Once Upon A... Sketch

Well my BFF has just found this new blog Once Upon A... Sketch, and its great!  It's all about getting people to use Journaling in their layout and for me this is a bit of a struggle so I am looking forward to participating in a challenge or two, take a look using the link above.

The first challenge on Once Upon A... Sketch is to get the word out their so check out the 

blog and follow the steps for your chance to win. 

Fantabulous Cricut: Challenge Me Monday #52

Well this is my first challenge entry and I must say I am really enjoying seeing what everyone comes up with.  The card I have made is for my sisters 25th Birthday so I hope she likes it and I hope you all like it too.

Its Cricut Time

Well it has been a busy week for me, to start with I was very excited to recieve my haul from Custom Crops ( www.customcrops.com ).  As you can see from my photo below the best part of my haul was the Cricut Expression.  I also got a gypsy, a few cartridges, as well as a few other bits and pieces.  For anyone who knows what the Cricut is, I am sure you can understand my excitement when it was delivered.  For anyone who hasn't seen them in action yet I highly recommend you take a look at what they can do on youtube.

The reason I wanted to share this haul with you is because it came from my favorite scrapbooking shop Custom Crops,  this online store is a US based shop that delivers to Australia.  You can get some amazing bargains but just be careful of the exchange rate.  The Cricut Expression at the time I brought it cost me around AU$270.00 (inc. postage) and I have seen these machines retail on various australian website form AU$400-$700.  For anyone who has a Cuttlebug you can get Spellbinders Nestabilities from US$18 +poastage (usualy only a few dollars) from this website, these retail in Australia for around $38+, so as you can see if you are willing to wait the 5-20 days for delivery (I have never had to wait 20 days) it is well worth the wait.

I also wanted to share with you a few cards I have made.  Making cards has become a welcome surprise for me because when I started this new venture I was really only interested in Scrapbooking, but somehow along the way I have picked up an interest in making my own cards,  below are my first few attempts.  The valentines day card was given to my husband and the others were made for my husband to give to some family as a thank you.  I also just finished making a Birthday card for my Sister last night, but I will have to wait until after her Birthday to share that one (it's my favorite).

I hope you enjoyed my little projects and for anyone who is interested in the Custom Crops wesite you can find the link on the left in my Links section.

Movin' on up!!!

After completing my Mini Album and sending it off to my husband, I figured the only way was up, but the thought of tackling a full 12x12 layout was beyond me.  After working with layouts that had limited space to fill up, coming up ideas to fill a page (I struggle with blank space on a page) was somewhat of a challenge but a challenge I was ready to accept.  I picked out 2 photos that I really wanted to work with because they were of me and my husband in uniform during our time in the Royal Australian Navy.   The photo of me I wanted to make a little girly because drab grey coveralls don't really make a girl feel good,  and after working hard to get over my fear of blank space I found a happy medium between feminine and displaying truth behind the photo.

When I started working on the layout of my husbands photo I learnt my first lesson in making a LO flow, I was really struggling to feel happy with what I had done with it so I showed my work in progress to my BFF who said she didn't feel like it was flowing, and she was 100% right.  I went back over the LO and started to connect all the bits and pieces and then it really all started to come together.  Its amazing how a little criticism can really help.

They may my favorite LOs but I am really enjoying all the new things I am learning (thank you YouTube), and tomorrow I am off to the Sydney Craft Show so lets hope I pick up a tip or two there as well.

And So It Begins.....

Every Christmas my family would put me on a 'no craft' ban, because for as long as I can remember Christmas was always the perfect opportunity for me to "get my Craft on".  Year after year I would cut, glue, paint, mosaic, paper mache and pretty much just make a really big mess.  Some years I had great ideas and my mum would proudly display the end product in the house while others years, well.... lets just say the end product was not so great.   My husband learnt very quickly that when I said "I feel like making something" he should run for the hills or find me something else to do stat, because once I started it always ended in the kitchen table being cover in this that and the other until you couldn't see an inch of the table top.

One of my first layouts

But recently my husband spent a few moths away from home for his job and I had the whole house to myself (big mistake), so with no one else in the house to keep me company I yet again found the urge to 'make stuff'.  A good friend of mine had decided to try her hand at Scrapbooking for the first time and it brought back memories of me making an album for my little sister's 21st Birthday (another of my 'Great' craft ideas), so without a second though I was hooked.  I pulled out old craft supplies I had stuffed away and attempted my first layout.   Because my husband was going to be away for Christmas I decided my first project would be a mini album for him made up of things to remind him of home.  Needless to say my first page was dismal but fast forward a few Scrapbooking Magazines and I was starting to feel like I could paint the Mona Lisa.

Although the Mini album turned out to be a little less of a masterpiece than I though, my husband still loved it because it reminded him of so many things his missed about home, and like it or not I loved turning a plain photo into a story and was 100% addicted to Scrapbooking.