Sunday 29 December 2013

ive got news.....

So its been a little while since I have been able to share the news and most of you would probably already know since it was announced on the blog and on Facebook but.....

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Click me to check out Polly!

I am so excited to be a part of the Polly! Scrap Kits, Project Life Design team. Having only been back scrapbooking for about four months and having only 4 completed weeks in my project life album, I really doubted if I would even stand a chance at getting a spot on the PL team over at Polly! Words cant explain how excited I was when I received the email from Ruth, the owner of Polly! 

So for the next 6 months (from January) I will be creating and hopefully inspiring others with the beautifully coordinated kits at Polly!. Just in case you were wondering, here are the other girls on the Polly! Team. Click the images to find their blogs. 
 photo designteamphotos3_zps53c7737f.jpg  photo designteamphotos_zps10916485.jpg     Ruth Bonser                           Sandra Bunch
         
 photo designteamphotos8-Copy_zps27894104.jpg  photo designteamphotos1_zps1eb52224.jpg                    Carol Fry                      Kayla  Renae MacAulay       

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 Manda Moore                                     Bernii Miller 
 photo designteamphotos4_zpsca8f7833.jpg  photo designteamphotos5_zpsf4480d4b.jpg   Renae Finlayson                  Kate van der Pol

So thats us, the wonderful team at Polly! Go on over and check out Polly!'s awesome kits and subscribe! Great exclusive products with every kit and just general amazingly cute stuff! I cant wait to get my hands on the PL goodies in January! Stay tuned here and on the Polly! blog to keep up with my creations and the rest of the team as we aim to inspire and create our everyday.
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Wednesday 18 December 2013

project life - week 4

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With all the rush and horror of the holidays, I finally got aback to scrapping and doing Week 4 in my project life album. For this week, I decided to stay away from the three colour palette I had chosen for my last three layouts and just let the colours fall onto the page however they wanted. I am not as comfortable with this layout but I am growing to love the more scrapbook look of this layout. Here is an overview of the complete double page spread!

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Complete Layout

Now looking at it in photo form, it really is just a mish mash and I am not happy with that. Oh well, its done and I am not about to go back and redo it. I was just happy to get another week in the album and to see the memories actually starting to form. I love being behind and reliving the months that have just passed in scrapbook form. 

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Left Side

This week I played a lot with the Cut and Paste Mini Kit. I loved the hints of colour on the somewhat neutral bases. I didn't want the title card to pop so much this week and instead, blend into the rest of the layout. I chose to tie everything together with a hint of black washi and my new favourite enamel dots in a chartreuse green colour. 

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Right Side

The only card i really actually like on this page is the I Love Cooking group with my sister and her boyfriend. It was just a fun playful night and without any journalling, it just tells the story perfectly. Some of the cards here are actually from the Sunshine Core Kit. I love the hand written style of these cards. 

So thats it for this week of my PL layouts. I will try and get another layout done before christmas, but there is so much to do before we travel home for christmas (including buying more presents) I may just not get time to upload the layout to the blog, or I may not even get a layout done at all. You may just have to wait and see. 

Thanks so much guys for your love and support. 
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Thursday 12 December 2013

project life - week 3

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So onto Week 3. I promise there will be no more spam blogging from now on. I am just catching up on the last few layouts. I have to wait for photo paper before I can do the next few weeks of PL so for now this will be it. For Week 3, I went back to the good ole teal colour and then mixing it up with a few more natural tones like blue, brown and kraft. I really love how the colours in this layout really suit the images. Here's the overview:

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Complete Layout

I actually had a lot of fun playing with my new PL cards from the Dear Lizzy Polka Dot Party range. Loved the teals and squiggles. I also had a few little kraft bags that I got from Harry Brown Designs over at Craftumi. I will definitely be going back to get some different designs. They fit perfectly into a 3x4 pocket and are great for holding extra photos you don't want cluttering up the page. 

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Left Side

I seem to be falling into a trend now. I seem to make my title card and that sets the mood for the entire layout. I vowed that I would never do the 4x6 title card and just stick to 3x4 but I really do love having the extra space to play and scrapbook, rather than just embellishing photos. I tried to cut down on the embellishing this week and let the photos talk for themselves. Unfortunately I couldn't resist the need to embellish almost every pocket. 

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Right Side

I have been really dying to try cutting a photo in two and spreading it between pockets. I however was not ready to make that commitment today and instead, chose to do the same technique with just a sticker. Its amazing how this technique just brings two photos together and makes them interlink. I will definitely be trying this technique again and again. 

I am even getting better with using the date stamp. When I first started using it, I could never get the complete date to stamp on the layout. I now have a scrap piece of paper under my layout as I work and always test stamp my stamps first before putting them on the layout. I find this works a lot better. 

For now, enjoy the photos of my trip home to the parents house and I will be back soon with an update and hopefully a few new blog posts. Thanks so much to all of you who have been commenting on my posts. Its so nice to get some feedback and responses to my layouts. 
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Wednesday 11 December 2013

project life - week 2

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So its onto Week 2. I have been really slack with the whole updating the blog with my layouts. In fact, Week 1 and 2 layouts were made before I had decided to even do a blog again.
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So this week I went with something a little different. I was inspired by the bright reds and woodgrain of the title card (one of the title cards in the honey core kit). I drew my inspiration from that and when I had completed that card, everything just fell into place.
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Left Side

I also played it up with gold. Something I don't do often but apparently, gold is in at the moment, especially with the Dear Lizzy Flea Market range. I also played with a few transparencies and laser cut papers to make some see-through elements. The effect wasn't as amazing as I thought. It is really hard to keep a transparent image on both sides of the layout. I found that I just backed them with white paper just to allow more room to move on the next weeks layout. One day, my challenge will be to make a see-through pocket work on both layouts. 

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Right Side

I absolutely loved using the gold doily vellum from Dear Lizzy. Even with the grid paper behind it, it still looks cool. The top pink card was a little difficult. I really loved the colour but the "life - love" text was so large and yeah... I really didn't know what to do with it. My first idea and suggestion from a fellow PL'er was to stitch over it with a sewing machine. Instead, I decided to play with the gold and just do a little doodling over the top. In my 12x12 days I was a serial doodler. I am trying to cut back on that in PL as this day and age I am preferring the cleaner layouts. It will never leave me though.

Anyway, thats it for Week 2. I know I am uploading these fast but I want to get them up so that I am not behind in my blog as much as I am with my PL. Have a good night guys and I will be back tomorrow with my Week 3 layout.
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project life - week 1

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So its finally time for me to make the update posts for what I have been creating over the past few weeks. Unlike most Project Life Scrapbookers, I started halfway through the year. My week 1 fell in September and I chose to celebrate my birthday with the first layout of my album. It was the best birthday I have had in a long while. So much happened and it was so easy to fill the double layout. I was even able to put in a few little inserts to this page. Here is an overview of the layout:
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Complete Layout

Heres a little close up of each side of the layout. I used a combination of different products including Becky Higgins Project Life (midnight and fifth and frolic), thickers, snap label stickers, washi tape and other stickers and such.
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Left Side

I just love teal, pink and white together. It is my favourite colour combo at the moment. This layout is basically a collection of most of my favourite scrap products at the moment. 

Also if you were wondering. The hand scrapped card down in the bottom left hand corner of the left side is actually a sample of the cards I made as a thank you for my friends who attended my birthday party. I also made cute little cupcakes and put them in boxes with their own personalised cards. The girls absolutely loved them, even though they were confused as to why they were getting the presents when I had specifically said no presents! Im a gift giver, not a receiver. 

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Right Side

If you look at the bottom left pocket of the right side, you can see a small little tab sticking up above thai surprise. This is where I stored all my journalling for those photos in what was a really photo heavy week. 

Please excuse the glare guys, I am new to taking photos of my project life layouts but with the help of some of my lovely friends at Project Life Australia facebook page, I have been able to fix the problem and when I take photos of Week 4 layout, hopefully you will notice the difference. 

So what do you think guys? Not my best effort, but not too bad either for my first layout after 4 years away from the paper and stickers. I am really enjoying this process!!

Onto week 2!!!
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Sunday 8 December 2013

i have a problem....

No...

Like, a REAL problem....

I seem to be in this vicious cycle as a scrapbooker. The one where you just buy and buy and BUY more and more product. When I first started getting organised for Project Life, I swore I would keep supplies minimal. I only have a small scrapspace again and not a lot of storage. So now I have two problems! Too much product and not enough storage.

I have vowed that I will keep my products contained to the beautiful teal Raskog trolley from Ikea, but I have already out grown it. I know I just need to scrap more and make room for the product by using it but I am seriously inspired by product, colour and choice. If I don't constantly have product coming in, I get bored. Its bad enough I have only done 2 weeks worth of pages... I really need to sit down this week and do another page.

This was my trolley when I first bought it. All my product fit perfectly on the three shelves. It was amazing and made my scrap space so clean and tidy.

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I had everything so organised and sorted in kits and such. I also had a cute little pot for my favourite gel pens...

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Now with three core kits and two mini kits, as well as a collection of cards I have purchased from the wonderful PL group on Facebook. I have now had to sort by colour. The cards now spill into two levels of the trolley. My pens are sorted on my desk and the lower level of the trolley holds my embellishments. 

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I just love how it looked in the trolley. I just had to share after I got all that lovely new stock today..... Here is a little looksies at the PL goodness I was able to pick up today from our local spotlight. I was able to use my VIP coupon today and get 100 dollars of product for only 60 dollars! It felt sooo good!

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(sorry not the best photo or lighting)

Sunshine Core Kit, Polka Dot Party Mini Kit, Cut & Paste Mini Kit and the Grey Week Stickers as well as some amazing Kaisercraft goodies. Thats all for tonight guys. xoxo
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Monday 2 December 2013

crafty nerd unleashed

Hey guys,

So before we started on the present and the future, I wanted to give you a little history about my creative life. Hopefully this wont bore you but more importantly, I hope you see that creativity is something that never leaves us. We are born with it and no matter how busy life gets, we always fine a way to let our creative lights shine. So without making too many of you burst into tears, lets get on with the creative history.

Like I said above, I had always been a creative child. I was the one that was more than happy to sit down and colour in, alone if possible and just chill. Even during primary school, my favourite lesson of the day was definitely art class and free time where I refused to get on the floor and play trucks and dolls but instead opted for drawing on the mini chalk boards or colouring in old work sheets that were from last weeks classes.

During high school I excelled at art. I found my sanctuary in the art classroom and when I made my Visual Arts my elective in Year Ten, I would elect to spend my lunch hours working on my latest assignment piece. In Year Ten I was also selected to paint a large mural in the back of the Japanese classroom (another subject I just thrived in). It was such an honour and to this day, that mural still remains on the walls. I look back at it now when I visit sometimes and realise just how crappy a job it was but back then, it was the most perfect piece of art I had ever set my eyes on.

at the closing of my high school life, my final art piece for graduation was a collection of wearable art. The four pieces were all recyclable pieces that represented the four levels of the food pyramid. The heights of the girls and the lengths of their dresses made a side ways pyramid shape. I remember spending hours cutting and knotting a dress made out of pink bread bags, ironing and sewing over a patchwork of chocolate wrappers and customising shoes with lace-up grape vines. I only wish I had the photos to show you.

With this project I also submitted a book, full of photos, outlining the detail and the way the dresses should be worn. I had a complete photo shoot with models (basically my school friends), a make up artist and the permission to take photos in a supermarket (that I worked at) after hours. It was in this book that I discovered scrapbooking. I had no idea at the time, just how invested my life would become with the capturing of memories and the expression of my emotions through paper and ink.

From high school, I graduated and went to university. I was poor, no money, working 3 jobs (a night job, an early morning job and a weekend job) as well as university and living at college. I was living on two minute noodles and diet coke (a pathetic addiction I can say I am well and truly over). I always however found time and money to scrapbook. At college I would make cards and give them to my friends and sell the spare to them to give to others. It wasn't a profitable business but they all thought they were amazing! To this day I prefer and usually always hand make cards to give to people.

The university was in a small town, but they had something my small home town didn't have, a scrapbooking store. For 3 years I would go in there sporadically and buy a few simple products to make my cards and leave but as time went on I came to really love that place and made some amazing friends, including the store owner and her family. In my last year of University I even stayed at their house. They offered me a room of my own, my own bathroom and kitchen, meals and internet all for 50 dollars a week! It was amazing!

In my last year there we ventured with a few other friends to scrapbooking conventions and even had our own scrapbooking challenge blog. Scrap the Music or something it was called. It wasn't very successful needless to say.

After that time, my scrapping really evolved and my style grew with my age and maturity. I was close to being published in magazines and was even selected on a few design teams, the most prestigious being that of Buzz and Bloom, a small company here in Australia. After that time though, I lost interest. I had scrapbooked everything about my life I could, including my love of chocolate, what time I wake up in the morning and copious amounts of photo shoots of my sister. There was just nothing left to encapsulate in the paper and ink.

I became wrapped in other things, Twilight, needless to say. I started reading and watching and even joining a few literate role playing games and really focused on writing. Even though I had given up scrapping, I was still being creative, just in a different way, with words.

From that point on, I role played. It was a dirty little secret that most looked down on or just ignored. I was embarrassed but I really loved expressing myself through fictional writing. I still hope one day to collect my stories and write a proper book.

This continued for almost 6 years until just recently, 2 months again when I felt the need to go back to scrapbooking. My boyfriend encouraged me to go back and enjoy the things I loved in life. Now with him in my life, I actually had things to document and record. I still however wasn't prepared to go back to traditional scrapbooking. Going back to those 12x12 pages just horrified me. Thats when I discovered Project Life.

I have decided that from September 13th, 2013, I would document every week in a 12x24 pocket page layout. I would never catch up but I was determined to capture the joy in my life for my family and my future family to relive. This is the purpose for us all to scrapbook. At least I hope it is. I want to be able to not only capture my life now, but also my children whatever the future holds for me.

I am sorry for the length of that post, but I just wanted to clear the slate, tell my story and show you that creativity never leaves us. It always lives within us and is always utilised even if you are not aware of it at the time.
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