Christmas Tags

Hi there. Thought I would share the Christmas tags that I have made to adorn our gifts this year. I have been having fun playing with a digi kit by the lovely Zoe Pearn called Winter Wonderland, you can purchase this kit and others of hers at Sweet Shoppe Designs. There are lots of great digi kits and things there! The tags are quite simple, but more personal than buying them, not to mention I can now use the kit for lots of other things too!! Well, today marks the end of an era with Scrapbook City opening and closing its door for the last time. It is both a sad and happy time. Sad for those of us who like to pop in to see what is new and have a chat but happy for Leisa and Kerri moving on to the next stage in their lives. For those lovely ladies who I have passed on my details to, I have updated my side bar links with all the challenge blog sites that I like to visit! So I expect to see some of your work there with mine as we use these blogs to kick start our own scrapping! I must say I am greatly looking forward to scrapping for myself for a little while. I have to admit since knowing about the shop closing there had been a fair bit of panic buying and collecting going on, so I really do need to sit down and start using all these new products and tools! The latest of which is a Gypsy to go with my Cricut! I am hoping that I will have lots of down time soon with work and shopping slowing down and of course our renos nearly complete! OK, enough rattling on... I thought I would do a quick digi page while I was in the mood too. I have used a free kit that came when linking up for a regular newsletter from Zoe. Not sure if it is still around, but it is a great versatile little kit, and who complains when it comes for free!! Well, that's all for now. Catch you later. Katie

Back Again!

I know, back again so quickly??!! Unheard of really! But I am killing some time while my new Gypsy updates so I thought I would amuse myself by uploading more to my blog! I thought I would share with you the last class that I taught for Scrapbook City. Now this was no ordinary class, it was an all day, catered, exhausting and head full of stuff kind of class! And it was so much fun it was run twice! Each time with about 25 ladies in attendance! Curious as to what it was about??!! Well, you all know how inspired by Tim Holtz I have been this year, well we decided to do our own version of his 12 tags of Christmas. I created 12 Cards of Christmas based on techniques he had used in previous years of tags and using our own home grown stamps from Dark Room Door. The results were some pretty great cards (even if I do say so myself!), a lot of techniques learnt and a lot of fun had by all. So here is my little collage of the 12 cards to show you what we did. There was lots of distress inks, alcohol inks, paints, crackle paints, masks, grunge paper, embossing and perfect pearls involved and some very dirty hands too. It was a really fun class and I am glad I had such a great way to finish my time teaching with Scrapbook City. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank Leisa and Kerri for the wonderful times that I had while working for them. It was a such a fantastic time and I know I will be seeing you both regularly even after the shops doors close for the last time. Well, that is about it. My downloads are almost done and it is getting close to bed time. Til next time. Katie

Scrapping!

I have done some scrapping!! Yay for me!! I decided now that I am no longer busy doing things for Scrapbook City that I could join in some blog challenges again. I have created an entry for the White with One blog challenge. The December criteria was White + Grey + Masking. So this is the result. My beautiful little nieces, with butterflies and flourishes! I created my own mask from some masking paper and Tim Holtz's flourish Sizzix dies, and I had some great My Minds Eye papers that were perfect in shades of grey and white! The next challenge was for Kraft It Up, a challenge blog that I have heard about but not participated in before. The idea is Kraft is the basis for your layout. The rest of the December criteria was Christmas photo, non-traditional colours and knots. This is the result, a dun page I think. Again I had fun with a Tim Holtz technique to create the flower. It is over on his blog under one of his new 12 tags of Christmas. So many wonderful ideas and techniques on his blog! Oh, and speaking of Scrapbook City. They now have a closing date, 18th December. So if you are in Brisbane it is worth your while to drop in one last time for some amazing bargains!! Well, that is it for now. Catch you later. Katie

More Photos

Hello! Life is getting very busy here as we start winding up the year at school and continue with our building works. I feel like I spend my time split between home answering questions about what way to do something or what colour and so on or down at the school at one of the kids activities. Well, I guess we will be on holidays soon and the building will be over so then I will be complaining about moving rooms, and kids at home!! No winning really is there??!! So, what has happened since I last updated. Well, Scrapbook City is on its way to closing its doors for good. Which is sad, but the right thing for Leisa and Kerri. I will miss having a little haven to go to and just chat if nothing else. But I have gained many wonderful friendships out of my relationship with this shop and I know these will continue. If you are in Brisbane and want a bargain however, I suggest you head over as they currently have 40% off storewide (with a few exceptions like cricut cartridges and the like, but these are still at fabulous prices!) and stock is almost walking out the door! On the Scrapbooking bent, I am now the proud owner of a Cricut machine!! This is my birthday/christmas present from Andrew and the kids! Cool hey?! I was told, that since I kept talking about this machine and that I was hard to buy for that perhaps I should just buy one!! Who was I to say no! I am also getting a Gypsy to go with it from my in-laws for my birthday! I am feeling like one lucky girl at the moment. Now I just need five minutes to be able to sit down and scrap! Liam lost another tooth. I feel like we have a hot line to the tooth fairy at the moment, between Liam and Niamh I think six teeth have come out in about two months! Speaking of Niamh, she has just come back from camp, where she was not allowed to do very much as she has a cast on her arm! Last Sunday while scootering at her cousins house she had a fall and now has a suspected fracture.... So Monday we go back to the doctor, get the cast off, go back to x-ray then go back to see if we need to put another cast on. No wonder I am exhausted all that running around! (I am trying to get a photo, but she doesn't like the camera very much at the moment! I only have one on my mobile so I will have to download that!) The house is coming along. We are starting to get to the details now. The room has walls inside and out, the bathroom has been waterproofed and tiles will start to go down (hopefully) tomorrow, the roof is on over the deck and railings should start to go up soon. So it won't be too long and we will have a functioning room and deck! I can't wait for the deck to be done. I have a photo to share, but it is a little behind with where things really are. I have photos on the camera, just need to download them! Roof frame for deck is up and getting ready to clad the outside of the bedroom. I had a chance to visit my newest niece Alice. She is lovely, so small and basically just slept the whole time we were there! I have some photos of her with various combinations of people. Proud Grandma with Alice New big sister Jasmine with her baby Alice and big cousin Niamh. Life is tough when you are little...... I took some Christmas photos for my sister in law last weekend so she could make cards. I always seem to get a classic photo of my niece Rachel when I do this. I had the giggles when I saw this photo in camera, let alone after I had added to it! And not to be left out, brother Dan had a classic too! Til next time! Katie

Renovations underway

Another busy month or so has flown past here for me and there has been a lot happening! Our renovations have finally begun and it won't be too long (weather permitting) before Andrew and I have our new room to move into and the new deck will be ready to be christened! The kid's have been particularly interested in the whole process watching everything the builders are up to and checking progress every day after school. I have been recording the progress myself (as any good scrapbooker would!!) and have a few photos to share showing the process. Well, this is the "before" shot. Just how it looked before the work began. It doesn't take a long time to remove something, and the house just looked plain odd without the deck there! The area now level with holes dug for posts and channels for plumbing, just waiting for the slab to go down. And then it rained and it rained and it poured! See the holes where the poles are, that are to the top with rainwater? Well these holes were about 2m deep!!! There was a lot of rain! I reckon that the plumbing channel would have been around half a meter deep and it was full too! We joked that it was a new lap pool just the right size for Liam! Slab finally down, poles in place and the sun out again! It didn't take long for joists and framework to go up! Well, that will do for now, there are still more to come, but there is only so many construction photos you want to share in one go! On the scrapping side things have been busy. I did two all day classes last month focused around Tim Holtz's 12 tags of Christmas techniques. I used some of his ideas and techniques to create 12 cards using the wonderful Australian Dark Room Door stamps and lots of Ranger product. It was messy and plenty of fun and exhausting all in one go! Here are a couple of my favourites from the 12 cards. Using mini-misters with the re-inkers and perfect pearls and the gorgeous flourish mask. Playing with alcohol inks and embossing for this one. Lots of layers in this one! Blending, stamping, distressing not to mention getting those flowers right! And last of all, make sure you head over to the Scrapbook City blog for a great sketch challenge. There is a great pack of brand new Bo-Bunny papers up for grabs for this challenge. You have about a week to get your entry in! This is my take on the sketch: OK, that is it for now! Catch you soon.

My Minds Eye

Morning everyone! Just quickly dropping in to share my new layout from My Minds Eye, using the beautiful Lost & Found Madison Avenue - Cherish papers! There are full details over on the Scrapbook City blog. Also I have some photos of my new niece Edith. She is so beautiful and makes me miss having a baby around (for a little while anyway!). And these pages were done for Scrapbook City also, using the about to be released Marjolaine collection. Another great collection from Basic Grey! Again, more details over on the Scrapbook City blog. Don't forget the new challenge over at the Scrapbook City blog too! This challenge is all about the bling! There is a great prize too, so go and check it out! That's it from me for now. Catch you soon.

Great things happening...

...over at the "new look" Scrapbook City blog! We have changed the way our blog looks (with a some great work by the lovely Zoe Pearn, love your work Zoe!!) and we have a great challenge on the go too. Not only that, but we have a new Card City blog too! So much happening so little time! Make sure you go and check out the challenges. This week is a Kaiser Craft challenge. Use 70% Kaiser products from one of these lines: Lush, Up Up and Away, Hippy Girl or Secret Bird Society. I have made a sample and I chose to use Hippy Girl papers. So much fun, and I got to try a new flower making technique as well! I will give some more detail about that later on the Scrapbook City blog. So here is the layout: Catch you soon!