I'm having a sale

Having swopped to digital scrapping in 2019, i haven't touched my paper scrapping supplies since then. I've finally decided it is not time to have a clear out.... so it's on  sale

Head to my CathQuillScrap facebook page to find all the details.

Mini-Album

 With not paper scrapping anymore but still having tons of stash, I decided to turn some of it into a minialbum. I joined a facebook group called Paper, Scissors, Story and then found a great tutorial by the owner Cal Summers to follow. I did make a few changes here and there to make it my own.

You can see a flip through of the nearly completed album on my youtube channel

https://youtu.be/BB9PjVxoPk8

Wrapping up 2020 in stats

This year has come to an end much like any others but with a few added twists... like being back in Lockdown Level 3 for New Year's. Well one of the benefits of the Covid-19 lockdown is being able to stay home without feeling guilty. I've managed to get tons done this holiday season too which makes me feel accomplished.

Over the last few weeks I've sewed new lounge, diningroom and bedroom curtains, as well as made 4 blouses, altered a dress into a t-shirt and made 2 pairs of pants.

This year held lots of other achievements too for me as well as the family:

Aaron got his matric results in January and though it wasn't the results we were hoping for, it's been a blessing having him home all year. He started on his journey to become a pilot and has been flying every month since June (at least once a month). He has built up 14.8 hours so far. Also, he has been learning to drive this year... hopefully will get his license within the next month.

Keith had a good year I think. He spent the full lockdown at home (6 weeks) but went back to work fulltime in May. He has thankfully stayed healthy (besides a 24hour sinus infection in June) and hasn't really been affected by the Covid pandemic. A few work colleagues  did get the virus but they were quick on isolating them and warning the staff. He finished the year with lots of pottering around in the garden over this holiday.

For me workwise I worked from home throughout the full lockdown and from May was only going in to work one day a week. In September we went back fulltime. We've had a few cases at work too. The office got closed for the day for thorough cleaning and once safe we returned. I also had that same infection Keith had back in June and spent the weekend feeling sick... stayed away from everyone! To keep myself sane throughout the year I've tackled quite a few of my usual crafts and also read lots. Here's just a few of my stats:

Books read: 48 - I made my Goodreads reading challenge goal for the year.

Paper layouts scrapped: 12 single & 4 double = 20 pages

Digital pages scrapped: 411 single & 6 double = 423 pages

For the first year EVER I reached my goal of a page a day.... and actually exceed it too! I scrapped a total of 433 layouts this year which equates to 443 pages! So very pleased. Guess doing digital scrapping has a great benefit! I definitely won't be printing all those pages, only a select few once my books are done.

I have been on 6 different digital design teams this year... these have accounted for lots of the layouts I made this year. A big thank you to each of the ladies who took a chance on this novice and had me on their team.

And so as 2020 comes to an end, I wish for you and yours a peaceful New Year's celebration and all the joys of being with family throughout the next year. God bless you and keep you. May He lead you on the new path that lies ahead.

Finishing off my paper scrapping

 I've been saying it for the last year at least, I've run out of shelf space to store my paper layouts hence why I switched to digital scrapping this year. But that doesn't mean that my paper layouts were all done yet... I still had a few needing to be finished to complete my last few albums for 2015 and 2016.

I've spent the last few weeks of this year finishing off these albums and getting things organised. Now I can share the last few pages:

and for my 2016 album I've done the last three layouts too but still need the photos printed. I will only be able to do this in the New Year as the photo shop got hit with Covid-19 and is closed till then.

I also finished a few layouts in September when I was on leave but just realised I never actually shared them.  I actually hadn't even photographed them before filing so had to get them out the album to do that.

These three (2014-2016) albums are now complete. I did go through my whole catalog from 2001  up to 2016 and found a few more layouts that still need doing so as much as I thought my paper scrapping days were done, it looks like I might be carrying on for a few more. I think there are 4 outstanding unless I discover a few more in my hunt for photos.

Once these last few are finished I will sort our my huge stash and sell off bits of it. I think I will keep some well loved bit that I am sure I will turn to when I feel like playing again.

Just some fun stats - I have now created 2367 paper layouts since I started scrapping back in 2003.... no wonder I've run out of space!!!

Scrapping with Jow

 Boy oh boy it's been MONTHS since I had a scrap class with Jowilna... way back in January. Covid-19 definitely put a stop to classes and such, but also my digital scrapping has taken over so I haven't even touched my paper supplies since then either. When I was invited to a special class I jumped at the opportunity.

We all scrapped with our own stash this time but did the sketch and techniques provided.... I didn't finish my layout in the class (too much chatting) so finished it today instead. Simply love how my layout turned out.

That is one more crossed off of my still to be completed layouts... hoping to get the last few finished this week when I am on leave.

Wrapping up 2019

As I think back on "the year that was" I can remember that there were some "bad times" but on the whole I have a sense of peace and contentment that the year was "good". So here are just a few of my thoughts on the year:

Healthwise, there weren't any funnies that I remember....ie no trips to hospital and such. Thank you Lord for good health.

I managed to read lots this year... I had set myself a reading challenge of 45 books and have actually managed to finish 54!

It might not have been the ideal matric year that I wanted for my son, but we have survived and are now just awaiting his results. He had an enjoyable matric farewell, his exams went off without a glitch (that I know of) and neither of us killed each other in the process, though there were days when it was a bit strained. We are looking forward to next year's adventure for Varsity.

Scrapping has been different this year. Though I've served on 6 different teams during this year (plus two for quilling) I don't think I've scrapped nearly as much as last year. I definitely didn't go to class as much and got through my DT work quicker that other years so I had more time to focus on other things. I have also made more of a switch to digi scrapping since Oct2019 and am thoroughly enjoying that at the moment.... which has led to some DT work there too now for Dec and some for next year.

Here's some of my scrapping stats:
Single Layouts: 166
Double Layouts: 38
Total Layouts scrapped:204
No of pages scrapped: 242
No of digi layouts: 122 (which is more than half of my total scrapping for the year!)

I still have around 15 or so planned paper scrapping layouts to finish to finalise my 2014, 2015 and 2016 albums. Hopefully I will get them done within the first few months of next year. Then I will do a major stash sale and concentrate more on the digi side of scrapping.

I've had Aaron scan some of my film negatives over the last few weeks, so will be hauling out some old memories too in my scrapping just for fun.

For the rest of the year that was, well it's now a distant memory that will get rehashed in scrapbook layouts and then I guess I will remember what we did when.

Being inspired by Jowilna

On Saturday I dug out some of my photos that needed scrapping and packed myself some kits to make it a bit quicker. That evening I started three layout which I finished on Sunday. Then on Monday I attended class with Jow (haven't been since March I think!) and managed to do another page. So here are my four pages all inspired by Jowilna's design work:

Each page that I did is from notes of Jowilna's but with subtle little changes that make them mine (mainly as I am too lazy to do some of the finecky things or don't have the stuff in my stash!). I must still add journalling to two of these but for now they are done.

I am hoping at this stage to do another class with Jow on Saturday and get some single pages done.

Ending off 2018 scrapping

I am sooooooo proud of myself for my scrapping goals this year.... I have scrapped lots (even got all my January 2019 commitments done before Christmas!). Here's one of the last pages I made which was just for fun:

This is a scraplift of a Jowilna orignal page. I used the newish Crafty Girl line from Simple Stories.... love the colours in this one. Just kept the layout fairly close to the original and used lots of stickers in place of some of the embellishments Jow had used.

Now on to some stats on my scrapping:
Total single layouts done: 180
Total double layouts done: 83
Total number of layouts done: 263
this means that I have done 346 pages... that is the MOST layouts and MOST pages I have scrapped in one year and the closest I have ever come to my goal of a page a day! Yes it is largely down to doing the whole of my 2017 album digitally in January this year (69 layouts) and making a start on my 2018 album too... but the majority of the rest of these pages is physical scrapping. I think there are only 3 that need to get photos stuck on to them.

So now what's going to happen with my scrapping in 2019? Well I am on six design teams and so have lots of commitments for next year that will keep me going. Plus I have my 2018 album to do in the project life app.... so I will still be doing lots of scrapping next year!

iNSD with The Cut Shoppe

The 5th of May was {inter}National Scrapbooking Day and lots of blogs were having online challenges and crops. I decided to try my had at a few but then scaled down and only did one. I ran out of time really. Anyway here's my entries for the challenges held by The Cut Shoppe:

I used the polaroid cutfilefor this and backed it with lots and lots of scraps from Simple Stories. It all got inspired by a journal card on the Simple Stories paper which I ended up cutting out for the bottom corner. This is also for a product challenge at Scrapbook Generations.

It might not show up tooo well in this photo but I stitched a straight line through each row of hearts to hold them down. I then added some pink and red ink before stamping my quote and added the inked chipboard title. I used a few hearts from the center of the cutfile as well and then added some bling.

I loved the title cutfile and decided that bunny pics would be perfect for this. I also used the colour scheme from the challenge at Scrapbook Generations.

I started with the sketch and celebrate challenge for Sketch N Scrap for my page and then added the challenge from Scrapbook Generation where I had to used certain products. Managed to tick all the boxes on this one. For the cutfile challenge, I offset the words to make a matt. I inked the actual words with Brilliance silver ink.

I am happy that I managed to get these layouts done. It also got me to use some of my stash and play a bit with my curio machine and cutfiles.

As you can see, I am also entering some of these layouts in other challenges at Sketch N Scrap and Scrapbook Generations as well. Posts about those challenges will be coming up towards the end of the month. It's going to be a busy scrapping month ahead!

January scrapping tally

Soooooo I reckon you guessed from all my posts in the last while that I did a LOT of scrapping in January.... in fact that is almost an understatement. I did a HUMONGOUS amount... here's the stats:

23 double layouts +  71 single layouts = 117 pages scrapped.

Yes I did do a lot of them digitally as I scrapped my whole 2017 album.... that accounts for 78 pages... which still means that there were 39 paper pages created.... a lot of scrapping!

I usually only manage to get to around 100 pages in July. So to already be that far along there is hope that I might actually make my 365 page goal this year. Let's see how things pan out.

Here are a few pages that I haven't yet shared:

I made this for the Blind Scrap challenge as part of the Stick It Down weekend crop.

This next page I made at the beginning of January when Judi came and scrapped with me for the day:

As I am currently on 5 different design teams I know that there will still be 8 or so layouts made each month.... so for now I am heading for my happy place to tackle another one.

SA National Scrapbook Day - report back

Last week Saturday I attended the Randburg SA NSD event and had a FANTABULOUSLY productive day.... I got to scrap 10 layouts from start to finish.

All these pages are from my 2014 album... definitely making inroads into that long to do list of planned pages.

A lot of people were surprised that I got so many layouts done in that one day.... well here's my little secret.... the 6 P rule...

Proper Planning Prevents Pretty Poor Performance

This is something that one of my computer lecturers drummed into us every lesson and has stuck.

I planned all my layouts to do on the day.... chose ones that didn't have any techniques, used simple sketches and packed each page as a kit... from papers to stickers and embellishments, even stamps or lettering stickers. Yes they are not fancy or over embellished, but they are done, photographed and filed. Ten less layouts to do for that album!

So go and plan a page, pack a kit and have some scrapping fun.

Happily scrapping out the year

It's the last day of the year and I've done LOTS of scrapping this year. In fact my stats are:

60 pages inspired by Jowilna
22 for Let's Scrap Sketches
32 for ScrapPlezier
9 for Stick It Down
2 for Off the Rails Scrapbooking
2 for Let's Get Sketchy
and a whole bunch for other online crops too.

In total I scrapped 196 layouts = 99 doubles and 97 singles... which translates to 295 pages.... that's a lot of scrapping! Not nearly at a layout a day goal standard yet, but definitely getting close. Now I need to file most of those too!

Not to forget I also made over 120 cards, 11 calendars and a whole host of quilling creature too. I think it's been a busy and successful year, don't you?

My most successful month scrapping was in July. December was also a good month with over 39 pages (27 layouts) done... and that's with Christmas and a week of family visits as well. Not too bad I say.

 Here are a few of the pages I've managed to finish during this past month:

Did you see where I spilled my walnut ink on this page in the bottom corner? I nearly cried and then thought what the heck and made it part of the design... yip mistakes happen! I am also proud of myself for trying something new on this page... I've had my Curio machine for two years now and this is the first time I used my sketch pens... I found some fishy clipart and turned them into sketches for my page.

I used up some very old stash of stickers on this page as well as some stamping.

All these papers are based on Jowilna original layout designs.

Thanks for following along with my blog and scrapping for this past year and here's looking forward to a whole bunch of the same in the New Year.

Catch-up on my scrapping

I did a whole host of scrapping in August and a few pages in September but quite a lot of them needed photos. I then spied a special on at Q-Photo at the end of September (thanks to Michelle van Wyk sharing it on facebook) and managed to get some photos printed so have now gotten my layouts completed.... ie I eventually got my PhD (Pages Half Done!) hehe.

I did two of the sketches from Scrap and Sell SA on Facebook:

Whilst playing with this collection for ScrapPlezier, I decided I loved it so much that I had to use it again and so did a sketch from Scrapbook Generations

During September I took part in the "back to school" online crop from Sketch 'n Scrap and managed to complete this layout for their one challenge.

Lastly I finished scrapping my 2011 album by finding a photo to fill in the space that I had. This layout was inspired from one I saw on pinterest.

Now that I am more or less up to date with sharing, best I get making again... got quite a few other layouts planned now that I have photos printed.