Sneaking Up On My Creativity

Just after I thought I wouldn't get another layout done for Crop Bootcamp at Blue Bazaar - I did!!! And it came together so easily with my Basic Grey Lime Rickey Collection Pack.

Here he is... Malachi.


The lighting was right. DH put him in just the right spot and I clicked the button. A joint effort and a great photo of "one who looks like me" - so I was told yesterday at our homeschooling picnic.

Like I said, I used Basic Grey Lime Rickey - everything. The little strips of colour were from the cover sheet of the collection pack. :)

Lovin' the Colours

Sometimes I am almost overwhelmed by the beauty of colour and colour combinations!

I bought myself a cabbage the other day (I couldn't resist) because it is just so beautiful.


Look at those colours! Wowsies!!!

While I was looking at info about the Quilt and Craft Fair I came across this fabulous creation...


... and ATASDA (Australian Textile Arts & Surface Design Association Inc - thank goodness for acronyms!). See if you can find a gallery and check out some the A.MAZING creations there.

Hennyway. All that colour mingled with my need for creative therapy on Friday night and...

Voila!


and a close up...



That's all for now. :)

Zan

When Susannah was little (like 18 months old or maybe even younger) she used to say "Me and Zan...". So she would say "Me and Zan are going outside." or "Me and Zan are playing with play dough." Zan became Susannah's nickname. It hasn't stuck firm but it is still there, waiting for a revival at any time.

Hennyway. I've done a layout about Zan at 13 years old. I couldn't fit everything onto the little space that I allowed myself :(

Susannah enjoys reading action adventure fantasy stories. When it comes to computers Su is a bit of addicted to Clusterz and is trying to get past level 19. Sketchfu is a bit of a hit for drawing on the 'puter plus she likes watching Storm Hawks on YouTube.
Purple and blue are Susannah's favourite colours and her fave foods are chips and chocolate!!! Her favourite meal currently is boule de poule (* as we call it), but then I reminded her about bolognese!
If Su has to pick a favourite academic subject it is definitely maths.
Susannah plays the piano beautifully and is having cello lessons at the moment. She would be playing soccer too except that out of about 9 soccer clubs in the area, not one of them had a 14yo girls team that could fit another person. This makes Susannah sad. :( Susannah helps coach the Marton Hammers 10E team (the team that Caitlin and Mal are on) with her Dad.

*
Boules de Poulet - one of the many failsafe chicken recipes I have made up.

Serves 8-10 people

1kg chicken mince
1 cup cooked rice
2 sticks celery chopped
and/or one large clove garlic
5 shallots finely chopped
2 tbsp parsley finely chopped
1 tsp sea salt
1 tsp sugar
Rice crumbs
Cooking oil spray

Preheat oven to 180°C.
Place rice, celery, shallots/garlic, sugar and salt in food processor and process.
Add rice mixture and finely chopped parsley to chicken and mix in thoroughly.
Make balls out of mixture and roll in rice crumbs. Place in a single layer on a baking tray, spray with oil and bake until cooked through and golden brown.

Yummo!

Serve with your favourite failsafe vegetables and topped with your favourite failsafe sauce.

Products: Creative Imaginations Melonberry and Basic Grey Oh Baby; Thickers; Flowers - Prima, Bella, Green Tara and others; Versacube Scarlet; Adirondack Red Pepper; KAISERscrapbook pearls and rhinestones; Zig Millennium Pen; Unipin Fine Line Pen.

In a league of her own

My art room is right next to the dining room table. The kids come and go, get inspired, grab a piece of paper, or some paint or whatever from time to time. And occasionally they ask if they can scrapbook. Generally I say yes. :)

This last lot of scrapbooking started with Caitlin asking if she could do a page. She browsed My Pictures until she found a cute photo of herself from 2002. I printed it for her and left her completely to it.

This is the result.


Today, because all the other kids were scrapbooking, Caitlin was happy to join in again. She chose a photo of Reuben from 2002. Again I left her to it.



Obviously she got some inspiration from me, but she totally did it all herself. How cool is that!?!

Kids Scrapbooking

Because Caitlin scrapbooked yesterday, the rest of the kids wanted to scrapbook too. They chose their photos. Declan Photoshopped his (with a bit of help from Caitlin) and then of course, Hudson wanted to Photoshop his.

These layouts are completely the ideas of their creators. The colour choices, the embellishments, the titles - everything. I love watching kids scrapbook - they know exactly what they want to do and they are always completely happy with the results - no matter what.

Not just my kids either. I have done scrapbooking classes for kids (with a lot more direction, I might add!) when I had the shop and it was just as much fun with anyone else's kids as well. I am looking forward to doing some scrapbooking classes in the school holidays.

You might be wondering where Caitlin is. I've decided to do a separate post for her.

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Potatoes!

When Hudson asked if he could play potatoes it took me just a little while to work out that he was talking about play dough. So cute!

Here is Hudson a few days ago very carefully decorating some square biscuits he had cut out.

Products: Paper - Foof-a-la, Crate Paper; Sassafras Lass cardstock sticker - fortunately I tried it out straight enough and in a usable spot cos it stuck!!! I hadn't even inked the edges. Note to self: Once stuck down - it's down for good: Basic Grey Infuse Mini Monograms and Die Shapes - I'm not into die cuts - I'm a bit too particular about the little pimply bits that get left behind. Hennyway.

Want a good recipe for play dough?

We don't put colouring in ours :( cos we try to keep all those things to a very bare minimum, but you can if you want. You could also try glitter. This recipe lasts for absolute yonkers if you keep it in a plastic bag in the fridge. Truly, we've had ours for over a year and it is still going strong - no smell, not dry. Great!

Here it is...
2 cups of plain flour
4 tablespoons of 'cream of tartar'
2 tablespoons of cooking oil
1 cup of salt
2 cups of boiling water

Just mix it all together - no cooking. Fabuloso!

Michelin Mal

How firmly do ads sit in our memories!?!
As soon as I saw Mal all dressed up I thought of Michelin Man.


What happens when you are wearing a fancy dress surgeon outfit stuffed full of dressing up clothes and you fall over on the polished floor?
Well you can't get up so you slip and slide all over the place. Great fun!!!

Products: Mustard Moon Harvest Paisley and Turquoise Red Dot; Pink Paislee Office Lingo; Basic Grey Mini Monogram Stickers; UniPin fine line pen; VersaCube Pinecone; Hey, and I used a corner rounder for the first time in ages! I used Sketch 11 (again) from the Blue Bazaar May Crop Bootcamp.

EDITED:
This layout just didn't sit finished for me so I fiddled around just a little bit and now I am satisfied enough to leave it be.


There's prolly more that can be done, now that I look at it, but too bad.


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Today

That's the name of my 7th layout for the Blue Bazaar Crop Bootcamp. It's called Today because I ironed. But not today today. The today that I ironed was on the 5th May.


It's not that I don't like ironing. I actually don't mind it at all. It's just that I don't get around to it. Ironing is one of those jobs that is never done. As soon as I knock over a pile, I know there'll be a hearty refill of the ironing basket. It's okay though. I don't mind ironing. So today - 5th May '09 - I got around to it. Some of it anyway! And I was inspired to take a photo.

Do you remember SEI Aunt Gerti's Garden? Well I used a piece of that. How old is it?!?! Hennyway. I also used some Basic Grey Oh Baby! (also old), some retro flower punches :) and a Heidi Swapp stamp. Ta da!!! And the layout is based on Sketch 11 in the May Crop Bootcamp.

Here's a riddle for you...

You've probably heard it before...

What's the difference between broccoli and snot?
A: Kids eat snot!
Okay. Okay.
What's the difference between Brussels sprouts and snot?
A: My kids eat Brussels sprouts!

Not all of them but 3 of them. How did I get them to eat Brussels? And even beg for them?
A: I said they couldn't have them.

I happily and heartily served up myself with Brussels and they begged and pleaded to just have a little bit. Eventually I relented - only a little bit. Until finally they eat a hearty serving of Brussels as well. YAY.

When I'm preparing dinner the kids know that any vegetable is fair game. They eat raw potato, swede, cabbage, celery (of course), choko and yes, Brussels Sprouts. Caitlin squeezed a sprout into each cheek which just begged for a photo.

The title was going to be different but I found out it was inappropriate. To the pure, all things are pure... Titus 1:15 Let's keep it that way.

Products: Papers - Basic Grey Sultry and Sugared, KI Memories; Little yellow Bicycle Glitter Die Cuts; Basic Grey Element Stickers and Alphabet Stickers; Zig Writer; Gel Pen.

I've realised that I keep coming back to Basic Grey. I do like other products from other companies, a lot, but when it all boils down I think Basic Grey would have to be my fave scrapbooking manufacturer. Just thought I'd tell you that. :)

Best Friends Forever

These girls are going to be friends for a long time. Now there is a big distance between them it is trickier to keep seeing each other. That's why there was great excitement when Gracie could come and visit in the school holidays. Here they are wearing their half each of a special friend necklace.
Between DH and Grace's dad they managed to get Skype happening and so now Caitlin and Grace can see each other more often. We'll still be in for some IRL visits though.

Products: Papers - Li'l Davis Design, Basic Grey AcidWashed, We R Memory Keepers; Luxe Design Simple Alpha Stickers; Collections Owlets and Branches. And it's Layout 8 from the Blue Bazaar May Crop Bootcamp.

Another Art Journal Entry

I have been doing the Blue Bazaar Art Journal challenges. I like them cos they stretch me a bit and get me to do things I might not be bothered to try. I had, though, already tried masking and I know I love doing it so this challenge was a bit easier for me.

I had a go at using masking tape, heeding the warnings of lovely Luise about the masking tape sticking too hard and peeling up the paint. I used a trick that I have used for other purposes (think Buteyko and Micropore Surgical Tape) and stuck the masking tape onto my jeans first. It somewhat did the job.

I used a backgound page that I had made when I did class with Vivian Bonder and then used a motif masking method that I learned when I did a class with Dina Wakley. I fished around and found a some punchinella (or sequin waste) and a Heidi Swapp flower mask. Lots of layers of masking and stamping and so much fun!

Then finally, thinking that I just needed to add a finishing touch or two, I went and found Liesel Lund's gorgeous art journal page that had inspired me the other day and took some inspiration from that.

Man oh man! The colours of this page please me no end. Yummo!!!

I called it "Peeling Back the Layers" - no particular reason or every reason. Whatever!

Reuben at 11

Reuben is my most difficult child... to photograph! Out of 100 photos we'd be lucky to have one or two that are usable. Fortunately I managed to get just one on Reuben's birthday.
NB: Reuben is NOT a difficult child. Just wanted to make that clear. :)


Mum: What is your favourite colour?
Reuben: Is black a colour? If not, orange.
Mum: What do you like playing?
Reuben: Lego and Bionicles. And soccer. And golf with Dad.
Mum: What do you like reading?
Reuben: Swamp. A Series of Unfortunate Events.
Mum: Computer?
Reuben: Dofus and Nitrome.
I'm an artist. I like drawing cartoons and other things.
Mum: What do you like eating?
Dumplings, muffins, cereal (when we have the right rice milk - that's a long story) and toasted sandwiches.
Mum: What about God?
Reuben: Very into God. Lately I've been admiring Him. How great He is. He's awesome. In fact, He's better than awesome!

Here's a sample of Reuben's cartoons.


There are two stories on this page.
I'll explain the second one (the last row).
There's a fat guy sitting on the lounge and the guy on the tv says "Let's exercise!"
Then you see the fat guy's eye and then it blinks. The speech bubble thing says "Huff. Puff. Weez. Huff. Puff." That's the exercise!!!

So that is May Crop Bootcamp #4 for me at Blue Bazaar.
Products: basic Grey papers, buttons and brads, Bazzill; ColorMates; Thickers; Heidi Swapp Plastic Alphabet (at last, I got to use one letter); Some ribbon, scraps, ink, and pen.

Mothers' Day #26

When Sharmaine called her blog post Mother's Day No. 10 it kinda made me stop and think. And then do a little bit of a brain strain to work out what I was up to. Then I thought about the number my Mum is up to - WOW!

Like I've said before I don't go in for the whole consumerism bit of Mothers' Day but I did however take advantage of the fact that it was Mothers' Day and managed to get a photo of myself with each of my children (who are at home). Actually I think that was a prompt from Sharmaine as well.

We've changed a bit since the last lot of photos like this. We've all grown. The kids have grown bigger - to be expected. And I have grown smaller (is that an oxymoron?!).

Whaddayareckon?



















And the biggest change of all...




There's some great fodder for my Crop Bootcamp. Did you notice that a lot of us were wearing red? That wasn't planned. At one stage 6 of us were wearing red on Mothers' Day. Must've been the weather! Or the full moon!

Crop Bootcamp is doing its thing.

I told you about the Chinese Garden of Friendship a little while ago. Well now I have scrapped it.


I did one of those things where you start and then half way through you kinda regret the grand idea. Hennyway, the photo montage on a circle was tricky but I like the result (even if I say so myself!). I don't know what the Chinese character symbolises - maybe friendship seeing as the garden is called the Chinese Garden of Friendship.

5 Things

This is what happens when Crop Bootcamp at Blue Bazaar is on... I get layouts done quick smart.

Here's a layout of Hudson's 5th birthday, which was only yesterday!



5 Things That Make A Birthday.

Presents - preferably "just what I always wanted" type and always a good book.
Cards from Nanna and Grandma and Grandad
A phone call as well just so they can hear your excitement
Licking the beaters - a family birthday tradition.
And of course, a birthday cake (failsafe and gluten-free).

Oh and one more thing. A photo of whoever's there. That's for me!

Products: I used scraps again (so virtuous!!!) plus some Basic Grey Element and Alpha Stickers. And the sketch for Layout 4.

Sea Cliff Bridge

It's on again - Crop Bootcamp at Blue Bazaar. Everything is done to make it easy for you to get your stories into your albums without too much fuss.

So here goes...


The other day, Sunday actually, we had a power cut. Computers were off, no housework could be done, Soph couldn't even play the piano and the weather was fabulous. I'd already been secretly planning a walk on Sea Cliff Bridge so we were out of the house pronto.

Ever since we went to Stanwell Park Beach on the second weekend after we arrived in Sydney I have been fascinated with the Sea Cliff Bridge. It was with an almost childish excitement that I looked forward to driving on the bridge. After a friend recommended visiting Austinmer Beach we finally drove on the bridge. Now I just love going that way.

Finally, we got to walk on the bridge. What a fantastic piece of engineering and technology!

I'm particularly amazed by the Cathodic Protection System (an anti-corrosion system that works with electrical current to protect the pylons)- had never heard of it before so I Googled it.

Hennyway. Here's a close up of the title.



Products:PP - All scraps from my scraps file - SandyLion Kelly Panacci, Creative Imaginations and others; Fontwerks sticker; Scenic Rout paper Co Happy Valley Alphabet; Basic Grey Alphabet Stickers; Zig Writer.