Arty scrapbook layout

This page was inspired by Louise Nelson's style, but instead of Glimmermist (on my wish list) I tried Kaisercraft's aubergine acrylic paint and flicked like mad with a toothbrush over a mask (but from a magazine image). Lots of fun, more like this to come I reckon.

Recycled cardboard photo frame

I wanted to see if I could make a frame from an old recylced box - it already had a fold just like a book spine so it does make a good frame. I need a bit of practise covering with cardboard with paper though LOL! The air bubbles are hidden with patterned paper. It will be nice and light to post but forgot to keep it under the A4 size when I was making it. Funny how we forget the practicalities when we're in the creative zone!

New "Scrapbooking toolbox" books

I am constantly inspired by ideas for scrapbooking in magazines and online, but can only seem to retain small bits n pieces in my memory. So, I decided to create a toolbox of ideas, a "cheatsheet" if you will. I reached for one of my dearest friends, the Zutter bind-it-all. And went a bit crazy yesterday, making 3 books. I was only going to make 2, but then realised the second one would be way too thick for my 3/4" O-ring.

There's one book for my enormous list of project ideas - it has about 10 pages, each page with a heading:

12" albums

8" albums

Babies mini-projects

blog and digital art

DVD projects

art, literary, photo journals

off-the-page projects and gifts

Scanning

Sewing and fabrics

zutter binding projects

I just want to make sure I at least make a start on these these year, and finish a few if I can. The toolbox book is split into two parts, one with ideas for "journalling, layouts and titles". The other is everything else: collage, colours, embellishments, fabrics, paint and inking, paper piecing, photography. Love binding books!

stamped card

I have a huge collection of these lovely vintage brown cards so I can make quick and simple ones, my favourite style for cards. It's more of a challenge stamping on brown though.

One more scrapbooking layout

Right now I feel COMPELLED to do some pages with 2009 photos. There wasn't enough oportunities to complete current pages last year, as I was preoccupied with scrapping layouts about my lovely Dad.

Here's my latest page using - yes - the new square punch. I was inspired by a Cheryl Ametewee layout for this one.

christmas cards scrapbook page layout

I am so delighted with my christmas-card collage layout, another idea borrowed from Ali Edwards. After much thought, I decided to go out on a limb and buy a square punch. Like Ali and many other scrappers, the story is the most important thing to me about scrapbooking and sometimes you need more than one photo for that. And photos on a page take up lots of room...So I am happy to be able to recommend the EK Success 2" square punch.

After being warned about the dangers of using these type of punches (the cheaper and less reliable brands are almost impossible to use without standing on them!) I was nervous. But this one works really well on photos and cardstock, no problem. I was looking for the Marvy Uchida at Camelot but couldn't find it, so happily this one is just as good. Hooray!

My DH is very nervous now that he will come into the Tardis one day and find squares punched through all his stuff.

What can I see - the square punch is. VERY. addictive!

I also bought a Fiskars scallop punch and love the lacy effect.

Postcards from Paris shadow box

I had a bit of fun last Saturday at my local scrap shop, Seriously Scrapbooking, with Jane Tregenza's little shadow box made with the 'Postcards from Paris' range from Websters pages. I am keeping the bottom right hand corner free for a little photo, but can't decide yet what to put there. I'm thinking of a little girl - maybe me!

Past family treasures

Each year in the bushfire season I worry about the family photo albums. Even used to have an idea I would grab several albums and put them in the car, before evacuating! But since having two babies, plus the cat to consider, it's obvious this would never do.

So. This year I decided to do something. Following our crazy heatwave in Adelaide this past week, of temperatures over 40degrees C, I decided it was time to enact the master plan, and commence scanning photos from albums. This will be a massive task when you consider all the pre-digital photo days. There's a fair few photos in this category, not all in albums either. My sister looks after several albums and photo bundles from our Darwin childhood days, so I will gradually scan in photos from her collection, then mine. We're doing regular back ups to the hard drive at the moment, too, so at least we can grab that if and when the time comes. I hope it never does.

I love the chance to look at these photos, some of which I don't even remember seeing before. I am gonna have so much fun scrapping them, but I have to remember, this is the babies' year, and I really want to get their baby albums done first. Mine can wait, although it might be fun to start on a few during the year. Plus I love the idea of combining my old photos with ones of the babies to compare how similar we look! I love seeing this in the work of other scrappers.

me with Dad

me with Mum

me with Dad (on the flower power sheets he remembered)

me in yellow bonnet

me with Dad

me with Grandma, bless her

the hybrid album and my first (paper) sewing project

I am terribly excited. Here it is...the hybrid album! (slip-in-pocket album meets scrapbooking album).

Let me explain. It's a regular slip-in pocket photo album, but combined with some scrapbooking. I just looked at the pockets as individual scrapbook pages. Here's why...

I realised that with up to 200 or more photos for this project, and with dozens of other scrapbooking projects waiting for attention, I would have to prioritise. I mean, Tasmin is approaching 3 and I haven't done any layouts for her album yet, or Angus. But I digress.

I wanted to make an album for my sister as a Christmas present and knew I would only have a few nights to complete it. So this was my approach...

Night 1: first, I recorded the time and date each photo was taken - they were all from the last 12 months, but the time and date really helped to write the story.

Night 2: with a pencil and notebook, I worked out how to fit 170 or so photos into the album that would fit 200, so there would be spaces here and there. I kept the photos in singles, pairs, or groups of three or four. So each page contains at least one photo.

Night 3: I created little title blocks, an idea borrowed from an Ali Edwards mini-project(click here to see a similar project), to fill in many of the gaps. I used the same colour and style for almost all of these.

Night 4: Where there were single vertical photos on pages, I gently removed the plastic page protectors with a plastic ruler, and rubber stamped flourishes for embellishment directly on to the white paper background, keeping it simple and sticking to the same stamps. Where there were vertical photos to slip in a pocket, I trimmed them to fit, and sewed a small piece of patterned paper and ribbon to fill the gap. That was fun! I also stamped or wrote directly on some of the photos.

Night 5: I used the lines in the middle of the album to do the journalling. I also included a date stamp, to show the progression of time, as I wanted the story of the year told chronologically.

Amazing. One whole beautiful album completed in just five nights. That is my new record.

P.S. just for the record... the hybrid album term was coined by DH, so credit where credit is due. And second, by 'nights' I mean until well after midnight...

2010 wordle

A word for 2010

I've taken inspiration from Ali Edwards again and tried hard these last few days to think of a word for 2010. Her word for this year is STORY and last year it was NURTURE. I needed a word that would cover all my main concerns for the new year, not just my addictive need for scrapbooking . I cheated a bit and looked at the long list of words that Ali's readers had come up with for 2009. I talked with DH and he decided it would be a good idea for him to find a word for himself. So the word he decided on is RENEWAL. My word is TREASURE.

I like this word - look at these definitions -
1. Accumulated or stored wealth in the form of money, jewels, or other valuables
2. Valuable or precious possessions of any kind
2. One considered especially precious or valuable
v. treasured, treasuring, treasure
1. to keep or regard as precious; value highly.
2. To accumulate and store away, as for future use

Treasure applies to the completed albums, books, pages or cards I make...
Treasure is how I want to view (time with) my children...
Treasure is the goal I have set for next year, to reach my goal weight...

There are lots of other things I want to achieve but these will be my top 3 priotities this year.
If I could choose one other word it would definitely be SLOW. As in slow down. I put a post-it note in my study this year which says Go Slow! Don't rush around like a maniac. That little note made a bit difference.

Christmas 2009

Adventure list

It's been a bit of a downer this week, with both the kids sick, and DH having chronic back pain and endless trips to the GP over the past few weeks. My scrap desk is piled high with 'stuff' that needs organising, my christmas cards are sitting in a corner waiting for me to finish making them and I can't find my mojo.

However I took a positive step last night and make myself not so much a 'to do' list but an 'adventure' list for 2010. I picked up my sewing machine yesterday - Mum's old Elna from the 1960's - and it's in good working order, ready to work. I actually am not a sewer...yet. But I plan to change that! My list contains all the scrap and sewing projects that I want to try and at least start, if not finish, next year and I've created a word file that sits on my computer desktop. So no more scraps of paper floating around and getting lost.

I am planning to make a little mini-book, with sections, each one will be labelled "scrap book projects", "mini books" etc and each time i complete a project, I will add it to the little book and write a little about the process. I got this idea from Elise Blaha's blog - i love the idea of changing a daunting to-do list into something inspiring and tempting, with something to show for it at the end. (also thinking of making a toolbox mini-book which I can add techniques and ideas to). More and more, I'm loving the idea of creating mini books with my Zutter Bind-it-all. I love the idea from Creativity Prompt for completing mini projects, rather than just page layouts, which seem to take me hours to do. I love a quicker way of doing things.

The fence - Dad's childhood home at Bairnsdale, then and now

It was naughty, but when we were visiting Bairnsdale, to see my Dad's childhood home, my sister and Auntie Shirley, and the others along with us, snuck into the backyard - it was wide open - and took some pics. I hope there was noone at home! I just had to see the fence. All the family photos were taken here. It's a sacred place.

200+ holiday photos to scrap

So, back from the road trip and it's a bit daunting having so many photos. I've been through them tonight and managed to cut about 70 so that brings it down to about 130. Most of those will be printed as 2"x3" otherwise the album will be way too huge. I've been reading Ali Edwards' Life Artist book - it's very inspiring for those of us who try and scrap way too many photos and are always behind because of it. I want to keep up with things as they happen...I can't believe I still haven't started the babies' albums yet. Embarrassed to admit how many unfinished projects there are (Though I'd rather that, don't mind the idea of a work-in-progress).

I really love the 8" by 8" size album for special projects - there was Dad's album (first ever completed project), then the zoo book (not yet finished). I think, after much agonising about what to do, I will go and get some page projectors which I will mix with envelopes and cardstock, and bind the result. I plan to make a fabric cover. I'm not a sewer at all so watch this space. My sewing machine has been in for servicing and ready to be picked up. It's my Mum's old Elna Lotus from the 1960's and I love that it was hers (vintage) and that it's portable. Electric, happily.

Photos from the week

In lieu of scrapbooking layouts, i have been taking the usual amount of photos this week with our inadequate little camera, and thought I'd share them. My ideas for scrapbooking layouts as compared to actual completed layouts are about 100:1 I think.

This poor old picnic basket has been tagged for the scrapheap - not by me. I want to keep it. My dear Auntie Robin gave it to me for christmas in 1991 and inside it contained blue napkins and a plastic picnic set. I have a photo of me opening the present. I still have the napkins. I took the basket outside for a photo - I've been doing this a lot lately with sentimental items, I guess because of the bushfire season - and now I think I am going to keep it after all. I just remembered i'd been looking for a little keepsake box for things I've kept to remember my grandma and I think this might be just the thing!

Koala takes shelter

Love this photo, suckin' up the noodles.

The babies were having their dinner when DH returned home the other day and discovered this little koala sheltering behind a tree by our front door. It's common on 40 degree+ days for koalas to do this, and they often come looking for water as they're so hot and thirsty. DH took the little baby-bath-cum-swimming-pool which still had water in it from our afternoon swim, and left it for the koala to drink. He'd gone by the next morning...the koala that is! I hope he's ok.

The proposal

It's almost five years since DH proposed. On Christmas Day, 2004, he presented me with a Christmas gift - these lovely scented candles, and a gift card that said, on the back, "Will you marry me?" He did in fact take the easy option, but hey, he's the most romantic guy I know. I've kept them til now but have decided the photo will help keep the memory alive and I really want to burn those lovely candles.

This I like... the clever man, who's quite entitled to admire his handiwork, has fit three childproof gates and mini brush fence to keep the babies safe on the deck. Lovin' his work. Lot more renovation to go as you can tell by the surroundings...

Just Dad and his girl, keepin' up with current events

angus asleep on the change table...got to get that nappy changed quickly!

Scrapbooking withdrawals

Yep, I'm having scrapbooking withdrawals. It's not that I've lost my mojo or anything serious, but we have a big trip to melbourne coming up this weekend...one packed car, a Mum, a Dad, a one-year-old and a two-year-old and a fair bit of rain forecast in the days ahead. Lots of snot, pooey nappies, occasional tantrumic outbursts expected. Two weary parents on high alert. Oh how we love the holidays! so have been too busy for scrapbooking *sigh*.


The main purpose of this trip is Dad's memorial service at the end of month, which we're having for all his family who live in melbourne. The ashes will be interred in Bairnsdale on the 1st December, his birthday, and I'm so looking forward to discovering his childhood town (since I spent a year scrapbooking an album about it!).


So the last few nights have been spent finishing the slideshow, making copies, getting christmas cards ready, and just other bits and pieces that add up to make a very busy week! I was grateful as always to have our mother's group here today, because the reward is a lovely neat and tidy house afterwards! Well, relatively anyway. You should have seen the house this morning...eeeuch. That would make a funny before-and-after pic!


Anyway, I'm so glad I do have a few little creative projects I can take with me... the chipboard wall art for the nursery that need to be decoratively painted, a mini mobile-phone-picture album, collating notes about the babies for their journal, (for next year's scrapbook albums!) oh yes and the christmas cards, which will just need to have some baubles glued on, the letter added in, and a bit of embellishment here and there with the glitter pens. I figure we'll be away for two weeks, so might as well take something with me to do. I usually overestimate what I will be able to do, but you never know your luck in a big city. That's melbourne, not adelaide.


My sweet little lovely came to give me a cuddle before bedtime tonight, and said "I weally love you a lot, and daddy, and mother's group too." It makes it all seem bearable when she says things like that! Which is why i need to get the journal up to date so I can write things in it AS they say them! Instead of on scraps of paper.

Another double layout share - saying goodbye

I am so happy with how this one turned out, and I couldn't sleep for a few days until it was done - i was up til 3.30am last night. I know that's crazy late, but I figured at least I'd be able to sleep afterwards LOL!

I have to acknowledge the talented Kathie Link as my inspiration here - her article on double page layouts in this month's Scrapbooking Memories Magazine came at exactly the right time - helped me work out what to do. I've again gone for two single page designs that would complement each other, in content (they were taken on the same day, in the same place) with same background papers. I've incorporated fabric which is very Kathie-style, and I love making quilled paper flowers. Roses are easy when you use corrugated paper - the pink roses were made this way. I've just picked up a cute little crimping machine from Seriously Scrapbooking for $15. That has to be the bargain of the year. I bought cream Bazzill cardstock on a whim and so glad I did - it was perfect for this layout.

I am also constantly inspired by Ali Edwards style. I love to handwrite my own titles - I'm getting more confident using my own handwriting and doodling borders. I also like to use multiple photos. It would be MUCH easier to use just one photo, but I like the idea of telling a story as being more important that scrapbooking just for the art. But that bit's very nice too!

This double LO is my favourite so far - though there aren't that many to choose from...yet. I think next year will be a bumper year.