Stuff.....

Well, I have finally managed to find a few spare seconds to sit down and share some "stuff"! Don't you just love that word "stuff" it just encompasses so much! Well, as you can probably guess my "stuff" is all about the scrapping and the photos! We have just recovered from Scrapbook City's retreat (held over the Anzac Day weekend) which was lots of fun as usual. This year I was able to spend my time doing demos of various Distress Ink and Alcohol Ink techniques, and it is so much fun! I ended up doing a canvas of tags with lots of different techniques and I will show a couple of "sneak peeks" today but it looks like this will be turned into a class of its own which is exciting. The canvas is based on one done by Jennifer McGuire who along with Tim Holtz rule the airways as far as Distress Ink techniques go! In fact Tim did his own version of this canvas by Jennifer McGuire and we are on our way to turning this into a class also. I will be doing more of these techniques at the Scrapbook Convention over the June long weekend in Brisbane. So if you are there come and say hello and check it out! I have been enjoying playing with these inks so much that I am finding all sorts of interesting ways to use them in my scrapping. It is amazing just how versatile these inks are, not to mention addictive! I am now waiting on some new Hero Arts and Tim Holtz stamps to arrive so that I can do more! Over at Out of the Hat challenge I have come to my final month as a Mad Hatter. I cannot believe how quickly that 6 months went! But what fun it was, thanks to Amanda for giving me the chance to share my takes on each months criteria and to the other girls whose work was always fantastic! This month the criteria are:

1. Use sanding 2. Use triangles 3. Use a quote

Deceptively simple criteria!! But I had fun and even found a way to use my new found addiction for stamping and distress inks! I sanded the triangles which make up the banner after embossing them in the Cuttlebug, and the quote comes from Top Gun (if you didn't remember!). The car I cut using the Just Chillin' design card and my Slice (yes I still use this all the time!) and I embossed the car and inked the raised parts, stamped a flourish to use as the exhaust, used alcohol ink on clear buttons to colour them to match the car and then stamped the quote and journal spots using the same distress ink! Phew....there is a lot of inking going on there! See I told you I am rather obsessed! Talking about the Slice (like I needed an excuse!), I used the Calendar card to cut these cool Easter eggs and the word Easter to finish off my page about an Easter egg hunt. The eggs look really cool with the Kindy Glitz to jazz them up. And yes, that is a new border punch! It is the swirl one from EK Success, cool isn't it! I have been busy for the shop too, with all the new product that has come in over the past few weeks. I got the chance to play with some new Fancy Pants, the Rusted Sun line is really really nice! The colours are so rich and vibrant I can't wait to use my left overs on some more pages! Oh and the trim is simply beautiful, and yes, there is another new border punch on this page! The zipper one from EK Success, it is funky isn't it??!! So to wrap it up for today (and what a big post it seems to be today!), I have another page where I have been inking a lot, using my Slice, oh and border punches too! In other words the usual!! I just love how my lorikeet turned out. He is a "parrot" shape from the Under the Sea card for the Slice and I used the appropriate Distress Ink colours to "colour" him in to look like a lorikeet, then finished with a red pearl for the eye. Turned out alright too I thought. The journal block too was stamped and "aged" with distress inks and the tickets also stamped onto white cardstock and coloured to look like the old fashioned kind of tickets we all remember. And that is one of my favourite new border punches from EK, the bracket. Oh, I used some LillyBee papers which are really nice too. The first time I have got my hands on any of these! So, I think I have run out of things to say for now. So, until next time, scrap on!

Busy Busy Busy....

Wow, we are fast approaching the end of April already and life is starting to really speed up. There is so much going on at the moment. Both at school/work and at home. The kids just did their cross country for this year, and while I didn't make it along to see the girls (I know what a bad mother am I!!!) I did go along to see Liam's first run. He didn't do too badly either, he ran 17th out of all the prep boys ( I am guessing there are about 50 prep boys all up) so not a bad effort at all! The girls did well with their runs too. Here is the little man in action, and he even manages a smile for the camera! Then a couple of days later Niamh had to dress up for school for their Living History event. They could dress up as anyone from ancient history, so of course Niamh decided she needed to be a goddess (nothing less would do of course!) and said she wanted to dress up as Aphrodite. So guess which poor mug had to design a costume??!! I spent last weekend cutting and sewing, but I guess at least we have a dress ready for Erin when she gets to grade 6! I was lucky enough to be able to borrow a pattern from a school friend of Niamh's so it made the whole process a little easier, and I must say the result was pretty good! So , without further ado, here is the goddess Aphrodite... Things are pretty busy at the shop right now too with the retreat on this weekend. I will be out there on Sunday playing with inks and stuff so that will be fun. Along with all the preparation for the retreat comes all the new goodies that come in to go to the retreat! I have some new Fancy Pants Rusted Sun sitting on my desk to play with and also I have just finished playing with KI Memories Enchanted range, and a whole lot of EK Success border punches. I have also got my hands on one of the hands free kit for the Slice! It is absolutely wonderful, just fantastic!! Make sure you get in quick if you want one of these, I had a Slice class yesterday and two were sold straight away! Here is the page I created using the KI papers, and border punches. Oh and a card too, now that I am in the habit of making one each time! I thought I would also drop in a few photos from Easter. These were taken at my SIL's when we were there for our Easter catch up. We did a little egg hunt for the kids too. Oh, and I forgot to do something the last time I posted. The lovely Anne sent me a blog award and I forgot to put the details on my blog. So, thank you for the lovely award Anne! Now, I am going to be a little bit naughty and not do all of the "required" things so please forgive me.... (I guess having done some of these in the past I get stumped after a while!) This is what I am supposed to do: 1. List the top 10 things that make me happy 2. List 5 trivia things about myself. 3. Share the award with only 5 people and ask them to do the same 4. Link the blogs you choose and link the blog of the person who gave it to you!! OK, here goes: The top 10 things that make me happy, in no particular order: 1. Chocolate 2. My family (most of the time ;) ) 3. Taking photos 4. Scrapping 5. Reading about photography 6. Chocolate 7. New scrapping stuff 8. New camera equipment 9. Did I mention chocolate??!! 10. Watching mindless TV every now and then 5 Trivia things about me (now this is where I start to get stumped, so I may repeat things): 1. My background is in Physics and I wanted to be an astronaut 2. I love crime shows and have been watching Law and Order and its spin offs since the first show aired in Australia 3. I also love crime thriller novels 4. I love watching Make Me a Supermodel (and similar shows), to see the photographers in action (oh and see the bitchy in fighting too!) 5. hmmm....... uhmmm..... I have always loved crafty things, I even still have some great colouring pencils from when I was a kid! This is when I get naughty, I am not going to pass this on. Mainly because most of the blogs I follow are either likely to get one from someone else or they just don't update as often as they used to! Sorry about that.... Anyway, one last thing before I go. I played around with off camera flash over the Easter break and got some great shots of the kids. You will probably recognise one of the shots from the Bo-Bunny page I recently did! So with that I am done for now. Have a great ANZAC day long weekend. Katie

Been playing with inks!

Well, I have been playing with distress and alcohol inks lately and I must say it is a lot of fun to be able to just play. I have been swatting up on some techniques with these inks for some upcoming classes at Scrapbook City, and other than being loads of fun it has been a relatively expensive exercise as I realise how many new things that I must have!!! These cards were made as samples using the alcohol inks, with the last two being based on ones made by Jennifer McGuire. The classes will use some of these techniques. I haven't got any photos of my beautiful butterflies yet, but I will try and get some up. These other butterflies use the same great Hero Arts stamp used above, but are coloured with distress inks and look amazing (even if I do say so myself!!). These two projects were also for Scrapbook City to show off the new Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi range. This collection is so easy to use for boys pages even though it is more aimed at us mums and our photo taking habits! In both the card and the layout I have used two great new EK Success border punches as well. I love my border punches and couldn't wait for these new releases to be in stock. These have been selling fast and I am not sure they are loaded in the on-line store but give them a call if you are after one. I do know that the Bracket (used in the card) has sold out for now so get in quick! I have also completed the April challenge for Out of the Hat. This month the criteria is:

1. Use at lease one black and white photo 2. Use a stamped image somewhere 3. Use pop dots

Lucky for me these are all things that I do regularly so the page came together pretty quickly. I also got to play with my new Pink Paisley papers!! I have also played with some Christmas papers from October Afternoon and some old photos of Erin at pre-school, that should tell you how long I have had those ones! Erin is now grade 4.... I created some rolled fabric flowers from calico and sprayed them with smooch ink and the holly leaves were cut using the Slice and the Fa La La card. And lastly for today, here is a sneak peak of my next Slice class. This class focuses on the Think Pink design card and its features and uses the lovely Kaiser Craft La Di Da papers. Well, I think that will do for now. Catch you soon!

Hello!

Hello! Here I am back again. Life is busy as per usual and finding time to update sometimes just doesn't take priority. But I am here now so lets get on with it! Here are the other couple of layouts that I finished for the shop the other week. Both using new My Minds Eye ranges. The first one here uses the Quite Contrary range and more specifically the "That's My Boy" collection. As usual these are fun to play with and the set of embellishments that go with the papers are so easy to use. I especially loved the journaling stickers that came with the set. This next one uses the Black and Red ranges from the Lush collections.Very nice, that pretty much sums up these collections! Full of rich flocked papers, gorgeous ribbons, bling and great alphabets you can't go wrong! I kept this page simple due to the "classic" feel of the black and white and loved the result. I have also managed to find time to do a page just for me! I decided to have a bit of a play outside my usual style (ok it still smacks of my typical style, but it is a little different, honest!). I decided to create a scene on the page and use my photos in the scene. I have even tucked one of my photos in between layers! Both the scalloped layers are on foam tape to create two "steps" in the scenery. Anyway, I am not sure if it will come up really well in the photo, but I had fun creating it and love the result and that is all that matters in the end! I also got to use up some of my October Afternoon papers (new collections coming so I need to make room!) and some of my large collection of flowers and pearls! Not to mention my vast array of alphabets too! Well that about sums it up from me for now. Take care and catch you soon. Katie

Slice class pictures

Thought I would put up the whole picture from the Slice class I took back in Feb. In the class we created a layout and a card with idea of getting everyone to not just look at the shapes you cut as one dimensional but think outside the square at the non-obvious ways to use them. It ended up being a successful class and I am now coming up with another one! I used these cards: Wedding, Basics 2, Noteworthy, Studio Essentials and I think Basics 1. Then lots of layering, inking, rub-ons, gems and kindy glitz or dimensional magic!

Out of the Hat - March

Well, I have finished my layout for the Out of the Hat blog and posted it up over there. I had fund with this one. As I have been playing with distressing inks for some upcoming classes at Scrapbook City I thought I could use these techniques on some calico for the "use fabric" requirement of the challenge. I ended up cutting some tags out of the calico and then distressed them and stamped flourishes onto them. I was quite happy with how they turned out and they became a nice design feature without being overwhelming. I have also finished a layout using new My Minds Eye Quite Contrary and almost finished a MME Lush one too, so I will be back soon to update with those. Catch you later!

New CHA stuff starting to arrive!

Well, the Winter CHA 2010 stuff has started to arrive and I am having all kinds of fun with new product to play with! Also I can share the Kaiser Craft creations since they have been officially posted now. You can see the KC post here. It is still pretty amazing to see myself and my work up over there. So, we were asked to create a layout and a card for each of the Devonshire and La Di Da collections, which I did and since then I have created another layout with each collection and I am sure there will be more as I have so much left! The paper pads are just perfect for cards too.

The Devonshire collection

La Di Da Collection

The Devonshire layout and card are now up at Scrapbook City on display if you live locally and would like to see them in real life. Here are the other two pages I created using these collections. Both are so easy to use and have lots of themes they can go with too. As for the other new product I have been playing with... I have "for the first time" I might add, played with some Sassafrass Lass (Nerdy Bird) and Websters Pages (Garden Gala) and had a bit of fun too. I have never been really drawn to these manufacturers before and was just a little apprehensive when I got these home. But after a lot of thinking and procrastinating I came up with a couple of pages that I am quite pleased with, and I am quite taken with the Nerdy Bird range!

Websters Pages - Garden Gala Sassafrass Lass - Nerdy Bird

Aside from these pages, I have been playing with some 7 Gypsies. This is another manufacturer that I have not used much of and another one I am starting to love! This is another page with the monthly summary photo collage, or in this case two months. Slowly but surely I am getting through last year! Sitting on my desk I now have some new My Minds Eye Lush (in black and red, just divine!) and a collection from the Quite Contrary range, Little Boy Blue - That's My Boy. I have printed photos and now I just have to get there with some time to spare! Also the new criteria is up over at the Out of the Hat Challenge blog. This month this is what you need to include:

1. Include fabric 2. Include flowers of three different sizes 3. Include chipboard

All should be relatively easy to do, I think! I just need to drop into Spotlight to get some "specific" fabric for something that I have in mind. I just hope it comes together the way I have it in my mind! Catch you next time.