Grown with Love

I love the fact that the boys and I get to share in the fruits of Tony's hard work, even if it is for photo opportunities in the different crops that are grown each year. I recently took the boys to one of the wheat paddocks for a photoshoot.  The wheat was out in head but had not yet ripened.  I am planning on taking them back to the same paddock again before the headers move in to take the crops off.  It will be interesting to be able to compare the photos once I get the boys to co-operate lol.  

I love how the converstaion flair buttons from Greatest View add a pop of colour to the layout ... and I think my layering is getting better bahahahaha.

Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxo

New Chooks

Between snakes, feral cats and foxes, we haven't had the greatest luck with chickens.  We are onto our third lot in twelve months, although I am happy to report that our current 'family' (2 roosters and 7 hens) have outlasted the previous lot without a single loss.  Both boys were very excited to know that Daddy was planning on getting more hens.  We were fortunate enough to be given three hens and a rooster by one of our neighbours to add to the new ones that Tony brought home from town.  The boys have been great about being responsible for checking the feed and water each day as well as collecting the eggs.  We have to work on all the eggs getting to the house in one piece but hey two out of three ain't bad lol.
I have been working on my layering skills - not sure if I am making progress or not, but at least more pages are getting done for the album and that is what matters most to me ;)

Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxo

Little Winner

Both our boys love to swim.  Being a former swimmer myself, swimming was always going to be a part of our boys' lives.  During the spring/summer months they are in the water almost every single day - be it at the local pool for training/squad lessons or at home splashing about in our pool.  All that time has certainly paid off over the last twelve months or so if the following layout is anything to go by.  Lachlan had a very successful day at the school's swimming carnival last year.  He certainly looks pleased with himself lol.

And some close ups - Thickers, Jillybean Soup Alphabea,s Greatest View Badges (I {love} these things) 

This year's carnival is coming up in a few weeks time and for the first time since either boy started school, I will actually have the chance to spend the entire day at the carnival.  I am very excited! Maybe Lachlan will have another great year ;)

Thanks for stopping by.

S xoxoxoxo

Scrapping my way out of a slump

I don't know about you but sometimes I find it REALLY hard to scrap.  And when I say hard, I mean literally pulling over every single sheet of patterned paper, cardstock and photo I own only to end up packing it all away again. More often than not, these slumps happen when I actually have an opportunity to scrap or have specifically made plans to scrap with friends.
Not only is it very frustrating but in some ways it is a bit humiliating to be sitting surrounded by gorgeous layouts and talented people only to feel like an EPIC failure. I know that 99.9% of this is totally my head playing games with me but at least I have lots of memories of great times spent with awesome friends.  Plus there is the simply joy that comes with being with like-minded people and NOTHING beats that.
My latest slump came at one of those *really* inopportune times - Donna and I packed our stashes and headed out to Lauren's place for a weekend of scrapping.  Lauren and Donna were churning out the layouts like there was no tomorrow while I sat there ratting through the stash. I lost count of how many times I attempted to start a layout, only to pack it away again.  In the end, I think I managed three layouts for the weekend and while not a waste (because layouts in the album is never a waste), it definitely wasn't the weekend I had anticipated.  Over the coming days, I will be sharing the layouts I worked on while at Lauren's and a few that I have done since then (most of which were the 'rejects' from that weekend lol).
Layout One - A Boy and His Chook.
Not in love with this layout - was experimenting with layering but I think it is proof that I need to work on that technique some more lol.

Layout 2: Our Little Mate is based on the October Sketch with a Twist Challenge over at Scrapbook Savvy.  I have changed up the layout a bit with the size of the banner strips but still very similar all the same. The photo I have used is one of Mitchell in one of the paddocks of wheat that Tony has grown this season.

And a close-up of some of my current and long time favourites: Greatest View Chevron Badges, a felt star from Charm's Creations, wood veneer embellishments from Studio Calico and vintage Heidi Swapp verb stickers. 

Layout3: These Beautiful Girls is another one of those hmmmmmmmmmmm layouts - one where you know that it is ok but still not what you were thinking. On the upside, it is another wedding photo scrapped.  Maybe I will have scrapped them all by our 20th Wedding Anniversary lol. Loving Echo Park's 'This and That Graceful' Collection:

Ok that is it for now.  I will be back over the coming days with a few more shares.  I spent part of the weekend focused on scrapping as it will be the last of it for a while I think.  I am scheduled for shoulder surgery in less than two weeks which means lots of work to do ahead of then to tie up all the lose ends at school.  If only the late nights ahead of me were going to be spent with pretty patterns instead of blue lines filled with responses to exams and assignments lol.
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxo 

Reading anyone???

This month's challenge over at Scrap the Boys is to scrap your boy's favourite book/book series to read or what they love to have read to them if they are too young.  As soon as I saw the challenge, I knew that my layout had to focus on Mitchell's love of reading.  Only problem is that he has LOTS of favourite books on the go at any one time.  He devoured the 'Diary of a Whimpy Kid' over the Christmas holidays and soon moved onto all things 'Horrible Histories'. While he likes the TV series of the same name he spends hours pouring over all of the books and telling me about all the things he has learnt - maybe he has developed his love and interest of history from his History-teaching mother ;)
This is my take on the challenge:

The photos are not the best quality but with a bit of help from PicMonkey (favourite way of editing photos these days), I got them to a point I was happy with. Used some of my current favourites on the layout - Greatest View buttons, Studio Calico Wood Veneers and a Charm's Creations heart. 

And what would a recent layout of mine be without some journalling from my trusty typewriting.  Sure getting my money's worth - lol it cost me a new ribbon as a friend from work gave it to me!!! 

His next reading challenge as the journalling suggests is going to be 'Harry Potter' - it will be interesting to see how he goes with them.  They will be his most challenging read to date.  Gotta be happy about having a boy who loves to read :-)
And yes, it might surprise some of you (insert Donna here lol) but I am actually happy with how this layout has turned out.
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxo

Race ya!

The other afternoon, I took the boys down to one of the paddocks of wheat for an impromptu photo shoot.  It was fairly late in the day so I didn't manage to get too many good photos (really need to learn to use my camera better :o ) but I found one I was relatively happy with so decided to use it for Kellie's October Sketch Challenge over at Scrapbooking from Scratch.
Here's the sketch:

And this is what I managed to come up with.  LOVED this sketch - very me. I wanted to keep it pretty simple (like me lol) so the focus was on the photo.  I have no doubt that I will be revisiting this sketch again very soon. 

How gorgeous is this heart from Charm's Creations? I knew that I didn't want to go with shades of green on this layout so used the boys' shirts as my inspiration when hunting for embellishments. Charm's heart certainly fit the bill :-) 

Holidays are drawing to a close but I hope to get a few more layouts done before reality kicks in again.  Not long to go now and the school year will be over!
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxo 

Just because

This is a 'just because' layout.  I originally pulled these papers out to use on a different layout altogether.  It was only after all the papers were cut that I came to the realisation that they weren't really matching the photos so I set them aside. As I was clearing away after finishing another layout (yes, I am one of those people who packs away almost everything at the end of each layout only to end up pulling it all back out a few minutes later lol), I found the papers and grabbed the closest photo and had another go.  I am reasonably pleased with how it turned out:

Not too bad for a 'just because' layout.
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxo

Savvy Cybercrop Roundup

Yay for school holidays - no work deadlines to meet, late night scrap fests, morning sleep-ins ... the list goes on.  Speaking of scrap fests, that sums up the last few days for me as I made time to finish all of the challenges over at Scrapbook Savvy's September CyberCrop.
Layout 1: Kerryn's Sketch Challenge using this sketch:

And this is my very hay-wire take on the sketch:

I knew I wanted to use three photos on the layout but didn't want to have them placed across the page so I definitely took more than a few liberties with the sketch ;)
And a close up:

Layout 2: Tara's Colour Challenge using Pink, Grey and Kraft.

Layout 3: Sar's Recipe Challenge using a masked background, ribbon and tickets.  I dug out my texture paste to use with the mask to help add another layout of dimension to the layout ;)

Layout 4: Sara's Blind Scrap Challenge:

And some closeups:

All in all, I would say that I had a fairly successful cybercrop.  Can't wait until the end of October and the next Cybercrop to roll around.
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxo

Biker Boys

This layout was created for Sara's Puzzle Challenge over at Scrapbook Savvy's Cybercrop this past weekend.  I still have a few of the challenges to go but thought I would share this one first. These were the puzzle pieces we had to include on our layout - hexagons, a number, hearts, arrows and paper tearing:

And after much deliberation, this is what I managed to come up with: 

And some close-ups of some of the details: 

 See, I told you that you would be seeing some more veneer from Studio Calico ;)

Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxox

Savvy Challenges

In a frantic day of scrapping yesterday, I managed to complete two of the monthly challenges over at Scrapbook Savvy.  I managed to have them uploaded in the gallery just a few hours before the end-of-the-month deadline.
Layout One - Tara's Quote Challenge using this quote:

And this is what I managed to come up with.  Feel that this layout is very Lauren Bell-ish, just not as good lol ;) 

A close up of how I incorporated the quote: 

Layout Two: Sara's Sketch with a Twist Challenge using this sketch:

And this is what I managed to come up with.  Not 100% happy with it but hey, it is another layout in the album ;) 

I decided to forgo the journalling and title on the sketch and use the vintage Heidi Swapp sticker in its place.  Totally in love with the wood veneer embellishments from Studio Calico <3 .="." nbsp="nbsp">

Whoops, just realised that I used almost identical photos for these two layouts - trust me, that was not planned.
Scrapbook Savvy had a cybercrop over the weekend.  So far I have completed two of the challenges, so two more to go so it is off to the scrapping table I go.
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxo