And Away We Go

Time for another boy layout around here don't you think?! Lucky I've got one cute nephew to scrap about!

I can't believe it had taken me up until this year to realise that I could rapidly expand my scrapping field of topics, my product choices and style if I started to scrap some boy photos!

It's nice to get out of a creative rut of doing the same thing over and over. I mean, of course I will never tire of scrapping pages about my beautiful girls. They're the whole reason why I do scrap. But it's quite refreshing to change it all up and do something quite different.

And it feels really good to use up some of those papers and products that I otherwise struggle to get through. For example, I made this layout from an older Studio Calico kit "Paper Moon" which was quite boy-oriented in it's colour choices.

I really love how it all came together. What do you think? How do you get out of a creative rut?

Be all that you can bee

Another challenge blog entry today. Is it cheating if I do a card? Cos I'm working on building up my card stash again.

When I saw the Pro Hart painting on the ARTastic challenge blog I was instantly inspired (which is exactly the point of course!)

The extra criteria was to include some kind of insect, and whilst butterflies might have been the obvious choice I actually failed to consider it :-) But I did remember my poor neglected bee stamp from an earlier Studio Calico kit. Maybe it was because of all the hexagons I'm seeing lately.

To be honest I'm not sure if I'm digging the recent hexagon trend. Hhhhmmmm.... don't know. Although I have to admit that after fiddling around with this card for hours I think I'm one step closer to loving them.

And everyone loves a good pun right? LOL!

A Lifted Kiss

These days I'm beginning to feel like when I have those precious moments at my scrap desk that I need to be as productive as possible - that I need to churn out some quick but FABulous projects.

So I've had to find a way to give myself a boost in that direction. There's a wonderful Russian challenge blog called "Scrap Lifting" which as you can imagine, challenges you to lift their chosen project. That's perfect for me right now because it means I don't need to think too much about what to do ;-)

It also thrusts me into some style directions that I don't necessarily try out very often, like this shabby-chic card I made for their current challenge. It's directly lifted from the beautiful example by Melissa Phillips. 

I quite like how it turned out, all pretty layers and textures. I can't wait for an excuse to give it away now!

Farewell...

It's come time for the 'old' team at Once Upon a Sketch to step aside for the newbies that are coming on board. So it's with mixed emotions that I say goodbye to my DT position with Nadia and the rest of the fabulous team.

Sad of course because this is a fabulous challenge blog with a philosophy that I truly believe in; that's about capturing the memories and telling your story. But excited too that I got to be a part of this fantastic journey from the beginning, and it's time for some fresh faces and new talent to join.

So this shall be my last layout share as a Designer (I've got a feeling I'm going to be joining in as a participant from now on!!) We worked with this fabulous sketch:

and made sure to include this month's theme which is "Birthdays". You can interpret that anyway you like, and journal just about anything to do with birthdays. I captured a recent memory that I had written down in my quote book.

It was recently my 30th birthday and during the celebration The Man turned to me with his philosophical look on and stated "you've accomplished a lot in your 30 years. You've got 1 husband, 2 kids, 3 degrees....and....um....... you live 4 hours away from your parents!" Like that was something to be proud of?!! HHhhmmmmm not sure about that?

If you want to give the Birthday challenge a go, then check out all the details on the Once Upon a Sketch blog. They've positively got a truck-load of prizes to give away. Too many for me to list them all here! And good luck for the future OUAS :-)

Supplies:

Studio Calico Sorbonne Addon: April 2012	Studio Calico City of Lights April 2012	Greatest View Sunburst Badges	Imaginarium Designs Edward Relief
FWAB Grace Pearl flourish: Mango	FWAB Jasmine Puffy flourish: Lilac

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I've been mooooooving slowly

on announcing my winner from the Summer Instagram blog hop. Sorry about that. But we've had a family emergency this week which necessitated making a punny card like this....

and spending way more time at different hospitals and with family than I had originally planned for my two days off this week.

But here we go with announcing the winner. Forget random.org! I've got my own method :-)

I wrote everyone's name on separate punched pieces of paper and threw them at My Little Moodles.... let her pick the winner I say!

So congratulations to Chantal Vandenberg!!!! You're the lucky winner of my prize pack. Contact me via email and let me know your postage address so I can get your RAK in the mail :-)

I'll be back real soon with some more scrapbooking projects.

A Page of My Book

I'm pretty laid back most of the time. In general my philosophy is that stressing about something rarely ever helps, so why bother? Certainly in my work life this makes a huge difference as I'm constantly faced with high-pressure scenarios and if I lost my head every time I couldn't cope.

I carry a lot of this in my parenting style too. I'm generally not fussed if the kids are loud or messy or crazy when they're playing at home. I don't mean my kids are misbehaved - quite the opposite. They're really good kids, with fabulous manners :-)

But I believe in allowing them to create, and explore and discover things for themselves. And if that means they make a bit of a mess in the process then so be it! This photo for example, captures the moment after I found Moodles had discovered my makeup. What a sight! I think she had done quite  a reasonable job to be completely honest :-)

The Man is a little more uummmm..... what a nice way of saying.... he prefers things done in neatness and order. Which makes it harder for him sometimes to embrace the 'creative mess' the kids make. This page is a message to both of us as parents to make sure we chill out and let them be kids - whatever craziness that entails.

I was lucky enough to have an afternoon off today so I had time to whip up this layout for the Pages of My Book challenge which is to use the word 'Relax' and the inspiration picture. I used my latest Studio Calico kit (35mm) knowing that another one is just about to land on my doorstep any day now.

Scrap Friends Colour Challenge

The Instagram Summer Blog Hop is just below this post.

But here's something else to warm you up - it's a bright and summery colour scheme from Scrap Friends for our monthly challenge.

The yummy inspiration picture always makes me want to scrap food photos too, so I started off with this picture of Munchy and her friend discovering the dessert table at a recent wedding we went to.

But I can't take credit for the awesome photo - that was taken by my friend Lisa from Loysh Photography. She rocks! I just love the look she's captured on my Munchy's face... priceless!

To follow the colour palette I dug into my stash of ICC papers and chose this brightly coloured pink one from the La Dolce Vita collection. These papers already come 'embellished' with plenty of details in their design which makes throwing a layout together pretty speedy (something that's becoming increasingly important to me lately).

Then I mixed in bits and bobs from lots of different manufacturers - if it was pink or yellow it made it onto this page! I'm just loving these colour challenges 'cos it still allows so much artistic freedom.

What I'm also loving is the fabulous prizes on offer. Check out what you can win if you take part in this challenge! Eeeekkkk..... I gotta get me some of those Evalicious embellishments I've decided! See all the challenge details here.

Supplies:

ICC La Dolce Vita	ICC La Dolce Vita	ICC My Diary	Heidi Swapp Photo Captions
Websters Pages Alpha Stickers Ladies & Gents	Tim Holtz Tissue Tape Journeyman	Authentique Blissful Icons	Jenni Bowlin Vintage Printed Tags
Crate Paper Paper Heart Phrase Stickers	Crate Paper Paper Heart Border Stickers	Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic Buzz Words	Heidi Swapp Day Glo Neon Washi Tapes
Pink Paislee Sping Jubilee Chipboard Stickers

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