Whats going on! I woke this morning to see the sun hiding behind the clouds and its windy and cold! Can’t believe we got sunburnt on the weekend! Oh well … good scrapping weather!:)
The school holidays have just finished here in NSW so not much scrapping has been done in the last few weeks. But I have achieved a few things.

My 52 weeks is up-to-date, my favourite photos for 2007 is finished and my A-Z album on Mark is complete. I am a bit excited about this as his album is going to be featured in a scrapping magazine. It will be really cool to see his pictures published.

I do however had a bit of a to-do list but I am working my way through it!

Now a few posts ago I suggested you photograph between 5 to 10 things that will most likely be different in your life 5 years from now. How did you go? I have taken my photos but haven’t got to the layout yet! Sorry!:(

However as I was taking my photos I realised something I DIDN’T want to change in the next 5 years. In fact I hope it never changes! And that is the connection between my little girls and their big sister. I hope they remain as close as they are today forever!

And yes I created a layout of photos of them together!

I used the ScrapNicS 9 squares, RW Laser Cuts ‘Perfect’, some pink Bazzill in the heart, a RW Laser Cut felt pink flower and matted it all on Bazzill Java. All so quick and simple!

What do you want to stay the same forever?
One other thing to share before im off to the gym! How do you record those things you want to scrap but forget when you sit down to actually scrap. This is what I do. I bought myself a cute little note book that lives in my handbag with a pen. When I get an idea for a page or the girls do or say something cute I write it in and date it When I come to scrap I grab my note pad and have lots of page ideas at hand. I only write one thing per page so I can rip it out once I have scrapped that idea!

How do you keep record of the pages you want to scrap?

Till next time, when I will have been more productive ( I have the cutest little RW Laser Cut birdies waiting to be scrapped)!

Diane

PS

Just wanted to share some photos with you!

This is why I love scrapping! They are already asking questions about things we did a year ago and loving looking at themselves! What other hobby brings this much joy to a 3 and 5 year old?
 

Here we are again.  Hope you are all busily creating!!!!!

Today’s card is using a new Remember When Laser Cut - so new that I cannot find it in the shop……….LOL.  Rach kindly dropped some goodies off the other night for me to play with - how lucky am I?  Very lucky I say!!!!!

So here is today’s card using a “new” laser cut with a gorgeous little birdie and a flower.  I think its so, so cute and once again I have kept it very simple.

I created a tag using some Kraft cardstock, added a doodled edge, stapled on some ripped green bazzill cardstock to resemble grass with doodled border.  Then I sewed on a button with hemp twine.

For the Laser cut I inked up the little birdie using a brown inkpad and I covered up his little chest with a piece of scrap paper so that I wouldn’t get any brown ink on it.  I then used a red felt tip marker to colour in his chest.  For the flower I did pretty much the same - green and red ink and then I added an earthy button for the centre. Adhere to tag using suitable glue.

Stamp out a title using alpha stamps, attach to card and there you have it - one cute, quick easy little tag.  You could also attach this to a card if you like.

Tip:  I just wanted to share this quick little tip with you.  As you know I love to use ink pads directly onto a lot of the laser cuts I work with - one because I’m lazy….LOL and two because it is one of the fastest drying products to use.

Before applying the inkpad directly onto the laser cut, turn your piece over and do a test colour sample on the back of the laser cut.  This way if its not the right shade of colour you are after you can try another colour by testing first.  It really is worth it because the laser cut soaks up the colour and it may not be the colour you had in mind.  Hope this helps!!!!!

I know its Monday….

Life has been a bit busy with school holidays and totally lost track of time sorry.

I promise I will post next weekend. Till then … I have been doing an online class at BigPictureScrapbooking.com with my favourite scrapper Cathy Z…here are a few layouts I have created in class.

yes here she is finally…feeding her face….hehehe !

letter stickers are RWLasercuts Alpha 1

And here is a photo I can’t wait to scrap… Maddy became a little nipper yesterday!! And she had a ball. Gotta love summer days at North Cronulla Beach!!

Till next week enjoy the ‘back-to-school’ rush ( well all those in NSW!)

See you Wednesday

Diane

Spring is here, thank heavens, and I have been getting into the mood. We got some new trees/shrubs planted in our backyard which helped. Generally I really hate gardening and have a black thumb (whatever is seriously opposite to green). But this year, since my gardens are actually starting to look like someone possibly does live here, I’m more into spring than usual.

Last week, I took my three girls to the shop and they each picked out two little $2 plants, that they have to look after. They have been watering them, and I find them put in different locations around the garden. They haven’t actually been planted yet. It’s as close as we come to having a pet.

Anyway, I decided I should scrap a layout for each child so I will show you them, as it’s pretty much the only scrapping I’ve done, being school holidays and all!

The first layout is about my youngest, Lucy. I used white bazzill with cotton candy and a java frame. The pp’s are by American Crafts (yellow) and stampin up (green). I felt it needed the ‘organic-ness’ of a little bit of hand writing. It used two uncropped 4 x 6 photos.

The second layout (below) is about my second daughter, Amelia. Amelia’s the one who’s most into the nurturing-the-plant thing - she loves all domestic things! She especially loves to clean - give her a damp cloth, or a duster and she is happy! The punch used on these pages is from Stampin’ up and the bazzill colours are green tea, rain (darker blue), and teal (lighter blue). I love combining a b/w photo with a coloured. The big photo was originally an 8 x 10″, and the little one, I printed at home as a 2 x 3″.  The letter stickers are from Remember When.


The final layout, is about eldest girl, Amaris. Amaris is happy to pose for a photo, but truth be known, I think she has pretty much forgotten about her flowers. I caught Amelia watering Amaris’s flowers for her today. Amaris gets bored and ‘moves on’ pretty quick! The pp here is by stamping up, and the raw chipboard flower is from Remember When. Don’t forget you can always run printed paper through your printer if you want to print some journaling over the top of it - provided that it isn’t to powerful a pattern, or too dark a colour. Notice the hand-drawn lines, for a bit of earthy ‘organic-ness’.
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All 12 x 12 layouts this week. Though the first and the last could very easy convert to an 8.5 x 11″. The first layout would work landscape, and the last one would obviously work best vertically at this smaller size.

So there you go, a bonus of not one, but THREE sketches - no excuse to not get any scrapping done now! Get to it.

Nicole

Hi, Just thought I would show you a card I made recently using the ‘Winter Tree Birds’ laser cut and the very practical , must have ‘Font 1′ alpha stickers

Hope you are all enjoying your week so far. Until next time,

Wendy

Hi everyone!

Its been about a month or maybe more since I last blogged we have had a shocker here in my home between the four of us - with one case of pneumonia, two of tonsillitis, one of bronchitis, a bacterial infection, several regular colds, multiple antibiotics … you get the picture. Anyway I just share that info to explain my long absence from the blog.

Right now most of my family is well and I seem to be on the mend. I’m enjoying spring my compost is looking good and I have some seeds calling my name waiting to be planted, I’m trying my hand at growing some of our own veggies this year.

I had fun glittering up this tree design of mine from last year and just had to use this stamp as I found it somewhat ironic that the sentiment ‘merry and bright’ is in such a sombre and proper font, because of this I used the embellishment to convey the sentiment, I cheekied it up by using a felt flower as an alternate to a star and the big bow adds to the merriment!

Its a very simple plain design but with such a bold dominant embellishment I didn’t want to overdo it.

I found this photo the other day - Bowen’s 7th birthday! The scary thing is it will be his 8th birthday in “20 more sleeps”!!!! Not that anyone is counting LOL!!

For this layout I used the On the Dot range of Kaiser’s papers from this month’s Bazzill/Kaiser kit and the RW Arrows laser cuts (painted to match the papers).

I also added a range of letter stickers - I love it when I get to use the leftovers from different sets, including the RW adhesive laser cut letters.

Happy scrapping and cheers from Deb.

I am sorry today’s post is late.  I usually try to post first thing on my Mondays, but today time just got away from me.  I’m blaming on the kids going back to school today.  While I’m on that topic, I have to tell you that I love them dearly, but was ever so happy to see them go to school today.  The sound of silence has never been sweeter!! 

Another reason I was late with the post is that I was agonising over what to share today.  I have been so busy with the most scruptious RW Lasercuts that you have ever seen, however you’ll have to wait until Paperific and beyond to see them.  I swear they are worth the wait!  I have been as happy as a cardmaking pig in cardmaking mud.

Sooo, this brings me to Rockets.  Obviously.  I love using the RW rockets on little boy cards.  And for some reason I seem to want to paint them red and blue all the time. 

That’s it until next time.  I have recently had a couple of people ask me how I paint/decorate the etched lasercuts, so in my next post I’ll share some tips and tricks with you all.  Very simple really, just takes some time and a steady hand. 

I have a ‘widget’ on my computer that is counting down the days till Christmas. When I first downloaded it there was 122 days till Christmas…this morning when I turned my computer on it said ‘82 days’! Where have the last 40 days gone? I know we aften comment about how fast time goes but seeing this number getting smaller each day is a little scary. It also reminded me of a great idea I spotted on a blog last week which would be great for this time of year (before Term 4 and the Christmas chaos starts!).

The challenge is to photograph between 5 to 10 things that will most likely be different in your life 5 years from now. Some examples:

• inside or outside your home
• trees you may have just planted
• obviously small children but think more along the lines of their shoes & clothes
• if you have a baby what about nappies, foods etc
• garage/cars or the addition of an extra one if your 16 dd is saving up for one (ahhh!)
• school uniforms
• clothes/shoes/handbags that you wont have/like in 5 years
• a partner your not happy with…just kidding!!
• The Sharks holding the premiers trophy…again just kidding
• computers
• phones
• appliances

Okay you get the gist ( had to throw in a few silly ones) and come to think about it you could probably do a layout for each family member. So grab your camera and start snapping, even let the kids take some shots. Take a look at Renee’s posts for some great ideas to get yourself in some shots too.

Be creative think outside the everyday and have some fun. I will pop back in later with my layout and a few ideas for other layouts.

Just had this thought, I am going to take a picture of my 16yo emptying the dishwasher with the 3 & 5 yo watching, in 5 years it will be them doing this job! ( I have bigger jobs planned for dani hehe!!)
If you have any other ideas, which I know you will, leave them in the comments section for all to share.

Catch you later

Diane

Hi and here’s today’s sketch…

I can’t remember if I have shared this double page layout before - I looked through the archives of my posts and couldn’t find it, so I don’t think I’ve shared it before..but who knows?? Anyway, I was inspired to share it after seeing Renee’s photo yesterday taken by her, of herself outside a fruit shop. I thought it was hilarious..in a good way! I took some similar photos, they were totally embarrassing but worth it all the same, in Coles. I wanted to scrap the grocery shop. Actually now I am sure I’ve shown this layout to you before. It was inspired by Rebecca Cooper, and I photocopied the docket onto acid free paper. I got some really weird looks taking photos of the fruit displays in Coles, so I handed the camera over to 4 yr old middle daughter who took most of the shots. Always good to have a child around for embarrassing photo taking - they can get away with it!

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Now that I am positive I have shared this layout with you, I think I had better share another layout, based on the same sketch as this one. This is an 8 1/2 x 11 page, it is exactly the second page of the sketch (journaling area and photo swapped around from first layout). The bazzill colours used on this layout titled ‘pool’ are powder, rain, java and lemonade.

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I promised a layout that scraps lots of photos this week, and while the above double page uses a fair few, I should also give you a 12 x 12 page. This one I know I haven’t shared with you before, as I just scrapped it a few days ago. it uses 10 (!) photos. Sure 9 of the photos are cropped down to only 5cm x 5cm, but there are still 10 on the page.

The page is about how my youngest Lucy, came out using a skirt as a dress, and started doing concert for me, but then stopped to answer an important call on her play mobile. She had the nods, the ‘hmmm’s’ and the laugh’s to go with the conversation - it was very funny!! And remember last week, I told you I was into orange at the moment…..

Have a great week.

Nicole
PS. Today I had a friend come around for a visit - Robyn is a new convert - has been convinced (by me) that she simply MUST start scrapbooking, has bought some supplies, but hasn’t done a page as yet! SOON. Anyway, Robyn has just been to USA on a holiday, and look what she bought me.

So funny. Gotta love America for producing scrapbook socks! Robyn can’t believe this hobby is actually a BIG thing, that goes further than just me and my friends. I keep telling her this is a BIG thing, and it’s not just us that do it! The scrapbooking socks just might have convinced her! This hobby could well take over the world…