A Busy Weekend

There was a constant bustle in my art room last weekend. Caitlin almost lived in there! :) Here are some of her creations.

More Orange Glow of a Different Kind

There's this show on ABC that I just happened to catch the other day. It's called Mister Maker and the guy was showing how to paint a picture with two bits of cardboard and three colours of paint.

I instantly wanted to have a go, as did the kids. So we did. The only difference was that we didn't have a large supply of orange paper/cardstock so I cut the one 12x12 sheet of orange cardstock that I had into six 4"x6" pieces. That posed a little scale problem but we dealt with it.

Take a look.

We all sat around the table. We all had our bits of cardboard. We all had access to the paint. We all had seen the show.





Hudson confidently ignored all instructions and produced this, of which he is proud. I'm impressed. I like it.


Declan decided he "couldn't do it" regardless of having instructions and plenty of encouragement. Unfortunately, Declan gave up. I think the painting has HUGE potential. Never mind. He doesn't care.



After we had started in a landscape format I thought that maybe it would work better in portrait mode so I whipped up another one just to see how it looked.


Either way, we were quite satisfied with the results.

Dusty Dawn

It's the colour that hooked me in. I'm a bit of a fan of orange at the moment so these totally come-as-they-are-not-Photoshopped photos were just the thing.

I am on a bit of a roll with my scrapbooking - 5 from scratch and 3 finished off this month! So far!!!

I have to say that I fully scraplifted Kathie Link, whose scrapbooking I delight in, and this layout in particular. Ha, and I just realised Kathie is from South Australia, from whence came the dust that has landed on our doorstep. And car. And house. And everything. All over the shop!!!

Speaking about the dust storm. I found it awesome and very exciting. It was almost equal to seeing it snowing and then driving around and noticing who has the most snow on their cars. The orange glow in the morning was nothing short of beautiful. Freaky too. And the thought that all those tonnes of red earth have been transported across Australia by the hand of God is profound.

I for one shan't be wasting water to wash it off. I would, however, like to keep if out of the house. "Please God, send some rain."

Hennyway. Back to the layout. I decided to make the layout predominantly Basic Grey - a combination of ranges that worked quite well together. I love Basic Grey Element Stickers - they're my favourite product at the mo, I think.

Celebrate Spring

Three Cheers for Scrap Diner and here's my layout for the third challenge - Celebrate a Season. Well actually, it's their 2nd challenge - my third.


I kinda regretted putting that watermark background on the layout. It was clean and very simple and I liked it. And you know what? I couldn't even remove it digitally the way I wanted. It's one of those occasions where I should have taken a photo first (which I normally do but didn't this time!)

According to this article the tea rose, hybrid variety, is one of the best flowers for people with allergies. It makes the bouquet look attractive. It has no pollen and is best used when it is just a bud for minimum fragrance keeping all allergies away. If you are planning on doing up your garden then the Cecile Brunner and Banksia Rose is for you. These do not have pollen to aggravate that allergy. Banksia roses are small and grow in large bunches so your garden would be an attractive sight when they bloom.

I really love the Banksia Rose. How sweet are the little yellow blossoms!? And the rambling plant does not have thorns like most other roses. It's a goer for me although I have a vague feeling that someone I know IS actually allergic to it :(

Hennyway.

This is not the first time I have scrapbooked about Spring.

She's My Mum

Scrap Diner has a blog challenge on at the moment and one of the challenges is to Celebrate a Person. So I chose my Mum.

There are quite a few verses in Proverbs that mention mothers. Mothers are important. Here's my pick for today.

Listen to your father, who gave you life,
and do not despise your mother when she is old. Proverbs 23:22

Okay, so you want to see what the journalling says!

She's creative
She's kind
She's a Christian
She's my Mum

She's funny
She's smart
She's a pray-er
She's my Mum

She's beautiful
She's loving
She's disciplined
She's my Mum

I could have gone on but there was only so much room on the card! :)

And... That colour combo is Mum's favourite, I believe.

Love you, Mum. :)

iCollect!

I collect. Oh yes, I do.

Here's a layout that I have finally completed. Well, started and completed, really. I took the photo last year, or the year before - I can't find it to verify - so maybe even the year before that!!! Actually it must've been last year cos I took the photo in the newly renovated downstairs kitchen.

Hennyway. I took the photo and printed it and chose the papers and put it in a kit to do some time. I've carried it around with me to various crops, I've taken it out and looked at it, I've put it away and forgotten about it and now, I have dumped the original selection of cardstock and reworked my ideas to result in this...


And here's a close-up.

Tourists in Sydney

When Kelly came to visit I took hundreds of photos and so did Kelly. My challenge was to fit our day of being tourists in Sydney onto one layout.

Our (that's Kelly, Caitlin and me) day included...
-catching a train into the City
-heading up Sydney Tower and checking out the 360 degree view
-catching a timely free bus to Circular Quay
-a walk around the Opera House with views of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Lunar Park
-Kelly being told by a silver statue busker that she was in love (ha ha ha - with herself)
-helping some buskers keep the beat with some tapping sticks (I'll see if I can find the video!)



-catching another free bus up to Darling Harbour
-visiting The Chinese Garden of Friendship and getting dressed up in traditional -Chinese costumes - for only $5 each
-Kelly being paranoid about being attacked by birds (re previous magpie experience) but then feeding them half her muffin - talk about attracting the birds!
-riding on the carousel - and me taking umpteen photos of horses with no-one on them and another umpteen with a pole through the middle of Kelly's face :)
-walking through China Town with a stop off in a Chinese bakery
-then a train trip home in peak hour! Yippee.


Click on the photo for a bigger version.

I started with this layout by Shimelle - I like the little vertical photos - and then proceeded from there. I wanted to include as much of our day as possible and I surprised myself by being able to include 30 (that's THIRTY) photos on one page - that might be a record for me. I also wanted the same kind of title as Shimelle and disappointed myself by filling in the outline of "Sydney" by hand. It looked much better just as an outline. Oh well.

The result - a page that I really really like. And it celebrates one day in the life of me. Especially handy for these challenges at Scrap Diner.

The layout reminds me of mosaic pages. I love them too.

Here's a blast of mosaic layouts from the past.

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!!!