The Story of Learning to Write

Loved the latest release from Jenni Bowlin. Rubons seem to be an often overlooked product these days but Jenni keeps on coming out with fabulous designs. The Gold Doilies are my favourite (although I am also loving the Speech Bubbles and Tiny Trims too).

The other new-release products on this page are the Happy Flatbacks and the Flash Card too. The "write" card is in fact where the concept of this layout all started from. Munchy is in her second year of school now and she loves to read and write. She devours books by the stack and when she's not doing that she'll happily get out her pencil and notepad and write down whatever comes to mind.

I have to say it's such a relief to see her enjoying school as much as she does, and I hope to continue encouraging her down this path. But I'm sure I'm not alone in my parental anxiety in wondering if I had done enough (or am doing enough) when she's at home. Am I a good parent? Do I teach her appropriate things? Have I taken her enough places? Should I have read more books to her / filled the house with classical music / made her do dance lessons sooner? etc etc! Slightly neurotic right?!

I took my choice of papers from the August Papercrafting kit to maintain a fairly monochromatic effect with lots of shades of whites and greys but with a vivid splash of red. Most of the papers you see on this layout are the exclusively designed ones by Lisa Dickinson. The chalkboard tag and the journal tag are also from the exclusive paper in the August Historian kit. Just another fabulous reason why you should become a kit subscriber!

Anyway, it's lucky that she enjoys learning as much as she does. In fact, most of it is self-directed and I barely have to do anything except keep supplying her with bunches of books. I hope it keeps up for a long time to come yet!

The Story of my Heart

When I first started scrapping, cards were something I would make all the time. Then I decided it was all too hard because it required a vastly different style and technique from creating layouts. So I stopped making them for a year or two. But now I've come full circle again, and sometimes people would be mistaken for thinking mine was a cardmaking blog.

The main reason for my change of heart is because I realised that making cards isn't different from making layouts at all. It's just on a smaller canvas and usually doesn't require a photo. The same papers, techniques, design principles and products can be used just as easily, and in fact, I find it the easiest if I go on and create a card the minute I've finished with my page. I can essentially copy what I've just put together and use up my scraps at the same time!

Following on from my "Crazy Like" layout I put together this card with all very similar elements from the Carta Bella Hello Again collection I got from Paper Stories. It features the same gesso/stencil/mist technique that I showed you in my video, it's got the same layers hand-cut banners, a few stickers from the Elements sheet and a gorgeous Flair button from Ormolu.

So if you find it difficult to switch to cardmaking then try just copying your last page! It makes it super-easy to create a reasonable stash of cards for any occasion :-)

The Story of Great Expectations Take 2

Following on from my other non-carnival layout made with the Midway Collection from October Afternoon that I shared earlier in the week (and has already been picked up for publication!) I threw some more of it at this page too.

I picked out the orange and green colours to focus on, and added some splashes of yellow and blue. But overall I think it has quite a citrus colour-scheme going on here. It reminds me of a light and breezy Spring afternoon, and it was all inspired from the lovely Mood Board challenge running at Jot Magazine currently.

That's my sister in the photo, showing off her gorgeously huge preggo belly. It was a lovely photo-shoot and this shot was too beautiful not to scrap. I especially love a good bit of sun-glare!!

I used a Balzer Designs Crafters Workshop template in the background with all it's numbers and months to represent the waiting period when you're pregnant. I see pregnant women pretty much every day at work, and we're all the same in some respects. Pregnancy is a time of such huge anxiety, expectations, excitement and anticipation. And 9 months can feel like forever!

I gave away a secret on my Instagram and Facebook account in regards to this layout. I shared a bit of a before-shot which revealed how I give my paper layers a bit of dimension. I'll give you a bit of a clue.... it's like foam tape but it uses product you might otherwise throw away. I share all sorts of extra things there that don't make it onto my blog.

Happy Scrapping.
xx

The Story of the Cappuccino

Coffee and I have had our ups and downs. Our relationship break-ups and our glorious reunions. We've endured some tough times when I've decided to abstain from it (during fasting periods and pregnancy for example). But our good days far outweigh our bad days.

Coffee loving has been a journey for me. It began out of what I considered necessity - during some intense study times in Year 12. I thought it would allow me to stay up longer, but it turns out I'm one of those people who caffeine doesn't affect for very long. I can happily drink a cup right before bedtime I quickly found out. Contrary to mainstream I started drinking coffee black and strong with no sugar. I figured it was one of those things that no one actually enjoys when they first have it so why soften the blow?

I succumbed over time to the sweetness of the cappuccino and now it's my choice of caffeine-laced beverages. It's certainly the prettiest! Enjoyable by myself on-the-go or even better - sitting down relaxing for a minute in a cafe with friends. Lately it's quickly becoming almost an essential part of my morning routine at the hospital.

My choice of papers here might not be the obvious - they're from the Midway collection from October Afternoon. At first glance this is a carnival-themed collection, but I chose the combination of cool clinical greys, with the warmth of yellows and oranges because I thought these most closely represented what it's like to sit in a stylish cafe with a cup of coffee in your hands. The overriding brown and white cardstock are just plain obvious now aren't they?

The Story of Scrapmatts and FWAB

Right back in February when I was still designing for my favourite Aussie embellishment manufacturer 'Flourish With a Bling' we teamed up with 'Scrapmatts' who make the most interesting and intricate chipboard. My projects were on both blogs at the time, but never made it here.

Better late than never I say!

At first you might not pick me for a bling and chipboard kind of scrapper. In fact, a lot of the time I would have trouble calling myself that too. But only because it usually conjures up images of the flowery-romantic-shabby-chic-vintage kind of style, and that's really not me. But both of them are actually quite versatile products and can be used in a variety of different ways.

What I prefer to do is a fun and whimsical and colourful style, and both FWAB and Scrapmatts offer that with their products. For this page I combined the FWAB Up in the Sky raindrops with Taylah’s toadstools and Silver Elise flourish (all links are at the end of my post) with Scrapmatts Butterflies, Kite and Birdbath to tell this funny little story.

You see, The Man thought it would be a great idea to buy a push-mower rather than a petrol one as it would be better for the environment and would encourage him to get out and exercise whilst he was doing it. In reality what it means is this... the grass in our backyard is now growing out of control to the point where my youngest even gets tripped up in it!

Each chipboard piece is first covered with gesso as a base, then I coloured with either acrylic paint or ink before finishing them off with Dimensional Magic, Liquid Pearls and glitter for a sparkle and shine!

The next thing I love about chipboard and the range of bling FWAB carry is that you can make them match any colour scheme you can think of. My second layout was slightly more traditional as I captured that magical moment of my girls watching a bride walk down the ‘aisle’ to meet her groom. They were so awe-struck and couldn’t take their eyes off her. I stuck to a fairly simple pastel colour scheme with pink, aqua and cream and chose my embellishments to match.

I kept my Scrapmatts birdcages white but coloured the birds brightly mauve and glittery so they really stood out. Then I let my FWAB add a lovely textural touch with the Grace Pearl flourish behind the cages, and the Wine Rhinestones as a twinkling border.

I was pretty good at incorporating lots of Jenni Bowlin products in this one too, and you can see a few papers from her Black & Red and Magpie collections as well as using Evalicious stamps on both pages as well. This was my DT page trifecta!!

There were a couple of cards I made for the showcase as well, but I'll leave them for another day.
Happy Scrapping :-)



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