Words Or Whatever chipboard

I was pretty chuffed yesterday to see a few of my layouts shared on the WOW blog. These are the first offerings of mine as a guest Creative Team Member there.

Here are the layouts that were posted....



...and a close-up of the beautiful WOW Small Round Frame which I sprayed with Mr Huey's Mists, Calico White first, and then Calico shine....



Here is a layout of my beautiful kittycat Dash when she was a baby. This is the photo that made me fall in love with her....



The WOW chippy I used here is the 'Precious' word one of their gorgeous new flourishes which I painted rather than sprayed with Glimmermist to retain and show up the detail of the flowers....



And finally a bit of a fun layout with a photo of my daughter Elise taken on a phone camera by her boyfriend...I just loved the grunginess of this photo and had to use it (oh and she came up with the title BTW...lol!)



That's all for today from me....check out the awesome Words Or Whatever Design Team's layouts here for some extra inspiration.

Thanks for looking xxx

Chelley Bean Designs Doilies....check these out!

Thought I'd share a layout I did for Michelle Jamieson at Chelley Bean Designs using her hand-dyed doilies...these come in the five gorgeous colours of pink, green, blue, red and yellow.

They come in each of the individual colours or in a mixed pack.
Each pack contains 5 hand-dyed paper doilies in 2 sizes.
They are $3 per pack and are available from Chelle's Etsy shop.

Here is the layout I did with the red doily from this collection....



Check out Chelle's Blog for some other inspiration for the use of these gorgeous doilies.

Scrapchat Napkin Challenge

I went to the bi-annual Scrapchat Retreat at the Gold Coast on the weekend just gone....one of my favourite events on my yearly calendar....such good friends, inspiration and laughs!

One of the retreat challenges was to create something with a napkin, and I decided to make a canvas, and here is the finished result.....



Here is the napkin I started with...



I covered the blank canvas with plain scrunched tissue paper and Mod Podge, followed by layers of torn up pieces of the napkin. Once that was dry, I painted the canvas with a white acrylic wash to mute the patterns, and then sprayed the bottom half with some blue Tim Holtz Color Wash.

I added background detail with a Sharpie pen and rub-ons, and stuck on some paper-covered chipboard trees and handmade clouds.....



To finish off, I added some of the birds from the napkin that I mounted on white cardstock and fussy-cut around and an inspiration quote....



I had so many positive comments about this canvas on the retreat, I just felt I had to share....thanks for looking.

I also have to give a big thanks and shout-out to Nicole Pomeroy for the inspiration for this....Nic your canvas artwork rocks!

Another layout to share....

Just sharing a layout I did recently for Chelleybean Designs using Michelle Jamieson's gorgeous fabric buttons....



Here are the buttons I was given to work with...



....and a close-up of how I used them on the layout by combining them with some petals....



Michelle has a whole range of these for sale in her Etsy Shop in lots of different colours and designs, along with lots of other goodies as well.

Here are a couple of my personal favourites...

My latest CJ entry...

Today I have been working on my commitments for the Scrapchat CJ I am currently participating in. This time I did some pages for Alison Callcott. Her CJ subject is 'Pieces of Me' and she asked us to use pictures that represented who we are, where or have become. Here is what I came up with....

I really enjoyed the challenge of this LO and the journey through my history that it took me on....thanks Alz for an awesome CJ subject!

Cute picture...

As scrapbookers, we are always trying to come up with new ways to use our stash. Well here is one I haven't actually thought of before...



Our 8 week old kitty, Dash who loves to join me in my scrapping room decided that my box of large alphas made a very comfy bed. How cute, huh?

Kraft It Up - June Challenge

I have been meaning for some time to have a go at the monthly challenge at the Kraft It Up! blog, and this month, I managed to get it done.

This month's challenge is to create a layout on Kraft cardstock using a 'time line', at least 3 photos and journalling to explain the time line. Here is my entry....



And here are some photos showing some of the embellishment details on the layout...

Scrap The Girls - June

Being sick and off work this week with a rotten winter virus, I had a bit more time on my hands to do some scrapping (in between sneezing, coughing and nose-blowing that is!), so I decided to have a go at this month's Scrap The Girls Challenge.



The challenge this month was to create a layout using this colour palette....



As soon as I saw those colours, I thought of Basic Grey's Bittersweet range from a few years back.

You know when a paper range really takes your eye, you buy it, and then because you love it so much, you always put off using it because you're 'saving' it for some extra-special project? Ridiculous right?

Anyway, that was me with BG's Bittersweet, and because I recently decided to stop hoarding beautiful things I love, and just get in there and use them, that's what I did with this layout.

Here is a close-up of the embellishments I used, and my doodling around the edge of the white cardstock...

A2Z Scraplets Blog Hop

I have spent the last weekend (and then some) working on an entry for the A2Z Scraplets Blog Hop Challenge.

I used one of my favourite photos from the photoshoot Elise and I had with Leanne Stamatellos in January last year and here is my interpretation of the sketch...



The challenge entries were to be based on the following sketch...



Here are some close-ups of the detail....



I used an A2Z Scraplets chipboard 'leftover' as a mask for the Glimmermist butterflies in the background of the layout and covered one of the butterflies with vintage sheet music and crackle-finished and distress-inked the chipboard as well...



I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with for this challenge.

My latest scrapping...

I've been doing quite a few layouts recently...nothing in particular, just what ever I've felt like.

I've been working with a couple of the photos that Leanne Stamatellos took of my daughter Elise and I back in January last year, playing around with cropping the photos and the contrast, brightness and colour etc for something a bit different.





And here is a double I did of Elise's boyfriend Elise on a recent driving adventure. You can click on any of these images to get a larger view of the detail...

Scrapchat 2011 CJ

This year thanks to the urging of the wonderful Alison Callcott, we girls at Scrapchat are taking part in a CJ (circle journal) swap.
I think we have developed the perfect formula for a CJ by just sending on our entries to our fellow participants to put in their own album instead of sending the whole album from person to person.
History has seen way too many friendships lost along with CJ's that never make it back to their original owner. This way, if there is someone who doesn't complete their allotted and required entry, at least the owner of the CJ still has their album in their hands.
I know it's a negative (but realistic) way to think about it, but sh*t happens, and this way pages (and whole albums) lost in the system have much less of an impact on the original owner.

Here are my first 2 entries for this swap so far....

First off the rank is an entry for Sarah whose CJ subject was "A Day In The Life Of....". This was lots of fun to do, and I chose a typical Wednesday for my subject...



Here is a close-up of the first page...



...and the second page...



The theme for the second entry for Brooke was "Favourite Nursery Rhyme, Poem or Story" and I chose "The Owl and the Pussy-Cat" for the main reason that my Mum was a wonderful storyteller, and an even more amazing poem reciter, and I hear her lilting voice as she recites this lovely poem by Edward Lear.....such a precious childhood memory.

Here is a picture of both pages I created plus the sign-in tag....



The first page which I created with lots of little bits of paper and I couldn't resist using an image of Moon from The Mighty Boosh....



...and the second page...



I'm really enjoying the challenges of these CJ entries which are taking me out of my comfort zone, because I know that that is where some amazing creativity can happen when you least expect it to. Stay tuned for more of my entries as I walk this journey. TFL xxx

I have finally found the culprit.....

....who has been making a bigger mess of my outdoor undercover area than I do!! So many spider webs, that just keep coming back no matter how often I remove them. But after seeing this magnificent creature up close, I couldn't bear to destroy this industrious spider....



After some research on the internet, I found that he is a Net-casting Spider or Deinopis subrufa.



This intriguing spider sets its trap at night. The rectangular white net is spread between first two pairs of legs....



The third pair of legs has threads to stabilise the "net".



The fourth pair of legs are used to hang onto its support. When a passing insect comes near the net it splats it over the victim, and tangles it in the trap.



These photos were taken in the morning and I think the spider may have been asleep, so the net in these photos isn't as taut as when it is actually hunting.
Pretty awesome though, none-the-less!

Here is the finished canvas....

This is what I ended up creating last weekend....



Seeing as I posted some sneak peak photos last weekend, thought I had better put up the finished canvas.

If you are interested in seeing the step-by-step progress photos, my Design Team post at Scrap 'N' Craft With T has the whole story.

The trouble is...now I don't know what to do with it...any suggestions?

A Sneak Preview.....

I'm working on a new project....



I lost my scrapbooking mojo last night, but still felt like creating something, plus I needed something for my regular Monday DT contribution to Scrap 'N' Craft With T's blog. So I decided to try some totally unplanned mixed media art on canvas.



The weird thing is, I don't know if it's good enough to put on Tan's blog....I can't tell if it's actually good or not. I have no trouble running a critical eye over my scrapbooking, and I am a pretty good judge as to whether I have created something decent or not, but assessing my own artwork is a whole other kettle of fish!



Well, I do actually like it, and I had TONNES of fun making it.....trouble is, I don't know if it's finished or not...I keep adding bits and pieces and getting extra possible ideas.....hmmmm!



If you want to see the progress photos and the finished???? result, you can check out the Scrap 'N' Craft With T blog on Monday after 7am, and while you're there follow the link to Tanyah's online store where EVERYTHING is drastically reduced!

TFL xxx

Scrap The Girls

Wow, I can't believe it's been three months since my last post! I guess I can use Christmas as an excuse?

Here is my entry for the February Sketch Challenge at Scrap The Girls.



Here is a close-up of the flowers I added to the layout....



This is a layout about my gorgeous niece(in-law) using this sketch as a base....



I have never taken part in one of these challenges before, and I am looking forward to seeing what everyone else comes up with from this sketch.