Crafting to post....

I have actual scrapbooking to post, that's right I scrapbooked.
To be fair I have had  these layouts sitting on my desk since September of last year, but I finally got my act together and I finally got some crafting done.

I am finally getting the hang of these boy layouts, I have always found it far more easier to scrap with pinks but these days I am enjoying the blues and greens and cheeky dirty faces in photos.  These layouts are a good combination as usual of new and older stuff, nothing  majorly old in these but just a mixed lot of stuff from my stash.

American Crafts goodies picked up on sake from Spotlight this week.  This is the last purchase like this in a long time for me, I am now on a spending freeze of sorts with only consumables and products for project life and my Wedding album allowed to be purchased.  I have enough stuff for me to comfortably craft from my stash for a while so I am being responsible with my cash and trying to make more things than I buy.

Purrty fabrics.  I am no sewer by any stretch of the imagination, my mum was an amazing seamstress and I have two friends who make the most amazing things but me......not so much and to be honest I don't really enjoy sewing all that much.  I do however hate paying huge amounts of money for things that I could easily and quite comfortably make myself and when I manage to get awesome fabric really cheap who am I to refuse.  I am really lucky to have a fabric clearance store around the corner from me and I am currently in the process of drawing up plans for some small sewing projects so who am I to refuse such pretty patterns ;)

Crafting to report....

I am going to let you in on a little secret, most often than not my pages sit for a few days or even weeks stuck in unfinished limbo.  Titles, journalling and adding those final touches are something that I really struggle with.  I am okay with this but am trying to fit in more crafting time so maybe I can push through the road blocks that are the final important touches to my layouts.  The two layouts below are two that I have been working on for a few weeks now.

 Behind That Smile

I have had these photos for quite some time now and I really struggled trying to find some papers that seemed to work.

Well that is some seriously old paper right there....

Remember when Making Memories was actually making consumable products and the paper had bar code stickers on the back?  I scored this paper in my local RSPCA thrift store in a bundle with some other old papers.  I was rather uninterested in the double orange and olive green block pattern but the plain olive coloured side was the perfect shade for this layout.  

 I usually don't mix my alphas up so this is a nice change, I used Echo Park, Sassafras Lass which I inked brown and covered in glossy accents and font cut with the Cricut, I think it was Happy Phantom.

This is actually a really nice and simple layout, not too much going on just took forever to get finished as I was too lazy to print out the journalling.

Layouts to share....

The last few months have been a whirl wind of ups and downs and an extremely busy period in our life and to top all of it off we decided at the last moment that moving house was a brilliant idea.

So sewing machine, decorating goodies and scrapbooking supplies were all packed away into boxes and were amongst the last of the stuff to be unpacked, no creativity was happening until I had our new place in some kind of order.

These are some older iPhone photos that I forgot about so the quality is not the greatest but once I re-found them I knew I had to do a layout with them.  Actually this is the last layout that I made in our last place but as soon as it was finished it got packed away so no photos of it.  This design from this layout is another of Shimelle's 4x6 photo love classes this time I have used February as the inspiration.  This was also the first layout that I used any of the Sassafras warehouse sale paper that I received before Christmas.

Car Show Love most certainly, J and I love a good car show and the highlight of living where we do is the once a year Rodz Rock n Roll festival, we love the cars and can bribe the kids with the promise of getting carnival food and kids rides after we look at the cars.

I have used some SERIOUSLY OLD stash on this layout.  Both the striped paper (KI Memories) and the background paper (Karen Foster c.2002) are ancient and true to form this layout is a good mixture of new and old products. 

I apologise for the tired and sad edges on these papers.  That Karen Foster has actually moved countries and has possibly had seven plus house moves behind it so I guess I can cut it some slack....
What I love the most about this layout is the cogs (especially the ultra shimmery charcoal/silver colour) and the fake glimmer mist/paint splatter stamp that I have used.

Just a boy being a typical boy, lets not create art with this paint, lets eat it and make a huge mess with it instead, I just wished I had a photo of the aftermath, head to toe dark khaki paint, awesome.

Again I used that coveted glimmer mist/paint splatter stamp.  I also cut the circles from a sheet of Bella pattern paper and made the star embellishments using some die cut shapes, brads and distress ink.  I do not own all that much in the way embellishments I am more of a paper hoarder and I am not a huge over embellisher anyway so not having the perfect little bit of extra to top off a page is sometimes not a huge deal, it is amazing what you can create with just a few bits and pieces from what you already have on hand. 

Crafting to report

I have finally had the time to get some much needed scrapbooking time in, seems like forever since I last played crafty.

First up a card.  I do not celebrate Halloween, something to do with living in Australia, American tradition not ours, grumble grumble...

As a kid Halloween was some kind of magical concept as it was never a part of my childhood era in Australia, these days it is becoming much more widely accepted but I don't celebrate especially as I now have kids of my own and the thought of them with a bag full of lollies scares me a bit if I am honest, LOL.

I do however have a friend in England and apparently the sweets over there do not compare to our down under goodies so a Halloween parcel must be sent.

 Next up is a layout that has kind of been a bit of a hassle to get finished.  You know the ones, you have all these great ideas and nothing seems to work, yeah that was the Happy Birthday layout, probably did not help that my daughter did some impromptu pencil artwork on one side of the layout before everything was glued down limiting my choices, but perseverance paid off and I now have a finished layout.

 After I started this layout I saw that Big W was selling the DCWV Celebration stack so I bought it and got all my embellishments and title from it except the banner sticker, totally LOVE this stack.

And finally I scrapped a layout of one of my best friends weddings that I was in from 6 years ago and, I actually watched a tutorial and made a layout from it. 

I have never, ever taken a layout class and I have never done a tutorial.  All I can say is it was awesome and I love the finished product.

I am most certainly going to do another of the 4x6 Photo Love by Shimelle.

I can honestly say that I would never have thought to do a layout like that and I would never have done it before but I love the results and it has opened up a whole lot of new options on how to scrap all those events that I have multiple photos from and that I have been putting off for years.

 Makes me so happy to see these wedding photos finally scrapbooked.

100% Boy

A few weeks ago I was in Spotlight for some fabric and I came across the new Bella papers.  I really loved these new lines so I got a couple of sheets of both the boy and girl themes.

It never ceases to amaze me just how boy like Zach is, he really is the A typical example of what a boy is and the things that they like and the funny thing is that although he has always been a typical boy it has only been in the last few weeks that his true boyness has come to shine.  It seems like almost instantly he discovered the sheer joy of footballs, trucks, cars, planes and trains, rough housing, action figures, getting dirty making noise, getting into everything and truck watching, in fact whenever we leave the house he spots every truck imaginable and rubbish day is a very exciting time in our house with lots of waves to the drivers.

Long forgotten scrapping....

I have been meaning to get on here and post a few layouts that I have done recently within the last few months and longer and have just not got around to posting them.

(Paper: Bazzill, Grant, Fiskers, Lexel)

(Other: Rubons: Love Elsie - Heidi Grace, Stickers: Ek Success, Stamp: Kelly Panacci) 

This was my most recent layout, I don't scrap all that many layouts of J and I, it always seems that we are behind the camera and we don't really like having our photos taken all that much.  I used a great mixture of new and old products in this layout, both rub ons I have had for years and the ticket stickers I have had for ever, the I love you title is a  sillhouette file. 

 (Paper: Echo Park, DCWV, Scenic Route, Mica paper & flocked paper- unknown)

(Other: Stickers: Heidi Grace alphas - Echo Park, Craft Affair, Stamp: Autumn Leaves, Distress Ink)  

This was the first of two layouts that I did in fairly neutral colours.  I have always loved bright colours and most of my scrapbooking and cards are a testament to that but occasionally you get photos or a theme to scrap that does not lend itself to the bright colours or overly busy papers, it was nice to mix things up a bit.  As usual I used a good mix of new and older products, the green/khaki flocked paper and the mica paper are seriously old and are from the very early days of this hobby.  

 (Paper: Bazzill, DCWV, Grant, Love Elsie, Handmade - unknown source)

(Other: Stickers: Cloud 9 - Chatterbox felt, Stamps: Kelly Panacci, Distress Ink, Buttons, Glossy Accents, Embroidery Thread) 

  I have been holding onto the DCWV Green stack paper for so long now waiting for the right type of layouts for its use, I am so glad that my kids are at the age now where it seems appropriate to use this paper. 

(Paper: Creative Imaginations, Grant, Bazzill, corrugated paper)

(Other: Ribbon, SVG files for Cricut)

I love this page, in fact it up there with some of my favourites but apart from the colours and just the way that it all came together the thing that I love the most about this layout is the fact that all it is is paper and a bit of ribbon, sure I got some help with the Cricut and some punches but once upon a time I would have hand cut all that.  I also believe that I scraplifted this from a layout that I saw somewhere, sadly it has been a few months since I made this layout and I can't for the life of me remember where I got the inspiration or who the creater was. 

 When I first started scrapbooking there was not the over abundance of pre made goodies to use in fact there was very little to choose from unless you were into Suzie's Zoo or Mrs Grossman so you had to make your own embellishments, and sometimes that meant cutting out for hours.  I just love the fact that it shows that you don't need expensive and pre made embellishments to make a good layout.

(Paper: Grant, Kaisercraft, Corrugated Card)

(Other: Sticker: Craft Affair, Stickles, Twine, Cricut)

This one is OLD, really, really old in fact I think it could even be two years old, I have no idea how it slipped past me documenting it.  Not exactly the nicest of experiences to document but lets face it anyone who  has kids had felt the dreaded tanty and I try to document our lives the good and the bad. 

Blog version 2.0

So sometime last year I decided to delete the old blog and start again.  I just had the realisation that I wanted a bit of a change plus I felt that I had outgrown the old blog which I had been merrily contributing to for the past four years, bit of a big decision for me but one that feels right. 

I have taken a few months off from blogging after I deleted the old one as the reality is that I really have not had the time to dedicate to a blog.  The last few months have been a whirlwind of planning a wedding (which is pretty much almost here, eeep), working and running a household with two small children and just general life responsibilities.

So what have I been up to in the last few months?  Here are some projects that I have been working on:

So there is, a few months of creating right there.  I actually wish that there was more to show but another thing that suffered during the past few months was my creativity which is silly really as I was working in a shop environment that sold pretty papers & embellishments.

TFL, Erin