ames designs

Before joining TSK, I'd never played around with scrapping kits before – I thought they were too restrictive, and that I'd much rather buy things that I'd actually use. Joining the design team changed that. As I used these page kits, I began to realise that rather than being restrictive, using a kit actually forced me to “think outside of the box” and use things (colours, embellies, product lines) that I normally wouldn't have selected myself... great example of this: flowers and the colour pink... especially the colour pink. I had never scrapped with pink before, and I rarely used flowers.

I had to smile when I was putting together my July KT page kit and found myself choosing some pink AND flowers... how times change.

Here is my layout using my kit.
I tried something a little different, and printed part of the photo on swiss dot for a different look. It doesn't line up with the rest of the photo as well as I was hoping, but it was fun to try.

Products: Bazzill swiss dot cardstock; Pink paislee diecut paper and patterned paper; Elle's studio tags; Kaiser pearl strip; A2Z chipboard; grosgrain ribbon; brads; green tara flowers


A few weeks back, mum gave me a box of Grandma and Grandpa's old photos. I loved going through them. I have many more ideas for layouts I want to do, but here are a few that I did for July...
The first two are both created from a page kit available soon at The Srappin Kats. The kit was perfectly suited to older photos.

The third is using leftovers from my page kit, with the addition of the background bazzill cardstock and using my new favourite punch: Effervescence.

Remember to go and check out the rest of the Kreative Team's July offerings at The Scrappin Kats

It was 12.30pm yesterday afternoon, and I was at our monthly scrapbooking morning. I had already completed one layout (my last KT layout for next month... which in itself is amazing. I've never been finished this early), and had some fun using mum's Sizzix and cutting out a few bits and pieces. That's a productive morning for me. I usually barely get one layout done. Anyway, I challenged myself, with the gals as my witness, to finish a layout in the remaining 30 mins... and I did it with 5-10 mins to spare. Yaay!

From the stash: Bazzill cardstock, Kaiser craft scrap; My little shoebox letters; zig pen; EK success ticket punch.

Ok, admittedly it is only a 6x6, and the photo grid was already done for me (I just printed out the grid I posted below... great idea, Mel). But still, it's a record for me. Usually I take at least 1.5 hours to finish a layout, and that's a quick one.

This week, I also completed my "All About Me" challenge. This was a great excuse to use up some of those scraps I've been hoarding... I have a hard time throwing any reasonable size scrap away.
From the stash: Making memories, Kaiser, Sassafras, American Crafts, SEI, Basic Grey & Fancy pants patterned paper scraps; Bazzill cardstock (Kraft and white); KI Memories alphas; Carolees creations mini alphas; zig pen; assorted buttons.

Oh yeah... and the title is from Fat Boy Slim's Rockafella Skank song. I can not hear the phrase "Right about now" without feeling the need to follow it up with "funk soul brother".

I had the day off today... yaay! It's amazing how good it feels to wake up and know the rest of the world is off to work, and I have the whole day ahead of me to do what I want.

And what did I want? A new do. It had been waaayyyy to long since I had a trim, and I wanted a change and decided today would be the day. My DH obligingly took some before and after pics - he's learnt what it means to be married to a scrapper.

So here are the before pics:

Yeah... I really needed a tidy up. Way too many split ends.



But before I show you the after shots (oh the suspense!), here's a layout I did on the weekend:



Recording this conversation was the perfect way to use those radish stickers.
From the stash: Kraft cardstock; SEI papers; AC thickers; BG offbeat chipstickers; ribbon; zig pen; Fiskars circle punches.



Ok... so here are the after shots:


Just a bit of a change... :-). I am loving it, but adjusting to it. For one, it's way lighter; I haven't had hair this short since highschool and I haven't had a fringe of any kind for years before that. And I may just have found a hairdresser I like and will stick with (after 3 years in the Ville, I still haven't found a regular hairdresser).

...with new products. I should be working on April DT stuff, especially considering I'm away for the last week of March, but I just couldn't resist playing with new BG Marrakech and new MME Penny Lane that recently arrived at The Scrappin Kats.


From the stash: MME Beauty collection pack; Carolee's Creations mini alphas.




From the Stash: Coredinations CS; BG patterened paper and chipstickers; AC thickers; KI Memories alpha stickers and Carolees Creations mini alphas; scrap of fabric.

This is a simple and fun layout I did last week. I was re-organising my layouts, and couldn't help but take a photo of the stack. And you know, I've since been thinking that probably about 50-60% of these layouts have been done in the last 5-6 months since joining The Scrappin Kats.

And of course, today being the first, The Scrappin Kats gallery is all abuzz with the latest uploads from the Kreative Team. Check it out.

I promised a sneak peek of my kit... and here it is...


The kit is all about journalling, and will include journalling prompts, hints, tips and ideas to help you record your special memories.

Looking forward to sharing the full reveal with you on the 1st!

I'm on a design team! I was accepted at Scrappin Kats as a part of their design team. I'm so excited! I literally whooped with excitement when I found out and scared poor Mike in the next room.

Here is my second round challenge as part of the selection process:

I've managed to make one card this morning, and hoping to get another one or two done this arvo and tonight.

Last night I completed my layout for the final round of the Design Team comp at Scrappin Kats. The challenge was a great one:

1. White, Yellow and Turquiose cardstock - can be any shades of those colour families - you can cut this in any way and use for journalling spots, shapes - this will not be considered an embellishment. No patterned paper is allowed.
2. Hand or machine stitching
3. 3 photos (any size)
4. A title - completely your choice of type, colour, texture
5. Must contain expressive journalling (not just date and who it is) - you can cut your cardstock to create your journalling spot/tag.
6. 2 types of embellishments of your choice (you can use multiples of each type) (eg: flowers and brads) (does not include patterned paper)

This whole challenge was right up my alley. I'm all about machine stitching right now (as you know); I love expressive journalling; and I don't often over embellish, so sticking to only two wasn't too hard. The biggest challenge was using yellow - it's a colour I don't often use too much on my pages. I'm really happy with the resulting layout. Don't want to give too much away until the judging, but here's a little sneak peak.

Yesterday was our monthly scrapbooking morning. Our last one was in June due to a bub arrival, and so I was really hanging out to this Saturday. All in all, it was a productive morning. I completed two layouts, which is about one to one and a half more then I usually get done.



Products: Bazzill cardstock; scrapworks paper; American crafts thickers

This was an ad challenge posted over at The Scrappin Kats. I spent one lunch break at work this week, looking through magazines not for articles, but for ads. It was a simple but fun layout, and a relatively quick one.




Products: My Little Shoebox paper; Bazzill cardstock, Vandoros ribbon,Green Tara flowers, brads, American crafts thickers, zig writer.

And this was using one of the monthly kits at The Scrappin Kats, and tells the story of my cunning swap as a preschooler, to land the role of Mary in our Christmas play.

Two of the three sketch challenges over at The Scrappin Kats. Also tried to use some of my older stash as challenged to do so in the forum. Feels good to use stuff that I've had stashed away for awhile.

I've recently joined in the ever-growing community at The Scrappin Kats. In their gallery, there are monthly sketch challenges. I thought I'd bite the bullet and do 2 of the August sketches. I've never really worked off sketches before, and I found that I changed a fair few elements, especially in the 12x12 layout. But I kept the overall "look" of the pages, and am quite pleased with how they turned out.




















Supplies: Bazzil & Bazzil bling; PP: Bo Bunny; KI Memories Lace; AC Thickers (Please note: I embossed the thickers in copper, but in the photo they appear brown, so imagine copper!)















Supplies: CS: Bazzil; PP: Cosmo Cricket; Making memories journalling paper; Letters: Making memories (noteworthy); Other: Ribbon, buttons, zig writer

Mum recently gave me most of my baby/kid photos to scrap, so I'm hoping/aiming to scrap at least one page of these photos every month. We'll see how that goes.