Ladies of the Manor Retreat Victoria

Want a chance to get away and do something special for a whole weekend?

This retreat is sure to be one to satisfy with loads of prizes, give-a-ways, competitions and awesome sponsorship from Manor House Creations to make this all that bit extra special!

There will also be classes that you can book into as well as make-and-takes.  Tutors include myself, Karen Shady, Trudi Harrison and Heather McMahon.

Click here for all the details and to put in your expression of interest.

Having fun with Bazzill Spellbinders and Just Rite stamps.

So in the main the projects I create for Downunder Direct include Bazzill papers often teamed up with Spellbinders products and Just Rite stamps.

These are the recent projects I have created over at the Downunder Direct Inspirational Blog.

I hope you have found loads of inspiration in these projects.

Getting busy with Manor House Creations flowers

Having an opportunity to work with flowers as stunning as these sure makes crafting fun!  Having boys I don't really do as many feminine projects, but there is no question I am enjoying my slight push back in that area.

I created these projects for the Month of May.  You can see more details about them over at the Manor House Creations Blog.  But here they are as well.  

For this one I prettied up a wooden alpha for a friends little one.  It's in the main just flowers with a little washi tape and twine added!

 For this layout I use lots of the white flowers and teamed it up with more white in the Background with paint and Maya Road 'white out' spray. I also used a number of Maya Road embellishments, AC thickers, trim and Prima pearl flourish to finish off the design.

 I wanted to create something just a little different by way of a card, so I settled on this display card.  I used my Spellbinders Grand Stateley circles as well the Classic triple scallop edge-ability to create the circles and square shape of the card.  I also had fun with some of the Spellbinders embossing folders for this one.  This of course was all teamed up with some beautiful flowers and a pearl/rhinestone flourish.

 The next card is put together oh so easily and a quick tutorial can be seen over at the blog here  so head on over and check it out.

 And just when you think that is all I might have to share... check back because there will be more again shortly :)

Master's challenges the journey so far

Today I thought I would take some time to share with you my Master's Challenges so far.

For each issue of Scrapbooking Memories the year you are reigning master, each of the masters (10 in all) are given different product to work with each month from each of the sponsors of the competition.  Some are more challenging than others as it may be different product you wouldn't normally work with or a type of project that takes you out of your comfort zone (the latter not really a problem for me as I try my hand at everything anyway).  Here are the first 6!

January was Stampin' up. We were to create a single layout using a range of papers, ink pads, stamps and embellishments.  This what I came up with.

The next was Websters Papers, we were sent a range of paper as well as lots of embellishments to work with.  Yes this is me as a little girl :)

The third challenge from American Crafts has been one of my favourites as it really introduced me to working with Amy Tangerine's collections which are one of my favourites for my Project life.  It did take me out of my comfort zone as it was quite different from what I usually use to create my layouts but I really enjoyed the challenge.  We got SO much to play with from Alphas, to papers to flair, stamps and many other embellishments.  It was SUCH and awesome pack to play with.  We had to creat a layout and Card for this Challenge.  

 For Stamp It, we were given some fantastic 'background' type products to work with.  Stencil, Dylusions, colour me flowers and the most awesome background stamp set, all teamed up with white cardstock.  Although the bright pick dylusions spray threw me a little at first, it was really right up my ally with the challenge to create our own background.

 Chroma Arts spoiled us with some more paints, crackle medium and opal dust and asked us to create a canvas.  This one hangs proudly in our family room which is right next to my scrap area... So I couldn't go past the teal colour being my favourite.  I teamed it up with some of the new D'lites Spellbinders dies which I had so much fun with creating this in the main while we were travelling on our summer holiday.   I was fortunate enough to meet up with a great scrappy friend in Tiff Firth who invited me to attend a local crop night at Scrapworkz and that is where most of this canvas came together!

 The next challenge is Kaisercraft who gave us some of their not yet released collections to create two layouts with.  We got a few 12 x 12 pieces of cardstock, a mini paper pad and sticker sheet.  I got to work with the Remember Me collection, although I don't really have ANZAC type photos to work with, so doing what I do, I ignored the theme of the collection and just created some fun layouts.  Having only paper to pretty much work with the Spellbinders dies came in very handy once again as I tried as much to stay true to the pack I received.

 Still need to share my ACTUAL Master's projects which had me win the title - nothing like keeping you all hanging.  I will share them shortly :)  I wanted to wait until After Paperific Expo as I was having them on display there.

I'll be back in no time with another post, as I still have loads to share :)

An extremely busy month with lots to share

Well the last month has been absolutely crazy for me, and I must say it is so great to feel like my head is above water again.

Personally April and May are very busy times for me with holidays, and also birthdays.  Extra busy was this time with a milestone birthday as well as my son's 4th birthday.  I'm sure many of you can relate the stress and time being put into those special presents for close ones reaching a milestone birthday as well as kiddy parties.  I must say the most enjoyable was my son's first kiddy party inviting some of his friends from childcare to celebrate with him.  He was just so excited.  But more on that later.

We had some wonderful family time in April going away camping for Easter as well as ANZAC day and the weekend following.  I even got to start my project life which I am using in the main to document our holidays while we are away.  The main of this was done while we were away and I just needed to add in the pics.  I do have a couple of pages to finish of the weekend, but I loved that a day back home and the memories were pretty much captured in a beautiful form.  All I really took with me was my Project life core kit, album with pockets and a container that is 13''x13''x4'' high filled with some Amy Tangerine paper, Helmar Acid Free Glue and Helmar 450 Quick Dry, various alpha stickers, some appropriate stamps, pens and odd embellishments.  Oh and not to forget my trusty corner punch :)  Here are a couple of pics of my first pages.

I just love my stash of Amy Tangerine's papers stamps and embellishments work so well with my project life theme, I have become a real fan of her stuff (even though I have loved her alpha's for some time now) as although her papers don't really fit my usual scrapping style, it is just perfect for my Project life.  And this leads me to my next big thing of the month.

I recently had an awesome opportunity to teach at Melbourne Paperific Expo and in the last minute have a booth as well as the original gallery of my work that I was to have.  This sure kept me busy this month attracting new customers for my kits.  So much work goes into preparing for these expos as well as setting up and designing how the booth would look not to mention the after work with all the new customers.  But I loved every minute of it.

I had so many lovely comments on my work as well as the look of the booth.  Thanks everyone that took the time to stop by, say hi and even those that purchased a kit from me.  Also an EXTRA SPECIAL thanks to my mum who helped me make this happen.  From helping me prepare for the event (which can be a big ask with two little boys running around all day at home) to being at the stand the whole time manning the fort while I taught on each day.  Here is a pic of the booth.

Here are the layouts I taught at the expo.  Participants had a choice of going with a feminine or masculine feel as well as flat or dimensional finish.  A big thank-you to all the participants that did my classes, they were nearly all sold out!

 They also got to make this step card:

Here is a pic of the ladies at work

So I'm guessing your wondering how using my Amy Tangerine stash for my project life lead me to talking about Paperific... well this is why!

Amy Tangerine was demonstrating at the Better Homes and Gardens Expo and when I let Naomi the organiser of Melbourne Paperific Expo know, she said we could head over there and pass on some free passes for her and the Better Homes and Gardens craft division to come across and visit us as both Expos were being held at the show grounds at the same time.  We headed on over there and dropped of the free passes.  I also left one of my kits for Amy at the same time.

Well later that day when she had finished her promo they popped on over to Paperific and came up to my classroom where I was busy teaching.  I was VERY embarrassed (as I had my 'serious' teaching hat on - most would know that that is not VERY serious lol) and SO SO excited to meet her.  She stayed a bit chatting and the whole class was happy to spend the time meeting her.  She is just SO LOVELY!!  Here is a pic of me with her.

The next part of this post with some VERY exciting news I got a couple of weeks ago and that was that I made Round two of the Spellbinders Worldwide Design Team Competition 2013  - I am beyond thrilled, especially to be sharing this with some long time scrappy friends Teresa Abajo and Tarrah McLean.

Good luck to everyone who is busy getting their round two entries in today if not already in.  You can see the full post HERE To be on this team is something I have wanted for a very long time and even had done all my projects for their last call before feeling it wasn't good timing for me a year and a half ago.  But now I am ready, so please keep your fingers crossed for me!

To finish off here are some pics from my boy's 4th Birthday.

This is the cake I made him - a little larger than I first wanted, but it ended up so yummy that the left overs have been very enjoyable with a cup of tea!  Do you like the colour of the board, this was SO easy to do with some bright blue coated wrapping paper and my Helmar Spray Adheasive!  Came up a treat!

 The inside was bright and colourful.  The boys were having SO much fun watching me make the cakes with all the bright colours - probably the most enjoyable part of birthday cake making I think.

 The Birthday Boy and the Hi-5 Dance Room all ready for his friends to arrive.

He was spoilt SO much with so many lovely gifts.  Thanks everyone for coming and making my boy's day so special!

So my boy is is 4 now... where does the time go huh!  I'll be back with some more things I have been busy creating over the last month real soon!