Hi scrappers, it's Friday.

Hello scrappers. Welcome to Friday. The end of the week - YES! Weekend, only hours away...in fact March is only hours away!

I went on a scrap rampage this week and scrapped five pages. Admittedly they are all very quick layouts, but at least they are done! I'm only going to show you two, so that I have some in reserve for next week, in case something hideous happens, like I don't scrap.
The first one uses PURPLE. I never use purple so it was a weird and new experience.

Special hello to Jodie and Fran, two scrappers who I know are scrapping together, having their own scrappy Friday, right now as I type this. They tune in to this, so Hi girls. Have a productive day!

As I was saying this is a very simple layout, partly because it was a photo I liked, therefore decided to just stick the page together and not 'overthink' it, and depress myself with an disapponting result (see last post for how I find it harder to scrap pics I love). As it turned out though, I don't mind this one. Simple as it is. There isn't even a title, and that's okay...I think? I don't really know what to title I would use? Now that I look at it on the computer screen, I think perhaps it does need a title, in white letter stickers, running along the bottom left edge of the photo (on the photo) - but what title?? Anyway, I liked this layout because it is very unlike me to put a photo, and a fairly busy one at that, on a purple background, so I guess it was nice to think outside my box. This purple is a greyish, muddy purple, and it is made by canson. I've had it in my stack for 5 years (!) and I have no idea what the official name is. Finally, I found a layout for it. The little date stamp was $6 from a office supplies shop, and the pp is by 'stampin' up'.

The next layout is another quickie, just simply because it is 8.5 x 11 and therefore, is just quick!

It is about my brother-in -law and my middle child. When he comes over for a swim, she holds onto his shoulders and they glide up and down the pool together under water. It is eerily like a whale with it's baby. Now I'm not very comfortable calling anyone a whale, but he is over six feet tall and has broad shoulders. He is also very fair skinned (hence the 'beluga' (white whale) title). Hope he's okay with that...he hasn't seen it yet. The wiggles have a song called 'baby beluga' and I just could not get it out of my head doing this layout, so that is the title.
There is a hand drawn black pen line around the photos and journaling, I just did this to go in with the movement happening in the pp. That dark mat around the white is a dark greeny colour (another colour that I use once every 5 years!).

I snapped these photos of my youngest last night at 6pm while hubby was serving up dinner. I saw some light coming in through a window in the hall, and Lucy was the only one willing to pose for me. Hubby asked was it essential that I took photos RIGHT then? We all know the answer. I am just loving having this child potter after me so much right now. Just her and me. Something wonderful about that last child getting so much one on one time, and wonderful that as my last, I appreciate how precious this time really is! Spend most of the day picking her up and squeezing her. Already grieving for when she starts school next year.

Will add these layouts and their sketches to my gallery over the next few days, and will have more layouts to share next week. Have a great week. Don't forget to make time to scrap...

...and Don't forget to leave a comment to let me know you were here. If you want to.

Hello Friday scrappers!

Hello everyone! Thanks so much for your great comments on my last post. The one where I was trying so hard to not BRAG! It was so fun to read your comments, was laughing for most of the day. Loved when Jody said I had achieved the ultimate in scrapbooking - that there is no other goal. ha ha Thanks for the entertaining me so!

I have two new layouts to share this week.

This first one is a 12 xx12 double spreader using the photos I took in Narooma of my eldest in front of boatsheds. You've already seen the pics. Camera photographed layout a bit wonky so apologies if you think your eyes and/or computer screen are doing weird things. It's just my non-SLR camera. I really really did like these photos and I actually don't really like scrapping photos I love, because I never scrap them as well as I hope to, and..well...I guess there's just a bit of pressure that I put on myself to make a great layout, and inevitably I end up disappointed. So, needless to say, I don't love this layout. But I share it with you anyway, cause I don't have much else to show you on this scrappy Friday! It's OKAY, like it's not the worst layout ever in the world of scrapbooking, and I'm not redoing it, so this is it. I do like this awesome new pp that I found recently - it's by Basic Grey and I LOVE the delicate and consistent print (ie no yukky distressed look) and it is in my favourite, to die for, colour. Thinking of painting wall colours in my house this colour, but am nervous I will have seriously 'moved on' in about 6 months time, and then my hubby will be super mad when I ask him to help me paint it back to the off-white that it is today. So here's my colour combo for this layout - one of my all time faves, one I keep going back to.

The next layout was done last Sunday night with my friend Robyn.

Robyn is a BRAND new convert to scrapping and has scrapped all of 8 pages total. We ate lasagna, put a movie on for our 5 daughters (2 of which were obviously hers), and had a quick scrap. Robyn bought these photos over to scrap of her daughter, Chantal, and my daughter Amelia, together in Narooma. Chantal and Amelia are so funny and cute together that they have been the subjects of my last few layouts posted. Robyn is a busy mum, works many hours and grew up with 5 older brothers, and therefore is very NOT 'frilly'. She wants her layouts to be fast, and fuss free! So this is a quickie one. The story behind it is this. Robyn and her husband are flight attendants. Her husband, she jokes is quite possibly, the only 'straight' flight attendant out there! Anyway, they spend much of their week in different hotels around the world (unfortunately not at the same hotel at the same time), and therefore get lots and lots of freebie toiletries. Robyn doesn't think her girls even know that shampoo comes in large bottles and can be bought from a shop! At Narooma, Amelia and Chantal set up a 'shop' for all the campers, and 'sold' (as in gave away) toiletries to whoever came to visit their tree stump shop. The colour combo is a bit 1994 as far as house decorating goes, but it still looks good for a scrap layout!! I actually love this combo on paper!

Also, just have to show you this photo that we took at Narooma when Robyn and her husband suddenly and spontaneously moved fantastically into 'flight attendant mode' and made everyone pina coladas!!

It was totally hilarious to watch them in action - so efficient and professional, and who else but someone in the service-with-a-smile industry could come up with cocktails like this while camping in a tent? They were SO SO yum! Robyn calls herself the 'hostess with the mostess', and that she is!!

Don't forget to leave a comment to let me know you were here. Any questions about layouts (or flight attending in general), please ask.

just a bit exciting

Okay, I am totally trying NOT to brag, but I just have to share this with you as this is totally exciting for me!! Yesterday in the mail, the current issue of Simple Scrapbooks arrived from USA and this was in it.

Cathy Z (yes, the total and original goddess of scrapbooking) used MY layout - yes little old sydney-sider me - as HER inspiration in this article. I was totally freaked to see that THE Cathy Z, was inspired by my layout that was posted on a reader gallery, and used MY layout as a basis for her own layout. Far out. It's just all too weird and crazy. In my excitement, I dumbly told two non-scrappers about CATHY using MY layouts and they looked at me blankly, so it is for this reason I share this with you guys, cause I know at least YOU will understand how cool this is. A couple of months ago I received an email from "Cathryn Zielske" in my inbox, with "I want you!" in the subject line! That was certainly an interesting subject title - I thought for sure it was Di Herman playing a trick on me!

Cathy even thanks me for the idea in the article! No problem.

Speaking of Di Herman and this current issue of SS (March/April), Di is extremely well represented in this issue with THREE pages dedicated to her alphabetical/encyclopedia style album about her son. It is awesome, but warning, you just might need the tissues as you read through the pages of her layouts.

I had the awesome opportunity to attend a workshop by the actual Cathy Z herslf in Sydney 2 years ago, and I tell you, my friends (including Di) and I were SO excited to see her in the flesh. Driving in, it was like we were going to a Billy Joel concert or something. Scary thing was, there were fans there that were really, really obsessed (as opposed to just mostly, like us). I was sitting in the workshop when Cathy arrived (gasps all round) and the girl next to me said "oh that is what she was wearing on page 127 of her book". I looked at the girl in shock and horror, or was it admiration and awe?? I'm sure it was the former. The thought of that conference was our happy place for months afterwards (got to sit in a class taught be Ali Edwards too - actually her classes were the best ever!). The conference was several hundred dollars, and being the frugal scrapper that I am, I considered for a while not attending. When I told my DH of my doubts about spending that much money he said "Are you telling me that, your hero, the absolute queen of scrapbooking is going to be here in Australia, 20 minutes away from us, and you are not going to be there??? Don't be ridiculous - you're GOING!". So I went. And it was truly awesome to be in the presence of such greatness. Didn't learn anything, cause she just talked about her books (duh, as if we haven't all memorised them cover to cover) but still, just to be in the presence...... good times. Good times.

Welcome to Scrappy Friday #3

Hi everyone. Thanks for your comments last post - the WIFE of the guy IN that fire truck, commented - wow - Jodie, you are my hero. Your hubby too, but holy cow, YOU let him go out there and risk his life to help others, and he's YOURS. That's just really intense, but thanks for your comment - it made me think of all the wives around the country in that position. Amazing. I get worried when my husband is 5 minutes late home from work, which is in an office located 6 minutes up the road! I can't imagine what you go through. Like I said, heroic. By the way, to non-Aussie readers, it's cold here now. The temperature has HALVED in a week. I am sitting here in winter jammies and ugg boots. So so weird.

Well I have worked a bit this week, and scrapped, and had meals on the table, which MEANS the house is a big old MESS. Of those four areas of my life, something, each week, has gotta give, and this week, the house was it. If no scrapping gets done, or no work gets done, then the house looks pretty darn good, but I've got to pick what's going to win. Housework was the big loser this week. I am thinking I could actually save money by getting a house cleaner. It takes me 7 or 8 hours to do what a professional cleaner could do in 2 or 3. (It takes me that long because I am firstly, not a professional therefore I am slow and crappy at cleaning, and secondly, I get easily distracted by things like this computer...). SO, I figure, instead of losing a whole day trying to clean, I could actually work, which I enjoy, and pay someone else to clean, and I should, if all goes well, earn more than I would pay that cleaner, therefore, I would save (make) money!! Got to convince my hubby of that one, but I really think I'm onto something. Of course, I have to clean up, before I could even LET a cleaner in here!!!

Anyway, onto more important things (WAY more important) like scrapping. Firstly, I will address a couple of questions from last 'scrappy Friday' (Feb 6).
Robyn asked where I got that round stamp that I used on the layout with Lucy's painted face.

Well, I ordered it from a kit from USA put together by Ali Edwards - it sold out in lightning time, and basically, you would have to hunt down and kill in order to get your hands on one now. Maybe someone (who is a complete imbecile) has decided they don't want theirs any more and has put it on ebay?? I think the easiest alternative would be to check out some different circles stamps by Kaisercraft. They are VERY nice, very reasonably priced, and I have used one on my watermelon layout below. It comes from their 'circle set'.

Shannon asked "... when you do an 8.5 x 11 do you just put the one page in chronological order or do you put in another back to back in roughly the same time frame?"
Shannon, I am very relaxed about where my 8.5x11" pages go. Type A personality I am not (thank goodness - you people must drive yourself crazy!! No offense). I just chuck 'em all in the 12 x 12 album. That's why I have ring binder albums - they are so perfect, you can just chuck stuff in at random. I grabbed an album, and here's some pages from it, where the 8.5 x12's are mixed in with the 12 x 12's.

Sometimes, I'll group a bunch of the 8.5x11's in together in the album in front of the 12 x 12's. I'm not too fussed about exact chronology. Just beginning half of the year, goes into first half of the album, and second half of the year goes into the end half. They aren't in perfect order of when the photo was taken - just very approximate. You have to think about what the child is going to be concerned about when they grow up. Will love love reading stories about themselves written by you? Yes. Will they care if a page from March 2008 is sitting in font of a February 08 page? I don't think so. My system is that I give each child an album, each year. Each child is colour coded. Child number #1 has all pink albums, one for each year of her life. Child #2 has brown and child #3 has black. Child number one has decided to change to red albums as of this year, being sick to death of anything pink!

In addition to these albums I have two more general albums. One is for me and hubby, pages about us, individually or together. The other album is titled 'random thoughts' and is for more random stuff that isn't directly related to a child. Both these albums are 8.5 x 11 and too, live on the shelf. I pull them out a bit so that they line up with the spines on the 12 x 12 binders (though they are about 1cm shorter). If we have a family picture, I don't scrap it into a family album, because I don't want yet another album on my shelf, and I don't want them to fight over it when they go their separate ways. I scrap the photo three times, and put one in each child's album. Most of their albums live in each child's rooms, just the last couple of current years live on my lounge room shelves.

No non-scrapper-average-member-of-the-public wants to walk in to my house and see a million (or twenty something) albums. I don't want to freak anyone out. My aim is to convert people to this hobby, not have them running screaming. I stick some circle cardstock labels on the spines (idea from Cathy z) because it is VERY annoying to be constantly pulling out albums to see which one it is. Totally wish they came with some kind of label holder. Some are still waiting for this year's labels, as you can see in above pic.

So how did I get onto this? No idea. Lets get back onto real scrapping.

I did a few layouts this week - here's the two faves.
The first one 'best friends' uses photos that you've already seen from our Narooma holiday, so sorry about that. It's quite 'Cathy Z' like in it's blockiness, but I've softened it with a hand drawn black line. Love green and blue together, and I love combining black and white photos with coloured ones on a layout.

The next layout was inspired by Renee who blogged with me on Remember When. Renee suggested a mini album with photos that represent summer. I haven't gone the way of the mini album, but I definitely have some summer pages in mind. This was the first one. And this is my first layout from photos taken this year!

This photo of daughter #2 was taken a week ago today. A good friend bought her newly acquired Canon DSLR 40D to show me (not to show off, to show me!). I took this photo of Amelia while playing with it - I know the lighting isn't great, but oh yay, the background is blurry! Oh my. It was so SWEET. There was lots of deep breathing and lots of me turning green. I don't HAVE an SLR. I tell hubby that I think I'm the only one on the earth (well not the earth, but certainly in scrap/blog land!) I think I have cried enough that it might possibly happen for my birthday this year. There's not alot I want in this world...just a little SLR.... anyway, moving on, slowly, this layout was obviously VERY easy. A 6 x 8 photo next to a 4 x 6 photo, surrounded by three similar sized strips of paper. (pp from Stampin up).

See you next Friday for more scrappin', possibly earlier for other stuff. Any questions, ask away.

hard times

Here in Australia we don't really have tornados, or hurricanes, or volcanoes, or ice storms, or blizzards or many earthquakes, but we do have bush fires. Right now we are in the midst of Australia's worst natural disaster ever. The state of Victoria (a large part of Aust) has been decimated by fire over the past three days and 130 people have lost their lives, which is unprecedented. Incredible to think that so many people have tragically lost their lives and family members under such horrifying circumstances. It's interesting that it is called a natural disaster, when most of the fires are actually purposely lit by arsonists (ie freaks who have no regard for anything except their own twisted gratification). When it's the hottest day on record and it is blowing a gale, there is not much chance of keeping a fire under control. I can not believe or imagine that temperatures in Victoria were recorded at 50 degrees celcius (that's 122 F). It's crazy that this is happening here in one end of the country

and this is happening here in the other end of the country

and this is happening at the other end of the world.

January/February is so extreme! My thoughts, prayers and best wishes go out to all of you blog reader girls in Victoria (and in far North Queensland) - hope you are all SAFE!

Speaking of thoughts and prayers, I have been following the blog of an amazing family from USA for a while now, and I just feel I need to share this situation. I haven't mentioned this earlier cause I wasn't sure how to combine happy scrapbooking with such adversity, but when you know of someone else going through such a hard time, you see things in your own life in perspective. You appreciate your children, and you are so THANKFUL!

This family, the Riggs family, has several children and the second youngest, Abby aged 4, has an aggresive form of Leukemia.

I lost my own 4 yr old cousin to leukemia many years ago, so I have followed little Abby's life for a few months now. This sweet little girl is in SO much agony right now, and the medications and treatments that they are giving her to try to cure the cancer are so poisonous to the rest of her body, that the side effects and her suffering are extreme. Her parents are i.n.c.r.e.d.i.b.l.e, and I can't imagine how horrendous this situation is for them and their family. Their handling of this is so inspiring. Visit their blog, and send some thoughts and prayers their way, maybe even a comment of encouragement, as I have done a few times. Just had to share this one - couldn't hold it to myself for a minute longer! Hey, I did say in my header that occasionally life outside scrapbooking was also worth a mention.

P.S. I did not, obviously, take any of the above photos! Please don't get mad, if you took one of these - I don't know who took them!!

Scrappy Friday 2

Thanks everyone for all the comments left on my last post - I felt a bit silly and a bit bad, putting my blue comment blurb out there for everyone to read, but as you know I did it for the rellies. Still no comments from them. My in laws either don’t know how to comment yet, or don’t want to, or maybe they have stopped reading such nonsense as my boring blog. My Dad, God LOVE him, tried to comment, but clicked on the little envelope sign and emailed himself his comment! He is so cute! Get in mind your perfect idea of a father, and that is my dad. The best. Anyway, thanks for all your comments, and I hope everyone who wanted them has got their stickers and/or mum books from last post. Put them to good use!

With everyone going back to school last week, and heaps of my friends’ little ones starting school for the first time, I decided to go back into the archives from 12 months ago and dig this up for you. I thought it might give someone out there an idea of what to do with all those school photos. My Amelia has grown so much since this first day of kindy - she was so cute and little - now she is a big year one student!

Now onto some new stuff. considering last week was all 12 x 12, this week it’s all 8.5 x 11. The first layout is about Amelia’s new best friend Cha Cha - real name Chantelle. Hope Chantelle’s mum doesn’t mind me putting her kids picture on my blog! Cha Cha and Amelia are two years apart but are two peas in a pod, and are SO cute and funny together. I used two types of pp here and between the journal lines of type, I hand drew some random pink lines.

For the next page, I decided some handwriting was in order. Although I LOVE the look of computer printed journaling, I know that one day, hopefully in the FAR distant future, someone will be glad that their mother (or grandmother) actually hand wrote something. So every now and then, I hand write. Because I think that every now and then, it’s important. This layout was about how Lucy got her face painted and asked me to take a photo of it. Love this photo of her.

I read a quote in the current CK magazine that said: 'Scrapbooking for some is about scrapbooking photos. For me it’s about scrapbooking memories'. Here, here. Always journal. Scrap when there’s a story to be told. That’s my aim in this great hobby. Don't forget to leave a comment to let me know you were here, and any questions about these layouts - please ask!

Ps. Big News. Grey's Anotomy has returned. Scrapping on thursday nights at 8:30 will now be officially re-scheduled!