G.I. Esti

I had to share these photos with you. We went to a market yesterday to stroll around - nice peaceful Sunday afternoon - if only I knew!! There were a lot of things to entertain the children and one of them was this HUGE (about 6m high) soap dispenser blow-up castle thingie. My little one (just turned 4) is a little apprehensive of bigger, rougher children and things that are SEVENTEEN times her size!! So I said....wait for it............. "Come, Mommy will go with you!!!" .......

Noooooo, it is not as easy as it looks!! My hubby took this picture with my cellphone - I suppose it would have made a lovely memory in case I didn't make it! Because I am slightly (ever so slightly:) heavier than you standard kid, the rope ladder became one with the blow-up thingie and there was almost no chance of getting my feet even close to standing on it!! The higher I got - the more I giggled - the worse the problem became!! To cut a long story short .............. I MADE IT!! (to the amusement of 397 people on the beach and at least 47 children on the blow-up thingie!!!!).

My little one was seriously impressed (NOT with me climbing my heart out!!!) that she made it and went another 5 times...........by herself;). I did seriously impress my hubby and my brother (the grins on their faces as I looked down halfway said "yeah right, she'll never make it") .......and I impressed myself, but in all honesty I think there is now a new weight restriction added to all blow-up thingies:)

Try something new and exciting (and have someone stand by with a camera!!) and impress yourself! Create a memory for life.

Watch out Survivor (or is it Fear Factor!!!!!).... here I come!

Happy scrappin'

Birdhouses

I had so much fun playing with these cute wooden birdhouses! I covered the wooden blanks with paper then added the most beautiful beaded trim topped of with a feather mini-boa (or I suppose it's actually trim for clothing designs!). Looks like something a fairy would wear to a masquerade ball:)

I added letter stickers and stamps (Loire Valley Birdhouse) and die-cut lettering with dimensional glaze (Sublime Birdhouse) for the home tweet home. The cute birdie I found at a florist - you'd be amazed at the variety!!!

These projects were loaded on the Scrap Shack Studio blog - follow the Scrap Shack Studio button for some other amazing projects by my fellow designers!

Mmmmmm, it would be fun to try a Christmas Birdhouse with glittery paper............................sorry .......... I've got to go ...................... Birdhouses to play with .........

Happy scrappin'

Tins of festive creativity!

I spend a lovely Friday with my GF making these gorgeous tins! Every person she deals with during the year with her company receives one of these tins filled with yummy goodies - including the most divine shortbread you have ever tasted! She had a batch in the oven while we were scrapping (please excuse the little wet spots on the tins - it was my mouth watering the whole morning;).

We completed 20 in total on Friday (not bad for a days work!!) and that's while having pizza, scrumptious tea and a whole lot of chatting and listening to music!! After LOTS of double sided tape, Pritt Gel, Dimensional Glaze, glitter, stickles and ribbon - we did it! I would definitely consider this a day well spend - eating, chatting, laughing, scrapping. slicing (Slice Machine - my other BFF!!) and actually completing something!!

Hope you have a GF you can spend some time scrapping with:)...............and get a doggy bag of freshly home made Shortbread ;)

Happy scrappin'

P.S. I'm always confusing the living daylights out of this Spell Check with words like "Stickles" LOL

Birthday Wishes

A special friend had a birthday last week and I really wanted to create a card that would make her feel special. To create a flower I cut freehand circles from glitter and flocked paper with a gorgeous bling in the centre. For the stem I simply used a pink ribbon with polka dot ribbon tied as a leafy accent. The "your special" stamp is embossed to give it a really classy feel:). "Congratulations" is a 3 in 1 stamp from Autumn Leaves. First stamp the pink rectangle, then Congratulations in a contrasting pink, lastly add the scrolly border in black. I embossed the whole image (about four times) and raised it to give it an epoxy embellishment effect. Kaisercraft border rhinestones adds a little oomph to card front.
Inside the card I stamped a sentiment which is also embossed and added the same circle flower to compliment the front of the card. Some ribbon detail makes is feel really lavish (....that's if a card can feel lavish :)

The envelope is always forgotten but this time is was actually part of the gift presentation. A simple swirly rub-on with bling (I LOOOOVE my bling!!!) in strategic places, blossoms with a dotty brad (a dear friend bought these funky brads as a gift - all the way from England !) and layered ribbon made the loveliest envelope!

A special card for a special friend - perfect!

Happy creatin'

Weaving and Masks

Wheeeph, this is now really the end of the Kaisercraft Penny Royale we received at Spier (not even remotely the end of the stash - but the end of my creating with it for just now:).

The ribbon design paper lends itself naturally to paper weaving.......but I wanted it to really shine (literally;). To create the blossom effect I added a Heidi Swapp mask over the weaving and sprayed Latte Glimmer Mist over the mask. Clever, really clever BUT it ended up barely visible - then for the A-HA moment - a fine tip marker to outline the mask design and this enables the eye to complete the picture and see the complete masked image in the busy weaved pattern.

Another problem creeped up as the letters also faded into the vanilla cardstock - same solution! - use a fine liner all around and inside the letters to accentuate the letter stickers. The corner design was cut from some left-over paper to balance the LO and a journal block completes the picture. A few pearls as blossom centres and VOILA - another one bites the dust!

Isn't it amazing how similar the Penny Royale is to my Ouma's dress!! .....and look at that frizzy permed hair - Cool I say:):):)

Watch this space for an awesome calender idea!

Happy weavin' :)

Spier Clearsnap

These are the last of the Spier layouts! The classes for Clearsnap were geared more to teach different techniques (I was amazed how little of the group have embossed before!!). We stamped, inked, embossed and painted! The letters on the Friends LO were coloured with the Smooch Inks - I LOVE the applicator bottle in the shape of nail varnish and the sharp pointed applicator makes it a breeze to use on fine detail elements! The colours are also really vivid and brightens your projects. The red and green looks absolutely stunning on Christmas products - will definitely incorporate them this festive season.

On SNOOZIN' we used roller stamps to create your own background paper to match your photo. As I live in close proximity to MANY - too many:) - scrapbook shops, this is not a technique I will really use to create my own paper, but the effect is marvellous, even on printed paper! We also used the technique to rollerstamp on vellum (the background for my Snoozin' title). The example was a 8x8 card with two vellum strips under the title - as I love putting my own swing on things I created a LO using the bits and pieces we created with the stamping technique. The dots in the flowers were created with purple Smooch - it just gives your page a tinge of colour - use sparingly as it can VERY quickly turn your page into a circus of colour! I painted purple Smooch photo corners on my paper (what a disaster!!) and designed the layout so I can quickly covered them with a lovely blossom and the "pretty little girl" saying!!

As the scrapbooking saying goes - Every mistake is an opportunity for creativity! (or an embellishment!!)

Happy scrappin'

Puppy Love

Yes, this is a scrapbooking blog... but I simple couldn't resist these cutest puppy photies!!!! It's not our puppy, so luckily I can spend late nights scrapping, not potty training!!

It's just the most amazing little miracle:) The warm tummy smell (kinda like Pronutro?!?), soft little pink feet, neck snuggles and eyes not even open yet!! The puppy just wants to suckle (understandably - I suppose) and we put her next to my daughter's ear.......the giggles that came from that little body will be imprinted in my memory for the rest of my life!!!

Hope you have some little miracle make giggles rupture from your heart!!

Happy scrappin'