Got this award from Jackie and JeanJeany:


This award states that: This blog invests and believes the PROXIMITY- nearness in space, time and relationships. These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut,even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these people, Deliver this award to 8 bloggers who may then pass it on.

I'll pass it to Audrey, Neasa and Rachel.

Layout flush

Sometimes it is good to "flush" all my layouts in my blog, so I can get my inspiration back and finish a few that are in the pipeline.

This is probably my busiest layout ever, I probably never used so many different items in a single LO, I even use the tickets from the show as an embelishment. The dark paper is one I got in a kit and thought I'd never used it but it turned out to be perfect for the photo. You never know.


Another about my daughter. Went back to simple again. :-)


Now one for my son.


I overheard when my daugher was trying the roller skate. She can skate more or less, but was making a bit of a drama, saying Heeeelp and then my son went to her and said:

"Are you OK, Lucy?"
"Can you manage?"
"Here, hold my hand."

Isn't he the sweetest kid?

Christmas Party at the CS forum!

Today and tomorrow we well be having a Christmas Party at the Craft Supplies forum.

Cara Craft Supplies, affectionately known as CS, is a fab online shop for cardmakers and scrapbookers. Probably everyone in Ireland who is into either craft has heard of it and mostly probably regularly shops there.

It also hosts a very friendly forum thanks to its owner, Ais, and today we're having a party. Check here, here and here for a number of games and classes which will be posted during the weekend.

Here's mine. I'll also will post it as a class in the forum. It is a little decoration to add to your Christmas tree. It is something that looks pretty and will use some the bits and pieces of leftovers that I bet you've got hanging around your craft room.

Sorry about the bad photos, the light is hopeless today.

This is something that came in my Studio Calico kit, and most of us will have something similar in your stash: chipboard labels (or frames).



You will also need:
Scraps of patterned paper (mine are BG, bought in CS, out of stock now)
rhinestones
organza ribbon
2 small photos (to fit the inside of the frame)
glue, pen knife, nail file
Crop-a-dile (if you have one)


Step 1: Use the label and trace it onto the back of the patterned paper.


Step 2: Hollow out the centre of the paper.


Step 3: Distress the inside of the frame and reserve


Step 4: Cover the chipboard and distress the edges.


Step 5: Glue the photos to the chipboard and the paper.
{sorry forgot to take a photo of this step }

Step 6: Glue the chipboard and the paper back to back. Trim the paper, distress the edges. Make a hole in the top. Use a crop-a-dile if you've got one, otherwise use the pen knife. The hole does not have to be pretty as it will be hidden.
Decorate with the ribbon and rhinestones.
Attach a hook or thread so that you can hang it in the tree.

All pink!

My daughter has an ambivalent attitute towards the medals she won at Irish Dancing competitions. She is dismissive of them: "Everyone gets them, mamae!", but can't help displaying them in a proeminent place in her bedroom.

I've been meaning to make a board to display them properly for a while, and last week's theme for PaperPlay challenge helped to get the project going.



I covered a cake base with patterned paper, decorated it and put hooks for the medals. The cake base was an improvisation - has been laying around since my son's birthday in June - but it worked out perfectly. It is lightweight and I could add the hooks by hand, no need of a drill.

Photobooth

We took these photos in a amusement park in Bray in 2005, and it is being lying around my craft room ever since. I thought the original one was already fading so I scanned it and printed another copy.

The floral paper is from a Studio Calico kit, I thought it was pretty but a bit too vintage looking for my style, but I liked the final result. Sometimes it is good to try to do something a little bit different.

Follow-up layout

The latest Journaler's Junction challenge was to either add journaling to an existing layout or do a follow-up page.

The reason I like their challenges so much is that often it goes with some of the ideas I have to scrapbook - but would probably never do if not for their prompt. Like when I was looking at one of the first layouts I make of Luke: it had Luke's photo in a puzzle frame and the title was "Found the missing piece in our family".

That was 3 years ago. Now I see how Luke fitted in our family in a way that seems to complement and complete our family.

Here's the original layout made in 2005:



And this is my follow up:



While I was trying to fit the journaling around the photography, I joined a couple of words together, so there are more mistakes than my usual spelling and grammatical errors. Sorry about that...

The main part of the journaling reads:
"When Luke joined the family we could never have imagined how well he would fit in our family.
Somehow he is, for each of us, what we wanted and needed without knowing it.
Luke, the missing piece in our family.
Luke, the perfect fit."

Coincidentally, after I wrote the journaling, I went blog hopping and this layout (last photo in the post) by the Rita Oliverio has a very similar tone.

What can I say? Great minds think alike! ;-)

PaperPlay Challenges

Got an invitation from Mandy to participate in the PaperPlay Challenge blog. I was thrilled, challenges are not my forte but I will do my best.

Here's my contribution for last week's challenge. We had to use 2 patterned papers, a stamped image and a ribbon.

Autobiography in 6 words

I had never noticed it before, but I was reading the Irish Times newspaper, when I noticed at the bottom of one of the pages a strip with a quote from the American comedian Joan Rivers. I can't remember the quote now, but it had 6 words, and it was supposed to be an autobiography.
It explained that Ernest Hemingway had once written a story (*) in 6 words which he considered to be one of his best work. His' was "For sale: baby shoes, never used.”.

(*)I had first assumed that it was a biography - I lost the original newspaper quote - but maybe it was not.

I thought it was a great idea and decide to make one. Since I'll definitely never write a "proper" autobiography, this is the next best thing. I thought I'd go for humour first but settled in for a simpler one.

Since then I googled 6 words and Hemingway and found that it was a well known story, there even a book of 6 words memoirs. How come I had never heard of it before? In any case, here's mine in a layout.



It is fun, have a go and post your bio here!

{ Photo by my daughter - it was Halloween, as you might have already have guessed }

Halloween mini album

I didn't post this mini album last year and since I didn't take any photos of my kids treat or treating this year, it will do.

It is the cheapest project I've ever done. The album was a freebie, I used only left over papers and the journaling stamp was a present from Kiki.






The swirls are from a digital brush set. I'll dig the source.

A bunch of layouts

Today is a very quiet day for Irish scrapbooking blogs and forums. The Megascrap with Donna Downey and Anita Mundt was on. I missed it because my little star was in a show. We went to see it today and we're so proud of her!

I haven't posted any layouts for a couple of weeks because everytime I thought of taking photos of them, the light was so bad that I gave up.

These are my last ones from October, I'll try to get more done this month - I am overflowing with ideas lately. Problem is, I have ideas like photos and journaling but not design ideas. :-(

This one is about my son not liking changes (such as moving to Montessori class). I had it almost finished at Lynn's last week. We both subscribe to the Studio Calico kits and we had a SC crop at her place. She's mega talented and competing in the Scrapbook Apprentice title.



Another SC layout. This one I am not mad about, but I love the story behind it.



Journaling:
"She loves you. A lot.
If you are looking for proof, don't go looking for kisses and hugs.
Remember all the times she let you have something you're fighting over.
When you're upset and she tries to make you laugh.
And the little drawings she makes for you."

This another Journaler's Junction challenge from some weeks ago. I know I am not the most constant blogger, but still I am pleased that I managed to post every now and them.


The photo above was taken by my daughter. Maybe not the best of framing, but it left a lot of white space for my journaling. Great to have another aspiring photography in the family!
I created the words with Wordle, if you haven't tried do it, it is great fun. I cut and paste the latest entries from my blog but you can type whatever you want or give the name any website.
Wordle doesn't have any option to save the result so what I did was to click the "Prnt Scrn" key, then open PSE and create a new image from clipboard. You could also open Word and "paste" your pic.

Finally one celebrating one of my son's recent achievements: potty training, phase II.




It's based on a free template by TaylorMade Designs at Oscraps, which I later printed on paper. Template is the digi equivalent of a sketch. They're amazingly simple to use if you got PSE.

I am absolutely in love with TaylorMade Designs and Paislee Press @ Oscraps. I've been bookmarking some of their kits which I plan to use in a mini album.