A Creative Life

I caved in!!

I have listened to the pleas of Miss Kaitlyn for quite some time requesting a "real" dog or a "real" cat and I have been blocking my ears and humming lalalalalalala in an effort to avoid any additional work in our household, but this week I caved!  A new addition has arrived and it is cute, cuddly and rather furry!  Miss Kaitlyn is one VERY happy girl!  There is debate in our household though as to whether it is the entire families pet or Kaitlyns!!  Kaitlyn thinks it is entirely hers and the boys are in quite some disagreement with her, adamant it is all of theirs.  So, when they pester me about it I blatantly tell them, if it weren't for Katilyn's pleading then "Tickles" would never have come to our family!!  I have not gone as far to say it is 'her' kitten, but it kind of is! LOL!

Kaitlyn went to bed the first night with "Tickles" sleeping on the mini couch next to her bed.  Just before I went to bed I popped Tickles in the laundry to prevent any nasty little surprises in the monring. Well, Miss Kaitlyn woke up at 6am, wandering through the house looking for her and promptly popped her into bed and this is how I found them!  Too cute!  Mind you, Kaitlyn looks like she could have done with another couple of hours of sleep in this picture!  (yes I forgot to change the date of my watermark on that first picture!)

 

As you can see, Tickles is providing great amusement for the whole family!  Tonight she decided that my dangly earings made great toys and was swiping away at them!  I quickly took them out before I had a nasty accident involving caught kitten claws and ripped earlobes!

On a seperate note, today was Australia Day and we had a lovely BBQ lunch at the lovely Jane Cocks' house.  I first met Jane years ago when I owned my Scrapbooking Shop and ironically we now work together at Adelaide University.  In fact we share an office together!  Such a small world!  But before we arrived there, I found myself waiting for DH to return from doing some work, so to kill some time, I had Lachlan take some photos! I may have edited them a bit afterwards! ;)

It is so hard to get photos with the kids, but I think I have found the answer now that Lachlan is getting older and is quite good at framing a shot.  He loves to take photos, so that is even better!  For those that know me quite well, you may also notice I have a fringe now!  I was bored the other day so I decided to cut my hair and give myself a fringe!  I am so glad I did as it is so much softer around my face.  Mind you, I have to blow dry that little bit of hair and get the hair straightener onto it every day now, unless I want an unruly mess of frizz around my face!  I suddenly feel 'high maintenance'!  I am quite used to brushing my wet hair into a ponytail, quickly putting on mascara and lipstick and dashing out the door!  I very rarely go to much more trouble than that most days!  Having said that, I do have a full face of make-up on in these pictures!

On the scrapping front, I have done sooooo much this first month of 2012!  With the frantic pace of CHA I have created 18 LO's, 17 cards, 4 OTP's and am now exhausted!  My dining room table has been taken over with my scrap stuff and I have forced the family to eat outside for every meal!  Hopefully things settle down in February!  I can share a few projects with you now....

This LO uses the new Prima En Francais line.

and this LO using Prima Almanac line...

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog, and for all the lovely messages of congratulations on Websters left on both FB and here on my blog.

 

Exciting Times with Websters Pages

Going back before Christmas I was asked to join this amazing team. I am so excited to play with the beautiful papers that Brandin designs, and be a part of such a talented and supportive team!  2012 is going to be a wonderfully exciting and busy year!

CLEAN & SIMPLE DT

Diana Brodeur

Jamie Harder

Jamie Warren

Jill Cornell

Kay Rogers

Nina Ostermann

Stacey Michaud (Special Events Lead)

Classic DT

Anabelle O`Malley (Team Lead)

Emeline Seet

Emma Trout

Gabrielle Pollacco

Gerry van Gent

Julie Walton

Tomoko Takahashi

Iris Babao Uy

Jaz Lee Soo Hui

Larissa Albernaz

Janine Koczwara

Mitsue Iwata

The inclusion of the Clean and Simple team to Websters is going to be such a refreshing change! I really look forward to seeing the fabulous designs that all these wonderful ladies come up with!

Look, I even get my own personally numbered DT Badge!!  Apparently I am member no 25, if only my age matched that! :)

Yes I am Slack!

So, I am becoming one of those blog neglectful people!  I know, it is bad, I haven't updated since before Christmas, but I have been totally swamped with stuff.  Promise!!  Even today I am going to be lazy and just share a couple of projects that were shown on the Prima Blog!  I got to use my new best scrapping friend on this LO - my Prima Distress tool.  If you have not tried it, you need to get your hands on this tool, it is fabulous if you love a distressed Shabby Chic look to your pages.

Just in case you were curious as to how I create a LO.  Here is a really sped up version of the creation of the layout above!

 

 

Now onto a step by step for my second project that focuses on the design elements rather than a lot of techniques to create this elegant page. Getting the design of a page right is extremely important to the overal effectiveness of the Layout.  The design started around the hand cut sprawling vine paper, it provides movement in the layout and draws your eye around the page.

 

 PRODUCTS USED:

843540 - Printery Collection - Love Ledger
843526 - Printery Collection - Page Four
843557 - Printery Collection - Folio
843519 - Printery Collection - Signature
551247 - Printery Chipboard Pieces
890742 - Shabby Chic Resin Treasures
544225 - Alphabet Chipboard - Black
543761 - Orchard Mix - Dewdrop
538637 - Fairytale Roses 
539504 - Primrosa
538675 - Cameo Roses
540456 - Mulberry Rose Leaves
545482 - Alencon Lace
Prima Velvet Ribbon
Special  Edition Gypsophillia, Small Roses and White natural flowers

Other Products Needed: 

Martha Stewart Around the Page Punch
Tim Holts Distress Ink - Walnut Stain
Ranger Glossy Accents
Distress Ink Tool
Tattered Angels Chalkboard Glimmermist - Cotton Candy

• Step 1 - Carefully cut around the patterned paper and trim it back as shown on the LH side, so that it can sit above other elements on your page. The new Prima Craft Knife is perfect for this step.

• Step 2 - Use the Martha Stewart around the page punch to create a decorative edge around your page, Ink edges and stick down onto the black paper.

• Step 3 - From the paper that has several distinct areas on it, cut out the long black damask floral part. Punch across the top edge. Ink edges.

• Step 4 - Cut a strip from the cream left over part of the paper the first cut out came from and punc across one side, ink edged and stick down as shown below.

• Step 5 - Add the two layers of ribbon as shown.

• Step 6 - Arrange the handcut edge and the strip across the page and stick down.

• Step 7 - Cut another section from the patterned paper, the bordered ledger part. Ink edges and stick down just above the top of the punched edge.

• Step 8 - Glimmermist 2 small roses and one fo the white flowers to the delicate pink colour.

• Step 9 - Add your photos, chipboard and floral embellishments and finally your title to finish off the page.  I have printed part of the title onto transparency, cut around it and stuck down with Ranger Glossy Accents.  I used Porcelain font downloaded from the internet.

By placing the emphasis on the large deep pink flower, deep pink velvet ribbon and the deep pink in the colour photograph, a trio of accents has been created to make the whole page pop.

Sizing of flowers is crucial in making a floral cluster work effectively.  Always start with your largest flower/s and work downward in size from there, adding small sprays and leaves as the last touch as this is the best way to ensure balance  in both design and color compsition to the cluster.

The small cluster provides balance to the larger cluster and also helps in creating part of a visual triangle in the design of the LO.

Hopefully I can come back with another post soon!  Crossing my fingers!

 

 

 

 

 

Still Playing...

Still playing around with my new camera a bit.  I always love to see the kids looking cute and from a scrapping perspective it is a necessity to have a good stash of photographs to be able to draw from!  Especially with CHA creating just around the corner!  Sooo looking forward to seeing what Prima have come up with for this CHA!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The pictures below were taken at my MIL's place.  Kaitlyn was so funny, she wanted to walk across this fallen log, just like the older boys, but the moment she got a coule of steps in she was too scared to continue until Ethan held her hand!  She was very pleased with herself  

  

 

  

As for this one, this is her utopia!!  In her letter to Santa at Kindy, she said she wants a REAL puppy, a REAL kitten and a REAL Bunny!!  Oh, and a pair of pretty shoes!  Good to see she is fashion conscious in amongst her animal loving heart!  I had to advise her that Santa struggles to keep REAL animals safe on the sleigh journey, so he doesn't usually give "REAL" animals.  I also informed her that they are a little hard to wrap as well, and it is a rule of Santa to wrap all presents!  Did I let her down gently enough?

Is this not the face of trouble??  He is so darn cheeky!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Totally love this picture of Ashton, despite the big smear of dirt on his cheek!  Kind of sums up his little personality really well!!

Steph came over the other day with Madison and the girls had a lovely time playing.  However when we wanted to get a couple of shots of the two of them together they were not so willing. We resorted to bribery and corruption!!  Yes, Hot Milo's were the bribe and then the girls were quite co-operative!  These were a couple of the shots I loved.

Such little cutie pies!!  They really do play so beautifully together and get so excited to see one another.

I had an interesting weekend as well.  I was at Lydell's place with the kids on Saturday along with some other friends of ours and the kids were playing in the pool.  Cameron was being a bit pesky and splashing one of the adults (Derek) with water so he went to poke Cameron with a metal pole.  Well at that precise time, Cam decided to dive underwater and went face first into the forementioned pole!!  A trip to Accident and Emergency and 3 stitches later......

As for a side matter, I can't believe that you can take a picture that is this clear with no flash, straight off your phone!!

Onto scrap related stuff....

On this lollipop posy, I have covered the can with layers of punched paper for a delicate base and mixed lollipops, blooms and some candy gems for the floral display at the top.

 

This is another version using prima papers to create your own flowers ... you can see how this was made in this video...  (my first attempt at a video tutorial!! Luckily practice should make me better!)

  

And a LO created for the Color Room using Prima products...

Love all the layers in this.  Now I just need to be able to find some more time to play a bit more with my scrap supplies.  Feeling like I am always at work and not getting enough creative time!  Got a week off between Christmas and New Years, so I am hoping to break out the creativity then!!  Wish me luck and thanks for stopping by!

 

 

 

Catch you Unaware!

It is amazing how quickly Christmas begins to creep up on you!!  I was doing my grocery shopping and the fresh faced teen behind the counter enquired how my Christmas preparations were going!  I was taken back a touch, surely not time to think about Christmas??  At first I responded with a wry laugh and said "no, nothing done yet!" and then I thought about it some more, and a quiet wave of self-satisfaction crept over me!!  You see, I have most of the gifts for the children on layby and almost paid off and then just last week I created my yearly photobooks that I give as presents to the parents and grandparents!  I am quite literally waiting for it to be delivered any day now!!  So the tree isn't up yet and I am not sure I even know what we will be doing on Christmas day, but I am at least a little bit prepared, so that counts!!!

On the scrapping front I have a couple of layouts that have been up on the Aussie Scrap Source Blog.  The first one showcasing Jenni Bowlin papers...

I used a real mix of old and new products of hers on this LO. Love the photo of the little rebel rouser!! It is such a perfect depiction of a boy, doing boy things!

Then I also had this one using Lilybee papers go up as well.  The picture of Ethan and Emma puts such a smile on my face with how their emotions have been captured at that point in time.

This week I got a new Camera!!!! Yippeee!!  I have been saving up all my money from scrap related income and finally had enough to buy the camera I wanted.  I could never have justified spending the money from our family budget, so I decided to save just my scrap related income and put it towards a new camera.  I have been saving for quite some time now! LOL!!  I purchased a Nikon D5100 and have only had it for a day, but do love some of the new features in it.  I still have to play with it a lot more, but thankfully as it is another Nikon, a lot of the features and menus are similar which is helpful.  The first thing I noticed is how much better it is in low light conditions.  So much easier to get a shot in focus!  The multi-point focusing also helps a lot too!  So much to learn with this new toy!  I snapped a couple of pictures late yesterday, just to see what I thought of it.  Hmmmmm, I like!! 

How similar do these two look!  No doubting they are siblings!

  

Don't you just love the way kids insist upon pulling silly faces when a camera is put in front of them!!

And just for the record I didn't dress them that day to match for the camera!  Would you believe they all chose their own clothes and came out wearing the same colour!!!!  Oh except for Ethan, he must be more individual!  Ashton was in shorts and a top earlier in the day, but he managed to get himself soaking wet and thus ended up in his jammies before these shots were taken!!  Yes, he is climbing the retaining wall out the back of our house!

 

In fact if you look at these kids they all look similar!!  As newborn babies they all had the same "baby Koczwara" look and even now that they are growing there are distinct similarities between them all! It is like we make them with a Koczwara brand to identify them in a crowd!! :)

Once again thanks for stopping by!

 

Multiplicity!!

Sometimes the notion of multiplicity is oh so appealing!  I commented to Paul this week that I never stop! From dawn till dusk, I am constantly on the go, cooking, cleaning, washing, working looking after/playing/taxi-ing kids and scrapping! Then this week I TOTALLY forgot a deadline for a magazine! Ooops with a capital O!!  When I say completely forgot..... I really mean completely forgot, as in I hadn't even given it a vague thought since agreeing to do it!!  So no wonder the idea seems so luxurious when my Grandmother calls me and tells me she is lonely!  I used to pick her up once a week and have her over but since picking up an extra day at work it makes it very difficult to fit that in any more.  Somehow I will work out a way to have her over more, not weekly but at least once a month!  Imagine how much easier it would be if there were two or more of me!!

Apart from the mundane, I have also taken a trip to Melbourne to catch up with Sharon Laakkonen, Cari Fennell and Ingvild Bolme.  I also got to meet Trisha Ladouceur and Ingvild in Adelaide on the Thursday before travelling to Melbourne.  It was absolutely wonderful to catch up with these ladies.  I have known Sharon, Cari and Ingvild for almost 3 years now and feel like I am already friends, so to finally talk in person was such a treat!  Now I am devising ways we can catch up again!!  We also had some fun when we found this alley off the Burke st Mall with some amazing grafitti art!  

   

I added an acid action to the second image and the ones below for a funky cool effect!

The we found a cool window dressing to pose in front of!!  Cari took the photo for me! 

While we were in Melbourne we took the kids to the Melbourne Zoo for the day.  Next time I will make sure that I pack some sneakers!  4 inch wedges and 4 hours of walking around the zoo are not a good match at all!  I had blisters on the soles of my feet by the end of the day and never wanted to put on shoes again!!  On the upside I was 5"8 instead of 5"4 for the day!! :)  We got a picture of 4 of the 5 kids in the Japanese Garden in the Zoo.  Mr 2 was highly unco-operative!  He was a lot happier when we put him on the carousel ride!

 

Cameron has taken to "posing" for shots.  Usually it involves his hand on his chin, but I snuck this shot in before his hand made it up there!  Then Lachlan decided it would be fun to smother his brother!

Now of course while I was in Melbourne I absolutley had to catch up with my best friend Kym!!  Time never seems enough when we catch up!!  Between the two of us we could talk for hours and hours and never stop!  Some have been known to comment on how on earth we even breathe for talking so much!

She took this picture of Paul and I together!  Very rare for us to get a picture together!  Paul was doing his very best to avoid the camera!  I have even been wearing my hair in its naturally curly state more as well!  Just a lot easier than trying to straighten it!

Then I had some fun the other day at home with Miss K!!  I just can't help myself and have to take pics of this little girl.  The camera just LOVES her!

 

 

As for scrappy stuff..... I have been a busy girl lately but most of it I can't show just yet!  Story of my life!  I have created a LO for the Color Room.  Feels like a long time since I played along and created a LO there!

Once again thanks for stopping by my blog!

 

 

Signs Of Spring LO Tutorial

Just a quick update with another tutorial.  I still have a couple of these prepared to share, so bit by bit I will upload them here.

Prima paintables can be so much fun and in this tutorial, I will show you one way to bring them to life on your page in a fun and colorful way!

Products Used:

602291    Prima Paintable
881283    Signs Of Spring Collection Paper
881290    Signs Of Spring Collection Paper
881306    Signs Of Spring Collection Paper
840952    Tropics Collection - Celery Splash
531171    Alphabet Stickers - Black
549374    Candy Gems - Cotton Candy
532680    Evelyn Collection Flowers
535063    Sultan Centers
536350    Clear Stamp
536275    Clear Stamp
543877    Roosevelt Collection Flowers
528966    Caboodles Flowers
528676    Caboodles Flowers 
548131    Floret Collection - Rosie

Other Products Used:

Prima Comfort Craft Tools, Scissors, Craft Knife and Cutting Mat
Martha Stewart Deep Around the page Punch - Wildflowers
Watercolour Pencils
Tattered Angels Chalkboard Glimmermist - Teal High Heel 
Distress Ink - Walnut Stain 
Circle Punches or Cutters 

• Step 1 - Punch directly around the border of your Tropics Collection page according to the instructions for your punch. Ink the edges and stick down in the centre of your hot pink, Signs Of Spring paper, which has also been inked and distressed. (I carefully removed the centre from the pink paper so I could use it on the front of the LO).  Once stuck down sew around the page.

• Step 2 - Add some texture to the background by randomly stamping your Prima Chickenwire stamp.  Rather than placing it on a block to stamp, I inked it and then held it in my hand and only pressed down rough areas to stamp so that there were no solid straight edges.

• Step 3 - Take the spray tube out of your glimmermist and allow drops to splatter onto the page. When the large drops have fallen, flick it slightly for smaller drops.

• Step 4 - Cut some strips from your patterned paper and then cut V's into one end, Ink then distress and arrange on page as shown.  

• Step 5 - Cut 1 from the orange paper, 9 inches x 4 inches, ink, distress and stick down in the centre of the page, make sure the previous pieces are secured at this stage as well and the ends fit under the orange piece. Sew around edge of orange sheet.

• Step 6 - Cut one each from blue and green Signs of Spring Paper, 5 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches, ink and distress edges and stick down as shown. Sewing around each piece before sticking the next one.

• Step 7 - Take your Prima paintable and a few matching colors of watercolor pencils.  I like to use a couple of each of the shades, for additional shading.  Color in the paintable, if you want a more intense colour, be firmer with the pencils, just a hint of colour, just a rough soft stroke will do fine.  Where the image shows dark shading, I usually use a darker shade of pencil over the top of that spot.  Once it is fully colored in, I take a very fine paint brush, dip into water and go over the areas colored in.  Wash the paint brush before going over a new colour to prevent bleeding.  You will see the watercolor pencils merge together before your eyes.  Heaps of fun and highly effective!!  Allow the sheet to dry and if you need to apply more color you can do so, at any point, you can even dip the tip of your wet brush onto the end of the pencil for extra color while it is still wet.

• Step 8 - Carefully cut around the colored image, you will need both good sharp pointed scissors, craft knife and Mat ( I recommend the new Prima Comfort Craft Tools for this as they are all ergonomically designed and as there is a lot of cutting involved it will lessen hand fatigue)

• Step 9 - Carefully cut between your floral arrangement, so that one half can go above the photo and the other below. Tear a piece of cardboard in a circular fashion that is just bigger than your photo will be. Ink edges and stick down both cardboard and cut out paintable.

• Step 10 - Using circle cutters, cut out your photo and a circle frame (or mat) and then adhere to the page as shown.  Finish off with flowers, lettering, stamped butterflies and some Candy Gems.

• Hint: For something a bit fun, try printing out your journaling and cutting it into peices and arrange on the page.  This adds an artistic and whimsy touch to the page.

You can see the degree of shading you can achieve with the watercolor pencils on the paintable, the results are beautiful and it makes you feel so artistic when you can paint your own paper!!

When I am designing a page, I always cut up and try out a lot of different things that never end up on my pages.  Often these bits and pieces of extra stamped butterflies, cut circles or paper lie around on my desk until I am forced to clean due to lack of visible space for creating!!  Rather than just moving on to the next project, I decided to create a card from these leftovers.  It is fun and can "force" your design a little according to what your leftovers are.  

This time I had a couple of cut out circles that I didn't use, a paper rosette I created that I originally was trying to use under my photograph for extra texture, but I just couldn't get it large enough. Extra strips of paper, created into flags and a piece of cardboard I tore down too small!

Try challenging yourself to make a card from your leftovers next time you create!!  Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have enjoyed todays tutorial.

 

A Little bit Boring!

I am feeling rather boring this week!  No fun things like birthdays or anniversaries to report, just the same old same stuff, work, sleep (not enough of that), eat, tidy up after the squillion kids I seem to have aquired over the years.  You know the usual mundane activities that keep you busy day in and day out!  Sometimes a highlight for a week would be the absence of cleaning up mess I didn't create!  Sadly, no such highlights, the kids were their usual happily abandoned selves with total disregard to shoe and clothing placement once entering the premises!  So you get the picture!!  

I did however notice that I seem to have not shared a few pictures of miss Kaitlyn that I took the other day, so I can share those!!  Is it just my girl that pulls her hair out of its plat/ponytail the moment she gets home?  She will keep it in for Kindy but the moment she is home, she yanks out that hair-tie and allows her tresses to run free like a wild woman.

What a cheeky little face!

It is funny how her eyes can look quite green in some pictures and blue in other pictures.  The irony is that she has blue eyes with patches of green in them!!  Cameron also has patches of green/hazel in his eyes as well.  Pretty sure it comes from Paul's side of the family as my side has nothing but very blue eyes for any relative I know!  

I also think I haven't shared a few LO's either.  So here are a couple that I have done for Aussie Scrap Source!

Lots of BasicGrey goodness in this LO. Love all the shabby newsprint in this range.

Of course I had to add some pretty Prima to finish it all off!  The LO below was created for a Generation Gap post about the differences between my family holidays and that of my childrens. Ironically they are more similar than I would have thought!

I had lots of fun layering cut paper, flowers and other elements to create this page.  It was also fun to mix a couple of paper ranges together.  Funny how so often now my LO's are created predominantly from a range without much mixing and matching and yet there was a time I loved nothing more than to mix and match all my ranges together!

That is about all from me for this post, quick and to the point today!  Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Hard Work Never Killed Anyone?

Seriously, where does the saying, "Hard work never killed anyone!" come from?  I am not talking the sort of busy that you get all the time, like being frantic busy at work, or scrap related, I am talking physical hard labour!!!  I swear, it could do some serious damage, especially if you ask my poor aging body!  

You see this past week, over and above my usual job at the University and meeting scrapping deadlines, not to mention looking after 5 kids, We (Paul the kids and I) went up to the Mother In Laws place and started some serious cleaning up!  As fire season will be on us by the end of October, we are frantically trying to burn off as much rubbish and fallen branches to keep the fire risk down.  There was a lot of pulling out of saplings that had sprung up all over the place, and dragging of heavy branches and add to that digging up a pile of mulch to get to broken water pipes and my poor body was screaming "no more"!!

As if that wasn't enough, we had a huge dump bin delivered to our house on Friday and we filled it within 5 hours!!  We are on a mission!  Broken trampolines were pulled down and thrown away, trees branches were cut back and then we attacked the shed!  We threw out over 5 boxes full of toys!  Ah it felt good.  There is only one problem, the bin is chock full and we need another one as we still have not finished cleaning out the shed!  It is back breaking heavy work and my body feels "old".  It is bruised and battered and aches all over but I am happy as there is a whole lot of decluttering going on!  Can't wait until we have finished it all.

So, other than working my patootie off, there has also been two birthdays and a wedding anniversary in this household!  Little Mr Ashto baby turned 2!!  He is really growing up.  If only he would sleep through the night!!  I didn't have a flash on my camera for this shot, so it is super grainy and orange!!

Ashton is here with his cousins Maitland and Poppy and his Aunty Natalie.  Love that happy look on his face!  Don't worry we do know how to count but it was a number 2 candle flanked by two star candles!!! The cupcakes all had little dinosaurs on them, totally cute and all courtesy of a quick trip to the supermarket, since I was working the day of his birthday!  Ashtons speach is going ahead in leaps and bounds and he says so much now. Some of his favourite sayings are ..... my bag, my seat, my phone, my car, my Mummy.... are you seeing a pattern of posessive behaviour?  At the moment it is cute, I am sure that might change with time if he is still so posessive as he gets older!

Paul and I had our 16th wedding anniversary on the 8th of October.  We asked my cousin Kylie to baby sit for us so we could go out for dinner and a movie.  For Kylie it provided her with her first ever nappy change!!  She is just lucky Mr Ashto boy didn't purge his bowels!! LOL!  It was lovley to go out for a really yummy dinner and just have a night out as they are rare around here! 

Then on the 13th it was Ethans 8th Birthday!  He has been Mr moneybags since then, regularly counting his money in front of us.  I love the way kids enjoy counting their treasure!  Not sure what he plans to buy with it at this stage, but for now he is happy to just have a good haul of cash!

So as you can see it has been busy, busy, busy here.  Kids have gone back to school today and we are one child down for a week as Cameron has gone on his school camp to Melbourne.  The poor kid was so excited last night he couldn't sleep and emerged at 11pm complaining he was too excited!!  If only he knew how thoroughly stuffed he was going to be by the end of the week!!  The one good thing about him being away is the reduction in fighting in the household.  The eldest 2 boys sure know how to fight these days, so having a break from one another is a good thing!

Onto scrappy stuff.....  I have been creating a bit lately after a short break, but all of it is for future deadlines.  I can share this LO that I created for Aussie Scrap Source for a blog post on Technique Tuesday stamps!  I mixed it in with some Echo Park papers!

Love the way you can see all the layers here!

I also created some Thankyou cards for my MIL to give out.  I wanted to make a few special ones that  she could give to people.  I was pleased with how they turned out as they were very elegant. I also put some old Chatterbox papers that I have had for a very long time to good use on these, mixed with Prima of course! 

Thanks for stopping by and putting up with my irregularity of blog updates!  I have good intentions but then find myself busy doing other things!  Story of my life!

Glittered Masking Tutorial

In this tutorial, I will show you an easy technique for creating a glittered mask on your page.  With  just a slight twist on the regular way to mask on a page.

Products Used:
842819 - Botanical Collection - Romance
842826 - Botanical Collection - From the Heart
842888 - Jack & Jill Collection - Happy Easter Jill
842314 - Reflections Collection - Mantra
841157 - The Shabby Chic Collection - Majestic Breeze 
542597 - Sweet Taffy Collection - Blue
546328 - Angelica Rose Collection - Bonney
546274 - Arcadian Collection - Weathered
930042 - Vintage Trinkets
544942 - Clear Stamp
545567 - Mask
544294 - Say It In Crystals and Pearls 
544232 - Alphabet Stickers
540463 - Mulberry Rose Leaves 
Viola Felt - grey 

Other Products Required:
Glitter
Gel Medium
Ranger Distress Ink - Walnut Stain
Distress Ink Tool
Spellbinders Dies
Edge Distressor 
Martha Stewart around the Page Punch

•  Step 1 - Cut Your Text Paper 8inches x 8 inches, ink and distress edges and stick onto the centre of your cream swirl paper. Machine sew around the edge of this paper
• Step 2 - Cut 1 from your blue spot Paper, 11 inches x 6 inches, ink, distress and stick down across the centre of the text paper.
• Step 3 - Cut 1 from the pale green section of the Jack and Jill paper, 5 inches x 10.25 inches and then punch around the page according to the instructions of the punch.

• Step 4 Place the mask over your punched out paper and then brush on a coating of Gel Medium

• Step 5 - Sprinkle glitter over the area covered in Gel Medium, shake off excess and then stick down onto page as shown and sew around edge.
• Step 6 - Use your artisan dies and punch out  2 , one from Reflections paper and one from the Botanical floral paper. Ink and distress edges, stick down on top of each other.
• Step 7 - Stamp your shipping tag and arrange your flat flowers and tag at this point before sticking your artisan shaped papers in place.
• Step 8 - Add your photo and finish off with flowers, felt and other embellishments

I hope you will give a glittered mask a try for a gorgeous sparkly effect!!  Don't forget to wash the mask and brush afterwards to ensure all the Gel Medium is washed off!

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