Evalicious Shop Update

Can I tell you all how excited I am to be designing for Evalicious? I'm honestly so inspired by these products, and I simply can't stop using them.

Love all the badge buttons for a start. You know they're my new addiction. Eve was so generous with our DT packages... this is only the tip of the ice-burg! I mean seriously!

Do you think it's possible to have too many badge buttons on one project? I hope not ;-)

Then there are the stamps. Deeply etched red rubber stamps in a myriad of funky fresh and graphic designs. I can't even begin to chose a favourite. And believe me, I've tested out bunches of them!

And of course, if you know me at all well you'll know that I can't overlook the paper tags and journaling cards. Just perfect if you're like me and have lots to say on all of your projects. But even if you're not, they make lovely embellishments.

All these new products have now hit the Evalicious Shop, and Eve has got some great shipping deals going on as well (enter code 'FreeShip' if you spend $100 on US/Canada orders, or '10OffShip' for international orders). I definitely recommend checking it out. In the meantime there's also the blog and Flikr pool if you're after some inspiration on how to use your new Evalicious products :-)

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

InLinkz.com

The Story of the Song That Will Get Stuck in Your Head

Unlike a lot of other DT contracts, my contract with Flourish With a Bling doesn't run out at the end of the year so I'm lucky enough to still be designing for them for another few months (at least!) There's a lot of big changes about to happen there, changes that you're definitely not going to want to miss. But for the time being, we're still running our regular monthly challenges.

The challenge for January is "Black & White plus One" which is exactly what it sounds like. You must create a project using only the colours black, white, and one other of your choice. And include some FWAB of course! We're pretty lenient though - this is not supposed to be hard, it's supposed to be fun. So feel free to include cream along with your white, or different shades of your chosen colour if you need to.

I think the trick to these types of challenges where you're limited in colour is to include as much texture as possible to create the visual interest. You can see I've used lots of different mediums on my card to try and jazz it up, and yet the FWAB Silver Bella Rhinestone Flourish still steals the show.

There's still plenty of time left if you want to take part in the challenge. All the details can be found on the FWAB blog here. To go along with the challenge the girls have even put together a 'black & white & one' prize pack! Check it out...

xxx

What's in Store at JBS

Sooooo super excited about Jenni Bowlin's new release! So many new fun products debuting at CHA in the next few days. If you can't wait then I highly recommend you watch the video as she takes us on a personal tour of all the new designs.


And if that's not enough then check out the exclusive offer if you sign up to the fabulous JBS Mercantile Kits in January. Too good to be true!

Not-Quite-a-December-Daily Part 2

I've quite surprised myself by getting my Not-Quite-a-December-Daily finished in a timely manner this year. And when I say "this year" what I really mean is that I'm always working a year behind - this is the album for 2011. Honestly, how many people are working on Christmas projects now that Christmas is over? None! So what happens to all those photos that you've taken of the celebration just gone? They wait until next year. At least, that's what happens in my house. LOL!

But rather than wait until December 2013 to share the 2012 album I made for the Christmas of 2011 (confused yet?!) I thought I'd just get it all over and done with now ..... even though it's January. I shared the album cover and first couple of pages back here, and now here's the rest of it.

Ok, and that's it. No more Christmas posts from me for another 11 months I promise! (Maybe I should pack away my decorations now?) If you've got any questions on my process or my supplies .... ask away. Otherwise I figured this would be long enough as it was :-)

The Story of Her First Year

As we wrapped up 2012 I couldn't help but go over all the memories we created, all the achievements we accomplished, all the milestones racked up (.... all the photos I've got left to scrap!)

One of the big events was Munchy's first year at school. Which of course included Munchy's first set of school photos. Man, I don't know how you long-term parents do it, do you actually scrap these photos year after year? I mean, let's be honest, has anyone ever had fabulous school photos to scrap? What do you do with all of these?!

I love my little girl and I think she's gorgeous. But she's never going to be at her best at the end of a school day when her hair is all messed up and she's captured half way through a silly practice grin :-) And trying to use a combination of navy and orange has never really been on my 'must try' list! 

However, I'm glad that I turned both her head-shot and her class photo (which came in this folder arrangement) into a layout, because I'm not sure I'd go back to look them up an aweful lot if they were just in a regular photo album. On the other hand, I've still got plenty of spares should the need arise. Why is it that you can never buy less than about 10 copies of the same photo?!!

She's counting down the days until she goes back to school. Here's hoping for a better Grade 1 shot :-)

Christmas Round Up via my Instagram Feed

So I know Christmas is all over and done with and some like to just move on ... but I'm a bit sentimental about my favourite holiday of the year. I still haven't packed away the decorations!

So while I'm reminiscing, let me share a few of the crafty projects I managed to accomplish over the break (and I use that word loosely because I certainly didn't get any time off!) First up I had one excited little 6-year-old who wanted to give a Christmas card to every kid in her class and handmade was definitely going to be better.

I knew it was going to have to be a design that was quick and simple and easy to replicate, so thanks to my Silhouette, a Christmas stamp and some glitter this is what we came up with. They did the job and everyone was happy!

Along similar lines I then moved onto my Christmas tags and made a bunch of them too. Aren't those reindeer the cutest things?!

Next it was The Man's turn to ask for Christmas cards to give to all his Tech Team at Church. Once again the Silhouette came to the rescue and I cut out a series of these Christmas phrases from the JBS Vintage Christmas Words file.

Yep that's right - it was all about the mass production for this project too!

I didn't realise this was going to be a post about how much I abused my Silhouette this season, but I also used it to 'label' all the girls Christmas presents too. Once again, simple but effective don't you think?

Moving right along.....
This year we bought each of the girls all the supplies they needed to complete one crafty project each. Munchy had found a video on YouTube about the famous melted crayon technique which she as excited about so I knew that was going to be perfect for her. And I'm pretty happy with how our canvas turned out.

And for Moodles it was this decorate-your-own-reindeer set. Super cute don't you think?

Last but not least, here's a sneak peek of my Not-Quite-a-December-Daily which I (surprisingly) finished. I haven't managed to take photos of it yet, but at least I managed to complete it! Which means I anticipate sharing another Christmas post with you in the near future.

In the meantime I'm about to savour a long weekend away with The Man celebrating our 10th wedding anniversary, so don't expect to hear from me for a couple of days ;-)