Great giveaway

For all of you who would love a fab giveaway which includes some Tim Holtz items, check out Wild West Scrap Divas.  Here is a list of all you could win:

1 Tim Holtz Paper Distresser
1 Tim Holtz Tonic Scissors
1 Inkessentials Craft Mat (large)
1 Bottle of Crackle Accents
1 Bottle of Glossy Accents
1 Bottle of Matte Accents
1 Bottle of Sepia Accents
1 Pack of Ranger Embossing Pens
1 Ranger Craft Bucket
1 Perfect Pearls Naturals Kit
1 Tuscan Garden Alcohol Ink Set
1 Bottle of Blending Solution
1 Mini Mister Block
12 Mini Misters

Stash for sale

I have listed all these items on UKScrappers Marketplace for sale.  All items are brand new in the original packaging.

7 Gypsies 97% Complete ATC stickers - Photo

Making Memories Great Escape word fetti (70 stickers)

7 Gypsies 97% Complete stickers - Celebrate 7 Gypsies 97% Complete stickers - Memories

Scenic Route Date Label cardstock stickers - black Scenic Route Date Label cardstock stickers - red Scenic Route Garden Grove Labels cardstock stickers - coloured

Pebbles Inc Downtown stickers (right) Pebbles Inc Lil' Miss Toddler stickers (left)

Colorbok "Sweet" Vellum phrases (top)

Pink Paislee Captivating Rubons (bottom)

Adorn It Black Flourish cardstock stickers (top)

Basic Grey Green Flourish cardstock stickers (bottom)

Around The Block "Love Me Tender" shrinky alphabet stickers (58 pieces) (left)

AC Remarks Letter Stickers - sarah script (177 stickers) (center)

Chatterbox "Fabulous" adhesive chipboard words (19 pieces) (right)

My Little Shoebox Transparency Overlay - Enjoy life (right) My Little Shoebox Transparency Overlay - Wonderful (left)

AC miniMarks IM phrases rubons - chestnut

Colorbok "Sweet" rubons

My Minds Eye "Oh so cool" rubons 2.00

GCD Studios "Ravishing Reds" adhesive die cut chipboard (48 pieces including alphabet)

To Glimmer Mist or Not to Glimmer Mist....what will it be?

The answer of course has to be.....to Glimmer Mist.  I love them and can't get enough of them.


For those of you who haven't come across glimmer mists they are made by Tattered Angels.  You can spray them over any surface including paper, acrylic, metal, and fabric and it is perfectly safe to use on your projects as it is water-based, archival safe, acid-free, and non-toxic.
  
A couple of sprays of Glimmer Mist delivers a touch of glimmer making your project shine.

Now, the only problem that i have discovered is that it very quickly becomes addictive making you want to own all the colors available.  And bearing in mind that there are well over 100 different colors, it could turn out to be a very expensive addiction :)


Glimmer Mists are mainly available in a range of different shades of every color you can think of.  These will not also add the glittery shine but also color the paper you are misting.  So they are great for using on white paper, card or for giving color and shine to white paper flowers like prima, bazzil etc therfore allowing you to customize them to your project.  This is great but as i already mentioned it can become a little costly.


But, i have recently come across my very own saving grace......Pearl Glimmer Mist.  This delivers a fine mist of glimmer without altering the color of your paper.  You can therefore glimmer all your current primas without having to own every color of glimmer mist  in the rainbow and even spray them over your patterned papers to give them that extra sparkle. 

For those of you who would like to know more on how to use them pop over to youtube where you will find some very good tutorials on this product.

Black Friday Giveaway

The very generous Steph from 'with a grin' will be giving away a fab "Thankful"mini album kit.  Pop over to her blog and see her great work.

What makes you smile?

Many of you will have already seen this video, but, for those of you who have not i thought i would post it here.  No matter how many times i watch this video, it never fails to make me smile :)

December Daily Journal

This year i will be trying to complete my December Daily album inspired by Ali Edwards.  I attempted Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas last year but struggled in keeping up with it.  What i found most difficult was relating to the daily prompts provided by Shimelle and creating daily layouts.  December is just too busy to be able to keep up with the layouts.

So, learning from this experience i have decided to prepare my basic pages ahead of time, from the 1st December to the 1st January, and then only have to add on the photos and some few embellishments on a daily basis.  As i will still be receiving the prompts from Shimelle i will be referring to them on days where i feel there is not much to scrap about.  So, i suppose i will be creating a type of December Daily/JYC album :)

I have purchased this Making Memories felt album which will be housing my pages in the next few days.

So, i am setting myself a goal.....to keep up, enjoy and complete my December Daily Journal.

'So Lucky' mini album

Mini album created using Polka dot whimsy monthly kit.

Rock Candy

Following my previous post, some of you have asked what Rock Candy Crackle Paint is. Its a distress medium made by Tim Holtz / Ranger which is available in 28 different colours and has recently been brought out to the market in a clear medium, called Rock Candy.

It is an acrylic paint which can be applied to surfaces like paper, grungeboard, chipboard or primed canvas. As it dries small fine cracks appear on the surface adding a distressed, aged look. The thinner the layer applied, the finer the cracks and the thicker the layer applied, the larger the cracks. Distress inks can then be rubbed over the cracked surface to accent the crackle.

The new clear crackle paint allows you to apply it over regular 'shop-bought' embellishments resulting in quick and easy distressing.

Tim Holtz demonstrates this product in this video.

Creature comforts :)

Well a girl is entitled her creature comforts isn't she? Oh, and to change them as her mood dictates :)

If i had to list my top 5 creature comforts at this moment in time it would have to be the following:

1. Prima flowers - whatever color or size it doesn't matter i'll have them.

2. Bling, a girl just can't have enough bling :)

3. Rock candy crackle paint - i really must stop crackling every surface i come in contact with.

4. A freshly baked muffin (no raisins please).

5. Shimelle's Blogging for Scrapbookers online class.

Christmas, what does it mean to you?

Christmas is nearly here, and although there are still around 6 weeks or so to go you can't help but start thinking about it when all the decorations, trees etc are already out on the shops.

Thinking back, my perfect christmas memories include family. I picture christmas with all my family sitting at the table wearing our christmas cracker paper crowns (i know, i know). Then eating up our lunch and sitting together in the living room playing board games....games which only tend to surface from one christmas day to the next. That's how i picture my perfect christmas day.

Blogging

Its a perfect way of documenting your feelings, opinions, creations or even the most mundane day to day occurrences. But why does it seem to come so difficult to me? I regularly read quite a few blogs which are all inspiring and funny at times....it all seems to flow quite well on the page when you read it. But when it comes to writing up my own blogs i tend to hit 'bloggers block'.

My aim over the next few weeks is to 'loosen up' and try to create posts which are more me :) We'll see what comes out of this.......

7 Gypsies giveaway

Its 7 Gypsies week at bluemoon scrapbooking blog. There will be daily giveaways on the blog so go and check it out.

Learn Something New Everyday

Well, lets hope i manage to keep up with this class :) didn't do too well with the last one :(

This online class is being run by Shimelle Lane and it involves daily prompts throughout the month of September. Its meant to make you stop and analyze your daily routine, which to most of us will be a monotonous repetition from day to day, and hopefully be able to notice small things which are of importance which normally would go on unnoticed.

So far, i've created my cover for the album which i am quite pleased with :)

Cuddles

I really struggled with the initial selection of papers for this LO but once i chose them it all seemed to fall into place quite nicely. I am really pleased with the result, pleased for having used a good selection of variety in paper and embellishment and pleased for having finally scrapped these photos. They are nearly one year old, having been taken on the 10th September last year!! but here they are now in their full glory :)

Its a photo of my son and myself when he was just 2 weeks short of his first birthday. He just loved biting on my nose, which was great when he had no teeth, but not anymore :)

Papers used are Crate Paper, Dream St., My Minds Eye.

Embellishments are Prima Paintables, Pebbles chips, DCWV epoxy stickers, and AC Thickers.

Face painting

What a great weekend....i helped out my sister in law face painting at a charity fun day!!! it was so much fun and nervewrakcing at the same time. The kids loved it though and its all worth it when they have a look into the mirror once they have been transformed into butterflies, tigers or even monsters!! Hopefully i'll get another chance to help out again.


I've also completed a LO over the weekend using my Scarlet Lime March kit.

Do you want to get some blogcandy???

Well visit this blog as she is celebrating 300,000 hits!!! and she is offering a great giveaway.

I have completed another LO for my Journal Your Christmas album, its for day 2, and the star of the show is my little niece Kacey who was born on the 2nd December 2008. The photo was taken about 30mins after she was born and she is being held by the proud dad. I used my stash from the Polka Dot Whimsy November speciality kit:

So much for.......

...the online class.....i knew i would never keep up with it :( Unfortunately i have only completed 2 of the challenges so far but i have downloaded all the prompts and i have promised myself that i will complete them all. I suppose the fact that you are forced to use certain colourways for each layout has made it a little harder, you know if you are not inspired by what you are looking at they you'll never create anything close to what you will be happy with......but i will persevere :)

Having said all this, i have completed another layout using the DCWV "Green Stack" collection. If any of you are contemplating buying this i would recommend it without any hesitation. The papers are made from 70% recycled paper but it does not show in the quality of the cardstock - if anything the only difference to the regular DCWV stuff is that its of a thicker cardstock quality which makes it a bonus. The prints on the sheets and coordinating chipboard pieces are really cute...owls, birds, trees, racoons....just sooo cute....great for outdoor or kids layouts. I chose these photos of my son who just loves to play with balloons :)

Colour Creative Challenge #2

This challenge consisted of a colour pallete containing the following colours: Green, red, yellow, cream and grey. I decided to scrap these photos of my little one in a ball pit as the colours of the balls definitely jumped out together with the colours on the pallete. These were taken last August during our trip to Centre Parcs - during which i have to say it absolutely poured with rain every single day!!!



I managed to use most of the colours we were given except the grey which just didn't fit it with the theme, i thought so anyway. The yellow in the photos make up for the yellow requirement ;)

Monthly stash :)

I've just received my April kit from Polka Dot Whimsy and i am so pleased with it i thought i would share it with you all. I just love these kits because they are brimming with embellishments and always have a little bag full of "doo-dahs" as Michelle Hill, the creator of PDW, calls them - lovely vintage finds which are just adorable.

I subscribe mothly to both these kits from Polka Dot Whimsy and from Scarlet Lime and from past experience i would recommend them to anyone.

First challenge....

So i've finally managed to complete the first challenge in the Color Creative class. We were provided with a colour scheme on which we could base our layout on or otherwise find an inspiring advertisement on which we would then base our colours on. I decided to go on what we had been given which was - pale purple, darker purple, red, beige and grey - and this is what i came up with:

I've had most of the papers i used for a long time and it just shows how when prompted to do so you end up combining prints and colours that perhaps you would never had thought to use before. Hopefully this class will help me to create a dent in my ever increasing stash :)

Off to have a go at challeng #2...

Eye for design - color creative

Well, i've enroled in the "Eye for design - color creative" online class in order to give my mojo a bit of a wakeup call. This class runs over three weeks and is run by Christy Tomlinson from the great kit club Scarlet Lime. I've enroled two days after the class has actually started so i've got some catching up to do so hopefully i'll have a couple of layouts to post at the weekend.

The main objective of the class is to learn how to combine different colours in a layout, sort of getting you out of your box and not use the same colour combinations all the time. At the end of the three weeks we wil have created 13 layouts so i'd better get cracking :)

Blog Candy

For those of you who would like a chance at winning some blog candy have a look at the following blogs, just leave a comment for a chance to win :) here and here.

Here goes...

Well this is my very first blog post, the first of which i hope will be many :)

At the moment i am attempting to complete my Journal Your Christmas album from Shimelle Lane's class http://www.shimelle.com/. I know, I know, Christmas!!! but i really had no time during the Christmas period to keep up with it. I did keep up with my daily journalling so i do have my references to go back to everyday. So its slowly coming along, and i must say that i am enjoying creating my first christmas journal.

I chose an American Crafts D-ring album 8"x11.5" and i am creating landscape layouts. From this experience i think i will downsize to 8"x8" next year if the plan is to keep up with it daily through December, but we will see :)

I have been mainly using products from Polka Dot Whimsy November speciality kit http://www.polkadotwhimsy.com/. But i do have a good supply of the Basic Grey Dasher and Figgy Pudding collections which i will also be adding.

These are a few of the first pages: