Oh Snap!

Hello all.

I hope you're enjoying the school hols if your kids have them now. Ours are well finished. The holidays barely seemed to be holidays, we had so much on. I did enjoy the sleep-ins though!

I recently received a new kit from Katherine at Scrap Everything. Part of the goodies was a pack of the new Oh, Snap series from Echo Park. I love everything Echo Park and this range is no exception. The pack contains 6 double sided sheets plus a sheet of stickers. It's one of the most versatile packs I've seen as the colours and subject matter complement such a variety of photos. At $9 it's a great investment. You can take a look at it here. I reckon I'll use this range again and again.

Here's a layout I made:

This is one of the fastest and easiest layouts I have made for ages. I fully admit that the range made it all super easy. Everything on this layout, with the exception of the lettering in the title and the Twiddleybitz template background, are from the Oh, Snap pack.


In case you're wondering how I made that background, there were some Ranger Distress inks in the pack from Katherine as well. Who doesn't love these? The Forest Moss colour worked beautifully with the Oh, Snap range. I used it to ink all my paper edges. I also used the pad directly onto my template then used my template like a stamp to create the background. Distress ink leaves an unclear, motley kind of line when used as a stamp which I think works well with this layout as I didn't want the pattern to be too bold and detract from the rest of the layout. You can find the ink here.


Here's a close up:

I adore that film strip behind the camera. This plus the camera, chevrons, stars and word strips are from the sticker sheet.

I love that there are date tabs. Recording the date is such an important part of recording our memories.

The Oh, Snap wording at tte top of the pic is actually part of the brand strip at the bottom of one of the papers. Never be afraid to use any part of a product, be it packaging or branding!

At the right you can see another piece of that gorgeous film strip. I cut one larger strip into two to make it go further.

Looking at what I've got left, I reckon I'll get another 2 layouts out of the pack if I use some cardstock as well. That's $9 for the pack plus $2 for 2 sheets of cardstock = less than $4 per layout. You can't get much better than that!

If you make some layouts using this range I'd love to see them!

Til next time,
Heather

Nieces and Nephews

I'm so lucky to have a fantastic collection of nieces and nephews. Some are blood and some aren't but they really are the most gorgeous group of kids you would ever want to meet. As my kids have got older and less co-operative in the photographic department, I have found myself turning to the younger kids to satisfy my photographic urges! I just wish I'd had those same urges - and knowledge - when my own kids were small.

Of course, those photos make it onto my layouts and here are a few older ones that feature some of my nieces and nephews.

This layout is a long-standing favourite of mine. My nephew Harrison has the world's loveliest smile! We had a day at the beach with some of my extended family and their extended family. Don't ask me to explain the relationship between some of us! This is one of those layouts that I felt really captured the feel of a great day at the beach in summer. And I still love that Echo Park paper.

Here's a bright and colourful one for you Chantal V! To create the background I stitched the patterned red paper onto white cardstock in random loops and swirls then ripped off the top layer around the edges. Here's a tip if you want to scraplift this idea - use thin paper on top. This paper was quite thick and was really hard to tear without damaging the stitching.

Talk about one extreme to another! This one is all about softness and beauty. My niece is only one year old in this pic and she's gorgeous. I wanted the layout to reflect the sweet softness of a little girl. There's a bit of fussy cutting here and lots of Websters Pages loveliness.

You can be sure you ill see more of my lovely nieces and nephews in the future!

Until then - Happy Scrappin'.

Heather

2012 Layouts of One Very Cute Girl

I was searching for a particular layout on my computer tonight and realised I have a lot of layouts from 2012 that haven't yet made it to my blog.

Here are a few of my daughter when she was young, in no particular order:

I love the colours in this one. I experimented with paint a bit too, including using it to stamp butterflies onto transparency. I then cut them out and adhered them to the right of the photo. Gotta love them! This photo is the only one I've found with my daughter's hair in this style so I'm so glad I've scrapped it.

Phwaw! Talk about knock-your-socks-off colour! I fussy cut the flowers from the same paper as the layout above. Can't remember what that paper was though!

I love the simplicity of this layout. I sanded back the Coredination cardstock in places and just added a splash of colour with paper and the title. Do you like the title? I framed some of the words so that I made "I love you" within the rest of the title.

I like going back and scrapping photos of the kids when they were young. It makes me realise 2 things:
1. They were incredibly cute
2. I'm so glad they let me sleep now!

Hooroo!
Heather

My 5 Minute Chat

Just a quickie - my 5 Minute Chat is up on the Scrapbooking memories blog. If you're interested, click here.

Workshop Secrets Number 1

Hi all,

I must apologise for being missing in action a lot over the last couple of weeks. I just have so much on at the moment! Kids seem to need extra running around during the school hols, we have had a run of things on - mostly great fun but very time consuming! - plus I have a long list of scrapping deadlines to meet. All good problems to have though!

So, going back a bit now, I had my first Workshop Secrets article published in Scrapbooking Memories at the start of the year. This layout was inspired by me wanting to record my typical day. In the end I chose to record the last day before I turned 50. I then ended up with so many photos that I had to be clever to think how to present them well without the layout being too cluttered.

While I was pondering this I came down with a lurgy. A pretty sure sign I got a bit run down with all the running around for my big 50th birthday bash! Anyway, this left me too sick to work but, not surprisingly, not so sick that I couldn't scrap! I found some old Bella chipboard shapes and just started fiddling. I sprayed, stamped, inked, painted, embossed and stained the chipboard shapes then decorated them with everything from liquid pearls to ribbon. I had a lot of fun!

Here's the end result:

Even though my typical day isn't too exciting, I think I'll look back on this in the future and it will trigger lots of good memories for me.

Here are some close-ups:

I liked including things that I do a lot of, for example driving along our beautiful country roads or walking around our local lake.

The Manor House Creations flowers worked beautifully in this. They helped to soften the grid pattern and provided a bit of a soft touch to the factual page. I loved the way the chipboard worked behind them. I painted it white then put drops of liquid pearls on the ends. I think this is a Scrapmatts chippie. That beautiful background paper is The Scrapcake paper which I lightly gessoed over.

In this section I've used paint, Stickles, paper, chipboard, twine, ink, stamps and embossing powder. Whatever works!

I love the paint splats on the chippie on the left. I made them by quickly squeezing an almost empty tube of paint over the surface. Keep important things clear though - it can spray further than you want it to!

I hope you enjoyed this layout and my other Workshop Secrets articles. It was a bit hectic getting those first few articles together as I had very little time but they should hopefully be swinging along nicely now. I have loads more ideas about what I should write about but if there's anything in particular you'd like to suggest by all means let me know.

Happy scrappin'!

Heather

Brisbane Accommodation

Hello everyone.

Sorry it's been a while since my last post. Easter was a hectic time!

To those of you who might be going the expo at Brisbane in June, I have organised for us to get discounted accommodation at Rydges. The cost is $249 per twin or queen room per night. If you have 1 or 4 people in the twin room it's still $249 providing you use existing bedding which is 2 double beds. If you want two people in the double beds and a third person on a trundle bed it's another $60.

Here's the link to book:
http://www.rydges.com/customised-web-page/scrapbooking-expo/

Yes, it's our own personal page. Our rates will be available on this link until the 30 days before the event, that is the 7th of May.  Should anyone require accommodation after this time they will need to contact reservations directly on 07 3364 0800 or reservations_southbank@rydges.com Please note any further bookings will be made at the group rate subject to availability only.

Bookings made through our link can be changed or cancelled up until 14 days prior to the event. After that they are non-refundable. Fully refundable rates are available but they have to be booked through the normal online service and normal rates will apply.

If anyone has any questions either contact me through my blog or call Rydges direct.

Please pass this info on to anyone you know who might be interested. It'd be twice as much fun if we're all staying in the same place! Feel free to cut and paste this post into other facebook pages, blogs etc.

Hope to see you there!
Heather

50 Posts and 5,000 Page Views!

I hope you've had a good week everyone.

I was putting up my last post and realised I have put 50 posts on my blog. I can't believe it! Coincidentally  I also just had my 5,000th view so that's got to be some sort of milestone.

I thought I should do something to celebrate. I remembered how I really enjoyed looking through other blogs at the end of last year where people listed their top 10 favourite layouts for the year so I thought I'd do this. I've gone through all my posts and picked out my 10 favourites pages. I can't believe how hard this was! There are layouts that I love because I think they look great but there are others that I love because they record a special memory or have some other significance.

So, without further ado, here they are.

In tenth position:

This was a page that was quick and simple to make and I really love the result. I made it for my Design Team work at Scrap Everything! using the KaiserCraft Secret Admirer Collection. This layout also brings back fantastic memories of Mykonos!

In ninth place:

I love the retro feel of this one and the funny story behind it - when my son was 2 he couldn't blow his candles out because he couldn't blow properly! This layout was published in Scrapbooking Memories Vol 14, No 12.

In eighth spot:

I made this one for my DT application for Manor House Creations. The photo is of my mum when she was a young teen. It's such a stunning photo. I went with the colour purple as it's mum's favourite colour. I really like the unique frame I created with covered wire adorned with flowers.

In seventh place:

I really love this as not only does it look great but it holds all the secrets to my very versatile casserole recipe. I made this for my sister-in-law when she had just had her third child. I figured she needed all the short cuts in the kitchen she could get! For more pics (and the recipe) go to here. It was published in Scrapbook Creations.

In sixth place:

I struggled with which of my Masters' layouts to put up here. I couldn't make 4 out of my 10 favourites layouts from my Masters application! In the end I went with two of them.
I love this one for the stunning photo of my daughter and the acrylic flower frame. My daughter doesn't often let me take 'nice' photos of her but on this occasion she just had her lovely long hair cut short and she loved it so was happy for me to take a pic.

In fifth place is another Masters layout:

The pastel colours really didn't show up well in the mag on this one. I loved the old pics of me and I was really pleased with the multi-layered tags I placed behind each photo. There's a lot on this page so for more info see here

In fourth position:

This gorgeous pic is of my nephew Archie, who has featured in a few of my layouts. I loved experimenting with sprays and stencils on this one. It was published in Scrapbook Creations Issue No 95.

In third place:

Again, I love it when I can get good pics of my daughter! I love the rich colours in this one. Those Bo Bunny papers are just awesome! The black Manor House flowers finished off the page nicely. And just to show how fickle it can be trying to get layouts published, this one wasn't accepted by the mags and it's my third favourite!

In second place:

This is another one I did for Scrap Everything! Although this is a simple page, it really speaks to me. I'm not sure why. I don't even remember where these pics were taken. Somehow it just seems to work.

And finally, here's my number one pick from my first 50 blog posts:

I made this layout a while ago and the products were older ones even then. I still love it though! It was published in Scrapbooking Memories Vol 14, No 10.

Hope you've enjoyed this. I had fun putting it together!

Heather