Take Time Be Creative Part 2

I have been thinking a lot about this topic this week and I have discovered part of our problem is that we feel like we are not allowed to take time for ourselves.  But honestly, we need that time.  By taking time to be creative and to enjoy the process we are recharging ourselves so that we can do the other things of life.  I have also discovered there are times when we feel inspired to be creative and other times when we don't.  When we are inspired our creativity just flows and we can make things almost with ease.  We we don't feel inspired it can be very hard.  Creativity can not be forced, creativity should be a fun and playful activity.

As adults we are suppose to be serious and grown up (really?!)  Are we not allowed to be fun and playful ... of course we are, it's just that I think sometimes we forget about it.  We should take time to let that fun and playfulness out.

I came across a neat little video that I would like to share with you about creativity and see if sometime this weekend you can give yourself some time to let the fun, playful and creative side of you show.

Take time to be creative

It is so hard when life just seems to constantly get in the way of being about to sit down and create.  Driving people here and there for school, work, groceries, taking care of the house, meals and then of course you have to fit work in there some where as well as family time.  It is exhausting just keeping up with life - or at least that is how I feel some times.

Some how for me crafting and being creative recharges me (ok so does exercise) but crafting seems to help spark more creativity.  I would like to challenge myself this year to spend a bit more time each week to be creative.  It maybe making a card, a layout or even writing or drawing.  But putting the creativity back in the everyday.

So last weekend I grabbed some paper and a fun design from the Silhouette online shop and this is what happened.

It was really fun to create this little box.  Honestly I have no idea what I am going to do with this.  The process of making it was the reason for creating it.

I do get to be creative each month with the ScrapPacks and here are the layout I created this month.

 I loved creating this layout and using the sewing machine and then roughing up the edges of the pattern paper

 This layout is of my girls and I at the Color Run.  The funny part is we were spectators and did not participate this year.  But it looks like so much fun we will definitely be doing the 5km run next year.  Getting covered in powdered paint and partying afterwards is an awesome idea.

 I really liked these big concrete blocks down at the Auckland Viaduct and thought, "Time for a ME layout"

 Over the summer holidays we found some awesome mountain biking trails in Rotorua.  We now have an excuse to go away for a weekend now and then this year - stunning forest!

Lastly this month I decided it would be fun to pay tribute with a layout for at least one of the sets of duckling we had at our place this year.  I think over all we ended up with four separate families of ducklings over the course of the season (we still have one set visiting now and then even though there are just about to learn to fly)

So on that note I am going to go be creative before I need to do the next life run ... how about you?

In the Garden

I love scrapbooking, it isn't a job to me it is something that makes me happy and I love being able to share what I love with others.  To inspire others.

I have discovered that as much as I love my scrapbooking it is also good to enjoy other things too.  I always admired how my mother could grow such beautiful and bountiful gardens.  In the last few years or so I have started trying to grow veggies and flowers.  This year has to be one of my best years.  I have had a bountiful harvest of strawberries, not much else as my strawberries kind of took over.

Anyway, I was checking on my veggie patch the other day and my poor little self seeded tomato plant - I almost lost it in the wind a couple of days before.

But then I turned around and just happened to look over at the other side of my back yard and was very surprised by some more self seeded tomato plants.  I have a habit that I chuck stuff out from my veggie garden to the area behind me.  I had done this last year with some not so good tomatoes from last years plants and to my surprise this is what I saw.

It is also funny as I was just mentioning to Brad that I needed some more veggie garden beds and in these areas where I found the new tomato plants.  So now I guess I should do some cleaning up of the areas and create a better bed for them.

Also this season my wonderful Mum was kind enough to give some of her Dahlia tubas.  I have not had a go at growing flowers in a very long time.  But this has been the result this year.  I am very excited about maybe getting more flower gardens going as time allows.

This weekend I decided to tidy up the rock garden I have between my house and the garage.  It had become a little unruly with some weeds.  I was given some wonderful weed mat by a lovely friend and so decided it was time to move all the stones, put down some weed mat and put all the stones back again.  It is now completed and I am very pleased with the results.  There are a few more stones that I have found in another area of the garden and will move them to here during the week.

When moving all the stones I did find some little paving slabs.  Instead of hiding them under the stones this time I have moved then and they are now in between my veggie garden beds to make it easier to get to the beds and to keep the weeds down there too.

This is a view looking down from our front deck.  I am very pleased with the results so far in my garden.  It is nice to have another hobby that lets me get outside and a little exercise at the same time (yep, feeling some muscles I had forgotten about today).

I do think I will be in my craft room this afternoon creating so will post again real soon.

January 2014 ScrapPack Extra

As you have probably heard me say already, I really enjoyed working with the January ScrapPack.
It was funny, I just kept making things.  Normally I do four layout and if I'm lucky a card.  But this time I did 5 layouts and two cards.  However the fifth layout I could not fit into this months newsletter, so I decided it would be fun to put it here and share it with you.

My youngest daughter really enjoyed being a part of last years school projection so I thought I would create a layout of her with some of her friends at production.

I found a really cool background die-cut for my Silhouette that was all cogs and cut that out of the Bazzill Wheat cardstock that some in the ScrapPack and adhered this to the Bazzill Candlelight cardstock - also in the ScrapPack.

I love the decorative corner on the Teresa Collins Memorabilia Recorded pattern paper so tore this off and adhered it to the bottom right corner of my layout.

Then I added my photos in a bit of a cluster and so that my bottom photo overlapped part of the 'Recorded' paper but sat just above the 'recorded' word.
I trimmed some of the geometric circles to a bit of a border and added that just under my portrait photo for a bit of interest.

I cut a piece of the arrows pattern paper and added that as a bit of a border but tucking it under part of that 'recorded' corner.  I also added a small amount of one of the narrow borders from the Teresa Collins Memorabilia Borders in the ScrapPack, but only had it go part way under the arrows border.

The main theme of production was steam-punk so I used some of the Snippets from the Teresa Collins Memorabilia Snippets pattern paper as a couple of embellishments to tie the whole page together.

Lastly I added the date in to bottom left corner.  For journaling I added heaps on the back of the layout.

I hope you like this layout and that it inspires you to try something a little bit different.

If you like this ScrapPack there are a couple left and you can order one through the online shop
just click here.

Feel free to add a comment below.
Thanks and happy scrappin'

Christmas is almost here

Oh my goodness, I don't know about you but there is still so much to do to get ready for Christmas.  I cannot believe we have less than a week to go.  Why do we put some much pressure on ourselves.

Well now is a great time to do some crafting, I find it a great way to relax or de-stress.  I must have been having too much fun crafting this time with the ScrapPacks as I did more layouts than would fit in the newsletter, so here is the extra layout that I created.

On this layout I used the Christmas ScrapPack from Better Scrapbooking - available from the online shop (click here to order yours).

 I used the Authentique Joyous collection Decorate pattern paper for the background then added some Bazzill Celery cardstock and a strip of Authentique Joyous collection Intent pattern paper across the page. I also double matted my to photo as the family along the bottom were listening to her classical guitar playing - one of our family traditions at Christmas.  There were no die-cut titles about listening to guitar music so instead I used the Sleigh Bells Ring, are you Listening? die-cut for a bit of fun.

The big vacant area in the top left corner is so you can either add some journaling or a larger title that you have cut out using your own die-cut machines.

Well I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and an even better 2014.
I am looking forward to sharing lots more ideas and tips next year.
So until then, everyone have a safe and happy holiday, wherever you are

File Folder Mini Book

File folders are proving to be really popular in scrapbooking.  You can use it on your layout to create more space for photos and to give an interactive element to your layout.

But here is a fun way you can use a couple of file folders to create a sweet little mini album for yourself to give to someone special.

To start with you are going to need:
2x File Folders - you can either have them the same size or one smaller than the other.
1x Scrap cardstock - mine is 5 3/4"x 2 " (it needs to bit a bit shorter than the smaller file folder - or file folder of choice for inside pages of your mini book)
Adhesive

Take the scrap piece of cardstock and fold it in half
Adhere this scrap piece of cardstock to the back of the smaller file folder as shown.

Now you have your mini album cover and pages.

Now you can go ahead and start adding photos and other fun embellishments.
I will show you how this turns out later this week, but this has been fun so far.  Have fun making mini books using file folders.

A couple of ideas for those Buttons

I am so sorry it has been so long since I last blogged.  If it is not one thing it is another.
I have had birthdays, craft shows, classes and so much more happening.  So time to put excuses aside and get writing and sharing - here we go.

In my latest newsletter I talk about using buttons on your layouts.  But I found I did not have enough room to share these two ideas I have had a play with using buttons and so thought it would be fun to share them here instead.

Buttons come in such beautiful colours and designs these days, so why not use them where ever you can.  Here are two ways you can use them today!

Aren't these so cute.  Here I have just used some wooden clothes pegs and a large paper clip.  With the clothes pegs I have added pattern paper to the flat sides of the pegs and then glued in place a fancy button.
Both of these buttons had shanks on the back.  These were easily taken care of by using a pair of wire cutter and just cutting them off.  Remember however to either cup your spare hand slightly over the button as you cut as the shanks do go flying and you do not want it flying in your face.

With the paper clip I simply adhered it to a flat button.  You can add some bakers twine to the flat button before adhering if you like for further detail.  Once dry the paper clip can be used as a fun little book mark.

On the backs of the clothes pegs you may like to adhere a magnet, then you can use them to pin notes to your refrigerator.

I hope these two ideas spark more ideas for you to try with buttons.

Happy crafting

Making Spiders

Well with it being Halloween shortly I thought it would be fun to show you a fun we embellishment you can create for your layouts, cards or even your windows.

You Will Need:

Black cardstock
White cardstock
1 1/4" scallop circle punch
 photo corner punch
1/2" circle punch
Black bling or pearls


For each spider you will need to punch:

1 black 1 1/4" scallop circle
4 black photo corners
2 white 1/2" circles

To create the legs of your spider, firstly cut any decorative piece away from your photo corner punches

Now cut each photo corner down the middle so you end up with 8 thin corners

Adhere these to the back of your scallop circle.

Once yours legs are adhered in place you may wish to trim them down slightly.

Add black bling/pearls to your white 1/2" circles

Adhere the two white circles with bling/pearls for eyes to the front of the scallop circle.

Add your finished spider to your project.

Have fun creating and displaying your cute little spiders.  If you play around with the placement of the bling for the eyes you can get some really funny expressions for your spider.

Happy Scrappin

So excited ...

It's here, it's here, it's here!!!!

You may have seen that line above on my facebook during the week.  Well it all started a couple of years ago when I was able to borrow my step-mother's Cricut machine and realized how much fun an electronic die-cut machine was.  Well I had to give back my step-mother's Cricut over a year ago now.  Since then I discovered another electronic die-cut machine ... the Silhouette Cameo.

It looked just like what I was wanting.  I wanted something that I could design my own images and cut them out.  Also not to be restricted to purchase cartridges but to purchase images as and when I wanted them and build up my own library of images.  It also needed to be able to hook up to the computer.  The Silhouette Cameo does all this.  So a couple of months ago I put my order in for one ...

On Tuesday this week it finally arrived!

I was literally bouncing round my office.  Luckily my daughter Grace was home so as I unpacked my new machine she took lots of photos.

Getting it out of the shipping box was hard, it was a tight fit, but worth it

Opening the box and discovering.
Notice that cat couldn't care less.

Lifting it out, so exciting

 

Taking the packaging off the Silhouette - so much tape

Finally I can open it.  And guess what, there was more tape.

Removing the last piece of tape from the blade holder.

And here she is, in all her glory
Ta-da!

So then came the working out how to use it.  I had to wait for Brad to get home so he could find a NZ plug for it and then the magic began.  I cut out just a couple of quick sample shapes. Nothing worth showing LOL!

But last night my daughter Melissa picked up a gift for a friend of hers so we made a cute little gift bag using the Silhouette Cameo.

It is cute!
So now to find all my layouts that need titles.  I know I left some without titles so I could do them once my Silhouette Cameo arrived, but do you think I can find them.  Oh well what a shame I might just have to do some more scrapbooking :)

Happy Scrappin' everyone!

Steampunk Paint Brush

I mentioned earlier this week that I was spray painting a paint brush.
I know some of you were thinking I had lost my marbles, and with the smell in my office this week from the spray painting (even though I did the painting outside), I just may have lost a couple LOL!

Anyway, I was inspired by the Green Bay High School production of The Electric Empire Adventure as it was done in a Steam-punk theme.  Well since then I have been wanting to do a mixed media project using Steam-punk.  I was on Pinterest one day and came across a paintbrush someone had done and figured, "I could do that"  With that Grace and I went widget shopping and found lots of cool little goodies in unexpected places.  A big thank you to the Waitakere Avanti Bike shop that was kind enough to help us out with all sorts of little goodies.

Well here is my end result:

I spray painted my paint brush copper, this took two coats, front and back.  Not don't do spray painting if there is even a breath of a breeze in the air.
I then spray painted some cogs and widgets with gold spray paint.
To adhere everything in place I used the wonderful Glossy Accents.

Now all I need to do is think what to do with it now.  I think I will display it somewhere in my office :)