Still Dreaming of Mykonos

Hi there. I hope everyone's managing to keep sane at this busy time of year. It's pretty chaotic in the shops at the moment!

I received a fabulous pack full of KaiserCraft goodies from Katherine at Scrap Everything. These papers and embellies are hot off the press and I absolutely adore them! This set is called Secret Admirer Collection and has rich colourings of greens and hot pink with splashes of other gorgeous colours mixed in.

Here's my layout:

The summery, tropical feel of the papers made me immediately think of holidays. The last hot holiday we had was in Greece and, even though Greece isn't tropical, these papers work really well with my photos. I knew the stark white background of this pic would work with the bold papers but I wanted to use the hot pink paper and bright flowers and I hesitated to use these on a male page. The solution was to add mostly green to the pink paper plus splash some other colours around. I used Dylusions Ink Spray to create the spray and dribbles behind the photo then used the same colour in the title. I also created a more lineal feel by adding long, straight elements behind the photo. This helped to counteract the soft, feminine edges of the flowers.

Here are some close ups:

Nearly everything on this page is from the KaiserCraft Secret Admirer Collection. You can get them here. The die-cuts are sooo easy to use. Just layer them around the photo for a great coordinated background. All the KaiserCraft papers have a decorated strip on the bottom and I cut this up and used it as part of my background.

There's only one problem with scrapping my photos of Greece - I just want to go back!

Good luck with the Christmas shopping and don't forget to allow yourself some scrapping time!

Heather

I'm a Scrapbooking Memories Master!!!

Woohoo - I have such exciting news - I'm a Scrapbooking Memories Master!

The Masters have had to wait nearly 3 long months to be able to tell everyone and I'm so thrilled to be finally able to do so.

Here's a list of all the Masters for 2013:

Anita Stokes

Beck Beattie

Gail Lindner

Heather McMahon

Kaye Grieve

Kerryn Lawson

Leeann Pearce

Leonie Neal-Dawson

Sue Smith

Tarrah McLean

I'm so looking forward to the year ahead and to working with such a talented group of ladies. What an exciting time!

The Masters Edition of Scrapbooking Memories is released sometime in the next week. I can't wait to see the other Masters' projects and to pore over the Honourable Mentions!

Chat soon!

Heather

My "Long" Tutorial

Hi all. I hope you've been having a great week.

It's my turn to put up a tutorial for Scrap Everything! and I've chosen a subject close to my heart - long titles. Now this is not your standard tutorial as I'm not going to show you a new technique, rather it's a new way of looking and thinking about the design of your pages.

I often use long titles on my pages and I find they serve multiple purposes - they explain what the layout is about, they often replace journalling and they become a design element in their own right.

Here's one of the longest titles I've ever done:

Yes, it's an older layout so please forgive the papers, but the title is a good example of a VERY long one! The trick with a long title is to vary the font colours, sizes and shapes. It also must be readable and make sense. Make sure it roughly flows from top left to bottom right, as this is how we normally read text. This doesn't mean you have to physically start in the top left corner, just make sure that the general flow of the text runs that way. Note how my title is split into two sections but, because it runs in a logical way, it is still easy to read.

Here's one featuring my gorgeous nephew:

When using a long title like this, there's no need for any extra journalling, however you might like to add the date and place the photo was taken. Notice how the font sizes vary enormously. With this layout, my key word was "cutest". I wanted this to form the base under the photo. After this I really just fiddled with different letters until it looked right.

Here's one you might have seen in Scrapbooking Memories recently.

This time, I kept the title in a block rather than spread across the page. The title on this one combines with the photo to tell the story. The title tells us he couldn't blow the candles and out and the picture tells us why! (Note that his sister in the background has got the right action happening!)

And lastly, here's one that's not strictly laid out like a title but it's more than just jounalling.

I hope you've got some inspiration to try some longer titles. Go mad with your letter stickers! Try mixing chipboard letters, stickers and hand writing. I'm a strong believer that you can never have too many lettering options. I have drawers full of chipboard letters, Thickers and letter stickers. It's also really handy to have some smaller words and letters too. Mini alphas are great!

I'd love to hear if you make a layout with a long title!

Heather

ASI A4 Feature

Hi everyone,

As promised on my last blog, I have tried not to leave it so long between posts this time!

I recently had my first feature in Australian Scrapbook Ideas magazine. The brief was to use A4 papers on 12 x 12 layouts. I was also supposed to keep the A4 papers intact on as many layouts as possible which I found surprisingly hard!

By far my favourite layout of them all was the one where I cut the A4 papers up completely and made stitched circular embellishments with them. Here it is.

This is my bestie. We've been besties for so many years now I don't remember how many! We love going out together and have such a great time. This event was a 60s night and the colours of the costumes were brilliant. I wanted to capture all the psychedelic groovin' that was happening that evening!

I also made another layout of the same evening, this time of the four of us who went together. We were originally supposed to go with our hubbies but a couple of them couldn't make it so the others pulled out. More fool them  as it was such a great night! This group of girls are a blast!

Again, I tried to capture all that groovy 60s knock-your-socks off colour. It was just coincidence that we all had hired long white boots so I had to make a feature of this. The fact that I could use the words to "These boots were made for walkin'" was the icing on the cake.

For a complete change of subject I then chose to scrap about a funny thing my son said. Here's the layout:

My son has a great sense of humour. I was actually looking for a formal photo to go with this A4 paper but I found this photo when I was looking. I thought it suited perfectly! I had fun making the formal shirt on the left of the layout. I wrote my journalling on the handkerchief then tucked it in the pocket. Here's a close up:

 And last but not least is a layout of my mum and her sisters. I fussy cut the flowers in the A4 paper so they formed a floral frame around the ladies. Can anyone work out which is the famous Aunty Shirley from my last blog?

Thanks so much for looking. I hope you all have a great week.

Heather

PS - Shirley's second from the left.

My Gorgeous Aunty Shirley

I'm so sorry for the lack of action on my blog everyone! It's been so long since I blogged that I became one of those people that you check their blogs and the same picture comes up....again..... and again..... I swore I would never do that but sometimes life just gets in the way. I've had 2 kids doing exams (one did her first VCE 3/4 subject in year 11) and a sick hubby as well as a few social outings and heaps of work to do. Oh yeah - and I managed to squeeze a bit of scrapping in!

Here's one layout I made.

I love this photo! This is my Aunty Shirley at my 50th, which had a 50s theme. She came as a frazzled 50s mum, complete with an apron, curlers and a scarf over her curlers. Doesn't she look fabulous!

I used October Afternoon papers. What else would I use for a 50s theme? The papers matched her apron perfectly. I have a bit of a thing about using A4 and rounding the corners on retro pages. I kept this layout nice and simple in keeping with the theme. Those borders are fussy cut from the papers.

Here's a close-up:

That quote is so perfect for this photo!

Thanks for looking everyone - and a big hello to Aunty Shirley who will be looking at this blog for the first time! She will be feeling a bit special this week as she also appears in a layout I did for this month's Australian Scrapbook Ideas mag.

I promise I'll be back in less than a week with another update.

Heather

Ice Cream

Hi again,

I hope everyone's been enjoying some sunshine this week. It's so good for the soul!

Here's my latest page for Scrap Everything! Like last week, I'm using the new Pickled Pear collection from KaiserCraft. I adore this range - it can be used for so many themes and I find the layouts come together quickly when the paper designs and embellishments co-ordinate in such a gorgeous way.

My layout this week is very different from last week's one. Here it is:

This layout came together really easily. I used Dylusions Ink Spray to make the chocolate ice cream dribbles and the first six words of the title are from the Pickled Pear sticker sheet. It was these words that gave me the idea for the layout. I wanted the words to be "mounted" on something so I cut a couple of strips of the background paper from behind the photos, flipped them over to show the other side and placed them under some of the title. The only tricky bit on the whole page was convincing the baker's twine to stay put! A little bit of Glossy Accents works wonders.

Here's a detail:

My son was only two when these pics were taken. Awww, he was so cute!

This is one of my favourite layouts that I've done lately. I really like the simplicity of the page but it's still interesting and tells a great story. I guess there's a heavy touch of nostalgia too as these photos were taken 13 years ago!

Wishing you all many more ice-creams this summer!

Heather

Heather's Favourite Things

Hello there! As a member of Scrap Everything's design team, it's my turn to play and have I had fun this month! Katherine The Amazing has managed to get some sensational new products from KaiserCraft in advance of their release so the design team members can have layouts ready to inspire you as they're released! How cool is that! And what's more, the products are fantastic!

This range from KaiserCraft is called the Pickled Pear Collection. It's a co-ordinated range of papers and die-cuts with some beautiful metal butterflies thrown in for good measure. I absolutely adore the green colours in this range. The butterflies and flowers immediately sent me looking for girl photos but you could also easily use them for travel, general and even male layouts (butterflies and flowers optional!)

Here's this week's layout:

I can see now that I should have taken a close up of the title. It reads "These are a few of my Favourite Things." It was the die cut jounalling block with "Favourite Things" written on it that gave me the idea for the title. And of course there's no doubt my gorgeous nieces are some of my favourite things!

The circular KaiserCraft paper is beautiful and didn't need too much in the way of embellishments. I put some cream paint on my finger and ran it around the scalloped edge as well as behind the photo. I also added some black stitching for contrast.

You might have noticed the 12 x 12 paper behind the circular paper. It's another of the Pickled Pear Collection. I have left the strip that runs along the bottom on as it's beautiful. The row of butterflies matches the layout perfectly.

Here's a close up of the main cluster:

That lovely butterfly is one of the die cuts as are the flowers behind the jounalling block.

Here's butterfly number two:

I placed a metal butterfly on top of the one printed on the paper. This gave it a more dimensional effect.

And here's butterfy number three:

This is another butterfly from the die cuts pack. I made a trail using dots of Liquid Pearls. I love this product!

I hope you enjoyed the layout. If it has inspired you to take a further look at this range, it's available here.

Happy scrapping!

Heather