Catching Up or Beginning Again.

Hi Everyone,

Well its been a long time since well anything has happened on my poor abandoned blog.

A run of bad health, the addition of two very naughty Burmese kittens, beginning law school at not one but two Universities, oh and did I mention some BAD HEALTH... has kept me firmly away from the pc..

The Scrapbook hoarding came to an dramatic end with Tools, Paper, Everything and yes I mean everything being donated out the door to the local charity shop... Who were ever so grateful and majorly surprised and did check to see if I had a temperature or needed medical attention. Although I have at moments regretted the actions I have continued to collect although in a much more controlled manner.

Time is now not really on my side but I'm going to try aim to do a blog a week to keep all the family etc... up on what's going on, and to try keep me a little more sane. Yes I can hear you all laughing at that idea already. Hmmm the idea of me being sane...

As a quick roundup,

Have just returned from another stint with the most wonderful Nurses and Doctors of St Vincents Hospital Melbourne and I really have to shout this young doctors name from the roof tops....

Miss Monica Mc Gauran

Thankyou for everything.. you are an absolute delight, your skills already are so well developed you would easily pass for a fully qualified specialist. And Monica, please please do come help me out with some time management and organisational skills. If I had half of yours gosh life would be a breeze.

Exam week begins with an Exam at 9 am tomorrow morning and yes its 2 am but I can't sleep.

So I shall leave it here for now and begin again this week to hopefully catch everyone up on whats been going on!!



Tammy

Taaadaaaa here it is the long awaited Week Three of the Ultimate Design Challenge over at Swirlydoos. 

So it seems australia does not have foil tape we have silly looking silver ducting tape thats as useful as the proverbial, but no foil tape of any useful nature, and i have no scrapbook stores around me in less than an hour and a half's drive so i have improvised with the scraps of Ten Seconds Studio coloured metal that i had left, and an experiment with the foil ducting tape!! 

Ok so firstly i have used the Printers Tray Kit we got way back in a past kit that has been just sitting there waiting for a perfect moment (thanks Miranda perfect moment has arrived) and have covered the outsides of the tray in Embossed Metal in a brick texture and then affixed it to the outsides of the tray. Secondly i have made a tag for the upper inside opening pic's with tss metal the inside of it, embossed and then coloured with alcohol inks and then layered with ferro, stamped and inked and then rubbed with viva's inka colours.

Thirdly there is the little book down the bottom which has been die cut from a die, and then stamped with stayzon ink and bent and affixed alternate layers with (like baking paper) in between. This was to represent the parish register at the wedding. 

Fourthly the background of all the little squares have been covered in embossed metal of all different designs. Some have been inked with alcohol while others left in silver and others still in the creme metal. In a couple of the squares (for example behind the watch) i have created my own designs by drawing on the metal to make the heart shapes and the rest of the pattern.

Fiftly i have die cut (tim holtz tattered florals die) some more silver metal, then embossed the resulting pieces before colouring them, and finally arranging them together as a rose in the top left, and a smaller flower with a grey flower centre

And Finally (Yes huge sigh of relief can be heard!!! ) The letters for bliss / York etc have been made from our very very poor version of Foil tape which was stuck to cardstock before being die cut (using a tim alphabet die) and then painted and attacked with smooch spray to make them sparkle. Unfortunately after much tearing of hair it was discovered that our foil tape will not do anything!! It wont bend, emboss, deboss, take any form of texture at all - It was only good for one thing and that was being die cut and laying flat!!! 

Hope that covers everything! But i tell you what this was just sooooo much fun to do! Miranda you have created a monster down here, when i can get my hands on some more metal look out!!! I really don't think having this much fun is actually legal!!!

Week 2 - Swirlydoos Design Challenge - Such a Cheeky little Monkey

So its the end of week 2 of the Swirlydoos Design Challenge - and the theme this week was Layers, layers and more layers. 

During this week, a large brown box containing the most scrummy January kit supplies from non other than swirlydoos landed on the doorstep. And wow what a kit this is!!! It was just screaming out for being used on the challenge this week..... 

So with the gorgeous kit, a good raiding of my other swirlydoos stash, and a pic i had been dying to scrap, i was off on a layering adventure this week. 

Now i've got to say, that these week deadlines are killin me!! Given that we have so much going on at the moment i'm finding things a little bit of a rush on my end (especially when the ideas are just not wanting to flow!)  But just in time after some rather inopportune computer problems i finally finished this page again featuring my gorgeous little nephew Cody. 

When i saw the colours on this January's Kit i knew they were just screaming out to be used on this photo! What a gorgeous kit!!!! So there are at least 11 layers in here with bits and pieces of layers merged everywhere. 

Now a special thanks to Design Team Member RAE for such a fantastic challenge. I really have had a ball making this one, especially staring at that beautiful picture of my nephew. The little butterflies are from Kaisercraft and have been coloured with different colours of Viva Decor Inka Gold colours. They come up so buffed and shiny, and i have enjoyed learning to play with this new medium. 

Well as another week closes over at Swirlydoos, i wish the designers all the very best for their task of judging again. I really do not envy them in their task of judging all these gorgeous entries

Thanks for joining me

Tammy

Tribute to our little man

To our beautiful little fur baby Mr Woof who we lost a week ago. 

We miss you terribly even though you are of on a new set of adventures. You will remain in our hearts forever and non can ever replace the wonderful 18 years that we have all spent together. Rest in Peace Rebel! From all your Human and Furry friends alike. 

Week 1 Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge

So Week 1 of the Swirlydoos Ultimate Design Challenge has concluded and below is my entry for the first round. 

The main principal of the first week was to create an embellishment using different texture techniques and then use the embellishment on a new layout as demonstrated by the amazing Swirlydoos Design Team members. 

So without any further adieu here is my first week offering. 

The chipboard is a Kaisercraft chipboard piece which has been undercoated in gesso, before having layers of alternate Viva Decor primary elements paint and Inka Gold in Gold and Charcoal and texture paste added to it. The piece was then overstamped with Stayzon red ink using a small Prima script stamp from an earlier Swirlydoos kit.

The little C dangle was created from chipboard and then coated in texture paste. In order to get the crackled look i then took the piece and used cracked eggshells covered in alcohol inks, and followed up with a coating of Glossy accents to provide depth and dimension, and to give it that mosaic kind of look. 

As a final addition i hand made the little roses in the bottom right corner of the frame from cardstock covered in again alcohol inks and a little viva decor Inka gold medium.  

 

Such a fun project to do thanks to the folks at Swirlydoos for the Inspiration and the Challenge to get moving this year and start creating. 

And to the wonderful design team Good Luck with making your selections and voting!! The talent and offerings for this first  round have been simply jaw dropping. I really don't envy you the task of sorting out the first round!!!

So for all of you out there looking for a bit of medium based inspiration pop over to the swirlydoos gallery and website to enjoy some of the gorgeous and unique offerings from some amazingly talented people. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Tammy

Dream a New Dream - Nov Swirlydoos

Hi There,

Well here is my latest offering of scrapbook experimenting, using the somewhat old November 2012 Swirlydoos Kit - Nouveau and some more of the Gorgeous photographs from the wedding in September. 

Now although this page is all done and finished using such a gorgeous kit and beautiful paper, I really just don't feel the love for this one. Don't know why but it just isn't doing it for me. 

Maybe its because this was the first time I played around with the texture paste, and to be honest i'm not too thrilled to bits with the outcome as yet. I think like Gesso, Texture pasting is going to be a hard learned skill which is going to involve plenty of practice.... In saying that i've just been out and found myself an art journal which i'm hoping to start gooing, glooping and misting up to see just how much of a gooey mess i can create. 

Switching back to Layout. The above paper is from the Gorgeous Kaisercraft Periwinkle Collection and is embellished with a chipboard design by Dusty Attic. The pink stick pin is one which i received way back in 2010, and was made by someone who you all may be familiar with, Mandy Harrell or otherwise known as Crafty Sprinkles. Mandy now designs for Dusty Attic amongst other clubs but honestly her Pins were legendary! Now the texture paste was applied through the Prima brick wall  mask and as i have said i'm not that impressed with my results, i guess it will just take a bit of playing around to try and get the results i'm after. 

If you have and questions or comments please feel free to leave em at the bottom of the post, I could sure do with some texture paste hints and tips!!!

 Take Care Now 

Tammy

Contests and Accidents

Gahh so what is it with contests and accidents that just seem to plague me!! For the second year running, just when a major contest or class comes out, i manage to go and injure myself right before the start of it.

I think i should be stamped on the forehead with "not to be let out of the house unsupervised in January" maybe that would keep me safe.

So after causing myself some major embarrassment, by falling over in front of half of the town face first into a sand bank, i also caused myself some rather annoying injuries such as a sprained wrist and ankle, bruised hips, bruised ribs, and the most painful a bruised kidney which so far has relegated me back to bed rest! Now i'm sure most of you all can sympathise as complete bed rest really isn't very conducive to scrapping nor to scrapping at a level which is required for contest entries.

With only a few days to go until the UDC competition I'm sure hoping I will have a little healing time in the next few days!!!!

So for the rest of you guys thinking of joining in on the contest over at Swirlydoos, you have to be registered by the 10th of January, and hey take care of those pre contest accidents, you never know when they're going to jump up and bite you!

Thanks for joining me

Tammy