Merry Christmas

Just to wanting wish you all a
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

My folks are coming to Perth from the Gold Coast for a week over Xmas and we will be busy. I can't imagine there will be any crafting time until the new year. There will however be lots of baking and cooking.

Here's a cute pic of my boy Ben putting the star on our tree.

Merry Christmas

Bird is the Word - TIME

This is my entry for the current challenge at Bird is the Word. I took these photos of Sophie admiring her new watch. I love the colour contrast with the red, white and aqua. Sophie started Year 5 this year and she told me that all the other kids wore watches and she wanted one too. Sophie wears it most days.
Thanks for the fun challenge.

My Owl Barn

I'm not afraid to admit it, I love owls.
I think it all started about 3 or 4 years ago when Sassafrass Lass released the cutest range of owl papers - I fell in love immediately and had to have that entire range of papers including the clear stamps.
I think six months to a year after those papers were released that owls started appearing in lots of clothing, stationery, mugs etc you name it owls are now a big thing and can be found in lots of places. I seemed to have accumulated quite a few owls myself. Refer to this post http://queenofcarine.blogspot.com/2011/04/all-me.html

One of my go to blogs is My Owl Barn http://www.myowlbarn.com/
Yep, it's blog about owls for owl lovers. I love it and am always amazed at how many owls items are out there.
If you like owls you should check it out. There's even a give away this week.
Here's a cute card thats was featured recently on myowlbarn.com

There's 23 days left

We managed to put our tree up on the first of December but other than lights and tinsel I haven't got around to getting the ornaments up.
So without a dressed tree to show off I thought I would show off my little angel - Cooper my 11 year old mini Schnauzer. I created this cute layout in '09 and Cooper is still as adorable. Love that little dog.

I have so many Christmas papers and embelishements but rarely do a Christmas layout. I might just have to change that this year. My folks are coming to visit over Christmas from QLD so we should get a few photos to use in layouts.

What a Nini

Feel so silly. Was trying to send message to the Chloe for visiting my humble little blog and have somehow not sent a message at all but signed up to be a member of my own blog. Duh.
So hi Chloe and thanks for joining.
Whoops
Natalie

Scrapz.Biz

I've been inspired yet again for a new layout - one of  the challenges on Scrapz.Biz at the moment is to document what you or someone you know is wild about. Well, I'm just wild about Angry Birds. I'll let the journaling speak for itself.

Well it's Sunday today and inbetween helping out with a very lack lustre garage sale at our place I have fiddled around with my layout for Scapz.biz and well... totally changed it.

Whenever I finish any layout I stick it up on a maganet board I have on the wall in my scrap space. That way I can admire what I have created or simply look at it and pick it to pieces like I have here. I just didn't like my first version on second viewing this morning.

I thought since this was a layout about me it should have my photo (albeit as small as possible - don't want to scare anyone) and then I reduced the size of the phone photo and changed things around. I think I'll stick with the new version.

Brights

I may wear black - alot,  but I really do love bright colours. I have been hording lots of bright fabrics over recent months with no real purpose other than they makes me happy to look at them.
Recently I found this book promoted on various blogs.
I really like the look of those little pre-cut piles of fabric you see at craft fairs/fabric shops and thought that it looked like a cute book with pretty colours/quilts.
So far I haven't got around to making a quilt but I have tried out a couple of blocks shown in the book and have turned two of my sample blocks into a cushion cover.

I'm really please with the results.
I was going to put this cushion back on our couch but it didn't last there too long before Sophie stole it for here bedroom. It was a fun small project and I want to create some more covers for use in Summer time. These are definately Summer colours I think.

ScrapzBiz

Another challenge.
I really like the sketch created for ScrapzBiz Fetch a Sketch Challenge. I had some cute photos of Ben with a little green frog that he and Sophie found while we where on holidays in Denmark WA early last year. We stayed a little out of town in a cabin in the bush and there were lots of creatures to be found. I wasn't so keen on the Huntsman spiders or the lizards but the frog was pretty cute.

Bird is the Word Challenge Blog

I said I would get creating this month and here is another creation. Ho, ho, ho, my kids tell me I'm not funny and they might be right. Anyway,: I'm always amazed by how quickly time flies and and I could have sworn these photos of Sophie's birthday were taken this year but no, they're from last year. Time is flying by way tooooooo quickly.

Scrap the girl

My scrapbooking has been taking a back seat to other less exciting things of late. This month I am determined to create.
This is my entry into the Scrap the Girls site. The requirements were to use predominantly pink (my favourite colour) use polka dots (my favourite, after stripes anyway) and use mulitple photos.
I'm really pleased with how this turned out and I'm glad that almost a year after being taken I have scrapped these pretty photos of Sophie. She always chooses a butterfly design if she gets a chance to have her face painted. I think this was one of the best she has had done. Thanks for stopping by.

11/11/11 - 11.11am

This is me at 11 past 11 on the 11th of the 11th, 2011.
I was at Karrinyup Shopping Centre. I had just bought myself THE cutest top ever and was coming out into the main shopping area. I saw the Christmas decorations and thought that would make a nice backdrop to my 11 photo.
Oops - cant work out how to turn this photo the right way up.
Never mind it's not that amazing - I just wanted to put it up.

So Smart

I'm talking about my phone of course. My previous two year mobile phone contract ran out recently so it was time to upgrade my phone. How exciting! Of course I wanted to be like everyone else (as far as I can tell everyone seems to have one) and get an iPhone.
I already have an iPod Touch (which I got for my last birthday) which I love and use everyday for game play, watching tv shows on You Tube, looking things up on the internet, etc.
So with the iPhone plan being a rather expensive I went with the next best thing for a $29 cap - the Samsung Gallaxy S. OMG who needs an i-thingy. As far as I can tell it's every bit as good and it's all that I need. Love it!

Amigurumi

I too have fallen in love with the Japanese craft that's sweeping the nation - Amigurumi. Ok I may be a little late to join the rest of the world but recently Sophie (being a 10 year old girl) was interested in learning to crochet. The last time I tried to crochet I was around the same age. So fast forward 36 years and I had to try and remember how it went so I could help Sophie out.
When I learnt to crochet (back in the 70s when it was all the rage) I was never very good at it and could only really make beanies because no matter how hard I tried my projects always ended up being circular so doll beanies were my thing. I was a little better at knitting but only the basics.

Anyway, for the sake of helping Sophie out I borrowed some library books and found an online begginers course on u tube and re-mastered the art of crochet. This time I even managed to do it properly. OK I'm no expert but I was able to construct this little Amigurumi bear. Yeah, it's not perfect but Sophie loves it and that's all that matters. I've got to admit, I'm a little proud of it!
Sophie took this photo with the bear perched on our tomato plant growing in our backyard.

The latest

I bought a collection kit of Echo Park (think it was called Playground) papers a few months back and every time I go to scrap a page about Ben these last few weeks,  those papers are the ones I go to each time.
The Froot Loops page was designed by me but the Biscuit page was from an online comp. I can't remember which one but I didn't end up entering because I didn't really like the layout so much. Never mind it's grown on me now and it's just a cute picture I wanted to scrap.

Bella Blvd

Another gorgeous new line from Bella Blvd - I do love Easter and this is such cute paper.

Bella Blvd

This is a little sample shown on the Bella Blvd blog. They're promoting a new mid season line - loving the look of the wintery/christmasy papers etc.

August - Scrap the Boys

Here's my August entry for Scrap the Boys. The inspiration photo just seemed to fit perfectly with this photo of my 8 year old son.  He is drinking his favourite drink, frozen Fanta from Macca's. Sometimes he only agrees to eat so that he can have this drink. I just love the look on his face - sucking it up as hard and he can.

Stuck! Sketches

Hi all, feel free to say hello if you drop by.
This is my layout for the August 1 Stuck! Sketches.
This is a layout of my 10 year old daughter and her best friend. Love these photos. Had fun joining in on Stuck!
Click on the photo to enlarge.
Thanks for looking.
Natalie

A new creation - at last

I haven't been very motivated of late to do any craft but this photo struck a chord. Maybe things will start to flow again. I love creating.

School Holiday Challenge

While looking for something (can't even remember what) the other day, I came across a couple of old fashioned pegs that I had bought years ago at Spotlight. I bought the pegs with the intention of turning them into fairies. I even found the wings that I had bought at the same time.
I showed Sophie the pegs and suggested she might like to a fairy but she wasn't that keen, not until I said we should both make one, then it was a challenge and game on.
They both turned out to be pretty cute, using scraps of tulle, lace, ribbon etc. Can you work out which fairy was made by who?

For dad

What more can I say, a layout about your furry grandchild.

All me

Here are some recent layouts I did. Sophie loves to cook and sweets are her thing - she particularly loves chococlate and one type is never enough, triple choc is right up her alley.

As for me, owls are big at the moment and I have a few around the house. I was playing around with these Amy Butler papers and I thought the owls went well with the colours.

Scrap the boy and the girl

Here's a layout about Ben. Not super fancy but something I have wanted to capture on paper for a while. He is starting to learn how to read the time at school so the dot, dot may not last too much longer. LOL

As for the lo of Sophie - well it's a photo I came across while sorting out my millions of photos - I have always loved this one. It's taken the day after her 3rd birthday - she's about to turn ten very soon.

Scrapboutique

This is a layout I did for the March Scrap Busters on the Scrap Boutique web site.
I love this photo of Sophie and although it's 6 years old I have never scapped it before - love it!

Daddy and Ben

This is a new layout for Anna's Craft Cupboard March Sketch Challenge. This photo was taken in October 2009 but  I only completed the lo this weekend. I am sorting out my huge number of photos onto a mega drive at the moment and I keep coming across photos that are scrapworthy. I'm a bit low on inspiration so doing scrap challenges on various scrap sites is helping me alot at the moment.

I have plenty of other layouts that I have designed my self but just recently have been using sketch challenges. Some of my favourites that I have created soley by me are:

and

A couple of layouts

This is a layout I did for the Get Picky- February Sketch Challenge.

This layout I did for the February Scrap the Girls site.

A place to call my own

Why I have started a blog - to be able to link my scrapbook layouts to challenges I find on the net, to be able to share my layouts/sewing with family and friends.