Challenging Pages

In amongst the doctors visits, the clutter clearing exercises, and the normal weekly tasks, I managed to scrap two pages this week. I made a few cards as well from a not-loved paper. All these from challenges on facebook sites. I like scrapping to challenges. It's like that little set of instructions brings out the creative flow and you have to go in directions you probably wouldn't have thought to go in, without the challenge.

My husband particularly likes this one, and he hardly ever says anything other than, "Mmm, nice," or some other not-really-committing kind of comment. It's not that he doesn't like them, it's just an "Oh yeah, there she goes again doing her stuff," kind of thing. He expects it of me. But now and then one will leap out at him and he pays more attention. Like this one:

It's a black and white photo, taken by my son's girlfriend, of us all on a walk one day last year. Nice job Shanae :-) Perfect for this challenge from Scrapping Good Time, which was to create a completely black and white page, no other colours allowed (except the photo could be colour).

I used my new Martha Stewart punch set to make the background layer - I'm having so much fun with those punches! Everything else came from stash, already cut or made, except the pearl flourish, which I bought last week at the Kaiser shop. The stamped flowers I must have done about 3 years ago, and just came across them again recently. The large flowers were cut with my sister's new flower die set from MFTstamps which I love (it's on my list!). I just pinched up the petals and layered them. The brad centres were also from about 3 years ago. Love that chicken wire stencil and I find I want to use it a lot. Even on flowery pages it looks good and on this page I think it added a bit of needed visual texture.

My second page this week was a challenge I set on Home & Scrapped, to use inked or painted circles in the background. We have some lovely pages coming in from this challenge, all really quite different. Here's what I did:

Just felt like documenting how the inner journey makes me feel. I used a variety of scraps here, from Kaiser and MME mostly, and again, flowers and other things from my, uhhh... he-hemm... large stash.

I don't know why I feel guilty having such piles of goodies to use. I do actually use them. I am surrounded by abundance and nowhere is it made clearer to me than when I need something crafty - I look, and there it is, just waiting to be used. Lucky me :-)

Anyway, back to the page. I used a glass and the lid of a couple of containers dipped in ink and gesso to make my circles, then inked the edges of the background paper in two shades, and then glimmer misted it in two shades, and then stamped it too, for good measure. The word GLAD came from an alpha my friend Jewels sent me years ago, which I am slowly disappearing, the flowers came from my niece Elissa's die set, the little bling flowers are beads given to me by my friend Jemma, the red spotty washi tape from another friend, Josie and the swiggly leaves came from my sister Karen. You have to just LOVE having scrappy friends and family! It's so nice to be able to scrap with such things, it brings out all sorts of memories, other than the ones you are actually scrapping. Pages with layers of feeling: excellent! Oh and don't you just love my little cat? That is my latest purchase from ebay, a sweet set of dies with real cat poses from Impression Obsession, and a great size for cards and little accents. So cute!

I have another page on my desk as well, but I also have a very busy week ahead, with visitors, several very early mornings, repair men, child minding tasks, doctor and chiropractic appointments, etc, etc. It might not be scrapped very fast - or maybe it will, in a frenzy of craft-aholic need, lol.

Have a very happy scrappy week, love Heather.

One For The Boys

Most of us have boys to scrap: sons, husbands, fathers, brothers, uncles, friends, heroes. They can be a little harder to scrap though, because there are fewer embellishments around, and we can find ourselves with a more limited colour range that feels right. It's pretty easy to scrap a girl page, just fling a few flowers at it and it instantly looks fab (oh... that could just be me, lol).

There are some wonderful blogs for boy scrapping though, sooo much wonderful inspiration and brilliant ideas. I love Scrap The Boys in particular, for taking our masculine pages out of the closet and giving them such a great lease of zing and life! The definitely expand our boundaries, bless them. And some of the die companies are finally getting it together and bringing us some fun new dies with a more masculine flavour.

We love our boys and we want to celebrate their lives with great pages.

Now I'm not saying this is a great page, lol, but I do like the sketch I started with. I hope you do too. I left lots of space for things like masking or misting on the background, so go have some messy fun.

And here is my red page. Just a plain red cs background, with some masking done with a stencil from The Crafters Workshop and some modelling paste, the glass I just had my peach tea from (earlier, when it was clean) with gesso, and a cotton reel dipped in ink. 

I tore the washi tape accidentally while I was tearing a bit off... um... I mean it tore down the length of the tape rather than across. I can't tell you how indignant I felt, or how reluctant I was to ditch the torn bits! So funny when I think about it. Hellooo, it's a small piece of tape! Where is my sense of proportion? LOL. Anyway, at the time, I had the offending strips in my fingers and decided they needed to go on the edges of the page. Thrilled with how that worked out. (Yes, I'm very easy to please.) 

I must say the effect of this page reminds me of the state my son's bedroom gets in! 

(Ooops, just realised I haven't done my journaling yet. Must need coffee... )

You might like to see some other pages I have done recently. I haven't scrapped as much as I would have liked this year, but I am happy with what I have managed and I have a whole lot of new photos to play with now too - good things coming :-) So here is a selection of the pages I've done this year. Most of my pages use stuff from stash - some of it quite old now - things I've made and also little pretties gifted to me by my lovely scrappy friends. I am not a scrap snob - I'll use anything I like, as long as it's scrapbook friendly, so there is a wide eclectic variety on all my pages, of new, old, bought and made, and usually, lots of flowers. I like it like that, it suits me.

 These lovely photos of my daughter were taken by her friend when they were out and about one day, on her phone. Love this glimpse of her.

 My darling children, chunks of my heart and soul.

Enjoying a walk on the riverside in Brisbane. Twinchies made by a friend, with real shells.

Remember the page I made of my Dad on the balcony? This is the companion page, of my Mum, sitting with him.

 My daughter, with her new best boy. These two are lovely together.

 A true scrap-fest going on here, using lots of lovely little bits lurking in my stash files, and a few different techniques too.

 The first page of a double, using twinchies made from various little finds in my stash, including some gifted and swapped items.

The second page of my double. Love these photos of my beloved, taken when we went out for our traditional Boxing Day lunch. And together: 

The words around the hearts are all meaningful little things to us - words of love, bits of song or memories. That was a fun thing to do.

The girls in my family all got together in February to have a weekend away. It was so much fun and we will definitely be doing it again some time soon. I'll have a few more pages to go with this one in the next few weeks. This page is this month's sketch at Home & Scrapped, my facebook group.

I hope you've enjoyed my little bit of scrap fun. I'm off now to play with more paper. Have a great week.

love Heather x

"We didn't realise we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun."