Out of my comfort zone

If there's one subject I'm uncomfortable scrapping about, it's myself. So, what better way to get out of my comfort zone and enter SBM's 'Express Yourself' competition. The top 20 entries will be displayed at the Australasian Scrapbook and Papercraft Convention & Expo in Brisbane and the winner will be chosen by expo attendees.
Here's my attempt:

I love Basic Grey chipboard packs but always seem to have the really huge chipboard pieces left and never quite know what to do with them. The piece I used was so large and detailed I really didn't think I needed to add much more so I've kept it VERY simple. For those who are interested my 'advice' reads -

- be the Mum you are able to be - not the Mum you think you should be
- accept that for now you have to be a stay-at-home Mum - you'll enjoy it more
- try to kerb that temper. When the blood starts to boil, walk away
- keep getting that expensive hair cut - you do deserve it
- let go of some of that control. it can make you a bit of a fun killer
- give your man a break. He's not that bad. Really.
- Keep scrapbooking. It keeps you sane!

I used an old envelope as a template and made an envelope out of the new Stella and Rose paper range from MME. So love that new collection - in fact I really had to persuade myself to cut the paper! Certainly not expecting to get in the top 20 but it was great to scrap a little on myself for a change.


Cheers and thanks for stopping by x

We can all dream...

....of winning a My Minds Eye challenge. I mean, who wouldn't want to win three entire MME collections of their choice? I've been doing the card sketch challenge on the MME blog for the last few months but decided to try a layout for a change. I always think I've done okay but whenever I see the winners I give myself a 4 out of 10 for effort - the winners entries are always stunning!

Here's the sketch for this month....

...and here's my effort - I used MME's 'Love Me Do' range for this one. I've put a few drops of Dimensional Magic over the letters and the umbrella to look like rain drops and added a few American Crafts rubons but except for those, it's pretty much all MME. Here's hoping eh...

Cheers and thanks for stopping by, Claire x

Cyber Crop Tales

Last weekend saw a great cybercrop over at LSBS. It's one of the cybercrops I try and take part in each month. There's a fab design team there (2 Australian Scrapbooking Memories Masters no less) and the challenges are always a lot of fun. I managed to do a couple of layouts which is pretty good for me over a weekend. I think I scrap better under pressure sometimes! The first was the sketch challenge set by Anna. It had heaps of squares -for some reason I just love designs with squares - so it really appealed to me.

The other challenge from Tash was a product challenge. We had to use a non-scrapping product piece on our layout and write about the 'pieces' that make up our family. I raided my son's jigsaws and found the perfect sized pieces. I covered them with some Sassafrass Lass paper and used them to frame the pic. I'm pretty pleased with how it came out but it definitely required a lot of patience to cover all those jigsaw pieces!

The crop nearly ended in disaster when a certain klutz, who shall remain nameless (actually it was my husband), spilt a glass of red wine over some of my scrapbooking stuff. Luckily the layout wasn't affected, although if you look VERY closely you may see a drop of the hard stuff. Unfortunately it meant I had to chuck out a few sticker sheets, but after threatening him with divorce he agreed to buy me some new stuff. Well, I had to get something out of it!

Cheers and thanks for stopping by x

It was about time...

So at last I've taken the blogger plunge and decided to put myself 'out there' with all my scrappy stuff. Be gentle, I haven't written a diary in about 25 years so the odds of keeping up with this one are pretty low. Maybe the subject matter will keep me interested!

Looking forward to buying the latest edition of Scrapbooking Memories tomorrow - my very first published layout for them. I've had quite a few accepted since but I still get a thrill when I receive an acceptance email. It's in the 'Remember When' section and it's a photo of my Mum when she was young and gorgeous (she's still gorgeous...but not quite so young anymore!)

Anyway, here's the latest LO I've been working on. I'm trying to challenge myself at the moment by scrapping more than one photo on a page. Cheers and thanks for stopping by x