One little word

This year I made the decision to embark on a one little word journey. One little word is a year long class run by Ali Edwards where you find a word and live with it for the year. With monthly prompts/projects to do.

After a bit of searching and stewing on what word I wanted it dawned on me *calm* yes I need to invite this back into my life. Since having kids alot changed and I had lost my calm. Don't get me wrong I have and will always get cross if I am wronged or I feel something isn't right. But I'm talking about inner calm, choosing my battles and patience.

This 4 months in and I absolutely adore what this class have revealed and invited into my life. I have stayed up to date. And find the prompts achievable.

I chose to do my one little word in an 8.5x11 wrmk album in buttercup colour and way back  in December contacted carol at Craft Paper Scissors to put a special order in for the album and page protectors I needed for the project. I tell you what I LOVE how my album is looking. I chose a black and white colour theme with pops of colour throughout and find it really pretty to look through.

For anyone who is searching for something in their lives I highly recommend considering this class.

Life lately and Design Team announcement

It's been a long time between posts. To be honest my scrapping mojo decided to take a hiatus after Christmas. Life happened, as it does. But it's back with a vengeance.

Life has been busy (really busy) in this little world of ours. Master 5 started school at the end of January and is loving every minute of it. A lot of medical appointment for master 5 have been thrown into the mix, it's been hard. I went down the scary road of enrolling myself in a course to ready myself for full time work and a new career when miss 3 goes to school in 2017. And lots of family adventures in between.

But, the biggest and most exciting news is I got accepted to be on a design team for my scrapbooking.  This made my day, week, year!!! Carol over at Craft paper  scissors put the call out early March for a design team and accepted my application. It really is a lovely store with quick service and some delicious goodies in there. I have been a customer since she started her store and have even made some special orders through her. She really goes that extra mile with her customers. I am really looking forward to what the next 4 months bring.

Christmas Mugs

This year I am endeavouring to make as many presents as possible. Who am I kidding every year I start out with the best of intentions usually falling in a heap by the start of December.

So yesterday I sat down with the kids and we made a start. We got going on personalised Christmas mugs for the great grand parents. We will fill them with chocolate and wrap them in cellophane.

Do you want to make your own? Here's what we did.

What you'll need

jo sonjas folk art acrylic paints
plain white coffee cups (we got ours from kmart for $1 each)
a fine paint brush
a paint pallet
some cotton buds
and extra helpers (this works well if you helpers have good listening ears)

I started by painting the recipient's names on the mugs and circling them.

Then my helpers joined me. I squeezed out one colour at a time and we started dotting with the cotton buds. when you are happy with the coverage leave it to dry for a couple of minutes and move onto your next colour.

Once you are happy with the result let it air dry for half an hour (mine sat for about 3 hours but I got distracted with dinner prep)

preheat your oven to 180°c and place the mugs in there on a tray for half an hour. pull the out and let them cool completely.

give them a wash in warm soapy water.

The important stuff

do not use a scourer to wash them.
gentle hand wash only.
have a grown up do the oven part.

This was a really fun activity. that kept the kids entertained for a couple of hours (we made 6 mugs) with a lovely result. The perfectionist in me twitched a little at the imperfections in the cups. but as this is a gift from the kids to their great grandparents I embraced it.

GO ON HAVE SOME FUN WITH IT!!!

This week

This week has been a whirlwind. Extra hours at work, spring cleaning (with a 3 and 5 year old, not easy) and school transition days to name a few.

However i still managed to squeeze in some time to craft. On Wednesday i headed to my dear friend Carolyn for a crop. It was slow starting. but I managed to get 3 layouts done and a couple of pages in my December documented smash book ready to go. i also did a bit of stamp organising as well. Tonight after running around all day returning the carpet cleaner, painting some mugs with the kids for Christmas presents, heading into town to pick up a lay by (it was a lay by I couldn't have an audience for to collect) I sat down and couldn't find my oomph. I thought well there's a waste of a night. come 10.30pm my mojo kicked in (of course) and I completes a layout that has been weeks in progress.

I love this layout. I was inspired by a layout my friend Carol had done and asked her if I could scrap lift it. The problem was I didn't know what background paper she used. So out came my stamps and I created my own background paper using kellies stamps (have you bought from her? you simply must!) and some studio calico stamps. It turned out really well. I wasn't sure what photos I wanted to use until my nanna arrived this week with an envelope of stamps from when I was growing up. Bang!! There they were. The perfect photos.

Crochet hook handles

This winter I lost my scrapbooking mojo. But I found a love for crochet. I have taught myself watching you tube tutorials.  I have always wanted to learn. However being left handed I was impossible to find someone who was patient enough to reach me.

Over the cooler months I managed to complete 3 lap blankets, a couple of beanies, a pair of wrist warmers and a scarf.  Today I completed a beautiful chevron pram sized blanket for my oldest friends sister. (Its in the wash I type).

My biggest challenge with learning to crochet has been the extreme pain I suffer in my hands. I have a strong suspicion its arthritis (however I am too busy/lazy to pursue a diagnosis). I have seen some beautiful crochet hooks with wooden hand turned handles, they do however come with a price tag. I found some ideas to create my thicker handles using polymer clay. I wanted a multi coloured effect but didn't feel it was nessicary to buy (and have leftovers sitting in my craft stash).  Then yesterday while wandering through Kmart I found a day snow globe kit with polymer clay in it 4x2 inch squares of colour for $8. WINNING!

Needless to say it came home with me. I'm really happy with how they turned out I only did 4 of my hooks to see chow they went. All I did was roll out the colours into "snakes" like you would with playdough and twist them all together. Flattened it out and wrapped it around the hook. I ran a knife around the end the hook to create a pattern and bakes them at 130°c for 30 minutes.  I left them on the tray tool and voilà... Beautiful crochet hooks with handles.

Crafting in december

Let's face it in an ideal world we all have grand plans of getting some crafting done for Christmas. Reality is if you don't get it done early it's not getting done. Between the shopping, baking, family outings and to be honest in Australia Christmas falls in summer so we dot want to be holed up in a room documenting life. We want to be out living it.

So the last 2 weeks have been focused on my Christmas albums (yes plural). I love Christmas and in the past I have had trouble cresting Christmas themed layouts. Not this year. So far I have 5 12x12 layouts ready and waiting for photos. And have completed my "things I love about christmas" based pages using the Heidi swapp believe album. I am loving how they are all looking.

Now all i need to do is decided whether my December daily is going to be integrated into my project life or in the smash book i have here???

Oh the decisions!

Christmas stamps

My favorite place to purchase my stamps is from my friend kellies over at kellies stamps. I love the design quality and service that I get from her.

I didn't quite realise how much I loved her stamps until we were at camp and I was showing her how I store my stamps and a large majority of them were hers. There aren't many of her releases (if any) I don't have.

So naturally when she released her Christmas stamps I was all over them. The small set I found perfect for my project life/December daily while the large set is ideal for cards.

As soon as they arrived I sat straight down and got creating. This year I had resolved to actually make my cards. Each year I plan to and I end up getting so bogged down with them they never make it out the door. So this year I was running with simple and quick.

All I did was cut some a4 card stock in half and got stamping. I finished them off with a couple of enamel dots (of course) and I love how clean they look.

Now to write them and get them in the post. What are you doing for your cards this year?