Scrapping and Photos!

Well, school holidays have come and gone and I can't really say I have done a lot during this time, but hey, who cares, right??!! I did some layouts for June for White with One and Kraft It Up, but never got them loaded in time, but hey, sometimes it is just about doing something. So here I am today instead to load some photos from our little break at the Gold Coast, and a few pages that I have done, oh and proof that I have met the wonderful man himself... Tim!

You can't half tell he's done this before! He was there for at least an hour smiling and signing while we all waited for our turn to stand next to him and smile!

So here are the June layouts that I mentioned, but forgot to load....

Then, when I had five minutes or so to myself I did a couple of pages just for me! My thoughts have been to not buy any new paper and just pick a kit/manufacturer and just use up all that patterned paper that I have lying around. So much of it that I really do not need to buy anything new for ages (I am sure that will not stop me for long though!). So Simple Stories and Echo Park have been used here, with lots of great MFT dies! These however I do not have enough of, yet..... LOL!!!





And last of all, thought I would get in early this month, and have my White with One layout.

White + Polka Dots + Tape

So I have had great fun playing with some of the new seasonal distress inks, squeezed lemonade from the spring collection and pickled raspberries from the new summer range. Aren't the colours just gorgeous?! So I created my dots using the inks and a mask and the zigzag tape (D-lish Scraps) I thought just helped frame the photos perfectly. A simple page that came together quickly, but was a lot of fun to create!

Last of all, a couple of photos from the coast. The first was funny as a group of tourists were captivated by Erin and Liam digging and playing in the sand in the middle of winter! So of course, I took a photo of them taking a photo of my kids!

And this next one is one of the views we had from our 29th floor! Pretty hard to take really, but someone has to do it!

Well, that is all from me for now. Catch you another time!

What have I been up to??

Well, it has been over two months since I last posted, so you would hope a whole lot! But really in the scheme of things not a lot!

I did have a scrappy retreat weekend with my crafting girlfriends at the end of April, and I put together quite a few pages then, I even did a couple of April challenges, I just never got them photographed and up! Never mind, I am always happy for a start to my scrapping process. May seemed to come and go in a blur, not a lot of crafting happened (burn out from my weekend perhaps?) and now here we are in June.

I have had the most wonderful experience this month, however, that involves crafting and a special class! I got to craft with the wonderful and talented Tim Holtz! Yay for me!! I have to admit, his was the first and only class that I have ever taken, and now anything else will have a very very high bench mark to make it worth my while! Let me just say the Tim and Mario are such wonderfully laid back and down to earth people and the class was pure joy. The time just disappeared in a flash of laughing, inking, painting and creating. I do have some photos of me with Tim, but they are on a friends camera so I will have to wait to put those ones up, but I do have a few of my own from the day too.

So, obviously, this is the lovely Tim himself!

And this is my creation.

And these are the lovely ladies that I was attending with, all holding up our creations and the wonderful Mario so kindly holding up mine!

So apart from this here are a few layouts from my crafty retreat back in April, if some of them look vaguely like sketch challenges from April then they probably are, I can't remember which ones I did! Hmmm failing memory is that a bad sign??!!

There are quite a few more, but I might share some of them another time, don't want to overload you!

So, that's life at the moment. Thanks for stopping by!

The Renovation Story continues...

I thought I should do some updating on our renovations as the last time I added anything was BF (before floods). It seems so long ago already. Anyway, the day before we evacuated because of rising flood waters we had new carpets go in through the house including our new bedroom. The fellow who laid the carpet was great, like having your grandfather or a favourite uncle in the house. We ended up choosing a mid-grey colour that seemed to go well with all colours through the house and we are very pleased with the results. Here are a couple of pictures, one from our room and one from the hallway. Somewhere in an earlier post you can see what the carpets used to look like!

 

The other renovations underway is the replacement of our rotting front deck. We decided to also added a roof to help protect this new deck and provide some more shade to the house and also lift its street appeal. So, this is what we started with.

Then, just before the drenching rains and rising waters, the deck was removed and the house looked a little strange. It was funny how people that needed to come to the house responded upon seeing no way to get to the front door too!

Then the new deck took shape, the stairs were replaced, the roofing structure went on and the roof itself.

This is where we are now, waiting for the last little bits to be completed, guttering, screening and painting. Then we can start returning to lives without building work going on! Looks a little different now doesn't it??!! The last thing to be done is a "fix" of the kitchen, but we are waiting for our local Bunnings to re-open after being affected by the floods before we can do that.

I also, finally, have back to school photos! (But don't tell anyone, I kept forgetting to take one and I didn't until the last day of week 2!!) They have all grown so much in a year. This is Niamh's last year at primary school which is a bit mind blowing and Liam is now in grade 1 (I can't believe my baby is turning 7 this year!), with Erin in grade 5. Each year seems to fly past faster than the last.

To finish off, here is a layout I did this week for the Out of the Hat challenge site. The criteria for this month were: include a cloud or clouds, include a tree, use masking or misting. I had fun with this one, and played with my Cricut again! I used the Cricut to cut the tree, and also the clouds and grass that I used as masks, and of course I used my Ranger re-inkers in mister bottles for the misting! I am really pleased with how this one turned out and feel I am getting back in the groove!

Well, cheers for now.
Katie

Couple of Layouts

Thought I would start the week with a couple of layouts! Yes, I have scrapped. Just feeling like I am getting back into the swing of things again. It feels so long since I last got to sit and play at my desk!

The first is a challenge for the Show Us Your Stuff blog, it was the first challenge for January, a sketch challenge, a nice easy way in! The only other criteria was something handmade, either by you or someone else. I pieced together a little present stack like in the photo and also added some pleated paper also.

The next challenge came by the way of a sketch too. The sketch was sent on by a friend to challenge ourselves and the get the juices going. But, given we started with a card sketch I had to think about it a bit before I could get a good run to turn it into a 12x12 page. The result is something I am happy with though, and I got to play with my Paper Lace cartridge for my Cricut! Yay! Not only that, but I used some more of the Studio Calico bits and pieces that I was given by the lovely Ang! Thanks again Ang!

So there you have it! The week has begun! Catch you next time.

Katie

Walk Around my Neighbourhood...

Liam and I went for a little walk last Thursday (so one week after the devastation) to see how the parks and river were looking. What we saw took me by surprise. There is still so much mess and evidence of what happened and even still water lying around in parks. It will take a long time for things to truly return to normal.

The view looking toward the river and the bike/walking path that meanders beside it. Currently it is covered in mud and unusable.

This looks away from the river along a little creek that backs onto houses in White St and finishes as an open reserve at the end of Austral Ave. Usually there is very little if any water in this creek, but you can see just how much surged through here at its worst.

Remember the layer of mud from the netball courts? Well that was nothing compared to that nearer the river.

Debris along roadsides and footpaths, full of all sorts of odd things. Here a smoke alarm, a piece of lego, a rubber glove and odds and ends of plaster board. The human side of the debris.

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