A Creative Life

A Big Month!

September has been a big month for me!  My first international teaching trip, first time teaching in Melbourne, and first time teaching card classes!  I have learnt that it always takes longer than I expect to teach my classes! You would think after teaching for almost 8 years that I would know by now but  2 hours never seems to be enough.  I may be getting a reputation for going overtime!!! oops!

If all that isnt enough in one month, the announcement that I will be teaching at the Prima Retreat in January in the US certainly made the month!!  Here are some more details of the event....

 

The secret's out...

 TV Celebrity and Author Leeza Gibbons teams with trend-setting Prima Marketing to debut an amazing new line of scrapbooking products launching at Winter CHA 2013.

 

  “Wishes and Dreams” – celebrating moments, recording desires and goals, honoring traditions, and making secret wishes!

“All About Me” – helping children express themselves in their own special way!

Leeza will be in attendance at our fabulous Art*Venture Scrapbooking Event now booking for January 2013.  Register now for this once-in-a-lifetime chance to mix and mingle with Leeza and our six amazing teachers!

 Create a Wishes and Dreams project of your own at our posh resort venue in Palm Springs, California.  For full details, visit the event website at:

http://www.regonline.com/builder/site/?eventid=1143316

As you can see it is a pretty exciting time!  The venue for the event is amazing!!  Oooooh I can't wait.  Sorry, still a bit excited!!

I will also share the layout that I taught in New Zealand, and again back in Melbourne.  Had so much fun teaching this and everyone seemed to enjoy it, which is all I want to have from my classes.

The Indulgence Retreat was fabulous, with heaps of amazing ladies, who made me laugh a LOT!  I was so busy flitting around the place I forgot to get the camera out much, which is so typical of me!  Here is a picture of the lovely Louise Williams and myself!

Here are some of the girls at the retreat, and it is pretty obvious that I am not a shrinking violet by nature!!  What was I thinking??  They made me do it!  That is my story and I am sticking to it!

I also got to meet and spend the day with the lovely Trina McClune, who I have not had the priviledge of meeting before!  It was such a delight to meet Trina and we really talked up a storm.  OK that might have just been me doing all the talking!!  Ooops!!  We were some what windswept at this point!

I had a fabulous whirlwind short trip, but really enjoyed it.  I sure hope I can find my way back to New Zealand again some time!  Would totally love to see the South Island, if I ever get back there.

In the meantime.....

These are the cards I taught this month at my Local Scrapbook shop.  I was severely out on how much time it would take to make these.  I was only ever aiming at completing 3 in the class, but the goal posts were changed, and we made it 2! LOL!  I used the Rondelle Collection for this and I really adore the colours of this range.

Images Removed for Publication

As you can see there really is a lot happening for me in September and October promises to be just as busy with my Local Scrapbook Store Paper Flourish, opening a second store and I will be teaching every Monday and Thursday night between the two shops as well as a Friday class once a month and a Wednesday technique class once a month.  Paper Flourish are also launching their online webstore on the 15th of October and they have so many products, especially a fabulous range of dies for your die cutting machines and huge amounts of Tim Holtz products at great prices.  I will make sure I update you all when the site finally goes live for any of you in Australia that might be interested in checking out their website.

Thanks so much for stopping by.





  

 

Excited!!

I feel like a kid in the Candy Store!!  I am about to head off to New Zealand to teach at the Vintage Indulgence Retreat this weekend, then on to Melbourne to teach at Scrappy Hollow and then.........

It was announced this morning that I will be teaching at the Prima Retreat following CHA in January!!  So so super excited.  I love teaching and this opportunity is so sensational.  I can't wait to meet some of the amazing women I have met online in the US and just the opportunity to teach for Prima is sensational!  Yep, I am bouncing off the walls with a big grin on my face!!

OK so I had a couple of nostalgic things happen this week as well!  I need to use my "monster" suitcase to take to New Zealand, and I knew I had stored stuff in it years and years ago but had no idea what any of it was.  When I opened it up it was full of baby clothes from when Ethan was a baby!  Some of those clothes had been used for Lachlan and Cameron as well!  Amongst it all were quite a lot of size 3's and 4's, so that will be great as Ashton will need size 3's this Summer!  Now I don't have to buy much stuff! YAY!  I washed all the clothes that were too small and have taken them to goodwill.  Kind of sad to send them on, but we don't have room and someone else may need them. 

On the other nostalgic note, I was watching video footage of Ashton when he was a baby.  So so happy I have recorded some moments like this and really want to do some more.  It captures the nature of a child more than just a photograph, it is like stepping back in time!  I am thinking I should try and make a habit of at least recording stuff monthly of the kids, it would be so much fun to go back over time and watch them and their antics in years to come.

On the scrapping front I can share a couple of layouts as well.  These layouts were to scrap the highs and lows of the past 12 months.

So the above was for the highs and below this layout is about the lows.

I really love the Prima Tea Thyme collection. So so pretty!  I have also been working on another canvas, this one is for Kaitlyns room.  I will be putting a video tutorial up on the Prima Educators blog later in the month. I had so much fun creating it and I kind of have a hankering to do another one!  I think it is rather an addictive process!  Makes me feel all arty!!  Once again, thanks for stopping by!

Creating and Classes

I have been busy creating lots of different things and bit by bit I can share them here!  I created a couple of LO's for the Color Room Palettes #123 and #124 and then used them for a post on the Prima Educators Blog where I gave more details on their inspiration as well as a brief tutorial on how to create elements of each of the pages.  Go and check it out if you want to know more!  The Educators blog will be updated every couple of days with tutorials from the Education team, so make sure you check back regularly.  Each of us has to do a post each month, so there is plenty of inspiration to be found on the site!  So these are the layouts I shared, the first one was for palette #123 at the Color Room:

and this layout as well for palette #124 at the Color Room

I used a gorgeous paper napkin on this page (the bird image) and I have put a quick video tutorial together (done late at night with a scratchy voice!) but it will show you how to use napkins on your pages.

  

So you get the idea... well hopefully!  Love love love working with napkins and the possibilities you can come up with!!  I have so many project ideas floating around in my head of things I want to do and just no where near enough time to do them all!    Really need to finish some sewing projects I started a long time ago as well!  Sigh!!

On another note, I will be teaching a lot more classes at Paper Flourish!  In September I will teach my first card making class there and from October onward I will teach a LO class, card class and an Off The Page class every month.  So excited to be teaching more.  

Below is my first card class!  You will get to make at least 3 in the class but I have designed 5 cards in total, so you have enough product to do the other 2 at home!  I love seeing how much I can create out of a few sheets of paper and embellies.  Once I start I like to just keep going!! :)  Paper Flourish are also launching a new online booking system for classes to make it easier for people as well, so that is exciting too!! As you can see this class will be held once during the day and twice in the evening, so everyone should be able to make it if they want to!

Back to the grindstone, more projects to create, things to be cleaned around the home and if the weather gets better, lots and lots of gardening to do!!  Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

Smart Little Critter!

Who knew little "not quite 3 year olds" were so smart!  Mr Ashton is clued in on everything!  This morning I needed to drop him to his 1 day a week in childcare.  I never mentioned it, in fact no one in the house mentioned it was Tuesday, childcare day, but somehow, when I said we have to go out he just KNEW!!  He whined in that oh so pitiful voice....."I don't want to go to childcare!"  I didn't even have his bag in hand yet!  How did he know?  How can a little one, not yet 3 know that today is the day he goes to childcare??  Blows me away at times the things they know, that we have no idea they have worked out!  He sooked the whole way there (which really isn't long at all as it is less than 5 minutes away) and kept the pouty face up until I got him out of the car and he realised it was raining, and I kept making squeals about getting wet and we had to run.  That, he thought was amusing!  Then I get inside the door, boom, pouty face back on! He is a master manipulater already!  The funny thing is that I know, the moment I go to pick him up at the end of the day, he will be engrossed in a puzzle or some sort of game and not want to leave! SIGH!!  At least I know he has fun when he is there!

Now while I am on the topic of this little guy, I had a LO up on the Aussie Scrap Source blog featuring Echo Park Papers and set off by a cute photo of the child in question!

I created my own background from white cardstock and a couple of Crafters Workshop templates!  First one was the chevron template and I just misted with some Tattered Angels Choc Mint Chalkboard Glimmermist.  When that was dry I then used a tinted embossing pad over the top of the "mums" template, and added white embossing powder, heat set got the gorgeous white embossed floral element.  Afterwards, I sprayed a pool of yellow glimmermist and allowed it to run down the page.  I then used a cloth to wipe the mist off the embossed area.  Then.... I unscrewed the lid of my Chalkboard Cherry cola mist and splattered some dots around.  FUN!!  Then I went to town with all my Echo Park papers.

To create the green edge I used a water soluble crayon, just drawing a line around the edge then using a water brush to dissolve it to a softer appearance.  I love doing that to my pages, it is a lot of fun and can get you a really funky border.

While on the subject of LO's featuring Mr Ashton, this one was published in Scrapbook Creations a few months back and I have not shared it here yet.

These photos were taken quite some time ago now, but he still has a face full of mischief!  I swear this age is the most adorable of stages!  They are still cute like a baby but becoming more independant and so so so much personality!  We refer to Ashton as the "last of the little people".  I wish I could just bottle him at this age, it really is so so adorable!   Anyhow, just a quick post. Thanks for stopping by!

Mixed Media Canvas

Guess what?  I actaully created something totally for myself!!  Yes, you heard right, not for a DT brief or a challenge, just for the sheer fun of creating!  Oh it was sooooo much fun!!  A real mixed media Canvas, layer upon delicious layer of paper, gesso, gel medium, impasto medium, paint, mists, paper napkins and a few flowers to finish it off.  So here it is....

I started out being totally inspired by a video on the Color Room by czekoczyna of a small mixed media piece she did.  Here is a link to her video Mixed Media by Czekoczyna.  

• I created a patchwork of layers of paper directly on top of the canvas  using Helmar 450 glue and lots of Prima offcuts in my stash.  This is the perfect opportunity to use those little pieces that you just can't throw away!!
• Then out came the gesso, for a quick brush over.  I just used a palette knife to roughly add it over all the paper pieces.  You could still see the paper underneath in a lot of places when I was finished doing that.

• Next I used impasto medium and one of the new Prima Donna Downey masks (I ADORE this mask so so much) and again used a palette knife to apply the impasto medium across my mask to get this glorious raised up floral pattern on my canvas.
• After this was dry, it was time for a dash of acrylic paint, mixed with an acrylic irridescent medium and roughly brushed over in places.  Then I allowed it to dry (with my heat gun since I am not patient at all!!)
• Misting came after this, I used a couple of differnt colours, Tattered Angels Starfish and a Ranger Perfect Pearls Bronze.  Since the gesso acts as a partial resist, but the impasto medium soaks up the mists beautifully, you have to apply a few coats to get a desired result.

• The next layer involved applying a paper napkin with gel medium, that is how I achieved the bird and leaves in the bottom corner of the image above.  Paper napkins need to be taken back to single ply before applying.

• Due to the very textured surface I had to get creative as to how to add some text to the canvas.  I ended up taking a sheet of tissue paper and rubbing a Kaisercraft rubon onto the surface.  I then used the same technique as I did with the napkin to apply this to my canvas.
• I traced these very cool fairy wings onto tracing paper as well before adhering in exactly the same way.  I wanted to use this technique here as I knew there would be a slight opaque quality to the wings, as if they were delicate and slightly transparent.

• Finally I finished off the page with my paper layered fairy and some pretty Prima flowers.  I also added some gold paint around the edges of the canvas for extra dimension.

 I would thoroughly recommend playing around with some mixed media techniques just for the fun of it.  You feel very arty while you are playing and it is a great way to unleash your creative passion for all things arty!  Thanks for stopping by!!

 

 

Enjoying Life...

I am discovering that even though I am not working 3 days per week anymore I still feel busy all the time!  It really is rather ironic, you would think that I should feel like I have all this free time on my hands but I don't.  You see, being home all the time means that I sweep my floors more often, I am home, I see the crumbs under the table after each meal, so I pick up the broom and sweep them.  I don't rely on the kids as much to pack and unpack the dishwasher, I do that more!  I plan all the weeks meals and make them all, rather than throwing something together at the end of the day when I feel frazzled and tired.  More loads of washing are done each week, 7 people makes for a lot of sheets and towels to wash and I just wash them more regularly than when I was working (I love nothing more than crawling into bed with fresh sheets!!)  This part the kids love, I re-make their beds after washing the linen rather than making them do it!  They HATED putting quilt covers back on!!  Now those clean clothes can be found in their appropriate draws, rather than the basket in the laundry!  You know what all that activity means?  It means my house is clean and tidy and this makes me happy!!  For the first time in ages I feel like I am in control of my house rather than it controlling me!

It also means that I feel a lot more on top of my scrapbooking deadlines as well.  I was getting to the point where I was feeling swamped and not enjoying the process of scrapbooking like I used to.  I am up to date with what needs to be done now and this is such a good feeling!  So much of what I have created I can't share just yet, but here is a LO from CHA, and I actually managed a video of the process in the midst of CHA creating!

Here is the link to the video I made while creating this LO.

 

Hopefully next post I will be able to share more stuff that I have created lately.  Just as another reminder it is only a little over a month away until I will be teaching in Melbourne.  If you were wishing to attend, please book with Scrappy Hollow in Melbourne on the details shown below.

She's Growing Up

My little girl turned 5 last week! Seems like yesterday that I was desperate to meet my baby girl!  I used to dream of what she would look like, what sort of personality she would have and the joy she would bring to my life!  This photo was taken 3 weeks before she was born.

When she finally made her arrival I was stunned by that big thick black mane of hair!!  For some reason I was expecting a smattering of light brownish blonde hair, instead I was greeted by thick black hair! 

I swear she just got cuter and cuter as she got older.  Those plump pink lips and adorable blue eyes just had me in the palm of her hand.  Here are some of my favourite pictures of Kaitlyn!

8 Weeks

6 Months

8 months 

12 months

18 months

2 Years

3 Years

4 Years

On the 17th, my baby girl turned 5!!  She started school the same week!  She is growing up and there is nothing I can do to stop it, just enjoy the journey!  Love this little girl to pieces and she looks so grown up in her uniform!

I even managed to put together a little party for her, courtesy of Pinterest ideas!!  I must say that Pinterest is surely a party planners best friend!  One of the things I made, that turned out so so pretty was a recipe for candied popcorn!  This was super easy: 
It consisted of 1 can condensed milk
1 pkt jelly crystals
12 Cups Popped Corn
You warm the condensed milk and jelly crystals in a saucepan, then pour over the popped corn and make sure they are evenly coated.  Line a deep baking dish with baking paper and baked onto popped corn for 20 mins, stiring every 5 mins.  Oven temp between 100 - 150 degrees Celcius depending on how hot your oven is.

I discovered you had to be extra delicate with oven temperature and sausepan temperature when heating condensed milk with the jelly, but once you got that right, it is super easy to get great results.

I also wanted to create really pretty cupcakes for Kaitlyns cake.  It required making pretty icing roses.  This is a bit time consuming but produces lovely results.  During the creation of these roses ( I needed to make around 35-40 of them) after I had made around 20,I discovered my theiving little 2 year old Ashton was sneakily grabbing them as fast as I could make them and scoffing them down!  Saying I was upset is a bit of an understatement! I found a safer spot to put the made roses and continued on my mission!  I also made some sweet purple hydrangea flowers by using a Martha Stewart silicone mold.  You have to add a good smattering of cornflower to the mold to help prevent sticking.

We also had some fun decorating cookies with icing and lollies, they decorated their own lolly bags as well!

and finish off the night by singing Happy Birthday!  I will admit I was terrified Miss Kaitlyn was going to set her hair on fire with those candles!  Thank goodness she didn't, but I am sure she came close to it!

I am pretty sure she had a great time!  She has been loving playing with her new toys.  It would seem that her new Barbies are her favourite, which is funny since she didn't play with her old Barbies much before the new ones came along!  Might just be the interchangable outfits she loves to dress them in!

On the scrapping front, I did a Live With Prima show on the 20th.  If you want to see the video, the recording can be found here - Live With Prima - Rondelle Layout

Finally, just a little advert to say I will be teaching at Scrappy Hollow in Melbourne on Tuesday 11th September.  Here is a little advert I made up for it with contact details etc if you are in Melbourne and would like to book into my class.  Seats are limited.

So that gives you an idea of what I have been up to over the last week or so!  Thanks for stopping by and if you are in Melbourne and will be attending my class, I can't wait to see you there!

 

 

 

 
 

 

 

More Prima Goodness

Don't you just love beautiful happy colours?  Prima have created a range that just makes you happy by looking at it.  The new Zephyr range warms my soul!  See what I mean?  Total happiness in colour!

I created this LO using this new range.

Loved creating with this line and I am sure you will too!  I also used some of the new Ingvild Bolme resins on this page as well.  They are so so beautiful.  Love the cupids in this collection.  They are designed so beautifully to just sit among a floral cluster, keeping watch over your images.  So so sweet.

Lots and lots of fun new products to play with. I can't wait to get hold of more resins in this collection!  Just love Ingvild's designs.

In other news, I spent a lovely weekend with my friends creating, eating and watching movies!  WAY too late nights!  Late mornings and WAY too much delicious food.  Thanks Lydell for a wonderful weekend at your place!  Not as much creating was accomplished this year as opposed to other weekends we have had but a good time was still had by all!

In some not so good news, my poor little niece, Summer is stuck in hospital and will go in for her 3rd surgery today, in 5 days!  Poor sweet girl has to endure so much.  She has an infection in her leg where she had previously had surgery for hip dysplasia when she was 18 months old.  Hopefully they can get her better and out of hospital soon as it will be her 4th birthday this week and it would be nice if she can get home to celebrate that!  Stole this picture from my SIL's FB page.  Such a little cutie and she looks so much like her Mother as a girl it is uncanny!

Hope she gets better soon because Kaitlyn loves playing with her cousin!!  Thanks for stopping by my blog!  I am off to create now with some new Prima goodness.  Yep, I love this time of the year!

 

 

New Prima Goodness

Look at this, a second post this week!! My goodness what is happening here!  Hmmmm might be called unemployment, which equalls time available for blog updating! I have been making good use of this time through creating a couple of pages for CHA which I posted off today for the USA.  The first of these projects featuring all new Prima products went up on the Prima Education site yesterday!  It featured the Welcome to Paris line.  Originally when I was designing this LO I was hoping to focus on the yellow and grey only and see what sort of dramatic effect I could achieve with that, but I didn't feel like I had enough contrasting shades of the yellow in the line to pull it off, so I added touches of red.

Since I am not much of a retro scrapper, I was worried about finding inspiration with this line, but the bold designs on some of the papers spoke to me and I was happy with the result I came up with.  The colours worked perfectly for the photo I wanted to use.

See, the grey matches "Tickles" coat perfectly and the red is perfect for the red in Ashtons top!  Yellow is one of my favourite colours as well, so bright and cheerful!

Love the new swirls Prima have brought out this time, they are small and just perfect to add under floral clusters and stuff.  I can definately see myself using a lot of these little swirls on my projects.

Just love the expression on Ashtons face in this photo!  Cracks me up completely!  He was well and truly dedicated to capturing the kitty!

I am also thinking that I have been hoarding several layouts that have not been shown on my blog as well.   Here is one I created to showcase Glitz Designs papers as well.

I have a couple of doily dies now that I love!  So much fun to play with!  Add to those these stunning Anna Griffin alpha's and it makes for a very girly layout!  Look, there is more yellow again.  I told you I have a love affair with yellow!  See how it makes the whole design pop!!

I hope you enjoyed my 2nd post this week, after you dragged yourselves up off the floor from shock of me posting so quickly!!  Now I get to go back and let Ashton walk all over me (he thinks that stepping on my back is fun and I think it is sort of like a massage!  Total win win situation!!)  Thanks for stopping by!

 

Appreciation of Friends

This week I have been totally spoilt by 2 fabulous friends, who have made me feel so special.  I have had a pretty rough couple of weeks.  Last Thursday was the last day of work for me.  After 2 years of my job at the University, we missed out on a large contract and there just wasn't the funding to keep all the staff on and a large percentage of the staff did not have their contracts renewed.  Those of us in the data collection side of research were the first to go, and that included me.  So I have been rather stressed about how we are going to manage without my income and as yet I have not had any success in procuring another job.  All of this has been weighing heavily on my mind and add to it another couple of things and I was somewhat upset!  

Step in my two beautiful friends Lydell and Miranda!  These two consipired to do something special for me! It all started Monday night when I received a text from Lydell with the words ding dong!  Like a doorbell.  OK that was rather baffling to me and later that night she had to send me a message on FB telling me to check my door!  Which as luck would have it, had me even more baffled!  3 times I went to the door and saw nothing!  I had to ask, "Um, what am I supposed to see at the door?"  A package apparently!  You see, hubby had gone out earlier and picked it up as he went out!!  He didn't want to come back inside as he had snuck out to prevent small children from trantrums at his leaving!

When he returned, he came with a beautiful pink present, and inside that pink wrapping paper was a pair of beautiful pink pyjamas and a beautiful hand-made card.  You would think that was more than enough to receive from my two beautiful friends, but each night, from Monday to Friday there was another package dropped to my door, with another sweet, sweet handmade card!  On Tuesday, pink slipper and pink bed socks, Wednesday a box of pampering lovelies, including face masks and foot soaks, Thursday a pink mug filled with hot drink sachets and chocolate and Friday 2 packets of peanut butter cups (no I will not share those with the family, they are mine, mine, mine!!!)  By this stage I was so blown away with their thoughtful kindness!!  Look at all these gorgeous hand made cards I received! (yes one is missing as I put it away so safely I couldn't find it when I was putting the others together to photograph it!  Of course I found it on my desk straight after photographing these ones!!)  

These girls certainly know how to make a girl feel loved!  Words are just not enough to express just how much these two girls mean to me and how much their thoughtful kindness is appreciated!  Everyone needs friends like this in tough times!

I have had a few LO's to share as well!  Seems like I have had a heap of things up on the Aussie Scrap Source Blog of late.  Like this one on the design element of the Rule of Thirds.....

You may be able to see that speckled effect in the pink area of paint. That is created with some fun techniques using watercolour paint and salt!!  Lots of fun and a wonderful effect!

Than another LO for the design concept of Flow!  I went for a much simpler design on this LO and allowed the striking colour of the papers to work their magic.

So there you have a couple of LO's that have been on Aussie Scrap Source of late!  I am currently working with brand NEW PRIMA for CHA.  Let me say, you will love the new lines and new flowers!!  So so beautiful, so with any luck I will be able to share some of these LO's with you all soon as well.

For those of you who may have been debating going to the Indulgence Retreat in New Zealand there are a couple of spots left!  Here is a sneak of the class I will be teaching...

Here are the details for the New Zealand retreat....

Finally, I have created another video tutorial for those that are interested.  Hope you enjoy!

 

And here is the LO as it appears completed on the video.

Thanks for stopping by!!  BTW did any of you notice that I have changed my blog banner??  I did it all myself!!  My previous banner was created by the lovely Steph Devlin, but I have decided it is time I learn how to use photoshop more and this is what I created!  Lots of layers later and I have a new banner!  Quite pleased with myself right now!  I am sure I will get better at creating banners in photoshop with more time, but I am quite pleased with my first attempt!