CRII - November Challenge

Yes, I know, it says November challenge, but the two of us left in the year long challenge both forgot to do the November challenge, so the organiser decided we should have to the end of December to finish November and December! Thank you Sue! Sue is so sweet, organising all the challenges for us and helping us with inspriation.

If you've been reading my blog for any time, you know that the CRII challenge involves a card and a layout. The cards are always challenging for me as I really don't enjoy making cards much, but this one was reasonably simple. Here it is, along with the sketch (originally from Page Maps):











I made the flowers with my Sullivans daisy punches adding a rhinestone centre, used a rectangular die cut tag from my stash for the vase, and drew the flower stems in with a green marker. The die cut tag was a bit plain so I drew the flourish on using the Swirly Q's template from The Crafter's Workshop.




For the layout, this was the sketch by Susan Stringfellow of sketchsavvy.blogspot.com. It was meant for an 8.5"x11" page, so I stretched it to fit a 12"x12" page. I also made the photograph larger.

Earlier this week we drove to Sydney to visit friends and family. For the first time in a long time there was water in Lake George! On the way home we stopped at the lookout and I took some photos that I stitched together to make this panorama. Here's the layout.





All the papers come from my stash. Mostly they are TLC papers, except for the brown ones (left over from some LSS monthly layout challenges I think), and the blue/white patterned paper circles which is definitely left over from the Dec Wrapped in Paper challenge from the previous post. The ribbon is from my stash (bought at Costco when we were living in Canada) and the arrow and flourish are from the Tim Holtz mixed minis grungeboard collection and painted with twinkling H2Os. The title is Heidi Swapp ghost alphabet, attached with bronze coloured brads.

This is not one of my favourite layouts, but it will do.






Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Sweet Little Man

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Wow - no posts in December! Well, I guess with the end of school, finishing off things at work in order to close down for a longer period, and all things Christmas related, I really haven't had time. So, to make up for it, I'm going to try and do several posts today with the challenges I finished just in time for the end of the year!

The kit for December's Wrapped in Paper layout competition wasn't one of my favourites. Once again I forgot to take a picture of the kit before I cut it up, so you'll have to make due with a description of the inclusions: pastel yellow cardstock, an A4 sized piece of white cardstock, three 6"x12" pieces of baby blue and white patterned paper, a large yellow flower, a piece of thin yellow ribbon, two other lengths of ribbon/lace - one blue, one white, a shaped piece of chipboard, a card of blue elliptical shaped bling, and a pearl set brad. The whole thing screamed baby to me, so I dug through my old photos and found two pictures of Logan at 7 months old (some 13 years ago). I used a sketch from Ingeborg Dijkstra-Verbeek from her scrapbooking competition website, and here is the final result:

The only things I added to the kit were the butterfly stickers, phrase/letter stickers and the title. The title was made with TLC/Breezy Designs rub on toppings. It does actually say 'sweet' with a flourish above 'little man' and I tried to rub white flock onto the adhesive, but it really didn't work. You can (kind of) see it in real life, but not in this picture! I used blue foil for the 'little man' part of the title. I inked all the edges of the papers with some blue ink from my stash and painted the chipboard shape with some blue twinkling H2Os then cut out a piece of blue paper to fit the inside of the shape. I had a sticker sheet with Logan on it that I bought in the US, and the other phrases came from a sticker book that I received for Christmas. The bottom phrase used to say "Our bundle of joy, our sweet little boy", only after I stuck it on I realised that it actually said budle, not bundle, so I cut the top line off. I guess that's what you get when you buy "Made in China" :P

If you're wondering where the white lace is, I cut one small piece of it and stuck it at the bottom of the vertical piece of patterned paper using the brad, and the flower I cut up into pieces and stuck it behind the chipboard. Other than the fact that the background is pastel yellow, I really like how this turned out.

And finally, here is the sketch that Ingeborg made. She does beautiful work and you can check it out on her blog. Why not participate in her monthly challenge at her scrapbooking competition blog too?

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Dream

(Post updated 1/1/11 to include photos of kaleidoscopes, and video of card opening.)
Ugh, I missed the deadline again, or so I thought! I wanted to enter the Southern Girls Favourite Colour challenge, and when I checked the site when I got home from work, Mr Linky said there were 17 hours to go, so I thought I had plenty of time. When I went to post my entry I found that it had expired 46 minutes earlier, and that was only about 6 hours after I had checked! I couldn't understand how that happened, but it turned out the girls had been doing something on the site and accidentally mucked up the Mr Linky thing. So, thanks to Louise for coming to look at my entry and posting it on the challenge for me! So, what did I make and what's my favourite colour? Here's the story. Two weekends ago, I did a class at my LSS, Wrapped in Paper. It was to make a Flip Flop card they called it. I'm not really a card maker, but this one intrigued me, so I had to participate. Well, it turns out that the card itself is actually really easy to make, the embellishing is what takes the time. Every time I open the card though, even though I know how it's made, I keep thinking, wow, this is amazing. The card has four "sides" to it. You open the first page to get to the second page, then open that one to get to a third page. Opening that page takes you to a fourth page and opening that page takes you back to the beginning. It's kind of like a Rubiks cube - well kind of! I'm not sure if it will show up well here, but here are the photos of each page and the opening up in between each one. (You can click on them to see them larger.) So, any guesses on what my favourite colour is? Well, just in case you couldn't tell, it's yellow :) This is a hybrid project. All the 'pictures' are kaleidoscopes that I made from the same photograph of yellow/orange tulips. I put the frames around them using Photoshop Elements, as well as adding the text. I printed them out and stuck them on the yellow cardstock base. Unfortunately these pictures are not so great, so the sayings are hard to see. They are: "Don't dream your life, live your dreams." and "Everyday is another chance to make your dreams come true.". These are the kaleidoscopes that I used, as well as the original photograph that the kaleidoscopes were made from.
And finally, here is a video I shot of how the card opens, with my 13yo son acting as the hand model. You gotta love his thumbs up at the end!


Till next time, happy days! Francine

On the Amazon River

The latest challenge at Southern Girls Challenge is to use something pertaining to transport/travel. Well considering the amount of travelling we've done, I figured this had to be easy, but it was actually difficult to decide and in the end I decided to use the photos themselves. I picked some photographs from our trip to the Amazon in 2007. They're of our trip down the river. Considering we spent such a long time actually on the river getting to our destination, I figured they were worthy of a layout and an explanation.

I used papers from Stampin Up! namely tea Party Designer Series Paper, and barely banana cardstock. I cut some flowers out of the patterned paper to use as embellishments, some of which I stuck on with foam tape. I highlighted some of the flowers with my Sakura star pens (love them!). I also used a piece of ribbon from my stash, as well as a couple of flower brads. For the title I used some flocked chipboard and small foam letters, also from my stash. The font I used for the journalling is one of my favourites - Marker Fine Point.
Here are a few close ups.




Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Beautiful Curse - digital version

For days I have been travelling past this field on my way to and from work that is covered in purple flowers, called Paterson’s Curse, Echium plantagineum (and known as Salvation Jane in South Australia). It is actually toxic to grazing animals and classed as a noxious weed in parts of Australia. After the Canberra bushfires in 2003 apparently tens of horses had to be put down after eating it for several months. Despite its terrible consequences to grazing animals, it is an amazing sight. I have been meaning to take my camera with me to work and stop and take some pictures, but kept forgetting. Finally last weekend I made a conscious effort to go and take some pictures. They turned out fabulously and I couldn’t resist making a layout straight away. I turned to one of my favourite sites for digital templates – Ideas for Scrapbookers – and picked a suitable template (Two Curves - see further down). The layout came together very quickly.


The template I used is this one. I flipped it 90 degrees first. Before I started, I also made a kaleidoscope from one of the close up photos and used that for the side strips of “paper” in the layout and to make the square embellishments. I picked the purple colour for the “paper” and “cardstock” from the pictures. Stupidly I didn’t write down the name of the font I used so I’m afraid I can’t give credit for it. I have a list of fonts a mile long and can’t find it back again now (and believe me I tried!). So, if you know what it is, please let me know!

I’ve subsequently made a paper layout with one of the pictures as well, but you’ll have to wait for another day for me to blog about that one. I even made some of the patterned paper for the layout as well!

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Last minute competition entry

I decided very last minute to enter my online friend Ingeborg's sketch competition. The sketch she used for this month's competition is one that she designed herself.


Once I decided which photograph to use, the rest came together fairly quickly. It is made almost entirely from leftovers in my stash and I don't know where most of it came from! The only things I do know are: TLC (emperor) cardstock, Kaszazz bling rub on (right hand side), Kaisercraft Argentella rub on (the large one to the left of the photo), and Say it in Crystals black crystal flourish. The bottom paper rectangle, is in fact a piece of green cardstock (same as under the photo) covered by a piece of sheer ribbon with white and purple flourish print on it that I bought at Aldi.

The photo was made beside one of the tulip beds at Floriade. Every year since we moved to Canberra, I have taken a photograph of the children in the flowers that grow in the grass just outside the entrance to Floriade. This year though, someone mowed it!!! It was very disappointing and we had to go find another spot for the photo instead. I guess I should just be happy that I can still get the kids to pose for me!

Here area couple of close ups.



Till next time, happy days.

Francine

BC Government House Gardens

For the October CRII year long challenge I made a layout with photos from our visit to the grounds of British Columbia's Lieutenant Governor's residence at 1401 Rockland Ave, Victoria, BC. This house is not far from my parents house and we were able to walk there to visit the grounds which are open to the public. There are fantastic views of the Olympic Mountains in Washington state, but none of the pictures I used for this layout featured any of those views! So, without further ado, here's the layout.

It was made from this sketch.

The papers I used are from the Bali Breeze set from SU!. I used some felt flowers from SU!'s flower fusion set, and a couple of flowers from Bo Bunny as well. The letters for the title are from artsy.licious by Chatterbox (peacock colour). The small letters are from my stash.

I didn't really like this sketch too much, although I'm not unhappy with the resulting layout. It's better than I expected, but won't ever be one of my favourites.

As well as the layout challenge, there is also a card sketch. Here are the card and sketch it was made from.

I used the same papers as for the layout, along with a flower, rub on and butterfly from my stash. I'm not an avid card maker and I think this card turned out OK, but not great. I think it would have been better if the ovals weren't scalloped, but I don't have a plain oval punch. I hope whoever I end up giving it too though will appreciate it.

I'll be back a bit later with another layout from last month.

Till next time, happy days.

Francine