrast to my challenge last month! This time the photos dominate and there's hardly any white space at all. This is my layout:



I was stuck for a title for this one, and it was actually the little Miss who came up with the title for me. She just looked at the layout for a second, and said, "Frostbite? Frost Bite. Get it??" Yep, I get it, and I think she's a clever one :) It intrigues me what a grasp she has on language and word play.

Sketching and Stomping!

In March at Scrap Boutique I'm hosting the Stash Stomper challenge, and it's a fun one!

Here's the sketch:




 This month it's all about fabric - any and all kinds of fabric and felt - swatches, embies, whatever. Here's my layout:



And some yummy fabric details: