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!

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

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.

August Already??!!

OMG! It is half way through August already! There has been so much going on lately that I don't feel like I have had time to scratch myself let alone blog! I guess I have been negligent of my poor blog, but hopefully things will settle down a little soon so I can get back into some kind of routine. But then again....maybe it won't too. Well, whats been happening... I won a family pass to this years Ekka and we all went along last Wednesday. The best thing for me was riding the steam train from Roma St Station!! Although I do love looking at all of the ducks and geese (a hangover from keeping them as a kid I guess), and I did check out the photography and the cake decorating was amazing! My sisters baby is due anytime soon, so I am counting down to having a new niece or nephew to play with. I am busy taking photos (when I haven't put my neck out of course!) for Essence of Time Photography (and myself sometimes too). I did a wedding just a couple of weeks ago and have been really pleased with what I am editing! The schools annual fete is just about upon us. I will be helping out in no less than three stalls on the day. But if I have timed everything right (fingers crossed that I have) I should be over and done with by 11am! We are just about to hit the birthday season in my family so that will keep us all busy too, and of course it is now a downhill slide to Christmas. I have been scrapping and still having a ball playing with Tim's products. This has me busy at the shop too. I have even won a couple of prizes for challenges over the last couple of months too which is very cool. So lets have a look at what I have been working on. Just a few things to upload! I guess I have been busy! I don't have too much in the way of photos to add because I need to go and have a look and size them for here first! Well, I think this post has been long enough. Thanks for dropping by!

Phew....

That is about all I can say to sum up how I am feeling at the moment! Finally I can have a breather after a week of busy, busy, busy! Last week saw me helping Scrapbook City prepare for the Scrapbook Convention held over the long weekend just passed. It was pretty intense. Getting samples done, sorting out demo stuff and then helping set up the stand. It is pretty interesting to see just how empty and bare the convention centre looks with stands half created and filled and one big wall open to the air outside. But come opening day it all looked fantastic. It was such a busy first day. I had the pleasure of demonstrating all things to do with Distress Inks and Alcohol Inks, and I don't think I was able to lift my head up or move from my table for the first few hours of being there. I was constantly talking and showing, it was my tummy grumbling that informed me I needed to stop for a break. But it was all great fun. I just love sharing my enjoyment and knowledge with others so they too can share in the fun of these products. I must have been doing all right too because most of my products sold out or close to it! I know that Leisa and Kerri are pretty pleased with how it all went! So now that is all over I can take a moment to stop and remember who my family is and get back into normal routines. But not for too long! I am now working every Tuesday at the shop with the idea of doing more demos and also basic classes on all these techniques. And on top of that I now work for a photography studio! So that will keep me busy too. I guess that means I am not really a stay at home mum any more. Sad in a way, it happened a lot quicker than I was expecting, but I am working in areas that I love so I have no complaints. I have some work to share too. Some samples I have done for Scrapbook City to demonstrate the Tim Holtz products and a page for the June Out of the Hat challenge. These first three are layouts using the great new Basics range from Basic Grey. They are perfect to use with Distress Inks and the border stickers and rub-on's are great, and whats even better are the prices! So I did one girly kind of page so you can see that all things Distress don't have to be grungy! And I played with the Tim Holtz masks, alterations dies and stamps, and now that we have the distress embossing folders in I will be playing with those too! Happy Happy Joy Joy!! LOL! This next page is the Out of the Hat June challenge. The criteria for this month are:

1. More than three photos 2. Mixed alpha title 3. Doodling and staples

I just love the way my page turned out, and yes I managed to incorporate inks and stamps into this too. Just a little obsessed, I know! Over the long weekend while I was slaving away...I mean doing demos, and Andrew was busy, Mum took the kids on a long train trip to visit my brother. Now I would like to point out that obsession runs in the family. With me it is inks and stamps (all pretty harmless I think), but for my brother it is Land Rovers! He has about four (I think). Anyway, he got out the old series one and let the kids all have a drive!! Hilarious, they all had so much fun and couldn't stop talking about it! So here is Erin having a drive. I added a filter to give the "old world" effect that goes with the vintage of the car! I will definitely be scrapping these photos soon. And last of all, a card. I have been doing cards a little more lately. Especially since discovering the Hero Arts stamps, Copic Markers and Jennifer McGuire's blog! It is all so much fun, and all I can say is lucky I work for a scrapbook shop, I think most of what I earn ends up back in their pockets! This card was coloured using copic markers, and I resisted them as long as I could, but in the end it was futile. And now both the girls want pens too! Ok, that is probably enough for now. Lets hope I have a little more time on my hands over the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by. Katie