Tana

Another Bali layout. I will be coming to an end of them soon … I promise …

This one is about our driver Tana who drove us from Tanah Lot to Ubud, and a few days later from Ubud to Seminyak. He was such a friendly fellow and knew all the places to take us. We gave him an open-ended brief as to where to go on our way from Tanah Lot to Ubud and he took us places we hadn't necessarily thought about. He was very thoughtful, and even though his English wasn't always the best we had a great time together. I can highly recommend him and if you're ever travelling to Bali, I'd be happy to pass on his email ☺.

Anyway, the layout! This one was for the Stuck?! Sketches - April 1st sketch challenge. The sketch was fairly straight forward as is my final result. Still, I like it. I guess I just really like simplicity. All the papers, cardstock, embellishments and letter stickers came from Collage Press - Knave of Hearts Collage Crafting Kit. My only addition not from the kit were the rhinestones from Kaisercraft (colour: split pea).

I really liked the fact that one of the papers in the kit was a large bingo card sheet. Several of the squares were 'stamped': Reserved for personal use only. I thought that was pretty apt seeing as the only people Tana was driving those days were members of our family ☺.

So, that makes six online challenges completed this month! WOW! I've never been on such a roll. I completed the challenge kit from my LSS, Wrapped in Paper this month too and turned that one in today. If I get a chance I'll post about it as well.

I'd love to hear your comments on this layout or any others if you get a chance. Sometimes I wonder whether there's anyone out there actually reading my ramblings?

Till next time, happy days! 

Cooking School

Today I've got a double page layout to share. It's about the cooking class we took while we were in Bali. It was such a fantastic day! Those of you who know me will wonder why we took a cooking class when I so hate cooking! But, this was a culture and cooking lesson combined. We started the day at a local (non-tourist) market looking at all the different foods and items for sale. Our guide/host, Made Sang, explained the uses of various items and we tasted some fruits that you can't get in Australia. Afterwards he took us to his family home and explained how the compound was laid out as well as several Balinese (Hindu) traditions. Then came the cooking class with his brother, Dewa. We kept busy with different tasks and it was a lot of fun. Before we could sit down to the lunch that we made we learned about the daily offerings that happen before you can eat. We had to get dressed in sarongs (tied a certain way for men and differently for women), then made our way in to the family temple in the compound. His mother made the offerings while we watched on. Then finally we had the most delicious lunch, with everything made from scratch by our own hands! I would certainly encourage any of you thinking of going to Bali to book in for a class with the Lobong Cooking School. It's a wonderful experience!

But, I digress, back to my layout. I used two different sketches for two different challenges and put them together to make the one layout. The sketches were quite different, but by using the same papers and types of embellishments, I think they flow together quite nicely. I also had some embellishments which I put across the top of both pages to join them together. 

The left hand side is based on a sketch from Stuck?! Sketches. The sketch was an 8.5" x 11" sketch, so I just extended it to fit the 12" x 12" format. I added the title and journalling after I finished embellishing, and this is my only regret. In hindsight I think I should have waited with all the washi tape I added until after I put the title and journalling on. I may still change it and remove one line of washi tape and bling, I'm not sure. Here's the page and some close ups.

 

Turned 90o to right

The right hand side is based on a Page Maps sketch for a challenge at Scrappin Patch. I turned the sketch 90^o to the right. In place of the title on the sketch, I used the little paper bag that we received at the end of our class. It held a bottle of coconut oil which we'd seen made that morning, as well as the booklet of recipes from the day. I cut the back off the bag and stuck it down to make a pocket for the recipe book. I used the other twine handle for the centres of my doily embellishments. Here's a look at the right hand page and some close ups from that page.

Recipe book out of the paper bag pocket

 

Ingredients on the pages are:

Cardstock and patterned papers - Stampin Up! (Urban Oasis)

Washi tape - Black and White tulip

Letter stickers - Basic Grey Fruitcake

Bling - Glitterazzi

Cutting dies (from virtually every company I own a cutting die by!):

Cheery Lynn - Small Exotic Butterflies and Angel wings

Fancy That - Doily Flower 3, FiestaFlags

My Favorite Things die-namics - Prima Donna Petals

Spellbinders - Fleur de Lis squares (I used the smallest square combined with the smallest plain square from the Nellie Snellen die in the centre to turn it into a frame)

Nellie Snellen - MultiFrame round Lilly (MFD030), Multi Frame square (vierkant - MFD012)

I welcome any comments or questions you might care to leave J.

Till next time, happy days!

Francine