Warming colours

This week's palette in The Color Room is so warm and beautiful. I had a photo of Jamie at childcare laying around that I decided to scrap this time around. It had been taken by the staff there, way back when he first started. And he looks so teeny!


Journaling: At first you hated going to childcare. You would sob when I left you there, your face pressed against the glass, imploring me to stay. To not leave you. It tore my heart in two. I couldn’t ever imagine that you would settle and enjoy yourself. I hoped that you did. I would often find myself thinking of you while I was at work; wondering if you were OK, what you were doing. So, when they gave me this photo taken one session, my heart smiled. I was so happy to see that you’d been involved in dressing up and imaginative play. And the fact that they found you by the books – your favourite things – made me grin. I was reassured. And it made it slightly easier for me to leave you there and go to work.

I decided to write about the traumas of leaving him in care when I went back to work. I'm still not over the trauma, lol. It's been three years now, and he only just stopped crying recently. It's been a hard road, this separation thing. I think if I was passionate about my work, it would have been easier for me. But the fact that I really only did want to stay at home with him just made it oh so harder. I just love being his mum! I would have been a mum so many times over, if given the chance.

The girls at the Color Room have been asking about my writing. Yes, it is my handwriting. The product of a zealous grade 3 teacher. I have very very neat writing.

I am loving butterflies at the moment. My aversion to using flowers on Jamie's pages doesn't extend to butterflies and lately I've been using them on everything! Along with clouds :). I've also used the little clothing die-cut from Cosmo's "The Boyfriend" chipboard. It was sitting there, just perfect for this page. But it did introduce some other colours outside the palette. Oops!

I'm not sure about the design of this page. I changed my mind about it at the last minute, and it's thrown the balance somewhat. But, meh, sometimes you just gotta move on... Or maybe I'll come back and add something to it later. I find being constrained to a palette incredibly challenging. I might just cheat and add something outside the palette. Because something's missing, I feel. I usually use at least three or four colours on a page!

OK, over and out. Have a great weekend!
Kathie

Tall tales

On the way home from childcare tonight Jamie was admiring some new acquisitions while sitting in the back seat. He had a little mirror and a dinosaur. Both of them had been taken from the pocket in his cargo pants as we left childcare. I recognised neither as being his.

"Where did you get those?" I asked
"They're mine" he said. "I found them"

Aaaah... the ol' finders keepers. Yes, I recognise that rule, as it has appeared a few times in our house of late.

"Where did you find them?" I asked "At childcare? Are you sure they don't belong to someone else?"

No, he assured me, he had found them. They were his. There was some muttering about the childcare worker which left me thinking that she had this exact same conversation with him. Oh dear.

"So where were they then? Who had them before you?" I tried.

"I found them on the road" he said. The road? What the?

"When did you go on the road today?" I asked, with measured concern.

"I went quickly on the road" he said.
"And then I went quickly back onto the footpath so I didn't get run over" he reassured me quickly.

"And why did you go on the road while you were at childcare?" I asked.

"I was hungry. So I went and I got a croissant" he said. "And I had to go on the road".

Hmmmmm... magnificent story little guy!

We have had a gentle chat tonight about stealing other people's toys. And about making up stories. And how you should always tell mum it's make-believe when you're telling her a story. LOL.

Little rascal.

He loves the colour red

"Mum", he says "You're cosy!" and gives me a big hug.

I look down. "You like my dress?" I ask.

"Yep. It's cosy."
"And it's red."
"And I like the buttons."
"And I like your top underneath."
"Mum? Why are you wearing three tops?"

Hee hee. Yep it's definitely autumn down here. The mornings are getting cooler. It's drizzling today.

And by the way.... we counted the buttons .... He reckons there's ninety-nine. :)

Kathie

Favourite Quote

We were challenged to scrap our favourite quote over at Aussie Scrap Source this week. It took me ages to decide upon a quote. I have quite a few stashed away :). In the end I decided on this one:

That quote so resonates with me. I do feel like a tiny bird. I am not a larger than life person. I'm pretty humble and down to earth. I like my "little" life. I don't hanker after big dreams or a need for greatness. My little house in my wonderful suburb with my part-time job and my family. That's me and I'm happy.

But sometimes I feel overlooked in comparison to my louder, shall I say "showier" colleagues. I know that I too have a big song to sing. But I'll sing it in my own way. I never was any good at blowing my own trumpet.

Which makes me stop to think. I have had two lovely emails this week. One from a lady who emailed me just to say that she loved the work I did for Blue Bazaar and had on that basis bought one of the kits. She apologised for writing to me... seeing as she didn't know me and didn't know how I'd take her email. But felt that she really wanted to let me know. :D Thanks!

And another email from a long time correspondent, who mentioned that a friend of hers had seen me out at the park a few weeks back. She had recognised Jamie and I and had wanted to come and say hi, but felt that she couldn't because, well, well I guess because my name is in the mags, and although she felt she knew me, she thought I might find it odd for a complete stranger to come and say hi.

And I will just say this. I'm just Kathie. That's it. I would find it odd for you to come up to speak to me if you saw me out. Only because it wouldn't occur to me that someone would recognise me! (And you know what my first thought was when I heard this piece of news? What was I doing? What was I wearing? Did I have makeup on? Was I tired and grumpy? Was that the day I had a dummy spit at DH? Hahahaha!) But it's odd in a lovely sort of way. In a sort of "oh, aren't you lovely to stop and say hi, and I'd like to give you a hug sort of way". Do you know what I mean?

So enough rambling. I love the quote that Suz used on her layout on the Aussie Scrap Source blog post too! And I will have to store it away for use later.

Bye
Kathie

The Color Room palette #3

The new colour palette is up at The Color Room!

I loved this palette!


Journaling: An ice-cream container, egg carton and cardboard tube. You were busy “constructing” for ages... this particular construction required considerable engineering skill, not to mention sticky tape. You wanted a “skeletope” (ie telescope) at the front of your helmet. The egg container was to house your weapon (you have that in your hand in these photos) so it had to be capable of opening and closing without falling off the side of the helmet. When it was finally finished to your liking you were happy to pose and show it off for the camera. Ah, you are wonderful!


I was particularly inspired (as you can probably tell) by the crochet trim in the inspiration picture and dug out some old crochet flowers I had hanging around. And some Webster's bobble trim :). And I continue my love affair with little floaty clouds.

Pop over to the site and have a look at the wonderful pages created by the other DT members. I tell you, I am so inspired by these girls. They are amazing scrapbookers! Some of my very favourite scrappers. I have been following some of these girls' blogs for ages, and it's amazing to now get to work on the same DT and see their work every week. And the gallery is still steaming! So much lovely work. Check it out here.

Blue Bazaar Kit

Last month I was thrilled to be asked to design some pages with Blue Bazaar's April Kit. The kit is a beautiful mix of rich 7gypsies Avignon papers, mixed with some retro Studio Calico papers and a whole lot of other little odds and bobs. This is what I made:



A favourite photo with my sister at Christmas. Love the Prima Swirls on this! Lovin' too, that I have recent photos of my sister.


Super retro Studio Calico papers. Loved making this fun page. These girls are such good friends. I would be lost without them.


This page made me want to go right back to Germany on the next plane. I loved the map background of this 7gypsies paper!


And I made a start with LAST YEAR'S Easter photos! I still have all this year's bunch to scrap yet.

I got a bit teary making this next one. The house is my grandparents', back when I was a little girl. My grandma is standing outside. Can you see her in front of the window? The lyrics are from Missing" by Everything But the Girl:

I step off the train
I'm walking down your street again and past your door
But you don't live there any more
It's years since you've been there
But now you've disappeared somewhere like outer space
You've found some better place
And I miss you - like the deserts miss the rain
And I miss you - like the deserts miss the rain
Could you be dead?
You always were two steps ahead of everyone
We'd walk behind while you would run
I look up at your house
And I can almost hear you shout down to me
Where I always used to be

Nostalgia. Why can't time just stand still? I miss my grandparents :(

I believe that when you purchase the kit from Blue Bazaar, you get a newsletter with full instructions for making the five layouts. Happy scrapping!

Kathie

Color challenge #2

Wow! The first week in The Color Room has been immense! There are now 660 members and the gallery has overflowed with creativity. I am loving being part of such a creative site!

A new colour palette has just been put up. It is totally different to the palette last week:



I had every intention of doing a masculine page when I first saw the palette, but when I looked through my stash, I discovered that I don't own a lot of product with that dark blue in it, and what I do own was quite pretty and floral. So I ended up with this:

Journaling: It doesn’t matter how I start out, 90% of the time it will end up looking whimsical. You would think that at nearly 45 years of age, I would be capable of doing something more mature looking. But apparently not.

Now I have to tell you that DH hates that photo of me. And I agree it's not the best, but I have to resort to my own arms length self portraits these days if I'm going to exist in my own scrapbook albums, so that's what you have to put up with, lol. At least I get a presence!




Pearls, distressing and whimsical butterflies and flowers. :)

Pop over to the site and have a look what the other girls on the DT have made. Gorgeous stuff! And have a look at the gallery while you're there. The projects in the gallery are insane!

That's it for today. Have a lovely weekend and I'll talk to you next week!
Kathie

smile!

Usually he makes a point of ignoring the camera. So, the best I can manage is a sideways view of him engrossed in an activity. Tonight though? Tonight his Dad got this spontaneous pose and gorgeous smile. I think I should get Phil to take the photos from now on. Actually, that's a good idea on two fronts - I might actually get a guernsey in the family album too instead of always being behind the camera!

Summer

Journaling: Blue skies, balmy days, finding a shady spot under a big tree, picnics, birdsong, sprinklers ticking in the evening - these are my favourite things of summer.

Well summer is over here, and the evenings are getting colder. Winter is on its way. I am still insisting on wearing sandals and thongs, but today my feet froze for the better part of the day so I am going to have to admit defeat soon.

I had this layout in Scrapbooking Memories a couple of months ago. There are some layouts that I just love, even when they are over a year old. And this is one of them. It was such a fun page to make and I love how it all worked out.

We have been really busy with school holidays. Phil had this week off work, so it's been go-go-go. I'll be back soon, when kindy and husbands revert to routine :)

Retro inspired

Well, I was at work when I posted earlier. I seriously missed out on all the fun at The Color Room today. When I got home from work there were 90 email notifications waiting for me! We're up to 188 members after just 12 hours. Wow.

OK, so here is my layout inspired by this week's colour palette.


Journaling: Mum made her own clothes, even her wedding dress. She taught Sonia and me to sew too. Sonia still does. I got caught up with other things. I really should pick it up again.

This page was totally inspired by some gorgeous GCD Studio papers I saw at the LSS one morning this week.


I've based the entire layout on a sheet of calico. There's layers upon layers of calico, messy machine stitching and crochet doilies.


I applied rubons directly to the calico.


See all the messy stitching? And I left the ends hanging on the page in places too. To add to the homespun feel.

So have you checked it out yet? Have a look at all the eye candy in the gallery. It's so perfectly colour coordinated, heeee.

The Color Room

Kathie

The Color Room

It's live!!!



The Color Room

Janine, Steph, Lydell and Jing-Jing have done an amazing job setting up a new creative home for scrapbookers all over the world

Every week there will be a color inspiration palette. This will be based on an image and 4 separate colors based on that image. An optional sketch will accompany each week's palette just in case you're in need of a little more inspiration. See the picture above? That's this week's inspiration. Isn't it devine?

Go over to The Color Room to have a look at what the DT created and then why don't you have a go yourself! Fun :)

What happens when you pull all these scrapbookers together and inspire them?

Larissa Albernaz
Iris Babao Uy
Ingvild Bolme
Steph Devlin
Lucy Edson
Danielle Flanders
Sasha Holloway
Janine Koczwara
Kathie Link (that would be me!)
Leanne Pearce
Lydell Quin
Jing-Jing Nickel
Ronda Palazzari
Emeline Seet
Kim Watson
Karola Witczak

Stay tuned and find out on Friday!

This is seriously exciting! Stay tuned.

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

The boy got spoilt - a suitcase full of chocolate.

Think I'm exaggerating?


Don't believe me?


Hmmm... Did I say spoilt?

Enjoy your weekend. We are entertaining three of the four days, which means my weekend is evaporating in a blur of grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking and good company :)

See you soon.
Kathie

On mothers and friends...

I have a couple of articles in this month's issue of scrapbooking.com magazine. I think that (if it works) you should be able to click on the link to get a free subscription to the issue. :)

Kathie

Etsy inspiration

This is what is inspiring me over at Etsy at the moment.