Feb Swirly Hues Entry - Finally

And without further adieu here it is. The final page for the February 2012 Swirly Hues Challenge over at Swirlydoos. The challenge was to use a set colour palette, (pink, orange, and light blue), combined with an interpretation of another stunning beggahuna sketch, and combining the use of a swirlydoos tutorial. And here is the resulting outcome. It actually does look much deeper and richer in person, but given that the weather has been so bad here there was not a great deal of natural light to really bring out that depth.

For the tutorials i have actually used two techniques displayed on the forums. Firstly the title has been created based upon the Sugared letter tutorial of the most talented Lisa G.  As you can see below i have inked some base white thickers alphabets, with 3 colours of tim holtz distress inks (Tumbled Glass, Spiced Marmalade, and Fired Brick) and then coated with some glossy accents, before being covered in  Martha Stewart clear glass microbeads. Now the only change to my technique is the fact that i chose not to stamp into the background before putting the beads on as i wanted more of a sunset look to the letters rather than a texty etc look.

The second tutorial which i chose to use was a little older one by another of our talented members and former designer Bonnie. Bonnie showed us how to dye ribbon with tim holtz distress inks, and using this instruction i have used the Distress stain in Tattered Rose which came with this months Swirlydoos kit to dye the scrunched ribbon also in the kit this month, to match the pink colour of the flowers and the rest of the page. 

A big thanks to all the girls who have contributed the the tutorial sections and providing us with sooooo much inspiration to work from!! 

Staying with the Tim Holtz theme the corners of each page have been stamped with a Heartfelt Creations Stamp from the Feather Grass Flourish Set, covered in TH embossing ink and then followed up with TH embossing powder (Faded Jeans) to get that weathered type look and feel. A Martha Stewart leaves punch was used to get the little pink branches, which were punched from cardstock from the feb kit and then treated to a TH Tattered Rose distress stain bath. Most of the flowers are Prima Printery Collection also from the from the feb kit, but there are also a few i have made up myself poking out here and there.

If you would like any further info, please don't hesitate to ask!! I'm only too happy to answer anything i can and comments are really cool!!

Thanks for taking the time to pop in

Take Care Now

Tammy

Still no final Swirly Hues page but it is getting there.

Ok so i have managed to do very little actual scrapping again over the past few days. Exhaustion and some diabetes issues have put a rather large dent in things and then the weather decided to go and play unhappy bears and begin raining, thundering, storming and flooding. All of course just to keep us on our toes. 

The current page which i am attempting to complete for the Swirlyhues Challenge over at Swirlydoos, is about half done, but as usual the weather is that bad i cant even get a half decent sneak peek pic of it.. so you will all have to wait and pray that the sun comes out for a few hours so it can be finished and photographed. 

Now a word of advice when it comes to family weddings.... RUN.... and Run very very fast not letting on to anyone that you have any organisational or artistic talent whatsoever!!! Ok now this may seem a bit drastic but going off experience at hand i have so far come to the conclusion that designing wedding schemes for prospective brides is almost as difficult as attempting to catch clouds and bottle them. Not to mention the time it actually takes you away from the scrap table! - I suppose it wouldn't be half as much a battle if everything wanted to attempt to run on time and on plan, however, so far of the 5 venues we have attempted to book, one is being demolished a week before the wedding, one is being sold and redeveloped three weeks before the wedding, the roof has fallen in on another and they are now up for renovating, the fourth wants to charge a room hire supplement fee of 5 times the cost of the wedding reception because we would be 3 numbers short of their requirements, and the final is almost a shed in the middle of a farm with no accommodation nearby, dirt entrances and very poor hygiene facilities. So that is the beginnings of the trouble for the wedding planning. Add in two very distinctly different personalities, with, questions like do we actually need to test the cake? and you can see wedding planning is not for the faint hearted!!! 

So without further adieu i shall head back off to the scrap room and go bury my head in some paper while i try to diligently finish this page which is awaiting my return. 

Now if anyone knows of a local cake maker who operates in the Wyndham Vale / Werribee area of Victoria, Australia who can do specialty multi tiered wedding cakes, made in the brides choice of Royal Icing coverage, at a reasonable price, please do send me a message! All recommendations would be highly appreciated!

Thanks for visiting now! 

Take Care, Kindest Regards 

Tammy

Scrap, Scrap, Scrap........

Okay so it's been a while coming, but i have finally been able to sit down with a bit a paper and some glue and yay some scrapping has happened.

But first off, credit where credit is due. This would no doubt not have happened without the arrival of the most amazing box of scrapbooking goodies, from one of the best companies in the business. Krissy the owner over at Swirlydoos Scrapbooking Kits, has just been amazing. Her product collections are simply Divine, her constant attention to detail and not to mention her Personalised Customer Service, have made her (in my opinion) the best company to deal with in the industry. I would recommend anyone to pop over to Swirlydoos, have a bit of a look around check out the blog and the forums and see just how special a place that Krissy and all the girls have created. I'm sure you will not be disappointed.

Now back to the February Kit. Below is a small snippet of the beautiful kit which arrived on the doorstep this week. Honestly how could anyone not be inspired by the scrummy goodies contained within.

The Kaisercraft Sweet Nothings Paper Collection, combined with a bit of Petaloo and Prima, not to mention the guiding sketch from the amazingly talented Beggahuna, are just simply irrisistable. This kit is inspiration central. Now that i have given you a small taste of the kit (and probably have many of you giddy with desire) i shall sign off and go complete and photograph my first page in many months completed using this kit collection.

Now if i have somehow stirred your interest in these amazing kits from Swirlydoos either simply click one of the links in this post to head over there, or you can just google the name Swirlydoos. Whatever the method of arrival it would be wonderful to see a few of you over on the forums!

Thanks for taking the time to pop in!!
    

Excitement

To say I'm excited is well a little bit of an understatement actually! As it stands we have some big events and arrivals set to hopefully grace the family this year, and one of the most exciting is going to be the arrival of my little (nephice) Nephew or Niece in only a few short months. To my gorgeous Sister and Brother in Law, i would just like to thank them so much for sharing their journey to parenthood with me.

Little nephice is progressing well, has been amazingly camera shy when it comes to ultrasounds ( a fact I'm sure will change within moments of meeting me and the Nikon). The picture below is the beautiful final result of their persistence with the sonographer.

My Beautiful Nephice to be.

Noojie Waterfalls

A few weeks ago we finally made a long anticipated journey out to Noojie, in Victoria. Wow what a day, 36 Degrees was almost intolerable but the photo taking opportunities completely outweighed the conditions.

                    

I'll just include a couple of little pics taken on the Nikon D7000 by a complete novice, of the Toorongo waterfalls. We only climbed part way up the falls given the temp on the day, but we certainly plant to return to photograph more of the area another time. 

Just as a side note the Nikon has proven to be such a fantastic camera that the above photos are completely unedited and just resized for the web. I have chosen to keep them completely natural and unprocessed.

My First Scrapbook Layout to be Posted

So to say i'm a little bit excited is probably a bit of an understatement. After weeks of work (yes this one sat around for almost two months due to constant interruptions) i have finally finished my latest layout, and i'm just so pleased at how it has turned out.

The photo which turned out to be just perfect for this kit, was quite as a surprise as it was just a mess around kind of a shot. When teamed with the beautiful Love Games papers included in the Swirlydoos Mon Amour Kit (past kit September 2010). the results could really be nothing other than fantastic.


The pic of my lovely muse Chrissy has been run through photoshop cs5 and been treated with the amazing background textures from the florabella collection. A collection which to be quite honest, is not only worth the price, but also that i have slowly learned, that i can not live without. Thanks to the lovely Lisa Gregory Queen florabella enabler over at Swirlydoos.

The background and photo mats have all been created using a combination of some of my favourite Martha Stewart punches. These punches i find have added so much more visual creativity whilst requiring such a small outlay of effort. 


So i dont cover ground that many an experienced scrapper has already discovered i wont go into every detail as to how the layout was completed. However if anyone has any questions whatsoever about the page or any techniques that i have used i'll be only to pleased to answer. 


I just hope that someone out there is able to gain a little inspiration from the wonderful products now on the market. If i can enable anyone to find just that right product then its certainly all been worth it! 


Take Care 


Tammy

Cyclone Clean Up is Complete

Deep Breath, Deep Breath, ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh.. So after a week of almost completely destroying the house, Cyclone Cleanup now appears to have left the vicinity and things are finally beginning to look a little cleaner and more organised.


A little background.... With family visitors expected to be arriving in early Feb, it was decided that all my scrappy goodness (ie Scrap C**p) to everyone else, would have to be relocated from the office (unofficially my scrap room) to other locations in the house code for out of the way in my bedroom. But in order to do that a whole new set of bedroom furniture was required.


After a quick trip to IKEA for an Expedit Storage Shelf Unit, it was all go as things were nailed, pulled apart, hammered, torn up, redesigned and finally stored, restored and then the finishing touches added.

As a part of Project Cleanup i found that some sort of hanging device was needed to hang all the lovely stores and supplies of Prima that i have collected along the way. After throwing a few ideas at my amazing Father, below are some photos of what he was able to produce. Its absolutely fabulous, works completely perfectly, and i cant believe how much its helped out.

Multi layered Home made clip it up type rotating organiser. Which cost around $40 AUD all up. Given dad's penchant for going just a little over on the materials, we were actually able to produce two (a smaller 2 tier unit and then this taller 4 tier corner unit).


Below are some further close ups of the Unit,

UPDATE:- Well thats about all for this post. Seen as its already two weeks late. The last weeks have been spent back in the hospital again having surgery and trying to recover. So whilst im am totally frustrated at not being able to play at all with any of my goodies at least at the moment i can sit and try to plan some ideas.