The Story of Sugar & Spice

I thought I'd follow on from my last post sharing my layout of when my daughters met their new baby cousin, to this one of that same moment. This time the photo captures me meeting my new niece. She's super-cute isn't she?!

I took on the colour challenge in the last Scrapbooking Memories magazine for this page too. It was a little tricky as the colours to work with were black, white, cream and blush pink. It's almost a monochrome combination in a way, and I have never really excelled at monochrome layouts.

But I ended up really enjoying the process of this. What I did was to go through some of my older stash and pull out some packets of product that would work. I grabbed these Kaisercraft rubon birdcages for black, Doodlebug border strips and a Pebbles journal card for white.

The cream chipboard clouds and wood veneer frames are from Studio Calico, and the flower is Prima of course. Otherwise most of my pink came from the papers and a bit of paint. Then I went to town layering up little bits and pieces of all of them along with some scraps of paper and a good splash of mixed-media in the background.

I felt really satisfied with this layout for a few reasons. I'm always happy to have scrapped another important life-moment for a start, but it was especially awesome to work through a process that is initially quite challenging and find that you can still make something pleasing at the end of it. And I'm glad to have debulked my stash of old product somewhat too!

Not a Creature was Stiring

Didn't I just finish telling you how I wanted to document some of the Christmas traditions that are so important (and that just might be unique) to us as a family? And then comes along the new Once Upon a Sketch challenge which must have been reading my mind.

Because along with this marvellous sketch the journaling criteria just so happens to be to document the traditions of how you spend December 25th. Of course here in Australia that's Christmas Day, but I didn't realise that in other parts of the world Christmas is celebrated on different days.

So in our household we just try and make sure the kids don't get up before the sunrise, and then it's present time! As a Christian family we don't have Santa Claus bring our children presents, rather they receive their gifts from us directly. But the stocking still remains a rather convenient way of 'wrapping' them all!

Lots of little fun details on this layout I think. Like that Imaginarium Designs chipboard branch which I figured could pass as holly, and needed a bauble hung from it :-)

I'm in love with those alpha stickers from Fancy Pants and want them in every colour. Certainly teal is the perfect place to start.

And a sprinkling of star confetti on textured cardstock. How cute!

Now onto our fabulous sponsors for the current challenge, and a little insight into what you could win if you play along .......

Papiers de Pandore is a French manufacturer who are offering one lucky winner two complete paper lines!! You've got to go and check out how beautiful their blog is. 

As is our custom, Imaginarium Designs will give away a prize package stacked to the gills with yummy chippies. 

And then my good ol' favourite Handmade by Suzanne will send someone not one, but two Tim Holtz embossing folders!

Check out all the details on the Once Upon a Sketch blog here.

Supplies:

American Crafts scarlet	Coredinations Basic Grey Coconut Cream Mask	Fancy Pants St Nick Stockings	Fancy Pants St Nick Christmas Story
Cosmo Cricket Jolly be Golly Elements	Kaisercraft Christmas Carnival 6x6" pad	Fancy Pants St Nick Alpha Stickers	Fancy Pants Happy Holidays rubons
Imaginarium Designs Kerri Flourish

InLinkz.com

Fa La La La La

It's the most wonderful time of the year! ........
(whoops, wrong Christmas carol)

This year I plan to document a lot of the traditions and celebrations, the decorations and the festivities that make our Christmas unique. Because I think we all do it a little differently, and I know that lots of us have our own specific traditions that we follow.

For example, my Mum started her own tradition of making us kids a personalised bauble for the Christmas tree. Then as we got married she added one for our partner's name as well. And then of course the grandkids got one, and well...... now we're at the point where there's too many for the tree to bear! So instead they've become a stand-alone decoration in their own right, hung from the ceiling like a colourful chandelier.

I took this photo last year of Munchy sitting on my brothers shoulders as she tries to find "her" bauble in amongst the mass.

So when I heard the theme this week at Scrapz.biz is "Deck The Halls" and my challenge to set was "Scrap Write Now" (which is where we focus on journaling) I thought I would challenge you all to dedicate a page to the stories behind our decorations. Is there a special ornament that means a lot to you? Or do you have a family tradition when it comes to decorating your home for Christmas? If so, share it with us in the Scrapz.biz gallery by the end of January (yes you read that right) and you'll enter the draw to win a scrappy voucher. Read all the details about my challenge here.

Supplies:

Cosmo Cricket Jolly be Golly Elements

American Crafts vanilla

Kaisercraft Christmas Carnival 6x6" pad

Fancy Pants Happy Holidays rubons

InLinkz.com

Like Chocolate

Sorry for the brief blogging hiatus. I realised I actually blogged more regularly when I was away on holidays that I have since I returned to work. But I guess that's exactly why hey? I've been flat-out working for the last 5 days that I haven't had a chance to stop.

But now that I have I wanted to share the last page I made as a Guest Designer for Scrapz.biz. I was working with their June Ticklez kit and I cannot stop raving about how packed this was with wonderful goodies!

For a start, there are 13 wonderful papers from which I picked a couple of the brighter Crate Papers ones to use on this happy and carefree layout. It's just a fun page about Munchy and The Man enjoying some sweet dessert treats in the city last Christmas.

And the Kaisercraft chipboard cutlery set was just perfect for this theme :-) I left them untouched because I didn't need them to compete with the bright retro patterns down the side.

But not only was this kit filled with wonderful papers and a huge collection of embellishments, including an ENTIRE Pink Persimmon stamp set!! From it I could piece together this layered cake image, but it also has some tea-cups and cake stand and little flowers and flourishes too. It's so cute!

From it you can stamp all these ideas and more. I think this kit is definitely worth checking out - it is such good value :-)

I'm going to be right back ASAP and post another giveaway to make up for lost time hey?!

Necessity is the Mother of Invention

My last weekly challenge is up at Scrapz.biz. It's the 'Paint a Rainbow' challenge which means a colour combo as well as the weekly theme needs to be incorporated.

The colours I chose are 'dusty pink', 'teal' and 'apricot' and of course you can always mix in the neutrals such as white, cream, grey, brown and black.

And the theme of this challenge is "Necessity is the Mother of Invention" and what's the one thing that all of us need more of? (Well, apart from more time and money? :P )............ Space in our scrapping area for new products!!

If you're like me you have piles of "old" product that is too good to get rid of because you know you'll need it some day, but that day just hasn't seem to have come around!! :laugh: Well today is that day! I challenge you to mix the old with the new and use at least one product on your page that's been in your collection for ages!

 On my page I've used a variety of new products such as:
Glitz Designs Afternoon Muse Polka (the teal paper)
Glitz Designs Afternoon Muse Whatnots (the orange frame and vintage tag)
Glitz Designs Tiny Pink Alpha stickers
American Crafts tapes (very similar to the new Hambly ones in store)

But I've also mixed in some of my old stash including some very old Kaisercraft and American Craft rubons, and all those Basic Grey alpha stickers that I'm sure we've all got in our collection!

 

Another new product I used was this gorgeous chipboard leaf spray from Imaginarium Designs. I love how detailed their products are, and you're going to be seeing a lot more of their products on my pages I can assure you!

So I can't wait to see what you come up with using this colour combo as well as your old stash. Pop over to Scrapz.biz and upload your interpretation to be in the running to win one of the amazing weekly prizes that you've just made room for!

All the mommas who profit dollas

Check out my gorgeous girls! Beautiful through and through :-) And I love them bunches.

These are two of my best friends. Over the past 10 years they've been my college-buddies, flat-mates, study-group, brides-maid, drive-me-into-oncoming-traffic, holiday-makers, support-people, Wizards-and-Warlords, dance-partners, arthouse-movie-watchers, Charlie's-Angels and so much more.

Michelle Fowler designed this month's sketch at Handmade by Suzanne and it is FABulous! For once I stuck to the sketch pretty much as it was drawn!! Well.... almost :-) 

I substituted Glimmermist instead of paper to get the three long strips of colour down the centre of the page. And I layered my two photos on top of one another for something slightly different.

Once again, one of the tags on the Cosmo Cricket Upcycle Elements paper was absolutely perfect for my page. And the LilyBee chipboard and Kaisercraft doilies coordinated wonderfully with the other Upcycle papers I've used.

I'm a typography glutton at the moment -  I cannot seem to get enough! If you look through my recent Tumblr updates, they're all wonderful typography pieces. And translating that look onto a scrapbook page has just become so easy now I've got my Silhouette. Love it :-)

Anyway.....
come along and play with us at Handmade by Suzanne. There's so much going on! A MILLION wonderful new arrivals in the store, the amazing Kathie Link is the Guest DT for March, and the sketch challenge proved so popular last month that Suzanne has just upped the prize to a $30 voucher plus free shipping! Check out the details here.

Happy December!!

I love the holiday season. I love the images, the sounds, the smells....everything! And of course, I love Christmas crafting. I'm really looking forward to Ali's December Daily, Tim's 12 Tags, Julie's Holidays Handmade etc etc! and I'm sure they'll be plenty of other exciting scrapbook adventures along the way too.

I got a head-start on some Christmas tags this year with my Basic Grey Jovial supplies that Suzanne sent me.

 

And here they are individually for some close-ups......

I made all the shipping tags myself - just out of old manilla folders. I didn't measure anything so I can't tell you exactly what size they are, but if I would have to guess (and I do have to guess because I don't have them with me at the moment!) I would say they're about 5" x 2"

I'll be doing a Guest blog post in the next week or two where I'll be giving a tutorial on how I created the backgrounds for these. I'll let you know when it's posted and link you up so you don't miss out!

All the embellishments are fussy-cut or folded from various papers from the Jovial collection. I'll show you how to do the a better version of the angel in the tutorial too :-)

The rub-ons are by Kaisercraft.

The various laces are by Green Tara and Prima.

Lots of Martha Stewart glitter everywhere!

How fabulous is this Christmas tree?!! I can say that because I followed a tutorial I learnt from Teacher Jessy's blog - go and check it out!

I'll also be posting a tutorial on how to make those stars in the very near future too :-)
And the pearl bling is exclusive to Handmade by Suzanne. See all the pretty colours here.

I cannot wait to show you all the other goodies that I've got in store for you all over December. Lots of tutorials (as you can see!) a few Guest blogging spots, a giveaway must be included too I'd say ;-)

 

At the moment what can you do?

1. Keep scrolling through some of my recent posts for more Christmas projects, including my advent calendar below.

2. You've only got a few days left to email me if you're interested in taking part in the Secret Santa Stash Swap. All the details are here.