A Creative Life

End of an Era

This week marks the end of an era for me.  5 years of work has been packed up, cleaned up and put away.  Ethan was a 8 month old baby when we opened Scrapbook Station, now he is half-way through his first year of school!  When I think of it like that, 5 years is quite a while, but it just feels like the blink of an eye.  I havent even digested how I feel about it all. Part of me is relieved that the shutting down process is over, but there is a part of me that feels a little lost. I just feel blank, I somehow think I should feel something, because nothingness is so empty, but I guess I just need to give it time to all sink in and let my new life take hold.  I will definately miss the people that i have had the pleasure of getting to know over the years that is for sure.

In the spirit of a new era, I am going to have two days to myself this coming week!!  Tuesday and Friday during school hours!!  Now that is something to really look forward to.  It is a very rare thing to not be at the beck and call of a toddler, but she will be safely in childcare and I will be able to revel in the quiteness of the house (possibly broken by the sound of snoring as Paul will be sleeping in the day as he is working nights!)  Of course this means no loud housework, so I see some scrapbooking coming on this week!!  I NEED this break, I am feeling a little frazzled and in need of some R&R.  I think the prospect of 5 kids is playing very heavily on me, especially the inability to have time to myself and the sheer emotional drain of the prospect of dealing with 5 individuals that are going to be NEEDING me in some way.  Breathe.......I can manage.....I have to! LOL!!

I have a couple of layouts to share for this week.  Firstly my take on CCG #127 up at Color Combos Galore which was chosen by Janet and reminds me of an icecream shop!

  

You can only just tell in this picture, but poor little Kaitlyn had a black eye from jumping off the couch and hitting her head on her little sofa and she also had a bruised lip from face planting that very morning.  Yes she is in her PJ's and that is bed hair!! LOL!!  I was having a little play with new lighting and after about 6 shots I thought, hang on, get this girl dressed and cleaned up if you are taking pictures of her!  But I must say, printing in B&W sure hides a multitude of sins and i really love this photo of her!  The layout is made from 4 different napkins modpodged onto white card and then used as normal printed paper.  The idea of just using napkins for the layout was my creative inspiration.  The punched border was very easy to do and was inspired by a layout that fellow Prima Flower Girl, Jo-Anne did for the Prima blog, I just thought I would back mine with another piece of cardstock for rigidity and added the brads into the corners for a bit more finish!  To get the even spacing when punching this border you just need to use your ruler guides on your punch and start punching at the same point  each time. Super easy and such a pretty effect!

I also had a Wedding LO up on the Prima Blog.  Going back a while ago I said how I was able to get my wedding negatives from my photographer....well this is one of the shots taken (it was actually taken by his wife on a normal film camera, and I have had all these negatives burnt to CD. His shoots are all in medium format so I cant just take the negs to my local rabbit store and have them converted, I have to take them to a specialty photographic place to have these done, so as yet not done!!) I do love this shot, just before we locked lips, much more romantic than a full slobber shot! LOL!!

  Nearly all the delightful flowers on this layout are the brand new releases from Prima. I absolutely ADORE the trellis roses and gallery roses!!  I have to confess I love the excuse to use lots of flowers on layouts!!  This layout is soooooo textural IRL and I cant help but think it would be lovely in a frame on the wall.

In matters totally unrelated to scrapbooking....I have been baking up a cookie storm!  Ever since I discovered Nic Wood posted a choc chip cookie recipe over on her blog I have been baking batch after batch of these babies!  The kids gobble them up in no time at all and they are wonderful to add to a school lunch as their snack!  But of course, I had to get to playing, so I used the basic recipe and then made a couple of adjustments for different flavours.  So instead of adding the dark choc chips like I usually would I made a batch with Roasted almonds, dried apricots and white chocolate chip! These are Pauls favourite.  Then for me, I made a batch with dark chop chips, glace cherries, and peanuts!  Oh these are divine, like a rocky road cookie!  So if you are feeling cookie inspired, jump over to Nics blog for the original recipe and have a play, let me know if you come up with some of your own wonderful mixtures!!

Well, there is housework to do that is calling me....it really does get in the way at times! TFL!

DH is Finally my Age Again!!

 Yes, he does enjoy giving me heaps that I am an older woman than him.  Doesnt usually bother me, but I just know as the big 40 approaches he will not let me live it down when I reach that milestone 4 months before he does!!  Well, Today marked his birthday, and the poor guy has to work late shift so we had a get together with some friends on Sunday night. 

I made a 'fancy' cake for him!  OK, I do a lot of cooking but never fancy!  I am a strong believer in healthy, tasty, easy to prepare food.  So when I usually make a cake it is quite low in fat, still very tasty, and doesnt take long to make.  The cake I made for Pauls birthday took ALL day!!  For starters, it had a shortcrust base, so there was an hour chilling time of the pastry style dough before I could roll it out and cook it (the base).  Then there were the 3 trays of sponge (like if you were making a swiss roll) and that had to then be set aside to cool.  Not to mention the OMG look at how much butter is in this....buttercream that was spread across the strips of chocolate sponge before they were rolled to create a circular centre of layers of buttercream and chocolate sponge to the cake, followed by another hour in the fridge before the final touches could be put on, such as roasted flaked almonds around the outside edge and chocolate swirls on top!  Lavish! 

OK, I know this is a bit sad, but I had to photograph it first!!  So here is my creation...

 For the record, it is actually a lot harder to get a good picture of a cake than you would think.  Paul took heaps of pics and this one was probably the one I like the most.  It tasted pretty good too, but oh so rich, 1 piece was definately enough!!

Had another play with the camera on Saturday.  Still ironing out kinks, but I was not very patient that morning so the pics came to a sudden end  when the subjects were revolting against me!  Not that they were revolting but rather they revolted against me and wouldnt sit where I wanted them for pics, or smile nicely, or basically co-operate.!!!   But I did create a LO for Prima using one of the pics. A layout for Fathers Day as it was on Sunday in the US, unlike here where September ironically falls 9 months before Mothers Day in May!!

As can be seen Miss K insisted upon lying down instead of sitting upright!  I had to compromise as the only other good pic of them all together, she had a blue ball in her mouth!!  She knew she was bugging me and she liked it!!  This was also the 2nd to last layout I HAVE to do this month!!  So I am greatly relieved to only have to do one more, and that one is a sketch challenge, so part of the work is already done for me! YAY!!

Here are a couple of other photos taken on Saturday of the family>

  This makes it pretty self evident that they were a very mischevious bunch this day!  On the up side I have some pictures that really capture their personalities!!

I also have a LO in this months For Keeps.  The colour in the mag is really off and makes the layout look very very dull, but IRL it has so much sparkle to it!  It is a bit frustrating when the image in the magazine looks so average compared to the actual LO.  It was a monochromatic LO, the first and only one I have ever made as I usually love to have contrast. I added a lot of kindy glitz to the paper leaf cutouts but that is hard to notice in pics.

 

On Monday I had a lovely visit from Steph and Madison. The girls were a bit suspicious of each other at first but they soon warmed up and had a bit of a play while Steph and I looked at each others layouts, discussed flower storage and had coffee (or hot chocolate) over cake and bickies!  We were also joined by Lydell as well, so it was really lovely!  We were able to update our pics of the girls together, which is no small feat these days since the two of them seem to have an objection to being in the same spot for very much time!!  At first I didnt think  I had been able to get many good pics at all but when I went to edit them, there were several cute ones!

  Of course I had to share a couple of Miss K as well!!  And just so you are under no illusions that this very cute little girl is always happy.....how about a shot mid tantrum!!

Oh the joys of motherhood!  I picked her up after this and took her immediately to bed!  There were no objections, in fact I think she was relieved!  She then slept for over 2 hours, I had to wake her up to pick the others up from school! 

This was my 3rd time playing with my new lights and I have to say I am working a little bit out at a time, but I just love the flexibility it offers! 

I am also very excited as we were told today that brand new CHA Prima samples are on their way to us for making LO's to showcase at CHA!!  I have never created anything for CHA before so this is hugely exciting.  Not to mention getting the product before it has been released!  But you guys will just have to keep checking the Prima Blog during July for little updates! Oh so exciting. I just cant wait!!

TFL!

She is Almost 2??!!

 Sometimes I just cant believe that my little girl is only a month of being a 2 year old!  Mind you with all that hair, people often think she is older.  She definately has the toddler tantrums down pat these days which can be quite frustrating, but the overall cute factor outweighs these not so pleasant attributes!  This little miss has so much personality, she has learnt the finer arts of facial expressions. she can manipulate with a smile, give the perfect angry eyes, sullen and sulky is in the repitoire as well, but the cutest thing of late is the pursed lip, I cant believe it look she is giving us!  Just too funny!

She is quite the talker too.  She repeats anything you say, so extra care has to be taken now if Paul and i are talking and she is around.  I learnt this the hard way, or funny way depending upon perspective!  The other thing that cracks me up is when the radio is on in the car and she starts to sing the songs, often just picking out a couple of words and singing them repeatedly!  She loves songs that contain repetition of words as that helps the whole process!  When she gets excited and wants to tell us lots all at once her language skills deteriorate into baby babble, so she needs to slow down to communicate more efectively, but time will develop that skill.

Miss K has also discovered how to pull off her clothing and put other clothes on!!  This must be a girly trait as the boys never got into this!  They would take all there clothes off and leave them off, but for Miss K it is about changing into something new!!  This could become very frustrating.  She does get very annoyed if she gets stuck in the process and has a minor melt down.  We have to help her untangle herself and the meltdown stops!

On the scrapping front, I was feeling overwhelmed with all that I had to get done this month, so I literally went crazy getting everything in order!  I ended up scrapping 5 LO's last week, most of which I cant show until later in the month but it feels so good to have it done!!  I finally feel on top of things!  I still have 3 LO's to do, but that is quite managable.  I probably didnt have any more than usual, but sometimes it just feels like a lot more in your head!! Go figure!!

I can show the latest layout for Color Combos!  I loved the combo for this week, But when I went to find coral, green, grey and vanilla, well, I only had a couple of choices of paper that were coral in colour.  In the end it worked perfectly with my pregnancy pics, hence this layout evolved!

 

I also had a boy layout up on the Prima blog this week.  Just a fun one about Cameron growing like a weed!  He is the only one of my boys that has not inherited the genetic condition I am a carrier for and I am pretty sure he will end up over 6ft tall.  He is up in the 90th percentile for height relative to age.  It just makes me realise at times how much I wish I didnt carry that faulty X chromosone, but that is just the sucky thing about genetics!  Cameron just seems to have been the only lucky one and for him I am so greatful, just wish it could have been the same for the other boys. Anyhow.... here is the LO.

  The little deer and mushrooms are from a Kitshy Digital kit. Arent they just adorably cute!!!  I always find embellishing boy layouts difficult, so keeping an eye out for digital stuff can often help!

I also got a box of brand spanking new Prima flowers that I purchased, in this week.  Oh the joy!  Already scrapped a layout using some of them and I absolutely love the new trellis roses!  Hopefully it wont be too long and I can show you the layout with all the new yumminess on it!  LOTS of flowers on it! But I had to play with them!!!!  Which technically means I only have 2 more LO's that have to be done this week, since I started drafting this post a couple of days ago!! YAY!! Finally feeling on top of it all.

TFL!

 

Practicing!

I have been having some fun with my (DH and my. hehehe!) new lights!  I definately need a good backdrop, but just for practicing purposes I threw a waffle blanket over a lounge chair!!  I am discovering that I really do need  to set up my 3rd light for a bit of backlighting as I am getting a bit of shadowing behind the subjects or maybe play some more with the intensity of the lights! My major issue with these are the greyness of the waffle blanket, that is why they call it practice, and I am not a professional photographer at all, so I will cut myself some slack while trying to figure it all out!  But it is fun to be able to take pics on a rainy day and not have to worry about that awful yellow tinge with dark black background poking through!! So here are the pics from my very first play.....

  Yes, I was so eager to try out the lights Miss K is still in her PJ's, complete with bed hair!! And the boys are no different! LOL!  But 2 of them think that boxer shorts count as PJ's!! Gee these two are quite the characters at times.  You have to wonder if they love each other or absolutely hate each other here!!!  I think it was friendly from where I was behind the lens!!!

 

I realised at this point that I really should make them go and get themselves presentable!! I mean, as fun as these pics are, I would prefer them to be a little bit more groomed looking!!  Except for the shiner that Miss K is sporting!!!  She may one day learn that jumping off the sub-woofer onto her little couch can result in bodily harm!! She even managed to cut her lip right before I started taking pics!!

  Cop the expression here!!! LOL!!

 Kaitlyn is just addicted to her stuffed doggies!!  She has plenty, well many were the boys but she thinks they are all hers.  Only problem is going through the shops and she wants every stuffed dog toy she sees!! She has also worked out that those pressy things on some stuffed toys make them speak!  Oh the fun in that!!

And here is Mr Cute himself!  I got so many great shots of this little guy!  I mean the expression in his face the big blue eyes, the air of mischief that surrounds him..... perfect little photographic model!

  See what I mean by little Mr Expression!!

Got a couple of good shots of Lachlan too!!

 

But Cameron was totally unco-operative! Insisting upon pulling stupid faces and acting silly all the time!  This is the best I could get of him by himself!!  Yeah, really, that WAS THE BEST I could get of him!!! Spare me the aggrevation kid!!!!

 

Getting them all together was quite a challenge as well.

 

I still need to iron out some exposure kinks and how far back to set up the lights so the subjects dont get too washed out looking. But hey, that is why you practice!!  I like my pics pretty light and airy but I do tend to over-expose them a little, which I dont mind but probably isnt so good in technical terms!

This week was my turn for the DT pick of colours on Color Combos Galore!  I really did something out of the ordinary!!  Not bright pretty colours at all!  I think it may have shocked quite a few people that I would have gone with such heavy colours!  Hey I shocked myself!!  But there has been so much pretty colour schemes that I seem to be continually doing pages for Kaitlyn and I knew I had to change things up and force myself to do a boy LO!!  So..... here is my layout and combo!!

 

See, I told you it wasnt colours I would ordinarily pick! But hey, I made a boy LO!!! TFL!

Studio Lights - Finally!!

Well, DH and I have talked about getting some studio lights for quite some time....in fact we could say a couple of years but then you would realise the procrastination that can be found in our family!!  In fact for the past couple of major events, ie Christmas and Birthday I have kept telling him it is building up for these lights!!  Problem is we never felt like we had enough money to just go out and buy the jolly things!!  Well, we bit the bullet a couple of weeks ago, and now have a set of studio lights!  There is only one problem, it works perectly with Pauls Nikon D200 but not with my D50! DOH!!!  Paul says he can work something out for making it work with my camera as I find his camera to be a beast!!!  I know it is a lot better than mine from a technical standpoint but it weighs a ton and I just like the feel of mine IYKWIM.  So now I am waiting for Monday (a public holiday here) when both Paul and I have the day off so he can teach me how to use the jolly things and then I am going to have to PLAY!!  I am really looking forward to trying my hand at some lovely Newborn shots when the baby comes along, so I have a few months up my sleeve to get some experience!

On the scrapping front.... well I have a few LO's to share!  We had a challenge over on Color Combos Galore with some lovely subtle colours.  At first I was very unsure of using these colours as I am such a contrast girl, but I kept it vintage in feel and I think it worked!

  

See what I mean by the combo being very subtle!! The floral papers were so very old! A really old Bo Bunny paper I had actually cut up for another challenge but not used and an old Anna Griffin paper.  I actually found a piece of sheet music online and printed it onto the butter coloured paper as I desperately wanted music note paper on my Layout and since 7Gypsies discontinued my all time favourite sheet music paper (along with heaps of fabulous text papers) I have struggled to find anything i like as much!!

I also had a couple of layouts up on the Prima blog this week.  Firstly, Junes Build a Page LO.  Now this one is BRIGHT!!!  I have done so many Prima layouts that I have used up most of the papers they have sent me and have to work out ways of making pages from my scraps!  I actually like the challenge, but sometimes it means I am limited to what I can create.  Hanging out for my next box of goodies, let me tell you!! So make sure you have your sunnies on for this next LO!!

 

This one went up today on the blog. It is one of my favourite layouts that I have created this year.  For some reason I just love it.

One of the reasons could be the beautiful vivid colours of the morning song collection!  Sadly this collection has now gone into the retired section of the Prima site and one of my favourite papers is all sold out at Prima, so that is the last of it!! It is such a joyful and pretty colour scheme and the floral paper caught my eye from the first time I saw layouts posted on 2peas using it!  Can't wait until CHA to see what the new Prima papers will look like! 

I have also been lusting after the tiny Prima roses and gypsophila (spelling??).  I haven't found an Australian distributor of Prima who stocks them, so I bit the bullet and purchased some directly from Prima the other week as I just adore using them in floral clusters.  I have the following colours (I didnt get all I ordered as there were a few out of stocks).

Antique Berry Gypso

Antique Rose Gypso

Fuschia Gypso

Lipstick Gypso

Off White Gypso

I have broken up the packages as there are 100 flowers in a package and if you want some I have them in bunches of 10 for $0.50.  They are really adorable.

Burgundy Mini Roses

Off White Mini Roses

Sage Green Mini Roses

Again,they do come in packages of 100 flowers each but I have split it up in bunches of 10 flowers for $1.50. Each rose is no bigger than a 5cent piece. I sooo wish the pinks and blues I had ordered came in but I guess I will just have to wait for them.  If you are interested in any of these just shoot me an email (link at top of page under profile pic).

Have a great long weekend everyone and tfl!