After All These Years

Kit Club Inspiration

I have a few links to share today. I discovered a while back that scrapbooking kit clubs are a great place to get online inspiration. Most have a very active design team to create layouts and other projects each month using the kit contents.

While I never subscribe to any of  the kits (I fear it would get out of hand - and the shipping to Aus would soon add up) I regularly check out there galleries and blogs.  Here they are:

Studio Calico. (I've linked to their blog before but here it is again.)

Noel Mignon. They have several blogs linked from this page. I love the layouts and the tips and techniques blogs the best. 

Label Tulip. An awesome design team gallery.  And inspiration on their blog too.

Scarlet Lime. I always loved Christy Tomlinson's scrapbooking work in magazines so I know any kit she puts together would be great.

Hope I've given you some eye candy for the weekend! I've linked the blogs on my sidebar too --->

Layout For Daddy

Here's a layout I made for Father's Day which lists some of the things Amelia loves about her Daddy. (She told me of course).

 

The starting off point for this layout was those glitter letters from Pink Paislee (the red ones in the layout above). How much do I love them?! I had to find a photo and paper to match the letters when planning this one.

 

Bit of stamping, few buttons, journaling strips and voila! A layout that Daddy loves!

Ink Pad Storage Solution

Well, I've come up with a (temporary) solution to my ink pad storage issue. After much searching, I found the "system" that I want but alas, it is from the UK and would cost a fortune to ship is so I've made my own dodgy version for the time being.

 

Step 1: Take all you husband's CD's out of an old CD storage rack. Just dump them anywhere - he won't notice for a while!

Step 2: Give it a good dust and then cut chipboard down to CD sized pieces to fit in the slots to form shelves for your ink pads.

Step 3: Arrange you ink pads in their new home, rearranging a few times to make them all fit.

Step 4: Use your trusty label maker to label the edges that you can see so you can easily identify each ink colour (of the ones that aren't already labeled of course).

I have not yet completed step 4.

I thought before I went and spent any money, I would try this for a while to make sure it works for me. So far so good. Hope this has helped someone out there who was looking for an ink pad storage solution too.

Me: The Abridged Version

Wow, I was on a roll there for a few days with my blog posting!

The last few days I've been busy working on my album for this class I'm taking online from Big Picture Scrapbooking. We're over halfway through the class already and I know I haven't done as much as others that I see in the class message board and gallery but I'm enjoying it.

I love Cathy Zielske and I love the idea of making an album about me right now that my children will hopefully treasure in years to come. And I love writing and telling stories and that what this album is - a collection of stories from A-Z about random things in my life.

Although I'm nowhere near finished my writing, I spent a little time the other night getting some of the papers etc ready to build my pages. Take a look:

 

Mmm. Kraft cardstock and Basic Grey Lemonade papers.

I will share a little more when I'm finished but I want to give you an idea of the kinds of things I'm writing about. Here's one of my entries for the letter 'M'.

Milo

Milo and I have a toxic relationship. These days I only allow it in the house on special occasions such as my birthday, Christmas, times of emotional stress etc. That’s because if there’s a tin in the house, I must consume it within days. I can’t stop thinking about it until I do. And there are rules. I must have my milo cup and milo spoon. The milo cup is very important as I’ve worked out the perfect milo:milk ratio in it. Yeah, it’s one third milo to two thirds milk. And in my house the milo goes in first then the milk. Very important. Milo is also an acceptable topping for ice cream. Clearly this is an addiction that I’m not in control of so milo restrictions will continue to be enforced.

So there you go - a little insight into the inner workings of my mind. And we only have to write about 350 words for each letter of the alphabet . . . better go and do some more!

Darn OCD!

So we got the new range called 'The Boyfriend' in from Cosmo Cricket and I just had to have these woodgrain letters. But do you notice anything that might trigger an alarm in my OCD brain?

 

There are no centres to pull out in the letters! Eek! I think I will have to punch them out myself. Don't tell me that this is the latest trend. Please.

But I do love me some woodgrain pattern and despite some people's opinion, not all stripe can be classified as woodgrain. You know who you are.

Ink Pad Storage

 I've been on the quest for the perfect ink pad storage for a while now. I need something that can sit on my desk or close to it as I use my ink pads all the time and want them handy. I need something that holds different brands of ink pads such as Brilliance, Distress, Stampin' Up, Adirondack and Versamagic just to name a few. And it has to look good. That's not too much to ask is it?

I've found a few interesting storage units online, unfortunately all overseas . . . anyone know someone locally who can make these?

• These are nice units from Angie Noe's Stamping Storage Units.

 

• I think Dek Development make the Manolo Blahnik version.

 

• Here are some nice carousel units from Storage Units, Ink and More .

 

• And finally, a clear version from Wisconsin Stamp Supplies.

 

Hmm. Might have to keep searching as I don't think I can afford the shipping on any of these!

'Lemonade' Layout

I won't bore you again with how much I love the Lemonade range of papers and embellishments from Basic Grey. I'll show you a layout I made with it instead.

 

(The squares of different patterns from the range was easy to do as I snaffled myself a 6" x 6" pad of the range. I can highly recommend these pads . . useful if you like the WHOLE range as I did here. The spotty letters are actually from the June Bug range.)

I love squares of random patterns and I love square punches to make them. A question I get asked a lot is why would you need a square punch when you can just cut squares with your trimmer? The answer is that you get exactly even, perfect squares every time.

The only problem is, you need to remember to bring your square punch to crops where you will be working on pages where you are needing squares. I did not.

Mischief!

Would you take a look at this little mischief maker of mine! Left alone for two minutes with a packet of nappies and this is what I discover . .

 

And I notice there was only one sock on too! It pays to keep a camera handy in my house. It just shows how clever she is I think! I may be biased . . .

Mini Albums

Let's talk for a moment about mini albums. I've probably mentioned this before but I never used to understand the reason why you would make one when you scrapbook your photos in a large album. I tried a couple of times to make one but never completed them.

A couple of years back, I went to Sydney for a weekend of classes with Donna Downey, Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielske and I'm so glad I did. I made my first couple of mini albums on this weekend. This story is going somewhere I promise.

As I'm tidying up and changing around my scrapbook room at the moment, I took some time to look through some of my mini albums and I soooo get the reason now. They are a little snapshot of a person, event or a time in your life. I'm so glad I made them.

 

(This was a class with Ali where we finished sentences such as I live . . . I am . . .I eat . . . etc.)

 

(This was another of Ali's classes called Today You where you focus on a person and their everday life for a week.)

My life changed a lot in the year after creating these albums so I'm grateful that I recorded things as they were back then.

This is an album I made with Kim Archer when she taught at Blossie's a while back. I turned it into a summary of our year. And it was a great year.

 

Thanks for letting me share my thoughts with you . . . just spreading the love for mini albums.

 

I Have A Love/Hate Relationship With . . .

. . . computers at the moment! Grr! My solution to a computer that keeps crashing and freezing up on me when I'm in the middle of important stuff is to throw it out the window but my husband wouldn't look kindly upon that. So I've taken over his computer instead.

Anyway, I must share a layout. I know it was Father's Day last Sunday but I've only just completed a layout from Mother's Day. I had so many nice comments about this photo I posted a while back that I used it on this layout.

I'm a bit late to jump on the bandwagon, but I've discovered Ranger Distress Crackle Paint and it's awesome on your chipboard! I used it here on the large swirl and photo corner.

 

If you haven't tried it, I urge you to give it a go next time you're wondering what to do with your chipboard. It's easy and it works.