Bethinking

Free as a Bird

Sometimes I'd love to be a child again. As an adult, if you go down to the beach, pick up some seaweed and start twirling, people tend to give you strange looks. But when you're almost-3, people think it's perfectly natural!

I had fun scrapping these photos of my daughter. I used the "Good Friend" stamp set, from the upcoming 2009/10 Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalogue. I love the images of the bird, so I've included a couple of close up pictures. And I also really love Baja Breeze, one of the new In-Colours. You're going to be seeing a lot of it around here!

   

 The New Catalogues are available from April 1st - that's this Wednesday! If you'd like to get one, then you are welcome to come and pick one up from me anytime from Wednesday, for $10, or I can post one to you for $15. Or, if you book a workshop you can have one for free! Only 2 days to go now before I can place new catalogue orders... let me know if you'd like anything!

Spring Break

I chose the colours for this layout straight from the Spring Break patterned paper pack - Old Olive, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and Pumpkin Pie. I love how this colour combination works, but I don't have too many chance to use it in my scrapbooking as normally there's mostly girls in my photos!

I thought it would go well for this Zoo layout, though. I cut the flowers from one of the pieces of paper to use as an accent, and of course stamped some animals from the "Wild About You" stamp set. I've fringed the stripey piece of paper so that it looks kind of like grass. The effect of that is pretty much entirely lost in this flat photo, but trust me, it looks good on the page!

Some of the products I've used here are 25% off because they're retiring:

•  Spring Break DSP - only $8.96 for 12 sheets!
• On Board Simon Lower chipboard (for the 'U") only $15.71
• In Colour stamp pads - only $7.46

Please let me know as soon as possible if you'd like to order something that's retiring as stuff is selling out! And have a great Monday...

Baroque Christmas

Now I know that Baroque Motifs is not strictly speaking a Christmas stamp set, but I hope that this page goes to show that anything in shades of Red & Green can look Christmasy, so really, your stamp sets are more versatile than you might have originally thought!

This was a pretty straightforward page to make. I stamped the Baroque flourish in 2 different colours (River Rock and Old Olive) onto Very Vanilla cardstock, then randomly stamped the small flower from the same set in Real Red.

I did the title using the Big Deal Alphabet, but instead of an O I used one of the bigger flowers from Baroque Motifs, and inked it up in River Rock first, then added some highlights with my Old Olive marker. For a bit of bling, I punched out some photo corners and decorated them with Dazzling Diamonds glitter. A bit of Vanilla wide grosgrain ribbon and all done!

Baroque Motifs is one of the stamp sets being sold this month to help the Red Cross Bushfire Appeal. It's $39.95, and 70% of that price goes to the Red Cross. So far, Stampin' Up! has raised over $34,000 through its Bushfire Appeal sales, so thanks to everyone who's purchased stamps to help the Red Cross!

Welcome, Little One

We met a new sweet little friend on Monday - Eva Rose. I made this card for her and luckily it came together very quickly, because I left it 'til the last minute (as often happens!). The stamp in the middle is from the "In the Stars" set, and says, "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star, do you know how loved you are?"

The colours are Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery and So Saffron. The paper is from the Petals and Paisleys set which has lots of beautiful colours and patterns in it. And, there's nothing like personalising a card with the person's name. It's fun to make a card for such a joyful occasion!

Christmas Projects

I was sure that I wrote a post about this a couple of days ago, but it seems to have disappeared into the ether... I'm sure it's out there on the Web somehow, but I don't know how to look for it!

On December 12th at 7:30pm I'm running a Christmas projects class. At the class we'll be making a mini pizza box and a Christmas Cracker, decorating a tin and stamping on a candle.

I have so many ideas for different Christmas projects at the moment. Card ideas, gift ideas and decorating ideas. I'll be sharing lots of them with you over the next few days, so be sure to check back!

Thankful

Thanksgiving is not something that we celebrate in Australia, which means that we miss out on the opportunity to annually reflect on our blessings and be thankful for them. I’ve been thinking for a while that I’d like to create something that I can look at regularly that will remind me to be thankful. I’m blessed with so much, and I find it so easy to forget that in the day to day running around and lack of sleep that seems to make up my life at the moment.

So, thanks to Shelli for making “Thanksgiving” the topic for her November Creative Challenge. This scrapbook layout has been swirling around in my brain for a while, looking for an opportunity to get out! Of course, there’s more to the project that’s not pictured here yet – my journal that I’m making where I can record in more detail some of the things for which I am thankful. I figure hey, at least I’ve started the process and had some time to be thankful as I’ve been making it.

It was fun to create, too, basically choosing all my favourite images and "patchworking" them together. Here are a few close-ups, too:

        

    Supplies Used:

Stamps: Lots! Always, A Beautiful Thing, Live Your Dream, Big Deal Alpha, Pick a Petal, Looks Like Spring, A Happy Heart, Priceless, Fun and Fast Notes, Life Definitions, In the Spotlight.

Cardstock: Spring Silhouettes DSP, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery, Very Vanilla, Whisper White, Watercolour

Inks: Pretty in Pink, Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery.

So Cheeky

I like using scrapbooking sketches as a way of getting inspiration for the layouts I'm creating. This layout used a sketch from a magazine, "Scrapbooks etc". This is such a typical photo of Emily at the moment, with her cheekiest grin, so I wanted to feature it on the page, as well as include some journalling about what she's like at the moment. This sketch was perfect for what I wanted!

I used a couple of strips of patterned paper from the "Petals and Paisleys" designer series paper, and stamped some of my own background paper with the Spot On jumbo wheel and the Polka Dots and Petals stamp set. For the journalling, I've printed that on Vellum, then punched out circles from the patterned paper and black cardstock to help highlight the journalling spots.

The title uses some chipboard, sponged with Taken with Teal ink, and the Big Deal Alphabet, which is highlighted with Crystal Effects to make it shiny. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, thanks to the sketch. What do you think?

Family Album

This photo shows the cover of an album that I've made for my Mother In Law for Mothers' Day. It's a 6 x 6 album which was fairly quick to bring together because I stuck to a basic colour scheme and pattern. I used four colours; Perfect Plum, Pale Plum, Mellow Moss and Close to Cocoa, and Very Vanilla as my neutral.

Most of the accents and embellishments, including the patterned paper, were created using the "Priceless" stamp set. Have I mentioned already that it's my current favourite from the new Idea Book and Catalogue?

If you'd like to complete this album, either for yourself or for a Mothers' Day gift, then please come along to the class on Thursday, 8th May 7:30pm at my place in Turramurra. The cost is $20 which includes materials. Obviously you'll need to supply your own photos!

RSVP via mail@elisabethstewart.com by May 5th.

Birthday Party

A few days ago I found myself in the novel position of being the entertainment for a 9 year old girl's birthday party! Amelia, the birthday girl, really likes stamping and papercraft so wanted to do that for her party. It was really fun!

Each of the girls made an origami box to keep, and a 6 x 6 scrapbook page which I bound into an album as a keepsake of the party for Amelia to take home. Amelia chose the colours she wanted; Bashful Blue, Ruby Red, More Mustard and Old Olive, which made life easier for me because I always procrastinate about colour combinations! The girls had a great time at the party, and so did I.

Sweet Faces

I started this layout with an idea from Alana's blog. She had used an 8x 8 page from the Stampin' Up! Sale-A-Bration catalogue as the basis of her 12 x 12 layout, so I decided to try the same thing.

There was a lot of journalling that I wanted to fit onto the layout, so I typed this up so that I had more control over its size (and because my handwriting's not great, anyway!) I've used the SAB set "Friendship Blooms", which you can get free if you spend $100, for the flowers and to create the piece of white background paper that is mounted behind the journalling. The heading is done with the Big Deal Alphabet, and I cut the 18 from the numbers on a sheet of the Treehouse designer series paper. The colours of the layout are Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Rose Red, Pretty in Pink and Bashful Blue.

January is almost over - don't forget that if you'd like one of the Sale-A-Bration stamp sets, you must place your order with me before the end of February!