Scrapbooking School Photos (Part 1)

Good afternoon!  Earlier this year our oldest two kids had their annual school photos taken.  I though I'd do a series on how I scrap these photos, because I read in one of the Facebook Groups I'm in that people often find them hard to scrap. 

One of the reasons given was that school photos are often "awful".  This may be for a number of reasons, such as difficult colours of uniform or backdrop, bad poses, or just plain difficult photos.  I've found the opposite for school photos, and I think thats due to the uniform being navy, grey (for boys), blue and white - very easy colours for the scrapbooking Mum to embellish!  It also helps that our photos are taken outside.  (All credit of these photos goes to Des Ellery Photography).

For this photo of Azaria I used my March Hip Kit, and started with the beautiful Crate Paper (Craft Market I think) floral, which was begging to be watercoloured.  Being a beginner painter, I chose a small number of the flowers to paint with watercolours.  Of course I had to use my new notebook edge punch on the vellum, then layered another paper under my photo.

I kept my embellishment very simple and to a minimum to let the water colouring feature and let Azaria's photo shine.  The cluster below includes an exclusive flair badge, exclusive die cut ampersand and a cork heart.

I layered some paper under the "Beautiful" wood veneer to help it stand out.  The "^" shapes are made with a punch I've been neglecting.  

I absolutely love the Crate Paper Craft Market mini words - yes you heard me say that after I've been struggling with word stickers for months!

So the rules I've applied on this school photo layout are the following:

• Keep it simple.
• A non-themed selection of products works well for a non-themed scrapper like me.
• Use one main beautiful piece of paper to assist in keeping it simple.
• Keep embellishments to a minimum.
• Gold accents in three places help provide continuity.
• Vellum helps soften the paper layers, and assists in integrating the photo with the page.
• The notebook edge from the punch adds a "school" feel.
• The doily provides some relief from the very liner square cuts of paper and horizontal design.
• A kraft cardstock helps tie in the natural feel of the photo - being shot outside.

Thanks for looking, I'll be back again with another school photo layout soon!

Celebrate The Little Things (Studio Calico Stitched Class)

Hello hello!  Well as I've already shared, I've been scapping in small increments around breast feeding Brielle.  Life is certainly tiring with a newborn, and I'd forgotten all about feeding around the clock.  Breast feeding is the best, it's hard work to establish during the first 6 weeks of a babies life, but is God's perfect food and so worth it in the longterm.  Scrapping is and always will be a creative release for me.

Here is another layout I made for the Stitched class over at Studio Calico.  I'm really enjoying all the inspiration and creative ideas that this class provides for both hand and machine sewing, and now that I'm not pregnant and sick, my creativity is flowing.

I wanted to feature washi tape, so I stuck tape to white card stock and die cut different sized circles with my Cuttlebug.  I took these photos of Azaria at the Chinese Village in Arrowtow, and even die cut two of them.  I started my layout with my main photo and journalling cards from Kaisercraft's Captured Moments Happy Days Collection.  I love using journalling cards meant for pocket scrapbooking on traditional layouts.  I also used some older Bella Blvd Birthday Girl stickers.  

Once I'd layered up and arranged all my circles and the photo, I added some drops of Mister Hueys Opaque White, and let it dry for several hours.  As a finishing touch I hand stitched around some of the circles, and in the process smudged my mist.  However, on the black patterned paper the smudged mist looked like chalkboard, so I went with it and smudged the rest.  I love it when a mistake becomes a feature!

And here are some close ups:

Above, I used the prompt on the journaling card to document five things I love about Azaria right now.

Above, the "AV" are her initials. I love way Maggie Holmes includes her kids first initials on her layouts.

And below, a close up of my hand stitching.  No measuring, just freehand hole punching.

And here are a couple of photos of our little darling, she is two weeks old today:

Above, sleeping peacefully during the day, and below wide awake at 3am!

Thanks for looking

Be blessed

Melissa x

Hello 2014!

It's Tuesday the 7th of January as I write this, and I've just had two days on my own as the kids have been staying at Grandma and Granddad's and Shaun went back to work yesterday.  I've had a lot of time to think, reflect on 2013 and think about what's to come, and what I'd like to see as goals for 2014.  Of course I've also had some creative time at my scrap table, have tidied the house, and have contemplated (delayed) putting the Christmas tree and decorations away!

Well the most exciting thing about what 2014 has in store is something I haven't shared on here yet, but it looked a little like this 5-6 weeks ago, and is arriving in April:

20 Weeks pregnant!!!

We are all very excited about baby number 3, especially me as pregnancy is a challenge!  I haven't shared much about this, but this pregnancy has been so hard as I've suffered from Hyperemesis gravidarum, which is essentially severe morning sickness, which required medication (to try and stop the vomiting), hospitalisation (4 times) and IV fluids for dehydration.  I had to take 8 weeks off from work, and our amazing church family provided evening meals for us for 7 weeks!  It was really hard on my kids, especially Azaria, and we had to tell them I was pregnant at 7 weeks.  My theme song for September became "Wake me up when September Ends"!!

Around 7 weeks pregnant, getting the IV for the first time.  This was just the beginning . . .

I'm a lot better now, thanks to prayer and time.  I'm not 100 percent better yet, and still have not so great days, but I'm 25 weeks tomorrow, and on the countdown.  I'm really grateful as its such a blessing to have been given a third child. And no we didn't find out what we are having!!!

Scrapbooking while sick was one of the hardest challenges in my creativity ever!  I think I missed two DT assignments, mostly due to being in hospital, but I made myself scrap through the lull.  I actually learnt how to create quickly, instead of spending hours (or days) on a layout.  

Last year my word for the year was Grace; for myself, and for other people.

So when it came to my word for 2014, after spending some time thinking about it, the word I kept coming back to was Joy, I think because last year was hard, but it reminded me to find joy in everything, everyday, even the hard stuff.  I'll be creating a layout for my word soon, and will share it here.

So my main creative and blog goals for this year are the following:

• To create because I love it, not because I have to.
• To share more of myself and our life on my blog, because lets face it, this is as close to keeping a diary as I'll get.
• To put my layouts in albums and not let them stack up!
• To learn new techniques and keep exploring my scrapbooking style.
• To take better photos, both of our life and of my layouts.

Now for some family photo shots that we took in the park in the weekend:

Melissa, Shaun, Sam & Azaria.

A selfie of me and my boy!

Photo taken by Sam, he totally directed this shot and told me to take off my hat!

Shaun and his princess!

Thanks for sticking with me and reading this far!  

Be blessed and full of joy!

Melissa x