Jot Kids: Bethany's entry

Bethany is 10 and she's a creative kid. She'll make up stories and come up with fantastical ideas and she loves to write.

She's also a real sucker for a challenge!
Meaning... she's pretty competitive ;-)

She's also got quite the memory on her, and she must ask me every school holidays if Jot Magazine has put out another Jot Kids challenge. She was thrilled when I told her there was indeed a Mood Board issued just for kids for the month of January! She wanted to work on her layout straight away!

 

She jumped on the computer first and chose some photos she wanted to scrap. This is her and Moriah and their cousins at my brother's wedding a couple of months ago and it's a great subject to scrap. She got The Trophy Husband to print out the photos she chose, and he didn't think to edit them first to improve the quality/brightness of these. But I guess that's not the point!

Next she ran to my scrap supplies to chose out some fun papers to scrap with. She wanted papers that were bright and bold and would represent all the colours of the rainbow, just as the Mood Board suggested. 

I love that when she designed the layout of her page she made sure to leave (what she thought would be) enough space to write out her journaling. Turns out she had so much more to say and her journaling spilled further downwards across the patterned paper as she finished her story.  

She's such a girl after my own heart!

Clearly she's pretty happy with her finished piece. She said "I'm going to present it just like the ladies on TV do when they have something to sell" as I try to take her photo! Crazy girl!!

If your creative kids are looking for something to do in January then look no further that the Jot Kids Mood Board challenge. The generous Anita from Flutterby Designs has once again sponsored a prize for the lucky winner. You can find all the details HERE.

Jot Kids: Moriah's entry

Of both my girls it's probably Moriah (who's 7) who asks me if she can create alongside me more often than her older sister. Bethany is happy settling down with a good book, but Moriah prefers to be doing something with her hands. She's patient and meticulous and can draw for hours.

So she was thrilled with the Jot Kids challenge was issued because it gave her a great excuse to do some making.

I explained to her the concept of the Mood Board was to be inspired by the colours or a certain picture on it and then go in your own direction to create your layout.
She had particular ideas in her head straight away. 

She looked at the rainbow colours and decided she needed to draw her own rainbow in the corner of her page. Following that it only made sense that she would require clouds and raindrops. And she finished off the little scene she was creating with a line of grass down the bottom.

She wasn't going to worry about a title, but silly me opened my mouth and declared that most layouts included one (I should have just shut up and let her be creative in her own sense) and so she wrote out "The Biggest Rainbow" in her favourite Thickers... even though it didn't have much relevance to the content of her page :-)

She is so proud of her finished piece. The hand drawn details of Judah's little bow-tie are my favourite, but she would say it's the rainbow.

If you've got some creative kids who are looking for an activity to keep them busy these school holidays then check out the Jot Kids Mood Board challenge. Anita from Flutterby Designs has generously offered a prize for the lucky winner.

Weekend Project Life Spread

Apart from just making monthly spreads for my Project Life album this year, I've also been throwing in random spreads for special events as well. It's helping to bulk out my album so that it's not a mere 24 pages! This is one of those moments.

Over the winder school holidays we took our usual trip up to the country to see our immediate family. I remember poor Judah was really quite unwell with a terrible cold and so it wasn't that pleasant a time on that front. But there were some highlights such as this day we spent with my sister and her family.

The weather was really quite pleasantly warm for winter and we spent the day outside in their backyard. They had a brand new puppy which the kids just adored.

Judah was so cute with it, touching it's wet nose and giggling at it's soft ears. I guess it was so tiny that it was not in the least bit threatening for this boy that had never had much to do with animals before.

I knew I had a puppy card somewhere in my stash of Project Life/Documenter kits that would be perfect for this page, but I couldn't remember exactly where it was. After a bit of rifling through old kits I even recruited The Trophy Husband into looking for it as well. Lo and behold, it really WAS in the very last kit I had! But yeah... totally worth it!

This spread was really such a mix and match of so many kits I couldn't even begin to name them. It was probably a result of having to go through 26 old kids that meant I could pick out bits and pieces as I went along. But it felt good to use up some of this older stash.

I debated long and hard about those leaves though. I mean, they really give out the autumn vibe don't they? But this event took place in winter so it doesn't really fit. But the colours were perfect and they are just so darn pretty that I couldn't help it!

Tell me I'm not the only one who does things like that right?!

April Project Life Spread

I realise I am way WAY behind on my Project Life making, and even further behind in sharing my pages here. But I'll do what I can over the next week so catch up a little.

This double page spread appeared in the latest FREE issue of Jot Magazine (which you can download here) and even though I made it ages ago I still really love it.

I think I love the colours most of all. The mix of green and gold and pink is something I haven't used before, and the addition of lots of black and white is now becoming a staple for me after creating this page and noticing the high impact it creates.

The cards are a mix of Studio Calico's April Film Club Documenter Kit, and a set of Amy Tangerine's Better Together cards from her Project Life Core Kit that I got from the Spotlight event when she last visited Australia. I think they work quite well together.



When it comes to embellishments in my Project Life album I'm trying to keep them as flat as possible, but I still love adding a bit of texture, so these puffy stickers, gold rubons and corkboard stickers did the trick nicely on the first page.

I've then also thrown in a few extra embellishments like these diamond chipboard shapes from a much older Studio Calico scrapbook kit in order to make a bit of an effort to use up some stash.
I've got lots of them left over which meant I didn't really know what to do with them in the first place, but I like the extra colour they add here without having to really mean anything at all ;-)

Of course with all my pages I always make sure to leave enough space to add in the stories I want to tell, and since I find handwriting so much easier, I stick with that! Filling in all possible gaps with jouranling!

Anyone else as far behind as I am?!

January Jot Magazine Mood Board Challenge

It's a brand new year of Mood Board Challenges at Jot Magazine and we're starting off with this cool and crisp colour combination of royal blue, raspberry, peach and grey. Don't you love it?

I used it to inspire the colours behind this card I (rather ashamedly) whipped up on the day of the wedding! But trust me, if you're a last-minute crafter like me, then having a Mood Board colour combo and a few trusty Sizzix dies will save your butt every single time. It means I had this card done and dusted in no time at all!

 I didn't forget to add what's fast becoming my signature touch of a scattering of sequins at the end.

If you want to check out the full version of this card, plus a tutorial on how it all came together, then check it out on the Sizzix Lifestyle Blog right HERE!

And if you're desperate to play along with the Mood Board challenge at Jot Magazine now that you've seen the inspiration then you can check out all the details HERE! There's a generous prize pack on offer from Corbett Creations Wood Veneers!