Pretty Paper Play

With the end of another school term approaching, life is definitely busy. In an effort to try and maintain my sanity (lol what's that?!), I took time out over the week to tune out from Shakespeare and all other things school related to play with paper :)  Lucky for me, there were more than enough challenges online to keep chained to the scrapping desk (always a drama ... not!) for a few hours.

Layout One: Mr Smiley (for White with One - this month's colour is pistachio)

And a close-up: 

Layout Two: Love Him (for Kraft It Up) 

And a close-up. I mixed some paint with impasto medium and smooched it over a Crafter's Workshop Template to give the page a 3D feel. 

Layout Three: Our Little Titan (Scrap the Boys)

And a close-up. Not totally loving this layout but happy enough to have another one tucked away in the album which is what it is all about :) 

I managed to complete some more challenges but I might save those for another day.

Thanks for stopping by.

S xoxo

Project Life Holiday Day Four

This was the first day of our holiday road trip that I needed to create a double page to hold all of the photos. We spent the day at the Qantas Founders Museum in Longreach. The highlight of the museum was being able to take a special, close-up tour of a Boeing 747 and 707. Being able to get up this close and personal to all parts of the planes was amazing to say the least.
Here is a close-up of the double-page spread:

And here is the first page:

 And some close-ups of the first page:

 Here is the second page - and it focuses on our tour of the 747 and 707:

 And some close-ups of the tour:

The tour tickets for the 747/707 Tour have been printed to look like plane tickets. Of course, they just had to make their way onto the layout ;)

The boys were amazed to be able to get to go into the cockpit and sit in the pilot's seats. 

So that is Day 4 done and dusted. There are still quite a few days left but I suspect life and work are going to get in the way of my PL attempt in the coming weeks. Oh well, not to worry, the photos aren't going anywhere!
S xoxo

Playing Catch Up

Even though it is the start of a new month of challenges over at Scrapbooking From Scratch, I thought I would share the final layout I created for Charm's Sketch Challenge for August. Here is Charm's sketch:

I mixed things up a little bit with this layout and dusted off the jars of impasto medium, gesso and paint that are tucked away into the deep, dark corners of my scrap space. I mixed up a wild concoction medium and paint only to find that the colour was completely 'off'. Luckily for me, the gesso worked a treat so, armed with the Crafter's Template Confetti mask that the lovely Donna gave me I set about creating this:

Lots of fiddling and fidgeting with the mask because there were lots of elements on it that I did not want to include on the background. 

And a close-up of the photo and journalling.

So as you can see, the basic elements of Charm's sketch are there, albeit tweaked just a little ;)
S xoxo

Waiting for Summer

The end of winter cannot come soon enough. Even though winters here in Queensland could be considered tropical to other parts of the world (try Antarctica lol), I still hate the season with a passion and long for the long, hot days of summer. What better way to get into the mood for the approaching summer than Anita's Colour Challenge over at Scrapbooking from Scratch :

This is what I managed to come up with:

And some close-ups: 

 

Words cannot describe how much I am looking forward to the first swim in the pool for the season. I cannot wait!

S xoxoxox

Cutting it fine

There is nothing like a last minute piece of inspiration and a looming deadline to get the scrap juices flowing.  I honestly didn't think I would get any more challenges done for the month of August but, thanks to a major meltdown by my youngest son late this afternoon, I found the inspiration for a last minute attempt at a layout for the August challenge at Scrap the Boys.
This month the challenge was to create a layout with a monochromatic colour scheme as well as using chipboard and twine. Tick all three boxes with this:

I raided my stash and found some chipboard circles and arrows that I completely forget I even had - blame it on my more recent love of anything wood veneer ;) I covered the circles with off cuts of the patterned papers used behind the photo.  
And some close ups of the details:

And some close-ups:

I pulled out my trust old typewriter to do the journalling. You also get a closer look at the chipboard circles too:

And of course, a layout wouldn't be complete without splatters of mist and My Mind's Eye Enamel Dots.

So that's it. Told you I was cutting it fine - deadline is midnight.

S xoxoxo

I Love a Good Challenge

And what better way to challenge myself than pay a visit to Scrapbooking From Scratch to see what mischief and mayhem Peta and the girls are up to this month. Each month there are three challenges to play with - a quote challenge, a sketch challenge and a colour challenge. I decided to tackle Donna's quote challenge first which asked us to use this quote: 'A smile is the prettiest thing you can wear'.
When I first saw the quote I was a bit 'hmmmmmmmmm' as I wasn't sure if I could make it work with boy photos but it didn't take me long to get something sorted ... even if I did twist up the quote a bit ;)

And some close ups:

My twist on the journalling:

Now I have this challenge done, I am off to check out what's next.
Catch you soon.
S xoxoxox

Switching it Up

Project Life is the buzz of the scrapping world these days. It seems everywhere you look a large percentage of scrapping manufacturers are bringing out their own 'PL' style products. When I first started reading about PL I was not really taken in by it. It seemed to be something that you had to do every day and that was an immediate turn off for me as there are times that I don't touch my camera for weeks. We recently bought an off-read camping trailer and went on our first big trip. Needless to say, I took LOTS of photos which meant that I needed to switch up how I would scrap them. After lots of deliberation, I finally decided to give the PL thing a go, even if I was putting my own little spin on it. I am making slow progress but eventually, the plan is to have at least one 12x12 PL-style layout for each day of our trip.  So far I have completed Days One, Two and Three.
Day One

 A pretty simple start. I didn't take many photos on the first day of our trip as most of it was spent in the car.

 In one of the inserts, I included a map of Queensland that I printed off the internet. The heart is over my home town and the wood veneer stars represent every town that we camped at during our trip. I thought it would be a different way of making a note of all the places visited.
Day Two was spent in the town of Mitchell. One of the things the town is most famous for is the Artesian Spa. Underneath most of inland Australia is a vast body of water which is referred to as the Great Artesian Basin. The water that is pumped directly from the basin in warm so Mitchell has made the most of this by creating a swimming complex with the water flowing directly from a pipe into a pool. The boys spent hours relaxing in the warm water.

 A close up of Day Two:

Day Three was one of our biggest days of driving and as you can see on the photo we covered 614kms which represented almost 8 1/2 hours in the car. Luckily the boys have their own iPods so they kept themselves occupied playing games, making videos of their trip and listening to music.  

A closeup of of Day Three - love the white alpha stickers from Basic Grey.

A look at Days Two and Three as they will appear in the album:

So that's my attempt at PL so far. Lots of thinking and planning to do over the coming layouts as I am going to need multiple pages for the one day.

Thanks for stopping by

S xoxoxox