A Creative Life

A Playdate!

This week was the last week of our school holidays!  So it seems it was playdate central!  On Monday it was a quick playdate over at Lydells, so that Ethan and Kaitlyn could play with Denver and Mazzie.  There was a great deal of delighted "noise" coming from the excited children!!

Then on Wednesday it was a playdate for Ethan and Kaitlyn at Stephs house so they could play with Emma and Madison.  Again there was a LOT of excited children noise!  Steph and I really wanted some cute photos of our two little girls together, as we like to keep a photolog of the girls growing up together, but it was challenging this time.  They were all so excited that we could barely get them to co-operate, so hundreds of pictures later, only a few good shots emerged. These are some of those pictures! 

This shot was originally landscape, but I cropped it to portrait as I loved the way the hood and photo was framed this way.  There is no room for a purple aversion with these shots! LOL!

Steph and I had commented the last time we caught up that we needed to take some pictures with the girls with their hooded jackets on. The colours were so rich and delicious together and we were not let down in the high chroma goodness department with these shots!

Seriously, how cute are those two little faces peering out from those hoods!

Group shots proved to be a touch on the crazy side, but how fabulous are all the colours represented here!  No it was not planned and we only noticed it once we started taking pictures of them!

Totally love the composition of this shot.

Back to the sweet little cherubs "hoodless"!

Crazy little characters!

I know that the photos speak otherwise, but Ashton and Cameron were with us as well, but I seriously didn't get a single good shot of either!!  Ashton was so rogue that day, all he wanted to do was stress me out by running along a high rock wall, so rather than take photos, I was running to make sure he didn't fall!  And Cameron? Well he just kept pulling weird faces at me! Grrrrr!!!

On the scrapping front, I have created this Printers Tray and Memory jar for the Aussie Scrap Source blog!  I had heaps of fun creating this and was quite pleased with the results!

I used the new Authentique range to decorate this tray along with lots of Prima and some Martha Stewart doilies.

The memory jar is designed to hold baby hair, teeth and a little growth card to record all those little baby milestones in one pretty place.

Now I am back to a shameless plug of my classes in Brisbane! If you are in Brisbane, or just want an excuse to go to Brisbane in September, I would love to see you at my classes at the Paper Crafts Festival  on the weekend of September 9-11, 2011.  For bookings you can email [email protected]. For more details on the classes you can go here.

Once again thanks for stopping by!

 

Prima LO Tutorial - Reflections Collection

Here is the first tutorial I had up on the Prima Educators blog.

You will need the following Prima Products:

842406  Madeline Collection - Rosalee
842413  Madeline Collection - Parterre
842444  Madeline Collection – Bella Donna
842451  Madeline Collection –Pistachio
842468  Madeline Collection – Parfait
842284  Reflections Collection – Shalimar
842338  Reflections Collection – Shimmer
842352  Reflections Collection – Talavera
841676 Prima Paisley Road – Dandiy
841713 Prima Paisley Road – Assam
841546  So Cute collection – So cute 
548261 Dollhouse Collection – Tuesday
549244  Essentials – Madeline Collection
545895  Pebbles – Madeline collection
544232  Chipboard Alphabet Stickers – white
545406  Alencon Lace
546922  The Fitzgerald Collection – Rosea
531027  Say It in Studs flower Centers
544171  Scrapbook Jewellery – coconut
Backing from old Prima Viola Felt and Clear Prima Packaging 

Other Materials Required:

Glimmermist – Candy Apple Red
Tim Holtz Distress Ink – Walnut Stain
Edge Distressor
Martha Steward Around the Page Punch
Marvy Uchida Scallop Circle Punches
Circle Cutters 6 inches and 5 ¾ inches

Instructions

• Step 1 – Cut 2, 1 inch strips from paper, wet thoroughly with water and press a fold down the centre, unfold and proceed to use your fingers to press/crush the edges on one side to create a circle shape.

• Step 2  – Form the circle shape into a spiral and hold it down to dry with something moderately heavy.  You can quicken the drying time by using  a heat gun.

• Step 3  -  once it is dry, use your fingers to distress the edges and add even greater texture.  I also used distress ink around the edges as well.

 

• Step 4 – Punch a couple of scalloped circles from the red Reflections paper (one 3.5 inches in diameter the other 3 inches). Ink the edges of these scalloped circles and distress slightly.  Then adhere the spiral paper onto your punched scallops (I like to use Helmar 450 Quick Dry adhesive for this) Once it is dry you can sew around the spiral, I used the midfold that I original put into the strip as my guide to sewing.  This firly attaches the textured spiral paper to the scallop circle but adds lots of texture at the same time.  

 

•  Step 5 - Cut 2 circles, one slightly larger than the other using circle cutters, the green Madeline paper, 5 ¾ inches and the Paisley Road Brown paper 6 inches in diametre.  Ink, distress and stick down on top of one another.   
•  Step 6 - Colour your lace using Candy Apple Red Glimmermist and allow to dry before attaching to the back of your circles, once dry sew with your machine around the inside edge of the green circle for additional hold as well as added details.

•  Step 7 - From green Prima Madeline paper, cut 1, 5 inches x 10 ¼ inches. Use a Martha Stewart around the page set for your decorative border.  Cut 1 from Reflections cream with brown spot paper, so it sits just inside your decorative edge but allows a bit of the green to show through.  Ink, distress and stick down in centre of the punched green paper and sew around the edge with your sewing machine.  Cut out your white lace doily’s from the Prima packaging and stick down as shown.   

             

• Step 8 -  From Paisley Road teal paper, cut 1, 2 ¾ inches x 11 inches, ink and distress then stick down through the centre of the first rectangular strip (I used some offcuts in my LO so it doesn’t go all the way across so ignore the funny points!).  Once again sew around the edges.  I have used the backing off some felt viola on top of this paper.  Make sure you use a good craft glue on the shiny side, so the matt side is upward facing. (I used Helmar 450 Quick Dry).  Attach the   smaller of the textured circles as shown.

• Step 9 - Once you have done this you can add your large circle to the top section as shown and your handcut paper flowers, adhere them with pop dots for extra dimension.  I have increased the intensity of the red dollhouse flower by a coating of Candy Apple Red Glimmermist, removed the original centre so I can replace it with a more fancy SIIS.   

• Step 10 -  Finally finish off your LO with photos, butterflies hand cut from Reflections paper and your own title.         

You can see all the wonderful layers of detail here and how much it adds to the overall depth of the layout.

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  I have created a category called tutorials on my blog, so hopefully typepad will play nice and if you want to see all the tutorials you can just click on the tutorial and pull them all up in one spot.

 

 

At It Again!!

So I have been at it again, taking pictures of the Little Miss! Sometimes it is just hard to resist, but I do need to actually ventrue somewhere that includes some really great scenery!  Not just the front and back yard at home!

She is such a little character when I drag out the camera!!

I know this next one is a touch blurry and grainy but I had to use this shot of her jumping! So so cute!

I LOVE this last shot of her! Love the way the wind blew her hair a bit and she has that touselled look.

Love how much fun she is having in these shots and how her hair is flying everywhere!

OK, so you get the idea, I took a lot of photos! LOL!  I am like that, I go for a while without taking any and then I get all inspired to take lots!  

I also become one of "those" Mummies this week!  I have booked Kaitlyn into a 6 week modeling course for 4yo - 7yo's.  Who knows what will happen at the end of the course, if she will get any work or not, but I think she is so photogenic and projects so much personality in her pictures that it is worth a shot.

On the scrapbooking front, I created this canvas a while back and I can share it with you now.  I used a mixture of texture paste and Liquid acryilic Pearlescent paint with a Prima mask to create the background on this LO.  Tossed in some glitter for good measure as well!  I have always loved this picture of Ethan, Kaitlyn and myself, so now it can be hung on the wall at home!

Very soon we will be posting tutorial using some of the new Prima products on the Educators Blog! After any tutorials I have created are shown there, I will also post them on my blog.  Once again, thanks for stopping by!

Prima LO Tutorial

I have decided to share my tutorials here on my blog once they have been shared on the Prima Education Blog.  I actually created this LO using this weeks Color Room Palette and sketch!  I will post my other tutorial that has been shown on the Education blog soon!

Products Used:
841348 - Umbrella Collection "Sweet Talk"
842314 - Reflections Collection  "Mantra"
841867 - Road Trip Collection "Postcards"
841669 - Paisley Road Collection "Panaji"
545581 - Mask
549763 - Mistable
811921 - Letter Perfect Felt Alphabet - Brown
547509 - Lovely Collection Burlap Leaves
536305 - Prima Clear Stamp Text
548858 - Corine Collection
549572 - Aire Collection
537586 - Melange Flowers Blue
Prima Belle Fluer Daisy - Green
Prima Green packaging
Prima Kraft Packaging
Cardboard Box 

Other Products Required:
Circle Punches or dies (plain and scalloped) of various sizes 
Spellbinders Cogs Die
Tattered Angels Glimmermist - Tigerlily
Tim Holtz Distress Ink - Tumbled Glass
Pearlescent Liquid Acrylic Paint 

• Step 1 - Give your striped paper a quick spritz of Tigerlily Glimmermist, and to create the large droplets, unscrew the top and allow the mist to drop from the bottom of the spray stem. Give a little flick if necessary.  Allow to dry and then cut 1/2 an inch off two sides, before inking, distressing and then sticking to the background Reflections blue text paper. 

• Step 2 - Use your mask and some Tim Holtz Distress Ink with the distress tool to rub over the mask onto white card (Janine used the white patch of a "Road Trip" piece of paper she had). Make sure you give it a good coat for plenty of color.  Janine prefers to use the distress inks with the finer designs of the masks as they don't bleed and give a lovely crisp image with no warping of your paper.

• Step 3 - Carefully cut around the outer design of your masked image and set aside for later.
• Step 4 - Cut out a swirl from a Prima Mistable Canvas sheet and color it using a Pearlesent acrylic paint. (Janine used a Daler Rowney Liquid Acrylic paint, shown below, as they wonderful and thin paint with a fabulous coverage.) Once the swirl is dry hand cut around the image.

• Step 5 - Using various size circle Punches (Janine used Spellbinders nestabilities circles and scallop circles) punch out circles and scallop circles from your green packaging, Paisley Road orange paper and Reflections blue text paper.  Ink, distress and then layer on top of each other, finish off by machine or hand sewing around the edge of the inner circle.

• Step 6 - Using some Prima packaging (the older kraft coloured packaging) punch out some cogs (Janine used a spellbinders die for these), then stamp them using Timber brown Stazon and a Prima text Stamp.  Then cover them with a coat of Glossy Accents or any other clear dimensional fluid and allow to dry.

• Step 7 - Tear back some cardboard and tear into a roundish shape.  I used my masked image to create a guide for where I wanted to tear as I wanted it slightly larger than the mask. (I often keep sheets from boxes I receive with scrapbooking supplies in them!)  Then layer your circles and the cardboard onto your background page.

• Step 8 - Use a scallop cut out from green packaging and a circle from Reflections blue text paper to create a decorative frame for your photo.  Once again I used my cirlces and scallop circle Spellbinderz dies) Layer these elements onto your masked cut out and stick down as shown.

• Step 9 - Finish off by layering all your elements and create a flower cluster. (the small flowers were enhanced using the same Tigerlilly glimmermist used on the background paper).  Add your title and journaling (mine was printed onto transparency).

The page is filled with color and a "fresh" feel to suit the image of her "watered down" son!

I added some stickles to the leaves of the green flower for added sparkle.

I like to curl the edges of my handcut elements up slightly to add more dimension.

Thanks for stopping by!  This tutorial was brought to you by:

 

 

 

Best Plans

The saying goes that the best laid plans go astray!!  Well that is what happened this weekend!  You see, for a couple of months we have had a trip booked for the 3 eldest boys and DH to go across to the Melbourne Motor Show.  Part of it was their birthday present.  It was a bit of a big deal as Ethan had never been on  a plane before and Lachlan and Cameron couldn't really remember, so they were really looking forward to the trip.  Well Paul and the boys were up at 4am on Saturday morning and out the dorr just after 4.30am to go to the airport for their 6am flight!  Imagine my surprise when I hear the front door open just before 8am and they all come back inside!!!  Tiger Airways had been grounded that morning for over a week!!!! Paul looked into other flights but we just couldn't afford to fork out another $800 for airfares and that was just one way!  He had thought about driving across with the boys but decided he was just too tired as he had worked to midnight then up at 4am and had only had 3 hours sleep!

Yep, I got the subtle hint!  Would I go across with them so I could drive some of the way!!  Soooo, by 9.30am I was suddenly on my way with Paul and now, 5 kids to Melbourne for a 9 hour drive!    To their credit Kaitlyn and Ashton were relatively well behaved since in the rush of leaving there was no time to ensure we had plenty of things for them to play with! On the bright side, I got to catch up with my best friend Kym and her family.  The kids were sooooo super excited (Ashton & Kaitlyn as the others stayed with Paul at another friends house, 7 people bombarding one persons home is a lot to ask, so the divide and conquor approach works well!).  

The boys had an absolute blast at the Motor Show, despite the "Ethan Saga"!!!!  Paul and the 2 eldest boys were looking at some cars while Ethan and our friend Malcolm looked at another car.  Ethan had just got out of the car and he said he just wanted to look at the front of it while Malcolm sat in the car!  When poor Malcolm got out, lo and behold there was no Ethan, he had disappeared!  They all looked everywhere for him but couldn't find him!  By this time the guys were so worried and they went to get an annoucement made if anyone had seen him.  Luckily a staff member there had spotted that Ethan was looking lost and had delivered him to organisers!!!  I am SOOOO Glad I he was fine and also that I didn't have to experience this, only hear about it!

Now I can share a couple of LO's with you that i did a while back, but could not share at that time.

I have wanted to scrap this photo for a while now but never quite found the inspiration.  Poor Ashton was so jaundice in this shot and looks oh so red but that was what he was like then, so it is a reminder to me of that time. 

I created the mats under the photo by wrapping lace around them and then spraying with glimmermist. The texture in this LO is wonderful.

And another boy LO, seem to be doing more of them lately!

Love this picture of Ashton!  This was pre-haircut, the little curls are still evident just behind his ear!  Now he has a no 3 all over due to his hair-cut misadventure with his sister and even that short doesn't entirely take out the moth eaten look!

So, in my previous post I alluded to the fact that I had more photos to share of Kaitlyn!!  Now just remember it was her idea that I had to take photos of her!!  I am not a bossy Mummy, forcing her for photo shoot after photo shoot, she was asking, I HAD to oblige!

You get the idea!! This little girl knows how to work the camera! 

Lastly, a blatant plug for my classes in Brisbane!! If you are in Brisbane, or just want an excuse to go to Brisbane in September, I would love to see you at my classes at the Paper Crafts Festival  on the weekend of September 9-11, 2011.  For bookings you can email [email protected]. For more details on the classes you can go here.

Sneak of my class LO