All my Happiness Belongs to You

I think this is my last product challenge page of my series to share with you....

The theme 'ingredient' for this particular week at Scrapz.biz was flowers.
Eeeeekkk! Do you know how much that one in particular scared me?! I don't really do flowers much on my layouts. Or at the very least, I don't do flowers like what immediately springs to mind (if your mind works like my mind!) I don't do Prima-ish romantic chic, shabby, vintage, pretty pages anyhow.

But lucky for me, my particular challenge that week was to do a "Scrap Write Now" which is all about focusing on the words in your layout. And that, I can do!

So after drawing some quote inspiration from my boards at Pinterest (that's a little title/journaling trick of mine to be honest) I set to making this page all about my advice to my children to follow their dreams, and not thinking about flowers at all.

And you know what? In the end I actually include a whole packet of flowers! And..... they're PRIMA! So apparently I am the kind of person who can create a Prima-ish kind of page! LOL!

Supplies:

Bazzill Cardstock White	The Girls Paperie Paper Girl Newsprint Scallop Die Cut	The Girls Paperie Paper Girl Shabby Flower	Basic Grey Hello Luscious doily paper
Simple Stories 100 Days of Summer Kit	Pink Paislee Wood Shop Alphabet Woodchip	Prima Gianna Collection Fairy	Mister Hueys Plumb Thumb
Mister Hueys Heirloom Blue	Studio Calico Mister Huey Cameo	Studio Calico MIster Huey Lunch Tray

InLinkz.com

Pet Starfish?

We recently had a wonderful time on a family holiday. We caught up with friends, we strolled on the beach, we played in the park and made lots of happy memories.

One of the highlights was a trip out to Daydream Island (yes it's as good as it sounds!!) where we were lucky enough to have a private tour of the biggest outdoor aquarium in the Southern Hemisphere.

Now when I say we had a private tour I don't mean that we arranged it that way or paid any kind of big bucks for it! I just mean we were lucky enough to organise it when no one else was around so we just happened to be the only ones!!! :-)

But it meant that the kids were given special treatment to be able to 'handle' the wildlife. They picked up baby sharks (there's a layout on that coming up soon!!) and stroked the stingrays, they fed the fish and held these amazing giant starfish..... which is obviously what this page is about.

The girls absolutely loved it. I thought perhaps they might be a bit shy or scared, but no, they couldn't get enough. In fact, I almost had to prise this starfish out of Moodles hands at the end of it otherwise it might have been coming home with us :-)

Have you had any exciting adventures lately?

Now She's 5

It's birthday season around here - first Munchy, now me (tomorrow..... and it's a big one.... shhhhh!!!) and then Moodles in another week or so.

This was one of those layouts that I had been imagining in my head for the longest time and then when it actually came to translating it to paper it just.... well...... didn't!! *LOL*

Oh well! The birthday essence is still there - with the colourful flags and ephemera and misting/splattering fun. And the idea of capturing a moment in time is still there. I did a mini-interview with Munchy about all her favourite things right at the moment and tried to include as many of them as possible in my journaling.

I even had the courage to let her write her own name up in the corner on my almost finished layout. It went a bit crooked hey? But adds to the charm I think :-)

So there's a few birthday celebrations going on around here and I might not have a chance to get near the computer for a few days for which I apologise in advance. But don't worry because I've been scrapping up a storm lately and have quite the backlog of projects to share when I get back!

Sleepless in Seattle???

We just recently moved to the country town of Sale so that I can work in the hospital here for the next 6 months. I moved down first and then The Man and the girls followed a couple of days later.

On the first morning after they had woken Munchy started up a conversation with a mouthful of Weetbix......
"I couldn't sleep last night. I stayed awake for about 80 hours"
"Oh dear" I said, "what did you do?"
"I played with Moodles for a bit. When she fell asleep I just sat there and held her warm little hands."

It melted my heart, and I just knew I had to scrap this page to capture the moment :-)

Supplies: 
Basic Grey Basics in the very background.
The base cardstock started off white until I embossed it and inked it and dribbled paint down it!
All the alphas are from The Girl's Paperie.
And the flowers are Prima.

Love my sweet little girls.
xx

Paradise of Love and Joy

Are you ready?

Over on the Sassafras blog they are posting a new challenge every day whilst the gang are away living it up at CHA. Day 1 was hosted by Megan and she challenged us to make a layout focused on the journalling. Well, that's just my thing isn't it? So it was easy for me to play along.

Megan's example page featured a photo taken from an airplane window looking out over the clouds, so you can see where she's inspired me in more ways than one!!

We recently went on holidays for the first time with all four of us, and it was glorious! We escaped the chilly cold winter weather for 10 days and had a great time in Central Queensland. We caught up with some friends we hadn't seen in a couple of years, and did day-trips to the beach and the rainforest amongst other things. Plenty of highlights.

But there's nothing quite like coming home again is there?

I've used my favourite "Mix and Mend" collection for this layout, with a few Girl's Paperie "On Holiday" die-cut shapes, and Basic Grey rub-ons. And yes, that's a real luggage tag!
I'll be back again tomorrow to share my page for Day 2's challenge :-)

Easter in July?

Occasionally at this time of year people celebrate 'Christmas in July', but right now I haven't even begun to think about Christmas (I still haven't finished my December Daily from last year!) and I've got a bunch of Easter photos that are waiting to be scrapped.

This was the third page I made with the delicious 'Dream in Colour' July kit from Tidbitz in Time. I was able to pull out some of the lovely pastel shades in this kit which traditionally seem to go with Easter pages.

The Girl's Paperie ribbon pack is gorgeous with a great assortment of different looking ribbons. But I have to admit I was a little cautious about how I was going to use the pink tinsel one - it's quite thick, and makes me think of Christmas not Easter!

Not to be deterred, I simply cut very small pieces and layered them behind my journal spot for a nice little twinkling touch :-)

The pale aqua lace would have made it onto every single one of my layouts if I wasn't trying to be fair to the others! But I couldn't resist adding it along the border of my papers on this page to represent the 'grass' in my little garden scene here.

What do you think of the embellished circles? I've got a thing for beautiful patterns lately and trying to translate them into layout form. If you check out my Pinterest board "Patterny" you'll see where I got the inspiration for this cute and unusual idea.

And I cannot believe it took me until my third layout to use one of those gorgeous Prima butterlies?!! Never mind, because once I used this one I quickly whipped up my fourth layout and used the other butterfly too!!
If you can't wait until I share that, or if you want to check out all the other DT examples made with this delightful kit (and I strongly suggest you do!) then check out the Tidbitz in Time July gallery here. 

The Greatest Gift

If we're talking about gifts, and before I get into the details of this layout, you should go and check out my current giveaway here - especially if you love Two Peas :-)

I've been saving my favourite layout from my June adventures with The Girl's Paperie Jubilee collection until last. I loved working with this 'kit' for Handmade by Suzanne - the colours and patterns are just so me!!

I'm totally digging giving my background some subtle details with tone-on-tone designs. It's just that making white stencilled cherry blossoms on cream/yellow paper is a little bit too subtle, so I outlined the desings with black pen to give them a little pop.

The delicious flowers I used here are by Prima, they're called Love Note - Celebrate and they coordinated so well. I was pleasantly surprised to find in this single packet of flowers a mix of plain and printed paper flowers, as well as the crochet ones. I also made some of my own out of May Arts pleated satin ribbon and I had an instant eclectic mix of flowers which I simply threw down on my page. Easy done!

I made this page about an ordinary everyday moment of my girls eating apples out of the orchard. A good wholesome moment though! I journaled some thoughts for them about persuing all this life has to offer them, and not to take our blessings for granted. Remember how I made a resolution to write more 'meaningful' journaling on my pages? Prime example :-)

OUAS, TIDT and a Giveaway!!

I'm here, I'm here!! And I've got something to share! (in fact a lot, so maybe grab a cuppa)

The new sketch has gone up at Once Upon A Sketch and the challenge has began! And trust me when I say you need to go over and check this out because our Guest Designer has offered up a prize that's too good to resist! But firstly, here's my page.......

Journalling Criteria: Who is in the photo? Name the person in the photo and at least 1 fact about them. This can be personality, character, talent , achievement etc. but it must be at least 2 sentences long.
And of course, the sketch:

Now usually I'm on the side of the DT who submit pages for the 2nd sketch challenge every month, but this month I am super-duper-ly lucky to be the Guest Designer for Tidbitz in Time and I couldn't resist but use their amazingly fun July kit to whip up a page for this challenge.

This kit is amazing! The colours and textures here are right up my alley! The July kit is called 'Dream in Colour' and contains:
Five sheets 12 x 12 Girls' Paperie Patterned Paper - Jubilee Collection
Four sheets 12 x 12 Prima Marketing Patterned Paper - Melody Collection
Flocked Alphabet Stickers, Orange - Prima Marketing
Market Trims - Four yards - Girls' Paperie
Butterfly Kiss Melody - Two Pieces - Prima Marketing
Candy Gems (beads) - Two Pieces - Prima Marketing
Fabric Brads - Twelve Pieces - Girls' Paperie
Chipboard Pieces Melody - One 12 x 12 Sheet - Prima Marketing
Caboodles Flowers - 36 Pieces - Prima Marketing

So the only thing I've added to this page is the paper doily behind the photo because I needed something round to represent the circle in the sketch. I've journaled about my Mozzy Moo (as we regularly call Moodles) and how she remains quite a happy and joyful little toddler. She's always smiling, and of course, that means people are always happy around her in return.

So lots of wonderful goodies in this kit. And can you believe you will receive THIRTY-SIX gorgeous Prima flowers?! That's enough for me to sprinkle over every single one of my 4 or more projects that I plan on getting out of this kit. I'll be sharing the rest of my pages in the very near future, but in the meantime check out what the other Designers have done with it by looking in the gallery here, or blog here.

So I don't want to keep you in suspense any longer regarding our challenge prize........
Karola Witzcak is our very special Guest Designer at Once Upon a Sketch this month, and not only has she made a spectacular page for the challenge with some of her new papers, but she is sponsoring both the winner and a random participant to receive an entire collection!!! EeekkkkK!!!! I want to win!

Now if that hasn't given you enough to do already then just hold on a little bit longer.........................

As a way of making up for my recent abscences on my blog I'm offering my own GIVEAWAY too!! How about winning a $15 voucher to Two Peas in a Bucket?!! If you're interested then all you have to do is leave a comment on this post and I'll put your name into the draw.
If you're a follower of my blog leave a second comment for another chance to win, and if you blog about this giveaway I'll give you a third chance of winning :-)
I'll draw a winner next weekend on 9th or 10th.

Alrighty. Better hop to it!!

A giggle and a hoot

I love that Munchy has a best friend that I know is a good influence on her, someone I know is raised with similar values and beliefs and who won't lead her astray (yes, I'm already thinking that way, and she's only 4 years old!!)

But life circumstances mean they probably won't see each other for at least another year, and given that's a quarter of her life it seems like forever. So I did a little layout celebrating their love for one another using the Jubilee collection by The Girl's Paperie that I'm working with this month for Handmade by Suzanne.

By picking out all the pinks in the different papers, adding some blue highlights and mounting it on grey cardstock I've got a very soft and dreamy page which is starkly in contrast with the last page I shared, although it's made with the same collection.

I loved coming up with this little bird embellishment. A thick scraping of gesso through a small part of the Cherry Blossom stencil and then layering on the crystal glitter. I call it 'dimensional stenciling'!! I love this :-)

I'm back at home today after a lovely time away on holidays. That means I'm going to be drawing the winner of my giveaway tomorrow, so rush off and get those last minute entries in while you can!