'Twas the night before

'Twas the night before the Retreat,
all through the scrappers homes,
Not a cutter was cutting ,
only stash being honed.

To minimise was the shout,
a near impossible job,
breaks some into a cold sweat,
'can i fit in my thingyabob?'

Eskys packed, panadol in,
photos all done,
now just got to get there,
and have a s**t load of fun.

helllllllllooooooooooo

Boy it is quiet in here..........

wonder where everyone is?

packing maybe?


Sorting photos?



GETTING FREAKIN' EXCITED?!!!





Tomorrow Tiff, Meredith, Sue, me and a band of merry men will trek to NS to do some setting up - big day planned so we can be more organized for Friday.

Will let you in on a secret too. Note to self - do not pack the goodie bags prior to arriving at the venue. Kluger is PACKED TO THE HILT with 50 odd bags with ZERO room for anything other retreat wise let alone anything of mine (sleeping gear, clothes or scrap gear).

Lucky we are coming back tomorrow night so i can sort myself out!!


Would love some comments here on how you think you will spend your weekend at the retreat. How many pages you would like to achieve (set yourself a bit of a goal and see if you can reach it) and your ETA down there. Maybe you could also say WHY you are looking forward to it so much? What do you think will be the best bit?

I know reading about others arriving and thinking about the good time that they plan on having will make me really excited about it all!

rubons

I have finally been in the head space to be able to finish this one. I've had the journalling for a while (Piper told me all this info a month ago).

Fairly busy but when you are dealing with top ten lists there is a bit of detail to go on the page!

Rubons are the 'top ten' bits of data and the stars.

Great challenge Sue - sure had em' coming out of the woodwork!

Tracey's Mum's gift

Tracey sent me this to show. It is a gift she made for her Mum's 60th birthday. What a stunning and personal present. I bet she absolutely loved it.

Tracey says -

Thought I would send you some photos of a mini album I did for my Mum's 60th birthday. I had a few hassles doing it but she loved it. Under each photo of us kids we wrote her a note to say what she means to us. Technically it could be my answer to the rub on challenge as there are rubons on most pages. I love the things.
Yours in retreat anticipation,
Tracey

Isn't it stunning!?

Thanks for sending it in Trace and sorry about the delay in posting it up in here (things have been quite crazy around here!)

Speaking of craziness..............wowsers are only 4 sleeps until the retreat! o0ooooooooooooOOOOOOOO WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

I am sooooooooooooooooooo excited that i can hardly wait for Thursday when we are setting up and Friday when it all kicks off.

This is the part i love the most - the anticipation. It is great to see all that hard work the committee has put into the weekend finally paying off!

whether the weather

wahu.
5 days and counting.

look here for the weather forecast. this www has a 7 day predication and I find it fairly accurate. scroll down to find North Shields.

gives u an idea to pack a singlet and bed socks or extra deodorant and sweat bands.
;-D

rub on, rub off

sounds like that line in Karate Kid all those years ago with the wax. 'Wax on, wax off'
*edited* I have added a bit to this one. Was looking too brown to me. iykwim


I used a Basic Gray 'rub on', a bloom, a leaf, a pin with beads, and a button for clustering in the top corner.

top challenge Sue. Has had the blog jumping!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My rubons ...

Here I have used rub on brackets around the photos.

Flower power ...

"Hello Meredith,

I love using Rub Ons but don’t use them a lot. Some are much better than others,
I have used Rhona Farrer ones on my layout and they are really good (the writing and the flowers on the frame). The black boarders are Rub Ons also. The flower at the bottom is handmade.

If you like flowers its worth a look as Tammy’s is beautiful.
Meredith you may be able to give a link for this, I just goggled Tammy Kay Simply Me and it came up as Simply Me As promised The Flower Tutorial.

Thanks Janice"

Well Janice I googled ... and found two flower ideas by Tammy!! So here are the links! The second one is for the flowers Janice has made.

Flower tutorials:

http://tammykay.typepad.com/my_weblog/2009/02/another-flower-tutorial.html

http://tammykay.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/08/as-promisedthe-.html

Just another note on google searches ... when I am looking for a particular person's blog I use this Google address ... http://www.google.com.au/blogsearch

Janice your layout is gorgeous! Love the rub on on the bottom left corner and the top right corner ... they look just right there! Beautiful flowers, words and photo!

Wow Tiff will be blown away when she gets home to see all this work on the blog!! The rub on challenge has certainly brought a few out of the woodwork!! Hope we have a few more in the pipeline. I might even find some time to finish off an idea I have ;-)

Rub a dub dub three pelicans on the jetty ...

"Hi Meredith,
As promised to Tiff and Sandra I have scrapped this photo, yes there is a tiny bit of rub-on, just enough to make it count. Very different I think to most of my stuff, but hey. Anyways cheers,
Trish S."

Hey , Trish, really love the black rhinestone circles and the stamping on the top left!! Wow!! And I love the photo so much ... was at Coffin's a few weeks ago and thought of your photo!!

Here comes - another

yep, another retreat - are we getting excited??!! Oh and another page from me, WITH.. another rubon too!!!

I have been meaning to scrap these photos for awhile now.....and now that i have, i can't wait until 10 days time to see everyone again and to SCRAP....oh, so much fun!!

Oh, and can you spy a little rubon there too - the 08 and the florally tiddly bits :-)

it's getting CLOSER!

as Meredith pointed out earlier - wowee not long at all until our retreat!!

I have been very busy during the past two days retreat wise...... finishing off 3 fairly major jobs that were hanging over my head.

finished off these -

and did a lot of work with Meredith today on these, so that they are now FINISHED yay!!! -

and yesterday Meredith and I packed 50 odd of some things that are hiding under this sheet in my scrap room (formally known as the Heidi Swapp room - for the colours - but now known as 'the retreat storage room'). It is to the point where i can hardly get in the door and that is saying something considering it was a GARAGE in it's former life!

hmmmm i wonder what is in these 3 big boxes marked 'fragile'??

Getting excited yet? :-)

Just on another thing. I have had a few quiries on my class which is on the Sunday and involves two layouts. Most of the questions are in regards to the photo for the birthday layout. The photo i have used is one of myself (try out your timer!!!) and NOT a photo taken of a birthday party. A nice photo of yourself OR the person that you would like the page to be about. It is NOT a layout about a particular birthday celebration.......but more about what the day signifies for you.

As with all my classes you can interpret it how you want and change things so as the layout becomes more you and less me.......but those types of photos will suit the theme much better.

Just adding that both my photos for both pages are black and white which will cut out any colour matching issues that may come up if you decide to use a colour photo instead.

back after tea and kids bedtime to do some layout commenting as you have all been super busy!

Ten days and counting ...

Oh my goodness has anyone checked the counter lately???

It is coming up fast ... I think I should start checking the weather and thinking about what clothes to pack, what beverages to buy, what scrapping supplies to take, wow, wow, wow!!!

Amanda and I have been busy preparing our class presentations today ... well Amanda was busy and I was a hopeless assistant!!

I know that Val has been busy buying up supplies to nourish us and consulting with her very able Kitchen Assistant, Lorrae!!

Tiff has been away for some R & R in Adelaide over the last few days.

Sue has been busy working and thinking of those little extra, very important jobs that we need to do in the next week or so.

So, soon we will all be enjoying a fun weekend.

Marika's layout ...

"Hi Meredith,

Just sending you my rub on challenge wasn't sure if it was you I should send it too.

Thanks Marika"

That is fine to send it through to me!!

Oh wow what a beautiful photo!! The rubons look very effective around the photo and the buttons and brads are very effective in creating a flow effect in the layout.

Jenny's layout ...

"I hope this has worked. I had all sorts of trouble scanning the other which was on textured grey card, so I hope this doesn't have too much missing, but you should get the idea. "My hands", Sandra, did the rubbings for me. I 'stitched' it with 'paint' so there may be bits missing or not quite matching.
Jenny F"

Great layout Jenny ... the "sparklers" look excellent! Don't kids love them!!

Sandra's rubons and embossing ...

"Hi Meredith
Here is my rub-on entry.
Tried something else new with this layout, embossing.... what a mess!!!
I am glad no one walked into my scraproom while I was using it... there was white powder Everywhere! They might of thought I had a drug problem! You can't see it very well.. (bloody scanner) but I embossed the xmas tree.
The title is rub-ons (note to self... no more rub-on titles!.. look how wonky it is!) and the 'believe' in the middle of the template.
Have a great night
Sandra"



Wow Sandra you have been busy ... must be the white powder helping with your speed!!

The tree looks gorgeous, I love the look of the title and the "believe" rub on is beautiful! Great photos to have of this special time!

Rub on frustration ...

"Hi Meredith,

Rubons, well I have come to the conclusion that I do not get along with them!!! I don't know whether they were dodgy or if it was just me? But the whole packet just wouldn't work, so one whole LO went in the bin, along with the rest of those rubons. (frustration plus!!!!!) Do they go off?

I managed to salvage the photo and so here is my lame entry, if you look hard enough the little bird is a rubon. Bring on the next challenge!! LOL

Cheers Karen D"

Well even though it was frustrating Karen it is a great layout! Love how you have done the title. Really like the cluster in the bottom right corner too! And your designer clouds!! Very nice! Oh and I have some of that fabric paper (the tree one with the cream background) ... should pull it out and use it!!

Rub a dub dub ...

"Howdy Meredith,
Attached is my layout for the 'Rub on' Challenge. The rub on at the top of the page says - One of the blessings of old friends is that you can afford to be stupid with them. The word 'cherished' is also a rub on.

Underneath the photo it reads -

"We had won the A Grade netball grand final this day and Ivko proposed to you amid celebrations after the match. At Heather's later in the evening the girls decided to dress us up as bride and bridesmaid.

I love this photo as this reminds me of all the fun times I have with you, being ridiculous, acting silly and laughing until our stomachs hurt. I treasure your friendship Zan, it is priceless to me".

Hope you are having a great weekend.
Cheers,
Tracey"

What a special layout Tracey ... very heartfelt words too. Love the bright colours, the rub ons and the photo!!

Challenge 28 - rubons

Challenge time again....and i challenge you to use rubons.

i love them , one would never guess as i have a whole tub full of them :). There are all kinds about - alphas, words, birds, florals, swirls ....whatever you like. And i don't use them anywhere near enough.....



Hopefully you all have some to splash about on your pages too.



Here's my page

There are rubon swirls, journalling, and a few word etchings under the black tape.

So good luck and look forward to seeing what you come up with.

Amanda's hand

When i first started writing my handwriting looked a lot like Mums - very rounded. Then at Uni I started scrawling to get notes etc. during lectures and so i hate my lowercase writing. When i started working i began to write in uppercase all the time as i found it looked A LOT neater. This is kinda weird in a way as my Dad has always written in upper case. So i guess i have come full circle with it all.

I dont mind my writing but it isn't really scrapbooking type of lettering.

Here it says -

It's been amazing since Georgia broke her arm. Kelsey has been carrying her school bag (at times) and Piper has been kind and gentle. I wonder if it will last?

PS. i really did try and bugger it up many many times BEFORE i got to the handwriting bit - stamping, date stamp and paint!!!

LOL.

Jenny's layout ...

"This is my attempt. I tried several ways of handwriting it, but in the end this is how I really write things and I'm still using my hand, so technically, it should still fall under 'hand written'.
This is a photo of my eldest and his cousins after playing cricket on christmas day 1992ish, and we have played 'Christmas Cricket' every year since then. Only now we play on the Cummins Oval to save my garden and the boys hit so more powerfully now and it's hard to get the ball back so many houses down. It also makes it easier for other families to join in, it has become quite a group event.

Jenny F"

Thank you Jenny ... love the torn edges and the tag with the journaling. What a great memory to document!

Hope we get to see a few more layouts with handwriting!!