My Good Intentions.

We all have good intentions whether it’s to make your day productive around the house or to exercise more we all set ourselves tasks to achieve that we don't quite accomplish or procrastinate over. Mine is my Blog!! When I started it I had full intentions and well made plans on how to keep it running and regularly post about my scrapping adventures as i really wanted to try and join a Design Team but like most others I just let it slip away. 

Everything else always seemed to get in the way and somewhere along the way I lost my physical crafting mojo!! What is that you ask?? Well I still love crafting but it morphed into more of a watch and buy hobby where I don't actually do any physical crafting. Don't get me wrong I host lots of scrapbooking, workshops and go to a regular craft group but I just don't seem to get anything done. I love watching others craft and buying the really cool products they use (in hope I get inspired to use them) but I rarely actually made anything or if I did it just didn't make it to a complete product. 

I also LOVE to watch YouTube videos of other people card making or scrapbooking (I will post links to my faves at the end) and this inspires me to go buy new things to try. When I buy these new things I am rarely the first or even second person to use them it’s usually one of my crafty friends who come to my house to scrap that ends up christening my new toys and then they sit and sit in my craft space gathering dust (the toys that is not my craft friends :P).

A couple of years ago I fell completely in love with Heidi Swapp as you may have already read in a previous post. I went out and purchased all her lovely products new and old (which took some tracking down) watched all of her My Craft Channel Video's and even met her at a Spotlight tour she did a couple years ago and to be 100% completely honest i have probably only used 5% of the yummy goodies and made only a few of the projects that I purchased all this stuff for and then even half of those are still sitting unfinished. I even tried her online class Capture 30 (which inspired me to start this Blog and you know how that turned out) to get me motivated to get up off my but and do stuff but I feel like I'm stuck in this huge rut and cant get out.

I see people ask on craft groups "How do i get my mojo back?" or "How do you get inspired to craft?" and the immediate response from others in the group always seems to be Pinterest, Google and YouTube but I know for me that has done nothing but hinder my recovery. I will spend hrs watching YouTube and a small amount of time on Pinterest (I find it to over whelming) but all i seem to do is  just..........well this... nothing!!

It's time to build myself a ladder, a bridge or what ever so I can get over this slump and climb out of the rut i have so comfortably dug myself. The only way I see myself doing this is with sheer determination and effort. There is no quick fix or solution to the state im in I just need to do it One Day at a Time ( I stole this from Heidi its her new mantra) one step at a time!! My first step is to plan for tomorrow. Get something out that needs finishing and actually FINISH it. So here goes wish me luck!!

Jennifer McGuire

Kristina Werner

Tara Sell

Emily Cupely

March (oops) Challenges

Getting behind again!! In March i chose to do the Sassy Scrapper mood board challenge as it worked really well with my eldest daughters favourite colour Orange.

 I found a photo i had been trying to scrap for such a long time and had no no idea how to scrap it. My daughter LOVES to read she is a real book worm and when we bought our new camera and my husband was playing around with it he took this lovely photo of her reading. 

I chose to use my Heidi Swapp products to make this layout surprise surprise!!

Here are the products i have used:

Kaszazz SB Essentials White Cardstock

Heidi Swapp Dreamy Project Life Cards

Heidi Swapp Color Shine Preach, Coral and Blush

Heidi Swapp Color Magic Banners

Heidi Swapp Favorite Collections (180) paper pad papers
Prima Flowers.

I had a little trouble with the paper warping after i used the color shine so ran my background sheet through my laminator to flatten it out which help a little but didn't get rid of the warping totally.
I chose matching cards and papers and fiddled with the placement around the photo until i was happy. I then added some flowers and the color magic banner which i tried to get an ombre effect on with blush and coral color shines but didn't really accomplish it (it still looked pretty).

I didn't get it quite finished in time to add to the gallery as i had a few goes at getting the photo to print, I think it took 3 visits to the photo lab before i actually got it and some how it printed it twice!! My solution to this was to cut out my daughter from the photo and puffy tape it on top of the photo in a 3D effect.

I also completed the Scrapbook Challenges sketch 431 but have replaced the layout some where so that one will have to miss out.

 In my next post i will share all the projects i finished at a retreat we went to during International Scrapbooking month. See you soon :)

Scrapbook Challenges sketch 430

Here it is!! My first full blog on a layout challenge. I chose to do the Scrapbook Challenge sketch 430 which i have made into a double page layout using a mixture of Heidi Swapp and Kaszazz products.

Products used:

Kaszazz white SB Essentials cardstock

Kaszazz Eiffel Tower Stamp

Heidi Swapp Project Life Glitter stars

Heidi Swapp Project Life gold foil 3x4 card

Heidi Swapp Project Life color magic wood word "smile"

Heidi Swapp Memory Planner 3x3 and 2x2 cards

Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic- Sparkle paper- teal chevron side

Eiffel Tower washi tape

Dear Lizzy Thickers- Primrose Foil Letters

I decided to do my daughters 14th birthday photos. She was wearing a teal top so i chose the teal chevron paper from the sugar chic collection. I really wanted to be able to use a mixture of ranges as i needed to challenge myself to mix and match a bit more so i also went through my HSPL and new Memory Planner rangers to find coordinating embellishments.

After the embellishment problem was solved i then decided to get messy and do some color shine flicking on my page

The girls that were at my house had a good laugh watching me cringe every time i gave the tube a flick to get the splatters on my page. After i had all the elements together on the page and i had cleaned up i found that the white sections looked a bit empty so out come the color shine again and away i went this time with a bit more vigor and freedom as i was over the worry of it not looking right. I also coloured the wood word after forgetting to do it the first time round.

As I added the last few touches with the washi tape I decided to use the gold foil thickers i purchased while away on holiday in Melbourne which added the finishing touch it needed.

Other than the journaling which i will add later I was happy with the end result so now im off to start on the next sketch challenge. Keep checking in for my next installment :)

I'm Back!! And I'm Heidified

Wow well its 2015 and 2 years and 8 months since my last post apologizing for neglecting my blog and followers. Again I find myself having to apologize but this time i don't really have any good reason for it other than i got lazy and forgetful. Sorry to my followers and I hope to rekindle my blog and maintain an active following.

A lot has happened since my last post and I cant remember it all but I can inform you my Nana has gone into remission for the lymphoma but now has lung cancer which has be caught early and she is once again in the process of treatment. She isn't as sick as last time so that is a positive.

You may ask why all of a sudden have I decided to restart blogging again the simple answer is Heidi Swapp but if i was to just give you the simple answer I wouldn't have a post for you to read (I bet your regretting asking why now LOL).
Just over a year ago I discovered this amazing woman an became besotted with her and her ideas instantly. She has such passion for memory keeping and its contagious. I have spent the last 12 months  purchasing and building my stash of all her yummmmy products and now find myself with quite the stash. I found it a real challenge finding some of her older ranges but thanks to some awesome Aussie online stores such as Sassy Scrapper and Scrappin Clearly I was able to get quite a lot of what I wanted. I would hate to know just how much I have spent in the last year but I think I would have come close to paying for Heidi's income for half of it. Anyway I signed up for her Capture 30 online class in November last year and ordered my kit locally (which turned out to be a real waiting game due to strikes in the US) and waited impatiently for it to begin. I had never done an online before and was very unsure on how it all worked but thanks to Kim Jeffress taking time to answer my seemingly silly questions I had an idea of what to expect. I started the class a little late as we were on holiday in Melbourne but managed to catch up fairly quickly thanks to the great way the class was run and one of the challenges was to set myself goals to achieve through out the year which I did and is not something I usually do but one of them was to try and make it onto a Design team somewhere in this huge industry so this brings me to why I decided to start blogging as I need an active blog to be able to be on one of these teams. My ultimate and very far fetched long term goal (probably more of a wish) is to get on Heidi's Design Team :D
 I hope to bring you inspiration and lots of cool layout that you can scraplift to your hearts content no copy rights here :)
Here are a few links for you to visit IF you don't already know about them:
http://www.heidiswapp.com/
https://www.mycraftchannel.com/shows/heidi-swapp-s-create-to-remember
http://sassyscrapper.com.au/
http://www.scrappingclearly.com.au/
https://www.facebook.com/KimJeffressDesigns?fref=ts

Enjoy the rest of your day/night and I look forward to chatting with you soon.

Im back to share a Tip.

Well it has been a couple months since my last Blog post and i apologise for this but my life has gotten very busy. My Nana was diagnosed with aggressive Lymphoma and it is right through her body so i have been running back and forth to the city for visits and to help out where i can (i live 300km from the hospital). Also the whole family has just had a bug and it kept me busy looking after sick kids and then i came down with it so my Blog has been a little neglected.

 Also in all this i was offered a place to go to one of the few Workshops Tim Holtz is running while he is here in Australia so travel plans had to be made so i could get there. 6 days to go!!!! I will be posting Pics and tips that i learn while im there so stay tuned.

Now on to the reason i decided to post. I was on FB and a lady was telling us about the fantastic way she stores her stickles and liquid pearls. She has stuck a velcro strip to the underside of the shelf in front of her workspace and has put velcro dots to the bottom of the bottles and stores them upside down which helps reduce air bubbles and makes it so the liquid is already to go when u need it. I thought this was a great idea also for storage reasons you can now also use the underside of your shelves which if you like me you need all the storage space you need. Woohoo i will be doing this later this arvo after i have acquired some velcro!! Thanks for the GREAT idea Vanessa Biela. Pictures to be posted once it is done.

Scrappy-go-Lucky Strut Your Cuts Challenge

Well I finally managed to get a Strut your cuts challenge finished!! Yay.
All cuts were made on my Sizzix eClips.
I have used my Basic Shapes cartridge to cut the circles and scallop circle, the Edges cartridge to cut the scallop border edge and im assuming that the eCAL software is the equivilent of the Gypsy so i have used a swirl of of the preloaded shapes for the stems of the flowers and the Comic Sans MS font for the title words.

If you wish to participate in the Strut Your Cuts Challenge pop on over to http://blog.scrappy-go-lucky.com.au/

Paper Bakery March Sketch Challenge,

This is my take on the sketch. The photo's were taken at the schools Family Night where we get to meet the teachers and the kids get to have a play and swim in the pool.

This is the scetch:
Here is the link to thier Blog go take a look. http://www.paperbakerykits.com/