March photo a day 1, 2, 3

March 1st UP
Our cat's love the cabbage trees....I do too except for the leaves that end up over the ground - in the garden and especially on the lawn. We have four cats, Peanut is too old for climbing but the other three are frisky, not yet 2 year olds and chase one another UP and down our two cabbage trees. Gizmo was looking straight at me but was easily distracted when I clicked the shutter. 

March 2nd  Fruit

 A bucket of Pears we collected the day before at friends of my Mums. Going back for more this week :D This is the first time EVER I've collected a pear from the tree it has fallen from. When I was much younger they would come from the many fruit sellers around Henderson or further out in the country, wrapped in tissue paper or in a moulded tray similar to what egg cartons are made of today but  in wooden boxes. These day's it's from the supermarket. So quite a novelty for us to collect them ourselves.

March 3rd  Your Neighbourhood. 

Lol. What neighbourhood?  This neighbour is behind us. I love the view when I hang out my washing anytime of day. I've taken many pics of this home over the years. One of my favourites is when a rainbow appeared over the house, perfectly framed. The background was dark with grey clouds and the sun shone full onto the front. It looked amazing....but that was last year not yesterday. In my dreams I have a new home and I paint it black so we will have a sign next to theirs.  Their sign says The White House and ours will say The Noir House perhaps...in my dreams. 

An award!

What an absolutely beautiful surprise to find in my comments that I had won the Liebster Blog Award. Wow!! 

Thanku very much Francine

The Liebster Blog Award is meant for those blogs in Blog Land that have 200 or less followers. Liebster comes from German, meaning dearest or beloved but can also mean favourite. This award is such a wonderful way to show appreciation for those people who do beautiful work and inspire you but have a small following. As part of the tradition the award is passed along to five other blogs that have motivated and inspired you. To accept the award you must:

1. Link back to the person's blog who gave it to you and thank them.

2. Post the award on your blog.

3. Give the award to 5 bloggers (less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.

4. Leave a comment on the five blogs you chose to let them know.

So not quite following with tradition I've chosen 6 blogs that motivate and inspire me craft wise (and otherwise): 

1. Jenny E

2. Sonya Pickles 

3. Carol

4. Nicki Vallance

5. Heidi 
6.   Raewyn

The last week....

The last week of Scrappin Patch's 6 Week competition. 

We had to make a Paperbag or Envelope album. I'd never made an album out of envelopes so I was keen to give it a go. Thanks to the ladies at CR for helpful links to various instructions on the web. I had a lot of fun making this but I admit it was hard to know when to stop adding the envelopes! My stash of scraps and older embellishments got a good work out though.

Include 4 buttons - 2 tiny buttons anchor the metal bookplate. 

Include cardstock - the 'envelope' for this page was made with Jenni Bowlin embossed cardstock and glimmermist - the background from a discarded ufo! 

Include a diecut :D 

Include tags - one of two

The circle mat used on the left side envelope flap is a chocolate wrapper! 

Two more buttons and - finally a special place for the movie tickets my 11yr old brings home for me. 

The last 'pages' and #2 of two labels to be included. The beautiful card used to hold the tag came from a swap at last years Rotorua Scrapbook Dreams Retreat 

I'll post our layout for this week in a bit...

got to scram back soonish.

#4 Week at Scrappin' Patch Comp

Create a layout about your country and include the name on your layout.  What do you love about your country? What is special or different? Include 2 items specific to NZ; a photograph or a piece of memorabilia. You must use the colours of your flag.


I used a Poppy from Anzac day going back a few years and an old phone card that has New Zealand on the side of the boat. Always knew those cards would come in handy one day, I use to find them on the side of the road.


Land of the Lucky started out as a two page layout with 18x 3 almost 1/4 inch squares in blue, red, white, and black in a grid pattern. I only had scraps of red cardstock, one sheet of blue bazzil and one of white to work with. Basic Grey and Autumn Leaves to the rescue but heck I seriously need a cardstock restock! 
 Too tired to finish the revamp after 1am I had early riser Dh wake me up to ink, stick down the journaling and upload before 9am monday morning. Panic! Stupid photo manager hates me!  I used this photo of Dd and her school mates to show the bi-cultural part of my journaling. I thought it was pretty apt.

#4 OTP Create a Journaling Notebook or Diary: you must use fabric, a button, twine or string and stamping. 

I picked up the last 2 $7 Das books at a sale for $3 each. I love that the pages are blank and good quality artist paper. Maybe I'll be tempted to pick up a pencil. Ha!

 I used muslin for my fabric both on the tag and the background where it was smooshed (lol) with glue and texture paste and lastly sprayed with Glimmermist. There's dimensional magic on the wings of the awesomely beautiful Graphic45 Steampunk Collection. I've used one half of a zip along the left handside, if you look very closely you can just make out the teeth. 

I took my current journal on Dd's school camp last year and collected a few leaves and a flower that was given to me.  But I lost some of them between Bushaven and home so I thought to add a few transparency pockets machine stitched to cardstock  inside the next book I made. The idea stemmed from Nic Howards' class held at Autumn Escape in 2009, similar to the Card Buffet but with Journals! We decorated the cover and made 'dividers' for inside.  

My no.2 Journal. 

I stitched onto the cardstock after attaching the squares of fabric and patterned paper. I used a single photo split per square in the centre to give the appearance of them 'floating' 'cos if  you haven't noticed there's a transparency piece stitched over the front cover. To hold it altogether is a length of elastic. Another idea from Nic Howards Journal Buffet class. The elastic is held on the back with two eyelets. I liked this idea so much I decided to do it on this. Just flip the elastic off and away you go but it's still attached to the back. Note the stamping? Nic Howards own design bought a while ago from Kiwi Scraps aka Craft House in Wellington. It's so very versatile! 

And that's it from me this week :D 

Scrappin Patch Competition

Two new challenges each week over 6 weeks at Scrappin Patch

Currently at #4

These are my first entries starting on the 3rd week.  Yes week 3! No chance of winning  but I'll be putting more memories into albums and this week called on you to create a set of cards and a box to put them in - so that's cards for my stash too.

Challenge #3 Find inspiration from one of Scrappin' Patch new Design Team members. I chose Erin Blegen and her layout Putting on the Spritz. I can see a patterned background with a heavily distressed 12x12 over the top and in her yummy layers I see tissue paper, crocheted lace,'spritzed' glimmermist and bling bodied butterflies...b.b.b!:D I love bakers twine but sadly can't find mine amongst the mess in my scrapspace!!  I throughly enjoyed making the cards - the only new thing is the kraft cardstock for the base. 

For my layout I drew my inspiration from

 Nina Ostermann. I love her clean and spacious layouts, her use of light coloured papers on white backgrounds, less embellishments and dare I say it her trade mark paint/ink splat! 

Gorgeous huh? 

And my attempt.....

This kiddo is so cute, the son of a friend who's garden I was working in last year. His Mum says he does this all the time...so I took along my camera one day hoping to capture him When he was suppose to be sleeping. 

Challenge Me Happy Challenge!

Finally!! I've spent all weekend with this new software......it won't crop where you want it to and after hitting save I spend a half an age trying to find  the photo under My Pictures 'cos it's never where I want it. 


Anywho,  this is my entry for #14 over at Challenge Me Happy, and my first layout for the year. A lift of Trina McClune's beautiful layout. You can see it here titled Time to Spare. It's really lovely and the misting is gorgeous. 

Posting these again....

I just posted these, edited them. Published them...again. Ran out to bring the washing in. Came back to post a layout for Challenge me Happy and it's all gone...........!


Here we again....I hope they stick! 

Using Fancy Pants Oct 31st for Scrapbook Outlet. 

We don't do Halloween so I wanted to show this collection could be used for other topics. It wasn't hard to do!  A selection of these papers were also in our challenge pack while in Rotorua during Scrapbook Dreams retreat. I don't remember seeing any Halloween layouts so it goes to show it's a very versatile collection of cool papers. 

I have played under and over the transparency above; for example....tearing the background paper but stapling the transparency. I just loved all the product included in this collection!

For the centre piece that says love potion; I cut it out from the centre of the background paper and adhered it on to chipboard. Inked the edges, 'painted' it with Dimensional Magic and let the ink 'run'.

I covered it in Diamond Dust and when the DM was dry I bent it a little this way and that to get a few cracks.

For the 6x6 mini album I used the spider web transparency as interleaving between the acrylic pages but I also embellished one side.  I just loved using the diecuts! 

The End ....again  :D

I got Messy!

Looks a bit strange to me 'cos there's no title!

 The four corners are a bit different for me too 'cos I don't like even numbers. 

I used Tim Holtz Spills and Splatters and a Glitz background stamp with ink, rock candy and diamond dust. 

I like how the rock candy made the Glitz stamp kinda 3D.  I also used a word stamp on the leaves. 

The strip of muslin was originally turquoise so I held it scrunched up in my hand and sprayed it with Glimmermist...and my t-shirt and a photo that was lying on my table at the time! I wear dark clothes normally so it was typical the day I wanted to mist I was wearing a light coloured t-shirt and sprayed myself. 

So glad it washed out. Unfortunately not so much for the photo but it'll survive.

Next time I must remember to put the fabric into a small plastic bag and spray inside the bag! 

The card behind the journaling was part of a swap - but this was the piece the swap item was presented on.  I was very impressed how the ladies went to so much trouble to show case their swap pieces. Yep and I kept all those extra pieces of work...I know they'll come in handy! 

The background paper, photo mat, skull, corners, the wee eeeek tab and the alphabet stickers are Authentique. Part of a beautiful collection I won from Aussie Scrap Source last year. LOVE IT! 

Made using the Authentique collection again. 

I forgot to add the 'swing' that actually makes it a tag! 

Doh! 

Belated Happy New Year Everyone!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYBODY! 

I hope you have a terrific 2012 in all the ways that matter most to you. 

For those of you that have lost someone close in the year just passed. Someone that was incredibly dear to your heart, I sincerely hope the pain will ease and you continue to fill up with  the wonderful memories you created together.
My warmest heartfelt hugs and love to you.