Simply Project Life Challenges

I am doing my 2018 album digitally - like my 2017 one. It was a fun experience last year and getting a whole year in one book is definitely a space saver.

Sooooo with this in mind I am looking for help and inspiration in lots of places. One of these is the facebook group Simply Project Life. All layouts here are made totally in the Project Life App. This is great as I can scrap wherever I am and am not tied to being at home in my scraproom. Everything is mobile!

These two layouts were created today... one whilst at work (shhh!!) and the other whilst waiting for supper to cook.

The inspiration for these layouts is also from the Document December challenge (#docdec18) that the group is holding... each day a new challenge is made to use a different type of filler card.

Challenge 2 - Polka

Challenge 6 - Florals

I did a third layout too whilst waiting for Aaron at school this afternoon but still need to journal on it. This is for Challenge 3 - Stripes. Hopefully will have it done shortly.

I hope to get lots more layouts done in the next month or so too.

Stick It Down - officially

Today the announcement has been made for the new term for our Double Page DT... yes I am staying on for another term - Jan to June 2019

I really do enjoy creating with these wonderful girls. No stress & no fuss.

Come and play along with us too.... read here to see who else is on the double team.

ScrapPlezier - Glow

After all the birthday celebrations last week, things have sort of quieted down. Aaron is still busy with his last few exams and I spent yesterday running around getting my car sorted (aircon and brake lights). I am also looking forward (sort of!) to our work end of year function on Friday... doing a game drive.

But before any of those things get finished, I still have scrapping that needs doing. This layout is one of those I created this past week:

I treated myself with some of my birthday money to a new Kaisercraft stamp set - Scrap Studio. So having a new "toy" I thought I'd use it. I used the filmstrip, dots and sentiment from the stamps on my layout. I've also added an inked and embossed piece as well as stitching, buttons, stickers and splats. Even the pattern paper is from leftover stash...great to combine the old with the new.

Head on over to the blog to see some more details and inspiration.

Turning 50

Today is my 50th birthday. It's been a wonderful day filled with love and celebration. I have been truly blessed by all my family and friends with birthday messages, gifts and more.

My day started with Keith and Aaron spoiling me at breakfast with cards and gift vouchers plus a new book to read. Aaron also made my first cup of coffee for me in my new mug which he said I could only use today as it says "fantastic 50 today" on it. So I have had cup after cup of coffee today in this mug only! (Thank you to Ilse for this wonderful gift)

My day progressed to spending the morning at work. I got choccies from Moira and then later the company spoilt me with more chocolate plus coffee and a hug balloon.

After work I picked up Mom and then we went to collect Aaron from school before heading to Wimpy for milkshakes. Mom and I both had the berry shake... Delicious!

The final celebration today was my brother Gavin and nephew Justin coming for supper. But not just a typical family supper.... No! In fact, Gavin cooked! He was my own personal chef for the evening. Yes we just had a simple meal... Sticky sesame chicken with noodles... But I didn't have to think it, shop it, or buy it... Nor wash up afterwards either... Delegated that to Keith & Aaron.

I am so blessed to have such a loving family and so many caring friends. A huge thank you to everyone who has made my day special.

Just remembered some anecdotes from my day too that I don't want to forget:
1. Aaron telling me that he can't believe that I am now 1 Decade old .... Hehe nope says I, that's 5 Decades! He nearly said 1 Century.... Yikes!
2. Opening the curtains at 6am and finding my car still parked outside.... I obviously forget to put it in the garage on Monday afternoon in my hurry to get baking. Left the keys in the ignition and the window open. Ended up with a little puddle on the door from the early morning drizzle.
3. Very thankful for the cooler temperature and drizzle on and off through the day.... A big relief from the intense heat of the last week.

And lastly: Words can't express my gratefulness to each and every one of my friends and family who helped me celebrate my 50th. ..... From all the little messages, whatsapps, phonecalls and facebook or instagram "likes", to being with me at my party or spending time with me yesterday..... THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart and big hugs to each of you. 😘😘😘

#mybirthday #nowIam50

Off The Rails - Nov Moodboard - BoHo

It's time to share again for Off the Rails... this time a little moodboard inspiration:

The moodboard is all about Boho... not really something I am into so this was a stretch for me. I found inspiration in the colours and the "girly" bits and so did a layout about my friends. This layout is based on a Jowilna original from a few years back.

I used two different punches on my papers which lends themselves to a lacy feel from the moodboard. Did some coffee stain stamping and then also added twine, brads and stitching. Lots of little details.

Come play along with us on the blog and get some more inspiration from the team.

ScrapPlezier - Beautiful Day

I am sharing another layout with you today... this one for ScrapPlezier.

When I sat down to scrap these photos I almost hit a scrapping block... it was so hard to make the layout "work". So I turned to my favourite place for inspiration of any kind ... Pinterest. I had already decided on the paper I wanted to use, an old sheet of Prima called Lady Bird. So I simply searched for layouts using that paper, watched a process video and bingo... inspiration hit. So here's what I did to create my page:

I cut the title word off the top right corner of the paper and cut out the tree branches from the bottom left corner. The piece that was left I cut into a large circle and used the reverse side which is grey with tiny blue dots.
So after sticking the circle to my page I mixed some Turquoise all purpose ink into some glossy texture paste and applied this to the page through a circle stencil.
Once dry I used a coffee stain stencil with walnut distress ink to leave coffee marks all over my page.... I might have gone a tad overboard but in the end I was actually happy with the effect.
I then mounted and stuck down my photos and added the banners at the top of the page with some yellow stitching to pick up the yellow in the roses and on the title strip.
I mounted both the title strip and the bird on foam for extra dimension.

So my tip this week for you is that when your scrapping mojo takes a holiday, get inspiration from a piece of paper and pinterest... you will be amazed at what you can create

Head on over to the blog to see some more details and inspiration.

Let's Scrap Sketches - 15 Nov

Boy oh Boy but this heatwave is extreme.... I definitely don't like the HOT weather... much prefer it to be cooler. But am very thankful for the little shower of rain we had last night... very refreshing. Hopefully by next week things will cool off a little.

My brain doesn't work so well in this heat either so it's hard to get motivated to do anything. Thankfully I got scrapping done last weekend for my DT commitments. Here is my layout for Let's Scrap:

We worked with the great sketch below.I used some oldish Echo Park papers for my page and decided that the paper with all the banners on it was perfect for the flap representation.

Visit the blog for lots more inspiration from the Design Team.

ScrapPlezier - Nov Moodboard

It's been a much quieter week this past week after all the fun of my party last weekend. I feel a little more "normal"... hehehe. I even managed to get some scrapping done during the week.

When I saw this moodboard I just knew I wanted to scrap these pics of Aaron and his bunny... his green shirt lends itself to the colours. I used a few bits from the Kaisercraft Mint Wishes collection and some other green papers as well. I also used a barcode strip from the Stargazers collection as the blue went so well. There is lots of stamping and inking on my layout as well as a little sewing. This whole layout is based on a Jowilna original page from a few years back.

Come join the fun and be inspired over on the blog.

Sketch N Scrap - Bountiful Blessings - Challenge 2

It's time again for me to share my card for the new online crop for Sketch N Scrap... come play along with us all month.

I've made a birthday card for my son Aaron who's birthday it is in two weeks time.

I dug out some lovely striped paper that has always been a favourite of mine. The back has the stars on it so I used a strip of that too. Then I found the sentiment sticker in my box of stash which worked perfectly with the blue colour. So to round off the theme I found a cake stamp and using my blue Versafine Clair ink, stamped the cake onto red cardstock. I then cut it out and stuck it on my card with some foam squares.

Here is the sketch for this challenge

So come play along and join the fun. Also remember there are lots more challenges plus the sketches every week on the blog.

Stick It Down - Nov Double

It's been a busy weekend as you've no doubt read about yesterday. So today I was "recuperating"with a different sort of busyness at work... getting slightly frustrated with a certain project... but will get on top of it within the next few days.When work gets to be too stressful I can always turn to my scrapping to relieve some of that stress. Or even with the stress of the party I was also able to scrap and made this layout last week:

The funny thing was that when I was planning this layout I saw all the memories of this incident on facebook... so two years on I finally scrapped about how dangerous (and costly!) making coffee can be!

Here is the lovely sketch we are working from this month:

Be sure to check out some more inspiration on the blog and enter your layout for a chance to win a prize or Guest Designer spot.

My 50th birthday celebration

As I am turning the big 50 in a few weeks time, I decided to throw myself a birthday party and spoil myself a little with having my friends all together in one spot.

I know I've mentioned in a few blog posts the past few weeks about making all sorts of stuff for this day and stressing.... well I can now report that it all got done and my party was a great success. This is how I decorated for my party on a very slim budget... recycling scrapbooking leftovers into wonderful decor items.

I made these flowers and put them in painted tins as the table centres. Each friend was given a flower (or three) as a thank you for coming.

I scrounged through all the photo albums and found pictures of me as close to my birthday each year (there were some that were harder to find than others).... These then I labeled with my age and printed onto copy paper. Once cut out I stuck each one onto a piece of card and then sewed them all onto ribbon. (This was inspired by an idea on pinterest)

Below the photo banner I had some tins with the words Happy Birthday and a few extra flowers.

Here is the full refreshment table to show how it looked. I also printed the poster on the right and displayed that in an old frame.

My very yummy cake... I've been wanting a chocolate overloaded cake for a few years and this year I made it happen! My Mom baked me a Coffee & Walnut cake and iced it with coffee icing. I then applied a chocolate ganache to the top and added loads more choccies on top... was very very yummy.

This backdrop is made up of lots and lots of punched and diecut circles sewn together on my machine and then pinned to a photography backdrop. They gave us a bit of grief getting them all untangled when we started putting them up.

And now on to the photos of my very special family and friends who came to join the celebration.

I was rather exhausted after all the tidying up and the light wasn't very good for taking pics whilst opening pressies last night, so Aaron took this one of me with all my stash in one shot... I got thoroughly spoilt:

Now I'm going to make a cuppa coffee and relax for the rest of the day.

Sketch N Scrap - Nov 1 sketch

Phew it's been a busy few weeks with all my birthday party prep. Yes I threw myself a birthday party yesterday to celebrate my 50th which is coming up in a few weeks. So in amongst everything I still had to do some scrapping. Here is one of the pages I made admist all that craziness:

For my page I found a maple leaf cutfule from Nicole Nowosad which worked perfectly for my page. Once cut I inked them and then drew some lines all around for definition.

Check out this gorgeous sketch that I worked from.

Remember to join us on the blog and on the facebook page.

Let's Scrap Sketches - 1 Nov

This month we have a beautiful sketch but I decided to only do the one side to allow me to use these photos.

I choose to scrap in all the colours of the jersey that I made... yes very bright and garish but actually it works! Just to dull things down a little I put it all on a white backing and used white for my journalling and title.

Visit the blog for lots more inspiration from the Design Team.

Lets Get Sketchy - 1 Nov

It's November and that means it's birthday month for me... I am knee deep in party planning at the moment.... it all comes together on Saturday at my party.... eeck got to get cracking on the last few things needing to be done. I have managed to squeeze some scrapping in over the last few weeks so can happily show you this one today:

I used lots of things out of my "leftovers" stash... papers in colours that I love, hearts that were previously diecut or left over from kits and of course some little flowers. I also added some stamped splats and then stickers for my title.

Visit the blog and see loads more inspiration from the design team.