Just hangin out

The last class of last term had the kids using Texture Paste and Glimmerglaze. They were so awesome getting the right texture with toothpicks and adding the glaze to the monkeys and vines. They get to learn some terrific techniques and always go home with a work of art at each lesson. No wonder they keep coming back!

I wonder what Em has planned for next term?

Retreat 2011

A couple of weeks ago I spent a whole weekend with 25 amazing funny creative fun-loving crafty women at our yearly retreat at Golden Pond. Raelene and David  at Golden Pond Retreat cared for us and kept up the food and treats and put up with our noise and banter!

For some the enjoyment began earlier with lunch in town and being driven around in a limo wreaking havoc on the citizens of 0ur town. Kaye arrived by plane and was greeted by her ‘fan club’ at the airport with a banner causing much amusement from other passengers wondering just “who” she might have been? Someone famous maybe? What a laugh. I wish I was there to meet her too. They arrived at Golden Pond Retreat with hooters blaring and ready for a weekend of girly fun.
After arrival we got  into our teams to introduce each other and learn a few things they have in common.
We had 4 teams  The Yellows, The Reds,The Blues and The Greens. Teams each had challenges, like creating a page in their colours and gaining points throughout the weekend.

 Soon we settled into some serious scrap time.

 Here is one of my pages (there were so few)

Along with all the scrapping and chatting there seemed to be a couple of tricksters amongst us and they were armed with Glad Wrap and alarm clocks, but the ‘tricked’ soon showed their revenge and showcased some sewing talents (sewing a ‘trickster’s’ bag shut) and there were laughs all round. It was fun to watch, but most of us were very careful not to get involved.

 Saturday night we had our team fun and the dress up challenges brought us out of our comfort zone… way out! We had rhymes, and performances too… even butt showing. It was all in the fun of it. Wow, didn’t these girls all look amazing? See what I mean? Talented and creative! So inspiring.

 

Just walking around the tables was a treat, to see what everyone was up to, and having a chat along the way and I think everyone learned something new, I know I was inspired to learn a new way to make flowers from my old “has-been” flowers. The layouts created were fabulous… and I can’t blogpost all of them, but you can zip over to the facebook page and I will have more layouts there (should be a link on the right – or go to www.facebook.com/scrapbookhouse) and look under the photos.. then go to retreat 2011.

Queen of the crop went to Alison with her gorgeous “An apple a Day” layout. There was a super amount of work there to choose from, and there were many pages on display. I photographed about 30 of them, mostly just the first and will post in the facebook album if you want to swing by and take a look – be sure to leave a comment if you like them… or click the ‘like’ button. THere is one extra special layout there by Sandra… the monochrome single, classically simple not-over-the-top layout that you might just have to go see. This is the only layout Sandra did all weekend, and was her entry into Queen of the Crop… how it was not voted best overall is still beyond me and I have had requests for instructions and a class based on this layout. Go check it out in the retreat album www.facebook.com/scrapbookhouse 

Sunday was a realxing day with 3 lovely masseuses who came out for the day  to rub away any aches or pains. Bliss! There was a special lady who celebrated her  51st birthday too but she doesn’t look a day over 41. Happy birthday Jen. xx Some of us slept in, some were up early. I love that everyone is comfortable to do as they please and enjoy the weekend as much as they can… a weekend goes so fast!

 Some of us made new friends, many of us reaffirmed old ones… everyone had a good time.

Thanks ladies for the best weekend!

Scrap FX

 

I love these chipboard words, shapes and off-the-page products. Because they are sold ‘raw’ (or “naked” hee hee) you can do so much with them. Ink them, Glimmermist spray them, or cover them with papers. You can paint them  or chalk them or add crackle mediums and texture paste and go to arty-town~!

We have so many of these chipboard babies in store already, but I am doing another order soon, (they KEEP bringing out new stuff!) so please head over to the ScrapFX Website and take a look at their awesome range of products. If there is a piece you’d like, flick me an email (Contacts at the top of this page) and I will add it to my next order.

I love Michelle Logan’s work, she is on the design team for Scrap FX, and  if you have another minute (and you KNOW there is always another minute on the computer.. just one more minute…) head over to her blog and check out the creation above in more detail as well as many other works!

Also… check out the Scrap FX Gallery for lots of cool pages, each listing the items used… so easy for you to re-create.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here is a layout  completed recently on a ‘Winter Girly Weekend’ and it was documenting our previous ‘Summer Girly Weekend’. I used Pink Paisley paper and glimmermisted it, then stamped with a script stamp in a few places. 7 gypsies rub-ons (love the colours in these)  were added, then Prima and Tim Holtz ribbons are layered up (and misted) as well as a punched border using black card. The lamp post is Cricut cut using Heritage, and then a few Prima flowers (and one from Petaloo) Hidden in there are some filmstrip ribbon by Tim Holtz ,some Martha butterfly punches and a new trinket by Bo-Bunny. The scrolls are Twiddleybitz Nero range and the title is by Scrap FX. This is painted white, then sprayed with glimmermist. It is also backed it with black and hand cut.  

Scrap FX is a laser cutting and etching business, designing and manufacturing cardboard (chipboard), acrylic, wood, and paper products for wholesale in the craft industries: scrapbooking embellishments, cardmaking, titles, handmade invitations, home décor and more.

 

Enjoy!

Merry week gone by

Don’t you just love it when you are so busy that time flies? Or do you dislike it? I am not sure. On one hand it’s nice to be so active… on the other I feel like I am on a merry-go-round, it’s all fun till you want to get off and you can’t. You have to ride it out. But it’s fun, so it’s ok. This is me, saying the same stuff I say at the end of every term, love it, but am looking forward to school holidays. My kids have been working very hard this term (and for those interested in math scores – the boys work paid off, they both got B’s – without leaving classroom or aid) Now they want a kitten as a pay-off. Lord help me!  

Another week of awesome classes gone by. Book now for next term and also for the kids during the school holidays. Here’s a pic of Saturday’s  kids class. Fun! And they all got it done on time, cutting, inking, mounting, string, and all! They are such legends in our kids class.
We made some more kits up (lucky to anticipate another over-full class) and we have one little lonely kit left for someone who would like to put it together. Full instructions and photograph included. $19.95

And here are a couple of my 365 entries for this week from around my yard. We have been getting some lovely rainfall.

Native 138 / 365
The rain washed most of the dust… not all, and will bring more flowers. Everything will be clean and shining soon.

Vinca 139 / 365
My garden is loving all this rain we are getting… it really suffers being on water restrictions.
My boys on the other hand are NOT loving the rain… it’s too loud on the tin roof through the night. Ah well… can’t win all the time.

Down the weedy path 140 / 365
The yard is transformed into green now the rains are here and it’s a welcome change, even if most of the green are weeds. 🙂 Thought I’d snap this little angel reading a book under my daughters archway to the cubby. She’s busy all day today at school, (yes it’s Sunday) for a “write a book in a day” activity to raise money for Princess Margaret Hospital. From 8am to 8pm! Written, printed, illustrated, bound and presented. I keep thinking about her and think she will be one tired little miss when she gets home. 2 half hours to go.

Take care. Enjoy you day where ever you are. x

Layout Share – Big Croc

Janine the machine and Killer Kate were banging out those holiday layouts by the dozen and they rekindled the relationship between lady and Cricut machine! Janine managed a fantastic 30 layouts during the retreat weekend.

Layout Share – Bron

So proud of Bronwyn! This layout of her beautiful “middle” girl is saw her even sewing for the first time. Bron scraps every week and we have never enticed her into the sewing machine before… such neat nice stitching too!

Busy busy

So busy that this blog has been neglected.

But… I have been creating… and at work every day of the week early catching up on backlog of work, seemed to have piled up being away so much. I had kids class pages to complete, with instructions and all and have got a fair way through it.

This week, I have done 6 layouts for classes. Phew! No wonder I am neglecting this blog. 

The kids classes for the school holidays are shaping up to be fabulous, with cardmaking in the mornings too. Emily is now working in the shop, and is keen to see some more ‘challenging’ layouts and cardmaking projects for the teenagers. Bring it on. She’s shaking it  for me and we have decided to add some of the projects from the adults classes for the teens and more confident scrapping kids. We are also putting on the scrap sketch for kids too in the holidays. I will have a holiday brochure out soon with all details. If you know anywhere we can get our brochures out to kids that might like these classes, give me a shout.

Here are some sneak peeks of layouts coming up.

Sketch Class

Last weeks Sketch class is a little late to be posted, but I thought you might enjoy them anyhow. The girls enjoyed putting them together.

Sketch class is great because there are all different levels all working at the same time. It doesn’t matter if you a first-timer or if you’re a published scrapbook artist, we all hang out together, old and young (I might get in trouble for that comment) and we all enjoy the company for a couple of hours, and get at least a page for your album. At least one, Rachel however bangs out 2 or 3 just to remind us that she is a confident scrapper.

Mind the quality of these photos, I took them on my phone.. at night.

I love you Mum, by Dani Those cuttlebugged butterflies were cut and embossed with 10 seconds studio metal… ooh la la.

Year 12 Ball by Theresa. HER FIRST SCRAP EVER. Hope we didn’t scare her off and she comes back on Monday night.

Love your World by Rachel. Love that tag! I have a bag just like it.

Sports Carnival by Dani. OMG would you look at that paperdoll! Gotta love the Cricut.

Luke’s 18 18 18 by Dani – she was on a roll this girl!

Dampier Archipelago by Rachel. Love how many photos she got onto this one.

A time to Remember by Michele. Beautiful, the bling doesn’t show up well here on my photo, nor does it look straight and I have cut off your border.. sorry Michele, my photo doesn’t do it justice. It is straight and just lovely.

 First day of Kindy by Squirrel Girl. That apple felt is so cool. Glad you finally used it.

 7th Birthday by Rachel. Wow Rach, you really are going to have all Ricky’s done before his 21st. You go girl.

What a productive night!  More from this class will be posted later! I don’t want to overload you with images.

Aren’t they fabulous? Love the variety.

Layout Share – Book Bombed

I have to admit that this Basic Grey range of paper “Lime Rickey”looked real nice when I was ordering it. I waited for the preorder to arrive and the day it came Michele took some and did a fabulous extension class with it (remember that “You’re the Coolest”page she did?) so the next day we re-ordered enough stock to do 50 classes with plus extra. Then it was out of stock. The very next day.

Everyone liked it. It was in hot demand.

But I wasn’t so sure. It seemed just that too “far out” for me. Especially those wierd ones, the papers that looked like the designer had been hallucinating at the time.

Michele then challenged me to use some in a layout, I managed to do it, but still felt it was too loud, although the page looked good. I need a bit of prodding sometimes to get out of my comfort zone.

So this is the left over of my favourites from this range. I just love the stripey one and those wicked circles.

Layout – Cute Pooch

Living in a coastal town you’d think we’d go to the beach often. Nope. We do love the beach, and as a teenager both the King and I were beachlovers, the surfie dude and his chick on the sand. I’d go to work sunburned and my boss would tell me off for not using sunscreen (we sold it there) and the makeup lady (Bronwyn) would tsk tsk tsk at what I was doing to my skin. What did I care? I was having fun and far too lazy to cover up.

There was me, lying on the sand, dreaming of my future.

I imagined my children, little brown athletic babies, running in the waves. I thought they’d all know how to surf by the age of three. I thought our Kelpie /Labrador – water loving energetic dog, would be with us forever (R.I.P Zoey) and I thought life was going to be one big long holiday.

Boy I was wrong.

Our first born is no surfer. He doesn’t like the heat, the cold, the sand, the sun. In fact he doesn’t like most things. He burns in 10 minutes, this raises his temperature (on top of everything else he also has a condition called ‘thermoregulatorydysfunction’)and when his temp rises.. well you know what a fever is like.. he cries… then it goes up more… then heat rash… and so on… for hours. Not fun. So, number one rule – do not get burned. How do you do this in our beautiful land? You don’t go outside.. and you certainly don’t go to the beach. That was a hard adjustment for us.

 Occassionally when he is in care we might venture to the beach, so this day we decided to take the 3 little ones and the 2 pooches to the sandy shore.

It was Jaxsons’ first time braving the water. He learned to catch a frisbee! Even better he learned to bring it back. Now this is a huge acheivement, or little fluff ball is not too bright. He didn’t like the water too much, but had a great time running about getting sandy.

Just love that wet face. What a fun day.

Layout Share – Imagine

The challenge was

• the word “imagine” in the title
• red
• cream
• black

This challenge turned out easier than I thought it would. I just grabbed a heap of leftovers in the challenge colours and then figured which photos I would use. These were perfect. Pity it takes me so long to put together though.

The title is cut from the Cricut (welded with the Design Studio).  I cut two; one from black and the other from chipboard to layer.

Cricut Club Class

 We are running the Free Demonstration Night again for the Cricut Design Studio next Friday night, followed by an easy Cricut Class on Saturday morning.

Click here to see other pages by our customers in past classes.

Friday 18th – Free Demo Night

Saturday 18th – 10.30 – 12.30- Cricut Class. Suitable for Cricut, Create and Expression users.

Cricut Club Day

We have a  Cricut Club day coming up… and will be holding a double class.

It’s this Saturday 9 till 1

Samples are up on the wall behind the counter, we will be doing a page, a card and a project. (I hope I haven’t underestimated the time allowance again).

Two people can use one machine if required.

Layout Share – Blind Scrapping

Here are 3 more from that Blind Scrapping Challenge

Nat’s “Best Friends”

And here is one from Me – “Do What You Can…”

And a beautiful Christmas layout by Michele

Layout Share – It’s Beginning to Look Alot Like Christmas

For these layouts I used the HOTP Christmas Busy Scrappers Solution pack, and a piece of black,a couple of brads, some MM teeny sticker letters, some Cricut Cut Letters and a LYB photo mat… love those!

Layout Share – Trimming the Tree

What I’m working on

Today was a quiet kinda day, at home working on classes for next year. This is one I have in the throws for a while now and I really enjoyed working on it. The title is “It’s the Little things in Life” and it fits for me today.

Here’s a sneak peek, I just know you are going to love next years classes.

Layout Share – Naturally Beautiful

By Wendy Maisey

 

Layout Share – Boo

By Michele Russell

Michele used the Making Memories Spellbound range for this layout, (the papers, buttons, corner, raven and pumpkin), as well as some grungeboard and even a little Cricut cut spider too. Michele also cut her diagonal frames from her machine and matched papers to back them. The background page doesn’t show up well in this photo, but it’s black glittered dots.

Layout Share – Hoisan

By Wendy Maisey