Paper Mixing Bowl - November Recipe

Can you believe that it is November already?  Wow!  It's the month of Aaron's and my birthdays... so we are busy planning and thinking about presents, parties, etc... never mind that there are exams too for him!!!

Other family happening... we got our piano back yesterday.... it went in at the beginning of October for a complete overhaul... got new felt, some new keys and I think strings plus a good polishing and tuning.  Aaron was so happy to have it back that he practiced last night before bed and again this morning. After his wobble last week of wanting to give up piano, he seems back on track.  It seems that he hits a stumble every time he has a difficult piece to learn.  This morning he played the piece with hardly a stumble... and definitely a smile!

With today being the first of the month, here is my layout for the new recipe at the Paper Mixing Bowl.

I had lots of fun (and dithering!) with this page.  I knew what I wanted to do but not exactly how to do it... and the end result wasn't quite what I wanted, but hey.... it's done.

I will be posting a tutorial in the next day or so on how I made my stencil and the frame for this page.

This is the recipe that we had to follow:

I went with the neutral colours... but did black & white instead of the brown.  Then I also recycled a coffee can lid to make my frame... made my own stencil and did misting and stamping on my background.  My "fibre" elements were done with wire.  I even stamped my title.

There are some amazing layouts to see on the blog this month, so head over there and check them out.

Nuts About Sketches - Week 237

I am a happy girl this week... after a week without my laptop and feeling rather cut off I got it back on Friday.  I spent most of the weekend reloading software on it... but that is the least of my worries... I am at least reconnected again!

BUT... always something right?.... last night we had a huge thunder and lightning storm that I couldn't upload anything to my blog.... so just a few hours late, here is my layout for this week's Nuts About Sketches reveal.

To accommodate my pics, I rotated the sketch and then tried to make a sort of owl with the background papers (do you think it worked?)

This owl was sitting up in our palm tree all day long... just minding his own business..... soooooooooo cute.

Here is the sketch for you to play with too:

Head on over to the blog this week too for lots more inspiration from the design team.

Nuts About Sketches - Week 236

I loved the sketch for this week at Nuts About Sketches.... a great page with lots of photos.

I used some Simple Stories papers for this page, and then added in some cogs for special effect.  It was a fun page to make.

This is the sketch that we had to work with:

Head on over to the blog to see the rest of the team's layouts for this week.

Scrapbook Challenges - Sketch 318

Last week my laptop decided to sort of give up the ghost... it wouldn't start!  So now I feel a bit like my right arm is cut off... I can use hubby's pc at home but it won't open my internet or email programs that I like to use.... and when i do do stuff, it all seems to disappear!!!  A real bummer.  So I am trying to do "private" stuff while at work... in between all the major work load that I have going on at the mo too.... busy busy.

So quick, while I have a break, here is my layout for this week's sketch at Scrapbook Challenges

This layout also included a few "fears" to overcome to take part in some of the challenges that are running this month.... I did stamping in paint and handwrote (with mistakes mind you!) the journalling.

This is the great sketch that we had to work with:

So head over to the forum and see the amazing inspiration from the Sketch Crew.  Then also find some challenges and have some fun.

Scrapbook Challenges - Sketch 317

I managed to scrap a few layouts last week... and get caught up on my Design Team commitments.  This is one layout that I managed to do:

The Sketch Crew have done the absolute amazing layouts this week based on the following sketches:

Now head over to the forum and see the rest of this week's layouts.

Nuts About Sketches - Week 235

Today's layout for Nuts About Sketches is all about my breakfast in bed that Aaron made for me for Mother's Day in May this year....

I tried to do a sort of "quilt" effect with the pattern papers.  Then instead of a circle as per the sketch, I used a heart... super cute, what?

Here is the awesome sketch:

Head over to the blog to see what the rest of the team did this week.

Happy Monday....

After a weekend of being off-line and feeling rather out of touch, my day got made this morning when I opened my email and saw that I had won!!!  What I hear you ask?  Well a free ticket to the Big Picture Classes' Boot Camp 2012.... super excited!!!

I won by entering a comment (or 4!) on Kim Bryns' blog last week...

and then out of the 100+ comments she drew MY name... yippee!!!!

So reckon I will be doing some serious training for the next few days.

Scrapbook Challenges - Sketch 316

A Monday means it's sketch day... this is my layout for today's Scrapbook Challenges sketch:

Dad had emailed me this picture when he got the car... and those were the words he used in the email... such a special memory (and now the car is mine!).

Here is the sketches for today:

As you might have notice, I rotated the sketch.... love being able to do that and getting a totally different look and feel for a page.


Head over to the forum to check out yet more inspiration.

Nuts About Sketches - Week 234

Today is the first day back to school of our final term for the year.... but actually it wasn't back to school as such as Aaron is off on a camp for the week.... he was super excited this morning... awake before my alarm went off at 5:30.... chasing me out of bed.  It was so sweet to see.... I just hope and pray that he enjoys every minute of it... I know I will miss him but am also looking forward to another week of peace and quiet!

BUT.... in amongst all this, I had a tooth out last week Tuesday and since Thursday have been in pain... more and more so over the weekend... went back to the doc this morning and got some stronger meds and booked off for two day, so hopefully will be much better by Wednesday.

With all that said, there is still lots of scrapping to do... and this week's sketch from Nuts About Sketches is a great one.  I used it for a layout about my Dad's last birthday... the last time I saw my Dad too.

This is the awesome sketch:

Check out the blog post for lots more inspiration from the Design Team... there are also some single page layouts to see.

As a side note, I used this layout for my entry in Scrapbook 'n Things' Scrapbook Challenge #8... again didn't win me anything but is one more layout done.

Guest blogging

I'm guest blogging over at Broken Treasures on Elizabeth's Feature a Friend Friday posts.... please please please go check it out.


I've blogged about how I organise my photos and my scrapping plan.