Looking for a new creative outlet

I am busy looking for a new Creative Design Team to be a part of. It's not easy putting yourself out there and hoping to get picked just on the strength of a few layouts being submitted, but what the heck, if you don't try you won't succeed. So here goes....

These are a few of the teams that I am vying for:

1. Let's Get Sketchy - Guest Designer

2. Colourful Creations

3. Cocoa Vanilla

So let's see what happens in the New Year.... holding thumbs!

Scraplift of a friend

A few weeks back I saw a layout by Lee-Anne Thornton and absolutely loved it... so decided it had to be scraplifted...this is my page.

I also used a diecut file from JustNick on my page. I had planned to cut it out of pattern paper but it didn't work... grrr. So after a few trials I cut it out of white cardstock and then ran a rainbow inkpad over it and outlined the letters in black.

Thanks for the inspiration Lee-Anne and JustNick.

My Mentor

Over the last few years I've taken a few classes from Jowilna Nolte and have learnt a whole host of techniques and wonderful stuff. I count Jow as a very good (and dear) friend as well as my scrapping mentor. When I grow up I would love to be a scrapper like her. Yes I do realise that I have my own style and I am happy with it... it's just something to aspire too.

In September a group of us took a roadtrip together to Kloof to spend the weekend scrapping at ShortCuts Kloof. As a momento of the weekend we got Jow to sign the wall... these are the pics I took and my layout to remember this special lady and moment.

For my page I scraplifted a layout I saw in Pinterest. I used a whole bunch of strips which I glued to a strip of cardstock and then diecut a whole bunch of starts... a super easy and effective technique.

Thanks Jow for all your teaching and friendship.

Destash scrapping

I decide that it's time to do some major de-stashing... I've sorted through my vast scrapping supplies and whittled out some stash to sell.

Part of this de-stashing was some mini albums that I did at various classes or events over the years. These have been sitting in a box for years just gathering dust so it was definitely time to de-stash.

I emptied the albums and recycled the papers and embellishment into a useful pile and a rubbish pile. I then decided to actually USE the papers, and so made the following three layouts.

I sure hope that I have motivated you to do some de-stashing and scrapping too.

Winners - Creative Scrappers Sketch Book

Thanks to everyone who left a comment on my previous post about the sketch book.... all 11 of you. Wow I don't think I have EVER had that many comments on a blog post... hehehe.

Anyway, I printed them all out, cut them up. Folded and then shook them up. I then picked one.... and the winner is....

TILLA

Congratulations. I will contact you with instructions to claim your prize.

Creative Scrappers - Sketch Book V4

I was super duper excited when Kristine Davidson asked me to design a layout for her latest book for Creative Scrappers.  I have one copy of the book to give away.

Unfortunately, I can't show you my page here (which is on page 38!) but just to whet your appetite here are some closeup details of a few of the bits:

You can of course buy a copy of the book... Kristine also has a discount voucher available on her blog.

So leave me a comment and I will draw a name at the end of November.

Scrapping with Scraps

In October I decided that I needed to stop stockpiling my leftover papers and actually use them... so I made it a mission to create a few pages just using my scraps. I turned to Pinterest for inspiration and over the course of a weekend managed to turn out 10 layouts. Some of these still need a few finishing touches, so for now, here are the ones that I finished.

I extend a big thank you to the original creators of these pages for the inspiration... I might not know who made them originally but having found them on pinterest I was inspired. I now need to make a whole bunch more layouts using this ideas I never even made a dent into my stash of scraps!!

Scrapbook Generation: Lights Camera Action Online Crop

The weekend we were away in October was the same one that Scrapbook Generation held their latest online crop. Well I didn't stop that from participating... I did as manage of the games over the weekend as I could and once I got home I started planning pages to scrap for all the challenges.

These are the ones that I've finished:

Plus I used a few others that I've already posted as they were appropriate for the challenges.

Scrapbook Challenges - Flashback Friday

You might have noticed that I haven't been posting anything for Scrapbook Challenges in a while.... well this is due to Brynn needing some time out and the site is in a hiatus till the new year. But I still have two layouts that I did back in March for Flashback Friday's that were never published, so thought I'd share them now for a little inspiration.

 First up is my layout for Sketch 151

And here is the one for Sketch 165

These are still the original sketches, we never did get around to updating them... but old is still new when you haven't used them before.

Scrap Affairs - sketch challenge

The latest Scrap Affairs magazine (issue 50) has a sketch challenge by Kim Watson... I took the plunge and created a page for it.

Celebr8 Sketch Challenge

Our local manufacturer of scrapping paper and goodies, Celebr8, put out a sketch challenge on facebook with the launch of their latest range of paper. This range is super cool with the colours that I like to scrap with, so I decided to take up the challenge and create a page. BUT seems I missed the deadline for submitting my layout as the competition winners were announced today... bummer. Oh well as least I can say I scrapped another page on my long to do list.

Here are a few closeups of some of the details too:

September Roadtrip Scrapping

Way back in September a bunch of us scrapping friends took a roadtrip down to Durban for the weekend and scrapped together at Shortcut Crafts in Kloof. It was a truly fun and busy weekend with friends (and family... as my Mom went with and we stayed with my brother and family).

We did three different classes with Jowilna over the weekend :

First up was a double page layout:

Next we did a project life class, but as I am not too big on Project Life I adapted mine to be a double We used photos of our lunch stop on the way down for this page.

And lastly we dabbled in some art journalling. As I am not tempted (yet!) to do this, I used part of the art journalling piece as an embellishment on another layout. I scrapped pictures from our weekend on this layout.

A big thank you to Dave from Shortcuts for sponsoring us for some of the scrapping and our roadtrip goodies, as well as to Monique and Michelle for their hard work over the weekend.

27 day challenge - October layout

Phew October came and went without a single blog post from me... hectic to say the least I guess.  I did manage to get some scrapping done last month... did 10 layouts in one weekend and then only four more for the rest of the month! Yikes. Not sure if I will actually get too much more done in November as it's just as hectic.

So seeing as I found the 27 day challenge group on facebook in September I thought I'd take up their challenge last month again... but then it got complicated.

The challenge was to use 6x6 pad of paper... well I didn't have any so my twist was that I only used scraps and leftovers. Secondly we had to use a photo of ourselves and it had to be 5x7 and black&white.... well I didn't have any printed and don't usually scrap black& white... so scrounging I went. I found a pic that Aaron had taken of us last year when I had my surgery which I only had in black&white... hehe... perfect or what? I printed it on watercolour paper to give it a bit more of a grainy effect and then sat down and scrapped my page.

I even included my actual hospital bracelets on the page and they fit in in just the right colours too.

Disney page

Phew it's been a quiet week here on my blog so thought I'd best let you know that I am still alive and kicking. I had a weekend away last weekend.... roadtrip to Kloof and scrapping with the girls. Was a ton of fun. This week has been right back into the madness of work, so no scrapping done at all... eish! It's a truly quiet month on the scrapping front for me after the hordes that I did in August. I hope to get a few pages done this weekend though.

So anyway, here is a page that I made last month that I thought I'd share.

In the USA doing Disney pages is a huge thing... well the closest we have ever (or will ever!) get to Disney was when we saw Disney on Ice back in 2014.

I've been wanting to scrap these photos for a while... keep planning to use them on a sketch and then the plan falls apart.Well this time I got it all together and made the page using a Scrapbook Generations' sketch.

I used lots of leftover red and blue papers for my background strips and then just combined it with a cut file and some circles to which I added inks. I also cut some stars to scatter around.

So now I can tick that one off my to do list eventually.

Remembering our heritage

It's sort of Heritage Month this month I guess... with that being the public holiday at the end of September. I created this layout using a kit from Jowilna and photos of Theresa and my trip to Howick last year where we visited the Nelson Mandela Capture site.... just a tiny bit of heritage for this month.

This page used the Celebr8 and Kaisercraft new ranges... they work so well together. It is nice to see local manufacturers producing such beautiful papers for us to use here... let's hope that they are around for years to come.

The best things...

I've just spent the whole weekend working... haven't done that since last year. Boy oh boy am I exhausted from too many number crunches. I sure do miss my scrapping when I don't get to do it on the weekend. Am itching to get my fingers all inky. At least I do have this coming weekend to look forward too... am taking a roadtrip to Dbn to do some serious scrapping!

So seeing as I didn't manage to scrap, thankfully I still have a backlog of layouts to blog about anyway.

This is another layout inspired by Jow... yes I seem to say that a lot lately... but she is the most amazing scrapping teacher I know.

Though my layout is based on her class notes, I must admit it looks nothing like the original... I'm still not sure if I am 100% happy with how it turned out, but you know what? It's done, photographed, blogged and filed.

I did have fun making the technique circles... embossing paste and then embossing powder heated before adding inks and punching into circles. The title and gears are painted with H20s... so there is a shine and shimmer to everything.

27 day challenge

I found a new challenge group on Facebook last month... as if I didn't already have enough on my plate!.... they offered a free cut file and sketch by Kristine Davidson of Creative Scrappers, for the challenge... guess that was my incentive... anyway I used the sketch for my layout...

I might just try my hand at their monthly challenges too... they are announced on the 1st and you have 27 days to do it... sure sounds easy enough. Why not join me... just look up mercytiaras27daychallenge and join.

Another creative Jowilna class

In the middle of August I had a whole Saturday free as Aaron was at an all-weekend birthday party, so I decided to treat myself to an all-day class with Jowilna...

First up we did two single pages... I used lots of my old stash and had fun making these two quick pages.

And then during the afternoon class... everyone else did art journalling and I did my own thing and created this page.... loved playing with the products and creating something beautiful.

Another relaxed class packed full of techniques, fun and laughter.

Stuck?! September challenge

I have been following the Stuck?! blog for ages and have finally taken the plunge to get one of the challenges done... holding thumbs that this will also get me on the DT.

I decided to do a circle of stitching around my photo in place of a circle piece of paper. As I had at first done all my stitching in white I found it didn't show up that well (See if you can spot the which stitching at the top!)... so I went over the stitches with some all purpose ink and turned them teal and pink... much better.

I also created the splashes and stenciling on the background before placing everything.. this is to mimic the splatters on the wall.... remember this moment Theresa?.... hehehe... such a fun scrapping moment!

Progressive Scrapping

During August Scrapbook Generations held a week long progressive scrapping challenge... each day there was a task listed and by the end of the week we got to put our layout together... it was a great way to scrap and the page them came together with ease as all the hard work had been done. Here is my page that I made:

So the progress went as follows...

1. Choose papers

2. Choose photos

3. Write journalling

4. Choose embellishments

5. Choose messy elements... inks, paints, dies, etc

We then had two days to put the page together and upload it... well that all happened in a morning for me... it came together so quickly. Luckily for me I do tend to scrap in this way generally, it's just that I might not actually have everything out all at once before I start. I guess that is why I can scrap so many pages on one day.

This layout was once again inspired by Jowilna... just with my own unique twists on it.

Lady Pattern Paper Love

I really really love the new paper by Lady Pattern Paper.... the blue is just such a lovely shade... goes with everything and is right up there as my favourite colour. As soon as I got my hands on some of this paper I just had to scrap a page... but I didn't stop at one, I did two!

First up was a pure scraplift of a layout I saw on pinterest... it was a 8x12 layout but I made it on 12x12.... simple but soooo lovely.

Second up was a page I also did for the SG Stars and Stripes crop... Love the combination of blue and gold on this page... and it worked so well with my photos too.

Definitely going to scrap some more layouts with this great paper.

Scrapbook Generations - Stars and Stripes Crop

The last weekend in July there was an online crop hosted by Scrapbook Generations called Stars and Stripes. I signed up and decided to do a few of the challenges. Thankfully we had till the 24th of August to get our layouts done, so I got a few pages created and posted in time.

First up was a challenge to use a banner on a page... well this one was in my to do list for a while,.. a scraplift of a page I saw on pinterest.

Then we had to make a layout using a sketch provided... this one came together so quickly and I got to use my new bunny paper I had bought that same weekend. I even made my little bunny stamp that I used on my page.

This was for a challenge where we just needed to create a double page... well what was more appropriate than using one of the SG Sketches and making a lovely "sweet" page.

Yet another page on which we were challenged to use one or more pinwheels... I chose another SG sketch and used 3.

At the end of the crop there were lucky draws for each of the challenges... and once again I was lucky enough to have my layout, Set Sail pulled... so I get some $$$ to go shopping in at Scrapbook Generation... yippee. See it pays off to scrap.