Squeezed a bit of scrappiness in...

I attended a layout class at Shell's in Rotorua, recently and a group of ladies had great fun following along with Shell's layout class.
We used some lovely new papers she had in, all Krafty, extra thick card stock from My Mind's Eye. A new fave, I tell you, I fell in love with this paper line.
I started out with a picture of my younger brother and his two kids, taken on my trip to South Africa recently, when we were out picnicking at Oribi Gorge. What a lovely day it was too. As always I did not have any journalling ready, so brought it home to finish the journalling off.

Then I moved on to tell the tale of my Fear Factor Challenge. I was spurred on my by daughter to sit in a crocodile pit, eating crocodile meal. The lady we bought the tickets from went on to tell us that the crocodiles had not fed really well that day, at their feed time, so were probably a bit hungry!

It was an awesome experience, especially when one croc, did a swish of his tail and darted into the water. They move very suddenly, enough to scare the living bejeebers out of you!

The family then wanted me to touch one, for a photo opportunity. It was the quickest touch in history, I think. As I was moving it to touch it they swished around to face each other, as you see in the photograph.  I was so ready to hightail out of that pit, I can tell you.

Then another participant and I managed to talk Shell into letting us stay for one more layout as we had both travelled from afar, so spent the afternoon working on this layout. Lots of TH inking, on this kraft resist paper, Here my daughter and I were crossing the swing bridge at Oribi Gorge. It is really high, but another exhilarating moment. A nice family shot there as well to commemorate the day.

All in all an awesome day scrapping with the Rotorua Ladies. Thanks Shell.

March Madness Scrap Retreat

I recently attended the March Madness Scrap Retreat in Rotorua, and I must confess had a really wonderful time. The event was filled with fun and excitement, with 3 wonderful lessons on the Saturday. I was really pleased the with the Challenge pack we received, beautiful papers. The weekend was made all the more wonderful by Shell's fiance playing the guitar and providing the ladies with some sing-a-longs in the evenings.
The first layout we did was a cuttlebug one, and great fun was had choosing textures. The amazing thing was how different everyones looked in the end. Here is my version, a photo of my granddaughter, taken as she was getting ready for a dance recital.

Then we moved on to work with one of my favourite papers of all time, Graphic 45, Once upon a Springtime. We were shown some texturing techniques and had great fun cutting out all the little images. I had recently taken some photos of my daughter and decided to use one of her for this paper. It was a beautiful shot, even if I say so myself, lol. I am still deciding on a title and the journalling.

And then lastly in the day, we worked with some Colour Wash sprays and had a great messy time. I managed to get in 2 layouts during this class, which was the greatest fun. Anyone who knows me will know that I love getting messy when working with ink and paints. :) I used a photo of my eldest daughters themed birthday party, on the Pink Paislee paper, and then "spotted" some colour wash on plain white paper for the second layout of my grandson, with his beautiful smile, munching on his much loved Chocolate cake!

And of course I managed to find time to work on the challenge pack, with absolutely gorgeous Little Yellow Bicycle papers. Just loved working with it.

My baby granddaughter in the park not wanting to do what I wanted and standing her ground! She is just the cutest!

In between times I worked on a tag. We had been given Tim Holtz tree die cuts by one of the ladies as a pin swap and I decided to make mine into a tag.

All in all it was a wonderful retreat, learned lots, achieved heaps.

Can't wait for the next one.

http://scrapbookdreamsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/scrapbook-dreams-retreat.html



Calendar Girls weekend

I have just had an awesome weekend away with a bunch of scrappy ladies in Waihi Beach. What fun girls, thanks for a most inspiring and wonderful weekend. Pushed some boundaries that would otherwise never have been considered. :)
I spent most of my scrappy time catching up on an international travelogue or circle journal that I have subscribed to and for the first time in a while, I found my mojo.
My travelogue was entitled "Inspire, Create" and it is about what words, colours, shapes, designers inspire you to create the way you do. I have also used mostly recycled board for the book. The option is there for my fellow creatives to use whatever materials, mediums, styles or designs that they may wish to.
For postage and handling purposes I am keeping the journal tied with leather string, but the final version will probably be finished with TH chain.

My next pages were notes to my travelogue partners on what was required for this journal and then I did a page journalling a story that had been very inspirational to me in my life and the making the decisions that I have in the later part of my life.

Then I go on to show some of the style, and people/designers that inspire me the most at the moment.

Last but not lease we have a sign in page where each contributor gets to sing in their details and hopefully attach a picture of themselves or some other identifying trademark on the tag.

Here is one of the tags in my journal using some of the new TH dies.

I have really had a great time putting this all together, now for the next project...

I did have time to fit in one layout with some of the goodies, received in the goodie bag. It is still unfinished in that it needs a title and some journalling, but will get to that soon and then post the pic.

Bugs & Butterflies Retreat

I have just had the most wonderful weekend at the Bugs & Butterflies retreat held at Waihi Beach, NZ. The food was wonderful, the company was great and the layout and technique classes just kept us all really busy.
The first 2 layouts were done with the new Lost and Found papers and I managed to get a theme going with mine, with which I was delighted.

So my first one was of my daughter at 14 months who is now in her 20's. I have always treasured these pictures of her.

The second was of her daughter at about the same age. Our little treasure looks so much like her mum, it is almost quite scarey. I love her to bits.
The next layout class we did was a school type layout and I chose to do my eldest granddaughter on her first day of school last year, encouraged by her little brother. This is what mine ended up looking like.

 I found the challenge pack papers were excellent to work with and managed two layouts with mine. The first is a self portrait I did at dawn of new years morning 2009.

The second was of a special member of our family who passed a couple of years ago, but is still so fondly remembered.

And lastly a pic of some of the final product of our techniques sessions throughout the weekend.

I had the most awesome weekend, met some wonderful people, caught up with those that I only knew online. Thanks Gals.