More on the Circle Journals

In the last post I shared the amazing circle journal that everyone participated in... this time I've got the pages I did in everyone else's journals :)

A to Z of Me - Beverley This was a fun journal where you took each letter of the alphabet and wrote something about yourself. Took a bit of thought... especially for a couple of the letters... but was really happy with it in the end.Shoes - Esther I've never really been a 'shoe' girl... but this journal did prompt me to buy a couple of new pairs! My Home Town - Lianne I had heaps of fun with this one... loved using the flax paper :)Sketchbook - Rangi This was a neat journal... we had to design a sketch and then create a layout using our own sketch... very cool idea!Special Memories - Jane One of my special moments was graduating from Teachers College so that's what I chose for this journal :)1970's Ngaere Being a kid in the 1970's was lots of fun. We lived on a farm and were always busy doing things!In my handbag - Tracey I don't actually own a handbag but I DO like flax kete... mine are usually full of all sorts of things... especially during the school term!Everyday Moments - Michelle This was another great idea for a journal... documenting the 'every day' things in your life!

Why Scrapbook? - Tricia This was really fun... we had to do a layout about WHY we scrapbook... what we like and what keeps us doing it... very thought provoking!

Scrapaholic - Lee This journal was the last one I worked on and heaps of fun to read what others had already written. We had to use the statement: Hello my name is _____ and I'm a scrapaholic. Lots of fun!Thanks again to everyone who participated in this circle journal swap! It was so neat to be able to see your work in real life and I've gotten heaps of new ideas from looking through your journals :)

It's been a while...

I couldn't believe how much has happened since my last post... and I've got heaps I 'should' be uploading but today I want to share with you a wonderful project that I've been doing with a great groups of ladies from Scrapbook Dreams.

Back in October 2008 we started a Circle Journal and with 11 participants it's taken us quite a while to get our journals back.... but they were well worth the time and effort :)

I decided to make my album a tribute to 'Home' and what that means to different people. For some people it's the house they live in... or the people they live with. I also wondered what everyone found special about their homes or what they miss when they're away.

Here's the cover of my journal (it's a Love Elsie album that I bought at SENZ 2007):

Then comes the welcome page and the 'house rules'... I asked everyone to decorate a 'door tag' as their sign in along with creating a double page layout about what home means to them.

Then it was my turn to do a layout page. Home for me is all about my girls :) I love having them with me although I'm pretty sure I'll cope with the whole 'empty next' syndrome that is fast approaching too! I also wanted to put in my craft room because I spend so much time in there!

Then my album was off to Lee:

Next it was Tricia's turn:

Michelle was next:

Followed by Tracey:

Ngaere was the next to add her pages:

Followed by Jane:

Then it was Rangi's turn: Lianne came next:Followed by Esther:

And finally Beverley got a turn:

My sign out page made for great reading! I wrote: If you had to leave your house in a hurry and you could only take one item what would it be and why? p.s. You can assume that all of your family and pets are already safely outside!

Lots of people said they'd grab cameras, photos & handbags along with children's favourite toys/comforters!

Poor Esther forgot to 'sign out' but I'm heading down to see her in Wellington late next week so I'll take it with me!!

Of course I needed a back cover too:

And here's my finished album: Pretty impressive isn't it!! A BIG thank you to all the wonderful women who shared your homes and creativity with me... and I hope you all enjoy your journals as much as I am :)

Happy Mothers Day :)

To all the mothers out there I hope you have a wonderful day :) I know that I've got an awesome breakfast coming my way (because I've seen all the wonderful goodies that Krystal has been buying at the supermarket)... but I'll have to wait until the girls wake up LOL

While it's lovely and quiet here I thought I'd try and catch up on my blogging. I've got lots of neat things to show you today.

During the first week back at school I did another bookbinding night class. This time we made a journal with leather binding and I really LOVE it! In fact, when I got home Miss Mikayla - who generally says: That's 'nice' actually came out with: Wow that's cool... can you make me one?

Here's the book closed:

The spine is leather, the front and back covers are fabric and it has a leather tie with a paua enclosure. All the pages inside have torn edges so it gives the journal quite an old feel. The signatures are all sewn into the spine and the leather smells divine :)It's quite a fat little book! The spine is 2 inches wide - it kind of reminds me of a spell book from Harry Potter.

For the inside cover I used handmade paper because it gave such a good feel and colour to the book.

There are also inserts of handmade paper scattered randomly through the book... looks really cool when it's open.And finally the binding. The book is made using hand stitched binding... and trying to find the holes in the leather was a bit of a mission but totally worth it! I had a great time at the class and I'm planning on making a few more of these in the future :)

Moving on now... last weekend I was away teaching a Distress Ink class in Katikati (forgot to get the camera out!) and then I went to my sisters' house for the night. My wee niece (3) was really excited about me coming to see HER! When I arrived my feet were so cold that I put on my new socks... don't you just love the colour???

Miss 3 came over to me and said: "You've got 'pluppy' socks Auntie Shelley". I was a bit confused until my sister said she meant 'fluffy' LOL Then Miss 3 looks at me with big SAD eyes... flutters the eyelashes and says: "I haven't got ANY pluppy socks". Oh yes, the heart did melt!!! Was one of the cutest things ever!!! So Auntie has been shopping and bought her a pair of her own 'pluppy' socks LOL

Later on in the day Miss 3 was sitting on my knee having a cuddle and I was wearing a new top that had rhinestones on it. Miss 3 started trying to pick the rhinestones off so I said to her: "Don't pick off Auntie's bling"... and her response was LOTS of giggles followed by "You've got blingy boobies Auntie". The things kids say!!!

On the Monday Miss 3 went to her kindy and was so excited about the whole weekend that she had to tell her teachers EVERYTHING... but it all came out in a rush!!! When my sister went to pick her up they asked what had happened on the weekend and when she asked why they said: "All we can make out is that Auntie CHARLIE had pluppy socks". Talk about funny!!!

Meanwhile, getting back to Sunday, I taught a paper bag album for the Waihi Beach Young Artists group. I've never actually taught a kids scrapbooking class before... in fact I've avoided it like the plague... but I have to say that I had a REALLY good time and the kids (aged from 5 to 12) made some awesome albums!

Krystal had pre-made all the albums to save a bit of time (which turned out to be a fantastic idea!) All the kids chose their papers and my sister cut them all to size while I got on with showing the kids how to glue their papers into their albums. Then we had a 'buffet' table brimming with embellishments. We had the 'MUM' letters pre-cut in a range of colours (the theme was Mothers Day) and then they chose: buttons, ribbons, stickers, punchies, foam letters etc to decorate their books!These kids had some fabulous ideas! Lots of them made tags to go into the 'pockets' of their albums and they put a lot of thought, time and effort into what they were making. Thanks kids for an awesome morning!!!

This last week has been really stressful at school because we've just had ERO (Education Review Office) in our school. It's one thing to know that you're doing a good job and teaching the kids well, working together as a team of professionals etc... but it's quite another to have people who don't know you, the kids or the school, come in and observe everything that you're doing... including going through the kids books, your planner and assessments etc. We'll find out next week how we did but as lovely as they were it was nice to see them leave on Thursday :)

Yesterday we had our firewood arrive!!! We've had a little bit left over from last winter along with some wood from the silk tree that Mum and Richard cut down last summer... but now we've got heaps of wood stacked up in the garage. The girls gave me a hand and we managed to stack 2 metres of wood in about 20 minutes!!! It was great team work!

Last night I had a Scrapbook Dreams night class here and we made journals. At our school we have to do Reflective Diaries in relation to our teaching which is not my most favourite thing in the world... so instead of using the 1B4 I was given I decided to make my own journal with the hope that it would make me want to write in it:It's worked pretty well too because I've already filled about 5 pages!!!I was showing a couple of people at school and the next thing I know we've got a class organised so last night 3 people from school came over and they all made their own journals.

Sharon chose some My Minds Eye paper and also decided to use the 'cut off' strip as an embellishment... very clever idea!

Lavinia got into the whole paper tearing and inking theme along with some Kaiser paper:And Annette chose some Basic Grey paper for her journal. This was Annette's very first attempt at anything to do with scrapbooking and she LOVED it!She added some ribbon, stamped a wee bird and hand painted it before popping it up on foam dots and then she added some bling to highlight the pattern on the paper.

The final photo of this post has to go to poor old Tequila... he really does seem to get picked on sometimes (no wonder he has 'issues). Miss Brandy (Tequila's sister) never has anything silly happen to her!!! Tequila was just lying in front of the fire minding his own business when the girls did this to him:

I must admit that it was quite funny watching him trying to get the 'T' off his head... and even funnier when it got stuck to his paw!

Well it's been a long post and it's still very quiet here (even though it's now 9am!!!) so it might be time to get those girls up so they can wish me a Happy Mother's Day LOL... actually I better ring my own Mum first!

Happy Mother's Day everyone and I hope you have a great week!

Mum's got a 'Cuttle Bugga'

You're probably all wondering if I've gone a bit insane with that title!!!... Here's the story: Several weeks ago when the Warehouse had a sale, my sisters and I decided to join forces (ie wallets) and get Mum a Cuttle Bug for her birthday. It was her birthday on Tuesday (21st) and we all rang her for her birthday etc and said she'd have to wait until Friday for her parcel since she was coming over here for dinner. Mum and Richard arrived and then went out for dinner... a fundraising event for Krystal's Venturers group. Krystal was waitressing for the night so they brought her home.

Once they got back and had a coffee etc we got down to presents. Richard (his birthday is just before Mum's) got his mini album 'Poppa & Me' and thought it was great. Then it was Mum's turn!

I handed over the big box and said that it was from all three of her 'loving daughters'. Richard took one look at the size of the box and said: "Its a Cuttle Bugga!"

So now Mum is the proud owner of one little green Cuttle Bugga! So was Mum pleased with her present???? Take a look at the photos and see for yourself:
Actually I'm quite impressed that Richard even knew what a 'Cuttle Bugga' was! Obviously Mum has been 'hinting' to him to get her one!!

That's Richard in the background... maybe he should get a job in marketing??? On second thoughts... maybe not!

While Mum was here last night she was having a bit of a 'look' around my craft room... that's the 'look' where you touch with your hands as well!!! Next thing I know she's got my camera and done this to my poor cat!

Poor Tequila (who is a boy... and already has 'issues' as Krystal puts it!) didn't really know what to do so he just sat still with the flower on his head for ages! I think all is forgiven now though because he's lying stretched out in front of a nice cozy fire :)

In other news... we've just completed another 'family' ATC swap. Auntie Daphne is getting quite hooked on them now :) She chose the theme for this swap - The Birds & the Bees! Mum and I got our ATC's back the other day and they are FABULOUS!!!

I've been wanting to do something 'cute' for a little while and I'd just picked up a few little stamps that will be perfect for making ATC's. Here's what I came up with:

I wanted to show a detail shot of this one too since there was lots of things happening on it... and since it's my blog I can! You'll have to get your OWN blog soon Mum!!! :)
Mum went with the Birds and the Bees song... you know... the one from the car advertisement... LOVE those adds!
When the ATC's arrived Mum rang me straight away and said: 'Daphne's got a cuttle bug!!!' When I got mine I found out how she knew:
Very nice work you guys!!! I'm totally thrilled with my little ATC collection!

It's been really fun doing ATC's with Mum & Auntie Daphne :) Mum's hosting the next swap and this weekend she's gone up to see Auntie Daphne so I'm waiting to hear what idea they come up with for the theme.

Well I hope you're all having a good weekend... it's back to school on Monday and I know there will be a lot of Mum's looking forward to getting the kids back into a routine again :)

Spotlight on... Krystal!

Krystal has been bitten by the 'canvas' bug! This girl of mine is super talented and she's given me permission to share her artwork with all of you!

A couple of months ago one of her friends had her 16th birthday and Krystal wanted to make her something really special so she bought a canvas, some paint and played with Photoshop (she's been giving me a few lessons too... thanks babe xxx) and here's what she came up with:
Krystal really loved this photo so she did a whole heap of different effects with it, chose the ones she really wanted and then had the photos printed (5x7 size). She backed all the photos with purple card which she also distressed with ink. The canvas was given the silver treatment and added a lovely soft sparkle to the whole thing. Once she had the photos on she thought it 'needed' something so out came her butterfly stencil and the silver paint dabber and... voila!

When her friend saw the canvas she 'squealed'!!! She was so impressed (as were all the adults at the party!). It now has pride of place on her friends bedroom wall :)

The other night Krystal and I decided to do some scrapbooking together so we headed out to the supermarket for some treats:
Let's just say that the treats worked really well for her.... and didn't for me! By the end of the night she had one canvas finished and another one in the planning stage.... and I had.... NOTHING!!! LOL

The canvas she got finished is for her little sister Ashley. Ashley is a real princess... she loves pink, purple, bling, fairies etc... much like Krystal at the same age actually :) Whenever Krystal goes to visit her Dad and his new family she always comes back with LOADS of photos and she went through them and found one she really liked.

Once again she got out paint... this time it was purple and turquoise. She made her own 'glimmer mist' with a spritzer bottle, silver paint and lots of water and gave the whole canvas a bit of sparkle. The she EMBELLISHED!!! Here's the canvas:
I think Ashley is going to absolutely love it! The girls are going up to see their Dad in the next school holidays so Krystal will be giving her the canvas then. In the meantime we get to enjoy it... AND she's been asked if the local scrapbooking store can display it in their shop as well... Krystal is stoked!!!

Last night Krystal got her next canvas done... this time featuring her little brother Blake. Blake is a real sweetie and loves having his photo taken... although a lot of the ones I see seem to involve tongues poking out etc... he's such a boy!!!

Krystal went for more of a 'grunge' look for this canvas. She did a paint wash on the background, lots of ripped paper and inking, some great rub ons and even played with the cricut! She also printed two photos the same... one in black & white and one in colour. The base photo is black & white and then she cut Blake out of the colour photo and popped him up with foam dots. She also cut out the stars from a second set of paper and popped them up too so it's got a real 3D look.

She has definitely captured each child's personality really well and I think her Dad is going to be very impressed when he sees what she's accomplished!
Well done Krystal!!!

I've been busy scrapping!

What's with all the posts lately??? LOL Let's just say that the mojo is back and school holidays are here so there's lots of scrapping taking place :)

I've had a few photos printed out waiting to be scrapped and in amongst all my organising I came across the 'perfect' papers to scrap them with so I got busy and here's what I've come up with. This first layout focusses on my nieces Kody & Jessy. Kody has been waiting very patiently for her new sister to arrive and when she finally did (three weeks early) Kody was very proud!!! She loves being a big sister too!

I haven't done a 'pink' layout for quite a while but I'm fairly pleased with how this one turned out. The papers are really pretty and have a bit of a shine to them :)

Next is my nephew Reece. He's such a smiley young man and I've got some wonderful photos of him. For this layout I wanted to try using 'white space'. I'm not very good at that... I have a NEED to fill up the whole page... but with a sketch in hand I managed to get it done and I LOVE how it turned out!

The next layout uses some very recent photos (taken on Tuesday when I got together with my sisters). I took my niece and nephew for a walk to the post office and we passed a Wiggles ride. ALL the way to the post office and ALL the way back my nephew begged and pleaded for a ride... and being the soft touch I am sometimes I gave in.

My niece picked the plane... and wouldn't you know it... my nephew wanted to sit on the plane! So my niece actually moved and went to the boat.... yep, my nephew wanted to sit in the boat... typical! This time though his sister wasn't moving so my nephew finally settled into the car. Auntie puts in $2, grabs her camera and we're off.

Every time they came around I snapped pictures... all the ones of my niece are lovely... big smiles, cheeky grins... just lovely! BUT my nephew was determined NOT to smile! I kept taking photos any way! After the ride I showed the kids the photos and my nephew said: 'You won't scrapbook those photos Auntie'... Yeah right!!! So here's a layout using the photos I 'wouldn't scrap'!And as the journaling says: 'Never dare Auntie NOT to scrap honey! xxx' I emailed my sister the layout yesterday and my nephew thought it was quite cool! Then she told him that I was going to put it on my wall and he was horrified!!! Just as well he doesn't know that I've blogged it!!! LOL

I've still got a few photos I want to scrap so hopefully I'll be back again this week with another update. Thanks to everyone for their comments too... it's always lovely to hear what you think :)

Show and tell :)

Hi again :) I seem to have lots of stuff to blog about lately... and this post has a little bit of everything.

First of all.... LOTS of people have been asking if they can 'look' at my scrap room.... so.... I took a few photos on Wednesday to show some of it! I want to start off with this:
I know, I know... that's NOT my scraproom LOL But it does live in my scrap room now :) I've been looking for a printers tray for AGES... and seen a few on TM but they were always either... too expensive, too big or small, or they were they wrong type, colour etc. Then I was in Tauranga on Tuesday and I walked past the Hospice shop and something caught my eye... I went in and it was this shelf... I saw the price tag and grabbed it... $10!!!
Now it has some of my wooden stamps housed in it... and it also matches the wood on my craft room walls perfectly... was definitely a wonderful find!

Here is a 'bigger' picture showing it on the wall with my cricut & cuttlebug stuff underneath. I wanted something to house all my stuff so that I could actually 'see' it because I'm definitely a girl where if I can see it I'll use it!On the right are my 'bits & pieces' hangers (which are actually towel rails from Bunnings). The things in the bags are all sorts of things that I use for ATC's and scrapbooking projects. Since I've had them 'visible' like this I've actually been using quite a bit of it which is great!Now you can see all the cricut & cuttlebug stuff better. The stand is an old CD stand my sister didn't need any more. I made 'shelves' by sliding in an empty CD case at the right height and now all my stuff is easy to see (and YES I've been using it a LOT!). I've also got my tripod there because then I can find it when I need it. The drawers are still waiting for labels because I'm not quite finished organising all my stuff how I want it yet.

Some of you might remember this big shelf from just after I moved into my house... I'm happy to say that I still LOVE it because it can house LOTS of stuff... and it's nice to know that something I made is still working well for me :)All the white drawers inside the wooden stand house my acrylic stamp collection which just seems to keep growing. The good part is that now I've got them organised much better and I'm using it all again! The drawers to the left still need to be organised properly... but I'm making progress with that too :)

I just found these cool containers in a sale at Payless Plastics. They're great for keeping all my buttons sorted out! PLUS each of those little yellow compartments comes out of the case seperately so if I want pink buttons I can just take the pink buttons out and put them on my table!! Cool eh :)

And here's how I've got my cottons sorted... another Payless Plastics sale item!

The best part about this container is that it's DOUBLE SIDED!!! Very cool indeed!Right... back to the cricut again. I've got all my die cutting stuff together now :) The desk was in a Warehouse sale last year and it's great for holding all this stuff!And because I don't actually sit down to use any of this stuff I can store LOTS of things underneath the desk and it's easy to get at while still being out of the way!

Now for some Scrapbook Dreams storage. This first photo is all the Distress Inks (top row) followed by all the Green Tara flowers.Underneath is a small shelf, that is probably... almost definitely... going to be leaving the scraproom! But for now I've got some papers in it as well as my chipboard (in the shelf underneath that missed out on the photo). The big wheelie bin is where I've got all my finished projects because I've pretty much run out of wall space now :( BUT I have got an idea that might just work! I'll let you know how that goes :)

Meanwhile I have actually been doing some scrapping!!! It's been lovely to have a bit of extra time with the school holidays to get creative :) This first layout was made using Bella papers that I got from Spotlight. I've been wanting to do a layout using the photos of me and Reece and I finally got it done! The journaling reads: 'Auntie Time' is one of my favourite things in the whole world! This is the first time that Reece came to ME for cuddles. It will always be a special moment in my memory! Love you lots babe!

While I was on a roll I did this layout of my niece and nephews doing their Easter Egg hunt at home. My sister wrote clues and hid them all over the place and my nephew had a lot of fun finding them and reading them (isn't school great!) Once my niece got her bunny she really didn't care about the rest of the egg hunt so that became the focus of my layout. The photos are both 5 x 7 and to do my niece in colour I know that I COULD have just used a photo editing programme but I wanted a more 3D effect so I printed off the photo in colour, cut around her, inked the edges and popped her up on foam dots. The 'egg hunt' letter are little self-adhesive photo stickers and the stars around her bunny and the dots on the i's and j's!

And now we're up to the last part... ATC's! Poor Mum has been waiting for this part for the whole post LOL Mum's been doing ATC swaps with the Scrapfest group since January (and loving it!) Just recently Auntie Daphne decided that she would quite like to do a few ATC's too so we're doing swaps with just the three of us... quite nice to do a smaller group sometimes :)

For our first swap Mum choses the theme 'vintage/antique'... it depends on who you ask because I'm SURE she said vintage... but she said she chose antique!!! Either way the ATC's look great!

Here's Auntie Daphne's ATC:
Love those soft colours and lacey paper!!! Excellent work for a first timer don't you think???
Here's Mum's antique ATC: The sewing machine actually belonged to my great grandmother and now lives at one of my sisters house... so neat to see it on an ATC.
And here's my vintage one:If you saw the online tutorial on Scrapbook Dreams about shellac then you might notice that I used it over/around the cameo!

Sorry for waiting you wait until the end Mum... Yeah right!! LOL

Auntie Daphne is now addicted to ATC's and we've just finished our second swap... The Birds and the Bees... I'll show you how they turn out as soon as we get them all back :)