Another challenge

I fell in love with this piece of paper the moment I laid eyes on it. I decided to use it for a challenge over at http://scrapbooker.co.nz/

The challenge was to scrapbook a series of photos.

Now I'm not too good at scrapping lots of photos, I usually like to use just one, or two photos at a time, but moving out of ones comfort zone is what makes a challenge a challenge!!

These gorgeous kids belong to my sister and her hubby who live in Auckland...Boo Hoo, too far away. The groovy couple near the bottom right hand corner are my mum and dad. Mum and Dad are our neighbours, would you believe!! These photos were taken by my sister during the last Christmas holidays. Thanks sis!

Paper Machie Mask

Here is something a little different I created recently for a swap over at Glamour Girl Stamps.

A paper machie mask... I found a recipe HERE ...

then got to work, and what alot of work it was!! This was one piece of 'art' that I could not rush! After plastering layers of machie over an old dolls face I sat my 'face' very very close to the fire, hoping to fast forward the drying process.
At the beginning of drying day two Cody's hypo pup decided it looked tasty, good enough to eat in fact!! I had to reconstruct one whole side of my mask - and, begin the drying process all over again!

After almost a week I covered my dry mask with glue and sand (the sand covered imperfections a little bit)

I applied three layers of paint, dried the whole thing some more, then at last I was up to the fun part... decorating

Here is my finished mask, its not wonderful, but I did enjoy the decorating process!

Here is the mask I was lucky enough to receive from the very talented Ngaere

Have a browse through the gallery at Glamourgirls to see more masks created for this swap, and lots of other wonderful works of art!

Welcome home Aimee

On Saturday we went to Christchurch to collect our lovely daughter from the train Station. Aimee has spent the past three weeks at Outward Bound School, and she has had the time of her life. She has made many wonderful friends and has many memories and hundreds of photos to remember her time on this once in a life time adventure.

Here is a photo of 'Rutherford Watch' This is the name of the 'house, or group that Aimee spent the bulk of her time with. It seems they all got on very very well and fun was the order of each day!

This 'cutter' was home for two nights and three days!! Aimee tells me the toilet was a bucket and quote "when you got really busting you had to ask everyone to look the other way while you 'went'!!" Now I have to say that would be enough to send me swimming home!!! This is sharing much more that I would care to share!!!

Sleeping on this cutter was not great , Aimee says it was very cold and they were very squashed, especially those who had to sleep under the ores.

Aimee is on the left, in the purple jacket.

Here is the whole group again outside their watch house.

As I say, she has hundreds of photos, but I am thinking you may not want to see all of them! :-)

Tonight Aimee packed up her car, again and headed back to the school boarding hostel. Today is one of her school friends birthday so the girls were all going out to tea, then it was back to school to settle down to some school work before the next disruption... the Ball on Saturday night.

New site : Check it out!

My dear friend Carol has just started up a brand new site, if you love everything old then check it out by clicking on the picture below.....

We have a winner!!

Our Winter Warmer Competition has come to an end. Sue was our winner, by just two points!
In our final round the competitors were asked to create off the page, or altered art projects.

Take alook at this wonderful entry from our winner....
Isn't this gorgeous! Take a look HERE to see the many other amazing pieces of usable art that have been created by this very talented bunch of ladies!

A huge thank you to Carol for all of the time and hard work she put into keeping this competition rolling smoothly along. You are a gem!!

Another big Thank you to all of the wonderful ladies who took the time to create such fine examples for each part of the competition, you all rock! Never stop creating!!

I have almost come to the end of my term at Scrapbook Studios, I will miss the many challenges it has sent my way and Carol, Lisa and Lianne as well as all of the ladies I have come to know so well through the forum and Chat room... I will not how ever be a stranger to the web site as I will continue to keep an eye on what Carol is up to and check out the Art room regularly, I would just hate to miss anything!

Another First!!

Here it is.... My first digital scrapbook page created by me using the Watercolour Spring kit from Eidou. No cheating this time!! I know its not very creative, but I have worked out how to use layers and how to add elements and resize them, and I have the right date in this time as well!!



I have not worked out how to use alphas yet, so used Text instead for my journalling. Still have HEAPS to learn! The best part is that I am still able to see my desk, and floor, no mess what so ever!! YeeHarrr.

Inky Fingers

Inky fingers is the name of this months challenge at The Up2Scrap Blog Be sure to check out Louise's fun and somewhat challenging (for me anyway) technique using inks.

As this was something new to me I had to give it a go!

I only own one mask....snowflakes, and own just a small number of inks, so I pretty much was limited to a 'Cold' theme!

This is the sketch that Louise has up for this challenge...

I dug out a photo of Aimee, taken while ice skating at Tekapo in 2007, it worked quite well with my mask.

The challenge is to create your background using transparency and inks! Warning from me...This is a very MESSY process!!

I coloured the snow flake on my flower using Pearl Ink, and have stamped on transparency with white to create some 'soft' leaves.

Even my little bulldog clip has not escaped the ink!! I have used Pearl and copper on it, to try and create a slightly aged look!!

I love using tulle when scrap booking, it seemed to be the perfect backdrop for my photo in this LO.It did not hide any of my inked background which took me so long to do that I shuddered at the thought of covering it up at all!!

Printed this little piece of 'word art' onto transparency to pop inside the little frame, once again the transparency allows my background to shine through.

I loved using ink and transparency to create a background and will be doing this again for sure!! You cannot really tell by these photos, but my page has a lovely shimmery sheen to it.

Thanks Louise!

A first for me

For the first time EVER I have put together a scrapbook page without leaving a scrap of mess anywhere!!

Don't believe me??? ...... Well, let me explain...

Sometime ago Carol directed me to a free Photo Shop online course ( I do believe I have mentioned this already). Well tonight via this site and through this link here I had a go at Digital scrap booking for the first time EVER. You can download a beginners page that is almost done for you, so okay I have cheated...but still learnt the basics and hey, I had to start somewhere :-)

Here is my page...don't laugh, I know the journalling is not quite in the lines and the photo is a bit of a hoot, going back 20 odd years to our wedding day.... but here it is anyway....

LOL, oh dear that date is meant to be 1989... another great thing about digital scrapping...if you muck up its simple to fix, no peeling off of stuck down journalling or embellishments required.

If you do happen to be into digital scrap booking, or thinking of giving it ago be sure to check out this site... Eidou. Louise has lots of free goodies you can down load to get started and a whole shop full of yummy stuff to spend your money on!

Scrapping to share

I have been so busy playing, and learning how to do things in photo shop that i have not even put my last few scrap booking pages on my blog to show you.
This one was created using Junes Design Team kit from Scrapbook Studios, and I used it for an example for our Winter Warmer competition... Distressing
As you can see by looking at the close-ups I have used a heap of distressing techniques.

This gorgeous flower is from Prima, The white stem is a twig from our twisted willow tree, painted white. (just this twig- not the tree!!). Distressing technique's here..paint, tearing, curled and inked edges and scrunched fabric.

Here is that flower again..just because I love it so much!

Dry embossing has been added to this black paper, via my cuttle bug, and then I softly sanded over the embossing. Tulle is a favorite texture of mine when scrapping, this piece has been left a little rough around the edges

Stitching always adds interest, the edges of the hearts have been distressed slightly using an edge distresser.

...more tulle, dotted with kindy glitz and a tiny heart pin to add a little softness and girl feel to an other wise pretty 'rough, distressed page!

Another page...Aimee again!! Yes I need to do some boy pages soon!

The papers in this layout are all from the Anna griffin range and are totally awesome, I will use more of these papers for sure!

I used chalks to add a soft colour to my chipboard letter and the TwiddleyBitz Oriental butterfly
Spot the tulle..again, cannot get enough of this stuff!! The scallops have been punched out using a stamp'in up boarder punch called... Scallops!!

Check out the little flowers I made by rolling up scraps of paper, they add dimension if nothing else!

I have a couple more pages to share yet, but its after mid-night AGAIN, and I did promise myself an early night so I will save them for another day.

A case of the wobbles ( 15 July 09 )

Oh my gosh, at about 9.20pm tonight I was sitting at the computer brushing up on my photo shop skills when my head felt to be doing a major wobbly thing!! I though arrrr no, my dizzy head is back! LOL, I have a bit of trouble these days with major dizzy spells. I stopped tapping the keys, looked ahead into the window - which serves as a mirror of sorts when its dark outside and oh my goodness, my whole head was wobbling from side to side, this really worried me until I had a shout from Andrew from downstairs. I got up from my seat half expecting to fall over..from my dizzy head, but no all was okay. Anyway down stairs Andrew was going on about an earth quake ...what a big relief I felt, an earth quake I could cope with. The blinds in the kitchen were swaying off and on for close on a minute so it was all kind of exciting. I do hope that is the last of it though!

Transparent ATC's

Some time ago I took part in an ATC swap at Scrapbook Studio's and the theme was...Clear.
Here are a few of the ATC's I made using transparent layers which I melted together using a candle flame. Inside I have oddments of fabric, paper, lace and various images. This was a little messy and hard on the fingers...the transparency is VERY hot when first melted!!

Now take a look at the amazing collection of 'Clear' ATC's I received from the swap.

This one is from my lovely 'cyber friend' Carol...

Danice has created this sweet 'vase in the window' ATC

Another take on a window, this one from Dianne...

The talented Amanda has been busy with inks and stamps..Lianne has done the melting thing as well,I think, and created this awesome number..Roses are Red is from Lisa, isn't it so sweet!...
This one makes me smile... its from Anya, love the bubble wrap idea!

Clearly Obscure, from Nickie, is very funky and has gorgeous textures...
And last of all, this is the one of mine that come back to me....
I do hope you are now feeling inspired!!

Winter Warmer Competition up date

Sadly our competition is fast coming to an end, so is my term on Scrapbook Studio's design team, I am going to really miss the challenges this placement has brought me, not to mention the company of the wonderful Carol, who will be still there to bring heaps of exciting inspiration to everyone.

Now for an update, I have slipped behind with last weeks goings on !

Week three's Challenge was to show case all of the four seasons on one tiny ATC. The clever lady who took out the three points was Ngaere, with this delightfully detailed piece...

The equally talented Amanda gained two points, check out her ATC and all of the other very worthy entries HERE...sad that everyone cannot win because everyone deserved to!

Week Four results have been posted tonight and our winner this week was none other than Ngaere ..again!! Here is her LO that had to show distressing techniques.....

My dear friend Robyn has taken time out of her very busy life to take part in our competition also, I know her time is very precious so I just want to say a big THANK YOU to Robyn for joining in... Here is Robyn's LO, I love this one also, in fact, once again I loved them all!!

Pop over to the Art Room to see the rest of these totally gorgeous LO's.

Today in Photo Shop ...

Check this out, today's Photo shop lesson results....

This first photo is my original, I love this photo of this very sweet little sparrow...

...now today I learnt more about layers and how to apply masks and grungy edges ....

and here...

is my same photo...

again.....

only looking very

.....very cool!!!....

its quite a work of art isn't it!!

Tomorrow I promise to bring some scarpbooking and altered art back to my blog, along with the latest results from The Winter Warmer Competition over at Scrapbooking by Design.