Week Forty...

Kellie from Kellie stamps released three new sets this month and I have used two of them here in my Project Life spread.  This week didn't have many photos but just enough to capture our week.  Because there wasn't a lot of photos I just did a single page spread.  

The big thing for this week was me having my last Chemo session.    As my journaling says "grateful for the medical staff and the chemo medication but #thankful this is the last one".  Yet again our cat made it into our week but I just love the photo of my daughter with her cat that was taken for her work.  I just love it.

I have been thinking lots lately about how I am going to document 2018.  A few months back I decided that I wasn't going to do Project Life next year.  I have done it for 5 years and just felt that I needed to do something different.  But as the end of the year gets closer I realise that I think I would miss it too much.  So, yep, you guessed it, I will be doing project life again next year.  Some habits are just hard to break right!

How are you documenting next year?

Love me :-)

It's beginning to look like christmas...

For the past several years Paislee Press has released a collection of Christmas papers, elements, templates and wordart called December you are My Fav.  This years collection is by far my favourite because there is so much to choose from.  This year there is a scrapbook collection, a 6x8 collection, a 4x8 collection for all you travellers notebook lovers out there, journal cards and some great number tags that would be perfect for an advent calendar.

For this layout I decided to combine papers and templates from the 4x8 collection as well as papers from the scrapbook collection.  Remember just because something might be designed for something specific i.e. 4x8 collection for travellers notebooks, doesn't mean that's how you have to use it.  I used one of the 4x8 templates and papers to create this layout.  I love how they have become a design element on their own on my page.  

December you are my Fav #6 is definitely my favourite.  But then I say that every year when Liz brings out a new one.

Happy crafting!

Love me :-)

Red cup season...

Hello and welcome, hope your week has been good to you.  It's release day over at Kellie Stamps and my first project that I would like to share with you is a layout all about getting a Starbucks Christmas cup from a dear friend who was on holiday recently.  I am obsessed with Starbucks (but we don't have one here in Western Australia... insert sad face) and I desperately wanted one of the holiday take away cups and when a friend did a post on Instagram of her cup I quickly asked if she could please get me one.  Silly I know but that's just how I roll.

This layout has been put together using mostly digital stamps from the "rate this" and "Grateful" sets.  My favourite part of the layout is probably the red pattern paper that I made using the "mood rating faces digital stamp".  It was easy to do and super quick to put together (my favourite type of crafting).  That's the best part about digital stamps, you can do so much with them.  I did do some old fashioned stamping with my title using two alphabet sets from Kellies stamps (I think these have since sold out).

If you haven't tried digital stamps, you should.  There are lots of great tutorials and classes on the internet to show you how to use photoshop elements, don't be scared.  Give it a go.  You can also download a free one months trial of photoshop elements.

This is a super quick post today as I am about to head off to hospital to have my Mastectomy.  I am sure all will go well but please say a quick prayer cause it can't hurt.  Thanks a bunch.

Love me :-)

Counting down to Christmas...

If you have been following me for a while you will know that I love Advent Calendars.  I love them so much we usually have several going on at once in our house at Christmas.  The last few years I have chosen a work colleague and made them one just for fun and to share the Christmas spirit.  You can see previous posts here and here.

This year I have chosen the Teacher that I work with as a way of saying a huge thank you to her for all her support this year.  I has not been easy for her with me having so much time off because she has had to put up with lots of different people doing my job.  So this is may way of letting her know just how much I have appreciated her support.  

I chose to use the 2018 Calendar Collection  as my daily countdown and I decorated each one with papers and elements from the December you are my Fave No. 5 scrapbook kit from Paislee Press available from The Lily Pad.

I highlighted each day in red on the calendar so that she know which one to open next.

I kept the whole thing very simple as this is quite a large project and I needed to get in finished without too much fuss.  I already had some white paper bags so all that was left to do was to fill each one with a chocolate, seal the bag with some washi tap and then staple to calendar card to the front of each bag.

I love how this turned out and I can't wait to give it to her.  Making them is so much fun but giving them to the person and seeing their reaction is just so cool.  I don't think I will ever get tired of making them or giving them.

Let the Christmas magic begin

Love me :-)

Week Thirty Nine...

"In The Books" is the new kit from Paislee Press by Liz Tamanaha and available now over at The Lily Pad.  I knew exactly what I was going to use the kit for and it was perfect to help me catch up on Project Life.  I think I will always be catching up on Project Life, it's just the way it seems to go.

Week Thirty Nine was a fairly quiet week so when I came to put this week together I was worried that I wouldn't be able to fill a double page spread.  I had too many photos for just one page but not quite enough for two, at least that's what I thought.  When I am browsing the internet or looking through Instagram I often see quotes etc that strike a cord within me.  I used to write them down but then I had piles of paper everywhere and I never ended up doing anything with them.  Now, thanks to my smartphone I take a screen shot.  Quotes etc are the perfect way to fill spots in your weekly PL spreads and it makes use of all those quotes etc that you collect.  I love looking back over past weeks of PL, because although the photos and words remind me of what was going on so do the quotes I include.  Its an instant reminder of how I was feeling and what was inspiring me at the time.  Its a little bit of history all of its own.

If you have any other good ideas about how to fill empty spots in your Project Life spread I would love to hear about them.

Hope your weekend was wonderful and I hope the next week is just as wonderful.

Love me :-)

Gratitude and Grace...

One of my favourite things from the Comfort and Joy kit design by Brandi Kincaid for Feed Your Craft  is definately the die cuts.  And although the kit sold out you can still get the die cuts, the solid puffy stickers and the Comfort & Joy puffy stickers from Feed your Craft.

I used one of the journal cards (from the kit) to make the base of a cute gift card.  I then added some of the die cuts and a puffy sticker to add a little more interest to my card.  I also used some of the die cuts to decorate a small gift.  I love that they are different but still go together so well.

I would love to know how you use your die cuts.  Please leave a link in the comments so I can come and check them out.

Happy crafting

Love me :-)

Desk Calendar 2018...

A few years back I purchased the Desk Calendar Kit from Paislee Press because I wanted to make some Christmas gifts for friends.  I had them printed 5 x 7 and simply clipped them to a craft clipboard.  The people that I gave them to went nuts over them and said could I just have a new one of these every year.  

The following year I chose different themes for the photos that I placed on each calendar, printed them out 5x7 and put them in glassine bags which I decorated just a little.  There was no need to give them a clipboard because they aleady had one from the year before.  I couldn't get over how much everybody loved them.  I am so glad because there fun and so simple to put together and the whole gift is not very expensive.

I am so excited because Liz from Paislee Press has released new calendar templates for 2018 which can be found at The Lily Pad.  There are lots of different sizes to choose from including a poster size.  You also have the option of choosing Sunday or Monday as your start of the week.

Please note that the photos on each monthly calendar template shown below are not my photos.  They have been taken from Pinterest.  Throughout the year I pin loads of different images that appeal to me and that I think would look great on a calendar.  Then when it's time to put the project together I just go to my Pinterest boards and select my photos from there.  Pinterest is a great place to store your ideas and it means you don't have to remember where you saved your photos too.

I have a love for push bikes, no necessarily riding them but I just love to collect images of them.  Because I had quite a collection I thought it would make a great collection for a calendar and I was right.  I just loved it turned out.

Thanks for stopping by. 

Enjoy what is left of your weekend and I hope you have a good week.

Love me :-)

Please note:  each of the photos that appear on each monthly calendar are not my photos, these were images taken from Pinterest and the internet.

December Tradition layout...

Doing all this Christmas scrapbooking has got me into the Christmas spirit... I officially started my Christmas shopping today.  I know, I can't believe it either.

Today on my blog I am sharing another hybrid layout using the new digital stamps "no peeking" and "dear santa" from Kellie Stamps by Kellie Winnell avail now.    I love everything about this layout, the simplicity, the white space and the story.  This layout is made entirely of digital elements and was super easy to put together.  I even made my own pattern paper (that red strip down the centre of the layout).  The "traditions" word was cut out using my Silhouette Cameo and the trace and cut feature.

I totally love the holly, its prob my favourite image from these stamps.  Oh wait, I love the lights too, and then there is... yep I love it all.  Don't worry if you are not into digital stamps because they are avail in clear too.

Please remember, if you have any questions just let me know.

Thanks for stopping by
Love me :-)

Halloween hybrid layouts...

 

I had to search high and low for these Halloween photos, all the way back to 2008 to be exact.  I love these photos and looking at them instantly transfers me be back in time to one of the most fun evenings I have ever had.  To give you a little bit of the back story, I was working at Tomorrow's Memories, a scrapbooking store here in Perth.  The store would host moonlight crops (6pm till midnight) every 2nd Friday night.  They were lots of fun and many of the ladies were regulars not only to the crops but to the store as well so we all knew each other well.  As this particular moonlight fell on 31st October we decided to host a Halloween Crop night.  All the ladies got into the spirit of things, they dressed up, took part in all the challenges and games and just had a damn good time.

I thought for this particular layout I would explain my process about how I go about putting a  hybrid layout together.  The double page layout above is all done using digital products from Paislee Press available from The Lily Pad.    When I am creating a digital page I usually create the layout first in Photoshop to give me an idea of how I want to layout to look.

 I don't necessarily include everything in the digital layout, just enough to give me an idea of how things fit together and what size I need everything to be.  I do spend a little bit of time on this part because once I have decided on the final layout, I really then just want to print things out and stick it all together.

Here are the two pages as digital versions before I print everything out:-

Once I am happy with the digital version I then decide what I want to be printed on the background/cardstock page and what I want to print, cut out and stick to the background.  Very similar to how you would choose a piece of pattern paper to be your background/base paper and then you stick your photos and embellishments to that. 

To give you an idea of what I mean, below is a photo of one of the layouts when I have printed it out and before I stick it all together:-

You can see above that on my background I printed the spider web, the word "halloween" and the pattern paper (coloured circles) which I altered a little.  I changed the colour of some of the circles to match my photos (the beauty of digital paper).  I then printed on a separate sheet the photos, journaling and a couple of digital elements/embellishments.

Then it's just a matter of sticking everything down.  Usually I stick everything down in line with the digital version, but sometimes I do move things around.  You will notice in the digital version I didn't include the journaling.  Also on the Halloween Crop layout, the "crop" is actually letter stickers.  I knew I wanted to add letter stickers so I made sure that I left enough room to add them after everything was printed.

 Below I show the layouts side by side.  Digital is on the left and the hybrid layout is on the right.  The colouring is slightly different on the hybrid layouts due to it be a photograph:-

Digital products give me the freedom to create pretty much I want to:-
Digital products me that I can use the same thing over and over again
Digital products allows me to change the size of anything
Digital products lets me change the colour
Digital products gives me the option to delete certain parts of something if I don't want it.

Really, I could go on and on about digital products but I won't.  I still love the physical stuff like pattern paper and embellishments but digital just gives me another way to be creative.

If you have any questions please let me know.  Thanks for stopping by and I hope your week is a good one.

Love me :-)

Dear Santa...

Would you believe that there are only 9 Friday's till Christmas... at least that's what it says on Facebook so it must be true LOL!

Someone asked me the other day what I would like for Christmas.  My first reaction was, I don't know, I'm sure there is lots but right now I can't think of anything.  A little while later, while eating dinner I had this thought... I can't wait until food starts to taste like its supposed to.  Then it hit me.  Of course I know what I want for Christmas.  I want food to taste like it's supposed to, I would like to eat with proper utensils and not plastic ones, I would like to have hair, OMG how I would like to have hair.  And before I knew it I had a whole list of things that I wanted for Christmas.  Going through Chemo is tough and some of the side effects can be awful.  It's not until you go through something like this that you realise how much we actually just want the basic things in life until they get taken away from.

So with the help of the Comfort & Joy kit designed by Brandi Kincaid for Feed Your Craft I created this layout.

The Comfort & Joy kit was the perfect thing for this layout.  I used a little bit of everything from the kit but my favourite would have to be the die cuts.  I mean just look at them, they are so cute.  Infact it was the die cuts that gave me the idea for the layout design.  As soon as I saw them I thought they would look great hanging on a tree.  I cut the tree out with my Silhouette Cameo and I cut the speach bubbles out using the Word Bubbles Framelits Dies from Stampin Up.  

What are you asking Santa for this Christmas?

Love me :-)

Traditions layout...

Its release day at Kellie Stamps and this month we are all about Christmas.  I know, I know, who wants to think about Christmas right! Well just so you know there are only 73 days till Christmas.

I have used digital stamps from "no peeking" and "dear santa" sets which you can get here.

Now that I have put you into the Christmas spirit, I though I would share this layout with you and  all the different ways I have used the digital stamps.

I was always a stamper, and I guess I still am but since using more and more digital products I have  found that they open up a whole new way to create.  Plus my supplies never run out because I can keep using them over and over again.

If you own a silhouette cameo digital stamps make creating so much easier.  Using the christmas tree digital stamp I was able to use the trace and cut facility within the silhouette software to enlarge the tree and then cut it out in two different papers.  The outside of the tree cut in green cardstock and the inside of the tree in patter paper. Similarly, I did the same with the light bulbs which I love because I could cut them out so I could put them together with three different paper types adding more detailed interest.

Again, using the trace and cut facility, I was able to take the "traditions" digital stamp and turn it into a cut file to create my title.

Digital stamps are also a super great way to create your own journal cards like I did for this layout.  It's so simple and you can make them any colour you want.

Printing digital stamps onto cardstock/pattern paper and then cutting them out adds a great visual effect, it's like making your own embellishments.  You can use your punches (like I have to add Cheer to the top of my tree), decorative scissors or into strips like I have.

Here are some closeups of my layout:-

I use photoshop elements to work with digital files.  There are so many online courses to teach you photoshop which I highly recommend.  It's not a difficult program to learn, I promise.

Thanks for stopping by.  If you have any questions about digital stamps please leave them in the comments and I will do my best to answer them.

love me :-)