Week #4 Cybercrop at Scrapchat

Thanks for the comments you all made for the last entry. Lee was correct in guessing that I made the card in the left! You know my 'style' well, Lee! lol!

This week at Scrapchat we had our final March cybercrop event. It is always a lovely month in March at Scrapchat because we all have such a good time chatting and crafting! Here was the challenge for the layout about Ethan and Us:

"You need to do a layout about a loved one and a special occasion. In your layout you need to have at least one puzzle piece. Your layout must have a painted title and at least one monogram letter cut from pattern paper. You must also include an inchie somewhere on your layout."

So I made a layout about our little grandson coming to stay with us overnight for the very first time. Isn't he adorable? Grandpa and I totally enjoyed having him here!

The second challenge was a bonus challenge. We had played a game where we dumped out the contents of our handbags on the floor, then took a photo and uploaded it to the gallery. The challenge was to have the most items posted up on a list that the moderators had. I actually won this challenge!! I had 10 of the listed items and the next closest person only had 9 - LOL!

The bonus challenge was this:

"...you need to complete a layout using the image of the contents of your bag."

So I scrapped a pic of the contents of my handbag. I decided to put this one in my Gratitude Journal.

So once again, it has been a fun week, and I have enjoyed the crafting!

Thanks to anyone who visited Ramintessah's blog where I am her guest artist for this week :)

Happy crafting!

NOTE: If you would like ot see how I put the two layouts on this page together, I wrote about them on PaperCraftCentral.com:

Gratitude Journal
Page about Ethan

Woo hoo! I'm a Guest Artist for 'The Gallery'!!!

OOoo! I am excited! Ramintessah of The Gallery in Japan has asked me to be her Guest Artist this week! She is creating the post as I type! In this amazing world we live in, Tessah and I have been exchanging emails across the ocean at the very same time we are both posting on our blogs - how incredible is that? Do have a look at The Gallery as there are many wonderful pages to explore there :)

The template for the little purse I talked about in the last post is still going to be given away to all of those who subscribe to Paper Twists, my free newsletter at PaperCraftCentral.com

I would love to be able to give all of you a copy of the template! The next issue goes out on 31st March and the template will be available exclusively to subscribers, so don't miss your copy.

(Jaqi, don't click on the next link now now - I'll tell you why!) In the meanwhile, today I have made some ATCs for Jaqi in England. They are 'live' on PaperCraftCentral right now, Jaqi, so if you want to be surprised, don't look yet! They will be in the mail to you on Monday :) Jaqi loves Paris so guess what they are about?

I have posted a pic of a new set of cards today using the crayon resist technique. Danielle and I made them yesterday and I think they turned out very nicely. They are a surprise for someone else in remote Qld so this time, Lucy, don't look! He he! )These are actually on their way to you now as they were posted yesterday, Lucy.) Danielle and I used the same stamps and cardstock and the same technique, but we made them look quite different from each other.

Just for fun, see if you can guess which card is mine and which one is Danielle's. They say we all have a style, and I'd like to see if that holds true for me!

Have a wonderful crafting week!

Paper Scallop Purse

I wasplaying around the other night with the idea of making paper purses that actually opened up, so you could put little gifts or messages in them. This is what I came up with. Do you like it?

I am going to publish instructions and a pattern for making it on PaperCraftCentral in the next day or so if you want to know how to make one yourself:)

Scrapchat Week 3 Cybercrop

The cybercrop challenge this week was a doozy! Here it is:

When we cut into our patterned paper – isn’t it a pain to have leftovers … so I thought what a great idea to utilize the whole sheet. Hence this is the challenge – 1 x patterned paper/cardstock --- hint… double sided will probably work the best You have to stitch on your work – hand or machine… doesn’t matter You have to use paint somewhere You have to use some fabric – yes fabric flowers, alphas, and ribbon count as fabric… You have to stamp on your work too. Now for the twist…. You have to create with this one piece of patterned cardstock as many things as you can… yes you can use plain cardstock - as much as you want. You must create at least 3 items – but only two can be of the same genre the third must be different – by genre I mean: cards, layouts, atc’s, btp An example of this will be at least – one layout and two cards; or – two layouts and one card etc...

I did the layout first. There's lace on the layout as my fabric, a stamped image edges with Radiant Rain daubers and ink, and stitching along one side. The lady is DH's mother when she was about 20 years old.

I then stole the dp from the back of the large picture and from under the lace. Next I made the purse out of the same dp and the same stamp and added ribbon and stitched randomly over the stamped image and ribbon. Again I used the Radiant Rain daubers to edge the purse. There's faux stitching on the handle and clasp.

After that I made the card, with the same dp, stamp, rain daubers, some sheer ribbon this time and I stitched random crosses on the stamped image and ribbon.

Fun!

What do you think?? Why not set yourself a challenge to do this too?

Cybercrop Week 2

This week the Scrapchat cybercrop was a little different - no sketch but plenty of requirements:

"Your challenge, should you choose to accept it, is to create a layout that:

- Must have a black and white photo
- Must have 3 different types of patterned paper
- Must have a large journalling tag
- Must have rub-ons
- Must have bling
- Must have some ribbon, and a button on it somewhere.

No problems you say?? Well ....

.... to make it just that little bit more challenging, one piece of your patterned paper has to have stripes on it, and one piece has to have polkadots on it "

I think I got all of the requirements on the page.

Scrapchat Cybercrop Week 1

It's cybercrop time at Scrapchat this month and the first week's challenge was to follow the sketch I've posted up. I chose this pic as I have wanted to do something with it for ages! It's my DD and she's showing off some new clothes she got at Christmas a year ago :)

An UNhealthy recipe card swap :)

As you may remember from a few months ago when i posted my Savoury Lentils recipe (that one was a healthy recipe), I have been participating in some recipe card swaps. Recently we were asked for an UNhealthy recipe card! Well, I had no problems thinking of my favourite pie - lemon meringue. It seems very unhealthy now beause of all the sugar it needs, but boy is it good. MMmm!

I had fun making these cards, partly cos I got to cook the pie and eat it. Well, I needed the photos, right??

If you would like to see how I made them, I can show you how I did it on PaperCraftCentral.com :)

Stamping with Bleach

Do you like learning new stamping craft techniques? I do! I found a page on SplitCoastStampers that tells how you can stamp with bleach, and the card shown today is the result of my playing.

I have made a page about how to stamp with bleach over at PaperCraftCentral. If you have never tried it, it's an easy technique to learn and just might extend the uses you have for your stamps. (To say nothing of finding a better use than housework for household bleach!! Lol!)

Have fun and if you do make a card by stamping with bleach, why not upload it to PaperCraftCentral? I'd love to see it!

Happy Stampin'!

It's Officially the End of Summer!

It's March 1st - the end of summer in Oz! Time to get ready for cooler weather.

With that thought in mind, I decided this year is the year I will learn how to quilt. Yes, quilt! I have wanted to know how it is done for years, and now is my chance. I have a few fat quarters cut into hexagons, lots of hexagon card shapes, and have started tacking I'll show you as the project progresses. Oh, I'm not making a whole quilt on my own just yet. Some other ladies at church are learning too, and we are all making blocks that will be sewn into the one quilt and it will be given away at the end :)

That doesn't mean I have given up papercrafting!! I made a double layout this week for a friend's circle journal. She wanted to know about our home towns, and I would never have thought to do a layout like that if I hadn't been asked. It was fun to do. I learned some things about my birth city that I didn't know before! Has anybody else reading this scrapped about their home town? I'd love to know how yours turned out.

I'm working on another circle journal for a friend who wants to know about something I count as a favourite - 'Your favourite whatever." That one is going to be about chocolates! Surprise, surprise!

And I have a card swap to create for - the cards are about Love.

Once I get my camera and me together with the papercrafts I am working on, I will post again :) Just wanted you to know I am still around, still up to my elbows in paper and ink and glue...

Is anyone on Twitter? I just started Twittering this week too. Put an 'lhl 'after my first name to find me if you want :)

Handmade Help

How's everyone going today? We're doing fine in our corner of Queensland, while a lot of the rest of the country isn't. The bushfires in the south are still raging and the needs of people who have lost everything are starting to bite. The website I am featuring today is a palce you can go to find out what the real needs are in case you can help at all. Just click on the image to go to the site.

Thank you for all your support. And stay safe.

Spread the Love Award

Thank you so much for thinking of me for this award Hannah! You are too kind :)

Hannah also told me The rules for passing this award on: you must post the award on your blog, name the person who awarded you, then pass the award to 6 other bloggers and leave a message on their blog that they've received the award.

My 6 nominees are........

1. Jaqi
2. Lee
3. Suzanne
4. Pearl
5. Lexie
6. Grace

Handmade Wrapping Paper

Have you ever run out of gift wrap at a critical time? Or do you just want to personalise your own wrapping paper, making a special looking gift for a special someone? That's what did this Valentine's Day - I made my own handstamped paper! My husband was so surprised!

I made a page about how to make your own wrapping paper at PaperCraftCentral.com, in case you would like to make your own and would like to see the nitty gritty 'how to' details - lol!

Oh by the way - is anyone wondering what I wrapped here? It was a gift for my hubby. Can you tell what it was?

More Faux Metal Cards

Once I started using the faux metal technique, it was hard to know where to stop! Lol! I had a lot of fun with this and made some thank you cards as well as another Valentine's Day card. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I did making them. And if you do decide to make some faux metal cards yourself, why not write to me at PaperCraftCentral and I will showcase them!

Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day! Have you got your card for your special someone organised yet? I am always a 'last minute' or 'just in the nick of time' girl and finally got one done today. I used the Faux Metal technique with a shallower cut stamp and got a sort of molten look - lol! I like it. I cut the heart out a little wobbly on purpose as there were some parts of the stamp that showed better that way. It's not really dripping embossing powder off the image!! The embossing powder is red with gold glitter dust in it - woo hoo!

I plan to wrap up a large Lindt chocolate-orange bar as well and write something suitably sweet inside the card. Do you think he'll like it??

Happy Valentines Day, ladies!

A Disaster Update and a Twinchie

DISASTER UPDATE:
Well, the fires are slowly becoming tamed. There are five still burning tonight which is a vast improvement on the first week of fires. Thank you to everyone who has sent messages of support. Let's pray that ALL of the fires are extinguished soon.

There's also good news about the flood victims. Food trucks are getting through so the supermarkets are being re-stocked. And people are able to start concentrating on cleaning up and starting again.

TWINCHIE:
I promised you a craft project and here it is! Remember the little Twinchie I made awhile ago? Well, I have written a page about it at PaperCraftCentral. Just in time for Valentine's Day! Oh - and I plan to give you another example of a Valentine's Day project tomorrow :)

Till next time!

Want to help the fire victims in a Scrappy way? "Memory Gifts" is one way...

I found someone who has discovered a way to help people who have lost all of their photos in fires. Here's the link to Sarah's blog in case you would also like to help in a scrappy way:

http://sares1911.wordpress.com/

Sarah explains it this way:

"I feel for those families in the Victorian regions devasted by fire this week. I can’t help but feel frustrated at the limited amount we are able to do from here to help. I can donate money but I felt the need for something more tangible to be done for those families who have literally lost everything.

As scrappers, one of the most important things we deal with on a daily basis are memories. Family memories, memories of loved ones, memories of holidays, birthdays, christenings, bbq’s and days at the beach. These families in Victoria have got no tangible evidence of their lives left. No family photos. No happy snaps. You can replace a fridge, but you can’t replace years of momentos.

In order to help out these family begin to put their lives back together I have started a scrapbooking plan - called “MEMORY GIFTS”.

Quite simply, I ask each and every one of you who read this blog to donate a 12 x 12inch almost completed scrapbook LO to the “Memory Gifts” program. Each page will be sent to me. I will collect them and bind them, then hand them over to the head of Pastoral Care for the Victorian Catholic Education Office, Maria Kirkwood in Melbourne. It will not be just Catholic families benefiting, it will be anyone who needs it. The albums will then be distributed to the principals of the 4 schools that burned down, who will know exactly who to give them to.

Each family devastated by fire will be (in time) given album pages to help them begin their memories again. Those families can then approach their own families for copies of photos to put into the albums, or simply start putting in fresh memories."

Do follow the link to Sarah's blog and send her a message to get her address if you would like to help this way. I plan to and already have someone else who has pledged to do so. Let's see how many pages we can get together between us! Please let me know if you make and send some pages for this cause by posting here.

Thank you!

Update on the Disasters

I feel like an amateur news reporter these last few days :)

The fires are still burning but gradually being brought under control. There are 181 confirmed dead now, with more expected to be found.

People are responding wonderfully to the various appeals in place to help both people and animals affected by the fires. $31,255,562 has been collected in donations so far! That's wonderful. There are over 750 houses burned down and over 3,000 homes affected by floods, so the appeal is important. Government and corporations are also stepping up and giving significant support. If you are in Australia and shop at Coles, they are going to donate ALL of their profits if you shop on Friday this week!

The story about this wild koala is most touching and amazing, as they never go near human beings like this normally.

If you want to know how to help the animals, Wildlife Victoria has organised an appeal.

Volunteering to help is also a possibility, for people in Australia.

The floods in FNQ are receding so people are returning to ther homes and communities for the massive cleanup. There is significant disease risk as there are sewerage leaks - eww.

We're still doing fine in our area. The rain is heading towards us today but no floods are expected.

On a more everyday level, I am having a scrapbooking class this afternoon here at home. Imagine the scrapbooks people will be able to create after the disasters are over and done with, and only the photos and memories remain. This is one of those times where I am so glad to know about scrapbooking as it can be such a way of processing hard experiences and bad memories for people. It can be very therapeutic to create a book of memories, allowing you to tie things together in a way that makes sense, and allowing you to deal with what actually happened.

I hope some of the traumatised people can eventually be helped by the process of scrapbooking and the sharing that goes with it when you make your scrapbook with a group of caring friends....

Take care, all. XX

Bushfire and Flood News

Thank you so much for your concern, my friends. Colin and I are still safe and are far away from the fires and floods. The fires are still burning and the death toll is at 173 today, and expected to rise. The static picture I've given you here shows where the fires are today. Here is a movable fire map so you can see where the blazes are controlled and where they are not.

To get an idea of the size of Australia, think of the lower 48 US states, turn that upside down, and overlay it on Australia. It just fits.

On the movable map, if you follow the east coast up to where Australia bulges out the most, you will find Brisbane and just north of that, Caboolture. That is where I am.

Keep going up the coast to where the coast starts to be verticle, and you will see Cairns, and inland from that, Atherton. That's where I used to live and all along the coast up there south to Ingham is also where the floods are happening. Thankfully, the waters are receding up there now but they will need to work very hard to clean everything up. I don't know if you have ever had flood water through your house, but it is pretty smelly, muddy and ugly. There's over 3,000 homes affected by the floods in the north and down south, over 750 houses burnt in the fires.

Sorry to be so depressing, but the mood over here is a little like that right now. We're also a caring country where people will get up and get going to help, so we will be alright.

Some of you have been so kind and caring, and have asked how to help. If anyone wants to know about a charity taking funds for disaster relief, try the Australian Red Cross.

This story about the experiences of one family who barely escaped with their lives really touched me.

Thank you on behalf of those who cannot thank you themselves right now.

I'll be back papercrafting very soon!

Black Saturday in Australia

Everyone here seems to be in shock. Victoria is experiencing the worst bush fires in living memory. The death count is horrible - 131 are dead today and more than 700 houses are burnt, and whole communities have been wiped out. The fires are still raging.

Up North where I used to live, vast areas are covered in flood waters and the monsoonal rain is still coming down. Flood waters have receded a little but they still have roads cut and supplies are not getting through. There are loads of people being evacuated, but no deaths known up north. A little five year old boy is missing, presumed taken by a crocodile though.

I am safe. I am living about half way between the disasters, in comfort. I do have friends and relatives in both the north and the south, and they are also safe.

Thank you for your concern. My heart goes out to the victims and the people left with nothing. One couple were rescued clutching a burnt photo album between them, and they have nothing else....

An Award from Michelle!

How lovely to be thought of for this pretty award! Thank you, Michelle. Please do visit Michelle's blog and leave her a comment - she is a new blogger and a great crafter :)

Now I want to pass on this award to all of you who visit me. Please do accept it as you come on by! And thank you for visiting me! XX