Forever Young (Get Picky)

This month's inspiration challenge is up at Get Picky. This month we are inspired by the lyrics of this Bob Dylan song:

"Forever Young"
May God bless and keep you always
May your wishes all come true
May you always do for others
And let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
And climb on every rung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

May you grow up to be righteous
May you grow up to be true
May you always know the truth
And see the lights surrounding you
May you always be courageous
Stand upright and be strong
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

May your hands always be busy
May your feet always be swift
May you have a strong foundation
When the winds of changes shift
May your heart always be joyful
And may your song always be sung
May you stay forever young
Forever young, forever young
May you stay forever young.

Here is my layout:

I took my inspiration from the lines "May you build a ladder to the stars And climb on every rung". I had a photo of Jamie trying to climb up a ladder after his dad when we were finalising the renovation of our old house. Jamie would have been quite young still. I cut out the image of him and made my own ladder leading up to some stars.

I've used some of my new Purple Onion stamps to make all the grass and the little red wildflowers.
And I've used an old script stamp I've had in my stash for forever to create a bit of interest in the background. All in the name of my goal to incorporate more stamping and painting on my layouts this year :)

Head over to Get Picky to see the inspiration by the other DT members. We have Anna Bowkis joining us this month. Are you going to join in too?

Kathie xx

Sneak peek

I have been creating....
for the Shop and Crop February Cropaholics Kit. It will be on sale soon. Don't miss out!

:)
Kathie xx

Kindergarten artwork

I spent a good part of this week scanning Jamie's kindy and childcare artwork. As he finishes up with both activities, we're ending up with bulging portfolios home here. I thought I'd share some with you.

One of the earlier sketches is this one. I giggled when I read the narration :)

And then this one made me feel like crying. I'm not sure what the sketch is - that tall stick with a ball on it is me, I think...

Sniff.

This next one would be from 2010, I think. His skill has increased significantly. Although, he remains a typical boy who really would do most anything else than sit still and do artwork ;).

I so love the glimpse you get of your child's personality through their artwork. Jamie's feature lots of Wii and playing at the park. This one took a bit of explaining:

The man with the whip would be Indiana Jones, and Jamie and his dad would have been playing the Indiana Jones lego game on the Wii.

And this is a book:

Page 1

Page 2

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

LOL! And one more... a painting.

Aaah, I love kiddies' artwork. I'm going to frame this one.

That's all for tonight. I'm back at work tomorrow after over a month off on holiday. Eeek. Better get to bed :)

Kathie xx

Seven years ago

Seven years ago :)

Paris

Phil and I travelled to Paris about ten years ago. I still have wonderful memories of it, so when we were asked to put together a travel page for Aussie Scrap Source, I pulled out some old photos and created this (click on it to make it bigger):

Journaling: "In 2002 we spent the last week of our European vacation in Paris. Ah, I do so love Paris! We stayed in a little hotel up near the Opera Garnier. The view from our room was so lovely! We were within easy reach of the city via the metro and spent our days exploring - the Eiffel Tower, wandering along the Champs-Elysees, drinking coffee at outdoor cafes. We climbed the Arche de Tromphe and gazed over the the streets. We walked through Montmartre at dusk and admired the artists. We took a night tour and marvelled at Paris at night. We attended a dinner show at the Lido, then decided to walk in the balmy evening air. We missed our metro and got locked out of our hotel. We wandered through the Marais Quarter and peeked into old courtyards of grand houses. We visited the Picasso Gallery. We sat in the sunshine in the Place de Voges and ate baguettes with cheese, surrounded by early 17th Century architecture. And when we tired of the bustle of the city we took the metro out to the Luxembourg Gardens and relaxed under big trees near magnificant ponds. What wonderful memories."

This page started out a lot differently, with the intention to use 7gypsies Gypsy Market collection. Yes, that's right. Completely differently, lol. Sometime during the process a Webster's Pages Life's Portrait ribbon fell out onto my page. I went "hmmmm", and from there my layout took a completely different turn.

I treated the photos with an action to give them all the same colour palette, and then lined them up across the page, leaving stacks of room because I knew I wanted to record all the things we did while we were in Paris. So I don't forget.

TFL!
Kathie

Zoo trips, elephants and vellum

A while back I participated in a product challenge for Scrapbooking Memories. We were sent an assortment of Christina Re products to work with, which is a brand I associate more with wedding invitations and cards, than scrapbooking :). Anyway, the pack included this gorgeous vellum which I totally fell in love with. This is the layout I made; it appeared in Scrapbooking Memories issue 12(11):

Journaling: You saw an elephant for the first time at the Perth zoo and thought he was pretty magnificent.




Have a great week! We are off to a friend's at the beach tomorrow, then Tuesday is for chores and housework and baking biscuits for Jamie's LAST ever day at childcare on Friday. Eeep. He's over the moon. I think he's totally over childcare. He's so totally ready for being a school kid.

Kathie

It doesn't happen often, so forgive me....

Wow. Mine is the neutral coloured one in the middle each time.

Making use of time?

I am up in the middle of the night. Insomnia. Since we got back from Perth my sleeping patterns are all out of whack. And now these last two days I've had a gastro/flu bug and have slept most of the days away. Consequently it is now 10 to 3 in the morning and I have yet to fall asleep. Yawn. So, I thought I would come here and say hello if anyone is awake :)

I got my new DSLR camera today and the battery is charging up right at this moment. I'm so excited! I have wanted a nice camera for, oooh, about four years. Maybe five. Maybe even six. But everytime I thought that I had the money, something else would come along. Well, after the events of the last month or so, I decided to treat myself. And it arrived today. With my beautiful ES 50mm f1.4 IS lens. Weeee! I just have to figure out how to put it together and use it.

I need to get back into the scrapbooking too, as deadlines are starting to loom. I haven't done much at all in the last month. I could quite as easily not do anything at all even now. So I suppose it's a good thing that I have deadlines. In the meantime, to try and get motivated, I've been browing the web for CHA sneak peeks. Lots of new product coming out soon :). Here's some things I've spied that I think I'll be using.

Webster's Pages has excelled with their new releases. I love every single line:

Especially Yacht Club:

I love the Bo Bunny Gabrielle line too, although I'd be hard pressed to use it on any of Jamie's pages:
These lines from Lily Bee might be more appropriate:

And look at this sweet line from Graphic45. What would I do with this? I love it. I'd have to search through Jamie's baby photos maybe...

My Mind's Eye has released an enormous Stella and Rose collection which houses several distinct lines. I love this one - it reminds me of Crate Paper's Restoration collection in 2010:

This year I may have to invest in some border punches. I have one, which hardly constitutes a collection. Time to add to it, I think! These Fiskar borders look interesting:

And finally for tonight, here's a collection from Echo Park that I love!

I'm sure there's more that will be revealed over the next week. What are you loving from the new releases?

Kathie

Pink Paislee scraplift

One of my pages has been featured on the Pink Paislee blog today. Go and see what Nancy Damiano has done scraplifting it! Love it :).

Five Years

First of all, thank you so much for your comments on my last post, and your emails. You have done me the world of good. I know that it will just take time to feel like I'm OK again. It's part and parcel of the whole thing. But having your messages of support has done my heart no end of good. So thank you.

There's a new Get Picky sketch up today. This month's guest designer is Anna Bowkis from Pencil Lines and she provided the sketch.

I had it in my head to make a single page, as I really wanted to create a page to record an interview I did with Jamie when he turned five. I had three photos that I took at his birthday party, but they were all portrait orientation. Not to worry, I simply converted the sketch to fit a single page and rotated it to accommodate the portrait style photos. And here is what I did:

I make a little kite and let its tail trail down the side of the page, in lieu of the ribbon on the sketch.

I used some more of those fab Webster's Pages gala lights where you see the circle in the sketch. And I incorporated a little growth chart down the side of the photos, for the solid strip of paper that the title sits on in the sketch.

And because there's too much journaling to type it all out, I've taken a close up of all Jamie's answers to what his favourites are. At five.

Kathie xx

A new year; a new start

We are back from our summer vacation and slowly easing back into our routines. I have been quite absent here over Christmas. Partly because we have been on holiday. But also because 2010 ended sadly for me.

Just before Christmas I suffered another miscarriage. Yep. It was a huge shock to find I was pregnant. Four years of fertility treatment and IVF had achieved nothing. We were told to give up. In fact, I had only just come to terms with it. But to get my hopes raised again and then dashed was just cruel. I have taken it really badly. It's only now that I'm picking myself up from the snivelling mess I've been for the last month or so.

But, anyway life goes on. So, I will not leave you on a downer. Today I received my contributor copy of a new Russian scrapbooking magazine, Artugolok. I was very honoured to be asked to contribute a travel page back a while ago.

Journaling: While we were on vacation we spent most mornings at City Beach, Perth. Here you are with Auntie Sonia, digging in the sand.

They specifically requested that I use paper piecing, as they had seen my pages where I'd created little scenes. So that's what I've done.

The beauty of paper pieced layouts is that you can actually create composites on the page. I only had one photo of Jamie and my sister at the beach while we were on vacation early 2010. It's below. Both of them were very busy and involved in building their sandcastle creation. Neither would look at the camera...

And while it was a nice shot, I really would have liked to see at least one of their faces. Like this:

Well, half a face, lol. As good as it gets....

My solution? I flipped Sonia so she faced the other way and transposed her over into the other scene.

Then I made a little beach scene to situate them in. There they both are, interacting, building a sandcastle and I've actually got a smidge of a face in the page.
I used Glimmermist for the beach. Papers are BasicGrey and Webster's Pages. I drew everything by hand, including the beach chair. I'm not the world's best illustrator. But I like a bit of a whimsical approach. And now I have a perfect keepsake of two of my favourite people during my last summer vacation.

Here's to a happy 2011. I sincerely wish it for all of you. And my thoughts are particularly with those who are caught up in the terrible floods on the East Coast. Take care.
Kathie xx