more pages

It's always a challenge getting multiple photos on to one layout but I like to slice and chop to make them fit. The first one is such a great reminder of my Auntie Shirl's house and garden in Melbourne where I visited last month for my cousin's wedding. So glad I have these photos since she plans to move soon.

Materials: Bazzill cardstock (kraft), Kaisercraft paper, Versa Colour ink, American Crafts ribbon, Staz On ink, date stamp, Zig Writer

journalling: Manda and I flew into Melbourne on Virgin took a dodgy cab to Auntie Shirl's and accompanied her to an auction (house went for $500k). We were shocked to hear she and Ken may sell the house - the house she and her first husband Barry built more than 50 years ago! She has the most beautiful garden and I will miss it. It inspired me to have my own beautiful garden.

Below: I punched many photos with my 2" square punch to fit these on one layout. It's a great reminder of that night.Journalling reads: Almost all Shirl's family came that evening to see us and celebrate Phil's 50th. The boys caused a small fire playing with candles during Earth Hour and entertained each other with ghost stories. 5.30 til midnight. Auntie Shirl can sure make a feast.

Double scrapbook layout share

Click on photo for a larger view.

For a pretty simple layout this one was weeks in the making. Not really, it's just that I was too chicken to get the sewing machine out and finish off with some stitching. Since I'd had to take the machine back to the repairer, I really lost my confidence. Anyway, it was all the worth the wait as the machine is working just fine. I really had fun with the stitching.

Supplies: Bazzill Cardstock (kraft), Bella paper, Versa Colour ink (sky blue), gingham material, ric rac, felt, stitching, used carpark ticket, American Crafts ribbon, date stamp, Staz On ink, foam cut title, crinkle machine, Fiskars punch, Copic black multiliner.

Journalling reads: 1. Pa cuts the cake (made by Nan) after the speeches, 2. Daddy c hats to Sid; 3. Tasmin discovers nan's clever folding mirror dressing table; 4. and has a cuddle with Nan; 5. Tas loves dressing up with Nan's beads (a tradition started by cousin Daniel); 6. Angus, Daddy, Barbara and Tasmin near Pa's birthday card collection; 7. Pa's game of Boules (circa 1950's?); played outside by children; 8. Angus was getting tired for his nap by the late afternoon; 9. time for one quick photo with Pa. It was a lovely celebration and Mummy enjoyed being the "official" photographer.

Wedding mini book

Making mini albums like this is a great example of how doable it is to make something cute when there isn't much time. I used my Bind it all to make the book - that took about 20 minutes, after cutting 12" paper into 6" squares and then binding them with recycled cardboard from packaging around the house. The cover is just some patterned paper adhered on with a little ribbon and hand written title. I scanned in the card I made and stuck it on the first page. I decided to use only two or three stamps throughout the album to keep it simple, in the same colour (Tim Holtz antique linen and Staz On black). The rest is doodled with my pen.

A bit of the boarding pass...

The tag from my bolero jacket...

My sister's baby bump...

The lovely couple and my horded confetti...

The place card...

There are many more pages but you get the idea. I'll post a link to the finished album later. Just need to print a couple more photos and finish with a little more stamping. Oila!

Favourite photo of the week

Favourite photo of the week

The children are so mesmerised with bubbles.

With a visitor in the house this week, the whole routine went out the window and that coupled with a disappointment from someone who should know better meant I felt very unmotivated and down with a migraine by Friday. I stayed in bed til late in the morning as Ian kindly stayed home for me. What I am really grateful for is two things: my camera (Canon 500D) and my project 365. Whatever happens, no matter how little scrapping or art I manage in the week, at least I can take my photo a day and make a double page every week with the photos. It's so DOABLE. By the afternoon, when I felt more motivated, Ian tackled some filing and I played the game: shuffle-our-money-around-using-internet-banking til everything was restored to normality again. I even managed to put away the clean clothes collection that had been starting to grow and multiply.

So after swimming this morning what shall I do? I think I'll finish the projects sitting on my desk for a week: a double layout from Pa's 80th and the mini book from Melbourne which I wish I'd never started. Don't think I want to do mini books anymore. I'd rather tell my stories in layouts I think. I've decided to cheat and use only the wedding photos to make it a wedding mini book adn the other photos I'll scrap in a layout.

weekend stuff and The New Schedule

Ho ho, I was allowed out all day yesterday - well from 11am til 5pm. What to do? Scrapbook shopping. I spent my birthday voucher on mainly papers and pretty ribbon, at my fave shop Seriously Scrapbooking then went to Spotlight to spend another discount voucher on a new American crafts album for the 365 project. Yes, it was necessary. The albums I have, the Grant Archival snap lock type, really only happily hold about 25 page protectors before they unsnap. So, we'll see how it goes. Not sure if I'll find the D-rings too instrusive yet. I also bought lots of little stuff including some coloured felt to decorate Angie's hat. The dark blue hat is so dull. Why do they make little boys' clothing in such dull colours?

So far I'm sticking to my new scrapping schedule. I bought a few papers for my sister's baby album. How about that - the baby isn't due til July and I am being unusually organised. I would typically wait til June then it would be a last minute panic. I'm finding the schedule is a great idea. If you allow months for a project, then it doesn't matter so much when you miss days and nights here and there. I've even completed two pages so far. Still working on a 'current' layout which I'll try and finish tomorrow.

Uploading my 365 photos then sneaking off for an earlyish night. xoxoxoxo

beautiful girl

One current layout:: finished! The original looks better than the scan but you get the idea. I couldn't resist twilling some little flowers. It doesn't take long. The title is just masked under the inks and the flowers and buttons added to the swirly stamp. I'm reasonably happy with it. I think!

Photo of the week

From "day 103" of my 365 project - the babies playing together with a new stockpile from the toy library.

Rain scrapbook page layout

Managed another layout from the September project - i love this one about the rainy day. These pictures bring that day right back as if it was yesterday. It just proves that it doesn't matter if the photos are perfect or not, it's the story that matters. And remembering is bliss!

Yesterday while Tassie was at "Little School" I caught up on the 365 project. I still need to stick a few bits in here and there but that can wait til next week. In the evening I worked on a CURRENT LAYOUT woohoo! It took 5 minutes to choose the cardstock and stick the photos in place, and another three hours messing around with the title and embellishments, which I might add, are all in the corner of the page! The devil is in the detail.

I will post the new layout when it is finished, hopefully sometime today.

A layout from 'photo freedom my way'

I'm calling this the 'Photo Freedom My Way' project. I have some photos from September all ready to scrap. Some layouts will be for the general family album 2009, the rest will go into the babies' albums.

The tricky thing with this particular layout was working with images from the mobile phone camera. I went through a phase last year of using it to take photos at unexpected times. This year I have the better sense to take the camera with me! But I am grateful to have low quality photos rather than none at all.

Photo freedom my way

I was reading a bit about Julian Stacy's Photo Freedom system on Monica's blog Life Without Filters while I was web surfing rather late last night and felt inspired to have another go at last year's photos. I still feel as compelled as ever to record those stories but needed the simplest way of doing it. So I've printed thumbnail versions of all the photos month by month, then filled a calender with notes of what happened on each day (I've done three months so far). From this I plan to make a single or double layout of each month in an Ali-style grid layout. There was a happy unexpected bonus in all of this. I could see clearly the one or two layouts I was inspired to make for the babies' albums for the month I've started with (September). Ha! There is method in the madness.

I'm currently enjoying the simple layout styles over at Write Click Scrapbook. Telling and recording stories is so important for me. I like the idea of having separate albums: an arty one for me, a scrapbook layout album for the babies, and a straight photo/story 12" album for the everyday stuff. (Thank you 365 project for telling my stories every day. so quick. so easy!) There are loads of other projects which I'm deliberately not mentioning so my head doesn't spin right off.

Tomorrow Mum is coming over and she is going to select some of her favourite childhood photos (I've scanned them all in) which I'll use as the basis of a small heritage 6"x6" mini album for her birthday. No pressure...June!

So grateful that Tas loves painting, drawing, scribbling and sticking. Just like her scrapbooking mother. She spent happy hours today doing all of the above.

I took it easy again today, still struggling with a cough and cold, but did manage to update the 365 project, albeit without the journalling. I've relegated that project to Wednesdays (Tuesdays after next week) when Tas is at "Play School". I plan to upload pictures of the pages next week when the next batch is finished. Sounds like a production line!

more art pages

Art journal

It was a short solo break over Easter (less than 48 hours) but in just one day - starting at 9am and finishing up at around 2am the next morning - I managed 13 page layouts which I was all pretty happy with. Here are most of them, the others I need to add some words to. What a learning experience!

Weekend update

I returned from the Melbourne wedding trip on Tuesday but have had a yucky old cold this week. So I've been sleeping every spare moment I get. Happy to report that I did get the first few pages started on the mini book album from the trip - shouldn't take too long to finish another time. Tomorrow I'm off for my 48 hour parent retreat - solo - as is our little tradition. I'll take the babies to have lunch with Daddy tomorrow then we'll swap.

So here's the plan: I'm going to take lots of paints, inks, white 12" paper, stencils, and others bits n pieces to encourage me to have a bit of a play in my art journal - which is delightfully blank so far. I'm also planning to do some pages for my "it's all about me" album of which there is only one sad lonely little page so far.

The other thing I'm looking forward to doing is filling up my toolbox journal with ideas from the dozens of scrap mags I've dogeared. I never did get around to finishing that from the last solo retreat in December! So looking forward to having lots to upload when I return on Monday.

Have a great Easter :-)