Baby layouts

It's taken me several days of trying to get a good enough photos of these two latest layouts. I think it's a bit of a hint that I need to learn more about my camera, ahem! It's so hard getting good light in our old, dark house. I love this house, but if you want light, you have to almost stick your head out the window.

Tassie came over to help me take photos.

I used a little vintage stamp here of Bo Beep that I found in an op shop when we were on holidays recently in Port Elliott.

I love the look of hand cut scallops and the pretty pink ribbon.

More ribbon, stapled on.

This is a little hidden journalling card with the story on the back, and the photos underneath.

Materials: Cardstock: Bazzill, index cards, paper: office, album packaging, manila folder, stamps: Imaginisce, date stamp, ribbon, staples, ink: Versacolor, StazOn.

Materials: Cardstock: Bazzill, K&C company, paper: Kaisercraft, scallop punch, mesh, punch: Fiskars, stamples, metallic ribbon, ric-rac, office paper scraps, computer journalling, ink: Staz On, date stamp.

When Delilah was still in the hospital, four days old, her Dad celebrated his birthday, so I had to include this in a layout for her album!

A new Angus scrapbooking layout

Materials: Cardstock: Bazzill, paper: 7 Gypsises, ink: VersaMagic, StazOn, product packaging, stamps: Fancy Pants designs, date stamp, pens: Copic and Signo, paint: Kaisercolour, Journalling prompt: Ali Edwards.

Journalling reads: When I gave you your first lolly, you looked at it suspiciously; tried to chuck it; I caught it; yo put it back in your mouth; waited; then did a shuddering action with your jaw; decided you liked it and chewed! I love you today because: you come straight over to me when I enter the room; you grab the quoit rings on their base and jump like mad, making them bounce; you love being affectionate and sitting on my lap, facing me, sometimes you bend backwards, then up again, holding my hands.

I so enjoyed doing a page about Angus. The photo was taken on Tassie's birthday and it was, at the time, a rare occassion that he looked at me for the photo - a bit reluctantly as you can see! Since then I've taken quite a few more pics, and many with him even smiling, but there was something about the photo that I loved. The layout is a scraplift from an Ali Edwards page I saw (from her book: Life Artist) and wanted to try. I sandpapered the red cardstock to mess it up a bit, and added staples, hearts, the little 'a' and some paint splatters to add some texture. I love trying to keep the design simple without being boring or two dimensional.

I have two more layouts I'm waiting to upload but having a lot of trouble getting a good photo. The winter sun has appeared today, so I'll try again. I have all this afternoon in the study for creating, woo hoo! I have some more photos of my little niece Delilah waiting to be scrapped.


Happy creating!

I had a good excuse to get out the heat tool and embossing powder again - to make a birthday card for my friend Kate. I've always wanted to do this as a gift, give a handmade card with earrings on the front.

new scrapbook layout - first cuddle

This started out as a pink page but it just looked too much. So trimming the pink and adding it to the white is perfect. I think! This is the first time I've used Bazzill white swiss dots paper and I luurrrve it! I'll have to get more. I also spotted some Sassafrass Lass paper in my scrap shop when I was there last so I grabbed it. It's the pretty blue paper with the retro lettering on it. Cute! And this is the first layout to use my new Martha Stewart butterfly punch. More more more of that please.

Materials: Bazzill cardstock, alphabet stamps, Autumn Leaves flourish stamp, StazOn ink, Versacolor ink, Cre8tive paper, Sassafrass Lass paper, ribbon, Zig writer, ribbon.

Art journal scrapbook page

This lovely page came about after a very frustrating day yesterday. I've never actually done this before - thought of a page and then just sat down and done it straight away. I was only able to do it because it was Tassie's nap time. It perfectly sums up how I was feeling, particularly with Tassie constantly testing us. She's at play school today so ahhhh.... breathe the fresh air.

New baby scrapbooking page layouts

So... the first seven layouts are finished for baby Delilah's album. The first page is waiting for an ankle tag to be added, so I'll post that one later in the week. So far so good. I'm feeling very ready to start Tassie's baby album from day one after doing this - I think I'm finally settling into a simple style that I like very much. I'm soooo enjoying being creative again, but yes, that does mean having ahem, rather late nights!!

digital layout with scanned pics

Today I convinced Ian to let me have some project time. As usual he had to zip off to take care of some business (his charity work commitments) but by 11am I was free and got started on some scanning. The scanning project's been on hold, mainly due to our long weekend holiday at Port Elliot and just because, well, I choose to sleep in the evenings these days!

But I digress... I took the time to name some new files from scans I've had made of our old Darwin childhood slides. Of course I got a little distracted when I started looking closely at the photos (which I haven't seen for 20+ Years). Then I went looking for other photos...

and I decided to try a digital scrapbook page To Save Time. It didn't but I'm so excited about the result!

Digital scrapbooking elements: Katie Pertiet, Fonts: 321 Impact, Clementine Sketch, Kamera Dings, Cardstock: Bazzill

I then printed the layout on to some kraft cardstock I have and voila...

Can't wait to try this again :-)

new scrapbook layouts - experimental vs. simple

This page started off as a white piece of 12"x12" paper. In future I think I'm going to use good Bazzill cardstock - paper gets so warped when you spray paint it! I experimented with masking (see the 'A') but I'm not so happy with that. Will try masking with swirls next.

Materials: Cardstock: Grant Archival , Bazzill; paper: Kaisercraft, K&C company; ribbon; stitching; Francheville brad; paint: Kaisercraft; stamp: Stampit; ink: Versacolor; journalling pens: Zig Writer; journalling: computer

Here are some details:

And this layout was inspired by many of the simple style I love so much that I see at Write Click Scrapbook:

Materials: American Crafts ribbon, acrylic packaging, black and white paper, stamples, title printed from computer.

I love using up the acrylic from packaging to make ghost shapes then stapling:

A good design and the colour combination goes a long way.

These two layouts are quite a contrast aren't they?

new scrapbook layouts - old and new

Materials: cardstock: Fancy Pants Designs, date stamp, Staz On ink, computer printed title and jouranlling.

About a Girl:
This is one of my current favourites. I nearly always say that when I complete a new layout! I took this picture of Tas and I in December and it so perfectly explains her.

The journalling reads:
When you wake up in the morning (early, before 7am) you call out "Daddya" to pick you up. You ask us for "some-a-ya-break-far-st". You ask "I come too your door" when we want to get dressed. In the afternoon for naptime you ask "Where's my guys?" (moo-cow, Mousie, Iggle Piggle, Upsy Daisy and Lekka). You command "Stop Talking/sionging" when you want our attention.... followed by "Welcome my show" with a wide grin and flourish.

We have been keeping a journal since she was born. Whenever she says or does something interesting, it gets recorded. So it's all there for later when I'm ready to scrap the pages. Really takes the stress out of trying to remember.

I cut around the flowers to make them pop up.

And I love trying new computer fonts for titles - this one's a freebie called Taco Salad. The journalling is a free handwriting font called Pea Stacy which you can get from here.

Materials: cardstock: Fiskars, stamps: Sandylion, Fancy Pants Designs, ink: Splendor, Versacolor, paper: Graphic 45, flower embellishment: from acrylic stamp packaging, computer printed journalling.

Even Mummies Were Little Once:

This is a wonderful photo of myself (middle) with my sister (second from left), and cousins Kerry, Wendy and Karissa. It's very damaged as you can see but I've started to restore it on the computer. The tricky bit is fixing one of the faces where the damaged print on the paper has slashed it in half. I'll post it at a later date when I get it finished.

I added a little vintage child embellishment which is so perfect i think. Exactly my favourite kind of layout too!

The little flower embelly was cut out from on of my acrylic stamp collections - it wasn't really needed anymore since the stamps have all been properly stored in CD cases now. Love to recycle.

Scanning project update

So I finished scanning in another album yesterday. Woo hoo! This is an usual one I put together for my Dad eight years ago, using the fabric from our old cane lounges in Darwin. Very very retro. The photos inside it are pretty random and not even in order. It seemed a bit arty at the time I guess. Here is one of my favourites: an old school photo of my sister and I. It's so daggy it's sweet.

And I should be doing more scanning but I really want to finish the first few layouts for Delilah's baby album!

Scrapbook layout plus fabric scrapbook album cover

I stayed up til 2am working on this layout about Angie and his dinosaur toys. It was a fun one to do, without agonising about layout or papers like I usually do.

I tried pink stitching with red gingham which I'm very happy with. And Sassafras Lass paper.

And the little details I keep coming back to: journalling strips on vintage notepaper and the date stamp. I also used my new oil pastel crayons to colour the edges. Perfect on a child's layout.

The title I printed using Word on the computer and doddling on the edges. Too easy!

And this is the calico cover I machine stitched for my new baby niece's album, with handstitching detail. I'm pretty happy with the result. Find the tutorial here. The only thing I would add is to leave a small allowance at the top and bottom edges so you can get the album cover into the pocket!

and here is a layout I completed a week or so ago. I experimented with my new water pen using watercolours for this. Great fun. I bought this paper (Making Memories) to match my sister's dress. The edges is coloured with oil pastel crayon.

birthday card

Card for Mike's birthday.

Welcome to a new project month JULY

New mixed-media art scrapbook page and plans for July

I apologise fior the poor quality photo but even on such a poorly lit rainy day, I had to show this layout. I've been really enjoying Donna Downey's Inspiration Wednesdays and decided to make own page using paints and inks. It was such fun. I painted the background with watercolour, which is why the corners are curled, and stamped over the top. It was a great way to use two rather ordinary little photos that had been in a fridge magnet frame and turn it into a story. I added some handmade paper for the mat, journalling strips made on the computer and printed out, my new watercolour pen to paint in the brown butterflies and a lunchbox lid to make tiny circle patterns. And i've been using acrylic stamps again, since the great recent re-organisation!

Materials: plain white cardstock, Faber-Castell watecolour pencils, Mont Marte watercolour paint, Tim Holtz and Versacolor distress ink, Fancy Pants Desgins, Inkadinkado and Stamp-it stamps, handmade paper from local craft market

Ah yes and plans for July. It's been driving me crazy for years that my sister and I have these fabulous collections of photos from our childhood and they are in boxes, and various albums, some with her, some with me, and none of it in any sort of order. And they're starting to fade. Some have already been damaged from years in a humid climate (Darwin) and non acid-free photo albums.So....I am going to scan them all in, put them in order, then house them in albums. My sister will keep the originals and I'll keep the copies. And a whole month should be plenty of time, right? Stay tuned.

Grandma's legacy

I realised the other day that I still have these yellow handled scissors. My dear Grandma, God bless her, sent me these as a present when I was about 10. It's remarkable that I still have them, seeing as I've moved about 15 times since then, don't you think? It's also remarkable, because I also recognise that she, too, was a scrapbooker, and now I am too. She didn't have any fancy papers or embellishments, but would make holiday books for my sister and I, with authentic bits and pieces like tickets and drawings and maps, and of course lots of photos, journalling and even her own diagrams. She did this in the 70's and 80's and I guess stopped after that as we were too old. Thanks so much Grandma for showing me the way. And if you could see my work, I'm sure you'd be proud xxx

digital scrapbooking

I'm experimenting with digital scrapbooking. This is an Ali Edwards designed page which really tickles my fancy. Cute huh?


I went and bought some more scrapbook albums today. I am planning to create some 12x12 inch scrapbook pages all digitally for the 2007/2008/2009 albums. I want to do a monthly page for each month of these years and thinking about how I might do it. The rest of the albums will be filled with scrapbook pages - the lumpy and bumpy kind. I may end up getting them printed locally, otherwise Shutterfly will cost me about $6 per page. I'm shopping around for digital templates at the moment. Or should I just create my own template? I want to be able to drop a photo into a pre-set frame without cropping or trimming.

New look for Rock Paper Scissors

It's been time for a new look for poor old rock paper scissors scrap. I've been having a bit of fun mucking around with some digital scrapbooking. It's actually more fun than I thought.


...bye bye to the old header. .. I decided to keep the fonts (1942 report, CK Ali) and typewriter image, though. It's a real typewriter which sits on my desk (it's tiny!) and works as a real pencil sharpener. The blog wouldn't look right without it.

Scrapbooking layout - baby's first Christmas

I've always loved this photo taken of we three: Tassie's first Christmas. She was only about five months old. There's another version of this photo that I also love, which I plan to scrapbook for the christmas album. I like to try different techniques when I do scrapbook pages, so this time I added a book page, which I haven't done before, and a crochet doily. Love 'em.


Materials: Cardstock: Kaisercraft, Paper: Fancy Pants designs, coffee filter, chipboard: Five Kids and a Dog, feather, Scallop border punch: Fiskars, ribbon: Francheville, ink: Versacolor, StazOn, stamps: Sugar Shoppe, Inkadinkado.

Now that I'm organising my acrylic stamp collection, I'm looking foward to doing a lot more stamping. They're being organised into CD cases, which is such a clever idea. Simple. Will upload photo when finished.

finally - a scrapbook layout

This is the only layout I have managed in the past few weeks. When I returned from the Melbourne trip, I sort of decided to prioritise sleep. I know! Pretty kooky. But my husband is right about how important it is. I'm feeling quite reenergised, so hope to get a few more done, starting today. Will keep you posted!

Journalling reads: You runs straight over to the play equipment and go for it. You don't want any one holding your hand and you are very decisive and confident about what you want. You love to indroduce yorself "I'm Tasmin amanda Smith".

portrait project

My sister, cousin and I were lucky enough to visit the National Gallery in Victoria last Monday when we flew down for my cousin Noni's wedding. I was so enthralled to be able to see a portrait exhibition called 'Timelines' (see poster, top left corner, picture below).

By a weird coincidence (I love weird coincidences) one of the subjects in the portraits was a girl my sister went to school with in little ol' Darwin. I think her name is Anna Phillips. She's in many ads on TV. But I digress.

I was so inspired I decided to give portraits a go and started with my Mum.


While I was surprised to find she was a difficult subject to capture (she wasn't able to be expressionless for me) I was so delighted when I accidentally saw the images together in a collection, see above. My sister tells me it's the best work I've ever done.!!! Wow, that's quite a compliment.

Anyway, I scribbled some notes, since there was a gruff looking security guard woman sitting on a chair and glaring at me (I was carrying my camera around with its enormous lens sticking out)
and I was too chicken to take any pictures. The main ideas I wanted to remember are:

• the effectiveness of a gnarly wooden fence for a background
• doing a 'then and now' portrait years apart, in exactly the same spot (black and white, then contrasted with colour to show 'now')
• scapturing the subject without smiling but looking directly at the camera
• framing an interesting portrait then handwriting below the subject directly on to the mat
• closeups of hands especially two pairs of hands eg. grandma and child, or hand holding an object (teapot, wedding ring)
• portraits of elderly ladies really dressed up
• an eye (closeup)
• from the floor, capturing a Daddy holding his baby's hands as he walks (showing their legs from the knees down)
• before and after (pregnant woman, then woman with baby)
• a reclining portrait where the subject stretches from the bottom left hand corner to the top right corner
• black and white photos printed on to cardstock then coloured with pencils in all the colours of the rainbow using a cross-hatch technique
  

What was so affirming at this exhibition, was a black and white photograph of a mother, nude, with her little four year old boy, taken by a very accomplished photographer. He was the Daddy and the note said he had been taking their photos, particularly the mother's, almost daily for 20 years.

Hello! And they say 'obsessed' like it's a bad thing???????????

the letters to Jessie project

i was so fortuante to be able to borrow the letters that my grandfather, Frank Middleton Risk, sent to my Grandmother Jessie, during the second World War. The letters had been kept for years in a little photo envelope but some had started to come apart at the edges and were in need of TLC. The best thing to do, I decided, was to place individually inside page protectors in a scrapbook album - I plenty of those on hand! - and sew down the seams to keep the letter in place. If you see above, the seam leaves a little pocket on the right hand side.

Frank Middleton was my Dad's father. They look so alike. The letters in Frank's voice were surprisingly warm, loving and caring, referring to Jess as 'Sweetheart' often. I guess it was easier to be lovey dovey in a letter than face-to-face. When my own Dad wrote letters to me as a child - so glad Grandma kept them in the holiday scrapbooks she made me - he used a similar loving voice.

The letters have all been lovingly and carefully scanned so sometime in the next few months I plan to make a photo book from the scans and try and recreate a bit of the intimacy of personal letters - something I didn't quite achieve with the enormous album.

But at least they're safe now.

Simplest photo book ever

I wanted to make a mini-book out of a stack of photos I had, a little more than 40 I think. I've been wanting to try this for ages. I just used my Bind-it-all to punch holes straight into the photos and used a bit of leftover cardboard as the front cover. For the cover design, I printed the first photo directly onto patterned paper in my printer and I'm so pleased with the result! I inked the edges and it was finished.

And my Auntie Shirl, who I made the book for, loved it and took it to show her friends at the bowls club. She has bought a new house and will be moving soon. These are photos of her house and garden.

You can see the layouts I made from the photos here.