pagemaps contest

i have been looking at pagemaps for years. 

i love to create but i can not get started without a sketch so if i have a mood board or a colour pallete im using for a challenge i go start to pagemaps for a sketch. 

when the new sketches came out at the beginning of the month they had guest designers and one of my favourites was on there. Nadia Cannizzo and she actually had this sketch to work with which was one of my favourites. (click on her name and see her interpretation of it ) so i was super excited when this sketch came up in a contest. 

and yes i headed over to the greatest view and actually boughts some flairs...i couldnt resist. 

here is the sketch

so here is my page

and a close up of that gorgeous face and the stitching

and another close up of the flairs that i purchased from greatest view

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave

yummy palette #18/sketchabilities #101

hello everyone, 

i have combined two challenges today. 

for those of you who visit my blog often you realise that i generally tell a story behind the photos. 

well this one doesnt really have one. its just cute. the pics were taken on my phone a couple of days ago and when i saw the colour palette those photos sprung to mind. 

so here is the sketch. 

sketchabilities #101

and scrapfriends yummy pallete #18

here is my page

the grey is in the flair, the first blue is in the flower and the rest of it is pretty noticable. 

sorry about the bad photo, its blowing a gail outside and the little man in this picture has temperatures and is currently sleeping so i dont have long before he wakes for another cuddle. 

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave. 

scrap around the world-october mood board

hello 

this month i have had so much time to play along with all my favourite challenges and i love it.

i played along with scrap around the world again

i really love the mood board idea. 

i love that everyone sees something different in it

so here is the mood board and sketch which i followed...just turned it on its side as you can see in the pic .....lol

so i got inspiration from the bottom right hand corner. 

all those items in the kitchen reminded me of all the kids on the trampoline the other day. 

and all the colours in that bottom corner pic too. 

so my photo is of my girlfriends and my kids. 

we have know each other for around 7 years when both of us only had 1 baby each. 

between the 2 of us now there are 9 beautiful children aged between 1 and 8.

funnily enough we were never really pregnant at the same time. we basically tagged teamed. 

these children play so incredibly well together and even though we moved away for 2 years we still got to see them 3 times as her parents lived 1.5 hours away from our posting so when she went to visit them we drove up to see them. 

these kids are penpals although they only live around the corner and see each other weekly if not more. we are both stay at home mum's that "work" at the gym and although our kids are used to being dragged around everywhere like drs and other kids activities if we ever need someone at the last minute for emergencies its a quick phone call to each other and the kids are dropped off.

my girlfriend needed surgery on this day and her husband was out of town until that night but the surgery could not be delayed. there was no question in either of our minds that i would have the kids. it actually wasnt even discussed it was just common knowledge. she packed the kids a bag and i drove them over to my house in her car. 

they stayed and played, they drank and ate, they bathed and slept. 

i always know that where ever we get posted too she will be my closest friend. 

the kids will always stay in touch and we both hope that one day we will officially become family

(although both of us agree it cant be our 3rd babies as they are both trouble makers..in a cute way...and the two of them together will be TROUBLE!!!   lol)

so here is my page

my A2Z scraplet i glimmermisted

and my title cluster

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave

123 get scrappy

its that time again...

another fantastic challenge at 123 get scrappy

so here is the board

so i used 2 rows

chipboard , flowers, more than 3 photos

stitching, colour orange, more than 3 diff patterned paper

so here is my page. its just a fun, cute, kids page. 

no real story behind the page except how gorgeous my kids are!!

lol (and no im not bias)

and a close up of my cluster

of course that chipboard is from a2z scraplets

doodlet #18 ...so here is it in raw form

and all i did was applied gesso with my finger then while it was still wet sprayed it with glimmermist, then complimented it with a few flowers.

dont forget to follow the link above to see the other amazing dt work and you are allowed to combine challenges which makes it easier to enter so i cant wait to see your layout this month. 

scrapfriends - october sketch

good morning. 

do you know what i love about sketches....we all get given the same one yet no two pages are alike. i rarely find a sketch i cant work with, yet sometimes one sketch inspire me more than others.

i love the sketches over at scrapfriends and i couldnt play last month due to having visitors and basically running out of time so i was determined to get the october sketch done....and i have. 

these photo are selfies take on my iphone. i have started to realise that if i dont take them im not going to have any photos to look back on when the kids have all grown up and we are so lucky this day in age that we have phones and digital cameras that dont cost alot of money to get photos printed. (omg im sounding old!! lol)

so these photos were taken when my baby was about 6 months old. my husband was over in England for 4 months on exchange with the army. for some reason my baby went from a great sleeper to not sleeping at all. he would scream and scream and scream. 

i couldn't do anything to settle him. i would try to breastfeed him and he would be screaming, i would cuddle him and he would be screaming, i would try to sing to him and he would be screaming. he would sleep for about 40 mins then scream for another hour and a half then a 40 min sleep then awake again. this only happened at night (of course) and he would be perfectly fine during the day. i was struggling. i had to get my daughter ready for school and i had 3 little boys at home to take care of. i tried most days to get to the gym for my own sanity but some days i just couldnt. some days i wondered how i was even going to stay awake enough to drive my daughter to school. my baby slept in my room so he wouldnt wake up the other kids and if he settled i could put my head down on a pillow and try to get 10 minutes sleep. 

this only went on for around 8 weeks and then it just stopped and he went back to being the baby who slept again. this was a really hard time for me having no family around to help but i always told myself that it wouldnt last, and you couldnt get angry at him cos he wasnt doing it on purpose. the only thing i could do was to cuddle him and kiss him and sing to him. 

so thats what i did for hours and hours on end. 

he is in an ergo, its a babycarrier, THE BEST BABY CARRIER!!

thats why the page is called ergo love

my baby has spent many many hours in the ergo as it keeps him close to me yet allows me to have both hands free to still cook dinner, hang out washing, fold washing or to hold my other childrens hands

so here is the sketch

and here is my page

close up of my stitching 

close up of the photos with the threads underneath (love this look right now)

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave.

cant wait to see the next sketch

once upon a sketch - october challenge

i love once upon a sketch and was so disappointed that i didnt get to play along last month but i just had no time. i wasnted to and i had my photos printed but i never got around to it. so i was determined to play along this month and it just so happens that i used the same photo and paper. 

the theme this month is .... the journey 

i have not put those words in my title as i made my journalling (which is written on the back) about the title so i hope thats ok. 

this photo was taken 15 yrs ago. its a photo of my boyfriend and i at our year 10 river cruise. 

the person in the photo was such a rock for me in a hard time of my life. although my parents had divorced several years prior, my dad, who im extremely close too ( probably because im a spitting image of him in so many ways) moved away and it was really hard for me. things at home for me personally were abosolutely horrible. i loved being around this person. he was my best friend, someone who had his head screwed on a great influence in my life. we were together for almost a year and then we split up. still to this day i dont really know why. i guess it was just such a strong relationship a little too soon and too young. i loved this boy with all my heart and when we split up i fell off the rails. i felt like i had no one. i moved away shortly after to live with my dad.

2 years later when i was 17 i saw this boy again. he had joined the army and was on a holiday visiting his mum. he was leaving the next day to go back to work. he rang me almost every night. after 4 months he had asked me to move over to live with him. and as i had no job nor a real house to live in i decided that if we were going to make it work i had to try. we found a tiny little 1 bedroom fully furnished apartment to live in.... after 13 years we are still as happy as we were when we were 15. we married, we have four adorable children together and yes our house is a little bigger, but he is still my rock and he still is my best friend ..... and thats our journey.  

so here is the sketch which i rotated

and my page titled

the beginning of always

and a close up of my A2Zscraplet

doodlet 19

with a little gesso and pearl glimmermist. 

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave. 

123 october challenge

well i have been scrapping away like mad but mostly for design team work which i cant share with you....but i have been so motivated this month i have got some awesome challenges already done. 

so here is the first one that i want to share with you 

123 challenge blog criteria

so i have scrapped this photo before and i tried to do someone elses style and although i love looking at that persons work i hated my page. i left it for a few months and then when i saw this challenge that page popped into my head. so i ripped it all up and used the photo (printed smaller) and used what i could of the paper. this photo is over 3 and a half years old but still is very hard for me to scrap. the pregnancy of our third baby was planned like the first two and every thing was going fantastic until we got to 13 weeks. my husband was away for work (in the army) and due home in 48 hrs when we were going to break the news to our family. i had a massive bleed and raced my kids over to my girlfriends house who i left with her husband and she raced me around to the drs. i had an ultrasound and discovered i had a pericorionic haemorrhage and our baby was only given a 50% chance of surviving. my husband was on the first flight home despite the fact that his bosses wanted him to stay as he was leading his diggers to a victory in a very big competition. 

i quite work as an aerobics instructor and was on bed rest for a month. things were looking up. although i never went back to work during the pregnancy and exercised very little everything seemed to be going fantstically. we moved interstate when i was 32 weeks and i had already been in contact with my new obgyn and everything was still going great. bubby was due late february but just like my previous 2 children i went a week overdue so into hospital i went for an induction. 

the labour was fantastic...they have all gotten so much better and the delivery went well with one exception. our precious little baby boy was born severely mechonium stained and he was literally black. they never let me hold him. they just took him away and i was so scared. it was like we werent even there. no one would tell us what was going on. just talking between each other. 

after i was showered and dressed i was able to go and see him. they had cleaned him up and placed in an oxygen box for 24 hours to make sure that it wasnt in his lungs. 

his fingers and feet were still very green like he had spilt food colouring on himself and remained stained for a few days especially around his nails. 

this little bubby gave us 2 very big frights but at the end of the day he was so healthy he was absolutly fine. how lucky are we!!!

and here is my page

and a close up of my cluster

i have used the a2z scraplet flourish 24

simply inked it and then added a cluster of flowers and brads with a paper clip

thanks for looking and any comments you may leave.