Green

Creative Crew's challenge this fortnight is one of my favourites - monochrome. There is something about tone-on-tone which presses all the right buttons for me.

DH took me to Stamp-It on Sunday, one of the LSSes near where I live. I went a bit Christmas stamp crazy! They make their own stamps, either wood mounted or cling which it much better for storage. They will actually make a stamp for you. You just have to give them a black'n'white jpg file and the size. I treated myself to a personalised stamp for the backs of all my cards, showing that they were handmade by me. It's the cutest - they did a really good job.

I used one of my new stamps for this card - a corner adorner. Our priest is having minor surgery this week and I made a get well card for him. But he's going to have to work a bit to get the sentiments. :-)

Scrap Whispers Challenge #108 - Tutorial

Welcome back to another tutorial Blog Hop week at Scrap Whispers! This tutorial is one of mine, and I'm really excited to see what everyone does with it, because it provides a solution to one of the little irritations of scrapping - those dratted left-over alphas. So please have a go at it yourselves, and link your creation up to the Scrap Whispers blog? Not only because there's a wonderful prize, but also to humour me? Hehee!

Have a look at the Scrap Whispers blog for the full tutorial, and meanwhile, here is the LO I made using my method. I stamped the background paper with woodland stamps from Kanban, and red and blue dye inks from Dew Drops and Tim Holtz's Distress Ink in Seedless Grape by Ranger. The journalling is tucked behind, and is actually lifted directly from my blog entry - and why not? LOL The title technique worked especially well for this, because it is somewhat camouflaged - which is exactly what the little frogmouth thought he was. Bless.

OK folks, now hop over to the rest of our wonderful DT's blogs and get some more inspiration from them. Leave them some love, and then have a go at making your own title, and show us how it turned out. You don't have to use it in a LO or card, but if you do then that's even better!

Georgina
Kelly
Nilsa
Scrap Whispers

Scrap Whispers Challenge #107 - Sketch

G'day, g'day, g'day!

This week at Scrap Whispers, it is the lovely Nilsa's turn to provide us with a new sketch. It's a simple one, but I actually found it quite challenging. Yes, I know, that's the whole point, to be challenged! What do you think? Interesting huh?

I used photos of some dear friends in the UK. It's a sweet story. 20 years ago I worked with A, and S and I shared a flat. Then I met DH (as he became) and we moved into a home of our own. A and S were both invited to the house-warming and things went on from there. I was a bridesmaid at their wedding, and S was maid-of-honour at ours, and we've kept in touch ever since. They came out to stay with us for a couple of weeks in June and we had a whale of a time.

I have a pile of quality pics to scrap from that trip, but these are from when we met in the UK the year before. We had a wonderful meal in the Globe Inn - a perfect opportunity for me to make another dreadful title pun. You have my full permission to groan. :-)

The papers are from Basic Grey's Porcelain collection, which had been saved in my "too pretty to use" mental compartment for far too long.

I feel that I've moved quite a long way from the original sketch, although it's recognisable when you see them together. What will you do with it? Show us on your blog, put a link in your post to the Scrap Whispers blog, and then link us up to your post to be in with a chance of winning possibly my favourite Echo Park collection pack yet. Good luck!

Scrap Whispers Challenge #106 - Scrap-lift

Hi everyone, and welcome back to another challenge at Scrap Whispers. This week is our week for scrap-lifting - on top of the scrap-lifting that our teams are already doing in the main game. So if this is your week, well, we'll let you off from this one, unless you're so fired-up and inspired that you can't wait to have another go!

Look at Nilsa's pretty, pretty page! Isn't it lovely? This is what we want you to scrap-lift this week, to be in with a chance of winning November's fantastic prize, which you can see in last week's post.

I stuck to it quite closely, as I loved the design and the dramatic BIG embellishments. I used almost the last of the Echo Park pack:

So, what are you going to do with it? Keep the same design, the same shapes? Or maybe use the colour scheme as your inspiration? Link us up on the Scrap Whispers blog site to your lift, link back to the blog in your post, and maybe it will be YOUR NAME that comes out of Georgina's hat.......!

11/11/11 11:11

In remembrance of all the brave people who have died in service for their country.

My great-grandfather was killed during WWI in 1917 in the muddy trenches at Ypres, Belgium. I am thankful that my great-grandmother never knew what he must have gone through. My great-grandmother was sent this card in 1920. See the little arrow in the top left showing the location of the grave?

Here is the cemetery in 2004 when his surviving family (all but one) went on a "pilgrimage" to Ypres.

My grandmother was five when he died, and her little brother was less than a year old. My great-grandfather never saw his son. He sent back this delightful hand-drawn postcard to my great-grandmother, showing what he thought his baby might look like.

He will be forever talented, young and fun-loving in my mind. 

"Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them."

Scrap Whispers Challenge #105 - Colour

Good morning everyone!

Well that was a dramatic start to the day for me: half an hour before the alarm went off, I drifted to consciousness to the whooshing crescendo of a vigorous rain-storm as it raced across the city before crashing against my bedroom window with tropical force. I drifted off again to the white noise, but before long there was a mighty crash of thunder and that was it. I was awake and up. I won't have to water my marigolds and pansies today - if there is anything left of them.

The jacaranda trees are just loving this weather, and as Australians love jacarandas, our whole neighbourhood is purple upon purple at this time of year. Just beautiful. We have one on the boundary between our house and next door, too large to get a good photo, but look at this from just up the road. Stunning, isn't it?

At Scrap Whispers this week we must have Western Australia on our minds, because our colour challenge is:

BLUE

WHITE 

PURPLE

How about that?

I indulged. Mostly I try to match my embellishments to my subject, which means I don't get much use out of these trendy bird-cages or steam-punk, but occasionally I allow myself to have a flower'n'flourish fest and just go pretty. This truly beautiful photo that I took of our niece who is now 8, deserved the indulgent treatment. Bless her, what a darling kiddie she is.  

 

If anyone wants to know what I used or how I did things, then please ask. There is far too much on there to list and keep you awake.

Now, you'll have noticed that it's November. That means that October's winner has been announced, and she is on my team! Go Chelsey! And there is a new prize for November. Georgina is working her way through the entire Echo Park collection range I think - you lucky, lucky people. Here is what you could win this month:

My mouth is watering. Isn't it pretty? Do you want a try at winning it? If you enter any of the challenges at Scrap Whispers during November, each separate entry will get you a chance of winning. You can be anywhere in the world. You can enter as many times as you like. You don't have to be also playing our main Scrap Whispers game - although if you get bitten by the scrap-lifting bug then you can sign up any time to play the next game which will start in the New Year. Pop over to the Scrap Whispers blog for more info, and to enter this challenge - and tell all your scrappy friends!

Good luck and have fun!