12 months, 5 continents, 1 Journey of a lifetime

Well, I obviously miscalculated something because I thought I had till the end of the month to enter the Bird is the Word challenge, but sadly it's closed. I must admit, this was my first time to enter one of their challenges and as they have several challenges going at once the closing dates are very confusing and I obviously didn't look correctly. So, instead you get to see what I created, and I love how this layout turned out!

The challenge word was Journey which you had to use either in the title or the journalling. In 2006/07 we took 12 months off work/school and travelled around the world. I haven't scrapped many photos from that trip and had been wanting to make a title page for the album, so this was a good excuse to do that. Hopefully this will kick start me to doing more pages for the album.  

I started with a sketch from Sketch Support. Their sketches are awesome and the fact that they give you all the dimensions for the paper pieces is even better! I had a travel album kit I bought a couple of years back at a craft fair and finally got that out to use it. The background is kraft coloured from Stampin Up. The papers I used are from Kaisercraft, and the chipboard, cardstock stickers, clear acetate ribbon and felt embellishments are from the Junkitz Destinations collection. The "Corroded Alphabet" title stickers are from Paper Loft, with the smaller letters being Been There Done That rubons. The date stickers are from Kaisercraft.

Initially, before looking at the papers I had, I had made a map to fit the bottom left spot, and was going to print it out with the words on it. Then when I saw the map on the paper fit the spot exactly, I decided to use that instead. I printed out my map, coloured the back with a pencil, then traced over the letters so they would transfer onto the patterned paper. It didn’t work perfectly, but it was good enough to be able to trace over with my Sakura gel pens.

I love how I could use lots of the chipboard, felt and stickers to make several embellishment clusters. All in all, I'm really pleased with how this layout turned out, and it's now the title page in my trip album! And in case you're interested, the photos are - top row: Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand; a park off Island Park Drive, Ottawa, Canada; Machu Picchu, Peru. Bottom row: Easter Island, Chile; Kinderdijk, the Netherlands.

Hope you like my layout - please leave me some comments if you do! Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Nara Candle Festival

Here's my latest layout for the Sketches with a Twist challenge. This month the twist was to use something green on your layout along with the sketch. Well, since I'm in to green at the moment that wasn't hard, so I used several green patterned papers on a brown cardstock background.

Following the sketch was easy and the layout came together quite quickly. I cut the banner pieces out with the MFT  Die-namics mini pennant die, hand stitched the string for the banner, and sewed on a few  buttons. The medallion and the little green paper "buttons" were cut out with the Nellie Snellen MFD030 die. the scalloped border was cut out (twice) with the MFT Die-namics wonky scallop border die. The papers are from my stash so I'm not sure what brand they are. The candle sticker is from Elizabeth Craft Designs. It was silver so I coloured it with a gold pen. I added a few gold brads, the journalling, some gold sticker letters which have been sitting in my stash for a very long time, and the layout was done!

 

The pictures come from the Nara Candle Festival. This event was in its 18th year in 2011. It celebrates the Sister City relationship between Canberra, and Nara Japan. There were over 2000 candles as well as lots of Japanese crafts, demonstrations and food. Last October was the first time that we actually made it to the Festival despite wanting to go almost each year since we've been in Canberra! It was very interesting and we will probably go again, hopefully this year.

I still have another layout to share with you, but I'm not sure if I'll get to post it today or not, so, till next time, happy days.

Francine

What more (could I ask for?)

Well when I saw that the challenge at Use it Tuesday was birthdays, I decided it was about time I did a birthday layout about myself. I think I have made one of everyone else in the family at one time or another, so it was my turn. My last birthday was really good too. I think I had been feeling a bit down and my husband sent me the most gorgeous bouquet of flowers at work, then we went out for dinner at a beautiful local restaurant, I got quite a few presents and Kyaa made me cupcakes so what more could I ask for? It's was just too bad that Logan was away at a school camp for a few days.

Everything on this layout was from my stash. That's mostly what I'm doing these days. I do still buy little embellishments from time to time when I see them on special, but I hardly ever buy anything else.  The papers are from Basic Grey and TLC, the kraft background cardstock is Stampin Up! and the red embossed cardstock is from Core'dinations. The yellow mulberry paper is ancient and has been in my stash for at over 7 years! The only thing that is new is the star bling by The Paper Mill, which I bought on special last week.

I recently found a link on Pinterest to a tutorial about making the edges of mulberry paper "feathery". It's simple really, just wet the edge and pull the end of the paper away. Then in the tutorial they used a toothbrush to brush out the edges, but I simply "combed" the paper between my fingers and that worked fine for the look I was after. As I didn't want the tape to show through the mulberry paper, I stitched in down instead. It added a great frame to the paper rectangle as well. 

For the banner across the top I used the My Favorite Things banner day die and stuck them onto some bakery twine that I bought at the Sydney Paper Craft Festival last November. I've tried o use this twine in several layouts recently and the colour has never been right, so I'm glad I finally go to use some!

I used this great sketch from Sketch Support. They even provide printable directions with the sizes of all the paper pieces for the layout so it's very easy to put together. If you haven't seen them before, be sure to check them out - there are lots of finished layouts as well for great inspiration.

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Liebster Bog Award!

What a pleasant surprise I received when I checked my emails today to find a comment from the lovely Claudia that she had an award for me on her blog! I came across Claudia's blog quite by accident one day and was really taken with her beautiful drawing. She makes lovely cards too and often leaves me nice comments on my blog. And I'm sure we all know how nice it is to get lovely comments from people all over the world, most of whom we don't know in person!

The Liebster Blog Award is meant for those blogs in Blog Land that have 200 or less followers. Liebster comes from German, meaning dearest or beloved but can also mean favourite. This award is such a wonderful way to show appreciation for those people who do beautiful work and inspire you but have a small following. As part of the tradition the award is passed along to five other blogs that have motivated and inspired you. To accept the award you must:

1. Link back to the person's blog who gave it to you and thank them.

2. Post the award on your blog.

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers (less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.

4. Leave a comment on the five blogs you chose to let them know.

So, now to nominate five people. Well, in fact I have to nominate six because I couldn't leave any of them out! Some I actually know in person, some I know through an online scrapping group, and some I've just stumbled across on the web. All of them though inspire me with their wonderful scrapbooking and card making abilities. I decided to list them in alphabetical order because I don't want anyone to feel I like one more than the other! Please take a look at these lovely people's work and don't forget to leave them some comment love!

Arlene - http://adventureswitharlene.blogspot.com.au/

Becky - http://beckysbitsnpieces.blogspot.com.au/

Celeste - http://ourgirlyworld.blogspot.com.au/

Jessica - http://scraplifterdesigns.blogspot.com.au/

Karen - http://vanillascraps.blogspot.com.au/

Lainie - http://catchamomenttimeflies.blogspot.com.au/

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

What a Galah

Here is my latest layout for Frosted Designs, Sketch Along Tuesdays Sketch #33. Apologies for the photo, but it was taken at night. The colours are quite wrong - the cardstock base is dark grey and the patterned papers are more pink, rather than peachy.  I've uploaded better photos now that were taken during the day. 

This is the sketch. I turned it 90 degrees. 
All the papers are from my stash, as are the brads, sequins, beads and floss. I cut the bird out with a Stampin Up two step bird punch. The flower and leaf sequins around the circle's edge were attached with brads, but the other flower sequins were attached by sewing seed beads to their centres. To add some definition around the centre circle I stitched a grey floss border. 
The flower printed vellum under the long pink paper strip was cut with a MFT wonky border die. I then embossed it with the Swiss dots folder.
The main part of the title was die cut with the Cuttlebug Baby Face die and placed on a die cut file tab, and the smaller part was printed on Dymo tape. Here are a few close ups.

Till next time, happy days!
Francine

(High School) Friends Together

Here's my latest challenge entry for the Scrap the Girls monochromatic challenge. I really enjoy doing monochromatic layouts. Looking for papers and embellishments from my stash that are all the same colour is fun - once you decide on the colour, that its! I picked green for this challenge because that was the colour of my daughter's jewellery, and because of the trees in the background of the photos. 
In my post about my White on white layout I explained that I have recently received a number of die cuts and embossed papers from a swap on the Crop Room. So I went looking at those swap items again and found the swirl embossed paper, the owl and the leaves. All three pieces were larger A2 embossed papers, generally meant for cards. I cut them up though, and used the rest of the owl for the mat under the single photo in the top left corner. Part of the non-embossed part of the leaf piece I cut with my wonky scalloped border die for the base of the title. 

The embellishments:
buttons: Beutron
flower brads: unknown
floss: DMC

epoxy photo corner: Making Memories (from a Christmas set)
layered flower: unknown die cut, TLC Poppin Pieces flower, button and floss
large flower: unknown, but I put a Fancy Pants rub on on it
letters: Kaisercraft, Basic Grey
metal 'together' ribbon slide: unknown
rhinestones: Kaisercraft Basics

jute: coloured with Bamboo VersaColor ink. Note: I threaded the two buttons onto the jute through two diagonal holes. Then I taped down the buttons in the corners of the "frame" and taped jute on the underside of the cardstock. Then I marked where the other two holes in the buttons were and pierced two holes. I threaded a short piece of jute through these holes and tied it off on top of the button. I thought this would help to secure the jute "frame" in place. 
ribbon: unknown, but this was the ribbon my daughter wore in her hair when these photos were taken
mini bows were made with a fork, with this fabulous tutorial 

I used a Becky Fleck Page Map as the basis for this layout. It's the current sketch on the Page Maps challenge blog, but since I can't enter that challenge, I used the sketch for this one instead. I started off fairly true to the sketch but diverged a bit as I went on. All in all though, I really like the final outcome. Please leave me a comment and tell me what you think!
Till next time. Happy Days!
Francine

A letter to Kyaa

I'm so proud of my daughter. She is growing into a lovely young woman; responsible, sensible, and hard working among other things. I decided to make a layout to hold a letter to her about how much I love her and how proud of her I am. It just so happened that it also coincided with challenge  #24 over at Use it Tuesday to do a layout about love, all while using up your scraps! I've just discovered this challenge blog, and anything that encourages me to use up what I have rather than buy more is a good thing!

So here's my layout.

Everything on it has been in my stash, some things for six or seven years! The only new things I used are the cutting dies that I got for Christmas, but the paper I cut with them is from my stash. Let's see if I can tell you all the products I used:

• cardstock and purple patterned paper for large heart are both from TLC kits from my TLC selling days
• vellum from Paper Pleasing Ideas (now out of business) to cover chipboard K, top of the banner, flower stamens, and to make the letters for the title
• chipboard K by Making Memories
• cream/green patterned paper, rubons, ribbon, sticky backed pearls - unknown
• Postmarks background stamp from Kaisercraft

Cutting dies used:

• Cuttlebug Baby Face for letters (now discontinued?)
• Cheery Lynn Designs Fanciful Flourish
• Cheery Lynn Designs Heartland America Large (heart with ribbon on K, heart between the photos and doily flowers at top of K)
• Cheery Lynn Designs Exotic Butterfly small
• My Favorite Things Die-namics Banner Day
• My Favorite Things Die-namics Mini Pennants
• My Favorite Things Die-namics Prima Donna Petals (one of my favourites!)

And just in case you were wondering where the actual letter is - it's hidden behind the dark purple heart, but it's for my daughter's eyes only!

Till next time, happy days.

Francine