Moriah's October and November pages

This page was definitely one of those times where I rifled through a bunch of my old Studio Calico Project Life kits to sift out the October-ish type cards. I guess the only problem with that was the Fall/Halloween type colours it's got going on.... which makes me giggle since it's in the middle of Spring for us Aussies! 

Never mind... I like the touches of gold anyways.

October was the month Moriah started losing her first teeth. It was ironic that she was losing them alongside the same time Judah was gaining his... and it was the same corresponding teeth each time. How weird right?
 

As a 'good' Mum am I supposed to keep her teeth? We don't have a tooth fairy at our house so the girls just give them to me, and they promptly go in a jar. But what am I then supposed to do with them? I asked this question on my Instagram and got a bevy of hilarious responses, but I got the sense that everyone else was in the same boat. They kept them and then wondered what the heck now?

So anyways... I ended up putting hers in this pocket in her album. There was no way they were going in a clear pocket though! Yikes! 

As for her November page, I made it to go alongside the spread I previously made dedicated purely to her birthday party. I used the same supplies (the Studio Calico Lollipop Guild kits) so now they're matchy match and look like a purposeful double spread ;-)

This kit is definitely my favourite from the year and I feel like I've come soooo close to killing it! Those gold dipped alphas? Perfection! I'm down to my very last vowel so I'm at the point of cheating. See the 'O'? It was actually the 'C' but by covering up the gap you just assume it really is the 'O' right?!

The super-hero stamp is by Mama Elephant and I've used it a lot but couldn't help pop another one on for this spread too. It seemed fitting.

More pages coming up real soon!
xx

Bethany's September and October pages

Must keep blogging, must keep blogging!
So let me step in and quickly share the pages I made for Bethany's album for the months of September and October.

It was right about this point that I went on a creating spree because I knew I needed to make quite a few pages to finish off their albums before the year was done. So instead of working just from one kit I pooled all my Studio Calico Project Life/Documenter kits and picked things up at random.

Obviously my main theme for the September page was spring and so I went with a lot of white background cards with warm colours - pinks and yellows and oranges.

But when it came time to do her October page I disregarded my Project Life kits altogether and pulled out an old scrapbook kit to make it with instead!

I did that for two reasons; the first was because I was working with these 4x4" square pockets and I don't have any cards that fit that size without cutting them down. And the second was because that middle photo of Bethany at the optometrist prompted me to go searching for that glasses paper I knew I had somewhere!

The fact was that I bought this Studio Calico Add On kit way back in (I think it was) February last year and it had remained virtually untouched until this point. So I felt kinda happy that at the end of this page every single one of the papers had been cut into!

More pages coming real soon.... ;-)

Moriah's August and September pages

In an effort to actually share everything and get up to date I'm going to try and speed through some of the pages I haven't yet put up on my blog yet.

Moriah's August page was very school-focused and the bright bold colours of the Studio Calico Pop Art Project Life kit suited it well. Even those rubber lemons... which really don't have anything to do with the page... at least the colour matched perfectly!

I don't know about you, but I found that so many of my photos of the girls seemed to be when they were dressed in their school uniforms which doesn't particularly make for an attractive page, but I guess at least it was consistent. No pinks and aquas on this page!

So it was a good thing I could get back to my favourite colour scheme for her September page then. I feel much happier in my comfort zone ;-)

Still lots of school photos, but this time I balanced out that horrible orange with plenty of white so it didn't seem quite so overwhelming. And the floral pinks of the Brimfield Project Life kit were much more my style.

This was obviously the month of dress-ups for Moriah as she had four different events she needed costumes for in September. I know you can only count three photos here, but when I couldn't fit the fourth one onto this page I stuck it on a separate little insert on the page opposite. You'll just have to take my word for it. 

So not only were the colours in Brimfield more my style, but the 'Costume Party' and 'Story Time' cards were just perfect for the occasion too! Love it when that happens!

Jot's January Mood Boar Challenge

I love a good colour challenge. Probably because I love colour so much. All my projects seem to get covered in the whole rainbow of bold bright colours no matter how much I try to limit myself to just a couple. But I have to admit, this latest Mood Board Challenge at Jot Magazine is about as tough as it gets for me as I found it a little difficult to work with so many neutrals.

The Mood Board itself is just delicious though. Check out all those textures! It makes me just want to touch and taste everything on it ;-) And I think there's nothing more satisfying that facing a challenge and feeling like you've actually conquered it when you come out the other side. Because ultimately I'm pretty happy with how my card actually turned out!

I think the credit rests with that geometric fox I cut out of minty/aqua cardstock and turned into the focal point. He's pretty cute right? And so are his woodfolk friends that come along in the same cutting file designed by Paige Evans as part of the latest kit release from Studio Calico. You can find them here if you're interested. 

As for the rest of the card, I tried to include as many other textures as I could find - sticking with the Mood Board theme of neutral colours and natural fibres.

You can find all the Jot Magazine January Mood Board details here if you'd like to play along with us this month. I can't wait to see what you might create.

Jot Issue 12

Along with all my Christmas projects that appeared in the latest issue of Jot Magazine (see my last blog post) I also had a couple of other non-themed projects featured including this double-page Project Life spread.

I do as many double-page PL spreads as I do double-page layouts, which is to say... not a lot ;-) I have to admit I cheated a little by making them 9x12" pages so that I didn't have quite as many pockets to fill, and I made sure I picked a subject where I had a tonne of photos to include. A weekend trip away with the family to Phillip Island was perfect because we packed SO many adventures into those two days it was ridiculous!

I essentially broke our trip down into 5 different activities that I had photographed, and I included 2 photos from each making sure I had all the family members covered. I numbered them accordingly and used that same number when I wrote out my corresponding journaling. I hope it still makes sense to me later on down the track!

Because all the pockets are a square 3x3" I had to trim down my traditional cards to make them fit, but as a bonus, the Studio Calico Pop Art Project Life Kit had a set of 3x3" die cuts which are the circle and heart shaped cards you see. I've included this spread straight into my regular 12x12" album and I'm really enjoying the variety this one brings.

One of my favourite galleries in every issue of Jot has to be the story-telling one. I'm pretty sure I've submitted a layout for this gallery every single time because you know me - I've always got a long story to share!

In this issue the theme was "When I Grow Up" and I had the perfect photo to scrap since Moriah had also recently had this same theme as a dress-up party at school. What was even better was that whole event actually HAD a story to be told (which you can read about if you can be bothered getting up close with my journaling!) which was above and beyond what my normal caption would have been like for a photo such as this.

I'm not scrapping a lot of layouts these days so when I do I find it a good opportunity to pull out some of my old supplies and mix and match different things. But actually what I decided to do this time was go a little hybrid and use a painting that Moriah had done for the background paper. It seemed quite appropriate. I scanned it into the computer and dropped down the opacity before printing it back onto some card. Now I feel like I've achieved something even greater with this layout - a good story and some kid-art recorded in the same place!

You can see these layouts and all the other fabulous inspiration in the pages of the FREE online issue of Jot Magazine right here. Happy reading!

Jot Christmas projects

It was a super-busy month at Jot Magazine throughout December (isn't it for everyone?!) but we saw the release of our 'regular' Issue 12, as well as a special edition Christmas Gift book - which meant lots of beautiful projects getting shown off and it's quite possible you missed some of them in the hubbub.

Probably also because I forgot to share any of them here that doesn't help right?! ;-)

Some of us Jot Girls were lucky enough to be given a bunch of Stampin' Up Hello December goodies to play with and to share in the magazine. The Hello December collection is Christmas-themed and it's actually released in conjunction with Project Life, so it's a series of PL cards along with coordinating embellishments and a stamp set of course ;-)

We were given the supplies way back in October I think it was, and since I had already scrapped all my Christmas photos from the year before (gasp!!) I went with some non-photo projects instead. I did the two greeting cards above a little 3D. The gold deer was a favourite so I created a little scene around her, and the star became a shaker-card. Absolutely everything you see here is from the collection. Not a single thing added except for the cardstock for the card itself.

And then I turned some of the 3x4" Project Life cards into present labels or filler cards or tags or whatever you want to use them for!

I started off thinking I would make 3 - that's a respectable number to call it a series, and if I were to use them in a PL spread later on then 3 is probably all I would need. But I was so inspired by each new card I picked up and how I could embellish it further that 3 turned into 4 and then 5 and before I knew it I had made 7!

I ended up using them as gift tags on my presents this year. I purposely made sure I had left room on each of them to write the recipient's name.

And speaking of presents, I also created some gift boxes to feature in the magazine as well. These aren't made with the Stampin' Up goodies, but rather they're made with a lot of upcycled products and packaging I had lying around my craft room!

You might recognise those boxes as what you used to receive your Project Life kits in from Studio Calico (before they changed to the plastic zipper bags). The crepe paper ruffled ribbon was made from leftover streamers from Bethany's rainbow party!

I embellished with more Project Life cards and other Christmassy things from my big box of holiday supplies and made them as bright as can be. And yes, I really did use all 4 of them to give away Christmas gifts in too, so not only pretty, but highly practical too.

There's still time to pick up the Jot Magazine Christmas Gift book here. 
And you can download Issue 12 for FREE here.

Minc | Beyond the Basics

I'm such a fan of the way Big Picture Classes run their business. You sign up for a monthly subscription, of which there is commonly a code to get the first month free (and there is ALWAYS a free trial period anyway) and then you're able to take as many classes as you can handle! And since they are constantly adding new ones I doubt you'll ever run out of options.

At the start of December I added my third class to the lineup. This one is called "Minc | Beyond the Basics" and it's all about sharing new techniques to try out with your Minc machine that go beyond just using the pre-made embellishments you can purchase. In fact, it's actually more about experimenting with what you've already got in your stash than about having to go out and purchase specific products. In fact, I've even heard you can use the same techniques with a laminator (shhhhh!!)

For example, one of the techniques I'm teaching is how to add foil highlights to your stash of commercial Project Life cards. Can you see the mint foil on the globe card above, and the aqua foil on the raindrops? If there's one thing I learned from this class it's that photographing foil is really hard to do!

I'll share a couple of different methods for getting the whole rainbow of foil colours onto your projects such as cards. You know me... I can't help but include all the bright colours at once. 

And then I pushed myself outside of my comfort zone by creating a framed print for the girls room. Tricky to capture the holographic foil highlights in this watercolour painting, but in real life it's quite eye-catching ;-) I'll show you step-by-step how I did it in Lesson 2.

Some of my lessons are video tutorials such as how to use your traditional stamps and digital stamps to create fun backgrounds, and also this one which shows you how to take your kid's drawings to the next level by foiling them!

You can check out all the Minc | Beyond the Basics details here, or simply browse through the wide selection of other classes on offer here.

PS. Studio Calico also happen to have some Minc supplies on sale at the moment if you need to stock up on a few things! ;-)