My Favourite One

May has turned out to be quite an exciting scrappy month for me actually. Along with starting a new DT gig at Scrap Friends, making my first video tutorial (soon to be released), and working with Jenni Bowlin again (I'll tell you all about that real soon...) I also have the pleasure of announcing this....

I'm the very first Design Team Guest over at Soul Scrappers!! I'd barely finished reading the email from Shazza asking me if I'd like to be their guest before I was jumping down my keyboard to reply YES, YES! They have a great DT and a friendly forum over there, and they let me set my very own challenge ;-)

So I chose to go with something close to my heart, something that I truly believe in and that's to include journalling on our layouts. Specifically for this challenge I've said that you need to include at least two lines of your own handwriting. I know that's hard for some people..... but hey! that's why they call it a challenge!

One of the reasons I know some people struggle and that's with the perception that they have nothing to journal about. Well that's simply not true! If you wake up in the morning and do stuff, even if it's just the everyday stuff - you have something to journal about. If you have family members or friends that talk to you - you have something to journal about. If you have thoughts and hopes and dreams - you have something to journal about. You've just got to put it into words and get it down on paper. It's as simple as that!

I made this page as my example layout. It's all about one of Moodles current expressions which is "that's my favourite one". Well, it's either that or "that's not my favourite one" :-) There's no in-between with her, it's pure black or white. One of her "favourite ones" right now is playing with Lego. She'll happily amuse herself for ages with this.

Along with my handwritten journalling I also included some hand-drawn Lego men. It's totally copied straight from this picture by Christine Marcelino I pinned.

As with every good challenge, there's a lovely prize pack to be won by one lucky entrant. This RAK includes a bunch of different ribbons, chipboard, stamps, bling, stickers, buttons and more! You can see all the details on how to enter this challenge, and all the other monthly challenges over here on the Soul Scrappers forum. Hope to see you there.

International Scrapbooking Day

It's an overcast dreary day here - drizzling with rain. Which suits me quite fine on this International Scrapbooking Day. Good weather for staying inside and creating :-)

I've been working on a few ideas lately for cutting out a large shape (in this case a monogram) and filling the negative with different embellishments.

For this card I rolled some different coloured pieces from My Mind's Eye Alphabet Soup collection and glued them behind my giant letter 'G'. It's kinda fun I think?

To celebrate Scrapbooking Day gorgeous Angela at Scrap Friends is offering 25% off the entire stock. But it's for today only, so you really need to rush over there now!!

Guess what else I've been doing today? Something which excites me enormously but scares me senseless at the same time.... I've been making my very first scrappy video!! Eeeeekkkk!!

Epic fail, or mediocre success remains to be seen. Stay tuned for that :-)

Card Supplies:

My MInds Eye Alphabet Soup Collection Pack

Mister Hueys Plumb Thumb

Studio Calico Mister Huey Cameo

InLinkz.com

The Pierian Spring

The end of April saw me say goodbye to my time as a Design Team Member at Scrapz.biz. It's always sad to leave something so special behind. I had been on the boards of Scrapz.biz long before I came to be on the DT, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time designing for them. Heike and the team are just lovely and I'm grateful for the chance to get to know them all a little better.

But just as my time was up at Scrapz.biz, another opportunity came knocking at my door. You may have noticed in my sidebar, or you may have seen the announcement.... but I now have the pleasure of saying that I am on the very first Designer Team for Scrap Friends!! I'm so excited!

Now that the first team has been assembled we are going to begin not one but two monthly challenges. On the 1st of the month will be a sketch challenge called "The Peirian Spring", and on the 15th a colour-combo challenge will be issued which is called "Yammy Scrap". Don't you just love those names?!

The sketch you see above is the very first Pierian Spring challenge, and this is the page I created for it. I was so inspired just by the sketch itself... I love this style! And I think it's going to continue to bring out the best in me, I was quite happy with how my first page turned out.

I got nice and messy on here! Washi tape, Gesso, Glimmermist.. I even cracked out some stamps.... it's been too long :-)

I want to let you in on one of THE BEST things about being on the Design Team for this new store and that's the products they offer. Along with all the big brand names you know and love already (I'm talking Crate Paper, Webster's, Tim Holtz, Cosmo Cricket, Prima and loads more) but which you can get pretty much anywhere, Scrap Friends offer a huge range of hard-to-get international brands such as ICC, Poland, The ScrapCake, Claudine Helmuth, Stanislaus and I could go on and on!

There's just so much on my 'must get' list that I didn't know where to start! In the end I've settled for a combination of Teresa Collins and ICC for this page about My Little Moodles. Now that Munchy is at school every day it offers The Man and Moodles quality time together one-on-one. Except that on some days Moodles just wanders around looking for her sister and calling out her name. It breaks my heart a little, but at least I know she loves her Bebesh (that's what she calls Munchy!)

And if I haven't convinced you already to go over and check out what Scrap Friends has to offer, then take a look at this prize you'll win for the Pierian Spring challenge! Geez.... I might just set up a fake blog just so I could enter this myself ;-) You've got until the end of the month to get your entries in, but why wait? To see the new DT's inspirational examples and to get all the details then click right here.

Supplies:

ICC Poetic Chemistry	ICC My Diary	ICC La Dolce Vita	Websters Pages Alpha Stickers Ladies & Gents
Crate Paper Paper Heart Border Stickers	Crate Paper Paper Heart Phrase Stickers	Teresa Collins Everyday Moments Brads	Teresa Collins Everyday Moments diecut sheet 3
Washi Tape Slim Bondi Blue	Washi Tape Slim Moray	Tim Holtz Tissue Tape Sketchbook	Gesso

InLinkz.com

Love You Deerly...

My next project up for Baby Month at Scrapz.biz was this sweet and colourful canvas that would be perfect to hang in your baby's nursery.

I started off with an 8x10" canvas which I covered in this plain notebook type paper from Lily Bee. Then I misted it with my bright rainbow of colours. I was asked a few questions over on the forum about how I managed to make my misting look so uniform and blended, and whilst I don't consider myself an expert by any means, I can share my simple tricks with you....

I think the first thing to learn is to do it lighter and from a greater distance than you imagine you need to. You can always go back and do more once it's dried and you can see what it looks like.

The other trick I've got is to use a couple of what I call 'mixer colours'.
I use a really light green, yellow and pink in between my main colours. You can't really see them as individual colours in the final product but they help blend together the bolder colorus.

Now as far as the deers are concerned - that was simply my Silhouette in action! Surely there's nothing cuter than woodland animals, and deers just have to be my favourite.You could just as easily trace around any of the templates that are freely available on the web and cut your own though.

I filled the background with a bunch of pucnhed and hand-cut hearts from the MME Alphabet Soup collection. I took my inspiration for this from a piece in the 7 Gypsies Flikr pool, found via Pinterest. Add in a few more embellishments and details and you're done! I'm so ready to hang this in my girl's room now..... except that it hasn't yet made it past my dining area (much like these Valentine's roses which are now dried to a crisp!)

Supplies:

My MInds Eye Alphabet Soup Collection Pack	Lily Bee Memorandum Cubicle	Lily Bee Memorandum ABC stickers	Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type Stickers
Studio Calico Mister Huey Cameo	Mister Hueys Heirloom Blue	Mister Hueys Plumb Thumb	Studio Calico MIster Huey Lunch Tray
Studio Calico Mister Huey Calico White

InLinkz.com