It's a beautiful day...

Aussie Scrap Source is starting off 2011 in the spirit of all things handmade and upcycled – with a ‘make it yourself’ challenge. Each week readers will be issued with a challenge to create a layout using different handmade items.

There will be little prizes each week featuring ready-made versions, from some of your favourite brands, of whatever the weeks challenge is (so you don’t have to ‘make it yourself’ all the time!). These will be awarded for the most innovative solution, and if you manage to send in something every week for the whole eight weeks of the series, you'll get a prize pack at the end as well.

So, this week's challenge is to make your own patterned paper.

Journaling: These days at home with a preschooler have been so precious. I didn't want them to come to an end. But as Jamie starts school, they have.

I have been inspired by Christy Tomlinson's mixed media work lately. The challenge was just what I needed to get out my paints, inks, stamps and templates and get to work. Using just a plain text paper, I made my own patterned paper background and accent strip. Then I teamed it with handcut images from another sheet of purchased patterned paper.

I've used stamps (some purchased and some found around the house), templates, paints and inks.

The page is about my sadness that Jamie is off to school and I am off to more days of work. I'm struggling with it. I have so enjoyed being at home, being a mum during the days (well, three days a week - I have always worked the other two). While I'm over the moon for him, and the joy he has at being a schoolboy, I'm not enjoying the change in focus in my own life.

The page evolved because I have loved being home where I can look out the window and see my beautiful green garden and hear the birds singing. I can sit inside with the patio doors open and feel the breeze. It's been so lovely. I work in the city in a multistorey building and I look at at other high rise buildings (well, as high rise as you get in Adelaide, lol!). It's not nearly as pleasant.

So it is a re-adjustment and I've been having a little temper tantrum about it all this last two weeks. This page is my reminder to not let the joy that I have enjoyed during this five year period of my life to slip away. I have been blessed to enjoy the experience of mothering a small boy.

So are you inspired to join in the challenge? Check out the blog to see what the other DT members have been making, and to find out more details about how to enter the challenge.

Kathie xx