SENZ - Part 2!

Well tomorrow has finally come LOL To be honest, I've just been so busy processing and sending orders, catching up on sleep, getting back into our routines and starting the 4th term that this is the first time I've had a chance to sit and get myself organised.

Friday morning I had my first class... and I was totally blown away by Lusi! She really is the sweetest, most positive person and she's got such a lot of talent! We began the class by getting the very very latest news... Lusi is pregnant with her 4th child!!! Looking forward to seeing updates on her blog! And trust me... Lusi doesn't let pregancy slow her down... she got us all around her table and shows us about 10 different techniques in less than 10 minutes... truely makes your head explode with all the fab new ideas!

Here's a photo of our 'classroom' (from Lusi's blog)... and it's also the classroom I did Nic Howard's class in :)

Out came the kits and it was straight into it! This was the "Memories from Abroad" class where we covered a mini photo album and were supposed to do all the tabs etc to decorate... but we did a lot of laughing and heaps of talking so I was quite pleased that I even managed to finish my outside cover LOL Here's us all hard at work (photo from Lusi's blog)

Yep that's me in the centre (back) of the classroom :) Not sure what I'm up to... either inking or sanding by the look of it! Here's the inside cover of my album with one of Lusi's techniques... ink on bubble wrap... very cool! I've seen it done with paint before but not ink.... and I'm definitely going to be doing it again!Here's a close up of my album... really liking it now that I've gotten over the 'pinkness' LOL Not a colour I usually use but it 'fits' this album :)You can see I've sanded my photo... that's a first for me and I quite like the effect. I also sanded and inked the sticker... thanks Lusi for the ideas!And here's a view from the top:Since it's got 3 sections and I've got 2 sisters I'm going to use each section for some of my favourite photos of my girls and my nieces and nephews! Will be nice to have a mini album of photos that I love and I think it will be travelling with me whenever I'm away from home :)

At the end of the class Lusi got us all to share our albums and it was really amazing to see just how different everyone's albums turned out (Photo from Lusi's blog)

And here's a photo of all of our class with Lusi :) Yep I 'pinched' this photo from her blog too! I'm on the far left wearing the black jacket and Lusi is the very cool chick in the middle wearing the blue apron :)

When I got home I photographed the 'left overs' from the class... I'm definitely going to be able to get this album finished!!A big thank you to Craft House for the incredibly awesome class kit!!!

On Saturday morning I had my second class... I learnt some very cool techniques using one of my favourite products... Ranger distress inks! Anyone that knows me, knows I LOVE to ink!! In fact I find it incredibly difficult not to ink at least one thing on everything I do LOL The class was taught by Rachel Greig from Darkroom Door and I love Rachel's style of just getting in and 'playing'. In the class we made cards using some of her brand new stamps and I definitely learnt some great new techniques that I'll be using a lot!

Here's my first card:

And here's my second one:Cool stamps, cool techniques, great tutor and lots and lots of ink... what more could a girl ask for?

Thanks Rachel for sharing your talent with us!! Loved hearing about your time with Tim Holtz (totally cool!!)

After lunch on Saturday it was time for my final class... Prima Paintables with Nic Howard :) I'm so pleased I did this one... lots of new techniques and messy messy messy! I had such a lot of fun! Nic showed us some great techniques using Glimmer Mist and I have to admit that I'm becoming a huge fan of this stuff... it adds just a touch of glimmer to your projects (hard to show in a photo but totally fabulous in real life!) The layout I did in the class has become one of my all time favourites and I'm seriously thinking it needs to go on a canvas in my studio!!!This is a photo of my gorgeous nephew! As soon as I saw this photo I knew it needed a really special layout and Nic's class was just perfect for it! Nic also provided us with a second project but I wasn't too thrilled with how mine started out so I made this instead:Yes it's the same photo! I just love it :) I'm still not sure if I'm going to make this into the front of a card or put it on a small canvas... I just know that I love it!

Nic's class was another Craft House one and they provided a generous class pack once again! In spite of how much product I used I've still got all this left over:

I'm definitely going to be creating some more with Glimmer Mists and the gorgeous Prima Paintables!!! In fact I've got a wee mini album project in mind for this stuff :)

Nic is lovely and she's got a great style... thanks for a fab afternoon :) and thanks for signing my copy of "That's Life"! I bought Nic's book at SENZ last year and I took it with me this time so Nic could sign it.... lucky me!

Now you're all probably thinking that I didn't get a chance to shop... ha ha ha... yeah right! Actually I thought I was fairly restrained this year (at least compared to last year!) but I did get some lovely new things!

After taking Rachel's class on making Christmas cards I thought I NEEDED these stamps:

And Krystal did a make in take that required a purchase so she could make more LOL Here's the cute card that Krystal made:

And here's the stamps I HAD to buy her... along with the ones I didn't HAVE to have but they were just too awesome to leave behind:

And after taking Nic's class of course I NEEDED some Glimmer Mist:

They're really gorgeous colours (Vanilla Breeze, Wild Currant & Cinnamon)

And my final purchase was some lovely acrylic stamps and some paint dabbers:

Here's a photo of some of the gorgeous swap pins I received:

And finally here is a card made for me by Esther (from the Scrapbook Dreams forum). We met for hot chocolates in a lovely little chocolate shop I found (how did THAT happen??? LOL) and she gave me this card she'd made for me:

Thank you so much Esther! It was lovely to meet you and spend some time chatting. I'm looking forward to our next catch up (in a chocolate shop of course!)

And on that note I'm going to sign off :) There is one more SENZ installment to come... Krystal's classes... but she's not quite ready to share just yet!

SENZ - Part 1

Hard to believe that it's already Tuesday!! The tiredness from the big weekend has definitely kicked in! We headed down to Wellington on Thursday and had a really great trip :) Had a few stops along the way which was really nice too. The CD player in the car decided to have a hissy fit before we even got to Taupo so for most of the trip we all had our own MP3 players plugged into our ears and we all had different songs playing... and yep we were all singing along to our own music LOL

I wasn't sure where to start with this post but I promised all the girls on the forum... and Mum... that's I'd take photos of the stalls and Mikayla was very obliging on Friday and took over 200 photos while Krystal and I were doing classes! By the time I weeded out all the 'duds' we got down to 80 and then I just did a small selection so here's an overview of the shopping opportunities at SENZ 2008!

And the final photo is a look at this years show bag:

That's all for tonight... but I'll be back tomorrow to share the projects from the classes I did :)

One more sleep to go!!!

Yep, we're off in the morning to SENZ!!!! Super excited except that due to a semi-sudden death in the family Mum isn't able to come with us now :( We've been on the phone heaps tonight trying to re-organise everything but there's no way around it. We'll be thinking of you lots and we all love you heaps!!!

I know you check my blog Mum, so have a safe trip and we promise to take lots and lots of photos for you... and I'll guard your 'goodie bag' very carefully!!!

I had some stuff that I wanted to show Mum in the morning (I was going to blog once I knew she'd left - yep sneaky!!!) but I'll pop it up now instead. I finally got all my swap pins finished.. so pleased!! I wanted to do something a bit different this time (well different for me anyway) and this is what I came up with:

The only problem was that I ran out of the blue background paper so I ended up with pink ones as well LOLI made 30 altogether and here they are all lined up:Got busy with the camera and took these photos too:And here they are all ready to go:I was going to give you one Mum so when you've read this post text me and tell me which colour you'd like and I'll save it for you!!

In other news... I've been trying to 'define' my scrapping style for ages now and one of my friends, Niella (check out her blog because it's awesome!), mentioned how 'linear' my layouts are... and she's TOTALLY RIGHT!!! And I have found out just how linear I am this week because I tried mosaicing (sp?) for the first time... I am most definitely linear!!!

My friend Carey has been wanting me to try creating a mosaic for ages so I've given it a go. But you know what??? when you break tiles you DON'T get nice straight lines... they don't match up perfectly and it drives me INSANE!!! But I did keep going until I was finished!

I'll show you my 'creation' in a sec but before I do... let me just say that it's a 'hot plate stand'... you know those ones you put casseroles etc on when you put them on the table... felt the need to explain because I showed one of my sisters today and she thought it was to sit a pot plant on LOL... although I suppose you could use it for that.

Anyway Mum, this one is for you!

On that note it's time for me to get to sleep... I've been up since 3.30 this morning busily organising things and I'm knackered now! Have a great weekend, stay safe and I'll catch up with you next week :)