A Creative Life

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.