Pleasant Words

Here's my September art journal challenge for Blue Bazaar. I'm not sure if it is finished yet.


Pleasant words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.

Proverbs 16:24

Clearing the Backlog

Please note: Long post with multifarious (I just wanted to use that word!) creations.

I have photos of quite a few creations from the last few weeks (or maybe months). So I am going to share them with you right now.

Let's see. Where shall I start?

Have I shown you this before?
Susannah did this one way back when I first got my Portfolio Water Soluble Oil Pastels.



Hudson has been on a drawing and writing spree lately. Here are some of his renditions.



And this one. SO cute.



Caitlin has waxed creative with Hudson's blocks in the last few days.



Then there's Caitlin's culinary creations.
Caitlin looks at food and thinks up all sorts of ideas in the same way as I look at paper, paint and all things stationery (and otherwise) and can imagine what I would do with it. Common Caitlin words "I wonder what it would taste/look like if..."
Here's what it looks like when you melt carob in one jug and white chocolate (the Sweet William one) in another and then combine them using a teaspoon and a toothpick.


If Caitlin can't cook with food then she will cook with whatever is on hand.




Speaking of play dough...
Here are the boys hard at work.




And here are some play dough renditions of China's Terracotta Warriors.




That's all for now. I know that there are more drawings and other creations that haven't been photographed. I shall rectify that shortcoming soon.

One from way back

Photos from July. Scrapped in August. You get it in September.

When Kelly visited us we had a great time being Sydney Tourists. Here's a layout of our day at Kurnell. I decided to scraplift myself.


And here's a close up so that you can see the subtle white on white of the butterflies.


Speaking of white on white... I'll show you in October.

Mol-uh-skeen-uh

Mol-uh-skeen-uh! I love saying it like that. It's gives me a simple thrill. I said it to the lady in Myer and she "corrected" me. Ha ha ha! "Mole skin" she said, very solemnly. She probably went home and told her hubby that there was this weird lady who asked for a mol-uh-skeen-uh. Gotta laugh!

Henyway. Here's my latest addition. Inspired by Dina Wakley (as per usual)


and a bit of Bollywoodness.

The Nine Of Us

at nine minutes and nine seconds past nine o'clock on the 9th day of the 9th Month in the year two thousand and nine.
Just had to do it!
We had time for one take. This is it.

Happy Birthday Kelly

Even as it was, we celebrated Kelly's birthday a few days late. Kelly was in NZ with friends and she was sick on her birthday :( so we took the opportunity of her visit, her health and the proximity of the time to her birthday as a really good excuse to have a cake and sing Happy Birthday to her. That was in July.

Finally, I have scrapbooked the photo using Ngaire's class at CPR as the catalyst to get it done.


Whaddayareckon?
It's different. It's fun. Especially the beading. Oh yeah! That was fun!
And the heart in the window thingy - that was done by Peg. Thanks Peg. :)

Best Dad Ever!

Yes. I have the best Dad ever! Happy Father's day, Dad. Hope you enjoy that little book I gave you.


And my kids have the best Dad ever! This is the prize ribbon that Susannah made on behalf of the kids using the wet and scrunch method (thanks Jill!)

Update:
Here's a photo for ya.


Lately, Reuben has been creating with a video camera and the software that comes with it. Below is his Father's Day gift to his Dad. So cute!!!



In the words of Paul in Galatians 1:3-5,

Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

An Oldie but a Goodie

I had planned to use this photo for the layout class that Jill taught at the CPR...


...just to make sure that the boys didn't feel unequally treated with my scrapbooking attention. It would've been perfect if I could've run a few PhotoShop actions over it, toned it down, mussed it up a bit, or even made it black and white. But no. I couldn't.

It just so happened that I bunged into my stuff a few photos that were just sitting on my desk. And it also just so happened that one of those photos was just right. So a photo of Sophie-Lee circa 2006 did the job. I've already scrapped it before, BB (Before Blogging). See?


Remember the A to Z album competition?

Hennyway.
Here is how it fits into this technique-filled layout designed and taught by the lovely Jilly GG.


Now can I just say that I lay awake for a little while in the middle of the night (full moon does that to me) and wrote a fabulously entertaining blog post in my head. Well this is not it! You knew that, right?!

But I was remembering Kerrin Quall. Do you remember Kerrin Quall? She was one of my first scrapbooking heroes. Besides Meredith Harmer and Maxine Hazebroek. Well, anyway, Kerrin said that buttons were for sewing onto things and I believed her and sewed my buttons on to layouts. And I spent hours doing wonderful hand stitching on layouts just like Kerrin did. Check out some of Kerrin's A.mazing hand stitched creations HERE.

Can you see where I'm heading? I'm over it. Mini Glue Dots do a great job. I decided to hang the hand stitching for this layout and just get it finished.

That being said. I think I might just add some hand stitching to some layouts soon. I do like the pasttime, and the finished look. Interesting, cos I just read that Jill thinks she might start doing some more hand stitching. Great minds.....

That's possibly where our creative similarity ends. Jill can look at a bunch of products and see the vast possibilities. I look at them and I'm stumped. I don't even think the stuff goes together. That's why Jill is on Design Teams and I do her classes!

Ok. Enough rambling.

Before I go. Here are some layouts with hand stitching goodness (read madness) bestowed upon them.









Hey look at this. I have scrapped this photo twice before!!!

Butterflies through the window

This was the first thing I did at the CPR. I bought it as a kit from Loretta Grayson from HERE and it was just the thing to get me into a creative mood - I just had to follow instructions. :) Which, as you can see, I did. And then some.

Now it is ready to hang on one of the many ill-placed hooks in this house. :)

I DO scrapbook occasionally!

Here's the evidence.

These are the two challenge layouts I did at the Country Paperarts Retreat a couple of weekends ago.


When I saw this quote "If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours." on the wall at the gym recently, I tucked it away in my mind for further reference. I think this cute smile from Declan newly missing a tooth (it was wobbly and was knocked out by a basket ball) was the perfect picture for the quote.

I just love the colours of Basic Grey Lime Rickey - which is what I mostly used for that layout.




The papers in this challenge pack were indeed challenging. They were mostly very bright. Check out THESE layouts for an idea of the colours. Somehow I picked the least bright pieces and managed to tone them all down with a whole lot of pinecone ink and now they ain't bright at all.

So there you go.