Marika - sue's sketch

goodness we are all getting so much inspiration from Sue's sketch. Marika has rotated this for a classic black, white and pink layout about her precious fairy! I am also loving how you trimmed that photo down - nice a skinny. I have also noticed that this is a bit of an incoming trend so you are right onto it Marika!

Love your choice of papers against that pink - striking!

Amanda - colour challenge

Ali E's tip of the day

3. White cardstock is always a solid choice for the foundation of your layout. I love it. It is my go-to color of choice.


How ironic that Marika sent in her page on white cardstock today when Ali's tip is about exactly that. I agree with her that white is always a great choice - some may say safe choice - but i just love how it makes every colour pop. White can also give the sense of space, without the busy-ness of fancy patterned paper. If you seem to be stuck for a page idea - pull out a sheet of white cardstock and start from there.

Marika - colour challenge

Marika has sent in an amazing page. She says -

Just finished my colour challenge a lift from Ali Edwards CK April 09. Just loved it and realised I had the same paper

I can see why you lifted this one Marika - stunning! Love the embellishments in a line under the journalling....they seem totally perfect for the page. Again i keep feeling that those colours are so funky, happy and fresh.

lovely work and a great answer to the colour challenge.

Ali E's tip of the day

2. Examine how you look through the lens of your camera . What do you really see? What are you looking for? Next time you pick up your camera let yourself play a bit more by looking up, down, to the sides, etc. of your subject. There are so many interesting things out there in the world. I am particularly interested in the ways things meet together - people, places, things.

ok well this is a big extention from our perspective challenge. Re-think how you will take that shot = zoom in and get the really important bits.

Just for a laugh ...

Okay we love to take photos and scrap them.

But these ones would be so funny to scrap!!

http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/

Make sure you look at quite a few of the cakes ... "pole dancers rock" really made me laugh!!


Then make sure you take a look at this site with photos that would be funny to scrap ...

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

Sue's in - with colour combo

Hi there everyone,

When i saw Amanda's colour combo challenge....it got me inspired!! And sitting home quietly on this blowy Saturday....i have been busy getting out papers and scrapping away!

What beautiful colours to put together....and i was inspired by a layout i saw in Scrapbook Trends April 09, by Laura Vegas. I have used cream instead of a yellow. I got a lovely surprise from Meredith......the circle Heidi Swapp stickers, which goes just perfect with this page!

Catchya next time

Sue xx

Ali E's tip of the day

I dont really read many blogs and am not really into following scrapping 'celebs'. (whatever the hell that is)

However i just found these tips on Ali Edwards' blog and i just love them. There are 20 tips so i will try and remember to do one tip a day. I find myself nodding and agreeing with every one.

Todays Ali Tip:

1. Get over what you "think" it should be and just allow it to be ("it" will be something different for every person).

back tomorrow for another.

Photos of you and yours ...

An American woman and scrapbooker, Aleida Franklin, was sadly killed in a car crash last year.

She encouraged others to take photos of themselves with their children.

So have a look at Emilie Ahern's blog

http://www.em-il-ie.com/2009/04/aleidas-challenge.html

From Emily's blog ...

Aleida said "she made it a goal to take a picture of herself with her children at least once every month. And that to use excuses about how we look, as women, is ridiculous, since our children will never care what we looked like, but only that we had physical evidence of the bond between mother and child. "

Aleida tragically and unexpectedly passed away last September, leaving 2 small children and a grieving husband. After she passed I thought of how those children must feel to have those precious photographs.

So make sure you take some photos of you with your children.

Here is one I snapped at Easter time 2009, of me and Hannah ...

These next two were taken by Jack and Lachlan in September 2007 ... I don't look so great but hey I have some fun photos of me and the boys.

Lachlan was only 4 1/2 ... just make sure the camera strap is around their neck!!

Some times we need scrap pages of us in the photos too!!

surprise challenge - colour combo

i love this combination - it seems so happy and fresh. You can use black, white, brown or kraft also if you need.

I noticed this group of colours used on this cover layout on the Scrapbooks etc magazine in April which was designed by Janna Wilson.

(sorry for the small pic but i couldn't find anything bigger online)

you will notice in that page that instead of using equal parts of the colours (and perhaps making the page overwhelming) that the creator has used mostly yellow, then green with a tinge of aqua. The red border is basically used to give the whole layout that 'pop' or 'wow' factor.

See how you get on using these fresh, funky colours on your next page. We would love to see what you come up with.

Sandra - photo challenge

Here is Sandra's cute photo for the 'looking down' perspective photo challenge.

she says -

Final challenge done!I have to admit I took this photo awhile ago. It is one of my favourites... it is not technically a great photo but I love the memories attached. They were having a ball tickling each other.

What a great moment captured Sandra - you can really feel the love! You really can almost here the giggles just by looking at the photo.

fabulous!

Tracey - Sue's sketch

Now i am thinking that this is what everygirl needs around town - a set of handknitted bathers. Although i can see that they may work better for smaller children. Perhaps a cutoff age of 11 or 12 to stop any stray nipples poking through. Obviously Kaye had a VERY good knitter in her family - as you certainly wouldn't want any dropped stitches in your bathers!

Tracey says -

I have done another layout using Sue's sketch turned on its side. The journalling says 'Kaye Gregory at 14 months in her handknitted bathers at Henley Beach 1950'.

What a brilliant photo Tracey - how precious! Just have to love those random black and white snaps that are 'older' and have so much story to tell. Your collection of flowers, little tags, gorgeous rich colours and that little oval with the date really add to the vintage / heritage feel. I bet Kaye would love to see this one!

Sandra - houndstooth

Oh my goodness. Have a look at what this VERY clever and VERY talented lady has whipped us up. SOME HOUNDSTOOTH CARDS.

Check out the perfection of them - the female images are just gorgeous Sandra! I can't stop looking at all the little details : the buttons, flowers, scallops, circles, rhinestones and lace.

Totally awesome Sandra. Gawd you rock woman!

Sue - houndstooth

Finally a page is complete!! Once i found a quiet moment, this page has come together quickly. Just one of those special moments caught with a camera that is too precious to just pop amongst all other photos.

Amanda - reuse and recycle

ok here is my late entry for Meredith's go green challenge.

I worked/fiddled/procrastinated a lot on it yesterday at Leah and Lindy's Scrap day and it looks nothing like i originally thought it would!

The round circle at the bottom is the title - The funeral.

The pink thing with circles missing is from an old peice of Heidi Swapp packaging which housed chipboard circles which have all either fallen out and lost or been used. In fact that is a bit of my stash that is at least 3 years old. The paper inside the circles is punched out of the sheet that you get in the front of a collection of papers - just tiny mini examples of what the pack includes. In this case it is from a really yummy collection of October Afternoon papers.

I have also noticed a new trend emerging which is to use the same photo multiple times on your page - repetition. I wanted to try this so used this picture that i snapped of G and K before heading off to the funeral last Friday.

The border is done by stitching two straight lines and using a un-picker to rip through to reveal the under sheet of cardstock. I blatently copied this idea from a page Meredith did ages ago and i loved the effect.

Sorry to rabbit on but i had a lot of questions about it all yesterday!

Maryanne - houndstooth

oh wow wow wow.

Why is it i love everything you do Maryanne? You just have that *knack* of putting exactly the right things and the right amount of right things on the page.

she says -

dont think I have any houndstooth in my stash, so have done a hybrid
page,searched and found a pattern.
theres some red and white up in the top left corner, and black and white in the right bottom corner, very teeny both of them but they are there....scanner has cut off my edges again.

this is absolutely adorable. Look at this one quickly girls - i dont think it will be on display for very long! Your digital elements along the side are so effective. And my-ho-my how young and in love you two look - whit wheel (wolf whistle!)

totally stunning!

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.

goodbye

It is with a very heavy heart that I type this. This will be my last post for E2C blog as co author. I wish the new E2C team every success for keeping the dream alive.
I for one, cant wait for the unveiling of the new look and colour scheme. Knowing Amanda's prowess with Photoshop it will sure to be a Masterpiece.


I am so looking forward to E2C 10 Retreat. And look out Sandra, Tracey and Zani. I'll be up at the door with my elbows out too.
E2C 10. Bring it on!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)


Seriously, it has been such a delight to showcase the awesome local talent that we have here on EP. There have been many wonderful friendships made, and connections with like minded addicts.
Safe to say I will still be here as a blogger a fair bit. Cant give it up that easy. And I do believe that I may be around once a month or so with a guest challenge for you.

So thank you Scrappers. Without you there is no blog. And thank you Sue, Meredith and Amanda for helping to bring into the world our Retreat and Blog baby. Hard to believe that its 1.5 years old already.




Thank you from the bottom of my heart

Tiff


ps. seeya on the blog!!!!!!!!

Sue goes Green!

Well, this is the closest i will come to going 'green' this week. Green paper, will that pass??!!

Naah, but seriously....the buttons are re-cycled!! And we all love old buttons ey?? And i am sure the chipboard bracket would have to be made out of re-cycled paper, don't you agree??

Just wanted to share this one with you all......

:)

Fontalicious

I was recently looking at some of Sue's layouts and saw a couple of fonts that I really liked.

The main reason I really liked them was because they looked like they had been hand written and for someone that doesn't use a lot of hand writing on layouts that was appealing.

So here they are ...

Jayne print from www.dafont.com

It aint rocket science from www.dafont.com

and then I found another one in a magazine called

sketchy times from www.dafont.com - not like hand writing but I liked it anyway!!

Sorry can't work out howw to show an example!!

waste not, want not

what perfect timing Meredith.

I had just finished this LO and found a tag on Kym's new jeans that fitted the challenge and the LO perfectly.

I didnt scan the tag in my eagerness to use it, but safe to say it's a noice Kraft card looking label that I can use a couple of bits from it.

So I added a bit of it to this LO and viola, challenge done.

Marika

Marika has gone green by using the scraps of paper from the front page from the Cosmo Cricket papers.......i think the little preview peices that is on the front cover of a set of papers.

I too love those colours - Cosmo Cricket have some awesome ranges at the moment. This colour combination is fantastic and i love the simple-ness of it....that clip up the top balances it out perfectly.

changes changes everywhere

Just a quick note. Over the next few weeks this blog will be changing. The look, the challenges and the E2C committee.

As we have started gearing up for E2C 2010 everything about to change.

We hope you will stay on as our loyal blog readers, commenters and challenge participants. Thankyou to all for being so encouraging and positive in the past 2 years. We started the blog mainly for inspiration for local girls and also to get the retreat messages out there......basically to give us somewhere to 'hang out' and share our excitement about upcoming E2C retreats. It has snowballed into a challenge blog - which really wasn't where we were going when we started - and we do love seeing local girls (and sometimes non locals) work. It has been lovely sharing your stories, creativity and we have even had a bit of publication success from our challenges! Well done to all.

So as we seem to get so much support for the challenges they will continue. It will be a much different format.........although you will have to wait a little for all to be revealed.

Stay tuned :)

Message from Tiff.

re rabbit home ordering CD that was handed out at the retreat.

due to ongoing issues Rabbit has withdrawn the handout of that CD. They no longer support the product. I have checked by using it and discovered that it tried to charge me an amount that was about double of what the true price was.
I strongly recommend that people delete this program from their computers and toss the CD into the bin. I have.

If ladies edit their photos at home then they can use www.rabbitmagic.com.au to upload their pics. There is no ability to change anything with your photos with this www. nor does it offer 6x8 sizes. But it is much simpler, quicker and easier to navigate than snapfish.
I tried it and found it good. And the prices are the gold member prices with the 2 day wait but u can pick it up the same day with this website.

I was nearly caught out but a friend gave me a heads up on it, so I would really like to pass it on asap.


with many thanks
Tiff

marika's still over the rainbow

I think Marika's still hunting for that pot of gold.

lunar

isnt this frigging awesome. Taken by Trish in January this year with these settings.

night snapshot setting, it has a Tv of 1/400, an Av of 4.3 and an ISO of 160 auto.