Friday, July 29, 2011

Ice Ice Baby!!

This week at Color Combos Galore we are continuing the celebration of National Icecream month and the inspiration board is beautiful!
Debbi always finds fabulous tracks to go along with the inspiration board and this week we have Vanilla Ice - Ice Ice Baby! Love it!! Takes me back!


My layout tells the story of my beautiful niece Briana and her love for Joe! She just adores him. She calls him JoeJoe, sits on his knee (when he lets her), asks him to play constantly and follows him around. She is a serious fan! I love this shot of her looking at him, the expression says it all.


 Thanks for visiting and for your lovely comments! They always make my day!

Monday, July 25, 2011

A winner!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog during the Color Combos Galore blog hop and leaving your wonderful comments. The hop was so much fun,  a great opportunity to admire layouts and learn some fantastic new techniques from the very talented ladies on the Design Team.
So a random selection from my comments:



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theelfqueen said...



This is really lovely! Great details!

Friday, July 22, 2011

Color Combos Galore #201

Anyone who knows me well knows that I struggle to scrap pink or pastel layouts. Having a house of boys my layouts tend to be masculine and grungy and I'm not a bows and lace kind of girl...black and red are my favourite colours to wear.
However lately I have been embracing my inner feminine side and have been scrapping using colours I don't usually use.
This is one of the reasons I love the challenges at Color Combos Galore. They push me to try different combinations and this current palette is very soft and pretty. This is the inspiration board..



And my layout...


My grandmother (to the left of the teacher in the photo) went to a small school near Baradine in Western NSW (this shot shows the whole school!!!!).
Her teacher here in the photo, Henry Arthur Pole Soppet, was from England and rumour had it, according to my grandma, that he was a disgraced Lord, perhaps for alcholic tendencies, who had been sent to the colonies to teach. (Loved this story when she told it to me!!!)
1923 was her last year of school and he presented her with a pendant when she left to go to secondary school in Sydney. The pendant is 9carat gold and is a little Australia in a circle. He had it engraved with both their initials and the year. What a lovely gift!
My grandma gave the pendant to me and I treasure it and love that it has so much meaning. I have been wanting to scrap this story for a while and these colours were perfect.
Here are some close up details.


Thanks for dropping by! I hope you find the time to try this challenge!! Drop into CCG to see that the Design Team girls have done with this palette, amazing work!

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Scrapboutique Layouts

Just a quick post to share some layouts I completed for the July challenges at Scrapboutique.

The July Monthly Challenge was to scrap a family tradition. Every year when we go camping at Sawtell we always eat out and our favourite restaurant is Barrels! We have tried many places during our stays but always go back to Barrels for the fantastic food and relaxed atmosphere.

The Stash Stomper this month challenged you to use rubons on a layout and I managed to use quite a few old ones from my stash. The orange flowers and ink splotches are from Hambly, the letters from Maya Road and the grid, numbers and dots are from 7 gypsies.


This is quite a simple layout but I just wanted to record this moment in time. My beautiful niece adores Joseph and when she was visiting recently her adoration of him and the way he handles it all so graciously really made me smile.

Thanks for visiting and for your comments, they make my day!

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Color Combos Galore 200th 'Anniversary' Blog Hop

Welcome to the Color Combos Galore 200th "Anniversary" Blog Hop! We hope by visiting the CCG Design Team members' blogs, you will be able to pick up some fun tips and techniques. 

Many of the team members will be offering prizes, so you will want to visit all of the blogs to increase your chances of winning some fun scrappy stuff. We are also offering a chance at a Guest Designer spot for the month of August if you visit all of the blogs in our Blog Hop and participate in Challenge 200 by uploading your project to the CCG Gallery. It's so fun to get the colors before everyone else! Plus, who doesn't love to see their name in lights! The deadline for the chance to win these prizes is one week from today, Sunday, July 24, EST.

So a few tips from me about  techniques used on my CCG Challenge 200 layout. This was the inspiration board:
This was my take on the colours and the designers challenge to use melting or dripping on your layout.



I was inspired by the melt of the icecream to create the white hearts on my layout. I stamped with thick white texure paste directly on the pattened paper and quickly removed the stamp to create the very textured look. Another favourite tip of mine is to ink the outline of chipboard letters. I inked the letters used in 'love' with a black brush tip pen, this really helps to make your letters pop off the background.

If this is your first stop at our Blog Hop, you'll want to start at Bente's blog, and follow the hop in order so you don't miss anyone. If you've been hopping in order, your next stop is Kelly's blog.
Once you have visited all the blogs and uploaded a project to the CCG Gallery using Challenge 200, please make sure you check in at the Blog Hop discussion in the Special Announcements Forum at CCG. We will choose our August Guest Designer from that thread. Individual DT members will be choosing winners for the prizes they are offering. Good luck, and we hope you'll enjoy our blog hop!

So glad you could drop by, hope you get a chance to play along with the challenges at Color Combos Galore!


I am offering a RAK to one lucky person who leaves a comment!
Thanks for dropping by and taking part in our Blog Hop!

Saturday, July 16, 2011

She...

I hate to waste the scraps left over from layouts and always have good intentions of using them to make cards. However,  I'm not a great cardmaker so my scraps usually end up in a box and never get used! Recently when having a cleanup I decided to try something else with my scraps instead and inspired by the Kobi Yamada 'She' book I have been making these instead.




Thursday, July 14, 2011

Color Combos Galore #199

I missed posting this challenge after the reveal as we were away but I loved the gorgeous palette and the fabulous inspiration photo. July is National Ice Cream Month (in America!) and CCG kicked off this fun celebration with a cheerful, spirited palette. The Designer's Challenge was to be inspired by the quirky lettering on the colorful ice cream bowls in the Inspiration Photo. 


Love those little bowls of icecream and this was my layout for the challenge!


I took inspiration from the shape of the bowls and the sprinkles as well as the colours. Hope you had a chance to play along. If not go and have a look at the beautiful layouts in the gallery at CCG, some stunning work!



Wednesday, July 13, 2011

We're Back

We have had a wonderful week away enjoying the first week of the school holidays.  We decided to take Joseph to the snow as the only snow he has experienced is the sprinkling we get each winter here on the ground. Well would couldn't have picked a better week! Huge snowfalls meant loads of beautiful powdery snow and a very picturesque setting!
The trip up was a little concerning! Snowchains are not easy to fit and there were a number of cars off the side of the road.

However once we arrived we had a fabulous time! It was very difficult to get photos as the snow was falling constantly. It was freezing, note the look on Joe's face and the wheel icicles!



Great fun!