Kraft Plus March Challenge

Hello everyone, it's been a while since my last post but seeing as it's Easter & I have no other plans I thought I'd try my hand at this month's challenge over at Kraft+. Here is the challenge:

Now I did happen to find a small amount of Houndstooth PP in my stash & I really like this sketch, so I've thrown my hat in.

A sneaky photo taken of me by DH on the beach at Byron Bay. I've used lots of chipboard on this project & covered them with various media.

It feels good doing something creative today.....makes my soul happy :)   Thanks for dropping by xx

Playing with water colours

Hidey Ho creative friends, I've been meaning to share with you a set of cards created with stamps and water colours. Recently I was asked to make a few cards for someone who has a few occasions coming up so I thought I'd dig out my water colours and Faber-Castell Gelatos. This first Happy Birthday card was made using water colour paper and a lovely dragon fly stamp by Prima. For the second card I've used Gelatos. By the way, water colour paper is used on all the cards because of the amount of water required to get the effects that I wanted. I then stamped over it with a Kaisercraft background stamp and then a stamp set from Stampin' Up! using Ranger Archival Ink.

I also used the Prima butterfly stamp on the "Thanks" card then coloured them with more intense water colour than the background. 

This last Happy Birthday card is stamped with two Kaisercraft background stamps and a script stamp from Stampin' Up! I die-cut the large words from Mama Elephant dies. I'm itching to actually use my water colours on a sketch or two so maybe whilst on my upcoming holiday I will get the chance, fingers crossed.  Thanks fro dropping by!  :) xx

Week 6 Colour Me Positive....

I hope your week has commenced on a positive note. If not I hope this post cheers you up. I'm not getting too much in the way of scrapbooking done of late but I am trying to keep up with the weekly challenge at Colour Me Positive.  Here is this weeks prompt & the optional extra is to use stamping somewhere on your project.

I sometimes feel that there isn't enough kindness in the World, so I've used one of my favourite quotes that we sometimes need reminding of - Always be kind for everyone is fighting a harder battle - Plato. This page was inspired by the very talented Marta Lapkowska.

Once again I've used the beautiful Dylusions paints and Faber-Castell Gelatos. The stamps that I've used are from Prima: Dragonfly and Stitched Circles. I've used my own handwriting (eeek!) for the quote.

I love using my finges for spreading the colour around....so much fun making a mess :D

Thanks for looking once again. Have a great week xx

My Art Journal progress....

Hello everyone & welcome to February (eek!). Yesterday I felt the need to get my hands dirty so I have found a new group that runs a weekly challenge. The beauty of this group is that it is very casual & you are encouraged to create whatever you like with only a quote & a small prompt to guide you. Check out the blog HERE.  This is this week's prompt with the optional prompt of using bold colours.

So I got busy with my Gelatos, Dylusions Paints, Stamps and some heat embossing & this is what I came up with. Keep in mind that I have no real set plan when I open my art journal to a blank page. I just go with what feels good at the time.

I heat embossed with white embossing powder a large medallion stamp after preparing my background with Gelatos & paint. I like the texture that the Gesso left behind when I was preping my page.

"Dream - Imagine the possibilities"

Thanks for looking! Until next time....

My Creative Sketches January Challenge

Hello everyone & happy Australia Day to all in the land of Oz. After some much needed rain last night it has turned out to be a beautiful day. After sharing a bbq brekky with the young ones and submitting an assignment, I rewarded myself with some creative time. I decided to join in at My Creative Sketches for the very first time. They have a lovely sketch this month and I had a photo that I've been wanting to use.  Here is the sketch:

And here is my take:                     "Just plain fun!"

Lots of fun using some Kaisercraft products. I layered using some promotional product from Bed, Bath & Table - I just love that shop! (the layout looks a tad crooked here but it's just the way I've taken the photo...oops!). The title is from American Crafts/Amy Tangerine.

I think the flair button is from D-lish, apologies if it isn't.  Anyway it felt good to do something creative for a change. Thanks for dropping by xx

ARTastic January Challenge

Okay so I made a note not to enter any challenges until I had my next assignment finished. Well I lied to myself....eeek! But in all fairness I did spend a few hours this morning studying, but then my creative mojo took over and there is so much creative inspiration on FB, and I saw all the wonderful new challenges for January, and I couldn't resist, and ...............(insert more excuses here). As you know when the mojo is happenin' one just has to go with it while one has the opportunity :)  I started out doing a PL page for our London album but my Dylusion Paints beckoned me. So this is my entry for the easy peasy challenge at ARTastic. I really love doing Summer themed layouts using lots of bright colours. Here is the inspo piece of artwork by Isabelle May Tweddle and the criteria is "Summer theme".

This piece is called "Bondi Scene".  My piece is called "Colours of Summer".  I was inspired by the lovely colours and her "painterly" and "impressionistic" style (yes, that's my new terminology coming out so apparently something is sinking in). Thanks to the very talented Marta Lapkowska for the inspo for using the "punchenella" as a stencil. And those Dylusions paints!!! What can I say?! They make me happy every time I use them.

This photo was taken by my DD's very good pal, Hannah. They've been besties since high school & this New Year they travelled all the way to Byron Bay (a 9 hour road trip) to attend a music festival. They camped, swam, ate (& goodness what else!) and I'm sure rocked 'til the wee hours. Anyway I love this summery pic of my girl and couldn't wait to use it for this challenge.  I also managed to use up some old alphas for the title.

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to leave some love so that I know you called in xxx

Kraft Plus January Challenge

I'm back again today to share with you my entry for this month's challenge at Kraft+. I will be working full-time over the next couple of weeks so I won't get much of a chance to create so I wanted to get this done beforehand. Now this challenge really took me out of my comfort zone becasue the criteria is Kraft plus your own handwriting and trust me when I say I really dislike my handwriting. I do try to use it a bit especially in my PL albums, however it never looks neat or uniform in size or style. But hopefully one day future generations may like to know what my untidy handwriting looked like.

This is what I came up with:          "A Country Boy @ Heart"

I've used some of my lovely 2Crafty Chipboard (squares and "together" word) on this project.

I handwrote the journalling and the date and title. Here is what I wrote:

"Tim, you enjoy visiting the city for a few days but you soon get tired of it. You look forward to leaving it behind. This is us at Opera Bar in Sydney (on Sydney Harbour) the weekend before Xmas. It was hot and crowded and you were well and truly over it by the next day."

Actually I'm a bit the same. I like visiting for the shopping and theatre but after two days I need to get away from it. We had a lot of fun this particular weekend as we were all together as well as partners. It was almost Xmas and everyone was in good spirits. We shopped, dined out and saw a musical production. The harbour was particularly beautiful and the shops festive. But the city is no place to be in 35 degree heat :(

Anyway thanks for looking. It's back to serious business next week and I'll be back into study mode as well, but I'll try and fit in a bit of creativeness somewhere, fingers crossed.