I won a Challenge!

OMG!  How exciting!  I enter challenges sometimes, not with the prize as my goal but to keep my MoJo up and to try and provide some variety to my layouts.

I do have “issues” with the opportunity to take photo’s because, as most will understand, Liam’s Aspbergers does not really allow him to participate in all and sundry and he has a strong need to stay at home and just be himself at weekends.  There are only so many photos to take, and scrap, of Liam on the the computer or playing the Wii, lol.

However!  For his Dad’s birthday this year (40th) we had Andrea and Ivan here along with SIL Melanie and her fiancée Aaron for the weekend and we went to the see our home team, the Hurricanes, play rugby against the Crusaders at the stadium in Wellington. (We won, by the way)

Liam often interacts with Dad while on the computer and Dad is watching a game on TV. I love it when this happens and it never fails to make me smile!

MIL had sent down her old team supporters jersey for Liam and, yellow being his favourite colour, this was very well received.

So – the challenge . . . this was run at Scrap Box NZ and it was to do a layout about sport.

 

I had heaps of product left from my SENZ class (Thanks Trina) and the colours just seemed to work for the photo.

Fiona offers a $20 voucher for the Scrap Box shop so I will have lots of fun working out how to spend it.  What’s the bet I don’t stop at $20 though, hehe.  Thanks so much Fiona, you made my day.

(PS – Didn’t make the design team for Southern Girls Challenge blog.  Oh well, maybe another time. )

Southern Girls Challenge Blog – DT Call

Tracy and Louise have set up a blog to add a down-under feel to the www challenge realm (Click on their banner above to pop on over and check it out).

Yay for them! Even better – they have put out a call for applications to be on their Design Team.

This is something I would so love to be a part of! As they say “Gotta be in to Win”.

These are the projects that I am showcasing for the girls to look at.

A set of 4 cards using stamps, inks, vintage atlas paper, diecuts, vintage photo images, printed digital scrapbooking elements and journal spots, done in collage style.

A collage of photos showing two of my off-the page projects. The mail-box and the bird houses were cut using my Silhouette, inked with Vintage Photo Distress ink and decorated using a mix of Websters Pages (6 x 6) and various printed digital images. There is some additional stamping on the mail-box which closes with jump-rings and a Tim Holtz hitch fastener.

It wasn’t the easiest job to photograph the 3-D objects and the weather has been dismal for so long that I jumped at the first opportunity to photograph them outside in natural light.

The mail-box measures approx 4” deep x 1.5” wide x 2.5” high.

The tallest of the birdhouses stands 5.25” , the middle sizes one at 4” and the smallest is a smidge under 3”. They are each about 2” deep (give or take) and 1.75” wide.

The edges of all the cut outs are inked too – you should have seem my fingers, lol! A bit fiddly but absolutely worth it!

You know – whether I make the design team or not – I loved doing these projects and I am so happy to share them with you.

My card has been shown on a blog

Yay!  How exciting to have one of my cards shown on someone else’s blog!!

I have used a Vintage Floral frame digital stamp  from Create with TLC, added a Longing Tilda from Magnolia Stamps and coloured the complete image with Distress Inks.  The sentiment is a rub-on from my stash.

I did it myself

Liam has been really enjoying the Technology Cycles at school – we used to call Manual in my day, LOL.

He started with Visual Arts, followed by Hard Materials (Woodworking) and Food Technology (Cooking).  At the moment Liam is about 2/3 they way through the Fabric Technology (Sewing) cycle and is loving it.

I sent a camera to school and his Teacher Aide took some great photos of Liam making his Wheat Bear in Solar System fabric.

The journalling is some word art that I had downloaded a long time ago, printed directly on to the cardstock (love have an A3 printer) and to follow through with the theme I took to all the elements with my own sewing machine.

The word art reads” A child is never more proud than when they can say – I Did It Myself”

More SENZ creations

I took a really interesting class, tutored by Wilma Sharp. It was a Kaleidoscope technique class and included the Perspex templates (4 different sizes) and a hinged mirror to help you with placement of the template on your images. You need to have the image printed a number of times and the same number of images printed in reverse.

We were provided the images too and Wilma chose a generic photo of a tea cup and saucer. Each layout in the class came out quite different depending on where participants had placed their template.

This was my initial layout:

We completed it with enough time to have a second go (Bless You Wilma for providing so many extras) so I chose to do a different size (therefore using a different number of photos) and this is how it turned out:

Interesting Huh!

Who stole July?

I cannot believe that July is all but over! What happened there then?

There have been some domestic issues, that I won’t go into here, that have taken most of my time and energy this month but hopefully I am fighting my way through the haze now.

I have been crafting, although less than usual. I have submitted my ATC’s for the Scrapbook Dreams July Swap so I will post a photo of the full set when they arrive.

The other biggie for me this month was 4 days in Christchurch, rooming with Brenda and Elaine, attending SENZ and spending a day with Natasha.

I took 5 classes at SENZ!

In this post I will show you what I came home with after the 3 in 1 class tutored by the very talented Trina McClune. What a lovely lady with a lovely smile! It was full on, trying to produce 3 layouts based on 1 sketch in two hours!

I am not happy with the execution of this unfinished layout! To be honest the photo looks way better than the real thing! I love the idea of this technique but I don’t think it’s my thing. I am more than happy to admire Trina’s work in this style.

See what I mean? It is much more her thing aye?

Layout two was to use 5 small photo’s, all the same.

I love the layering and colours of this one. I’m really happy with it.

The third layout used a single large photo.

With my best girl living so far away now, I don’t get the same chances to scrap photo’s of her very often. This photo is a few years old now but she hasn’t changed at all – a beautiful girl, inside and out!

Brenda took this class as well and has posted some photo’s on her blog that you can visit here.

Happy Mail

As a member of Your Paper Pantry, I signed up for a Lightweight Scrappy Swap in May this year.    I was partnered with Tina from Alabama and this is what arrived on my doorstep today (the first parcel she sent has disappeared and strangely enough, the postal worker that accepted it has since been fired!  1+1= 2) .

How spoiled am I?   VERY!

Thank You So Much Tina  xoxo