Holiday Shares Part 3

Continuing with the holiday shares Today is all about our eldest son.

Layout One: Student Council 2015

It is our eldest son's first year at high school this year. He has started the year in fantastic fashion. In the first week he put himself out there and nominated himself for selection as a Student Council Representative. He was one of four Year 7 students elected to the position. Couldn't have asked for a better start to a new schooling experience.

Layout Two: Being a Tween is Tough Sometimes

A reflective layout about Mitch's transition into the world of teenage-hood. In so many ways he is already there but not in others.  I find myself caught between wanting to loosen the mothering ropes and holding onto them a little bit tighter. Our personalities are very similar which will make the next few years very challenging no doubt. This layout is a reminder for me as much as him about his transition into the next phase of his life.

Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxo

Holiday Sharing Continued

I am back again with more shares from our recent holiday at the beach. 

Layout One: New Records

To say it has been a big year for Lachie in the pool is an understatement. He has had a fantastic season and broke a stack of records. At this particular carnival, he set two new records in his age group.

Layout Two: Totally Smitten

This is a layout that I have been wanting to create for years as a way of documenting my love of reading. Reading is part of my daily life. Working out what photo/s to use was always my stumbling block. There are dozens and dozens of books stored throughout our house but rather than focus on all of those, I chose the three books that are closest to my heart. 'Charlotte's Web' was the first book that I fell in love with way back in Grade Three. I don't know how many times I read it throughout Grades Three and Four but I am sure I could have recited it word-for-word. Next was 'Anne of Green Gables' and the entire collection.  I was madly in love with Gilbert Blythe and was saddened last week to hear of the death of Jonathan Crombie, the actor who played Gil in the teleseries. My all-time favourite read is Harper Lee's 'To Kill a Mockingbird'. I first read it as part of the required reading for Year 11 English and have read it every single year since. What makes this novel even more special is that now I get to teach Year 12 students the joy that is 'Mockingbird' - I feel very blessed to be able to do that.

And a close-up ... between you and me, I am swooning over Amy Tangerine's latest set of foam word thickers.

That's it for the 8 1/2 x 11 sized layouts. I will be back soon with a share of the 12x12 layouts I created.
Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxo 

Holiday Scrapping Part One

We travelled to the coast for the Easter school holidays. The two things that were at the top of my list prior to going on holidays was to have a really good rest (to say Term One was massive is an understatement) and to find some time to sit and play with pretty paper. I will be the first to admit that I have been my worst enemy over the last three months in always putting everything else ahead of 'down time' for me. 

While there will always be times where work, family and the boys' sporting commitments have to come first, for my mental health, I need to realise the importance of making time to do the things I love. I won't be any good to anyone if I run myself into the ground. Needless to say, I made the most of our holiday and dedicated time most days to something scrapping related.

I decided to mix things up a bit with my scrapping and have a go at scrapping 8 1/2 x 11 layouts. Prior to our trip, I had only ever done one layout in this size. I really enjoyed scrapping in this size and will definitely be moving between them and 12 x 12 layouts in the future.

Layout One: Best Day Ever 

This layout documents Lachlan's selection into his first school regional swimming team - he went on to make the final at the State Titles in one event and placed 10th in the 100m Freestyle as well as placing 6th in the 200m Individual Medley (only heats for this event, no finals.

Layout Two: Grade 5 

The title pretty much says it all - first day of school for our littlest man for 2015.

Layout Three: Happy 

Photos from my sister and brother-in-law's wedding a few years ago - one of the best weddings I have ever been to <3 .="" nbsp="" span="">

So there you have it - the first of the layouts that I created while on holidays. I will be back over the next few days to continue the sharing.

S xoxoxo

Masters Challenges

I am here today to share some of the projects that I have created as part of the 2014 Masters team.
Layout 1 - Heartfelt Creations.
I struggled with this challenge. While I love heritage layouts, they are not something that I would normally choose to do. In the end, I used this photo of my maternal grandparents and some of their children taken after my Pop enlisted to serve in World War Two.

And a close-up:

Layout Two: Kaisercraft Challenge
As soon as I opened this collection, I knew what I wanted to do. One of my favourite designs is the 'deconstructed' look - instead of layering papers and embellishment on top of each other, deconstructing means that you lay them out across your layout. 

And some close-ups:

  

Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxox

Around Our Place

Two quick shares today of layouts that were done way back in January- one featuring a photo taken by my friend and amazing photographer, Leanne Jago and the other of our dog, Lucky, who adopted us after being dumped on the highway near our house a few years ago.

I am slowly getting caught up with blog posts. Now if only there was time to scrap ;)
S xoxoxox

An Almost Perfect Weekend

Have you ever planned something months in advance only to have it come undone? Early in 2014 my sister and I decided to surprise our mother with tickets to see the stage production of 'The Lion King' in January. April comes and we surprised mum and spent the remainder of the year planning a 'girls only weekend' in Brisbane. We have never done that - just the three of us heading away - so we were all looking forward to it.
Unfortunately, the last five or six months have not been the best health-wise for my brother-in-law and he ended up in hospital the day before our big adventure was due to begin. After much discussion, my sister pleaded with Mum and I to continue on with our plans. We headed to Brisbane and had a great time, even though it didn't feel the same without my sister with us.
The show was amazing and spending time with Mum is always great ... the only thing missing was my sister, making it an almost perfect weekend.

Thanks for stopping by.
S xoxoxoxox

Masters Layouts

It's hard to believe that it has been just over 6 months since I received a phone call from Vanessa Cavasinni, editor of Scrapbooking Memories magazine informing me that I had been selected as one of the 2014 Masters. Even though I had contemplated entering in previous years, this was the first time that I had actually completed the challenges.  I still pinch myself from time to time because it doesn't seem quite real.
Here are my takes on the challenges:
Challenge One: Scrap a single page layout using a 5x7 photo that has eye contact. 
Even though this photo of the boys is a few years old now, I still love it. The inspiration for the title comes from one of my favourite film, 'The Sum of Us' starring Jack Thompson and Russell Crowe. 

Challenge Two: scrap a layout using at least one non-conventional (non-papercraft) item.
This is the challenge which finally sold me on actually submitting an entry. When I was planning my layouts initially, I wanted to use this photo of Lachlan as my entry for Challenge One - it is one of my favourite photos of all time.  However, a pair of goggles proved my undoing for that layout and my inspiration for this layout. I decided to go all the way with the swimming theme using one of Lachie's swimming caps, a strap from an old pair of goggles and the tag of a pair of his training togs because of the funny 'usage instructions' provided by the company. To top it off, I placed the layout on a 12x12 piece of bubble wrap which I painted blue to mimic the water. 

Love, love LOVE this photo:

Not sure how clear it will be, but if you have great eyes, check out the tag ;)

Challenge Three: Scrap a layout where the journalling is the focus of the page.

This is a story that I have been wanting to tell for a long time, but I always felt like I couldn't do it justice. I created this layout to honour my maternal grandmother. Both of my grandfathers passed away long before I was born, and my paternal grandmother died when I was four so to say this lady was special to me is an understatement.  Like many things, I never really appreciated Grandma until it was too late and I would give anything to have another day with her, thus giving me the inspiration for the layout. I created the background by opening a blank canvas in Photoshop. From here I typed the phrase 'If I could have just one more day...' across the entire canvas.The photo I used was taken on the last birthday Grandma had before entering full time care. The quality of the photo wasn't that great and I didn't have access to the original so I converted to black and white, and created a collage using the same photo.  Even though I don't love my handwriting, I was determined to write the journalling in memory of the letters that Grandma used to write to me when I was a child.  Each idea starts with the phrase 'If I could have just one more day' and lists what I would do if I could have just one more day with this amazing lady. I love the simplicity of this layout.

And some close-ups: 

My journalling: 

Challenge Four: Create the cover of an art journal which best reflects your scrapbooking style.
Hmmmmmmmmm art journalling is not a phrase that enters my scrapping vocabulary. I love to watch people do it but it isn't something which holds any appeal to me. This was a tough, tough challenge. In the end, I decided to stick with what I know best - simple. Once the decision was made, the cover came together fairly easily using one of my favourite colour combinations and embellishments.

So there you go - four little projects that made my day way back in September.

S xoxoxo

April = Easter and a new STB Challenge

Happy Easter everyone.  I am making the most of some quite time on Easter Sunday to continue catching up on sharing layouts. Today, I am sharing my take on the April challenge at Scrap the Boys. This month's challenge was a mood board challenge which looked like this:

And here is my take on the challenge:

Love this photo that I snapped after the Regional Swimming Championships at the start of March. The boys had a massive weekend. Lachlan won seven gold medals and was runner-up in the 10 Years and Under 50m Freestyle Sprint and Mitchell came home with four bronze medals.  It was the final club carnival of what has been a very long season.

And some close-ups. I mixed some Heidi Swapp Colour Shine with texture paste and then used a mini stencil from Heidi Swapp to create the background.

You have until the end of the month to link up your take on the Mood Board to the Scrap the Boys website. Hope to see your layout there soon :)
S xoxo

Catching Up

My my, what a slack blogger I have been over the last two months. There simply hasn't been enough hours in the day to get through everything that needs to be done so scrapbooking and blogging has had to take a back seat. The only creative time I have spent at my desk lately has been for DT or Masters commitments and to say I am missing playing with pretty paper is a massive understatement.
Not blogging has also meant that I am well behind in sharing the layouts I created for Scrap the Boys in February and March.
Here is the layout I created for February's challenge which was 'out of the mouths of babes':

I couldn't go past using this photo of Lachlan on this layout. He has the best one-liners and it is hard to believe that he is only nine given what comes out of his mouth at times. And a close-up of that face:

March's challenge was based on this sketch:

And this is what I came up with:

Love this photo of Mitchell I snapped on Christmas Day. Now that he is a 'tween', getting him to stand still long enough for the camera is almost mission impossible.

I'll be back soon with my take on April's challenge.
S xoxoxox