Waste Not Challenge No. 4

We have been enjoying the school holidays so much I've completely neglected my blog! We didn't go away but have been taking it easy and enjoying each others company. I think I've read at least 8 books, watched a few movies and swam in our pool again (not me though, still too cold for me!).

I did remember my "Waste Not Challenge" though.

Number 4. Ribbons

I've realised I don't have as many ribbons as I thought I did. It was still good to use some though. I love ribbon but don't buy it that often as I know I won't use it, although I have made a few cards lately with ribbon on them. So maybe I'll use more on cards.

Here's a layout I did a while ago, it was inspired by one Steph Devlin had done. I've used Echo Park's "Sweet Summertime" range, which is one of my favourites.

I might have put this on my blog before but I thought it was a good example of using ribbon on a boy's layout. You can use it without a bow and it's so good for putting pins through for an extra bit of embellishment.

Well thanks for looking, how do you use ribbon?

xx V.

123 Challenge- September

I was set to go scrapbooking Friday night with my Scrapping Buddy- Shiralee when our LSS called to say it had been cancelled. A lot of people pulled out due to illness and Perth was due to have a storm hit that night. We never even thought of cancelling going because it would be dangerous driving, does that mean we're officially obsessed?!!!

So since my family weren't expecting me home, I retreated to my scrap room for the night and did this layout for the 123 Challenge.

WORD: MAN or MEN

COLOUR: GREY

TECHNIQUE:

use something METAL

I had this great photo of my husband I took recently when we were on a walk. It's not bad considering I took it with my phone! It was a nice change to do a page about him.

I love this grey woodgrain paper by October Afternoon and thought it would make a great background. I've also used some Echo Park "Boy's Life" & "Playground" papers, Washi tape, Lily Bee & October Afternoon die cut bits, American Crafts rosette (which has a metal centre) and this fabulous heart button which was part of my prize pack from Lil' Red Rocket. I bought the metal frame somewhere and it's been in the box of "Stuff I'll probably never use", I was so glad to pull it out for this layout!!!

The star of the layout is my wonderful husband, isn't he gorgeous?! We've been together 25 years this year (yes we were very young when we met) and I still feel so blessed he's in my life.

Thanks for looking :-)

Back on track!

I think we're finally back to normal here. Survived the 12th birthday party, sports carnival and have only one week of school left. Thanks goodness! The kids are worn out from the busyness, especially my oldest son as he also had some big assignments due which took a lot of time and brain power!!

Scrapping has been on the back burner because of all this but I did do a page a couple of weeks a go for my "Waste Not Challenge". The weather has either been terrible or I've felt terrible so I only got a photo this weekend.

So here's No.3- Hessian/ Muslin

I've noticed they call this Burlap in the States and it's become very popular for crafts and home decor. When you buy it from most places in Australia it stinks, it has a fuely kind of smell (like kerosene) and the fluff/ lint that comes off it is awful. So I don't quite get why it's so popular. I gave mine a good wash and hung it on the line on a windy day, so most of the smell is gone. It also frays A LOT!

 I used my Tim Holtz "Tattered Flowers" Die to cut out some of the lighter Hessian into flowers. It didn't work on the smaller flowers, they just fell to pieces but most of the medium size were ok. It left my table covered in Hessian lint (& my die)! I hand stitched these together and added shell buttons to the centres. Although I'm happy with the end result, I don't think I'd make them again. I think the Hessian is better used to give texture to the background. I used up the last piece of Prima "Printery"paper I had and a few other scraps of it I had. 

These photos are of My Mother-in-law meeting my oldest son.

I'm glad I gave Hessian a try anyway, has anyone else found good ways to use it?

Keep blossoming!

sick....

I can't believe it's been so long since I posted anything. The last few weeks have been a blur, especially the last week as I got sick.

I thought I was going to get through Winter unscathed (except for sniffles etc...), well I suppose technically I did. First day of Spring I got the flu. That really bad flu that doesn't want to go away and effects every body part. I'm now on antibiotics as I've had no voice and been partially deaf for days, which my family doesn't seem to mind!!! Only joking they've been very worried actually. Anyway other than illness this is what's been happening.

I got a great surprise when I found out I won a prize in the July 123 Challenge and I found out today I also won a prize in the Scrap the Boys ! These are great challenges, I really enjoyed participating and looking at the other great entries. It's certainly inspired me to do some more challenges!!!

My kids had a Super Hero disco night at school. They didn't want to go as any of the popular Super Heroes I might be able to buy or borrow a costume for. They made up their own. So Mum got to sew Super Hero costumes!! I love their creativity actually and find stuff like that so fun. Here they are-

Super Sweet and Frogman!!!

Aren't they cute? 

I had a ball trying to work out how to make those costumes. 

I sewed all my son's out of T-Shirt material (I used a pyjama pattern so he can keep wearing them) and used a polystyrene ball cut in half for the eyes on his hat. Helmar 450 Quick Dry Glue is great for sticking those on as it doesn't melt the polystyrene and is flexible enough for fabric. 

I hand stitched the giant sweet on my daughter's shirt and added some felt letters. 

I used my hot glue gun to stick Fruit Tingles, Life Savers and rhinestones on to her plastic Tiara. 

They stuck really well! 

I also made her a skirt out of Candy Pink and white stripe fabric. They had a great time. 

Happy 12th Birthday!

My oldest son turned 12 last week. I felt bad because I was sick with the flu and just didn't feel up to doing much but I did get cupcakes made for school. We have a "Your Birthday, Your Choice" for dinner here. He picked Chicken Enchiladas with rice and salad, thankfully that wasn't too hard and since he'd had cupcakes I really didn't feel like baking again so he got Mum's Icecream Pie for dessert.

If you need a dessert or cake that's easy and just a bit different, I highly recommend this! I can't find the original recipe but this one will give you the idea. You can use any biscuits, ice cream or chocolates/ lollies/ fruit you like. His pie was Butternut snaps for the base, a tin of Top-n-Fill Caramel next, Vanilla Ice cream and it was topped off with Streets Blue Ribbon 3 in 1 Caramel Honeycomb Crunch Ice cream with Chocolate & Carmel topping and crushed Crunchie!!!!!It was a sugar overload but of course the kids LOVED IT and couldn't wait to tell their friends about it the next day.

I can't believe he's 12 already :-(

Hopefully everything will get back on track soon, I've just got to get over this flu first.

Keep blossoming!

Scrap the Boys August Challenge

I really enjoyed doing the Scrap the Boys Challenge last month, so I thought I'd do it again!

STB AUGUST CHALLENGE - 

This month we want to see a piece of your childs artwork on your layout and then have your layout inspired from that artwork!

This was so timely for me as I've been having a big clean out and had found these cute little pictures my youngest son had done for his dad. I can't throw things like that away and have a special file for each of them but I loved the idea of scrapping with them so here's what I came up with.

Aren't they adorable?!! 

I haven't done much on this page because I wanted his pictures to be the star. I found I had a small photo of him drawing (in his pj's) that fitted perfectly and also linked in with the colours he had used. I used my heart punch to make a stencil and paint on hearts to copy his hearts he'd done. It's hard to see but I have sewn in green, aqua and black to separate the notes. 

Great challenge, loved it! Might have to do some more with my other kids drawings!

Waste Not Challenge No 1

Its been a terrible few weeks for illness here in Perth. Everyone you talk to has been sick or had sick kids. We've also had it, my poor husband has been very sick with the flu and just gone back to work today. I've also had each one of my kids home, all on different days, with different bugs going around. So this is my first day home alone for a while!

So back to my "Waste Not" Challenge. My last post was showing my number 2 item I haven't used, today I'm sharing number 1- Transparencies & Vellum. I had to skip No 1 last time because I went to take the photo of my layout and 3 of my Thickers in the title had disappeared! I searched everywhere and they have vanished!! Thankfully it was a new set so I had more but I thought I'd post No 2 while waiting.

No1. Transparencies/Vellum

I loved these Hambly Screen Prints when I bought them (on sale). I've seen so many people use them on their layouts beautifully, I couldn't wait to try them. But then something happened. They never seemed to work, I couldn't seem to make them fit my style so they've just sat there.

Here's my try. I wanted to use feathers on this page and I thought the Peacock Feather Transparency would look great as it toned in with the sheet in the cot. I had a beautiful Webster's Feather Floral to add to the softness. I also used some Vellum which wasn't originally part of my challenge because I forgot I had any! A friend gave it to me and I've never really used it. I only stumbled on it looking for the right colour purple/mauve for the page. I have a circle of it behind the Transparency and I've used it to punch out butterflies and flowers. I'm really pleased with the end result. 

I've still got 3 more pieces to use but I feel like I've broken the fear of using the transparencies now. The main thing stopping me was I loved them! I thought they were so beautiful it seemed a shame to cut them up. Have you ever felt this way about a piece of paper or something? I struggle with that sometimes. It's because I feel like sometimes what I produce isn't as good as the idea in my head. And I don't want to wreck the paper, flower, transparency etc... on my substandard layout. Silly isn't it?! I have improved in this area, I remind myself that it's all fixable and that there are no mistakes in art. 

 I think often these things hold a lot of us back from having a go. That's why I started this blog & scrapbooking, I just want to keep blossoming! xx

My "Waste Not" Challenge

As I mentioned in this post I have been guilty of buying items that I've thought would be fantastic on a layout at the time and then promptly packed them away and never looked at them again! I really want to challenge myself to use these things and not just have things sitting around cluttering up the place!

So here is my list of TEN THINGS I BOUGHT & HAVEN"T USED

1. Transparencies/ Vellum
2. Big Chipboard pieces
3. Hessian/ Muslin
4. Ribbon
5. Die Cuts/ Tags
6. Net
7. Brads
8. Fozz Felt
9. Pins
10. Bottle Tops

Now I have used some before but not often so my goal is to challenge myself to try them or try them in a new way. Number 1 is Transparencies or Vellum, I have done a layout but can't show it at the moment (I explain later) so I'll move on to Number 2- Big Chipboards.

I love chipboards and use them a lot BUT I like my photo to be the focus on the page. I've pulled these out often but just found them overwhelming on the page I was doing at the time. So they've been sitting in my chipboard box along time getting slightly bent. 

I'm so pleased with how this turned out and I don't think it distracts from the photo. This is a chipboard tree is from Leann Pearce's Etsy store "The Chip Chop Shop". It's so gorgeous I had to have it and then left it to get slightly bent in my box. But now it's the star of the page! I have sprayed with "Coffee Shop" Glimmermist and then cut some leaves from Prima's "So Cute" paper. I added a little bird also from So Cute.

So what have you got that you've never used? Challenge yourself to try something new. I don't believe scrapbooking should ever be boring.... keep blossoming!

Scrap the Boys

Ooh I nearly forgot! This year is going way too fast, I didn't realise the end of the month was upon me!
I actually got another challenge done this month, I know, amazing! ;-)

I thought I'd pretty well done all my kids school photos except for this years but no, I found more. I'm glad I still have some great schooly looking papers. Here's the page I did for Scrap the Boys July Challenge.

This Month's Challenge is...

School Photos

Here's my youngest son looking super cute on school photo day. I have used October Afternoon papers which are great. They have that soft vintage look and his school colours (yellow & blue) and his favourite colour, green. I kept it pretty simple, I also did his class shot on the same paper and added a very similar embellishment cluster on that (just to cover up the photographer information because that bothers me!). There is a funny story behind this photo but I'll wait to share it with the photo I took the next day.

I haven't forgotten my "Waste Not Challenge". I was away last weekend and am going away scrapping this weekend. Too many things to do! I'll post on it soon, I promise.

Keep blossoming xx

123 Challenge

When I started scrapbooking I found challenges really helpful. Since I had years worth of photos I wanted to scrap, the challenges would give me somewhere to start. I decided to have a break from them earlier this year because I had done a couple of pages that I just didn't like much but they had fit the requirement of the challenge at the time. I started to think what was the point if I didn't like the end result!

I recently felt like I wanted the challenge of challenge again (LOL) so I went online to see what I could find.
I found 123 Challenge. I've not done one of their challenges before but they had me at PURPLE! I love purple. The July Challenge is:-

WORD: MY

COLOUR: PURPLE

TECHNIQUE: USE CHEVRON!

 So here is my first ever 123 Challenge

One of the teachers at my kid's school took this beautiful photo of my daughter. Her eyes almost look purple in it! She was a Vase of Violets for a Letterland day. I've used Prima "Sweet Fairy" papers and some of the matching Prima flowers. I've also used some Prima and Doodlebug sticker Alphas for the title.

I decided to sew my chevron on as I had no other chevron papers or anything with chevrons on that went with it. It was a bit tricky at first, measuring it all out. But for the second bit I used a scrap piece of paper and poked the holes through so I got a copy of the first sewing. Then I was able to use that as a template for the other side.

There is something very relaxing about fussy cutting, I enjoyed sitting cutting out the flowers!

If you like a challenge, pop over to 123 Challenge and see the amazing layouts others have come up with.  Keep blossoming!

Waste not again....

We're finally over all our school holiday bugs and have been enjoying the fine (yet freezing!!!) Winter weather. In between that I've had a big clean up and rearranged of some of my Scrapping stuff and realised how many bits and pieces I've bought thinking "that will look great on a layout" and have NEVER used them them. Some things I've never looked at since I got them, others have been sitting there taunting me saying "you said you would use me and I'm just sitting here wasted in this mess". Yes I know I appear to be losing it :-)

So I've decided to challenge myself to use some of these items. I came up with a list of 10 items I've got in my scrap stash and not used. Feel free to join in the challenge! I'd love to hear from you if you do.

I'll let you know the first item soon!

*This is not my room, but no judgement, it's been like this!*

Keep blossoming!

Waste not....

I try really hard not to be wasteful, not in a sad hoarders kind of way but to be responsible with what I have. When it comes to scrapbooking, I found myself hanging on to every little scrap telling myself I'd use them for something. Just recently I did a couple of layouts using My Mind's Eye "Lost & Found 2" Range. I didn't but many papers from the range (because they were sold out) but over the last year I think I ended up with 4 from The 'Blush' papers & 1 die cut tag, 3 from 'Breeze' & 1 tag and 2 from 'Rosy'.

I was pleased with the 2 pages I did so decided to see how many pages I could do out of these 9 papers and 2 die cut tags. I've done 5 so far, I think I can do 2 more.

The results of my Waste Not Challenge so far....

I did this earlier this year at a Scrapaway in WA Retreat. This is one of my all time favourite photos of my oldest son. He had severe jaundice from his second day and he was just too sleepy to feed and presented us with this gorgeous drunk face after just the smallest feed. 

I love the 'Breeze' papers with this, the teals match in with the photo background perfectly! I used a Basic Grey page for the background, fussy cut some of the elements of the 'Breeze, Dream' page and punched some strips from some other 'Breeze' papers. I used a Dusty Attic doily chipboard and added a couple of Kaisercraft mini paper roses.

Here he is a little older! 

Again I fussy cut the tag element from the 'Breeze' paper. I used a 'Rosy' page as the background and used a few strips of different papers from the range. I backed the photo in cardstock and also cut the circle from another scrap of cardstock. I added a couple of Prima and Green Tara flowers.

And now a girly page! 

I found this banner die cut on sale and thought it was part of the "Lost & Found 2"range but it's actually "Lost & Found 1". The pinks still toned in well but it had a brown glitter border that didn't so I cut it off. I used the border from "Blush, Beautiful" page and used card stock for the background. I used the different papers to make the banners, some Breeze & Blush, with a couple of other scraps. I used some more scraps to make the pinwheels and added some sequins & antique buttons.

By now the idea to do as many layouts as possible with this range had struck so I came up with this one. It's got a plain cardstock background which I flicked with Glimmermist and then I layered up with the left over scraps. I added a tag I painted with Tim Holtz Distress Stains and a banner tag from the "Breeze" range. I had to add a couple of scraps from other projects and some wash tape also. I love it. This is my youngest son (so my oldest won't have too many of the same paper in his album!).

I saw a layout someone else had done ages ago using this paper and I bought it but 

promptly forgot how they used it!

 I loved it as the background for this photo but had to add a bit of lightness to brighten it up. I used a doily behind the photo to start added some lightness. I painted a large chipboard flourish with white gesso, then inked it and embossed it. I also added a little Stickles to give it some sparkle. It didn't come out quite how I hoped but I'm happy with it. I also gessoed a chipboard butterfly and inked it. I finished it off with Glossy Accents. I added some more lightness with a Kaisercraft Pearl Flourish and some brightness with lots of Prima flowers.  The last "Lost & Found 2" banner tag was great for my title.

I still have plenty of paper left over, so I'm looking forward to seeing how many other pages I can do. I recently heard that a well known, published scrapbooker has stopped scrapping because she got bored with it. I find that sad, she did do the same style for pretty well every layout so I can understand she got bored. I think even with hobbies we need to continue to evolve and challenge ourselves so it doesn't become a chore. I hope to challenge myself more in the near future.

Keep blossoming!

Winter blahs...

We've been a household full of sick people lately, not all at the same time thankfully! Colds & flus have laid us low and now my youngest son has picked up a tummy bug. Poor little thing is thin enough, a day without eating he looks skeletal!

Since I haven't been doing much else, I've scrapped 10 layouts with my kids Tee-ball team photos, which I won't share here for privacy reasons but I will share a couple of others I've done. Hopefully I'll still like all my pages when I'm feeling better. Some I've done when I'm sick or tired, I've looked back and thought what was I thinking!!!

Here they are anyway ;-)

Here's my little man on his birthday. He got into Lego this year which I'm really happy about. He's always been one of those kids who just wants to play with his brother & sister, or whatever they're playing with. He's never really been into toys (except for his cuddly toy frogs), I've found Christmas & birthdays sooo hard because he doesn't really want anything, and let's face it by kid No. 3 you seem to have so much anyway! So he developed a love of Star Wars Lego, so we had to have everything Lego. I found this great paper at Scrapbook Secrets (sorry I can't remember who makes it). I used gesso and yellow paint on the background. I also sprayed it with "Radiant Rain Shimmer Mist" by Luminarte in Ocean Wave. I traced some numbers from an old stencil on it and added some painted & glossy accented chipboard stars. Finished it off with journalling and some Doodlebug letters.

Here's a layout with my oldest son & daughter when she was less than a month old. We took this photo to give our parents for Christmas. This page came about because I was sitting looking through a pile of die cut sayings I have. When I started scrapbooking I kept finding these and falling in love with them, now I have a pile of them that I still haven't used! So I was determined to challenge myself to use one. Originally I thought I'd use this one on a page with my 2 boys, but I liked the teal tone with this photo and thought it would go with the Kaisercraft "Hummingbird" Range. I'm really pleased with the end result. I love the Hummingbird range, such pretty papers! I've added some Prima flowers and a chipboard bird (think it's Dusty Attic) that I inked and embossed. My scrap partner in crime lent me some of her punches, thanks SP!

School holidays are nearly here, hoping I can scrap a little. I might need to for sanity's sake!

Keep blossoming!

Cupcake Crazy

I while back I promised to make cupcakes for the couples doing the Marriage Course at our Church. At the time I thought there would be about 30 people total but somehow it grew to 60! So over the weekend I baked about 80 cupcakes (you've got to make extras for family taste testing!).
Here's what I made-

Coconut Kisses

These are white chocolate mud cakes with a touch of coconut essence. I topped them with white chocolate ganache and a Rafaello.

Double Choc Mud

I was really pleased with these. They weren't too heavy. Topped with milk choc ganache and a Ferro Rocher.

Caramel Mud

I came upon this recipe last year and made these for my son's class for his birthday. His teacher said they were the nicest she'd ever had! High praise indeed!! The caramel cake is great but we love it with Crunchie ganache (Crunchies are chocolate with honeycomb in it). So delicious :-)

Hummingbird Cakes

I love Hummingbird cake, so fruity and fresh. If you've never tried it, it's got pineapple, banana and a hint of spice with cinnamon & ground ginger. I love it with cream cheese icing but I can't stand it being too sweet so I only use 1/3 of the icing sugar that is in most recipes. Topped with toasted coconut.

Strawberry Butterfly

Now by this stage I was getting a bit sick of cooking so I cheated a bit, but really I think I was being smart. I love Green's Cake mixes especially their vanilla. It's been a staple for birthday cakes in this house (because I find most kids love icing over the cake so I prefer to make awesome icing and simple cake, that said I think this cake is great). I got 2 packets on sale for $1 each a couple of weeks ago, I made them up as per the directions then when they were cool cut a circle out of the top and spooned strawberry jam in and topped with whipped cream, 1/2 a strawberry and a sprinkle of icing sugar.

Raspberry Nougat Cream

With my other box of Green's Vanilla cake I made these. Originally I was going to make individual Raspberry Cheesecakes but I was worried they wouldn't come out of my silicon cupcake moulds well. So I came up with these instead. I mixed up the cake as per the box, then added some frozen raspberries and chopped almonds. After they were baked and cooled I added some crunchy vanilla nougat to the left over cream from the Butterfly Cakes and topped them off.

Everyone enjoyed them and I guess I learnt to find out how many people are attending before I commit to baking for them! LOL really I didn't mind. Actually the thing I really learnt was that you can still make something from a packet and present it in a new interesting way. 

It's okay to find shortcuts sometimes. 

Guess I am still blossoming :-)

Fun friday

Hi again!

I had another great night at Inspired Crafts on Friday night. I didn't get the chance to plan many layouts so I bought along 2 that I started ages ago and haven't finished. I started the first one months ago and I just couldn't get it to look the way I wanted to. I ended up pulling half of it off the page and adding some more layers. Thankfully I found the perfect Thickers for the title in the store (since I left the ones I planned to use on my desk at home!). Now I'm really happy with it, all that's left to do is add some journalling which will be hidden away in the envelope.

I've used Bo Bunny's "Gabrielle" range and some Prima & Green Tara flowers.

This is one I started at Inspired Craft's 12hour crop. I liked when it was done but felt it need something else. So ended up adding the "Love U" at the bottom and the stitches. Now I'm really pleased with it. 

I was inspired by the work of Louise Nelson. She does incredible work, lots of white space and amazing painted textures.  I had this photo of my kids I'd taken on my phone to send their Auntie. They were holding a sign that said Happy Birthday. I really loved the looks on their faces so I wanted that to be the focus. I knew Louise uses small pictures on most of her layouts, so that's why I scraplifted her style!

I guess this is a good example of if you're not happy with a layout put it aside for a while. After a while you might find the inspiration you need.

Scraptastic!

I had a great time the other week at Inspired Crafts in Cannington at their 12 hour crop. Here's a few I got done.

Here's my daughter and her friends at her Butterfly birthday party Kaisercraft "Bubblegum Hills" papers went perfect with this. I did some fussy cutting and used some Glossy Accents to add some shine to some.

Here's No 1 son as a baby having some Weetbix :-)

I've used a fews bits from Echo Parks "Boy's Life" Collection on this one.

While I was there I bought Simple Stories "Summer Fresh" collection continuing my Simple Stories love fest! I whipped up this layout, the background is a page from Echo Parks "This & That" range. The tag is off some clothes I bought my kids from Cotton On Kids. 

It's great to find creative ways to recycle!

Here's another one using Simple Stories "Summer Fresh" collection. Once again the light failed me a bit taking these photos. I love the background of this one, it looks like denim complete with top stitches!

Thanks for looking :-)

Concerted effort

After having a busy few weeks organising things, I've tried to have a bit of down time and scrap a bit. It came at the perfect time actually as Winter has well and truly hit Perth and it's been very wet and stormy. We didn't have any storm damage thankfully and we didn't lose power which I know a lot of people did.

Here's a few of my layouts.

This is my No1 Son, I've used Simple Stories "Awesome" Range. I've become a bit of a Simple Stories nut lately, I just love the papers!! This was inspired by something I saw on someone's blog, I'm sorry I can't give credit as I've forgotten where I saw it. The photo has a bit of flare on it, sorry! The dark days have made it hard to get a good shot.

Ages ago I bought some My Little Shoebox on sale and I'll admit a year had gone by and I hadn't thought of using them once. So one day I sat down and looked at their blog and got inspired. Sometimes I find I have to get ideas how to use the papers to be able to use them. I saw a layout using these "Harmony" papers and I knew exactly the photo I would use with these papers. The midwife we had attending us as I was in labour with my daughter was Malaysian, my husband & I got on great with her since we'd lived in Malaysia for 3 years. When she was born Doris the midwife said "Aww she looks Chinese like me!" We thought that was very funny and have told the story many times. It was great to scrap about it, showing our beautiful newborn baby. These papers were perfect!

Here's my daughter again with My Little Shoebox papers. I don't own many punches but here's one I do and I love, the Martha Stewart Deep Edge Daisy punch. It's really dramatic!

Hope you enjoyed looking :-)

I will survive!

I survived our Women's Retreat which I was organising last month. I think it went well. The theme was "Beautiful" and we  had different speakers and things that related to that. I spoke on the Saturday afternoon about looking and feeling beautiful. I touched on a bit of my story about learning to love and feel good about myself and then shared some tips to dressing better so that we don't focus on the parts of ourselves that we feel negatively about. It was great to hear it helped some ladies. I made a book mark to give everyone to, it had this quote on it-

and also Psalm 139:14 

"I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made, your works are wonderful; 

I know that full well."

It's easy to read that verse and think of the world around us as wonderfully made, but what about us? Do you consider yourself wonderfully made? Do you see yourself as one of God's masterpieces or as a bit of useless junk? Let me promise you, you are a wonderful & marvellous creation made by a loving Father who knows you so well, He even knows the number of hairs on your head. I also know it's hard to see ourselves as God sees us because we're so busy comparing ourselves to everyone else. 

That's why I used the "I'm not beautiful like you, I'm beautiful like me" quote. 

As a reminder we are one of a kind. We can use that quote for all aspects of our lives.

"I'm not creative like you, I'm creative like me"

"I'm not a housewife like you, I'm a housewife like me"

"I'm not a mother like you, I'm a mother like me"

Imagine your life if you stopped comparing yourself to everyone else.

I think it might be pretty awesome :-)

Keep blossoming...

Busy, busy, busy

Hello again, yep same old, same old. Seem to be flat out but not sure what doing! I have been planning the Women's Retreat for my church along with my amazing committee. I think this has probably been more mentally taxing than physically! I have squeezed in some scrapbooking. I find I have to take time out for myself and do something creative. Otherwise I'm just not a happy person to be around. I've also been reading, I'm a bit hooked on the Hamish Macbeth Series by M.C. Beaton. I finished her Agatha Raisin Series last year and couldn't wait to start reading about Hamish Macbeth. I vaguely remember watching the television series on the ABC back in the early 90's.

Here's a couple of my latest layouts.

This was a challenge for Challenge Heaven. My good friend Shiralee was on the Guest Design Team. The challenge was to use a household item on your layout. I used bubble wrap to stamp on the background and used some white onion bag under the flower. I'm really happy with the result.

I wanted to try something I saw on Pinterest which was using a Photo corner punch (you know those old punches that made little corner tabs that we don't seem to use anymore!) to make chevrons. Chevrons are very trendy at the moment so I thought I'd give them a go. I've used my sewing machine to give the page a border and stitch the titles down but it's a little hard to see.

There's a great story behind this layout, well the giant stuffed frog in the layout with my youngest son. He spotted this frog in the Salvo's shop near us, we went in for something and I had no plans to buy a soft toy that day. He'd just started waking us up again during the night, so his Dad said if you stay in bed for 2 weeks you can have a reward, your choice. And guess what he wanted? The manky old frog at the Salvo's!! So he did it and got his reward, thankfully it was still there! The best thing to me is his name. It was just after Steve Jobs had passed away, a fact we didn't really think this 7year old would really know about. He wanted to call him Steve, Steve Frogs after Steve Jobs. His dad's love 

of all things Apple is obviously rubbing off :-)

Boy's Pages

I have been a bit too focused on girly pages.  I just love the flowers, the bling, the pretty papers! But I've been trying to do more boy layouts since I do have 2 boys and 1 girl. Here's a couple I've done lately.

Prima "So Cute" Range

This is a layout dedicated to my youngest sons love of green and all things froggy!

Echo Park "Little Boy" Range with Rockets cut from Bella Boulevards "Mr Boy" paper.

Now it seems I'm doing lots of pages with my youngest son.  I'll have to do some of my oldest son now to keep it fair!

What have you been up to?

So what have you been up to? Seems like life has been all go, go, go, here.

We went camping for a week in April in the school holidays but other than that life has just been a blur of busyness. I have done some scrapbooking though :-) here's some of my favourites I've done lately.

Looks like I've been doing lots of girl pages doesn't it? I promise I have done some boy ones too! I'll post some soon :-)