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!

Another Challenge

Well, I think I will have to mark March as a record scrapping month! I now have the March 15th Stuck?! sketch to add to my collection of challenge entries for this month, and I did another layout using some Purple Pumpkin goodies to throw up on their weekly Facebook comp. But I have a feeling things may slow down a little now, I am sure I cannot continue this pace! I do know I need to sit down and start putting some of these pages into albums though. My pile is getting rather large.... OK enough with the chit chat, here is the March 15th sketch from Stuck?!

And here is my take:

Finally playing around with some Basic Grey Picadilly line that has been in my stash for a little too long....

And this is my page for Purple Pumpkin:

This was one of those, thank goodness for cameras in phones moments when I saw this artwork of Liam's hanging up at school. It still makes me smile when I look at it too! So the Purple Pumpkin goodies on this one are the cute but large button, the ticket and the twine. This size button (the XL) is the newest size to the store.

Thanks for stopping by, until next time!

Stuck?! March 1st

Well, I have completed another challenge! This time I have gone with the March 1st sketch over at Stuck?!, and lucky for me they have just recently put up the second sketch for the month to give me something more to work on! So here is the sketch:

And here is my interpretation:

Finally getting around to playing with the gorgeous Random collection from Crate Paper (only been sitting there for a few months!!). I have also been playing around with all the cool photo effect apps that I can get for my tablet, loving being able to send them over the wi-fi to our printer too!

Well, that's all for now. Off to think about the next sketch....

March Challenges

Well, I am in early this month for my usual challenges! Yay me! I have done 5 challenges already! Yes you read correctly, I did say 5!

White With One - White + Kraft + Layering

Kraft It Up:
1 piece of Kraft cardstock (or patterned kraft)
2 photos of any size
3 word title
4 different patterned papers
5 different embellishments

OK, numbers 1 - 4 are pretty obvious, but thought I would point out the 5 embellishments! Die-cut butterfly, twine, button, photo corner and border sticker, there, that was easy!

Scrap the Boys - "Life is Good" for title + red + handwritten journaling

Scrap the Girls - Celebrations

Purple Pumpkin - sketch

So there you have it, 5 challenges down, now to find some more!! Either that or I have done my dash for a while lol..... Although, I have just got some more Purple Pumpkin goodies and they are doing a weekly kind of challenge on Facebook......

See Ya!

I'm back....

And I managed to finish that layout off, but then re-read the criteria and discovered I forgot some! Never mind, a layout done is a layout done and I do like what I finished with!

This was going to be for Scrap the Girls, but I forgot to add chipboard and put "Love" in the title. The other criteria was turquoise as the dominant colour, I chose a dirty turquoise!

But, I put my scrap gear on and did manage to get another page done as well as finish this one! I completed the White with 1 Feb challenge, which was:

White + Lemon + 3 Photos

With this page I got to play around with my new Hero Arts zig-zag stamp, which I used on the background, otherwise a fairly simple page, but the yellow really makes things pop!

OK, that is me over and out for a little while now! I guess it is time to bring on the March challenges!!! Hopefully I will read them a little better next time....

February Challenge....Just made it!

Well, nothing like leaving things to the last minute! I have managed to get the Scrap the Boys February sketch challenge done, and photographed and loaded! I also have the Scrap the Girls Feb challenge 75% done, so hopefully I can finish that off today and load as well.

So this is the Scrap the Boys sketch for Feb:

And this is my interpretation:

As you can see I kind of rotated and flipped the sketch to suit. A fairly clean and simple page, the most exciting part for me was trying out my new banner die from My Favourite Things, and creating the background with a Crafters Workshop template and distress ink, lots of fun!!

And I also have a layout that was just because! This one uses a picture taken at the "Dot Room" in GOMA over the school holidays. Now if you have been you know what I am talking about! It was a completely white room where the kids were given a sheet of colourful circle stickers as they entered with free reign to put them where ever they wanted! A lot of fun and I tried to capture that in my layout, and I have to say it is one of my all time favourites (at the moment!!).

I have also been playing around with my own buttons again. I have some of the flat back self cover ones to create my own matching buttons (very addictive, let me tell you, but that is another story!), and I decided to have a play around and came up with these:

I am stoked with how they turned out! Especially the text ones. All I have done is stamp with stayz-on ink onto calico fabric and used that to cover the button, and the blue one uses some thinner craft felt. The stamps that I have used are Hero Arts Friends definition and a Stampin' Up French Script background. I am hanging out for the new Hero Arts newsprint stamp to try now as well!! So cool! And maybe I now need some more colours of stayz-on ink too!!!

So that's it for now, but perhaps I will be back later with one last Feb challenge page!!

Back to School Photos

So, here I am back with the first day of school photos, just in time for finishing week 3!! Nothing like rushing these things!

Well, I know that Niamh is going to hate the fact that I have put this up, but oh well! She looks annoyed because her friend had just arrived to collect her and I was making her late! Like smiling for one second was a major time event..... ahhh teenagers, what can you do with them?! But apart from that, Niamh has settled into high school without drama (excluding the usual hormonal drama that is, as that is ongoing unfortunately...)

Erin, always happy to be back at school, and now being the eldest there, I am sure feeling pretty good about things! Erin has gone into grade 6 and is over the moon to be back in a class with her best friends!

And lastly my littlest one. Well he really isn't that little, but I need to hold onto the idea... Liam has started grade 2 and is already sneaking in his physics books to show the class at "show and tell" time! Only grade 2 but he is already using terms like "fempto seconds" and blowing us all away!

So, haven't done much else lately. Been too hot and humid to think, but I am hoping to get back into some crafting this weekend!

Until next time....