And I'm back!!

Not that I went very far! My old computer just wasn't working very well and was *gasp* crashing photoshop!! 

So the plan was to format it, but eventually we ended up buying a new (to us) computer. So things are running well again now and I'm back to scrapping!

So for July, I am guesting for Sara Gleason!! woot!

Sara is the designer behind both Zinnias and Swallowtails and Plant Your Story.

Now if you don't already know, Plant Your Story is a wonderful place where everyone is encouraged to get your story on paper. Through a gallery, forum, blog, products and regular journaling prompts, you too can be inspired to scrap your story. I really do recommend it to everyone!

Here is my first page for Sara which is inspired by the Just Press Play prompt: Happiness is...

And thank you to Paula Kesselring for the GSO!

Credits here

Kalan's Birthday!!

Kalan had a fabulous birthday this year and was so excited to finally have friends coming to his party! lol 

The joys of being at school finally!

His birthday was last Saturday and Grandma, Nanna and Poppie came around to have cake with us.

His party was this Saturday just gone and we had 5 of his school friends, 2 cousins and a heap of adults around.

Unfortunately my park plans were destroyed by the constant rain over the past week, but it was a still a good day.

Some pics...

The invitation

Pancake breakfast

 The first cake..on his bday. Icing sugar with a stencil I cut out.

 At his party....

 Friends help friends unwrap their presents!

Party popcorn...white chocolate drizzled over popcorn and covered in sprinkles

Marshmallow jelly. The marshmallow is meant to create a fluffy layer (I've successfully made it before) but this time it dissolved into the jelly...and it was even tastier this way! lol

 Cupcakes with autobot and decepticon symbols. I made the symbols from fondant in a playdough press! Then rubbed food dye over the raised areas.

The cake. The plan was buttercream with the fondant autobot symbol. But it was so humid that the buttercream wouldn't stick to the cake! So I had to use fondant to cover up the mess of buttercream. Unfortunately the fondant was sweating so much that it was really shiny...or deliberate metallic sheen maybe?? The vehicles are cake ball mix covered with fondant...made with a paydough mold!

friends help friends blow out their candles! lol

TFL :)

Guesting for Amy Martin :)

Lucky me I get to guest with Amy Martin for May! 

I used to love working with her stuff as a polly and so it's nice to play again!

This page uses Amy's new Worded Big and Lettered Big cards.

And the template is the May Freebie for the template challenge!

This is Kalan...photo taken on the night of his birthday party. He is such a joker and so cheeky...and cute enough to get away with it! lol

TFL :)

End of the holidays

So school goes back tomorrow after 3 weeks off, and surprisingly, I am still sane!

Usually after the usual 2 week break I am so ready for them to go back, but this time all is good.

Of course they have definitely had their moments! It's certainly not all sunshine and roses here!

So what did we do these holidays...riding bikes and blades down the park, learning to BMX, movies with Nanna, Kings Park with Aunty Tania and Uncle Ray, Hillarys with Grandma, Hannah's birthday party, walking along the beach, playground, pools,  Easter activities and board game night and probably some other stuff.

They also watched a heap of movies and played Wii. lol

And Mathew won a golf competition. :)

All four are now asleep ready for an early morning and back to the usual chaotic school runs.

Oh and then Kalan's birthday on Saturday! yay

Have a nice day :)

Who Blogs any more?

Certainly not me...but then I was never a good blogger. Ever.
But this morning I have been reminiscing.
I was searching for an old QP that I'd made and ended up reading through old posts, and comments and there were even tears a couple of times!
So I was inspired to post again, be it ever so short, sweet and probably pointless.

So where have all the good bloggers gone? I know there are still some out there. The ones making money from it, or trying to. I have my favs that I like to check out regularly.
But the regular people that I used to check up on sometimes. The ones I like to call friends...even though we may not have met in real life.
Why aren't they blogging anymore? Well not as much as they were at least.
I'm going to assume it's FaceBook. It really is easier than blogging, and you can check on all your friends at the same time rather than chasing around to their blogs, and it's cool and there are games and stuff.

But I just don't like it. It moves too quickly, so if I do want to catch up on sombody's news then I still have to chase them up and attempt to decipher their timeline.
And while I'm on there I have to hear about how somebody had this for breakfast, and then that for lunch, and then they went to the shops and their kids did this cute thing and somebody else wants this furniture and somebody is bored at work and this person had a fight with somebody else (the fight may even be on FB which is funny) and then person A had to go the bathroom and friend 3 got a tattoo and it's just too much information.
Is it just me that does NOT want everybody on earth knowing what I had for breakfast and where I'm going next?
Yeh I know I don't have to write that sort of stuff on there. And so I don't. But there is so much crap on FB that I don't particularly want to go there to catch up with my friends either.
The only good thing about FB as far as I'm concerned is the chat feature. It is nice to be able to chat with people that aren't in my other contact lists. But I don't do it very often.

And so I will have my little whinge on my blog. Where nobody will see it and so they won't get annoyed with me for dishing facebook. lol

Wow. How did this reminiscing post turn into FB bashing? It wasn't meant to and is certainly not short and sweet anymore. But although I was never really into blogging, I guess I miss it.
Maybe I will start up again :

Have a nice day.

wow long time no see

My last post was August 1st and now it's mid jan?? Where did the time go?
oh well I doubt this post is getting me back in the blogging spirit, but I just wanted to put this here so I don't foget about it.
I drew this atc for Lori in the Deviant Scrap round robin. Her theme was storybook characters and instead of scrapping it, I thought I would have a go at drawing. Now a week later I'm not so sure that was a good idea, but it's done and I'm not going back now. The colouring and the background were done with watercolours in Art Rage. I'ev never done anything like the background before which I'm guessing is pretty obvious. But it was fun and I'm looking forward to learning more and working out this watercolour thing which looks really cool when done well!

another drawing

It's been a while but I was finally motivated to draw again tonight. But I decided to play around in Art Rage instead of real paper.
I bought Art Rage just after starting Suzi Blu's class so I haven't had very much time to get to know it, so I was excited to try drawing digitally and seeing what I could do!
And so my first experiment...
Don't get me wrong I have opened Art Rage a few times and scribbled a few faces, but I had no idea what settings to use or how to blend colours or anything. Tonight I had a quick look in the help section before starting and I was much happier with what I accomplished.
But OMG my arm hurts. I had my pen set on the highest sensitivity so I was really pushing hard sometimes to get pressure on the page. I think I need to adjust that next time!

Please let me know what you think! I went for a little more realism this time and I know it's far from perfect but I like her!

Scrap Orchard contest and GSO!

I decided to enter the Iron Scrapper contest at Scrap Orchard this year.
This is my first page and I'm so excited that it made the GSO Blog! Thank you Kate!
Thank you also to Kimberly for the GSO on her blog and to Heather-Kate for the GSO at Scrap Orchard! wow!

Drawing with Suzi Blu!

I have been eyeing off Suzi Blu's 'Petite Dolls' class for ages now
and last week I finally took the plunge!!And I'm loving it! I'm only up to lesson 2...but I am so happy with what I've made so far.I had no idea I could draw so well!
I am now hoping to get some soft coloured pencils soon so I can blend better. My Derwent Artist's are just too hard to blend the colours nicely. So I'm trying to decide between the Prismacolors (which Suzi recommends but are hard to get here) or the new Derwent Coloursofts. If anybody has any advice for me it would be appreciated!
So here is Suzi's class if anybody is interested...

and my work so far...

GSO Blog!

Thank you so much Anne! hugs

GSO blog...wow

Now this was a huge surprise!
I made this page really quickly as a LilyPad challenge and then the next dayI see it on the GSO blog!
I was honestly shocked! lol
Anyway...thank you Sandra aka chengie! Much appreciated!

A new designer, A Freebie, and new stuff from Hollie!

There is a new designer in town!
I am so happy to announce the arrival of Deviant Scrap's newest designer, Art By January!
January is an amazing artist who actually paints her elements in watercolors or acrylics and then carefully extracts them.
You will not believe the detail and realism she brings to life in her art.
Make sure you check out her amazing first kits and her baby dragon freebie at Deviant Scrap!

And my pages...

And new from Holliewood Studios is the gorgeous kit Knock On Wood!
Love this!!

Red Ivy Designs new kit!

I answered a one kit call for Red Ivy Designs this week and I am so in love with this kit!
Alice is guesting at ZigZag Scrap for the month of April so you can find Think Spring exclusively there!

And thank you Sandra for choosing my page for the GSO blog!

ViVa Artistry spotlighted at 5Star!

ViVa Artistry are the featured designers at 5 Star Digital Scrapbooking this week!
Head on over to see what makes them tick and to grab their gorgeous freebie!

New From Holliewood Studios!

Hollie has brought out a fabulous new kit...'Art Journalling 2'!!

I had heaps of fun making a page with this, and it could easily be used for normal scrap pages too!

A huge thank you to Madgentis for the DST GSO and to Lynnette for the GSO blog!!

A New Year

This time last year I had been looking back through my gallery from 2009 and there were so many pages that meant absolutely nothing to me. They were just quick CT pages that I'd stuck a photo on but there was no memory attached. And so my scrapping resolution for 2010 was to make all of my pages meaningful.

Looking back now I am so happy with my attempt! I didn't completely succeed...there are pages in there that needed to be made quickly or with kits that I didn't really connect with, but overall I think I did really well!

This year, things are changing. I no longer feel the need to be on CTs and so I have quit all of them but ViVa Artistry and Holliewood Studios. I am also freelancing for Donna Duncombe still and I owe Clementine a few pages! I am hoping that this will free me up to be able to create more pages just for me. It will be nice to go back to starting with a photo or story, rather than finding something to fit the kit.
I honestly don't know how I'll go. Can I scrap without CT kits anymore? Or I will I stare at a blank page until I switch to mindless games?! I don't know but I am hoping that my mind will start working again, and it will become filled with journalling and ideas. I hope this also bumps me out of my photo rut so I have a heap of new pics to inspire me.
So here's to a new year of scrapping. Let's see how I go!

And to anyone who made it through this post, I recommend going through your own gallery from 2010. See what you could do this year to improve it. Whether it be to journal more, ct less, make it more meaningful, work on a technique, change up your style etc etc. I'm sure you will gain something from it, even if it's just the smiles from the memories as you look through.

Happy New Year!

GSOs!

Wow! I made the GSO Blog on the 17th and 20th!
Thank you to Crystal and Tangie!

Caits' Template Freebie!

My buddy Caits has made a template for Scrap Orchard this month!
It's awesome and original and although I had no SO goodies to use, I just had to play with it anyway! lol

Grab it HERE!

New From Deviant Scrap!!

Check out these gorgeous new kits at Deviant Scrap today!
First there is this amazing collab by Holliewood Studios and Finecrafted Designs!
An Ode To A Muse is inspired by the stunning works of Maggie Taylor..and these girls nailed it!
I had so much fun playing with this style!

Kick The Bucket


A Little Farm

And new from Totally Wild Dezinez is this beautiful 'Just Japanese' kit and ATC Add-on!
There is also a brush set and Heather has a gorgeous freebie on her blog as well!


My Monkey

GSO BLOG!

wow so excited!! Thank you so much Kate!

http://www.gallerystandouts.com/view.php/article/8960/finger-pointing-november-14