The Story of the Strawberry Milkshake

I woke up to some extraordinary scrappy news today. The kind that brings a little squeal of excitement. But of course, I can't share it yet. Sorry! What I can tell you is that I'm also very excited about having another opportunity to be a Guest Designer for Scrap Friends' November Colour Challenge. Here's what I created...

Man was this colour challenge a little out of my comfort zone!! All those dark colours? Eeek! I tend to be either a brights or a pastels type of girl! I have to admit I had a mini-breakdown when I saw the colour palette because my mind just went blank as to what to do with it.

After I gathered myself I did what I always do with colour challenges and that's to start going through my stash and pulling out bits and pieces that match the colours. I don't think about collections, or what's going to match with what. I just want the right colours.

Often I find some real gems of forgotten products that probably wouldn't have seen the light of day otherwise. Like these Cosmo Cricket peacock feather stickers that have been in my collection for well over a year now (possible even 2) waiting for the perfect project. Today was their lucky day! They ended up becoming the real star of this layout don't you think?

I mixed in a few new products too, like the transparent Basic Grey die-cuts and Evalicious Stickers. And do you see that there on my page? Yes folks.... that's a flower! I did it! I managed to use a flower on my layout. So proud of myself!

The photo choice almost came last as I needed something that would match all these dark colours. This one of Miss M sipping on a strawberry milkshake suited perfectly. The fact that her polka-dot dress coordinated with the dark polka-dot paper actually came as a bit of a coincidence but I definitely embraced it :-) I used the photo to then prompt my title and journaling direction and made it into a list of her favourite foods right now. Nothing world-shattering but still a snapshot in time that will be worthwhile remembering later.

If you want to play along with the challenge there's a store voucher up for grabs for the winner. Find all the details on the Scrap Friends blog here.

The Story of the Guitar

Sometimes it's really fabulous to be wrong about things isn't it? Like when I first saw the reveal of the JBS September kit I wondered how I was going to be able to use all those bright colours.... and then this happened...

And it's quickly become one of my most favourite JBS kits ever!
It's filled with lots of the fabulous Glitz Designs Finnley collection which I noticed matched the colours perfectly with the latest Yummy Scrap challenge at Scrap Friends, so I couldn't help but play along.

I'm still working through my huge pile of Evalicious badge buttons so I added a couple to this page. But pretty much everything else is from the JBS Papercrafting kit. I really wish I had got some of the add-ons now (which are all sold out!) Lesson learned.

That's the exclusive Quilt Star stencil you can see misted in grey in the background. All of the kits either have an exclusive stencil or stamp (usually both!!) in them which you can't get anywhere else. That alone is reason enough to subscribe in my opinion. But then you also get 2 exclusive papers designed by Lisa Dickinson as well which is icing on the cake. The white and green stars are cut from one of them, and the other I'm hoarding ;-)

I don't have much musical ability. I learned the organ for a couple of years in Primary School, and I can hold a tune, but there's no way I can read sheet music these days. The Man on the other hand has played acoustic and bass guitar for many many years. So it surprised me to find out Munchy, who normally takes after me predominantly, has quite an ear for music. She can pick out single instruments from a band and tell me which parts she likes.

We've got her doing Piano lessons this year which is all in aid of her actual desire to play the Flute. That's the one she specifically picked because it has such 'a beautiful sound'. But on this occasion she had commented that it was the guitar in the sound mix that she was enjoying, so out came The Man with his trusty acoustic and it quickly turned into her first impromptu guitar lesson.

The Story of my Wild Child

Sorry for the short bloggy break. Too many hours at work makes one less creative and just more tired I'm afraid ;-)

But oh my was I thoroughly excited to be invited back to my old stomping ground Scrap Friends to be one of their Guest Designers for the latest Colour Challenge!! And even more excited when I saw this Yummy colour palette.

I decided to concentrate on the pink/peach colour along with the grass-green and use the black and red as my highlight colours. It helped that I've still got quite the stash of products in these colours from my days designing full-time for Scrap Friends so I literally just threw all of it on my page in one giant explosion of linear layers!

It started with this fabulous Glitz Designs piece that reads "Live What You Love" which I've been meaning to use for the longest time. I must have pulled it out to include on a page on at least 3 different occasions and it never made the cut.... until now! I glammed it up a little more with some Glossy Accents on the heart, and the addition of the FWAB Pearl Chloe Flourish.

I don't necessarily think that Moodles is truly a Wild Child, she's much too well-trained to go really crazy! She knows the rules and likes to stick to her given boundaries. Thank goodness! But she is a kid of course, which means that she will still run amock and generally have a good time. I snapped this cheeky photo of her one day when the fire alarms went off at church as we were all evacuated. She was ignorant to the edgy atmosphere and was running up and down the grassy slopes having the time of her life. It's one of the true privleges of childhood isn't it? To be blissfully unaware of the stress levels of the adults around you, and just go on having a ball!

The colour challenge runs for a full month, so you've got until 14th June to play along too. The winner will receive a $25 voucher to the Scrap Friends store so you'll want to be in for this one! Check out the rules and all the designers inspiration on this blog post here.



Supplies:

ICC Poetic Chemistry Crate Paper Pretty Party Stitch Colour Conspiracy Spring-a-Licious Crate Paper Pretty Party Party Dress Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Garmine Collage Glitz Designs Paper Layers Beautiful Dreamer Crate Paper Paper Heart Border Stickers Heidi Swapp Vintage Chic Buzz Words Pink Paislee Portfolio Photograms Pink Paislee Portfolio Photo Tabs Pink Paislee Portfolio Tiny Tabs Teresa Collins Fabrications Brads Little Yellow Bicycle Clear Cuts Prima Rondelle Plume Leaves Washi Tape: Black Chevron FWAB Chloe Pearl Flourish: Pearl

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The Story of the Gourmet Farmer

The FWAB Blog Hop is still going on here.

I've never been overly fond of colour challenges in the past. Mainly I think because colour coordinating has never been my strong point. But then I realised that's the very reason why I decided to make improving my colour choices a scrappy resolution this year. Don't avoid your weaknesses.... work on them!

One of the best places to go for a colour challenge is my old stomping ground "Scrap Friends". They always have the yummiest inspiration pieces (pun intended!) which is doubly fabulous when your scrapping topic is about food too!! This is the latest challenge:

If I'm working on something new like colour choices then I'm gonna have to stick to my tried and true style though. Nothing too adventurous here.. just my good ol' linear layers!

And of course, it's got to have a good story to tell. This is the story of how The Man keeps on watching those shows like 'Gourmet Farmer' and 'River Cottage' and getting all inspired to grow a vegetable patch. He went through with it too, which is fabulous.

What's not quite so fabulous is our soil. Despite turning it, mulching it, watering it... our ground is still so solid that the carrots turned around in a circle and grew back into themselves like a snail!! Unfortunately you can't even say 'but at least they taste good' because I'm not too sure that's true either ;-)

He's not one to turn away from failure either, so he's trying again. More turning, mulching, watering but this time with leeks and tomatoes. Stay tuned for the next installment I guess...

xxx

The Story of the New Washing Machine

Yes folks, it just keeps on getting more and more exciting around here doesn't it? First I enthralled you with the tale of the head-lice, and now it's all about the new laundry appliances. Rivotting blogging hey?!

As any good housewife would know (not that I am one. Neither a housewife, nor a good one!) it's essential to have a functioning washing machine. And when your ol' faithful packs it in and calls it a day it's important to replace it as soon as possible!

Because washing clothes is one of those chores that really simply must get done every single day. Especially with young kids who potentially go through 2 or 3 changes of clothes a day.
Wash, rinse, spin. Repeat.
That's why I knew documenting this monotonous daily activity was going to be perfect for the My Mind's Eye Groundhog Day Challenge. In the movie he keeps repeated the same thing over and over, and so that's what I wanted to scrap about. Something that I do every day.

Firstly I thought about going to work and all the stuff I do there. Then I realised that delivering babies is really quite exciting.... and plus I don't think the photos from my point of view are really scrapbook worthy ;-) But just as important is the home-me. The me who looks after our family. Who cooks (sometimes) and cleans and bathes and feeds and cuddles and puts-ice-packs-on and screams at them and loves them whole-heartedly and ..... washes their clothes.
Every Single Day.

 

It's still supposed to be a bright and happy topic so I used my favourite MME collection - Alphabet Soup, with a good sprinkling of Lost and Found thrown in too. 

Now I know I have missed out on blogging here in a little while. But I've been around! Yesterday my first Evalicious blog post went up. It's another 8.5 x 11" page documenting Munchy losing her first tooth. Check it out here. 

And I've also got a video tutorial up on the Scrap Friends blog all about how to incorporate stamps and ink techniques into your pages. You can see it here.

Plus, I'm gearing up for the excitement that's coming by this little blog of mine on the weekend. Chooo choo!!

The Story of a Pet Desire

Do you make scrappy New Years Resolutions? I do! I'm not talking about the regular kind. I don't fool myself into thinking that if I decide on New Years to 'live healthier' or 'study harder' that it's going to last more than a couple of weeks. So I don't even bother :-) But I do like to think about what I might do differently in my crafty pursuits for the coming year.

Last year was when I decided to include my kid's artwork, the certificates and all sorts of memoribilia and ephemera into my layouts. And I think I stuck to that pretty well, and I know it will continue. This year I've decided that I'm going to branch out and try a new size. Not all the time, probably not even most of the time, but regularly I'm going to mix it up and make some 8.5 x 11" layouts. This is my first one for 2013, what do you think?

It sure gave Munchy a surprise when she saw it finished. She just kept asking "why is it so small?" and "where's the rest of it?" And I have to admit, it feels like scrapping a miniature page compared to a 12 x 12". I've already decided if I'm going to keep doing this I might need to think about printing my photos off smaller to leave more room.

Because it was all a bit foreign to me I made sure to stick to a sketch for my first attempt. Just for some guidance so I didn't feel I had to invent everything from scratch. I used the latest Scrap Friends Sketch Challenge #9 for my inspiration.

The story is about how if you ask my girls what type of pets they would like to get they always answer with the same thing, "A talking parrot and a goldfish". Which is not too unreasonable when you think about it, except that we live in a rental property in the middle of Melbourne and so can't really get pets. But at least it's better than their previous pet request which was for "a unicorn (or noonicorn as Moodles says) and a dolphin"!!

Supplies:

Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic Drama	Heidi Swapp Vintage Chic Bookkeeping	ILS Vivid	Teresa Collins Fabrications Brads
Pink Paislee Portfolio Photograms	Pink Paislee Portfolio Photo Tabs	Pink Paislee Portfolio Stamps	JBS Cuts: Feather Stencil
Tim Holtz Distress Ink Pickled Raspberry	Shimmerz Vibez Razzle Dazzle Berry	JBS Stamp Pad: Fountain Pen	JBS Dye Stamp Pad: Lavender Sachet

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