A Fair Exchange? (Lets Get Sketchy)

Hello!  Welcome to our June 5th Monday Challenge over at Lets Get Sketchy, which is a special challenge we have whenever there's a 5th Monday in the month.

This month we were provided with an inspiration photo, and we had to create a layout based on it.  I was inspired first of all by the green, and it immediately made me think of Sam and his love of Minecraft.  I had a taken a photo of Sam teaching Azaria Minecraft last school holidays; he offered her this lesson in exchange for a cleaning lesson, as he really HATES tidying his room!  Often she helps him, which involves her cleaning and him playing!  Now I always tell her that she's only to clean if he is helping!  Haha they are a funny pair!

I used my May Hip Kit, and the addition of some washi tape and a cut apart card from Pebbles (time wasted ...).  Like most on the Design Team, I was heavily inspired by the diagonal design of the advertisement, and the black and green colours.  I also added a pop of pink inspired by the small dots of colour.  I love the Basic Grey Highline Range which is included in the kit, especially the chipboard!

And of course the script thickets are so trendy!

And here is the inspiration photo:

Make sure you play along with this challenge, as its not every month that we have a 5th Monday!  Head on over to the blog and check out how the Design Team were inspired.

Two More Hip Kit Layouts

Hello, well I've been working through my May Hip Kit, and need to get onto my June kit before my July kit arrives.  Here are a couple more layouts that I've made recently.

The first layout is about my best friend Wendy meeting Brielle for the first time.  It was a happy sad time, as Wendy moved to Fiji two weeks after Brielle was born for her hubby's work.  Luckily we text each other everyday via WhatsApp.  This layout is quite simple, with my usual layering, and then some banners.  

My second layout is a photo of my niece Lilly holding Brielle for the first time.  Lilly is 6 months older than Sam and was so excited for a cuddle with Brielle.  For this one I focussed on placing elements around the photo, and decided not to do any layering.  The paper behind the photo is  from the Basic Grey Capture pad, and I used my craft knife to cut around the flowers to tuck the photo behind.

Hope you have a lovely weekend!

Sad News and a Layout

Hello, it is with a very heavy heart that I found out this morning that Two Peas in a Bucket is closing. If you've read my "About Me" page you'll know that Two Peas has a special place in my heart, being my scrapbooking home since the beginning of 2012.  Its been the home of my online gallery, my daily source of scrapbooking inspiration, a place to chat on the forums, a place to ogle the talent of the beloved Garden Girls and other scrapbookers, a place to collect badges, and a place to meet friends and call ourselves Peas.  I was username MelissaJV.  Two Peas taught me that there was an online world of scrapbooking, with ladies around the world that were just as obsessed by paper and glue as me! Its a sad day indeed, and Peas worldwide have expressed how gutted they are on  social media such as Facebook and Instagram.

Onto more happy subjects, I created this layout with my May Hip Kit.  I knew I wanted to save this Heidi Swapp paper for a background, and after layering under my photos I embellished with elements that were similar colours to the circles.  The layout is about Brielle and her stage of being wide awake and wired up every night at 3am!

Lately I've been loving chipboard, especially these Basic Grey pieces.

Love those Amy Tangerine Thickers!

My wee girlie when she was a skinny newborn!

Thanks for looking.  I'll let you know once I decide the new home of my gallery.  It will likely be Studio Calico (I've had a gallery there since I took the Stitched Class in April) and Pinterest.

Bless you

An Unexpected Love

I joined The Hip Kit Club in April, and started my subscription with the May kit, which I have nearly used up.  Aside from loving their kits, I joined because the kits are packed full of the newest products and contain a heap of embellishments.  This means I get access to the products I love, which I generally can't purchase here in New Zealand.

I made this layout all about Sam and his intense love for his new baby sister.  As the title explains, we really didn't expect him to be taken with Brielle!  We have a 27 month between Sam and Azaria, and when he was three he would say "no more babies, just "Daria" (his cute little name for her)!).  So when we told the kids we were having another baby Sam seemed quite happy.  But when Brielle was born and he met her for the first time he was besotted!  It was the best thing a mother could watch develop!  It started in the hospital when he wanted to hold her all the time, and continued once we got home.  He's awesome, he'll even hold her when she's crying to help me out, and he always wants me to bring her into his room at night to say goodnight.  It makes my heart so full!

May's Hip Kit was full of yummy Basic Grey Highline Collection products, which have the most gorgeous colours, and work really well with Amy Tangerine's Plus One Collection. I especially love the chipboard.  I kept things pretty simple on this layout, I sprayed with the Heidi Swapp Colourshine mist that was included in the Colour Add on, layered up some papers behind the photo, and then added some chipboard and the subtitle.  

Brielle looks orange because she had mild jaundice.

Thanks for looking!

@ 7 (Lets Get Sketchy)

Hello, well today is the second third reveal for June over at Lets Get Sketchy, and at the beginning of the month I forgot to say that I've been designing her for a year now!  Its such an awesome group of talented ladies from around the world, and I'm so grateful to Brenshevia for taking a chance on me for my first ever Design Team!

Well this week we had a fantastic sketch by Laura Whitaker, and I decided it was time to scrap this lovely photo of Sam and I that my hubby took on Sam's 7th birthday, when we all went out to dinner. I used Crate Paper's Close Knit collection background patterned paper, the Boys Rule 6 x 6 paper pad, stickers and ephemera, Glitz Design washi tape, and Studio Calico and Basic Grey embellishments.

I'm not sure if I've said this before, but I find it really hard to find a boy collection I love, as I find overly themed collections hard to work with.  Boys Rule by Crate Paper is awesome, it has the typical vintage feel of Crate, but with modern imagery as well.  I just love the ephemera, and layered pieces behind my paper layers.

Being Sam's birthday, this layout is all about what he's into at age 7.  I was able to complete most of the journalling, but also asked him to provide answers.

I love this sticker and popped it up to make it a feature!

The "@" is from Studio Calico and works really well as part of the very simple title.

And here is the sketch:

Play along for a chance to win a prize!

Be blessed

Melissa x

Smile Big (Scrapstuffz)

Hello, I'm back to designing for Scrapstuffz 'Inspired by"Challenges blog after a month off.  It's great to be back as I just love the inspiration photos that we get to design with.

This month we had a summery subway art piece with lovely bright colours.  Shaun had printed off one of my Instagram photos on a piece of photocopy paper as a test for our printer.  I was going to throw it into the recycling bin, but instead decided to scrap it.  The inspiration piece made me think of the cut apart cards in the Vintage Bliss Collection by Simple Stories, and I was really happy to have one left that worked so well with the photo of Azaria and Brielle.  The rest of the layout is made with a Paper Bakery kit.

A close up of the cut apart card:

I love the Simple Stories Homespun chipboards that were included in the kit.

And I adore that vase of flowers and had to make it a feature:

And here is the inspiration piece:

Make sure you head over to the blog for the full details on how I was inspired.

Be blessed
Melissa

Life (Artfull Crafts)

Good morning, I'm up on the Artfull Crafts blog today with another layout I made with Kaisercraft's new Dream Big Collection.  My layout is about my dear friend's little boy (aged 2.5) who came to visit Brielle when she was a few days old.  He had a teddy bear for her and wanted to give it to her.  She was asleep in the bassinet, and of course I had to capture him giving the teddy to "the baby".  So cute!!!

I loved using a more busy patterned paper with a plainer one, and in this instance I paired the orange pattern with the trendy chalk board.  A strip of paper and some washi tape across the join, and of course I had to sew around the edges.  Not only is this a great way to add texture, but it also saves in adhesive!  

I kept this layout really simple, as the photo is so sweet.  The cut apart card served as the title, and I just layered some other die cuts, added some twine, sequins and some stars.  The photo mat is actually a 6 x 4 cut apart card that I strategically cut and placed with elements over it so it looks bigger than it really is.  I trimmed the corners with my exacto knife and tucked the corners of the photo into them.  Of course I had to finish my layout with some white ink splatters!

You can purchase Dream Big in the Artfull Crafts shop here.

Thanks for looking!

Melissa :)

Be Still My Heart (Mei Li Paperie)

Hello, I decided to play along with the June colour challenge at Mei Li Paperie.  Once again I loved the colours, which just happened to be in my May Hip Kit.  The photo is of Brielle and I having snuggles on day 2 in the hospital after she was born, and the photo was taken by Shaun.  I love it, it's so precious!

I especially loved the pink, yellow and orange paired with black, white and grey.

And here is the lovely colour palette:

And here is a photo of my three today:

Thanks for looking!

Melissa 

Two layouts to share

Hello!  I'm just popping in quickly to share two layouts I made with a Paper Bakery Kit.  These were mostly made with leftovers, and I love how they came together.

The first layout is the first photo of my three babies together in the hospital, when they first met Brielle.  Its a shame that Azaria has her eyes closed, but it's such a scrap-worthy moment.  I believe that the memories are often more important than the photos, and just because a photo isn't perfect, it still should be scrapped.

I love the Simple Stories chipboards in the kit:

The gold starbursts were created with the exclusive stencil in the kit.

The second layout is about our Midwife at hospital, Catlin.  Because I had to have a C Section, I had to travel two hours to our Region's base hospital.  Catlin was the midwife that attended the birth, and she was fantastic.  The measuring tape is the real tape that was used to measure Brielle's head:

I love that the Amy Tangerine paper has watercolour features on it.

I fussy cut the flowers out of the paper, and then layered them, some with dimensional adhesive.

Thanks for looking

Melissa :)

Brielle Alyssa

As you may have noticed, I've gotten over my "too scared to scrap beautiful photos" moment, and have scrapped several of our new baby girl Brielle.  Today I'm sharing the cover page of her album, and inspired by Ashli Oliver, I put a "V1" on the page to represent Volume 1.  I'm using the Becky Higgins Strawberry Project Life Album, and am doing a mix of traditional 12 x 12 layouts and pocket pages.

I used mostly older Echo Park stash on this page, and the newest product is the Amy Tangerine Cut &  Paste pink grid paper on the bottom half of the page.  The hot air balloon paper is from Everyday Ecclectic, which I've hoarded as I love it.  However lately I've been challenging myself to use up my stash while I still love it.

The papers layered behind are cut apart cards from Today's Story, the stickers are from Beautiful Life, and the flower border sticker between both papers is from Sweet Girl.  The Thickers are from Dear Lizzy.  

I love dressing babies in white, so fresh!

And a close up; as always lately I'm loving adding drops of India ink at the end.

Thanks for looking!  I'll be back later on with some more pages that haven't been made for Design Team assignments.

Be blessed

Melissa x

Kaisercraft Dream Big Layouts (Artfull Crafts)

Good morning!  I'm on the Artfull Crafts blog today with two layouts made with the new Kaisercraft Dream Big Collection.

My first layout is about Azaria, and how she takes more risks as she gets older.  Hard to believe she will be turning 5 and starting school at the end of this month!

My second layout is about Brielle, and the photo is of us back in our room after the surgery.  Sooo precious!!!  I must have been on some strong medication, as I actually don't remember much on this day!  On this one I applied mist in a watercolour-like-fashion with a plastic bag.  I mixed some Heidi Swapp Colourshine with White Studio Calico Mr Hueys.

I've challenged myself to use the flowers that Liz includes in the embellishment packs as usually I find flowers hard to design with.  For this layout I created a tag by painting raw chipboard with white acrylic paint, and adding flowers, a die cut on pop dots, and some twine.

Thanks for looking, head over to the blog for more details and close ups.

Hope you had an awesome long weekend!

Melissa x

Daddy Kisses (Lets Get Sketchy)

Hello!  Well yes it's been really quiet around here lately as my newborn baby hasn't been sleeping too well during the night, and I've been finding it hard to get some scrap time in.  However, I was still able to get my layout finished for this week's first reveal for June over at Lets Get Sketchy.

You'll notice lots of changes over on the blog, including new Design Team Members (who are all very lovely and talented), and a new look to the blog!

This week we had a lovely sketch by our awesome leader Brenshevia.  I just loved the tags on this one, and as I really wanted to scrap these photos of my husband and our new baby girl, I turned the sketch to the right and made it work for the two 4 x 6 photos.  As I couldn't fit a third photo I layered papers under the cut apart journalling spot.

I used Maggie Homes' Flea Market for Crate Paper for this layout, as I knew the cut apart sheet had tags.  The background paper already had pink ink splatters, and I scattered a variety of sequins in the exact positions shown on the sketch.  I embellished with some pieces from the ephemera pack.  In this photo our wee daughter is only one week old.  She's 7 weeks tomorrow and I can't believe how fast time flies, even with sleep deprivation!

And here is the sketch:

Make sure you play along and link up your layout!  We love seeing what you create.

Bless you
Melissa