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.

One photo layout with your last pic taken

I saw a challenge on the Simply Project Life group on facebook to create a one photo layout with the last photo you took. Well this is what I made:

I posted this on instagram shortly after finishing it, but have tweaked it a bit since then. Discovered I forgot to share it here on my blog.

Off The Rails - Oct Tutorial - ReUse

I am sharing my tutorial today on how I created this page inspired by the moodboard and based on a Jowilna original layout.

The moodboard for this month has been all about reusing stuff.... let it inspire you too.

You can read all about my layout on the blog.

Sketch N Scrap - WCMD#4

We have been celebrating World Card Making Day as a whole MONTH over at Sketch n Scrap. There have been extra sketches every week and today it is time for the final one. Here is my example of this card.

I decided to make a masculine card this month as it was hubby's birthday last week. Blue is my favourite colour too so this card just made me very happy when making it.

Come join us on the blog and facebook and don't forget the online Pumpkin Spice crop happening too. You have till the end of the month to participate in any of the challenges and upload your layouts.

ScrapPlezier - Life Is Beautiful

It's been an eventful week in our family this past week... Aaron got made a prefect at school for next year and it was Keith's birthday on Thursday. I also managed to do some scrapping the last two days to catch up a bit on my DT commitments for November... especially as I am busy over the next two weeks with a scrapbooking event and my 50th birthday party that I am having. I am busy doing major planning and decor prep... so am juggling all sorts at the moment.

The nice thing is that I can still get some scrapping done and so share with you some new pages... like this one I made for ScrapPlezier based on a Jowilna original design.

I started this layout by choosing the Kaisercraft paper to determine the overall colours. I didn't want anything too bright so went with the pastel shade as my base and then added the strip of florals. Picking up on the colours in the papers I applied some selective stamping and paint splats in a few areas. Once these were dry, the matted photos were stuck down and then I went hunting for a quote to tie in with my photos. For some layouts where you don't really want to journal, a quote is a nice way to say something without being over the top. My final touches were the stitching, some stickers and buttons. And then I started dithering on the title... it took me nearly three hours to decide on how to title my layout - from diecutting to stickers and finally found three different stamps that worked together perfectly. Some pages just work easily and some take time. Never let the hurdles keep you from finishing a page... put it to one side and come back when you can think freshly again.

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