best ever

Rito. Just to keep things ticking along on the blog, email me your most favourite creation - be it a LO, minibook, OTP (off the page), bookmark, card, whatever tickles your fancy the most.

This is your chance to strut your stuff. This blog is yours so have some input into it.Cant wait to see what comes thru the inbox......!!!!

This is my thread box. I like to be practical and make things that has a use....most of the time. Anyway this wooden box was rescued from my Grandpa's bin as he had finished all the chocs in it. (no I didn't have any). It was stained really dark brown and had gold embossed writing on it. After I sanded that off, painted a pink base coat, I cracked the white top coat with Jo Sonya's decor crackle. Just LOVE that stuff. Embellished and ta da. I have a 12x12 wooden box cracked the same and I have converted and strengthened a dolls cot into my magazine holder with the same cracking too. Gotta love matching furnishings (anal isn't it).

Lisa's lift

here is my LO for challenge 11. Sorry it is a bit late - this is take2 for this challenge - tried using a different LO for the lift and absolutely hated it - this one is much better! Very plain for me, but it's like the original! Had to take the pic inside too, so not the best quality, hopefully clear enough.
The journalling says: "This is a lovely photo of Nana Sue's grandkids with Nana and Grandpa Mike - but every time I look at it, I want to cry. Uncle Rowdy passed away on 18th October 2007, and we were together for his funeral. A very sad time for everyone.
Christopher, Amber, Matthew, Nana Sue, Tyla, Grandpa Mike, Halle and Jazmyn. Photo taken 29th October 2007".
The one I lifted from is the sketch is by Anna and the LO was done by Yuko. (I think)

those tiny little white flowers in the corner cluster are gorgeous. Lovely lace. Well done Lisa. Happy snapping for challenge 12.

check out the latest SM

not only is Meredith published in there (woohoo) with a fantabulous LO but Tiff has been busy sending in our retreat details!!

Well done to her, as she wrote a great little piece (which was edited to bits and doesn't really flow as well as the original written work) and sent in a couple of photos.

One is the group shot we took on Sunday and the other is one i took (YAY) of Meredith's back (YAY) with her t-shirt logo on it.

Great work Tiff - i would never have thought to send it all in so brilliant work chook!

here is a scan in all it's glory!

photo scavanger hunt - challenge 12

Hiya Lady and Gent scrappers :)

Time to put down the tools, papers and adhesives and push your chair away from your scrap space. Pick up the camera, check the memory card and batteries and lets get some creative shots done.

This challenge is get you to try something different with your camera. It doesn't matter what sort of camera you have, you can give this a go.

Wherever you go this week try to take your camera to get some shots to fill the challenge.

Try to work with the rule of thirds. Imagine your photo divided into three sections across and down. Each is a third. For balance and harmony balance your shot in the thirds. For drama and attention leave one third empty of your subject. Eg off center, angle, up, down. The empty third is great space for journalling or the title. Esp those with photo software!!

Think of what's in the background before you take your shot. Busy backgrounds can be distracting.

Remember your light. Back to the sun if you can, watch your shadow, early morning or later arvo. don't get too cold.

Rito. With all this in mind (dont worry its only 3 things and the more you play with your camera the more these will become habit and you dont even think of them at all. It all just happens.)

Challenge 1.
FROST (if we have one) FLOWERS if we dont.
for the early morning risers (brrrr) try out macro on your camera (flower symbol) or zoom in as close as you can to catch the frost crystals on the leaves. Beware of camera shake. Put the camera onto something will be great for this one.

Challenge 2.
SUN.
Sunrise, sunset, or sun rays thru a cloud. Catch the moment of colour. Use the landscape (mountains) setting. check your manual for manual setting for aperture and shutter speed for SLRs

Challenge 3.
ACTION
Footy, netball, kids running away from you because you have that camera in your hand again ;) animals, cars, anything that moves
Running person on the dial. SLR's try shutter speeds. Open shutter blurs the movement. Can get some REALLY good looks with this.

Challenge 4
PERSONAL CHOICE
You take a shot and tell me what how and why.

Your camera manual will be handy for these challenges. Get off auto and go manual. The more you fiddle the more you learn.

Send your 4 shots (if you get them all) to Tiff in a small file size please, say reduce to 5 by 7.5cm at 72ppi.
or save your photos on the computer in a file. Right click each shot, send to, mail recipient, make pictures smaller....... that should do the trick too.

Be creative, Lie down, squat, tilt the camera, go for the different shot.
Be done by Friday 15th Aug.

Ready

Set

Shoot!!!

Sandra has lifted!

OMG this girl is amazing!





Had to look very very hard at which one was the original here - they are just so similar!





The original is by Krista based on sketch no 91.




Sandra has hand journalled on her page which instantly adds that warm, personal touch. I just love the subject - omg how cute is that photo, and your words are perfectly perfect.

The journalling says -

My heart did a little flip when I saw you sitting so close together.
I LOVE these moments.
I hope with all my heart that no matter what life may bring your way,
you will always be as close as you are now.

wow wow wow.

Tracey is in on the lift....

woohoo the pages are pouring in.

Now Tracey thought that she might challenge ME by not telling me where her original one was on pencil lines. I looked, and looked but damned if i could find it.

I will be so curious to see who the lift was from!

Trace said she felt most uncertain about this one. Well i can tell you with 110% certainty that I LOVE IT! awwwwwwwwwwwww at the journalling and fantastic colours - i just love what you have done.

thanks for joining in :)

Jenny's lift

Oh my goodness at Jenny's journalling here! What honest, straight from the heart words you have popped onto this page! I felt like you were talking straight to me - which is EXACTLY the effect i was asking for!

Love how you have done a collage of all the photos of the time too - so meaningful.

The original was a layout in sketch 96 by Tracie

and here is Jenny's wonderful lift.

Births can be such tricky times. Wonderful....but full of emotion. Some of these you really struggle to overcome and never do. (I have many many issues still with the time Georgia and Kelsey were born and were in NICU.)

Jenny's journalling says -

To be honest, i was not really looking forward to your birth. I couldn't walk from pain. I had a blood virus that wiped me out and i desperately wanted a girl. The eveneing before you were born at Loxton we had a huge hail storm that broke some windows, punched a hole in the side of the house, wrote off Grandma and Pop's car adn van and really made a mess of things. When we were flown to Adelaide, because of your jaundice, Pop helped Dad burn off the yard a bit, except Pop forgot where our fence line was, hence the burnt paddocks around the house.

The outward signs were not really good but when you were born God truly BLESSED us with YOU. I could suddenly walk again, insurance covered the other problems, Tiger Hammerstein next door had saved our house and his, with his grader and we were safe in Adelaide. You didn't have jaundice either, just a little yellowing, there was a mistake with the tests. Through all this, and after you were the happiest and easiest child to look after. You slept about 20 hours a day and were always so calm and happy. You were our little miracle and a true blessing.

Thanks for sharing Jenny.

my apologies

I do really apologise for not having done Challenge 11 yet.

While Amanda has stormed in with a couple already, I feel as if I have let the team down a bit.

You see I actually did a LO for this last weekend but I fluffed up and didnt read all the criteria when I skimmed it. (got too excited). So my LO wasn't really within the bounds of the challenge.

Since then I have been working on a mini book that I had to finish this week. Glad to say this is now done.... (have put some pics on my blog)(click on my name down on the right and look for shmee)

The office intray is calling me to do the accounts and reconcile last month but I reckon if I turn up the volume on Media Player and start shuffling PP and Cardstock around with pics and embellishments to enhance, I should be able to drown it out.......????!!!!!!!!!!

woohoo! Congrats Maryanne!!!

check this out -

http://escape2create.blogspot.com/2008/07/orange-digi.html

a bit of clarification...

I just wanted to ensure that i didn't offend anyone in my last challenge post about matching photos to paper.

As i quoted from the one and only Ali Edwards in one of the first posts on this blog 'THERE ARE NO RULES!'

While i still stand by this, i was going to scrap today and was looking through my stash to find *the paper* (as you do) and found that i could illustrate my point of losing the photo in the matching paper.

I have taken some photos to demonstrate but if you scrap this way you need not read on. Everyone does things differently and that is A-OK :)

This first image is a direct match of the pink of the shoes to the pink in this Basic Grey paper. Very similar tones, it all matches in and nothing really pops out. The photo is almost lost in the 'pink-ness' of it all.

The second image is with teal paper (i am loving teal at the moment!!) and is a direct contrast to the pink. In actual fact NOTHING matches with the teal and yet the photo is popping right off the page! You could do the 60:30:10 rule here and put a splash of pink and black and i think that page would totally ROCK!

The last image is showing how i have used green paper (again Basic Grey) which has a few tinges of pink through it. I really love how this is kinda matching the photo and yet isn't overwhelming it.

I am not a big fan of using colour picking tools (my eyes are my tools but again whatever works for you!) but i have included the colour wheel here to demonstrate the bottom two background colours are COMPLETE OPPOSITE to the pink colour in the sneakers.

It is all very interesting isn't it?

You dont need to get tied down with all the technicalities of it all - in fact nothing is worse than getting bogged down with rules and double guessing yourself and your choices.

Pick the colours that you love, the papers that you love, see how it all works with your photos and go from there.

ok ok another one......

Well i enjoyed scrapping without thinking too much about layout and placement so i decided to do another one!!

I fiddled around a lot of today getting that damn circle right in photoshop!

The original is by the amazingly talented Ifa Zainon and boy this layout just blew me away!

and here is my lift -

I may well go back and lift another yet since i am on such a roll LMAO!!

on another note i am so glad to see people giving this challenge a go. A bit harder than others that we have had i know but scraplifting is so easy - it is totally a no -brain power way to scrap and it can be very liberating!!

Thanks for the entries so far girls :)

Maryannes lift!

Maryanne lifted the very eyecatching design by Sue Deacon. I too thought about doing this one - it was so lovely and simple and yet so stunning. Maryanne has not disappointed us yet again!

Here is Sue's original from pencil lines -

and Maryannes (who very cleverly rotated it!)

Journalling says -

BRAD

BEFORE

YOU

WERE

A

TEENAGER

YOU

WERE

SUCH

A

SWEET

LOVING

AND

AFFECTIONATE

BOY

Great page Maryanne - love what you have done there and i think there is a message in that for all of us with younger kids :-

eeek!

Janice steps up.

ohhhh Janice. I LIKE it. I LIKE it. I LIKE it. Bling. Bling. Love the cluster of leaves. Where did they come from. Buttons are perfect.

Well done.

Janice's LO was lifted from sketch 96 and Hebe Ambler's take on that.

Janice's LO is above and Hebe LO below.

Janice says This is my take on Amanda’s challenge. Great website might have to go back as there are lots of fabulous ideas. Not sure that I followed all of the rules for this one but this is it!!
This is my gorgeous little Sarah at 4 years old, ready for kindy. She loved having her photo taken, bit different now. Haven’t scrapped for awhile so it was good to do this one.

Woohoo another entry!!

Thankyou Marika for hopping on board with this one. And i must say that you have absolutely outdone yourself!

I just love your page - the journalling brought a tear to my eye and you have scraplifted the original page brilliantly but at the same time made it your very own page!

Here is the origianal by Annie Hafermann


and the lift by Marika -

the journalling says

this photo is so special for you Noah and for our family

in the weeks leading up to your impending birth

Poppa Starke was in the Queen Elizabeth Hospital

He had a gangrene foot and pulmonary oedema

and was not expected to live. Each day we kept expecting

a phone call to say that he had passed away.

He managed to fight on and is still with us two years later

When we took you to see him in the Port Lincoln Hospital

will always be a very treasured memory

to see him holding you with a tear in his eye was just beautiful,

a memory never to be forgotten.

Thanks Marika *runs off for a tissue*

well they are not exactly flooding in......

but here is my take on this challenge.

It is QUITE different for me - but that is what i wanted out of this challenge - for us to all stretch out of our comfort zones a little :)

The original is by debee Campos

and OMG i just love it! There is so much happening, a lot of grunge and hey even a butterfly! however she manages to still keep that nice white space/negative space in amounst it all!

Here is my take on it -

and the heartfelt journalling isn't so groundbreaking but it says-

There was a time I thought our family was complete.

Then Piper came into our lives and I knew that I had been wrong.

So very wrong.

Are we complete now?

Could I be wrong again?

I don’t know.

Hope to see a few more entries in this week. It isn't too hard - just stretch beyond your norm and dont set yourself limits!

Michelle's Grand Enterance.

Hi Michelle. (lots of arm waving)

Michelle sent me these pics of the 21st Kaiser book that she pulled together for a her friend Kahlie.

Simply stunning in black and white. Never dates and is always a classic.

Well done Michelle. You have outdone yourself.

She says

The photos aren't really the best, doesn't show the pearls in the flowers on the front and the dimensional magic on the name and the flowers but I forgot to take photos before I gave it to her so they are what Cahlie took for me. I was quite proud of my efforts.

Check back on the blog regularly to see what other fellow bloggers say in the comments.

Lisa's Mini Me.

Just received this LO from Lisa for Challenge 10 Mini Me.

She says ;

I have attached a LO for the current challenge. Sadly it isn't one that I have completed this week, it is one of the very first pages that I did!!

Wow. Lisa. If this is the quality of your work back then it must be dynamic now.

Just loving the transparent tag. And yes you and Tyla are so much the same.

Journaling says

My family keep telling me you're a "LITTLE LISA". I didn't realise how much like me you are until I started looking at my baby pictures. Same cheeky smile and laughing eyes. Same build and chubby legs......even the same hair style! So I guess I must have been a pretty baby, because you are BEAUTIFUL.

Thanks for sharing this with us Lisa. She has definitely got her good looks from her Mum!!!!!!!!!

Amanda's Challenge 11

ok girls - hold onto your hats :)

this one has 3 parts and each part is equally as important to follow.

1. The first step is to go here -

http://www.pencillines.com/

and SCRAPLIFT one of the awesome works shown on there. Your page can be any size, maybe challenge yourself to try another size if you feel game. I have seen 12x12, 11 x 8.5 and 6x12 inch pages on there.

It has to be one of the pages already done NOT NOT NOT a sketch btw ;)

Scraplifting is A-ok to do - everyone has at times and anyone that says otherwise is a liar :) The golden rule here is to always CREDIT the person you lifted from. So when you email me your page please tell me who the original artist was....maybe you could also send me a pic of the original page (right click and save to your pc)

Scraplifting is copying another persons page. It can be exactly the same OR you can change parts of the page to suit your own taste. Normally people pick out different papers which leads me into step 2.......

2. The second part is to NOT match your picture to your papers. I really want to see your photo POP out and not blend into the background. I see this far too often - everything looks too similar and nothing stands out. We want our photos to tell the story here - not the papers. Make your photo THE focus of what you are scrapping about.

3. The third and final part is the journalling. I want you to really think about what that particular photo or time that the photo means to you and JOURNAL FROM THE HEART. Even though you mind think it will be too soppy and 'not your style' I would like you to try it anyway. You dont have to flounce it up... but just write exactly what you are feeling when you look at that picture. Try to focus on the emotions you have by looking at it, what you were going through at that time. If you find it difficult sometimes it is easier trying to imagine you are talking to that person involved or even journalling in a letter style to the person. It doesn't have to be about a bad event or situation...maybe your hopes and dreams for your kids or about a treasured item from your childhood. Anything that stirs the emotions and you want to capture that feeling.


so there you have. A three step challenge. Go out and produce :)

You will have until next Friday so get busy!

go!

:)

a bit of kindy time out!

Marika has sent me these pages that she did when Eli had a pre-entry day at kindy this week. Fantastic layouts - i particularly love that first one - so soft and pretty and that flower is totally gorgeous!

thanks Marika :)

Judy

HI to Judy. I grabbed a couple of shots last night in Scrapworkz of Judy's work. She has lifted an idea for a LO from an ad in one of the mags. The idea was from the new prima hybrid overlays ad.

Judy thought out of the box and handsewed the stems for the florals and it looks fantastic.
This LO is part of a framed A3 size mounted frame. Just looks beautiful IRL.
Thanks Judy for sharing your work.