Tiff - houndstooth

Tiff has sent in her houndstooth layout.

Annie looks so angelic in that photo - lovely. Very much like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth hey?!

The rose looks great extending off the page and the fancy border punch looks very flashy.

Looking for some colour inspiration?

A blog that I find good to look at for inspiration is the Colour Combos Galore challenge blog.

Each time they feature 4 colours and the design team have to create a layout with these colours. Others can submit their layouts too.

The design team are from all over the world and a few are from South Australia (Belinda Venables, Janine Koczwara and Steph Caskey-Devlin).

Something different to inspire you rather than a sketch or scraplift ...

From their blog ...

"THE RULES:You must use all the colors in the Combo any way you wish but stay true to the Color Combo. You are allowed to add in a neutral like black, white and kraft. You may also add another color but it should not dominate any of the other colors of the Combo. A new challenge starts every Monday and ends that Sunday."

Anyway have a look ... some of the combos are a challenge!!

marika - houndstooth

This is from Marika who used a May pagemaps design to get her creative juices flowing. And wow - your cup overflow-eth!

How you can make something so simple look so damn good is beyond me! This is really brilliant - love the circles made into scallops effect - and that branch is absolutely PERFECT for this page. Stunning in it's simplicity Marika!

Wow this blog is really pumping atm isn't it!!>???? I am sure the new look and various challenges have got us all inspired!

Keep sending in your work girls - challenges or just other bits you are working on. We love to see what you are up to. We can encourage and enthuse each other!

Free download from Ali Edwards

Ali Edwards, an American scrapper, has a very inspiring blog where she shows her scrapping.

A lot of her style features documenting the everyday things.

I love it and check out her stuff regularly.

At the moment she has a feature on documenting your weekend. She has a free downloadable file of the words Saturday, Sunday and weekend, in her handwriting.

http://aliedwards.typepad.com/_a_/2009/05/weekend-creative-document-your-weekend.html

Check out her blog for this and much more.

amanda - houndstooth challenge

*slinking in*

ok sorry guys it is me again (blush)

Just showing you my houndstooth layout for May's challenges and i promise i wont post anymore.

amanda - photo challenge

sorry girls for the hog but i have just found the photo that i took on Mother's Day of my sisters little dog called Fluke and lo and behold it seems to fit our photo challenge!

This shot is SOOC (straight out of camera) and i am really pleased with how intense his little eyes are!

amanda - Sue's sketch

this is a bit abstract but i did follow the sketch. The only difference is changing the title placement.

Journalling reads - We are far from perfect but our house is full of love. That is what counts. We really are a party of 5.

Have another half finished - today was productive scrap wise!!

Maryanne - sue's sketch

Oh how perfect this page is! LOVE it. So true to Sue's sketch and just basically so much lovely stuff going on it is hard to know where to start. Love those cool flowers, the tiny letters and your 70's feel paper choice. And omg at that photo - i had a little laugh when i opened it up as i can remember you guys looking exactly the same..........felt like i had done a little time warp back to JP at school!

great work Maryanne. Sue's sketch is very inspiring isn't it?

just thought i would let you know........

a little birdie told me about a deal going with subscribing to Scrapbook Trends which is for a very limited time.

I think it is quite good value so thought i would pass it along. This magazine is FAR AND AWAY the best scrap mag i have ever seen.

Click here for details

or you can pick whichever other 'free' magazine (6 issues) you would like to go with it here

busy busy

Hi all.

Well it has been a bit quiet in here over the weekend - like me i guess everyone is flat strap with life in general. Personally we have had quite a full on week, with a funeral and catching up with family. Scrapbooking and this blog (sorry guys) have been the last thing on my mind. Today i have felt the urge again so i think i will have a go at one of the challenges soon!

Luckily we have been saved of complete bordem by Trace sending in a fantastic vintage page.

Tracey says -

Attached is my very badly photographed, equally badly cropped photo of my layout
for the May sketch. i have so got to learn how to scan or photograph these
things without getting bad light reflection and to counteract the reflection
then I then photograph on a lean. I am kookie, I've officially lost it, I swear
I am going to get computer savvy like I was before children came on the scene
and my will to learn went pear-shaped!! Enough babble - the layout is an old
farm photo, the journalling says 'Frank Roediger and his six horse team pulling
a mould board plough at Yeelanna'. This sketch has helped rekindle my interest
in making time to scrap something. Thanks Sue.

WOW Tracey. This is fantastic. That chip stalks/flower, the gorgeous vintage colours, and the little 'circa' words up the top are brilliant. What a totally awesome photo too - lucky devil! Beautiful, beautiful work. Thanks for sharing and we hope that you continue to be enthused by our challenges!

Sue's sketch ... Tiff's layout

"Answering Sue's sketch challenge.

I have remained faithful to the sketch. The embellishment is actually a head of oats. (Came from Jerry's hay, not from that paddock which happens to be barley.)
I really enjoyed this challenge Sue and this LO came together so easily.

Tiff"

Wow Tiff ... that looks great!! The laser cut "family ties" is beautiful and the oats very effective. Beautiful soft tones of the patterned papers too.

Thank you!!

Tiff's photo for the challenge ...

Tiff said ...

"Found this little peacock feather last night when the kids were feeding the chooks.

So I grabbed the camera and followed it as the breeze blew it along our house yard.

Contrasts so well with the new fresh green grass.

I kneeled above it to shoot down. And I did get wet knees lol.

thanks
Tiff"

Wow Tiff the colours are irredescent!!

Sue's Sketch ...

Great sketch Sue ... found my ispiration while lying down trying to get Hannah to have her afternoon sleep on Tuesday ... after 1 hour she was still awake so I set to it!!

Marika

Some gorgeous 'looking down through the lens' photos from Marika. Gosh this second one is stunning in the colours. What a cutie Miss B is!

And a page for Sue's sketch. Love those swirls and the tree/heart/butterfly cluster! ooooooooh dont tell me you have that yummy stampin' up diecut punch too? *swoon* Great colours! Teal blue and kraft were made for one another i think!

Sandra (sue's sketch)

Yikes this girls is hot off the mark!

She says -

You have got my mojo happening already!

I am home unwell today and unable to sleep or sit still...I have been stuck on the one layout for days.I had the papers, the embellishments, the photo, and wanted to use the rolled paper,(which I saw on the net somewhere)

I was just stuck putting them all together.Saw Sue's sketch, flipped it on its side and VOILA!!

So now my layout is finished!! Thanks Sue!!

Those little rolls of paper look amazing! Fantastic job Sandra - wow! Hope you feel better soon - but what a way to spend a sick day - scrapping some incredible pages!

Looking down at you ... photo challenge

Hi all and welcome back to the regulars and welcome to anyone who has just found us!!

I would like to thank Amanda for the wonderful work she has done to revamp our blog!!

Here is my photo ... Lachlan at the swimming area at Coffin Bay at Easter this year.

a new look

Welcome to our new look blog! We hope you like what you see :) Thankyou for your patience as we were organizing this earlier in the week and the blog has been out of action for a few days.

As hinted at last week there are some changes in the air.

We have sadly farewelled Tiff - see here for details. We have asked her to set us a monthly challenge though so she certainly will be still around! I am sure whatever challenges she has in store for us we will stretch our creativity and getting that mojo flowing again!

Another change will be the format our challenges take. There is no set 'day' the challenges will swap. We may have 3 or 4 challenges going at the same time over a month period. We hope to have at least 4 going per month. These can be found listed over in the sidebar--------------->

you are welcome to do one or more layout per challenge and email them to either Sue, Meredith or myself to upload it. As usual we would LOVE to see what you create.

If you forget what the challenges are during the month you can click on the images in the sidebar which will hopefully open an album which will give you more detail. I *think* you can comment in that album as well - much like a discussion forum (fingers crossed that you can all see that ok and actually do what i am saying LOL)

And there is also the old list on the sidebar as well which lists ALL of our challenges - past and present.

Sue will also be challenging us with a sketch challenge which she is in charge of each month. This will be uploaded during the first week of the month and again we are keen to see how this inspires you.

There will be one photo challenge a month - to get you thinking outside the square!

Please dont forget to comment if you visit. I know that I personally get a huge thrill seeing someone else's comment on my pages and i am sure that everyone can agree that it is a nice feeling having your work appreciated by others.

I would also like to give credit here for the blog banner. I did alter it a bit but i bought all the hard work already done from the house of 3 - just some gorgeous stuff on there!

photo challenge for May -

shooting from above. Look down on your subject for a different perspective!

Sue's sketch for May-

Sue has provided this great inspirational sketch based on the work of Lisa Arnet.

"Here is my first sketch for the blog. Please excuse me for the wonkiness of the 'sketch'

Your page can be 12x12, 8x11 or whatever size you want to use.

Love to see your pages......and have fun with it!!"

and here is Sue's stunning example-

Meredith's challenge for May

go green continues! See here for details

Amanda's challenge for May
houndstooth! This pattern is everywhere at the moment - use a little or a lot. Love it or hate it but it is totally IN!

October Afternoon and Heidi Swapp have papers with this cool pattern.

ok i think that is about it for now - drop us a line or two to let us know what you think. We would love to hear from you!

We hope there is plenty here to inspire you to scrap - we love to see what you make so please share it by emailing us an image so we can post it on the blog!

Tiff's otp recycle ...

From this ...

to this ...

Tiff said ...

"Hiya M
Cant keep me away for long ;p
my recycling challenge response
I had saved this box that had some computer manuals in it for some purpose one day.
lol
I only had to save it for a week. I made my Mum a mirror photo book for Mother's Day and the box was the perfect size to present it in. So with minimal fiddling and a bit of beading it was done.

Thanks
Tiff"

Great work Tiff .... I would love to see your Mum's face when she receives this on Sunday ... the "satchel" looks magnificent!!

Sandra and her recycling ...

Hi Meredith.

Here is my entry for the 'green' challenge. I used the lid of the box of these chipboard letters. The box still has a lid though. I just peeled off the top layer. That is the frame around the photo - bit grungy.

cheers Sandra

Wow Sandra that is such an amazing use of recycled packaging!! Thank you so much!! Love the colours you have used in the layout too!!

Very inspiring!!

Tiff

As people will have read in the post below and possibly on Tiff's blog we are sadly farewelling her from this blog as co-author.

Earlier this year she decided that she no longer wanted to be a part of the E2C committee and that this would come into effect after our retreat in March. This took us all by surprise and we were quite shell shocked for some time wondering how we could carry on without her.

After we realized that possibly the E2C retreats could continue we had more descisions to make.

The rest of us debated long and hard regarding this blog, knowing her passion is a driving force behind the blog's success. After much, much thought we all decided that the blog and the retreat were one, that they go hand in hand and to be involved in one side of things and not the other wouldn't make sense.

And so we have reached this point where we say goodbye..........as Tiff as an author BUT not hopefully as a contributor. We certainly hope she is our number one fan on here......and continues to encourage and inspire. There is also the hope that there will be a set challenge from her very regularly so she is definately NOT dropping of the E2C planet!

As a team we all appreciate the enormous amount of work that Tiff has done both towards the past retreats and this blog. Her passion and drive is amazing, and she is definately someone you want to have on a committee. I know without a doubt that without her the dream of having a retreat would never have gotten off the ground. I also know that she took on much of the workload organizing the retreat - one of the reasons we were doubtful we could continue without her. As a friend she has been there during good times and bad. She has been a shoulder to cry on, someone to have a wine with and we have shared many laughs. Tiff you will certainly be missed both on the committee and on here.

Thank you so much Tiff. Things certainly will be different without you being directly involved but i still hope you can be around on the blog and be elbowing in for first position on E2C 2010.