The other page I did for the online crop, was this page. The challenge was to use up your scraps from the crop to create a page. I didn’t have many scraps from the crop, but I’ve done quite a few pages lately, and had heaps of scraps just sitting on my table waiting to be cleared, so I used them!
For the title of this page I did a little survey over on the FB, so if you’re keen to name more of my scrapbooking pages, or get on with the goss there, then check it out. 
Last weekend was the online scrapping crop with Shimelle, over at Shimelle.com.
I didn’t get a chance to play along that weekend, cause we were visitng Luke’s nonna, Zio & Zia, but I did get a few challenges in during the week!
The challenge for this one was to use yellow, grey and one other colour. I chose Aqua, because funnily enough, grey, yellow & aqua are Lior’s colours (if he was a girl it would be peach, yellow & grey).
I used the mini brocade overlay to add the colour, but not make it too bold. I used a lot of plain papers as well- yellow and grey cardstocks I had on hand. This stamp that I used as an embellishment in the title is one of my favourite stamp sets at the moment. It’s by American Crafts, and it’s called terrace.
Next Wednesday, April 25th, is ANZAC day. ANZAC day is an important day to remember the soldiers who fought at Gallipoli in World War I. Anzac Day marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War. The acronym ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, whose soldiers were known as Anzacs.
Now that I have a son, I have been thinking about ANZAC day in a new light. What if one day he had to go to war? What if his father had to go to war, and never returned? What if, what if, what if. The sacrifice our soldiers made for us is increadible, and we should be eternally grateful for their bravery, and willingness to protect us.
I like to take the opportunity of ANZAC day to remember soldiers who have fought in all wars as well. Including troops who are currently serving. I have two grandpas who fought in war, and a brother in law who is currently in the army, and I am thankful for their personal bravery, and sacrifice.
Mooo.com.au (soon to change thier name to tinyme.com.au) have released a bunch of ANZAC day printable for you to print out and create with. It’s a great activity for kids, but seeing as Lior is a bit young for craft projects yet I think I’ll print them out to make a poppy pin for me to wear on ANZAC day!
I’ll also be trying out a gluten free, and sugar free ANZAC biscuit recipe, so hopefully they turn out better than last time!
I’m setting aside a little time today to get stuck into some scrapbooking pages. My list of pages to scrap never ends, so screw the housework, this needs to take priority! Hopefully my husband doesn’t read this… Nah, he’s cool with my scrapbooking, as long as the house DOES look respectable!
I’ve still got a long way to go on my scrapbooking journey till I’m happy with my original ideas, so in the mean time I’m getting inspired, and scrap lifting pages I like. Here some I’ll be using for inspiration in the next few days:
Starting Point By Shimelle Laine
I am a paper HOARDER. And I am a scunge. I hate to think how much a page costs when you patterned paper for the background, and it frustrates me to no end when you WASTE patterned paper by putting stuff on top of it! These are the main reasons why I almost always use blank paper as the background. Don’t believe me? Scroll through the 12×12 layouts, it’s pretty rare to see a patterned background paper!
The problem with being a hoarder of course is that you end up with LOTS OF STUFF. That stuff has to go somewhere, and it has to be used somehow. It is also hard to remember what you have, when you have so much of it. SO, I am starting a new ‘thing’, and anti-hoarder ‘thing’, whereby for Lior’s scrapbook I use patterened paper for the backgrounds, and only use plain cardstock minimally. Can I do it?! I hope so!
So here is the first page I’ve done (but not the first page in the album) for his scrapbook. I REALLY like it with the patterened paper background. It means I can scunge on the embellishments a bit. 
The journalling is as follows:
Sleep Songs
1. Amazing Grace
2. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star / ABCs
3. Ni No, Ni No
4. Jingle Bells
5. Hey Jude- The Beatles
6. Waltzing Matilda
7. Little Drummer Boy
I’ve got the Simple Stories Baby Steps collection to use throughout the album. I like that the colours are generic- I’m not a HUGE fan of blue for boys and pink for girls. The background paper is from the Picadilly collection by Basic Grey, and this sheet is ‘blue plate special’. I’ve gone through all my new papers from my Christmas present, as well as my ‘stock’, and have put together all the blue/aqua + yellow + grey sheets, as this will be my colour scheme for his album. I wanted it to be the colour scheme for his room (it was yellow if he was a boy, peach if he was a girl), but money and time I didn’t have, so it’s just a mish-mash! So I’m giving up on the room idea, and just doing the scrapbook. It’ll last longer!
Did you have a colour theme, or general theme for any of your scrapbook albums?
There are many perils associated with asking people you know to vote on something for you. One of which is other people not having the same emotional attachment to what they’re voting on. Is this a good thing, or a bad thing?!
The other day I asked on Instagram, Twitter, my personal FB, and this blog’s FB page which photo (from the selection above) they thought should be on the title page of Lior’s scrapbook. The page will just be nice paper, one of these photos (possibly enlarged- depends which one it is), and his name & date of birth. MAYBE it will have his birth details (weight, length, time, etc), that depends a little on which photo I use.
These were the results from the vote (Make sure you ‘like’ Number 19 on FB so you don’t miss out on the other votes and ideas we post!):
One photo that didn’t get any votes was the collage of the ultrasound, and him on his first day. I know it’s not the best PHOTO, but I know how I felt when I looked at him, laying there in the same position as the only ultrasound picture I have of him. My heart lept, and it was a defining moment of “Wow, THIS is the person who’s been inside me for the last 40 weeks”. I know it sounds silly to think that, but I think there is a bit of a mental leap to make (well, there was for me at least) connecting all those special mumma/belly moments with this little person who is now outside me.
So that one didn’t get any votes, and it made me realise that people just didn’t know WHY that was a special photo to me. Why it was even in the running. Of course I love the photo that got the most votes too. The one where we’re kissing him and it says “We <3 Lior Picard Carbis”. If I use this one I think I’ll enlarge it so it takes up the entire width of the scrapbook page, or close to it.
Now this is obviously one of the less great things about asking people to vote for something. But maybe this is better. After all, I would like to tell the STORY of why this is a special photo, and I can’t do that on the front page. And also, this is an album that lots of people will view, some with no real connection to Lior at all. So maybe it’s BEST if it’s just a generally nice photo, which is self-explanatory, then something that is SUPER meaningful…
Thoughts?
Just wanted to give you all a heads up that you can dowload these rad journalling tags from Two Peas In A Bucket for FREE at the moment!
They’re great tags for birthday layouts, thought you could get creative and use them for invitations!
This page above might be familiar. It’s almost the same as week 21. I’m going to say that therefore it doesn’t need too much explanation!
This week was our wedding anniversary, so I just wanted to show a picture of Luke and I on that day. I used a few random bits and pieces, but used the Simple Stories Baby Steps letters which I’ve used a few times now.
This week was also a little different. I had this weird shaped photo, and I had to rack my brain a bit trying to think of a nice way to display it. I had originally cropped it so thin because everything else is really quite pointless and distracting, and I was a little sick of 4×6 photos I’d had for the last few weeks. PLUS I knew the next photo would be a belly shot as well…
So I used the same colour schemes as I had been using, but used a few different embellishments. I’d found that beauty rest accent card when I was rumaging around for some other things, and thought it would be perfect for this week with the body pillow!
Ah, another belly shot! This one is a significant page because it’s the beginning of the third trimester. The title for the page is on the photo. If I did this again, I would consider photoshopping all the photos I used so that the title was always on the photo. It’s a REALLY easy way of recording what week it is.
I thought that the ‘You & Me’ accent tag was appropriate here seeing as I was feeling baby so much more now, and really feeling quite pregnant.
This will be the last pregnancy scrapbook progress post for the year. I’m spreading them out now so that we hopefully finish these posts around the time bubs comes. I’ve been thinking of how I should finish the scrapbook, and I think I want to finish with a photo on the next week, of me holding the baby in the same position that my tummy has been in. And then maybe share a few thoughts on how the first few days/week has been with him/her. What do you think? I’d love some suggestions!
Well, it’s only a week until Christmas, and I thought I’d show you around the Christmas decorations around our house! So lets begin the tour…
We’ll start with the photo above. It’s pretty self explanatory- the nativity. I love it because it’s a bit different. I particuarly love the flowers, stars etc. that crawl up the sides of the characters.
Behind: In the vase are a bunch of long thin stuffed stockings with decorations out the top. They are REALLY easy to make, so hit me up if you want a quick tutorial on how to make ‘em!
Front: In the front is some wooden letters spelling Noel, which I dry-brushed with white paint.
Top: On the other side of the TV I’ve put Tin candle holders from my Nana, and a tin star in a big jar.
Bottom: I’ve used thick paper mache letters painted red, and then dry-brushed with white paint. There’s also an assortment of ornaments in front of the TV including our Hanukiah Menora.
Left: We have two Christmas quilts up this year. The one of the left is one I made my first year at craft group. You can’t see down the bottom it says “Merry Christmas”, which I embroidered in a pretty font. The snowflake and star sections of the panel are all stars and scrapbooking embellishments. Each of the other sections are applique. This is probably one of my favourite quilts I’ve made, and something I am super proud of.
Right: My nana made this for me for Christmas one year. The middle is a panel with the a-z of Christmas, with a border around the edge.
Our Christmas bunting! So simple to make.
Front: This side board has turned into Christmas central. There are the Christmas elves, and a bunch of other decorations. Our nativity sits up behind the pine cones.
Behind: We don’t have a Christmas tree, and so this is something I’ve done this year to still ‘hang’ out decorations. I have a lot of ornaments that need to be hung to be displayed, and so created this ‘anti-christmas tree’. I’m basically just hanging them from the fly screen. There are a few reasons why we don’t have the tree, which I won’t go into here, to be honest, I don’t really like talking about it, because if I had it my way, we would have one. But I guess that’s part of being married, right?! Compromise and all that stuff..
A close of up of some of the ornaments on the anti-christmas tree.
Our advent calendar is strung above the TV, between the two Christmas quilts. Here is the tutorial for the paper advent calendar.
Table centerpiece One: Every year my Nana makes these fabric cones for each member of our extended family. As you can see, it’s been a few years! The girls ones have an ornamnet inside, and the boys ones have some money.
Notes: Luke has actually strung all these up to the swag we have above one of our windows, so they’re not on the table anymore!
Table centerpice two: Some berries etc. in a vase. Really simple and lovely, though the berries have got a bit mouldy and they are quite difficult to clean!
This is one of the swags that hang in front of the window. This one has some fabric stars and hearts strung from it. You can make some stars and hearts if you follow the directions in my ebook.
Did you know we have a facebook page!? “Like” it here to join in the conversation, and check out exclusive links to projects, and inspiration!
Week 20:
I quite like this page. This was the week we moved to our new place, and an important milestone because it’s half way through!
I quite like the layered affect on this page. It’s mostly using supplies from a pack of scrap papers I bought one time, and some leftover bits and pieces I had laying around. As you can probably tell, I like tags, and have included one in the layers, and I’ve also used numbers from the Simple Stories Baby Steps collection.
Week 21:
I really like this page. I like the green lace pattern above and below the photo, and I love the photoshop title. This is the second side belly shot in the album (I think!), and I’ll be putting a few more of them in now that I’m ‘showing’ a bit more!
I also like how the page next door is similar. The journalling strip is the same width as the photo, and this was just total luck. The piece for journalling is actually the packaging for some cute paper birds I bought. I just chopped off the bottom (which had the branding etc on it), and positioned it on the side so that you could see the nice cut out edges.
Also, here’s a tip- if you make a mistake in the journalling, then just take a small sticker and put it over the top. This sticker is fine by itself in this particular case, because it works in well with the flower pattern. If you were trying to cover up a mistake on a blank piece of card, then you might need to bundle it with a few other pieces.
Week 22:
This week we’re back to those cricut letters for the title, and keeping things pretty simple. Like with quite a few of the pages in this album I’ve tried to use up supplies where I only had a few bits left, so this is a bit of a muddle of heaps of different supplies.
Week 23:
There’s a quite few aspects of this week’s pages I love. For one, I love the cicrcle theme on the journalling page. The way the doily fits so well behind the journalling flower is just one of those perfect things you can’t plan. To keep with the circular theme I’ve put the journalling AROUND the doily.
I also like the stitching around the photo. Because I’m using both sides of the background paper I just sewed straight onto the photo, and then attached it with my adhesive like I normally do.
Supplies:
Like I say, there’s a bit of a hodge podge of supplies used in this, and that’s okay as long as you’ve got something consistent throughout the scrapbook. My conisisten areas are:
Stay tuned in the next few months for some exciting news about a new ebook! Particuarly useful if you’re getting pregnant yourself!
