A Tribute to an Inspiring Woman - Karen Russell

Some of you may have visited Karen Russell's blog over the last few months and years. She is a scrapbooking lady too. She has shown remarkable strength and faith in the face of some awful personal challenges - one of her four sons contracted brain cancer as a teen and this week, he sadly lost his battle for life. When Scrapchat set a challenge to make a page about an inspiring woman who I had never met in person, who else could I choose but Karen.

Karen, if you ever see this, I hope it brings you a small measure of comfort to know you are an inspiring person. I hope you will take this as my tribute to your sorrow and loss.

Theatre Box

This past week I have had a little more time for scrapbooking, something I do miss when I don't get my 'fix'! My daughter is in theatre and I decided it was high time she had a Theatre Memorabilia Box. She was in a play just the last month and I was able to attend one of the productions, where she was Olive in the female version of The Odd Couple. Olive is the messy one! LoL!

I recently purchased a lovely memorabilia display box from Creative Memories and thought it would be ideal for her acting work to be displayed. The outside of the box is a magnetic, cloth covered display board. Inside it is also magnetic and crossed with ribbons. On the third panel there is a lovely big pocket, a hook, and an elastic strap for holding bulky items in place. All of it can be hung on a wall. I placed an album inside this box and as DD is in a production, I plan to do pages about it, then place them in the album when more productions take place.

Think it will work?

I like it quite a lot :) Clever Creative Memories!

Watercolor Technique

Just when I think I won't have time to craft, I get some time! Yay!

I've been experimenting with cards for Christmas (I know I'm not alone! Lol!) and came up with some watercolored cards using the Stampin' Up! stamp set called "City of David". I thought they looked nice. There's some embossing and paint daubing going on in there too. I outlined how I made them on PaperCraftCentral if you would like to know more!

In Australia there is no snow at Christmas so I am always looking for ways to make cards that go with the season here. I like the effect of the starlight glittering on the sand in this image. I don't know if you can see it or the glittery stars either, but in real life you can!

Hope you like these!

Baby Cards

Well, I managed to get some crafting done quicker than I thought I would! I put together a page on PaperCraftCentral about some of the baby cards I have made in the past. I remembered a twin card idea I had used before and have shown you how to make a baby bundle embellishment too :) The original idea came from mom5boys at SplitCoastStampers.

Aren't they cute??

I hope you enjoy looking at my cards!

Grins and greetings! Oh and a RAK and prayer request.

Hi all - just thought I had best post a comment so you know I am still among the land of the living - lol! I have been busy working with my hubby in our andyman/home maintenance business learning new things that have nothing to do with paper crafting, which is kind of sad but surprisingly I am also enjoying the experience.

We just accepted several new jobs and they are huge, so now I go off to work with hubby every day. I now know how to operate a ride-on mower, clean a swimming pool, and use a push mower and leaf blower! I never thought I would enjoy this kind of work having been at desk jobs all my life till now, but it is like a sea change so far.

I will not be giving paper crafting up! I just need to work out when I can have time to craft given the new physical labour and excess of sun each day making me want to fall into bed earlier than usual...

Happy note: I received some beee-OO-tiful altered brads inthe mail from some crafting friends today. I will have to photograph and show you a few! Give me a few days and I will do just that :)

In the meantime, the lovely and compassionate and talented Lee has posted something amazing about an inspiring family. If you would like to help them, please go on over and read about it. Prayers and RAKs help so much...

Have a lovely day!

Altered Brads

Hi all - I'm back! I had a wonderful week away visiting my family and watching my DD perform in a play. She was Olive in "The Odd Couple" and I think she did a marvellous job!

I loved being away yet it was also lovely to come home.

While I was away, I did a little experimenting with altering brads for my paper craft projects. Have you ever done that? It's quite good fun! I wrote up how I did it at PaperCraftCentral, of course!

I plan to visit lots of blogs over the next few days to see what you have all been busy creating!

Stamp Positioner

I'm so glad some of you enjoyed the silly pictures I put up last post! I hope you also are brave enough to try out a new look and share it! He he!

On another topic, have you ever used a stamp positioner? I know you probably have, if you are a card maker. But if you have never used one or would like a few tips about how to get the best use out of them, I wrote a page about them on PaperCraftCentral and also linked to a video by Kristina Werner for a demonstration on how best to use them. You can check it out here.

I'm working on some cards and altered brads for a couple of swaps so I will post some new projects up in a day or so :)

Take care, everyone!

Yearbook Photos

Oh my - if you need a good giggle this site just might do it! Thanks to Chriss I had a lot of fun trying out the different looks this evening and just had to share the link! Here are the ones I am willing to share - LOL!!

From left to right and top to bottom, they are from the years 1954, 1968, 1970 and 1984. I look like my grandmother in 1954, myself in 1968 and 1984 and I'm not sure who in 1970!!


What a hoot!

Let me know if you upload some pics so I can come visit you too :)

Hot Glue Guns!

How do you use your hot glue gun? Do you have a picture of something you have created with yours? How about sharing it on PaperCraftCentral? You can now publish comments on some of the pages there and I am planning on making it possible to share even more!

I'd love to see anything you have created!! It would help others to see what can be done as well. So feel free to upload a comment/pic on the glue gun page at PaperCraftCentral, OK?

Hope your day has been a happy one. XX

Who's special in your life?

The Week #4 Scrapaway Challenge at Scrapchat is this:

BUTTONS & LACE

Our 5 design elements needed for this weeks challenge are:-

1. Your layout must have at least one piece of lace on it and at least one button.
2. You need only one photo on this weeks layout.
3. Your layout must have a title.
4. Your layout must have a journalling block of some sort.
5. You must scrap about someone who is older then you and who you have a great amount of respect for..

So I chose my wonderful mother's picture - it's from the 1950s. Doesn't she look gorgeous? I didn't want to make the layout very complicated as my mother has never been a lacy, decorative person - she likes things more classical and she does have a clean, smooth style.

The paper is from Creative Memories. The lace and button are from my stash :)

If you have never tried drawing your own scrapbook page layouts, why not give it a go? There's a page I wrote about how to get started on PaperCraftCentral.

ATCs 'explained'

Have you ever made an ATC or two or twenty? I have just been making some for Chrissy over at Artist Trading Cards and Me There's always a challenge going at Chrissy's blog and all are welcome to join in!

If you would like to know more about these fascinating little projects, there's a bit more information on my website

I'll definitely be making more of these! There's something compelling about them :) I used paint on the backgrounds of these, and doodled, and scrumpled up copied sheet music then distressed it with inks, and I kind of distressed the strawberries and their mounting papers too...there's plenty of metallic pens used on these ATCs. And I used Crystal Effects to make the berries look a little dewy. What do you think??