Good Dress Sense

Munchy keeps telling me ideas of what she wants to do when she grows up. Sometimes it's in relation to whatever TV show she just watched.... like the other day when she wanted to become an Octonaut. Or it's to do with her favourite products... like when she wanted to work in a Peanut Butter factory.

But on this day when I came home from work she was talking about persuing her interests in the hospital system. I said to her "perhaps you would like to do what Mummy does?" (she's always very interested in hearing my tales of 'helping ladies have babies')

"No" she said, "I don't want to be a doctor, I want to be a nurse". Ok, that's fine I thought. But what's the disctintion in her beautiful little mind I wondered?

"Because the nurses have a better uniform" she answered!!
Well! ..................... I can't argue with that :-)

So here's that discussion in layout-form using a mixture of Lawn Party and Into the Woods by Studio Calico. A bright rainbow of colours and some whimsical photos to complete the lighthearted theme of this page. Do you like to dedicate layouts to conversations held? I love the idea of capturing a disctint moment in time like this. Too precious to forget :-)

Things To Do on a Friday Afternoon

* Once Upon a Sketch
has mixed it up this month and are putting a twist on the normal process of picking a winner..... we want you to do it!! Just to remind you, the current challenge was to use this sketch:

 and to journal 2 lines directly onto your photo.
Make sure you pop over to the OUAS blog and check out the amazing 75(!!) entries and vote for your favourite. You've only got until midnight tonight to cast your vote :-)

* Kreatorville Kraft
are giving away this amazing truckload of goodies to one lucky winner. Or as Keandra puts it.... "It's like an extra loaded baked potato up in there!!!"

But again, you've only got the rest of the day to get your comments in to be in the draw. See all the details on the KK blog here.

* One Scrappy Doctor (that's me!)
will be coming back later today with another layout share, and returning again tomorrow with some exciting scrappy news!

Not to mention.... did you see this on the My Mind's Eye blog? Yay!!!

Septober GIVEAWAY!!

I don't know if you've tried to visit the Kreatorville blog in the last month but Keandra was having the hardest time trying to keep it online through a change of web-hosts. Anyway, the good news is that we are back up and running and to celebrate we are giving away a HUGE stash of goodies!!!

If you're the winner you'll receive over 200 sheets of patterned paper from brands like American Crafts, Basic Grey, Webster's Pages, Sassafras, Pink Paislee, Crate Paper, Fancy Pants, Making Memories and MANY more!  There's a BUNCH of alphas,rub ons, rubber stamps, ribbons and other scrap yummies inside:

All you have to do to be in the running for this amazing prize is go and leave a comment on this post, and sign up as a follower of the Kreatorville blog. Easy hey?

And whilst you're there just check out the other new surprises and announcements we've got too. Like the soon-to-be-revealed Septober kit. Yes I said Septober! It's going to be a mix of the September kit which unfortunately got missed while the blog was down (and let me tell you that this has been one of my most favourite kits to work with.... you will gasp when you see how beautiful it is!) plus some of the best bits of the upcoming October kit. Also we're about to release a new embellishment add-on for even more extra goodies to play with. And if that's not enough we've got the amazing Amy Kingsford guest designing this month so there'll be a tonne of eye-candy to inspire you :-) Well, what are you waiting for?!

An ever fixed mark

Monday, Monday.... can't trust that day.
Sometimes it's just so hard to get back into the swing of work again on a Monday isn't it? Especially if you've had a wonderful weekend off, scrapping to your heart's content.

And perhaps in my case it's made even that little bit more difficult because my work life and scrappy love-affair are quite different from one another. One is very black-and-white and governed by rules whilst the other is all about creative expression.

So I tried to convey that very feeling onto this layout, directly inspired by this pin which I'm sure you've seen if you've been around Pinterest for long enough!

I filled the right hand side of my page with the lovely bold and bright colours of my Candy Shoppe kit from Studio Calico, and generally got messy splashing around some paint and ink. This of course, represents my artistic side, my right-brain dominant personality. The other side of my page was left monochrome and I stamped on some numbers to represent my left-brain dominating. Not too sure which half of the page should be bigger?

Tell me, there must be more of you science/maths/engineering/physics type out there in the scrappy world? How do you balance the two? Is there an overlap in how you approach the two, or are they quite separate entities?

More thoughts later..... perhaps...
:-)

PS. If you want to win yourself a truck load of goodies then check this out!

True Story

Sometimes I'm a bit conservative when it comes to chosing new scrapbook supplies and I tend to stick to my tried-and-true brands - often buying large chunks of the same collection so I can be assured my layouts will be coordinated. 

But yay! I purchased and used two new-to-me brands on this page here. Both the Simple Stories 'Happy Day' collection and Bo Bunny's 'Et Cetera' have been on my radar since thier release at the last CHA and I'm pleased to see how well they work together.

The direct inspiration for the woodgrain design I painted onto the background came from this book cover I pinned on Pinterest. I love that place... so much eye-candy!

The journaling tickets I picked up from BubblyShnooks etsy store. Gorgeous hey?! And another great place to go for inspiration.

I'm so happy I managed to get another monthly layout done.... this is our June family photo, which we took whilst on holidays in Queensland.

So tell me, what are some of your favourite brands for scrapping with? Because I'm thinking maybe I need to expand my horizons a bit :-)

Spare a minute?

Another day..... another challenge blog entry! And this one was right up my alley (pun intended!!)

My fellow DT'er from Once Upon a Sketch Helen Tilbury is a Guest Designer at Scrap-It-Lah this month and she has issued the best challenge :-)

Create your own mixed media background, using printed paper as a base.  Be sure to include at least 3 different paint colours in whatever effects you fancy. Also ensure that you have at least twelve words on your layout, which can include the title, date and the journaling. How fun hey? The challenge ends September 30th and they have a gorgeous Studio Calico RAK up for grabs so I thought it was only fitting that I use up a few more of my old SC kit bits and pieces for this page.

Of course I just revelled in the idea of creating my own background and went to town with a whole rainbow of colours and a Pink Paislee stencil. Then added more drips and splats and....... general fun-ness!!

Then I cracked open the typewriter and started typing my thoughts until all the space was filled. I didn't really want to make this a page just about bowling - there's only so much you can write about that hey? So instead I made it a letter to Munchy about facing obstacles head on and such things.

I'm actually enjoying this page so much I'm thinking of scraplifting myself. Have you ever done that? I just picked up the Tim Holtz Picket Fence distress stain so I might try experimenting with that :-)

She Found Joy

I'm enjoying the time to create for challenge blogs again, and it's been absolutely ages since I joined in at Kraft It Up which is a shame. But when I saw that their challenge this month is to use a kraft base and then incorporate fabric and stitching I jumped at the chance to make a page for it!

Except.......
then I realised all my fabric is packed away in storage!

So I had to go hunting through the supplies I bought with me to find something, anything made with fabric that I could incorporate to meet the criteria. And this is what I came up with: a fabric word from Prima, lace stickers from Basic Grey, fabric paper from American Crafts, and some gauze (which may or may not have come from the hospital)! Hopefully that counts for something :-)

The stitching part of it was no trouble since I sew on all my pages anyway. In fact, it was so 'normal' to me that I had to go quite overboard with my sewing to make me feel like I was challenged!

The journaling is about Moodles lack of fear to experience new things which I think is a great quality (to some extent!!) On our recent beach holiday she just loved the novelty of all the places we went and things we saw. She loved the touch of the sand beneath her feet, and dipping her toes in the water and playing among the rock pools. Pure joy for her :-)

Photo Journaling

It was really hard to wait and show you the new Once Upon a Sketch challenge because it was just soooo much fun :-) But it's gone live and so now I can reveal the page I made for it....

 

As always the challenge comes with Journalling Criteria: This time you need to journal 2 lines directly on your photo. You can write on your photo, you can print your writing on your photo,  you can use journalling strips on your photo etc. There is no theme this time, just a journalling technique criteria. 

You must also use this sketch: 

 

 

I played around with adding my journaling to my photo on journaling stickers, or my old favourite of typewritten strips. But in the end I went with the raw and organic form of simply writing it on. I think it suits the style of my page much better. 

I stuck with the supplies out of my April Studio Calico kit 'Singing in the Rain' to make my paper and embellishment choices easier.... not to mention that I'm trying super-hard at the moment to kill some kits!! I have to admit, I still haven't succeeded with that, but I'm getting pretty close now with some ;-)

I interpreted all those horizontal strips into a set of wavy ones instead - attempting to make it look like the wavy sea that Munchy is overlooking in the photo. I have to say that girl is getting more creative every day. I was fiddling around with this layout and not very happy with it, and so I asked her what she thought I should do with it. That clever little just-turned-five-year-old of mine answered "well... just keep adding more things until it looks good........ how about some glitter?"

I didn't quite take her advice on the glitter, but I did keep going until I was satisfied.

Now..... let's talk prizes!!
The winner of this challenge will walk away with a newly released collection pack from our sponsor 3ndypapir. Here's a sneak peak of what that will look like:

And two more winners will win collection packs by Sassafras including 'Count Me In' and my absolute favourite 'Mix and Mend'.

Don't forget, this is an international challenge blog so anyone in the world can enter. Find out all the details over on the OUAS blog. I'll see you over there!

Easy Like Sunday Morning

Here's another monthly page that I'm only just getting around to doing! This one's for March. Ooopps!

My March family portrait was taken on a Sundary afternoon after church and was filled with many different colours, so I had to choose some fun papers to match.

I ended up using Echo Park's new Victoria Gardens collection because they just worked perfectly to reflect the grey and green and pink in my photo. I have to admit - I never would have thought of that colour combo for myself! Works even better with some yellow highlights too :-)

Not only will this album tell the visual story of how our family has grown and changed over the months but I'm also using this opportunity to show little snippets into our life. I'm not necessarily journaling about what we did each month, but more about who we are.

So here I journalled about our weekly ritual of going to church every Sunday. For us it's more than just tradition, it's a chance to celebrate our relationship with a living God with the people whom we share a special bond. It's our second family, a place we feel equally at home in, and a place we're missing dearly at the moment as we spend this 6 months in the country. However, we are back again this weekend to get Moodles dedicated. Can't wait!

Cool Cats

One of the highlights of our recent holiday away in Queensland was catching up and spending quality time with some old friends who have moved up there.

One of the activities we always used to enjoy together was playing board games (or card games too) and an old favourite is the game 'Cranium'. Sometimes it's a bit of a thinking game so it's not everyone's cup of tea..... but we always end up laughing ourselves silly whenever we play it.

I took this week's sketch from the Basic Grey blog as my starting point for making this page to record our recent happy memories playing Cranium.

I've had some of the yummy (pun intended!) Nook and Pantry collection in my stash for the longest time now so I was really eager to bust it out and use it up on something pretty!

Our friends have bought a house up there and are in the midst of renovating it. The vintage feel and worn appeal of these papers really reminded me of them as we stayed in their house, so it was just perfect for this page even though it's not about any kind of food :-)

I found some fabric that matched and ruffled it up under my photos before sewing it on. I think it adds to the home-made rough-and-tumble warmth that this page brings me. What do you think?

As simple as 'ABC'

I like to find the positive side of life. I'm a glass-half-full kind of girl. So if there's one good thing to say about letting go of some of my DT comittments then it has to be that it allows me more time to play along with challenges, and to get through some of my accumulating stash :-)

I was instantly drawn to the current challenge on the My Mind's Eye blog this month. I'm sure you can see why. Here's the sketch.......

Look at all that room for journaling!!! Wooo hoo! I love telling the stories of life on my pages - the daily happenings, the funny quotes from my kids, my thoughts and emotions, the things I'll want to remember later on. Rather than just the date and place the photo was taken.

Along with the sketch, the journaling prompt was "Back to _______"
I pondered on that one a bit until I came up with this page which records my thoughts on Munchy needing speech therapy classes. I didn't plan any of my journaling ahead of time. When it came to adding it, I just picked up my pen and started writing.

I called it 'Back to Basics' because that's what we're really focusng on with her speech. We're practicing her pronounciation and phonetics of speech. Lots of guidance and 'repeat after me' exercises, encouraging her to shape her mouth and where to place her tongue..... that sort of thing. And it's working! She's making great gains, and is sooooo diligent for a 4 year old. She hardly ever complains about the practice, and is very proud of herself when she learns how to say a new word properly.

Of course, I used lots of My Mind's Eye products here. A mix and match jumble of some of their older lines like So Sophie and Alphabet Soup papers, with some newer brads and stickers from Stella and Rose.

Happy days :-)

Little Things

Who said October Afternoon's Rocket Age collection should be just for boy pages?! Here I've been able to take it totally out of context and not only use it for a girl page, but a girly Easter page!...... Not that you can tell of course. I don't usually do 'theme' pages, I just like to tell a story.

On my last visit to the farm I took with me my June Paper Moon kit from Studio Calico and whipped up this page purely with the kit contents. Thaat's why you can't even spot my signature stitching anywhere (which makes me quite paranoid about it all falling to pieces!)

I tried to go all Julie FF. Balzer on this and hand-painted my title. I love the look of messy handwriting in comparison to the straight lines of the October Afternoon mini-alphs. Must do this again :-)

Ever since we were kids ourselves we've had a tradition at Easter of an egg-hunt - which continued even when we became 'grown-ups'! We've got even more excuse to keep this up now that my girls are old enough to participate too. This year was Moodles first time where she could actually go looking for the eggs herself.

The photos are of her and Poppy egg-hunting together. I think they both had as good a time as each other :-)