Get Picky guest DT

** LOOK AT NEXT POST BELOW FOR ZVA CREATIVE BLOG HOP**

Hi again my friends,
This month, I was fortunate to have been asked to be the guest designer for Get Picky challenge blog. In the middle of every month, they run a sketch challenge, then at the end of the month, they run an inspiration challenge. And here it is....

Here in the Southern Hemisphere we are in the midst of gorgeous Summer weather...perfect for the Summer holidays! Our inspiration prompt challenge is to scrap your favourite holiday photos and share the story as part of your journalling.....

**As an extra to our challenge,

you must include at least 4 photos to help tell the story behind your layout **

Entries close midnight February 13th

We recently had a little holiday to the Gold Coast, we stayed at Paridise Resort, which really is 'kid heaven'. Everything is geared towards kids, and our boys had an absolute ball, and didnt want to leave. I have so many photos of our trip, and thought the '4 photos or more' as part of the challenge was the perfect way to showcase some of my many photos.

Thanks for calling in, and for all the wonderful messages and support. And I would like to say a HUGE thankyou to Nikki and to Tanya for having me as their guest designer at Get Picky this month xx 

Zva Creative Jan DT blog hop

Zva Creative and our talented Design Team welcome you to join us for our first Design Team Blog Hop of the New Year! We are happy to have you join us today and wish you the best for 2012!

The Blog Hop begins at Zva Creative's NEW blog! Be sure head on over to check it out! Leave a comment there for a chance to win an extra prize package just for visiting the blog and telling us that you stopped by! You will also find a complete list of all the participating blogs there (in case there is a glitch along the way).

As you know, Zva offers many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was asked to share a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project. If you like what you see you can find a list of stores and online retailers that sell Zva HERE.

I was asked to complete a layout using purple / lavender flowers and bling. Hmmm, its not a colour I would normally work with, and found it quite challenging actually.  Then I came across these gorgeous Websters pages papers Ive had in my stash, just waiting for the perfect moment, and they were exactly what I was looking for. They are a perfect match to the gorgeous lavender Zva flowers.

Zva products used: 1.5 inch graceful roses - purple, 4.45 inch flower with leaves - fushia, 8 inch branch with leaves, fancy butterfly crystal - lavender and grape.


If you would like to play along with our design team, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way!

Hidden on FIVE of the designer's blogs is a Zva Creative prize package! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.

The Blog Hop starts today, January 30th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, January 31st.

The 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, February 1^st on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Zva's blog as well. We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday... plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this Blog Hop post... you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. However, the more times you comment along the blog hop path, the more chances you will have to win.

We also thought it would be more fun to add even more chances to win our blog hop prize! To increase your chances of winning:

* Comment to let us know that you posted on your Facebook page about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you "tweeted" about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)

* Comment to let us know that you asked your local store to carry Zva creative products. If they already do, that's fantastic, maybe you can suggest other products that they don't carry.

*Hop over to Zva's NEW blog and leave a comment there to tell us that you made it there!

The blog hop begins here at Zva Creative's NEW blog. Your next stop is Christin Gronnslett. Enjoy!

Thank you for joining us!

P.S. Mark your calendar to join us again on February 27^th for our next Zva blog hop!

An honourable mention

Ok, so YES, I did enter the Scrapbooking Memories Masters competition this year for the first time, and NO, I didnt make the final 10. I was planning to just slip under the raidar, and not even mention it, BUT, I was quite excited when I got the Masters Mag in the mail, and I had recieved an 'honourable mention' for this LO

This was a difficult LO for me to do, it tells of my feelings about my weight over the years, and the reasons that I finally made the decision to do something about it. As the title says, I do feel like 'I won', but I also feel like this is going to be a life long battle for me, that I am going to have to fight forever. I very nearly didnt finish this LO, as I wasnt sure I wanted to share it with people, but, I did submit it, and well, I guess its 'out there' now :).....  

Heres a closeup of the journalling

Thanks you so much for taking the time to call in, Please call in again in the next few days, as we will be having a ZVA blog hop, and a Scrapbook Boutique blog hop at the end of the month, and theres some great prizes to win :)  

Have a wonderful weekend

some exciting news

Goodmorning,

Firstly, I just want to say sorry for my lack of blogging lately. So many wonderful people call in to my blog, leaving me lovely messages. I have been so busy lately that I havent had the time to call in to many blogs, nor leave messages for people. Im sorry, and definately plan to fix that this week. I love checking out your blogs, and have missed it this week. Life has been busy here, being school holidays, and harvest time for us, and DT commitments, there just doesnt seem to be anymore time left in the day for me to 'play'. My 2 littlest boys have been doing swimming lessons everyday this week. Its a fair drive to get there everyday, but they have done great, and had so much fun too, so worth doing.

So, I have been busy creating, and have quite a few projects to share with you over the next few weeks. This LO below is one I did for Zva Creative DT. Its a photo of my daughter a few years back, with my Mum and Dads 2 little dogs. She loved those little dogs, they really were her friends. Ive used Echo park papers ( which I LOVE) along with some gorgeous Zxa flowers and bling. Oh, and dont forget to go check out Zva's new blog , and website.

Zva products used: 3' dual frosty flower pack-pink and white, triumph flourish-soft blue pearl/crystal.

NOW !!!!  I want to share with you some exciting news....  I have been asked to join the design team at Scrapbook Boutique. This is very exciting news, as they are my absolute favorite online store ever. I did some guest designing last year, and the lovely Evelyn has asked me back ( thanks Evelyn xx)  They have the biggest range of dies in Australia , if you didnt know, I have whats verging on a serious addiction to dies, so Im very excited. They dont only have dies though, they stock 1000's of products, you have to go check them out, really !!!!!  They also run a monthy challenge on the blog, where you can win a voucher to spend in the store. Below is the January 'inspiration'. I start with them in February, and I get to play with some gorgeous 'Glitz design' papers, so cant wait to get my hands on them :) ....  

Thanks to everyone for calling in, and for leaving the wonderful messages. I have made it my mission to call in to a many blogs as I can this week. So will see you soon xx

Guest designer at Get Picky

Im very excited to say that I am the Guest designer at Get Picky for January. I love Get Picky, and try to enter their challenges whenever I get the chance. Their sketches are brilliant. Just check out this months sketch

And this is my take on the sketch. I snapped these cute photos of 3 of my boys and my niece in our backyard, they were just mucking around, playing, and I got some really great pics. Tiara, my niece is gorgeous, so getting great photos of her is easy to do :)

This layout turned out a little differently than I expected, but Im happy with the result.

The closeup shows my little hand made flowers. I cut them using my cricut, and the 'Mothers day flowers' cartridge, Ive sanded the edges of the petals, then layered several different sizes together, and topped them with a yellow button.

Oh, and some more exciting news ;) Zva creative have a new look website, and a new blog....   Theres a gallery on the website,  showing some awesome inspiration from the current and past DT members, not to mention regular competitions and giveaways on the blog... HERE is the website, and HERE is the new blog 

Thankyou so much for calling in, and please leave me a comment so I know you were here, and I can return the favour :)  Oh, and please take 5 minutes to call in to GET PICKY and check out what the DT have done using this gorgeous sketch.

Creative Scrappers GDT

WOO HOO how exciting.... 
Yep, I am the guest designer at Creative Scrappers this week. Thank you so much Kristine for having me. And the sketch I got to play with was fabulous. Have a look, it is so me :)

And here is my take on the sketch. 

Ive used some awesome Manor House Creations flowers on this. They are a new, Australian owned company who are totally rocking the 'flower world'...... dont you just love them? I know I do.....

Thanks so much for all the awesome comments, and thanks for the congrats on our newest addition. Baby Jett is doing great, he is such a placid, no fuss little guy, only ever cries when he is hungry.

Have a fantastic week.



Tutorial for Sandra

A little while ago, one of my lovely followers asked me if I could explain how I make my little fan fold flowers. These are very popular ATM, and theres lots of tutorials out there on how to make them ( I would love to take the credit for 'inventing' them, but unfortunately I can't) But I have made a little step by step on how I make them. Well, thats not quite true, this is how I USED to make them, before I purchased my little die. My favorite things has a die that cuts and then scores the folds for you, which saves a tonne of work. So I cheat now, and use that all the time :) ...

 1.       Begin with a 12 inch (30cm) strip of paper. (The finished flower will be twice as wide as your paper strip when finished, so cut the strip accordingly)

2.        Place patterned paper on the paper trimmer. Using the scoring blade, score at intervals of 1cm.

   3. Fan fold at each crease. Join the patterned paper ends with glue or double sided tape.

 
4.       Punch or cut a small base piece of card stock to glue the flower to. Add glue to the punched base.  Adhere the fan folded ring to the base, pushing flat to create a flower. Hold flower in place until dry. You can then add a centre of your choice to cover up the messy centre.

Heres a few Ive done over the last little while :) 

 

Have fun with this Sandra :)  They are really easy and fun to make.

ADDIT: Ive had alot of people ask me about the die I use to make these little flowers. So I found a picture of it, if anyone is inerested in buying one



Now a little 'brag moment'....... I am very excited, cos, Ive been asked to be the Guest designer at Creative Scrappers and at Get Picky this month !!!  How cool is that. I cant wait to show you what Ive made, the sketches I got to play with were both fabulous. Be sure to call in on Sunday morning, thats when the Creative scrappers sketch goes live ( well, it will be Sunday night here in Aus)

Thanks so much for calling in, and for all the lovely messages

Have a great weekend