Faux Watercolour Wildflowers Card

I'm sharing this card for the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. This week it's an Anything Goes challenge with a focus on Ranger products.

After inking my stamps with distress inks, I spritzed them with a little water before stamping onto heavy watercolour paper. I layered up lots of stamped images to create a meadow of wildflowers. I'm really happy with how this technique turned out!

Mounted on a dark brown card with a strip of embossed green shimmer paper down the side, trimmed with scallop scissors.

Materials:
Ranger Tim Holtz Distress Inks in Tattered Rose, Worn Lipstick, Wild Honey, Shabby Shutters, Faded Jeans, Frayed Burlap, Walnut Stain and Brushed Corduroy. Anna Griffin Cuttlebug 'Poppy' border embossing folder. Kaisercraft Metallic Brown blank card. Stamps - Stampendous 'Scripty Stems' plus another set I don't have the details for. 

'So Round' (26 May 2012) Layout for Kraft+ Challenge

I made this layout using the awesome digital template provided by Kraft+ for their March 2016 challenge. The challenge is to use a kraft paper background and to include a hint of houndstooth pattern. I love using templates and making them my own :)

 

Digital supplies used:
2Ps-The Queen Of Quirk-She’s No Spring Chicken (Circles Paper)
Blagovesta Gosheva-Cherish the Moment (Flowers)
Christina Renee-Edeline Marta Design-Walk in the Park Collab Kit (Button)
CVW-SupplyTracker
Digital Freebies-Friday Freebie-Falling for You (Button)
Design House Digital-Sara Schmutz-Bicycle Ride (Ribbon)
DigiDewi-Paper-Newspaper
Kraft Plus-Em Stafrace-Digital Template
Linda Walton-Friends Dreams Memories (Layered Paper Flower)
Little Dreamer-Michelle Coleman-Wild Sorbet (Ribbon)
Pixel Scrapper-Collab-Meet Me in Paris Mini Kit CU-Sheila Reid (Houndstooth Paper)
Pixel Scrapper-Janet Scott-The Lucky One-CU (Orange Accordion Flower)
Raspberry Road-Whoo Loves You Free Add On
Shabby Princess-Happy Go Lucky (Dotty paper)
Shabby Princess-Festival Alpha
Shabby Princess-Promise Kit (Flower Button)
ScrapBird-Oksana-CU Texture
Thaliris-Dream in Blue Free Kit

Third Birthday Card

The little boy just turned THREE! Here he is the morning of his birthday. Sleeping bag off, gumboots on, hat on, and off to mow the carpet with his lawnmower. That's his little routine lately. So cute.

I was at a complete blank for ideas for my son's card, so I turned to some inspiration challenges. I found lots of great ideas and combined a few to come up with my design.

First I liked the shaker pocket idea on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge blog. I'd never made one of these before, so that was a bit tricky and took a few tries to get right. I re-cycled items from Around the House for this, as per the Mixed Media Monthly Challenge.

I used some plastic from packaging and a clothes tag, to add a bit of space (not visible in the final piece). I also used some red craft foam which I was given, because I like to add different textures to my son's cards.

For the layout I drew inspiration from this sketch by Retro Sketches (I was too late to finish my blog post to join the link up for this and Simon Says Stamp). I love the sketches there and will definitely be seeking more inspiration there for cards.

I used the Scrap It Girl colour scheme Navy, Cream, Red & Kraft, from the July Color Challenge. I don't usually use navy, so that was a bit tricky, but I found some navy thread and some dark blue paper to incorporate, and I stamped my son's name in dark blue too. I like the final result!

Project Life: Montrose Community Adventure Playground (November 2013)

I'm still very behind in my Project Life. I just work on whichever month appeals at the time. Here I've done the start of November, which incorporates my 30 Days of Thankfulness project, so there is a lot more journalling than usual. I try to record a note each day of something I'm thankful for. This page is about going to the park with lovely friends. It was SO hot that Ted got his first ever sunburn. Just realised I didn't journal about that! I might add a little tag on the bottom right photo. I thought it needed an extra something there anyway. [Updated - see end of post.]

Right side layout - at the park

This Project Life spread I have worked on for the Stuck on U Sketches Project Life Challenge - Add Texture. The challenge is pretty simple:
"Create a PL card/cards that has an embellishment/embellishments on it that adds texture... meaning, add something using foam tape, thickers, chipboard elements, paint splatters, modeling paste and masks, etc.. something that does not lay flat on the card."

Despite being so simple, this is a tricky one for me, because I like to keep my album VERY flat. For me, wood veneer is too thick. I've only ever used it on my title pages. Thickers are too thick. I've used them once. I've never used a flair button. Soooo... it's a challenge that's out of my comfort zone, but I'm up for a challenge, so I had a go. I added a flair badge. On the outside of the pocket, so it doesn't stretch the pocket. And so if I really don't like it I can remove it. But it looks cute. It's staying.

Then I decided to go in a painterly direction for my title card. Sprayed it with some mists. Added stamps. (The black arrow stamp I carved from an eraser.) I thought it was a bit dull at that point, despite the glimmer sprays and gold ink, so I added washi tape to brighten it up. Then I stuck on a little bit from a die-cut journal card which I had previously used as a mask with gesso.

Finally I topped it off with wood veneer shapes. I do like them, I just don't usually use them in my album. I use plenty of 3D items on handmade cards, but prefer to keep my album flat so that the photos don't get warped. Now I'm trying not to stress out that there are photos opposite each of these bulky elements. It will be okay. Breathe.

Left side layout - mainly journalling

For the final touch of texture, I added a bit of stitching in embroidery cotton. My colour scheme comes from the Timeless Twine 'Twine-ology' June Color Challenge - Red, White & Aqua. I love this colour combination so much!

Products used include:Becky Higgins Project Life journal cards from Clementine, Honey & Jade core kits, Summer themed cards & Honey cardstock. Studio Calico Hearts & Arrows wood veneer, flair (Valley High) and label die cuts. Chic Tags journalling tag. Maggie Holmes Styleboard gold stripe paper tape. Amy Tangerine calendar stamp. Kaiser Craft label stamps. October Afternoon Catch Phrase stamp. Pebbles From Me to You Date Stamp. Rasberry Rubons (Boy). Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm phrase stamp. Smash* roller date stamp.

UPDATE:
I added some journalling about the suntan and my sunburn on the back of one of the cards, and a tab to indicate it can be pulled out. And also added a little stamped and stitched label on one of the photos at the bottom that needed an extra something.

Simple Pleasures: Mar-yee-yo!

I've done this page for two different Australian Challenges. I figure I spend SO much time on each of my layouts that I should double up ;) So given that both these sites allow combined challenges, I decided to try that this time, which is a first for me. My page is based on the theme "Simple Pleasures" for the Berry 71 Bleu challenge. The mood board images for the challenge are gorgeous and the inspiration layouts shared over several posts are amazing! So so pretty. There are some stunningly beautiful projects shared on this blog. Lots of fabric flowers, crafty techniques and textural goodness. I love recreating a bulky look in digital... so I can actually fit the page in my album! I'm definitely going to try the over the top flowers look soon, just have to find a suitable photo.

I scrolled through my recent photos for a picture to scrap for the theme 'Simple Pleasures' and found these cute ones of my son with his Yoshi soft toy.

Edward's simple pleasure is watching Daddy play Mario Bros on the Wii. I went with a positive take on this for my title, "Easy to Please", because he is so happy just watching his Dad play, even when he doesn't have a go himself. There are times though when this current obsession is NOT convenient; requests for "Mar-yee-yo Running" at 2am are not appreciated. Perhaps I'll mention that on a journal card on the opposite side of the spread (which will be a divided page protector with some photos of Edward and Daddy on the couch, playing Mario). I want to keep my album mainly about the cute and funny, the milestones and happy memories. I don't complain very much in there, though occasionally I will throw in a real life downside or sad moment, so long as it's not something that could be embarrassing or hurtful. I want my album to be about real life, but it doesn't have to contain every single part of life. It's the things we want to remember and celebrate. Tantrums and night wakings might be frequent occurances right now, but they don't get much coverage in my scrapbook!

For the design, I worked with the Sketch N Scrap Birthday Bash: Scraplift Challenge. The layout by Jennifer Haggerty is just so perfect, that I actually copied it quite literally. I don't usually scraplift so closely, I tend to really adapt the inspiration image a lot. But this time I loved the original so much, and it went with my pictures so well that I made my layout very similar to Jennifer's, and I love it.

This is her sweet layout (love those chubby baby arms!):

And here are the supplies I used in my layout (several of these are quite old and the stores have now closed):

Two Peas-Erica Hernandez-November 2010 freebie tape
Two Peas-Michelle Underwood-That Was Yesterday-Banner
Design House Digital-Daydream Believer-Collab
Design House Digital-Tayler Mitchell-Wishy Washi Tape
Pixels & Co-An Innocent Heart-Charity Collab
Pixels & Co-Collab-Love Actually
Pixels & Co-Deena Rutter-Scenic Route
Pixels & Co-Gennifer Bursett-Elemental Snippy Alphas (Graph)
Shabby Miss Jenn-Grandma’s Scrapbooks-Stitching

OTHER CREDITS:
CVW_SupplyTracker
Font: Underwood 1913
Sketch N Scrap Scraplift Challenge layout by Jennifer Haggerty
Camera: Olympus PEN E-PL5

Rye Pier (February 2014)

This layout is for the Stuck on U Sketches April 25th Sketch Challenge. I really enjoyed putting this layout together using Celeste Knight's Birds of a Feather kit with the challenge sketch. I bought this kit a while ago but hadn't found the right project to use it for. 

This 12x12 layout will go opposite some more photos and journalling in my Project Life album. The colours of these papers, and the rain drops, birds and feathers patterns are all perfect for these photos. We went on a beach holiday and it was rainy and cold most of the time. After walking down the pier until we were so cold we had to turn back, my husband and son ran around to warm up, and to scare sea gulls so they could see them fly away.

CREDITS:
CVW_SupplyTracker
Stuck on You Sketch
Font: Vertical Script
Aprilmouse & Hanulienka-Furry Stuff Freebie (Rope Ring)
DHD-Vanessa Fenton-Layered Stitches
P&Co-Celese Knight-Birds of a feather Papers and Sweet Briar Solid Papers
P&Co-Collabs-Piccadilly, Here we come a Caroling and Love Actually

P&Co-Robyn Meierotto-Chipper Chipped Paint Alpha
Viviane-Photo Frames Freebie

Camera: Olympus PEN E-PL5
Software: Photoshop

 


UPDATE! 17 May 2014
I made the Top 3 for this challenge! Yay! First time playing along at Stuck on U Sketches! So I get a badge. It even matches my layout ;)

Becky Higgins on Creative Live - the development of the Project Life memory keeping system

So it's 4:30am here in Melbourne, and I'm up watching Becky Higgins live on Creative Live! Yes, I will pay for this tomorrow... but here I am, watching it on my iPhone (low resolution - I had trouble with it on the PC, I guess my internet connection wasn't fast enough). This is going to be three full days of live online classes with Becky Higgins, on memory keeping with her system, Project Life. And it's FREE to watch live!

Her Introduction has been about Memory Keeping, going back to the beginning of photography. Becky shared an old family album, with photos of relatives, a very precious family keepsake.

Then she shared three of her early scrapbooks.

Oh my, how I love Becky's teenage scrapbook! I did the same thing! But with a lot more writing. I covered notebooks, made my own books, altered old books. All before I had heard of the term "Scrapbooking". I knew about scrapbooks; my Mum showed me her scrapbook from her teenage years, the same sort of thing in an exercise book. But it wasn't called ScrapbookING, it didn't have special products, I never saw those until I was quite a bit older, and honestly I thought it was pretty dumb, because I knew you didn't need to buy special papers to make a scrapbook. Haha!!

She spoke about the advent of the "Scrapbooking Industry" in the 1990s, and then the downsides of this hobby - it can be time consuming and expensive. Knowing where to start can be hard if you don't feel creative. It can be overwhelming.

Now Becky is talking about the upsides: organising our photos. Scrapbooking can be a social experience. A creative outlet - it's FUN! It's meaningful, its personal. And she is now talking through her personal journey from her high school scrapbooks, into college, and her career, beginning with asking at local stores if she could run classes! She joined Creating Keepsakes magazine, writing and teaching Creative Lettering, and then layout Sketches. She published nine books on Sketches between 1999 and 2007.

Then Becky moved on to talking about the time-consuming aspect of the hobby while having children. She has three children three years apart. After already scrapbooking for many years, spending a lot of time and creative energy on her hobby, "reality set in!" when she became a mother. At a time when she had a full and busy life, and wanted to "keep up", with her scrapbooks, particularly for her children, Becky needed a quick and simple solution to memory keeping. 

So in an attempt to solve her own problem, she experimented with a concept she'd seen photographers do - "Project 365". She decided to capture a picture a day to represent her year. While doing this she got pregnant and it hit her hard. She was very sick, and didn't manage to finish her memory keeping project, but the two months she worked on Project 365 were so fulfilling that she knew she was onto something. From here, she developed the idea from Project 365 into a more complete solution that would present the photos better than in a regular photo album, and allow room for journalling. Becky launched the product "Project 365" through Creating Keepsakes. This was the precursor to Project Life - no embellishments, just photos and journal cards slipped into pockets. It was so popular, it sold out within hours!

Next Becky further developed the concept, so it was no longer about a daily photo, it was much more flexible so people could capture and record whatever was meaningful to them. Project Life was born! So in 2009, Becky resigned from the magazine and began a company with her husband to launch her memory keeping system. More than a photo album, the journal cards allow you to capture the important details, and also add a creative touch.  It looks like a scrapbook, but there are no added embellishments. It's beautiful, but simple. "Back to the basics of Photos and Stories." Yay!

The benefits of Project Life are greater than just getting your photos printed and in an album. "By doing something with your pictures, you will become more aware of how you are blessed." And also more aware of what you need to do and do more of. It can help you to be thankful, to recognise the blessings in your life.

"We'll do it, if it's manageable" - by making whatever we need to do in our lives simple and manageable, we'll be much more likely to do it! There is a little audience interaction at the end of the session. The host says he regrets not finishing his son's album, and Becky says, yes, there is often a feeling of regret, or guilt, a wistful "I wish" I had finished this or done that. But over the next three days Becky is going to cover this. She says she's going to break it down and make it achieveable. Sounds fantastic!

The next section is "Getting Started". It's 5:25am and the first 90 minute session has just finished. I'm going to add some pictures, proofread and then I'm off to bed! Oh, and I will definitely be watching more of this, as I find Becky to be very inspiring. Apparently Creative Live run replays of the day's show throughout the day, so I may be able to watch the rest at a more civilised hour ;D

Edward & Grandma (August 2011)

I'm sharing this layout for the Life.Paper.Scrapbook October Colour Challenge. Check it out here to see the gorgeous inspiration image - a sweet old typewriter and classic garden rose the colour of buttery lemon icing. So pretty... mmm, now I'm hungry ;)

I often find myself working in brown and turquoise, or yellow and turquoise, so it's great to bring the three colours together - perfect for a boy layout, and just right to complement these pictures of my Mum and son taken on the piece of furniture known as 'The Yellow Couch'. My little one was just five weeks old - how time flies!

Credits:
2Ps-Jennifer Pebbles-Winter Deer; 2Ps-Scrap Originals-Ocean Breeze-String Frames; Aprilmouse & Hanulienka-Spring Vol 2-Postcard Frame; Emily Powers-Blossom; Gunhild Storeide-Paper date wheel, Retro style tape, & Tab; Lettering Delights-Hero 12x12 QP; Little Dreamer-Michelle Coleman-Frosted & Wild Sorbet; Pixel Scrapper-Marisa Lerin-Hinge tag; Raspberry Road-Susan Darter-Travelogue; Shabby Princess-Promise; Thaliris-A Precious Moment Sampler; CVW_SupplyTracker.

You are my Sunshine (November 2012)

I'm sharing this for the Life Paper Scrapbook October Project Life Challenge! The theme this month is "Square or Instagram Photos", so here is an example of how I've included these in my Project Life album.


On the left I've used a WRMK page protector with three 4x4 inch pockets across the middle, holding Instagrams. They are all printed by Persnickety Prints. The first two are their special 4x4 Instagram prints and the third is a regular 4x6 photographic print which I've trimmed down. The first Instagram print is on Matte Card Stock with 1/8 inch white border (if anyone wants to order one!) I tested quite a few of their different print styles to see which I liked best. These card stock prints are not that great for photos. In my opinion, the card stock is better suited to graphics, and works well for journal cards. The middle Instagram print is metallic photographic paper and is absolutely gorgeous! I'll have to try to get a good photo of it. It's a bit pricey, at 85 cents (US$), but just so beautiful. Next time, instead of printing at the 4x4 Instagram size, I'll print them 4x6 inch and just trim them down. 4x6 metallic is 39c.

On the right side I've used Becky Higgins' Design A. I often used Adobe InDesign to lay out two 3x4 inch designs on a 4x6, and print these with the rest of my photos at Persnickety Prints. I usually cut them in half to put in the 3x4 pockets, but for this spread I've left two of them uncut, to fit in 4x6 pockets.

I'm rather behind, so this is from November 2012, which I just finished last month ;D I don't think there's much hope of ever fully "catching up", but I'm happy with what I've done as there are photos in my album and memories recorded. That's what matters, right? (This isn't actually the first spread, I will have to post that later.)

For the month of November, my first month of Project Life, I had the theme "30 days of Thankfulness". As an Australian, I've celebrated Thanksgiving only once, when I visited the USA. I really enjoyed it, and think it's a great holiday, and a wonderful practice to think about what we can thank God for. So when I saw the idea of 30 days of thankfulness on another scrapbooker's blog, I wanted to have a go myself.

Each day I recorded something I was thankful for, using the Memento app. Then I included those notes in my Project Life. Some are very brief notes and I've handwritten them on journal cards, or typed them on my photos before printing. Other notes are longer; some I've written on the back of the cards, and some I didn't have room for, so I've made a little concertina book to contain the notes that didn't fit anywhere else (bottom right pocket in the photo above).

I found it challenging some days to come up with something to be thankful for, but it was a great discipline to TRY, and I really enjoyed it. It seemed to help me to be happier and more positive, because I was making the effort to be thankful. I will definitely be doing "30 days of Thankfulness" again this year! I have seen people work on "One Little Week" or "Week in the Life" projects and also "December Daily". While I love looking at what others do with these, as a personal project they didn't really click with me. My daily life is already recorded in my photos, and December is the busiest month so it's too stressful to think of adding another project. November is a good month for me to look back on the year, and pause each day to spend some dedicated time thanking God for His blessings in our lives.

P.S. I didn't manage to take the best photos; I had to stop after a few shots, because THIS started to happen...!

Products used: Simple Stories Harvest Lane, and Summer Fresh 12x12 papers. Becky Higgins Project Life Wellington Childhood Mini Kit and Design A page protector. WRMK #50064-3 page protector. Typo bird ribbon. Tear out notes from Kikki K 2012 Sweet A6 weekly diary. Digital papers and embellishments from Lori Whitlock (clouds paper), Gennifer Bursett (doily paper), L Riches (Lil Angel-red swirls & hearts papers), E Giovanni (Christina Renee-red paper top left), Gunhild Storeide (Friday Freebie-file tab), Raspberry Road (Botanical Bliss-stamps frame) and Dydyge (DigiCrea-Rainy Day Kit-umbrella).
Photos: iPod Touch 4, Canon Digital IXUS 85 IS. 
Apps/Software: Pic Frame, Rhonna Designs, Bubble Frame, Snapseed. Adobe Photoshop & InDesign.

My Project Life Approach

Everyone approaches Project Life differently. A lot of people do it in weekly spreads. I like my monthly approach. I don't worry about keeping the photos and journalling consecutive, so long as it's in the correct month. I also use as many spreads and inserts as I need, so not restricted to a set number. I include a calendar each month, but it can be anywhere within the month, and any size. I have a few packs of dividers which I might put in at some stage to make it clearer where the months start. Some months are one spread, others are five! It just depends how many photos I have that I want to include.

When I first saw Project Life, I thought it was a strictly weekly project as that's what everyone was sharing online. Then I looked at Becky Higgins' website and realised it's completely flexible! She's designed it to be used however you want, and she wants it to be fun and freeing, not a guilt-inducing chore. I also liked how her examples are really simple! Not the highly embellished "scrapbook" style layouts that I was seeing in galleries. Going by Becky's philosophy, I realised it was something I wanted to do.

I've used the Collect App a little too after seeing Persnickety Prints' Chari post about it on Instagram. I saw Annette Haring's and also Kristen Tweedale's Project Life pages using the Collect app and it certainly is a quick way to include small photos. I still use 4x6 pics too, and the Becky Higgins kits, as well as bits and pieces of patterned paper and whatever I find. Amanda Obanion has a great video showing her Project Life process using the Collect app, over on her blog. She'll be adding a second video soon too.

Here are some of my Collect pics for my June spread. I've combined them into 4x6 inch pics to print.

 

  

These pictures were all taken and edited on my iPhone 5, using various apps, including Bubble Frame, Rhonna Designs, Pic Frame, Snapseed and Filtermania 2.