a blue bazaar xmas...

Well it's the last day of 2013 and I'm finishing the year with my final guest design spot for Blue Bazaar. I have loved the opportunity to play with so many awesome products and as you can see the December kit was filled with so many fabulous festive goodies...

I loved that this kit although you may not traditionally think of adding blacks and greys to your festive layouts, this combination was fabulous for making all of my Christmas photos 

I have to admit that I would not originally thought of using black/greys for my festive pages but I think they really helped to bring out the colours in my photos.  

I made good use of some word stickers by stitching them to my photo.

changing the colours up a bit for a completely different feel - that's the great thing about these kits, they are really versatile and allow you to create a range of different looks. 

and of course it wouldn't be Christmas without a visit from Santa ;)

going for the traditional red, white and green colour scheme this time with a large pocket for hidden journaling behind the photo. 

and lastly a really fast and simple layout to highlight Cayden's photo with Santa.

I'll have my SBM Masters entries ready to share in my next post... I didn't make it to the final 10 but happy to have another Honourable Mention in the magazine (even if they did spell my name wrong yet again lol) 

Wishing you all a fabulous New Year xx

 I hope to see you back in 2014 :) 

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playing with blue bazaar kits...

Hi again, I hope you all had a lovely Christmas :) With the year quickly coming to an end I thought it might be a good idea to share a couple of things I've been working on. Back in November I received another beautiful Blue Bazaar kit to play with.

I instantly fell in love with this gorgeous mix of Amy Tangerine and Prima goodness and had no trouble creating five layouts with plenty left overs from this jam packed kit.

I couldn't wait to use the gorgeous ombre paper but wanted to make the gradient colours stand out even more, so I cut the design into strips and slightly overlapped them before putting it all back together for a bit more dimension. 

unfortunately my photos don't do justice to the brilliant colours in the kit, but they are simply gorgeous and such a great match for a range of photos.

and I absolutely loved the awesome 'love' die cut paper that I used to frame my photo

toning it down a notch with a bit less colour, but adding in a few more details thanks to the fun Smash pockets from the kit that were prefect for adding extra photos and all sorts of keepsakes for this school themed page.

keeping it simple for this page of my little guy's sense of wonder as he explores the world around him

and finishing up with another burst of colour for a playful page for Cayden :)

again filling up one of the Smash pockets with extra photos and journaling

I was also lucky enough to get another fabulous Blue Bazaar kit for December which I will share in my next post, here's a couple of peeks....

thanks for stopping by xx 

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stamping with Polly!

I recently received a fun set of Christmas themed stamps from Polly! Scrap Kits which I have used to create an insert for my Project Life album to record a few of my favourite Christmas things. 

I have used the versatile Hot Colourful Christmas stamp set which is filled with a variety of words and numbers to help you document a range of celebrations and occasions during the holiday season. 

I've always had a bit of a thing for Christmas ornaments and like to add a few new pieces to our collection each year. We have gone with a traditional red, white and green colour theme this year and so I used these same colours with a A4 sized baseball card holder for my insert. I also added a little bit of gold and glitter to make it a bit  more festive :)

I have to admit that I'm not very good at stamping... don't get me wrong I really love the look of stamps but don't always end up with crisp results, but after a bit of experimenting I discovered that I could get a really nice textured effect when I stamped the words onto glitter cardstock and then heat set some embossing powder over the top. 

you can see what I mean about my lack of stamping skills with the word 'December' turning out a little bit blurred when I stamped directly onto the photo with pigment ink, but I think it gives the word a nice shadow  effect and actually like how it has turned out. 

I love the look of stamping onto vellum and created a stitched shaker pocket with tiny stars inside. The 'beautiful' word was stamped with Stazon ink and 'Christmas' was created with Zing embossing powder from American Crafts. 

As you can see your stamping doesn't need to be prefect to achieve some great results, and if you do feel a little bit uncertain then try stamping onto tags or tabs that can be added to your photos or journaling until you feel more confident.

Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out the Polly! blog for loads of inspiring ways to use your stamps and scrapping supplies :) 

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white with one...

I came across the White With 1 September challenge a couple of weeks ago but totally forgot about it until last night, and because I love scrapping with this combo and didn't want to miss out on the awesome A Lil' Somethin' flairs for everyone who took part in the challenge, I spent most of the afternoon busy scrapping. Being a slow scrapper I wasn't even sure I would get my page done on time, but just managed to get in before the deadline ;)

Here is the combo

and this is what I came up with...

 I love using green on my layouts and this particular shade is one of my faves, so it was easy to find a few things in my stash to match - I also added a little bit of grey, black and silver for contrast.

Thanks for stopping by :)

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