Sketch time

Hey ho - let's go! It's Monday again already. I've had a few weeks off from my wp sketchie duties due to my lack of technology so, this is my first June sketch but it's actually the third sketch of the month.

Pictured are Rob's Granny and his Aunty Mo, both of whom are Scots. But during WW2 Rob's Grandpa was stationed in Ireland and their daughter (Mo) was born there. Granny decided to give her an Irish name and called her Maureen. Granny often also called her 'little Irish girl' - could this piece of October Afternoon paper be any more perfect? It made Rob giggle!

Here are few more retreat LOs. This one is based on the blind scrap created by Karen. Thanks Leah for suggesting semi circle bunting :)

Back in July last year I was lucky enough to have a coffee with Kate while I was in Newcastle. Kate brought this photo of us for me to scrap at the retreat.

This is an old photo of Angus and his Grandpa - I wish I knew what Grandpa was saying to have Angus so entranced!

Have a wonderful week!

Me again

Can you tell I'm a wee bit excited about being back in blogland?

After the Wicked Princesses Retreat, I spent a couple days with my sister in Brissie before heading to Sydney for work. I had a blast and in being in Sydney for the Vivid light festival was amazing but somewhere along the way I picked up a very nasty bug. It knocked me out for over a week. Today, ten days on I'm just beginning to feel like myself again.

For the first four or five days I did absolutely nothing - so weird! But once I started to feel a little better I did some creating. The Purple Pumpkin sketch challenge took my fancy so I had a play - other than spilling a third of a bottle of glimmer mist over my LO I think I did ok! More pics taken by Zoe at the Sydney Aquarium. I think the gm adds to the water theme lol. The PP items are the doily and button.

The next day I dragged out my beautiful bigshot and made four cards before retiring to the lounge for a nap. I forgot to photograph the cards - oh so vague of late!

The day after that I decided to do some more scrapping, the fact my hands were still Key Lime was enough to convince me not to use glimmer mist. This one is for the wp kit challenge, I used Owl Soup. Looks pretty simple huh? Getting that printed journalling in the right spot took ages with my addled brain.

After another little nap I decided to start the wp DT challenge - stamping and distressing. Here's how it turned out. Since the photo was poor quality I decided to grunge it up. I had fun pulling out my old letter stamps too. The design of this one is based on an old Inspired Blueprints sketch - always a great place to visit for some inspiration.

In shocking and startling news the ever-fabulous Kate decided to step down from the wp dt. So, that left Krissy to appoint three new princesses - sadly I'm not one of them but a big congrats to Hannah, Barb and Holly - I'm sure you will inspire princesses everywhere. Also best of luck Kate, it's good to see your mojo has returned and I will being dogging your blog to see your latest and greatest creations cos you know I dig you!

In exciting news my wonderful buddy Jules has asked me to be her guest designer next month. I'm so chuffed :)

Right, I think I might have satisfied my blogging desires for today. See you again really soon.

Welcome back blogger

It's four weeks since our stuff was stolen and I finally have a new laptop so I'm back in the bloggy business :) It has been an amazingly complex and frustrating process negotiating our insurance claim. Apart from the two laptops that were delivered on Friday, we still don't have a delivery date on anything else and only the vaguest notion of when our new door will arrive (in the next three weeks - perhaps).

In the meantime I was lucky enough to attend the first ever Wicked Princesses Retreat. What a fantastic weekend! It was so cool meeting and hanging out with all of my cyberbuddies!

I won't subject you to all my LOs in one go but here are few. Krissy gave each of us a folder full of challenges and sketches to work with, such a cool idea! I decided not to take papers with me but to buy and use the kits Krissy had on offer. I then got her post my purchases home :)

So, this is Zoe at Sydney Aquarium. Using the Vicki B kit.

This is a scraplift of one of Kate's LOs - I used a cool Hambly brick overlay. The big flower was made by Kate but I made the orange flower out of a ribbon and gluber - thanks Jules for the gluber, the centre, oh and, the idea :)

By the way glubers are really cool and I recommend you all get some - check them out here. Apparently you can also make your own - splitcoast stampers have a tutorial on the hows and whys - I'm yet to check it out.

This one uses the Splash kit, I love the bright colours and that little flag. I've added some hidden journalling as I wanted to record Angus' scary experience of being caught in a rip and having to be rescued my his mum and a surf life saver without it being the focus of the LO and embarrassing him.

This last one is based on one of Krissy's sketches and also uses the Vicki B kit - love the colours but the LO seems to be a bit flat - think I might have to add a little something to this one (maybe a flourish would do it). The photos are of Janina and I at our mini retreat back in March.

Ah! It's good to be back :) Thanks for remembering to stop by!

Of breaking glass and flutes

On Monday afternoon our secure little world was shattered when someone smashed our door down and stole a mired of electrical goods. We can replace the TV, the lap tops and the Ipods. Sure we can even replace the external hard drives but what we can't replace is the all of the digital photos dating back to 1999. To protect against computer failure we regularly and carefully backed all of our images and documents up on a hard drive called Harold. It never occurred to us that Harold would be stolen.

So, we are now without any photos, our children don't feel secure in their own home and our little dog is traumatised -  his very hoarse bark is evidence of his attempt to ward off the intruders :(


The builder who quoted to install the new door said it could take up to four weeks for our insurer to approve the work so for now we have a plywood board between us and the great outdoors. It's anybody's guess on how long it will take for our goods to be replaced. So, I could be gone for some time as I am without a computer and mail blogger is refusing to add images - I was going to share with you my shattered door and its plywood replacement but you'll just have to imagine them for yourself.

But as we all know life goes on, even if the speed is a little intense sometimes... Last night I was incredibly proud to watch Zoe's jazz band earn a gold medal in the Jazz Eisteddfod :) They not only put on a great performance they had a huge amount of fun and that is really what life is all about.

Please excuse my absence and failure to comment on your blogs for awhile - but I will return! Take care, my friends, hug your loved ones tight (including your furry friends) and rejoice in all that is good in your life. This too will pass!

Wicked Design Team

Design Team calls produce interesting results and the wp call has been no different. I sometimes wonder if there are scrappers out there whose sole aim in life is to be on as many DTs as possible regardless of whether they've visited a forum or used the product the site sells.

Suddenly the forum has been abuzz with new members - the cynic in me wonders if they'll still be around come the 1st April - post DT announcement. The realist in me knows the answer and doesn't care. The funny thing is wp is already populated by an incredibly talented bunch of women who've helped create an online forum with a heart and without even a hint of nasty clique mentality. The newcomers have some stiff competition ;-)

There has been much speculation on the forum about who will apply and who will ultimately win the big prize. Many people have fessed up to throwing their hat in the ring. I have my favourites and you'd be right if you guessed my money is on a real princess, not an impostor or a fly-by-night. As for me I've um-ed and ah-ed quietly to myself. I've steered clear of that conversation thread...

I often create using wp kits, I visit the forum daily and I'm on the sketch team - so what do I have to lose? Nothing really, I guess but I just wasn't sure about putting myself out there. So, over the past month I've created my LOs but today - as the deadline loomed I was still prevaricating. I chose the Splish Splash Kit but strangely I had a lot of trouble creating with it, maybe it was the pastel colours but more realistically it was the thought of submitting them that weighed me down.

I finally pressed the send button this afternoon and immediately experienced scrappers regret. Oh well! Here's a look at my LOs:

 

Other than creating the LOs using a kit you had to come up with a cc challenge and create a LO based on it. Here's mine:

So, now I've shown my hand I have to wait just like all the other applicants - may the best princess win.

Help! I have a question...

I hope you've been enjoying some scrappy time on National Scrapbooking Day and maybe you bagged a bargain or two - there are some fab sales on today!

Last weekend was the Wicked Princess cybercrop. I only managed to get one challenge done. The theme was movies and for this challenge you had to choose a movie genre and title and use that as the basis of your LO. I chose thriller because it suited this slightly disturbing self-portrait of Angus. The title Memento is from a film that came out in 2000 staring Guy Pearce.

I've also completed the first two wp sketches for this month.

How cool is that flower? I got it from Mad About Scrappin as part of the prize I won at Challenge Heaven. Thanks Leanne and Shell :)

Now I have a serious question. Why don't the she art images have facial features? My lovely cyberbuddy Jasmine created a gorgeous canvas using this style and I fear I may have offended her by asking this exact question (please forgive me if I did Jas). But I really want to know. I've consulted Dr Google and it seems that faceless chicks are the norm. But why? I love the she quotes and I love the style of she art but I really love faces too. And when I checked in with Urban Dictionary the definition of sheart was less than appealing: a friend who is nice to your face but then talks about you badly behind your back. Luckily I realised that this definition applied to the way you said the word (think biarch ) rather than the craft of she art!! Anyway if you can explain to me the reason for being faceless I'd be forever grateful.

Thanks for stopping by - enjoy the rest of your weekend :)

Pretty Paper Petals

After taking part in the Pretty Paper Petals blog hop and ordering some gorgeous flowery goodies, I completed the blog hop challenge. Here's my take on Nadia's sketch featuring (of course) some ppps ;)

I really wanted to try some misting on this swiss dot cardstock. I fancied using some gold but do you think I could find it? I'm left wondering if I only dreamed I owned gold mist... Anyway, not to be thwarted I sprayed on some tattered rose - the effect left me totally underwhelmed so I added some sea glass but this wasn't quite what I was looking for either. I then decided to give Snow Queen a go and voila - I had the fine gold sheen I was looking for :)

Other than that I inked the edges in pink and smeared a bit over the LO and myself for good measure and painstakingly cut out the bunting which I then mostly covered over - all good fun!

Our house has always been visited by the Easter Bilby - so much more Australian and environmentally sustainable than the rabbit :) For reasons I no longer remember this Australian icon has always given the kids books and pyjamas as well as the obligatory chocolate.The kids have accepted this tradition without fuss - we've been reading the story of the Easter Bilby since they were old enough to pay attention. I think the fact that I can choose my own Easter traditions is further proof we live in a very tolerant corner of the world. So, here is a little bilby magic for you. Who could resist one of these little guys making a delivery?!

And that explains my LO nicely!