Snip, Snap, Crop

Well this week saw my "little" boys turn 12 years of age. My Australia day boys enjoyed their day even though they haven't made any friends here yet because school has not yet started and their are no kids their age in the street. As a matter of fact I have seen very few kids in the street at all. We had some extended family over for a BBQ lunch and after they left we headed into the city to the Esplanade near the Carillon to watch the Skyworks which is of course the boy's favourite thing to do on their birthday. They think they are very special to get fireworks on their birthday. It was all very easy, headed in via train, got off and walked not even a kilometre and we were there where we wanted to be. The weather had been hot and some rain managed to fall which was nice for about 10mins and then it was gone and we dried off quick. There was a lovely natural light show before the fireworks began at 8pm and by 8.30pm it was all over and we toddled off amongst the crowd...

One of the problems with having my scrap area upstairs and my back to the stairs whilst at the computer is that my charming children are doing their utmost to scare the pants of me by creeping up the stairs and sneaking up behind me. I have become so paranoid about it that I am now in the habit of checking over my shoulder continuously so that I can hear or see them before they reach me. They think it is hillarious when they actually achieve their result and I jump. I finished off Heather's Mid Week Sketch 3-12 from Scrappy Sketches last night and used some really old papers I had in my stash. I think this will really be the concept behind all of my layouts for this year. I even sorted out my photos from my trip that are left and am determined to get them scrapped over the coming weeks. Whilst in Vielsalm, Belgium the weather was cold and damp so hiking was not really on the agenda. We found this great tank and thinking of our boys back home both Ingeborg and I decided we would g...

The weather has been hot and humid and hard work to keep the brain focussed on anything but I have played around a little in the evenings to keep the mojo flowing. Heather had another Mid week sketch up at Scrappy Sketches so I had more photos of the Cathedral to scrap and decided to use them and the same papers as my earlier layout to carry the theme of the Cathedral through both layouts. Not that I want them as a double page but I just wanted to link the story. This is what I came up with. I also wanted to play with the Cricut machine and make some cards but have only gotten around to one so far so here is the first card I have made entirely from using the Cricut.... apart from the card base that I already had. I had no intention of doing it just from black and white, I was just testing the sizes of some of the cuts to familiarize myself with them again and I decided to use them. Some brads, kindyglitz and the floral fantasy Cuttlebug folder along with only the George and Basic shap...

On Friday night over at Home and Scrapped we had the first of Heather's Step-by-step challenges for the year. I'm always a little skeptical of doing SBS challenges as they often are nothing like I would do but because I hadn't caught up with the girls since my move I decided to join the fun and play along. I really enjoyed the background stamping and the fun of working out what embellishments to use when you don't really know what the layout is going to look like until you are nearly at the end. I found a great conifer SVG file from the SVG blog that I purchased files from and I altered it to make it taller and cut it with the ecraft. The rest of the embellishments were a RAK from Heather of her lovely handmade flowers and die-cut vines and leaves. The paper are again old, old ones and from Scrapbooking Memories free paper and a cardmaking magazine free papers. I was so inspired by the SBS that I decided to keep going for the night and used the Mid Week Sketch 1-12 ...

It has taken me a while to get into the swing of things but I have finally got all the boxes unpacked and have ventured into my creative endeavours again. I just wish my scrappin' area was not so hot! Still it cools at night time when the Fremantle Doctor ventures in so I guess most of my playtime will be at night. My first layout for the year was the January sketch challenge at Home and Scrapped which actually had three photos on it but as I am still behind in scrapping my travel photos from over a year ago now then I only used the 4"x6"'s that I had printed. I followed it up with a double inspired by a layout from Susan Longman in issue 11 of Australian Scrapbook ideas. Of course mine is nowhere near as stunning as hers and the papers are from me very old stash as I am on a stash busting clean out for the year and truly do not need to buy any more papers for a long time to come. This layout was for the Home and Scrapped colour challenge for Jan to use cream and gr...