Starting point challenge

By the time the challenges started coming out on Friday it was already too late here and I was in bed.  It was lovely though to wake up to a whole list of challenges the next morning that I could mull over while at work :-)  The starting point challenge immediately called out my name as most of the time that is the part I agonise over for AGES!  Here was the start we were given and we could do it in any papers and colours that we wanted to.

I began with a photo of The Thinker with his best friend.  I was worried that he would find it hard to find another great friend after we moved half way around the world ... I shouldn't have worried as he is a great kid and people love him.  I used Basic Grey 'Granola' (more of my stash being used!) and felt so relaxed as I worked on this one as it literally all fell together.

I ink and distressed a piece of muslin in camo colours.  I had a chipboard bit of barbed wire which I embossed and added to it.  I even got to use my i-rock on this page on the dark metallic studs.  The letters are Petaloo 'Colour me Crazy Alphas' that start out white and are a great base for inking and spraying.  I used my new fav glimmer mist 'Bell Bottom Jeans' on these.

Of course the Cuttlebug came out to play and added the friend detailing at the top of the blue strip.  I then used another folder sideways and repeated that image three times along the rest of the blue.  It looks great inked with weathered wood.

Quick easy and satisfying!
Chipper

P.S. I had to smudge the face of S as he is not my son :-)  You can't go around posting pictures of just anyone on the net!

Proud to be a scrapbooker

This weekend Shimelle is hosting a three day scapbooking challenge weekend to celebrate how proud we are to be scrapbookers.  And as you all know by now it is my birthday today **Yippee Happy Dance** and so I am spoiling myself by spending the spare minutes in my weekend crafting.  I am never going to keep up with all of them but at least I have a week to finish them all, so really it is a WEEK of challenges!  My goal this weekend is to get at least three completed.

The first challenge was this weeks sketch.  I liked the sketch but I found I had challenged myself with the photos I had chosen.  They are from a carnival/fair ride and full of bright colours.  Here is the sketch ...

And here is my version of the sketch ...

The colours in the photos were clashing terribly with any papers I looked at, so I decided to make my own using white as the base and the spraying with bright mists.  It started great, but then I realised that I forgot to lay on the rollercoaster mask, then the mists did a great big slodge on the page and my hands, and all in all it didn't go to plan.  Not surprising really as it very rarely does!  But it came together in the end and after looking at it all day I think I actually do like it, so it must have grown on me.

I made the rosettes with my score board and the wording sticking out from the bottom one is a VERY old ikande twist tie!  I am challenging myself to use up my old stuff.  I have discovered that if I take a few of them out of my stash and put them on my desk they get used ... amazing! LOL

This was lots of fun to make as I did it early in the morning while everyone else was sleeping .... ahhhhh!

Chipper

P.S. The light was fading as I got to these photos, sorry.

Early birthday present

I am looking forward to a wonderful weekend (even if it features work every day!) after the great start today. The LOML took me out to Sebastian's for an early birthday lunch.  It is the only day we both have lunch free at the same time and that there is adequate coverage in the shop.  We enjoyed a beautiful 3 course lunch and I am still full now almost eight hours later!  My WW leader would say I wasn't listening to my hunger signals at lunch today LOL.  We shared some garlic bread and a seafood tasting plate for starter.  It had the most amazing tempura coated whiting I have ever tasted.  I then chose stuffed calamari and salad for my main, while The LOML decided on grilled barramundi with  chips and salad.  Hmmmmm ... it seems we only had seafood.  You can't have a birthday lunch without dessert, so I finished with apple pie and he had sticky date pudding.  A tremendously wonderful lunch out.  I was still so full when I got home that I went for a walk around the block to keep the blood flowing.  All I wanted to do was fall onto the bed and have a nap!  I felt the same way you do when you over indulge at Christmas :-)

Now my plan is to spend the weekend evenings crafting.  It was so nice of Shimelle to organise a weekend long craft session for us all, and doubly nice of her to do it on my birthday :-)  I am still waiting for the first challenge for Friday due to the time difference, this is one of those times it can be a slight pain.  Hopefully it is posted as I am typing this as it is starting to get late.  I don't have many photos available today, but I bought some new paper to try in the printer so I can print off some more for the weekend

I predict this is going to be a great weekend ...
Chipper

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

After not crafting for almost two weeks, I decided to use Shimelle's sketch this week to give me a kick start.  It was not a design I would typically use so it was an interesting process!  Here is the sketch ...

And here is my take on the sketch with a photo from Halloween all those years ago!

It is a very dark but very sparkly page!  The Thinker doesn't normally like dressing up, but the afternoon before his Scout Beaver Halloween party he went to play at a friends house, whose mother just happens to used to make costumes for a living, and the rest is history!  They all talked him into dressing up and this is the costume he came home with.  We had been trying to talk him into being a pirate for weeks and to convince him we made a treasure chest and a treasure map using coffee and burnt the edges.  He was one very cool pirate!

As I didn't have very many Halloween embellishments, I had to make everything myself and had a great time inking and painting.  Of course the Cuttlebug also make an appearance as I seem to have a collection of Halloween embossing folders.  To give the photos more hight I mounted them on a piece of chipboard.

The photo was taken in front of a bookcase full of DVD's so the background was very busy.  I know I could have edited the background before printing, but these photos were already printed.  Somewhere along the way I 'pinned' a picture of someone painting out the background and I decided to give it a try.  I like the final affect as it really makes The Thinker pop out of the page!

The black cat is a chipboard shape by The Dusty Attic that just adds a bit of fun.  When I had finished this page I was looking at the sketch again and I noticed that it was originally supposed to feature "something pretty" ... OPPS! Never mind, this is my "pretty" interpretation LOL

Happy crafting,
Chipper

Poor neglected blog ...

My poor neglected blog!  It has been very chaotic around here for the past week and a bit as we were getting ready for a Craft Fair.  There is so much to do when you have a stand with a demonstration area attached.  So I though I would share some of the photos of the set up so that you could see what I have been doing.  As always, the only camera handy was on the iphone :-)

The big set up!

Ready to go!!!!

One end of the stand

And the other end of the stand

Demo area

It is always back breaking work for the two of us to set up the stand, but over the years we have gotten quite fast at it.  We had the whole stand set up in 3hrs :-)  It is very rewarding to see it finally ready to go!

Three days later and there isn't much left in the stand so breakdown only takes us an hour! LOL  And then we begin again unpacking back at the shop ... a never ending cycle.

I hope your past week has been as rewarding as mine.

Chipper