ames designs

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.

It has been a busy last week with mum's visit, Mike's birthday, a movie premiere and various other things. Great, but busy.

One of the highlights... mum surprised me with a new sewing machine! I had been talking to her about getting a very basic machine and what I should be looking for. She told us she was going for a walk on Saturday (nothing unusual there), and on her return, said we needed to go pick something up... that something being this:



(by the way, that is not a picture of my actual machine, I just googled for a pic. There's something up with our camera batteries - I think we need new ones)

I'm loving it! I just now have to get back into sewing. I haven't sewn much since home ec days in highschool. Can't wait to use it on layouts, too.

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.

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Credits: Bazzill CS; Kaiser PP; Scrapfx chipboard (stash item - had for about 6 months); AC remarks letter stickers (inked).




Credits: Pink Paislee PP; Coredinates CS; AC Thickers; BG chipboard (stash item - had for about a year. I inked and clear embossed it); BG brads (stash item - had for longer then a year)

I'm hoping to get the third done sometime this weekend... hopefully. I need to get the spare room tidied up ready for mum's visit this week. My little scrap corner of the spare room has overtaken half the room!

After a relatively stressful day at work, I needed some paper therapy. I sat down and pulled out my scraps and my AC shapes and after an hour, this is the result. Very simple cards, but I think they're quite fun. (I think I almost spent longer setting up this photo, then actually making the cards...)

I love bargain buys, and my latest bargain buy arrived in the post yesterday... 12 packets of American Crafts Clubhouse, Fieldhouse and Treehouse chipboard, plastic and foam shapes. Fans of AC will know that each packet of these wonders cost between $4-6 each. I picked up all 12 packs for $10.50 on ebay. Oh yeah.


I wish I had have taken a photo before dismantling all the packs, but I didn't so instead you get a photo of my categorizing. Not the best photo by any stretch, but aren't those colours just gorgeous.

I know it's weird, but I find categorising cathartic.

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.

... American Craft Thickers!

At last count, I had 21 packets of them. I just can't seem to get enough. I use them on probably every second layout, at least.