Creative Scrappers Sketch #227

Hi Friends

Alas, alas, I have been busy and have just finished this LO which was inspired by Sketch 227 from Creative Scrappers.  I also took inspiration from the Australian Scrapbooking Memories magazine.  Here is the sketch:

And here is my take on it:

These are the photos that were taken for my visa application for my Australian Permanent Residency - so they bring back memories - some I wish to remember, and some I would rather forget!

Thanks for taking a peek.

Angie xx

Creative Scrappers Sketch 226

Hello Friends,

Today is a very quick post to upload a LO I did following Creative Scrappers Sketch 226.  Here is the sketch:

I wasn't so crazy about the chevrons, as I thought they were a bit masculine for my niece, so I substituted them with these beautiful silk flowers. Otherwise I followed the sketch pretty much to the letter!

The lighting isn't very good at night, so apologies for the lack of clarity.  I used my Martha Stewart butterfly border punch on both the top and bottom borders.  I also used two Perfect Pearls Mists - the 'Interference Red' which has a lovely pale pink sheen - on the butteflies, then I used the 'Green Patina' on the paper behind the photos.

This LO now completes Jessica's first album!

Thanks for looking,

Angie xx

Random Layouts

Hi Everyone

This is a double post today, with me just having posted the 'Focus on Friends' post.  It never rains but pours in my household!!

I started these three layouts 2 months ago at our last Midnight Madness!  They sat unfinished for a good few weeks, then I finally got organised and headed back to my studio and finished them. 

This photo was taken in 2006 when Adrian and I spent the Easter weekend down South (of Western Australia).  We stayed in a gorgeous chalet next to a lake in Pemberton, and every day we ventured somewhere different.  We drove down to Walpole to do the Tree Tops Walk, and although it was rather chilly, we had a super day.

I had only arrived in Australia the previous year so it was very exciting to be doing some local travel. 

My beautiful cousin, Lauren - I have been wanting to do a LO of her Year 12 ball for ages!  I had to beg and plead for some photos and this one is cropped from a group photo, and I just love it!  I didn't have to do much to this LO because the paper is so beautiful.  Please note the stunning little 3D butterflies.  I cut them from the paper and raised the wings (thanks for the tip Yolanda!).  To keep them raised and 3D I used some silicone glue.  

I sadly wasn't in Perth for Lauren's ball - I was back in SA waiting for my Permanent Residency Visa to come through.

And now the last LO is of my new home!  There isn't really much to explain about this but I bought it earlier this year and moved in on 5 July 2012.  It is wonderful having my own home to be able to decorate and renovate as I'd like to!  I have already had the interior painted and am about to have double glazing windows and sliding doors fitted.  Next year I plan to do a patio/pergola out back, which will really transform the house and make it fantastic for entertaining in summer.  Watch this space for renovation LO's!!

That's all folks!

Thanks for looking,

Angie xx

Focus on Friends

Hi Everyone,

So much has been happening lately that I just don't know where the time goes - do you ever feel like that?  Work and weekends are always busy and I wonder sometimes how to stop the treadmill!  It is nearly the end of September and just thinking that Christmas is 3 months away is making my head spin.  Funny thing though is that my social life is a lot tamer than it used to be a few years ago, so I just don't know where the time goes.

I have a new addition to my household - a gorgoeus dog called Molly, I got her a month ago and rescued her from the RSPCA.  She is a cross chihuahua with pomeranean and she has the loveliest personality.  She is full of energy and LOVES going for walks every day.  If I should even think about forgetting her walk, she simply reminds me by running to the front door, then running back to me, and repeating this process until I get the message!!  Even though she weighs only 4 kg's she ends up taking me for a walk and is always so disappointed when we get back to the car / home. 

There will no doubt be some scrapbooking LO's of Molly appearing soon!

I have done a few LO's lately but today I want to share with you some that I have done of my friends Shayne and Lee.  When I visited SA in 2010 Shayne also came to Cape Town and we decided to spend the weekend in Franschoek to celebrate Lee's 40th.  It was really fantastic for us girls to be together for the weekend and we had a fabulous time.  All too short, sadly, but nevertheless - these are friendships that have been in place for so many years, we wouldn't even consider letting the distance between us get in the way. 

This LO is rather busy but I wanted to get the gist of Franschoek as well as the fun time we had all on one page.  I love the French theme of Franschoek and we all loved browsing through the gorgeous shops, having a hot chocolate at the Chocolatier as well as meals at the quaint restaurants.



I thought that I would do an individual page on Lee and Shayne - the photos were all taken in 2009. 

So often Lee has her eyes closed in photos!  I loved this one and decided that even though Lee's eys were closed I still wanted to document the memory in my album.  We had just been to the Nature Reserve for a picnic with Dean, Lee's son, and had stopped in at Lee's parent's house for a cuppa.  I used Sketch 223 from Creative Scrappers for this LO.

The photos that I chose to use for my LO of Shayne were taken when I visited her at their farm near Stutterheim in the Eastern Cape.  I spent a weeks holiday there and during that time Shayne hosted bookclub at the farm.  We had a hilarious afternoon and Shayne worked wonders in the kitchen and put on a fabulous lunch for all of us.  The photos taken outside were on my last day at the farm - I think we were in fact leaving for the airport!  I do wish the three of us lived closer, but it does just make the times we do spend together much more treasured.

I have been dying to use gesso in my LO's and finally last week went and purchased some.  This LO is the first one that I did using gesso and I am rather delighted with the result! 

I hope that you have enjoyed reading my post today. 

Angie xx

A Big Project!

Hi

I have been very quiet lately because I have been busy with my biggest scrapping project to date - an 8x8 album of our family for my Grandmother.  I have not worked on an 8x8 size page before, so it took some getting used to, but I think that I have now mastered that size page!  I have also not done an album dedicated to a particular topic like this, so I had loads of ideas and inspiration. 

It took me the better part of 4 months from beginning to end and I so enjoyed it.  Each member of the family has two pages - I tried to do a feature photo on one page, then a collage of 2 or 3 photos on the second page. 

The front and back covers - it is a fabric with glue on the back.  So wonderfully easy to use!

Photos of all of us taken on 1 January 2000. 

My Gran on her wedding day and some more recent photos

My Mom - the eldest of Granny and Grandpa's three children

Me!  My Mom and Dad's eldest

My brother

My Mom's sister, Lorna

Lorna and Nico's eldest, Brad

Lorna and Nico's second eldest

Lorna and Nico's youngest and only daughter

Granny's youngest, and only son

Gordon and Lise's elder daughter

Gordon and Lise's younger daugher

Granny's two great-grandchildren.  Jessica is the daugher of Brent and Dawn, and Tristan is the son of Brad and Kerry





Granny received her album a few weeks ago when Gordon took it for me over from Australia to South Africa. She is delighted with it and has been showing it to anyone and everyone who visits!  I hope that it brings her much joy and happy memories!

Made with love for you Gran!

I hope you have enjoyed taking a look!

Ciao

Angie

Where does the time go?

Hi Everyone,

I can't believe how time has flown the last few weeks since I last posted a blog post!  I have been looking to buy a house, so it has kept me busy and has encroached into my creative time!  Yay, I have found a house (a townhouse, actually) and I am now waiting for all the legalities to take place.  I should move in early July.  WooHoo, this is so exciting.

I have been wanting to buy a house ever since I sold my apartment in Durban, in late 2007.  Visa restrictions here in Australia prevented me from doing so for many years, and now that I have my visa sorted out I was on a mission to save for a deposit (with a still rather generous budget for my scrapping goodies!) and now it has finally happened.

I will post some photos when I have moved in.

Anyway, back to the task at hand - I have managed to complete some layouts and thought I would share them with you.

This photo is one of those self-photos taken with my digital camera (Charmaine is the excellent photographer - I never quite seem to get the photo right when I do these!)  I was at the airport on my way back to Australia after a wonderful 2 week holiday in Durban and Cape Town.  I used texture paste on the background using a mask, also used some Perfect Pearls Mists (Cappuccino).  The keys are made using a Tim Holtz die through my Big Shot!  The pearls are Stickles Liquid Pearls.  This was a fun page to do!

These flowers are made using different sizes of mpress nesting dies.  The butterfly is a Stampin Up! stamp on which I used white ink and white embossing powder on acetate.  It was a bit of an experiment and it turned out better than I would have thought.  I expected the acetate to melt when I used the heat gun!

This next one is of my very dear friends Yvette and Peter and the beautiful new addition to their family.  As you can see from the journaling, this was taken a while back.  Rachael is now 5 and a half!  Where does the time go??

I hand stitched around the border of the page and the insert.  Also machine stitched the green ribbon on.  The paper is Stampin Up!.

And now for the 'Piece de Resistance'!  My gorgeous neice on her first aeroplane flight!  How cute is that!

The felt heart and flower are Inque - I have been waiting for the perfect occasion to use these, and I love how they look here!

I also made a few card too, but I can't find where I have saved them!  I will have to put them on the next post!

Take Care and thanks for looking.

Angie x

Creative Scrappers Sketch #198

Hi All

One of the main reasons why I set up my blog is so that I can enter my layouts into competitions online.  I was inspired by the Creative Scrappers Sketch # 198 two weeks ago and decided that I must work out how to enter.  Firstly I had to creat my layout.  Please see below the sketch and then below that my interpretation of it.

I loved using my Tim Holtz clock as well as my Stampin Up1 Bird Builder Punch.  The journalling tag is a kikki.K journaling tag stamp.

Thanks for looking,
Angie x

The February Collection

Hello my dear friends

Below is a lay out that I completed of my cousin Gaby's Year 12 Ball.  Gaby looked absolutely beautiful in her teal dress and from all accounts had a wonderful time at the ball. 

I hand  made all these flowers and sprinkled them with Stampin Up! Dazzling Diamonds glitter.  I also stamped the images of the chandelier and the other image (I'm not sure what to call it - sort of fleur-de-lis come water lily image) to add some 'interest' to the background paper. I was delighted the way it turned out.

This is  fun page I did of an exciting experience I had in 2008 when I had the opportunity to go underground.  I was in Kambalda in Western Australia and used to call on a mine site there to sell them productsfrom the range of Industrial Products that I was selling at the time.  When my custome realised that I had never been underground (I had been calling on him for 2  years already) he suggested that next time I visit that we take a trip underground.  It was so interesting and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but after 3 hours I was definitely ready to come back above ground again!

I used demin from a pair of jeans that I used to wear out to the mine sites and I also used some gutter protector to mat the photo.  I got this idea from a lay out featured in Scrapbooking Memories and I knew it would work on this lay out.  I made the 'flowers' from the same denim and twisted them on a piece of cardstock and added a brad right at the end.  I thought they added to the 'rough' look of the page.  The paperclip is from kikki.K.

Today is my cousin Brad and his wife Kerry's son's christening.  I made this cute little card using Stampin Up!'s Stitched Stockings stamp and punch.  I was delighted with the result.  I just hope that the parcel and card reached them in time.

I love these two photos of my sister-in-law Dawn with little Jessica.  I had to use them on this stunning Peter Rabbit paper.  Clearly Jessica was enjoying her yoghurt and the attempt to take over the reins from Dawn in the feeding department!

I just love the Beatrix Potter felt embellishments that I found too! 

This is just the cutest photo of Jessica and I had to scrap it in a fun layout!  The cloud paper and all the embellishments were a freebee from Scrapbooking Memories and I was thrilled with the fun 'spring' layout that resulted!  Thanks Scrapbooking Memories for the fun gift!

This photo of me and Brent was taken in 1999 at Kelvin Grove - the country club that we used to belong to when we lived in Cape Town.  We were heading off for dinner with Mom and Dad and impromptu decided to take some photos.  I love how they turned out and also the colours in them.

In this photo I wanted to highlight the music vellum that I used in this LO.  Brent is a musician by hobby and plays the piano, violin, drums and guitar.  I wanted to use this paper on a LO with him in it.  The paper and stamp are from Stampin Up! as well as the swirls and butterflies that I created using my Big Shot machine.

That's all for today my dear friends.  I am going to make a real effort in the next few days to do a LO using a Creative Scrappers sketch, which I plan to enter into their monthly competition.  This is of course the reason I started this blog in the first place!  Watch this space!

If you stop by to take a look, please leave me a message so that I know you visited!

Thanks for looking,

Hugs
Angie x