Paper Stories November challenge

hello everyone, 

well im getting so good at learning how to blog properly so i have a heap of links for you in this post. lol so here goes....

i stalk nadia cannizzo's blog and she has done a sketch this month for paper stories who is owned by Gorgia Heald. so this is the sketch....

gorgeous right?!

so i just had to play along. 

so let me explain the page. my husband went to london for 4 1/2 months for an exchange programme with the army and he had 6 weeks at home before going on course that would take him away for another 3 months. so this is a selfy shot of the two of us from my phone from when he was home. we were lucky enough to have the kids babysat for a few hours while we went out for dinner and drinks on our own. ( i have only just started to learn that we need husband and wife time and not just be mummy and daddy all the time)

i did this page last weekend on our wedding anniversary when i sat at home with the 4 kids while he is still away. so that explains the title. 

i love this photo cos i think of the great time we had together that day. 

so here is the page 

i inked around the edge of it all in umber brown as the java brown i felt was too dark and the light brown was more romantic...i dont know if you can see that though . lol!!

i also put some 3d stickers underneath the banners to make it dimentional so here is a pic of that

and some closeups

also from this sketch i made my daughter (who is 6 yet reads well neyound her years) a bookmark. she loved it so much but we are jsut waiting for daddy to come home before we put the picture in of the 6 of us together and it will slot in under the butterflies wings. 

im sorry it came out on its side and i seriously have to get the kids dinner so i dont have time to fix it. 

thanks so much for looking at my page and appreciate any comments you may leave. 

good luck for eveyone who has entered this gorgeous challenge sketch. 

kelly foster bday give away.

kelly foster is sharing the love because it was her birthday back in oct...so go here to be able to be in the running to win this gorgeous prize. 

good luck everyone

PageMaps/Rock it Ruby contest

i cant believe i havent looked at this blog before now. 

i have been looking at pagemaps at the first of every month for a few years now and i even have a signed pagemaps1 book. 

well i will be looking on this blog more often.

becky fleck has teamed up with rock it ruby to give away a gorgeous pack and all you had to do was design a page based on this gorgeous sketch

the page i did was one of my husband at the park last year. i did struggle a bit with this not because of the sketch or the papers...that came too easy but because i normally scrap him with me in the pic so i normally do romantic pages or his pages are very masculine (as he is in the army) but the photo is of him on a flying fox so i had to make it childish. the title is a quote i came across a while ago which i just loved and wrote is down in my phone to use for later. 

so this is my take on it.....

and some close ups... 

i have black inked around everything including the tag as it was very white and i have even smudged a little ink near the writing but you cant really tell in the photos. 

anyway im so glad i came across this blog....she says she has another sketch comp coming out on monday so i hope its open world wide!!

thanks for having a look at my page and feel free to leave any comments...i love reading them. 

good luck to everyone entering. 

scrapfriends candy giveaway

I'm so glad that i found this website. Not only do they have fantstic and very inspirational sketches and colour challenges they have giveaways!! So here is a picture of their gorgeous christmas candy giveaway.

They are going to pick a winner via random ( thats so fair) so go here to check out how you too can also win the prize. Good luck everyone. 

let's get shabby

this is my very first page for let's get shabby and my page came together so easily. i did it almost 10 days ago and then the kids got sick and so did i so i hadnt put it up. now im running super late!!

so the challenge was to pick between the pallete below and then to create a page with a summer theme.

i looked through some photos we had of when we first came back to townsville- far north queensland (where its summer 10 months out of the year) boxing day last year after living in wagga wagga (new south wales where its only summer for 2 months of the year)  for 2 yrs. i settled on a scenic photo as i have never done one before so i was really excited about that. we were just so glad to come home. thanks sfor looking and any comments you may leave.

the colours i picked (which was the hardest part)
white, fushiua and seaside

scrapfriends yummy palette #6

hello,
i love to work with sketches and scrapfriends have some awesome ones. but when it comes to colour combos i can get a bit scared of them. when i saw this yummy palette i thought just that...it was a great combo. i straight away went to the sketches archive and found the perfect sketch to go with a photo i have had on my phone for almost a year. the photo is of my eldest child with our youngest child. there is just under 6 years seperating them.
so this is the palette, and the sketch , and then of course my page

.

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave.

scrapfriends sketch challenge #6

hello,
firstly....thanks for taking the time to look at my page i apreciate it so much.
secondly...how awesome are these sketches? i cant wait to the 1st of every month to see what the new sketch is...and i havent been disappointed yet.

this page is a little tradition of mine. i have scraped an ultrasound picture with this chipboard pregnant lady figure for each of my children. this page just came together to easily.

here is my take on the sketch...

tcr #130

hello
last friday another gorgeous whitewash pallete came out for the color room.
pink isnt normally my colour but it is definately my daughters favourite.
im really proud of my page this week as i used alot of different techniques that i dont normally do...but love on other people pages. and they will definately be used alot more on mine.
my page just came together so easily which i love.
anyway i really appreciate you looking at my blog and please leave a message if you visit so i can say thanks.

scrapfriends birthday candies giveaway

hello everyone,
check this out....a chance to win some gorgeous prize packs because its their birthday






and even if you dont win they have some awesome and different things in their shop and will be having a birthday sale oct 2nd and 3rd. be sure to have a look here for your chance to win.

scrapfriends sketch challenge

i loved this sketch when  i saw it and had the perfect photo in mind, and i knew i already had it printed. however when i found it it was only a 5x7 ...(not big enough) so i had to rethink my sketch. i had this photo printed a month ago although it was taken 18months ago and was just waiting for the perfect sketch. when i thought outside the box this sketch was it. i have been perfecting this page for a while as its very special to me, and although i finished it last week i asked permission to post it as this is not my baby in the photo. Out of respect to the wishes of the babies mother i have blacked out his name.

thanks for taking the time to look at my page.

once upon a...sketch/csi#2

this is the first challenge i have done from CSI so i was pretty proud of myself. 
i love challegnes that i know exactly what i want to do and this one just fell into place for me.
strangely enough i have used a photo of my ex-boyfriend from when i was 16. i was so madly in love with him (at the time) that he could do no wrong although that year of my life was definately the worst. however, im not bitter about it. i wouldn't be where i am today if i didnt experience that. several months after breaking up with him i got back together with my previous boyfriend from yr 10 and we have now celebrated 11 wonderful years together and have 4 absolutely adorable children. 
this page is a feel good page for me...if only he could see me now and see how much happier i am without him!! LOL

so i have used the sketch , the pallete (the blue flowers and the title "looking back" is in red)
evidence- the button (it is a clear one underneath the butterfly) and the circles that are painted on with bubble wrap packaging. 
testimony-handwriting and of course the gorgeous lyrics from beyonce "best thing i never had"

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave...
im terribly sorry for putting this post up twice but i made a mistake with the first one and cant delete it.

Kraft it up august challenge

im really enjoying getting back into scrapping and wonder how i actually didn't scrapbook for over a year. anyway......i found a new blog challenge site and the sketch was just gorgeous i had to play along.kraft it up also had a theme of layers so i straight away though of doing a girly page to add butterflies for dimension. 

 hope you like it

scrapfriends challenge #4

I have found this site by looking at some gorgeous work from Nadia Cannizzo,
(if im not allowed to mention her name please let me know)
the layout is gorgeous and i wasnt scared at all by the multi photo layout as i knew exactly which photos i wasnted to use when i saw it. these photos are nowjust over 2 yrs old and i had a great layout for them but when my computer crashed and i lost all my saved sketches i struggles to find another layout that had so many photos in it. i added a few extra cos i found it hard to pick which ones i wanted to use and i already had them printed so i was able to start on the sketch straight away.
the title to this page is "just SIT still PLEASE" and the journalling (which is on the green pullout tag) says...i was silly to think that i could get a nice family photo with everyone smiling and looking forward. well, i didnt get 1 nice photo i got lots. who cares if they arent perfect with all smiles and looking forward, they are still great memories to me.

thanks for looking

TCR 119

because i havent been scrapping to put these up on the color room gallery i have been a little more relaxed about the colour combo. i loved these papers from fancy pants and i also have another photo that im using them for....but that will have to be tomorrow.
this one was a fairly simple page but i hope you dont think its boring!
its a photo i took of the kids and i as my husband was away. i couldnt get the camera far enough away to get us all in properly. this is a very typical photo of us though. our daughter with a huge smile on her face, our eldest son looking sweet and smiling, our second son sucking his thumb and our third son with his big gorgeous eyes staring at you.

thanks for looking.

Once upon a sketch ..... August challenge

this is a site that i have been looking at for the last year even though i havent been scrapping.
gorgeous gorgeous sketches and work from the design team.
so this challange came up the first week back at scrapping and it was perfect.
i hadnt scrapped any of our snow photos from the last 2 years so it was now time.
i loves the sketch so much i did 2 pages and tried to make them look different although having the same sketch. i turned them into a double page so the title does stretch over both pages and i have tried to incorporate some similarities. i have used the same paper so both snow men are the same and the chipboard is actually one that i cut in half so that worked in perfectly.
my journalling on page 1 is in grey gel pen all the way around the page
journalling on page 2 is actually in the snowman as he folds out.

thanks so much for looking.......

TCR #121

this is from a few weeks ago but i loved the idea of circle pictures and had the perfect paper for my photos of our sons first smiles. i just wanted this page to be fun and bright. i also found out that lions and elephants arent as soft or whimsical as birds and butterflies. LOL

i hope you like it and thanks for looking....

wow i cant believe a year has gone by and i haven't scrapped.
Such a shame really as i do enjoy it. i was scrapping for all the wrong reasons and now that i desperately want to start again i have my head screwed on and will stay focused. i scrap for me!! noone else. i scrap what i like, how often i like. no pressure to do all the challenges or to get submitted or featured.
so life got busy in that year and i have so many gorgeous photos i NEED to scrap.
i started with my gorgeous little man as he hadnt had his picture up on the wall next to his brothers and sisters. i love what i accomplished and it has only sparked my interest again.
i hope that you all love it as much as i do and i hope to leep this blog very active from now on.