Saturday 25 April 2009

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 :)

Thursday 23 April 2009

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!!!

Sunday 19 April 2009

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 :)

Friday 17 April 2009

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 :)

Monday 13 April 2009

A special day!

Yesterday a good friend of mine came over to visit and 'play' in my craft room... and it was VERY cool! On Saturday I got the fridge stocked up with lots of goodies:

Yes I am ADDICTED to V drinks!!! Actually I have NEVER had this many cans of V in the fridge at the same time! Miss Mikayla organised them on the top shelf together and I got a bit of a shock when I looked in the fridge and saw so many LOLTricia arrived EARLY!!! I was still cleaning up my craft room... and still in my PYJAMAS!!! She text me to say she'd arrived in Rotorua so I went down (still in said pyjamas) to show her an easier way of getting to my house because when she came over in January we took the 'short cut' which involves many twists and turns LOL. When we got back to my house Noah got a bit shy since he hadn't been here before... we usually go to his house :) But it only took a few minutes before he was VERY comfortable:Poor Krystal hadn't even had time for a quick shower before Noah spotted the play station! I got a HUGE shock when I got out of the shower and found him snuggled up to Krystal playing a game... VERY cute!Then the game got a bit exciting!Noah had Krystal and Mikayla wrapped around his finger within minutes and they thought he was wonderful... which he is :) All of this took place before Tricia even managed to get a cup of tea! Next Noah was off to the park with Mikayla while Krystal had a shower and then came the BAKING! Krystal was going to make some chocolate chippie cookies but she thought she'd wait and do the baking with Noah instead.... talk about EXCITING!!! Noah was thrilled to bits to get to do the cookies with Krystal. He added the vanilla... in fairly large doses! But he did get to make a big 'N' with Krystal's help:He was very excited showing Mum what he had made:

And here's a close up of his 'N':

In the mean time Tricia and I actually managed to get some paper out and talk scrapbooking. Looking through Tricia's papers was really cool too... saw lots of VERY cool stuff!!! Tricia got a base coat of paint done on her canvas and that was about all we actually got done before lunch LOL By that stage Noah was a whizz on the playstation:And now for some scrapbooking photos LOL Noah is just so stinking CUTE!!! No wonder so many of the photos were of him... and there's some GREAT layout photos there!! Tricia learnt how to do a 'colour wash' on her canvas and it looks AMAZING! When the paint had dried she started working out where to put her papers and was really proud of herself because she had actually managed to get 'messy':Let me tell you too... Tricia has got to be the NEATEST scrapper I've ever met!!! As soon as she's finished with something she puts it AWAY!! I'd have NEVER thought of that.... seriously!!! I always end up in a big mess... and have no problem with that! When I move onto the next project I just move around the table to a clean area... and when there's no clean areas left I MIGHT clean it up a bit.... but not Tricia.... she cleans up BETWEEN projects!!! Was actually quite an eye opener for me :)

Can you believe that I only took 2 scrapping photos all day??? Here's the second one with Tricia using the cricut... she had LOTS of fun playing!!

The final photo of the day has to be this one:Krystal made Noah his name out of cookie dough :) When he left he took home a BIG piece for Daddy, a BIG piece for Noah... and two LITTLE pieces for Mummy LOL And he said to me that "next time I'm bringing Dad too"... I wonder if he thinks Dad missed out on too much fun

Thanks for an AWESOME day Tricia!!! Was so much fun :)

Friday 10 April 2009

Blog Makeover!!! :)

Hi :) As you can see (hopefully) I've been 'playing' on the computer this morning (don't you just LOVE not having to go to work???) I found this gorgeous (and fun) digital paper and matching header and it really appealed to me.... I love the 'new look' and it really made me want to blog which has got to be a good thing!

I love that the paper is so cute! Speaking of cute... I got an email from Mum the other night (that's not the cute bit!! LOL) She'd been 'lurking' on Scrapbook Dreams and felt she just HAD to respond to my new avatar: "I must tell you: I love the new logo for you on the site. The huge pink hat tickles me and I can't help but smile. It's a real cute pleaser."
Thanks Mum!! I think she's pretty cute too! What do you girls think?
It was FREEZING here this morning!! When I looked out the window there was a real frost!!! Take a look at this:

The sun was still rising and the view was actually really stunning... so being a scrapbooker... I grabbed the camera and took this photo (along with a whole heap more) of the view looking out over the neighbours back yard:While it doesn't look quite so good in the photo as it did in real life I was thrilled to see the 'lines of light' coming from the trees! Not a bad start to the long Easter weekend... and the school holidays!!! On that note I'm going to wish everyone a very safe and happy Easter... and may you all get far too much chocolate :)

Sunday 5 April 2009

I'm a very happy scrapper today!

I have finally managed to 'make' some time to scrap for myself... and the 'extra' hour thanks to daylight savings was helpful too!I decided to use one of the new 'Back to Basics' kits from Scrapbook Dreams and see what I could do with it.

I chose the 'Handsome' kit because I haven't really used grey very much and I was looking for a bit of a challenge.I started off doing a 12x12 layout of Richard and Kody because I had a great photo that would work with the April challenge at Scrapbook Dreams.

The challenge was to cut up a photo and I must admit that after feeling a bit hesitant at first I LOVE the results. This layout is called 'Buddies' and is about my niece Kody and her 'Buddy' Poppa.
I had lots of fun playing on this layout. I used Weathered Wood distress ink and bubble wrap to add a bit more interest to the background. Then I cut out my circles (dessert bowl, coffee cup and glass jar) and then I distressed the edges and inked them. The flower was orginally white but I used another Distress Ink technique that I saw online to colour it... love how that turned out!
I cut the photo and then backed it onto cardstock before mounting it on foam dots. The frame around Kody was cut out with the cricut (Base Camp). For the title I used some chipboard letters that I've had for ages, inked them with Weathered Wood and then added some Dimensional Magic (gotta love that stuff!!) I'm really pleased with how it turned out!

Next I decided to do a double 8x8 layout for Kody's album. Kody's favourite question at the moment is "What doing?" Apparently she asks everyone 'What doing?' all the time! Very cute the first few times but not so much by number 25!!! She calls Mum "Gamma" and Richard is "Pop-pa" so I decided to use that as part of my title. Here's the left side:
And here's the right side:I'm really hooked on the whole inking with bubble wrap thing so I did lots more of that and then started layering everything the way I wanted it. HEAPS of Weathered Wood ink because it just went with everything so well! The brackets around the left side photos are actually a frame that I cut the middle out of... very cool thing to be making my own embellishments!

Once I'd done the three layouts I still had 2 whole sheets of paper left and I was still itching to scrap so I had a quick look through my stash and found a mini tag album. I 'think' I remember getting it in a sale about 5 years ago because it was cheap... better late than never as far as actually doing something with it goes.

It's nearly Richard's birthday so I thought since I had a few photos of him and Kody I would make him a mini album about their relationship. EVERYTHING got inked, distressed, grunged etc... and it let me make use of ALL of the bits of paper I had left over from the layouts :)

Here's a bird's eye view of the album:Front cover:Pages 1 & 2:Journaling: Kody likes to ask lots of questions! Her favourite one at the moment: What doing?
What doing Poppa? Playing with Sophie.
Pages 3 & 4:Journaling: What doing Poppa? Reading you a story. What doing Poppa? Tickling Kody!!
Pages 5 & 6:Journaling: What doing Poppa? Trying to read my newspaper! What doing Poppa? Sharing my lollies with you. Yummy!
Pages 7 & 8:Journaling: What doing Poppa? Eating my pudding. Me too! What doing Poppa? Going to Auntie's house.


Back cover:

By the time I'd finished the mini album I only had two small pieces of cream cardstock left! That's great value from a $12 paper kit don't you think??? If you want one of these kits... or one of the other two kits available check them out HERE.

I hope you are all enjoying the 'extra' hour today :) Shell xx