Cycling World Championships

Hi, this layout is from September/October 2010, Kevin and Lauren went down to Geelong for the Cycling World Championship Road Race. Lauren was keen to see all her sporting heroes up close. She was lucky enough to meet and have a photo with Nicole Cook from the UK (the lower of the two main circles photos) who is Womens Olympic Road race champion, British Womens Road Race champion and also has won the Womens World Road Racing championship and the Womens Tour de France and is ranked number one in the world. The other one was Rochelle Gilmore from Australia, she didn't race at Geelong because she was off to the Commonwealth games to compete where she won the Womens Road Race.

I have left the journalling tag empty for Lauren to fill with her memories of the day.

Just in "CASE"

I saw this layout (see last picture in post) in either Creating Keepsakes or Scrapbooks etc, as these are the only two I get, and I was immediately drawn to the colours. Those of you who know me, know I am a "brights" girl. I just had to case it. I have changed the bottom of the layout slightly and included an overlay from Fancy Pants (quite an old one that has been languishing in my stash for some time). I just love it, so bright and cheerful.
My butterflies are different though, this one is from the cut and embosslet from Stampin Up, the antenna were the waste from a Martha Stewart border fan bunch.
This is from the large sizzix die from Stampin Up, which you can see I wired and beaded.
The same die was used here but with rhinestones.
Here is the original layout, I wish I could give the designer full credit but I cut layouts I like from magazines and put them on index cards in a box in my scraproom, organised by how many photos the layout uses and then pull them out when I need inspiration.

Happy to be me

Holly took some photos of me on a recent walk, she was amazed when I scrapped them so quickly as there are very few pages of me in any of our scrapbooks as I am generally the photographer. I got to use another of my Stampin Up Christmas presents, the white crocheted doily. I had previously had a go at doing them myself (the larger pink one) but had never got around to incorporating them into any layout.
Here is a close up, I sewed a button(Doodlebug) on to the white doily and used a brad further up the stem. The felt flowers are from here, the paper flowers are all from Prima

The blue patterned paper is from Graphic 45 all the rest is Basic Grey.

Leaf stem- Kaiser craft, available here

And now for something completely different!

Holly was particularly taken with an old pair of my floral shorts, being into all things vintage as she currently is. They were too small for her so I suggested we altered a pair of her denim shorts to incorporate some of the fabric, this got her thinking and after a trip to the local haberdashery shop this is what she came up with. Her design, my sewing!
We brought two other floral fabrics and she combined them into the patch design and the replacement pockets. All the fabric is hand sewn, it is difficult to use a machine on a finished article.
I sewed the patches on first with cotton thread and then went over them with embroidery thread to make them stand out
A little lace and a couple of button and the transformation was complete. Holly loves them.

Birthday girl

Holly was 14 in October and this layout documents the day. Dinner out with friends, then the sooo inappropriately named "sleepover", pressie opening and breakfast. This was the first time the birthday dinner out was just Holly and her friends without parents (we ate elsewhere and then came back for the candle blowing). It all seems to be going so fast now, it feels like next to no time since she was 8, where have those intervening years gone? Before I know it, she will have left school and be pursuing her goals in life.

Spring is in the air

Our garden was looking very colourful this spring and Holly was out and about with her camera capturing the beauty of it all and this is the resulting layout. Holly also has some really close up insect photos, this one with a particularly angry looking dragonfly,who knew they weren't that cute up close and personal, they always look so pretty when they are flying.

Life is a beach

This is Holly and a friend on a recent trip to Phillip Island, it wasn't that warm but that didn't stop them playing in the surf. The papers, title and tickets are from Kaiser "Seaside" range, the orange tag is from Crafters Choice.

This one is for you Judy

My friend Judy gave me a beautiful pack of white paper with embossed designs on by Stampin Up for part of my Christmas present along with a gold smooch spritz spray and this is what I have come up with. I traced lightly around where I wanted the tag (Basic Grey) and decorated chipboard shape, removed them and then spritzed more heavily around the edge of the tracing line and then lightly as I worked away from the line. I then dusted close to the line with gold shimmer chalk by Dovecraft and covered the rest of the page in a light dusting of coloured chalks to pick up the colours in the tag. I added the photo and a small tag with the date on and stamped "love is like a butterfly" on to the decorated chipboard. Using a cut and emboss die from Stampin Up I produced all the different sized butterflies and the adhered them to the page. In this photo you can't really see how it shimmers or the subtlety of the lighter chalking.
Here you can see a close up of the design showing through the spritzing and chalks. I had a great time working on the project and loved how you could alter the depth of the design by the heavy/light application of the chalks.

Team Viper Triathlon Club

This was one of Lauren's last events before we left England in 2006. Unfortunately she wasn't placed but enjoyed the competition all the same, although she was 30 seconds late for her allotted start time which impacted on her placement. Lauren's wet suit wasn't a great fit and when a friend who couldn't compete offered her one at the last minute ( she being a very similar size to Lauren) Lauren decided to change. Her coach later wrote about it in the team newsletter, giving us all a laugh

"Lauren managed to turn up 30 seconds late for her start after not being sure which wet suit to wear (always a problem)!