Another Yummy Sketch

There is another sketch challenge on Scrappy Sketches. I'm loving the order and discipline of doing a sketch every mid week, even though sometimes it's a rush to get it done (see the last post for more on that, lol). This week I lost a whole day somehow... I think it was Monday. If you see my Monday anywhere, I'd kind of like it back. I was planning to do some sewing that day.

I still haven't taken my sewing machine out of it's pretty cover, but I have done some scrapping for Challenge Heaven's Cyber Crop, and my Scrappy Sketches page. Here they are:

 This one is my Scrappy Sketches page. Don't you just love that big flower? It was gifted to me by the lovely Sylvia, who was in a flower swap I organised at Home and Scrapped. She decided to set me a challenge to use this lovely big paper and lace beauty, that matches her smaller swap flowers. No problem :-) Happy to oblige when I have such lovely things to work with, and a vintage button to top it off. Love vintage buttons. OK, am slightly obsessed by vintage buttons... always have been, even as a child. I am pretty happy with my bird and flourish as well. I inked with distress inks, then embossed and added some Mica flakes, re-inked, embossed again and then sprayed with Glimmer Mist and Smooch. So much messy fun. 

 This one is my Sketch Challenge for Challenge Heaven, where I am on the Design Team. I'm not entirely sure about this one... it's the light colours with no contrast I think. I like it, but I think I should have used a darker background maybe. I like the photos though, they remind me of a very happy outing. The letters in the title are interesting. I found an old cheap fake scrabble set in a charity shop, with these little letters. They are plastic tiles with sticker letters. Well, who could pass that up? Perfect for titles :-) 

And this is my page for Leah's challenge for the Challenge Heaven Cyber Crop. She wanted us to scrap a few photos showing a span of time. When I was browsing my old photos, I found this one of my little cutie when she was only two and had a big whoop of delight because I had this other one of her on my back 15 years later, taken at Christmas time last year. Yay, I am loving seeing the two photos together like this and I wouldn't have scrapped them together without the challenge, because they were in separate piles. So interesting to do this though. I should do it more I think. 

Alanna's challenge was to make three cards with the same colour scheme, using sentiments that are a bit less usual, so I used up my scraps from my previous page to create these three. Pretty happy with how different they all look.

And now, more yummy pages to do, because everyone's April challenges are up all over the place. I love the never ending inspiration and creativity :-) Yay to us all, keeping all this positive energy flowing around the world!

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

Recently...

Recently, I seem to be caught in some sort of time warp/hole/thingy where I lose time... Suddenly it's lunch time; suddenly it's dinner time; suddenly it's midnight - what the heck has happened to my day? Again...

The same is happening with my drinks. I make a cup of coffee and go to have another sip and it's all gone and the cup is stone cold... must have been me unless the cats have learned how to get to the bottom of the cup. Don't remember finishing it though... or when for that matter.

I seem to be passing through my life in a blur. It's not that I'm not doing anything, it's just that time is whooshing by so quickly that I don't notice the actual ticking, just the fact that another day has gone by. I'm not young enough for life to speed up, I don't have enough hours in the day as it is, LOL! I find myself resenting Fridays, because that means another week has passed and I don't feel like I've used it enough. Does that ever happen to you? Maybe I should scrap it... ;-)

I had kind of made a plan that this year, I would be able to account for more of my time, and that I would have something real that I could grab hold of and say, "This is what I did in January" etc - hopefully one thing for each month this year. Otherwise, how do I account for my presence on the planet? It's not working... I mean, I have a clean house and tidy cupboards, I have seen people and done things, but touchable evidence? Hmm.. 46 scrapbooking pages and 10 cards I guess counts for something. A weeded and mulched garden bed is a little evidence, as are some crocheted flowers. Not enough, I say!

April has to show more. April has to make up for some of the slack of March. April will see sanding, scraping, priming and painting. It will see blogs kept up to date, scrap fabrics cut, scrap papers used, ribbons sorted and stashed neatly, a freezer full of cakes and slices and mini quiches, things done before the last minute, new adventures begun, more flowers added to my shop. I have a lot of hopes for April, obviously :-)

So, you want to see some of my latest pages? OK :-)

The March Step By Step Challenge at Home and Scrapped. I had lots of members taking part in this challenge and we had some excellent pages. It always pleases me to see how varied everyone's pages can be following the same directions. Different papers, embellishments and photos give such a different feel to things that they are all individual.

 This is my Sketch Challenge for Challenge Heaven March Cyber Crop - which is happening right now. The white taffeta flowers were handmade by my friend Kerri and gifted to me last month, and the plum flowers were handmade by my sister as part of a handmade flower swap we both joined last year. The butterflies came from a Kaiser pp - I beaded some bodies for them on a twist of wire. 

Sarah's Challenge for Home and Scrapped for March. Love how this one turned out, even though I have had to go public about the size of that dessert I had, LOL.  

Scrappy Sketches Mid Week Sketch 12-12  - a double for multiple small photos was requested and I was lucky enough to have a pile to use for my sample, of my two lazing around after one day.

 This is me being arty. Angie's Challenge for March at Home and Scrapped was to do a water colour base and do some hand lettering for the title/journaling. I was at a bit of a loss for the hand lettering but I googled art journals and oh my! What a lovely discovery - gee there are some talented people out there. I am so grateful to the constant supply of inspired goodness that they share, and although mine is a pale shadow, I really enjoyed the unleashing of the um... dare I say beast? LOL. My journaling ended up being just what came to mind when I looked at this photo of myself looking older than I'd like to be.

This is my page in celebration of Say No To Bullying Day, the theme colour of which is orange, like Harmony Day. My daughter has suffered quite a lot of bullying through the years and it drives me nuts! Bullying is just so completely unacceptable and rude, I honestly can't believe people are so unmannered and unkind. It's appalling how widespread it is and how accepted it is. Lives are ruined, dreams are shattered, self confidence disappears, happiness evaporates. How much more productive and wonderful would the world be if everyone could just hold their tongues and use their manners and practise self control and empathy. OK, I'll stop raving now, but I'm just saying...  

Oh, and in case you are wondering, that swirly pp is from Basic Grey but I don't know what it's called. I put the journaling on a big tag and slipped it behind the blue crate pp, which I made into a pocket.The little strips of green pp were all already cut offcuts from other projects. Love it when something like that just falls into place.

 Jewel's Challenge for March at Home and Scrapped, which was a sketch. My photos were taken at dusk, so they were a bit dark, but nice ones, so I wanted to use them anyway. I used a few die cuts from my sister's stash (great when sisters scrap too and you can raid their supplies).  I love this soft smokey-denimy blue.

Scrappy Sketches Mid Week Challenge 11-12. Captured evidence that my DH can and occasionally does cook. Gosh it frees up my evening when he does, I have all this extra time on my hands!  

Scrappy Sketches Mid Week Challenge 13-12 done with photos taken of us at Christmas time. Butterflies cut from a delicious Graphic 45 pp that is covered in them. 

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

Cyber Crop time

It's Cyber Crop time at Challenge Heaven this weekend. I have a sketch challenge there for you, and there are some other fabulous challenges too from the other girls on the DT. It all kicks off on Friday night at 8pm Melbourne time, so come along and have some fun :-)



love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

And some more

OK, so maybe I haven't been doing nothing after all. Here's some of the proof:

 My Sketch for Challenge Heaven for March. I'm not a glittery type, but sometimes you just need a little bit of glitz to brighten things up a bit.

A challenge by Becci for Challenge Heaven - like how I made it to go with my sketch page for a double? I love that painted background, it's so simple but it works. I just dry brushed some paint in first one direction then the other. 

 Mid Week Sketch 10-12 for my sketch blog, Scrappy Sketches. Check it out if you haven't already, there is a new sketch every week :-)
My lovely little family at Christmastime last year. Do you like my title? That was a chipboard title I won at The Scrapbook Haven, now sadly closing down. I inked it with a few different distress inks, embossed it and then sprayed it over with glimmer mist. Love that effect, which I learned from Mistra. The little bird and the leaves came from my sister, who also scraps. I am so loving using my flowers, and I'm particularly fond of that little apple blossom one.

This page was a challenge by Rebekkah for Challenge Heaven about obsession. All teens (most anyway) are obsessed with their appearance, but my daughter manages to take it one step further, pesky kid, lol. She really is obsessed with her hair, although she is improving, only spending about 2 hours a day on it now, rather than the 6-8 it used to be. 

This was a tricky one... but it's good to scrap the not so wonderful moments of our lives too. Otherwise those defining moments may never have their stories told. The title is Friendship - it isn't always forever. The page is about my daughter and her friend-who-was. Don't you love their clever photo of their shadows? That's how close they used to be... sadly all done now. My daughter said to me, "I'm glad you scrapped that page, it reminds me that we did have fun once." So there you go... don't be afraid to scrap the hard ones.

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

A Swag Full of Pages

I've been a bit out of action lately. It's not that I haven't been busy... just not getting much done. You know how it is sometimes. Anyway, I have done a few pages, thanks to some excellent challenges at Home and Scrapped on the Cyber Crop weekend. 

Joy's Challenge to use no patterned papers and to play with some of the techniques we've learned lately. So I masked, misted, inked, stamped, heat embossed, distressed and rolled the background cardstock, then doodled on it for good measure. Love the texture of the corrugated card on this layout. 

Amy's challenge to use 25 squares on your page. I followed her example and laid them all out evenly spaced. Love how this turned out, it was heaps of fun. I was sparked by a few Twinchies that came in a swap at Home and Scrapped a few months ago. Made a few more and turned some of the photos into Twinchies too, matting them on cs.  

This is Joy's second challenge, to scraplift a page of hers from the gallery. Loved this one with the tags for layers and the flowers and lace framing the photos. So pretty and a great chance to use one of those pps with a printed corner design.

And this was my challenge, a Step By Step that included a bit of stamping and stitching.

and I made a card with the scraps of each layout too. 

  

I love making a card with the scraps while they are still out. It seems to go more quickly, and is easier. These ones are just simple ones, no stitching or heavy layering, but they are pretty, and I won't be ashamed to give them. I haven't put sentiments on them because I don't anymore, not while I'm making. I wait until the occasion arises and then add the sentiment to suit. 

And it's just occurred to me that there are a few others I haven't shared... oh so tardy, lol. 

My Sketch for February for Challenge Heaven

Mid Week Sketch 4-12 from Scrappy Sketches 

Mid Week Sketch 7-12 at Scrappy Sketches 

One of my favourite pages from the January CC at Challenge Heaven.

 Mid Week Sketch 5-12 at Scrappy Sketches

 Mid Week Sketch 1-12 at Scrappy Sketches

February Friday Night Step by Step at Home and Scrapped

My Sketch for the January Cyber Crop at Challenge Heaven

this week's Mid Week Sketch over at ScrappySketches

and a couple of cards. There you go, I've haven't been doing nothing after all! 

And there is another Cyber Crop this weekend at Challenge Heaven. More great pages coming :-)

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

February Flowers

I've been busy creating heaps of flowers to adorn your cards and pages, and you can find them on my new Made It page, Elsie & Grace. I did that to get a bit wider exposure, hope it works, lol.

Made It is a website a bit like Etsy, where people who make things can set up shop and sell their goods. It's brim full of handmade goodness, in every category you can think of. If you are looking for a gift for someone or just want to get away from mass produced items and buy something unique and interesting for your home, Made It has the answer. And it's all Australian.

Here's a sneak peek of some of my favourite flowers from my February collection:

I actually started a facebook page for my collection, but I've since decided that Made It would be a better option.

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

Children of Scrapbookers

You know your children come from a scrapbooking family when they hand you their old worn out shoes and things before they go in the bin, so you can take off the buttons and buckles, or bring home snippets of ribbon they found lying in the road, LOL.

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

Who Do You Love?

What are you going to do for Valentine's Day - anything? I hope we can all remember the message of Valentine's - it's about love. It's about love made visible. Not just romantic love, although that's good too, but filling yourself with love and letting it spread out.

Who do you love? Could you send your parent, sister or friend a chocolate heart or a poem on pretty paper with a cut out heart to remind them that you love them? Or make your children some heart shaped cookies for their lunch box? Now's the time to do something, and get it posted. We never know what tomorrow will bring, so we should remember to say I love you whenever we can. 

I just watched this Martha Stewart clip and although this guest goes completely over the top, lol, it's totally worth watching for the sweet little ideas - one or two would be lovely. And darn it, why not, it's fun to mark the festivals and such like as we go through the year. Making a small effort for these things kind of helps the year go along nicely - and great photo ops too, for scrapping, LOL!

You could also google valentines ideas images like I just did and find a wealth of ideas. I mean, when faced with the whole page of images it's a bit in your face, but pick one or two and have a go, then remember to take photos. 

Oh, and for those of us who don't get anything back - remember, we teach people how to treat us. Tell them straight we expect an effort back. Sometimes they need a poke in the ribs. And for little kids, that might just be drawing a heart for you on paper and giving you a kiss.

And if all else fails, remember to love yourself no matter what. Make it special for yourself and lie in a bath with some red rose petals sprinkled in it, wear a heart necklace, eat a heart chocolate, make yourself a special lunch or dinner, buy a little bunch of pretty flowers and enjoy seeing them on the table, listen to some nice music, paint your toenails, watch a girly movie. Tell yourself in the mirror that you love you no matter what, and you care about your happiness. Oooh, hard, I know, lol. Do it anyway.

Some other ideas: 

Do a layout of someone you love and put a truely heartfelt message on it.

Make a pile of cards and dish them out. 

Write a letter (yes, a proper one) to an old aunt or uncle, or a friend or cousin you haven't seen for ages.

Go for a nice stroll in the park and take some corny love shots with your hands held in heart shapes.

Write a list of things you love about someone and put it under their pillow. 

Buy a heart shaped ice cream and just indulge your senses in the creaminess of it.

Make the cat a heart shaped pillow with some cat nip in it.

Put some heart stickers on your teabag tags.
Take a bloom with a love note to a favourite graveside.
Visit a friend or a neglected relative and take a cake and some flowers from your garden. 

Punch out some hearts and scatter them on your child's floor.

Give a homeless person a bit of love with some heart cookies and a fiver in a box.

There's heaps of things we can do to remind ourselves of the love we feel. And the funny thing is, giving that love helps it flow and come back to us, and that has to be a good thing. Love makes the world go around, right?

 love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

Friday Flower Sale

I have been encouraged by a few scrappy friends to have a regular monthly release of my flower packs, so that everyone knows when to come and get some deliciousness. Today I decided that the second Friday of each month would be a good time, and as luck would have it, that's this week coming :-) So... what are you doing on Friday 10th Feb? Hopefully you will be here to see all the deliciousness I have been making, ready to email me with an order of your favourites. Everything will be in the flower shop tab, ready and waiting on Friday morning.

Want one of my large flower packs without it costing you anything? You can go in the draw to win one by telling people about the sale on your blog, forum, facebook, twitter or wherever, becoming or being a follower, and leaving me a comment to tell me how you've shared the knowledge. One point for every share, giving you more chances to win. It will be a pack something like this one:

Oooh, isn't it exciting? I can hardly wait to share all the pretty new flowers with you, you're going to love them :-)

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June

Rainy Tuesday

We've had a lovely lot of rain today, everything is looking heavy and wet out there. Love it.

Good day for scrapping, too, though actually, I've been tidying, blog hopping and reading instead. And contemplating making a cake. There's nothing like a proper afternoon tea sometimes, and rainy days seem perfect somehow.

I had a good scrapping day yesterday, and here are the results, all challenges from the CC at The Scrapbooking Haven:

 This one had to have a handmade embellishment, ribbons and paint. I made the tree and fence and I put eyelets in the photos and threaded ribbon through. Love how that turned out. 

This one had to have Happy in the title. My take was a wee bit different, since my photo focuses on my very not happy DD, lol. I hope you can see the look on her face, she was very moody that day... 

 She was much happier this day, her usual cheerful self in fact. Had to use masking and/or stamping here. Love how you can alter a plain piece of cs so well with a little ink splashed about. 

And finally, me, with paint, string, pp strips and an altered chippy. I have been loving altering chipboard lately, using inks, paint, embossing powder and tiny wee chips of mica sometimes even. So much fun to experiment with it all. The crochet heart is a leftover from the ones I made for my gift tags at Christmas. The creamy splodges on the background are paint used on a stamp. It turned out very indistinctly, but I like it anyway.

All of these pages used up stash. Except for the tree and fence, I didn't actually cut anything for any of them, everything was already made or cut to that size, and in my scraps folders, etc. I am so loving that I have managed some great pages this week with my scraps. Just goes to show we should be delving in there more often!

love, Heather "It's about love. You don't have to scrapbook to love but you have to love in order to scrapbook." June