Blog Hop winner :)

Thank you to all the lovely visitors that stopped by the Scrapbooking Australia Blog as part of the Scrap Kitchen Blog hop for National Scrapbooking Day. I hope you found all the blogs that you visited interesting and inspiring, I know I did. Did you leave enough time to do some scrapbooking on this wonderful day?

I didn't leave myself much time for scrapbooking this weekend, sometimes life just gets in the way doesn't it? So instead I made a few tags for a project that I have in mind, no technique here, just using whatever was closest to my scrap table...

Some days it is just nice to create without a big project.

Our blog hop is now closed and I have drawn my winner.......drum roll......

 

number 13..... is.....

Leonie May 4, 2012 08:15 PM

I used to come to your shop
didn't know that you back
love this
thanks for the chance to win

LeAnne May 6, 2012 05:22 PM
Leonie you are lucky number 13 - the winner of this draw- please email me with your details leanne@scrapbooking.com
Congratulations!


There will be a list of winners posted on the face book group Scrap Kitchen and as soon as I have a completed list I will post the winners here as well.


When You are in facebook become one of Scrapbooking Australia friends - we love friends as Scrapbooking Australia.

Tim Holtz magic

Hi, how have you been? Sometimes it feels like ages before I get to post again. Our lives today seem to be so busy. I took time out from my juggling act to feed a bit of my creative side, with a class from Tim Holtz. It is an amazing class and I urge you all to do it ( I understand that you can still sign up and have access to the class) it is a great way to fit in a class when you are busy, and who better to teach you about Ranger and Distress products that the man himself.

The class is called : Creative Chemistry 101. and can be found here: http://www.onlinecardclasses.com/

The techniques are great so I thought I would put one of them into practice and make my sons birthday card.

 I did the technique on water colour paper and it came out with a great hessian type of texture.

The technique uses embossing powder, distress inks, permanent ink and sprinkling of water (only I think I drowned rather than sprinkled)

A first attempt, really like this technique so will be trying again, and again and again. Love the way the embossing pops right off the page :)

Need a lot of work to get it better, but happy with the results of this card.

Scrapbooking Australia has a great range of Tim HOltz products, in fact he has his own category lol.

Distress inks and stains, masks and stamps, lots of things to choose from.

And after doing the some of the classes, I have brought in the Dyan Reaveley sprays 'dylusions' also  a ranger product.  Fantastic depth of colour in these sprays!

have you been playing with any new techniques lately?

Micro scrapbooking- warning really poorly taken photos of project

I wonder how many of you have gotten the micro scrapbooking bug. 

By micro scrapbooking I mean taking those little snippets we would usually forget about in a week, or month and put them into a project such as Ali Edwards Week in the life

or Becky Higgins Project life, click here to go to her creative team March takes on Project life, so inspiring.

And if you browse around heaps of scrapbookers are doing this.

Cathy Zielske

Karenika the savor project

just to name a few. Go looking there is heaps of inspiration out there.

I am going to share my story about my projects and I have put in photos of my projects,  I want to apologize for the photos, I did not take the projects out of the sleeves, I just wanted to give you an idea of the project, not an in-depth look at the journaling and so on :)

I tried a few years ago to do a December daily album, inspired from Ali Edwards I printed off a calendar and then I got all gun ho and was going to take a photo each and every day, journal about it and then once a week put it in the album. Well I got off to a great start December 1 rolled around and my batteries for my camera were flat and no of course I didn't have spare.

 

That was alright I just picked myself up determined to keep going, used a photo as a representation and I was off on a roll. Now December can be a busy time any year, the year I picked was so extremely busy. Not an excuse just a fact.

Well a couple of weeks ago I finally printed the last photo for that album and it is done. The album starts off with lots of journaling about the everyday happenings. and progressively gets less and less information as I had to rely on the notes I had made on the printed out calendar (thank goodness I did that).

I love this album, every page of it. As it documents December 2008.

Ahem yep 2008.

So what that told me quite loudly in fact is that I am no good at doing a day a month, so I never did start on the project life, photo and story a day.

 But I loved the idea and really wanted to do it in some form.Instead I took the idea and made it fit what I could do. 

This is how I do mine:

I do a double page a month and then a page divider I use the We R Memory Keepers in different formats.

 In this way I document the life little moments. I also decided that I needed to have photos of me, not something I ever have liked, but wanting to leave a reminder of me around for the future.

 I make sure that each month I take a photo of myself. I also try and get one of everyone who lives in the house. I started off trying to get one of each of my children, but as they are for the most part grown ups and don't live here it was hard to remember to take the photos when I saw them. So I adapted to just those of us in the house.

I also try and take a photo of my dog, he was a new puppy when I started and I love that I have a record of how much he has grown. 

Usually there is also a photo of a meal, it will most likely be one of the ones that the kids cooked, or sometimes a meal when we went out. I take a photo of my garden or more accurately what is flowering in the garden as I found I could never remember when things flowered and this is a great way to keep note of it.

I have an alarm on my phone so that on the last day of the month I get a reminder to take photos, this gives me a chance to have a look at what is still needed and then take them.

When I do the double page it usually has a theme and then the dividers are made up of what is left over. I also add a calendar each month to the back of the page, that way I can note extra things down.

So my project life album is now in its second year and this year I teach it as a monthly class.

I really treasure this album, it has also had some benefits that I had not thought of, by printing out the photos each month, I then get to see what events, and stories that I want to tell in a bigger form. So in a way it informs my scrapbooking.

A question keeps coming up a lot in the forums is "is it too late to start now?" I don't think there is a right time or a wrong time to start, I think the hardest part is just to start. Make it a project that works for you, either a daily, weekly or monthly micro look at what you are doing with your life right now.

Be inspired by the little things that make up your life!

 

weekend inspiration

starting the inspiration off in the world of superior inspiration Pinterest....

Source: etsy.com via Kitty on Pinterest

Love the texture and colours, can't you imagine putting your hands through this?

Source: parisapartment.wordpress.com via jessica on Pinterest

how about the colour in these peonies

Source: bella-illusione.tumblr.com via jessica on Pinterest

oh la la, how about the colours here - looks good enough to eat!

Source: irocks.com via Anne on Pinterest

Or maybe a play with light and pink...

Source: swoonstudio.blogspot.com via Ez on Pinterest

I think that these images will be my inspiration for the weekend. Now I just wonder what I will come up with....

Hope you all have a wonderful crafty weekend!

Faster than a speeding bullet

Remember the superman opening,
"faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, ....."  that is what it feels like around here at the moment. The year is whizzing by so fast it makes you dizzy, I mean we are already up to March!

And the incoming stock is huge. No sooner does one delivery get cleared than the next arrives (or in the case this week they start overlapping).

 Todays delivery contained the wonderful new Prima ranges, Sun kiss  and Almanac plus some new art journals....

Seriously makes my heart sing :)

Will be trying to get these loaded on store on the weekend.

Cards for men

I am told quite often how hard it is to make cards for men and as this is a theme I really enjoy I thought I would share with you my last endeavors.

When I go to make cards I use scraps, that's just a me thing, I have a pizza box full of scraps of cardstock and another one full of patterned paper, so to make cards I just pull them out. These four cards, mini in size but larger in stature. I used a sheet of black cardstock and then scraps of cardstock. And lots of stamps.

The size of the cards are 3 inches wide by 5 inches high. Then the matting and main cardstock are each a half an inch smaller to give that great matting effect. Two have white matting, two have red - because they were the colours in the scrap box :)

I randomly sprayed the main cardstock with Glimmer Mist (on special at the moment) and then stamped the cogs from this fantastic Darkroom Door set, Steampunk, that you can find here.

I love the images in this set, and the detail of the balloon blew me away. Now while I would not say this is designed for male cards ( I can think of heaps of other uses) it is certainly a set that lends itself beautifully to the purpose of male projects.

Once I had finished stamping the background, I inked it up with a mix of Tim Holtz Distress inks and finished off with the Wild Honey distress stain, I think this is my new favourite colour (well this week anyway).
Then again on scraps I stamped the hot air balloon form the steampunk set, Heidi Swapp heart (also on sale!) and also these wings (not sure of who, have had them for evah).

Ink them up with the distress ink and then use the Magic Mount to give them dimension.

To finish them off I adhered a few bits of old watch parts.
I keep looking at them and think that I will add a few words to the heart and to the balloon, probably love to the heart and happy to the balloon, or not, I will see what happens.
There you go quick and easy cards for men, the balloon cards will fit in a normal small envelope the hearts won't due to the wings so these need to be given in person!

30% off Tattered Angels at Scrapbooking Australia

That is right, I have loaded up the stock that we have on hand of Glimmer mists, chalkboard, Glam and Glaze and have marked it all on sale.

30% off our already low prices = big savings for you :)

Be kind and share the news with your creative friends.

Classes classes classes

Who is excited that the kids are going back to school? Me!

I Love not having to be so strict with the morning schedule, but am really looking forward to getting back into the swing of life, and that means classes!

Upcoming classes with vacancies are:

Wednesday 1st Feb- Lets start off the new year with an album dedicated to your own life, once a month build the story and by the end of the year you will have the most treasured keepsake!

Wednesday 8 Feb- Don't forget your Christmas photos, get them printed and into this magical keepsake, mini album and box. Multiple layers and the ever yummy paper of Graphic 45 Christmas Emporium, this is a class that you definitely do not want to miss!

Thursday 9 Feb - Once a month we will be holding card classes full of techniques and ideas for cards or transfer the idea to your scrapbooks. This card class is five shabby chic cards designed by Nic Howard, the kit has heaps of extras so that you can make a whole collection of these wonderful cards!

Book by calling LeAnne 0413960600 or email book class here.

Just unpacked

One of my favourite things to do on my scrapbook layouts and cards is to give them dimension. I love lots of layers and then have an element pop out. And this is one of my all time fav ways to do just that, - magic mount. 

I love the sheets to cut to size and I like the little squares that have already been cut, but now Stampit have brought out new styles in magic mount. Ah yes no more trying to ink the edge of the foam because it shows out, you can now get black sheets (we also have black foam zap dots). Or maybe I am the only one that inks the sides??

Scrapbooking Australia has black magic mount for all your craft needs.

Scrapbooking Australia has black zap dots for all your scrapbook needs.

For those of you who do not want to stack your foam on top of each other to create extra depth, there is now a sheet that is 4mm thick!

Scrapbooking Australia has a range of acid free adhesives including the new magic mount strips perfect for card making. 



And then there is this one, which I am sure is going to be a staple in my stash, strips. not big bulky have to cut it thinner strips, but two whole sheets that have been cut into strips that are only 3mm wide. Perfect to go under all the fussy cutting :)

I am one very happy scrapper and you can be t0o, the magic mounts have now been loaded into the shop. Find them in the adhesive section of Scrapbooking Australia now, click here.


Happy creating :)

On special so you can stock right on up!

I love embossing folders. Quick Easy and oh so stylish.

A bit like stamps I don't think you can ever have too many embossing folders.

and so at the moment at Scrapbooking Australia the Provocraft Embossing folders are on special.

 

Cuttlebug embossing folders on special now at Scrapbooking Australia.

Use the latest Cuttlebug embossing folders to create unique and engaging designs for every occasion. Being creative has never been easier!

Happy Friday everyone!

Doing something creative each day

Well 2012 is here and is making its presence felt in many ways, Sydney has been heating up and while it now feels more like January I would really like the cooler weather to make a come back.

 Do you make new years resolutions? I try not to think of them of new years resolutions, because to me that means they will get broken (going from past history here) so instead I find that every January (actually it usually starts in December) I get the urge to clear out and throw out. This is the time of year that my hoarding tendencies send me into a bit of a panic and instead I want minimalist, don't worry I am always completely over this by February :)

In the change over from my last year diary to the this year diary (I have one of those ones that you just slot the new pages in) I went through all of the other things in the diary folder and found a list that I had made 5 years ago with a 5 year plan. Obviously cleaning out my diary folder each year was not listed! The great thing about this list was that my goals are the same, almost word for word. The timeline was a bit off though by next year I should be reaching one of the major goals.

It got me to thinking though about how I view things and what I do.

For a long time now I have tried to walk, create and garden in each day. But looking at what a lot of the scrapbooking community is doing and being inspired and what my friends are doing and being inspired, I thought it was probably time to step things up and hold myself a bit accountable as well.

So I am listing here and maybe (notice there are no promises listed here lol) I will check periodically and see what is happening.

Inspired by Ali Edwards, my word for 2012 is Energize.

Inspired by Karen Grunberg , I am keeping my art journal going each week, usually something each day.

Inspired by my wonderful women who come to my classes, I am taking the Scrapbooking Australia classes to a whole new level.

Inspired by Pure Honey Photography, I am trying to take a photo each and every day.

Inspired by Photography Hotspots, I am looking at places I visit and getting inspiration to visit others to take photos of the landscape.

Inspired by Peta, just all over, and she is the card queen, but I am going to do more cards this year. this one does not have a time, quantity or deadline. I think I will need to see about this one and get back to you on it.

In the mean time check out the links (just click on the name) and let me know what or who inspires you!