Back Again

Ouch. I knew I hadn’t posted for some time, but hadn’t realised it’s been two months. You know how sometimes the longer you leave something undone, the harder it is to go back to? That’s been me and my layouts.

So. Am officially behind goal again. Think I’ll go and get a pile of recent photos printed; that usually helps me get back in the mood again.

Meanwhile I’ve got two pages to post: Twenty-Two and Twenty-Three. (what are we up to – week 35? Could be worse, I guess) Here’s the first:

Photo is an Instagram one. (which I’ve just discovered and am loving.) The quote in the top corner was from a Frankie magazine, and that’s what really sparked off the layout. It came out a little differently than I planned, mainly because the mist spray wasn’t aiming where I thought it was. After a momentary internal panic at my blue-faced son, I decided I quite liked the effect and sprayed the other two photos too. (A little less enthusiastically though.) Here’s to happy accidents!

And the second:

I must have got out every sheet of blue and aqua paper and cardstock I own for this, and detested every last one of them. And all the while my neutrals pile was quietly waiting for me to come to my senses. I apologised to it for straying, then the page came together in a matter of minutes. I liked the yellow as an accent colour against the blue, although I’m still not entirely sure what “Life’s a stitch” means, even if it is a neat little nod to the theme. (It actually makes less sense the more you think about it…)

So there we are. I think I’ll try to do two pages a week for a while, and catch up that way. New photos will help. Surely…

Have a wonderful week J

Week 21

Two layouts to post this time: last week's and this week's. Last weekend was a busy one; our girl was baptised at church, and we had lots of family and friends over for lunch afterwards. What with the cooking, cleaning and catching up, the thought of writing a coherent post on Sunday night was a little too much. So I used my remaining energy to crawl onto the couch and press 'play' on the remote instead.

One of the high points of the day, though, was the chance to not only say how proud of and grateful for our girl we are, but also to thank and honour the people dear to us for their love, support and investment into our family. What's that African proverb? "It takes a village to raise a child." It's so true. And I think we forget a lot of the time to stop and appreciate the people who ease and enable our journey. I know I do, anyway. So it was nice to be able to take a day to do that.

I think that's the biggest part of why I scrapbook, actually. It's such a powerful way to honour and celebrate the people most special to me. It's pretty awesome that photos + paper + words + a few bits and pieces can leave that kind of legacy.

On to layouts. Numbers Twenty and Twenty-One here:

The first one was a real play time. The main thing I wanted to do was capture the feel of the time - misery. (shouldn't have been fun, but it was!) That's why everything's messy and slumped down towards the bottom of the page. I loved the little rocket sticker - once I'd turned it upside down so it was more of a 'crash-and-burn' rather than a 'blast off' look, that is. I couldn't find any of my Christmassy stash for the second layout, except for a stamp and one sheet of paper which I didn't like.(May have slightly over-culled last year...) So I didn't worry too much about theming it, just went with what looked right. Let's hear it for generic products!

Have a wonderful week :)  

Making Me Happy

“ ‘That’s the worst – or the best – of real life, Anne. It won’t let you be miserable. It keeps on trying to make you comfortable…and succeeding… even when you’re determined to be unhappy and romantic.’”

                                                Anne of Avonlea  L.M.Montgomery

The ‘Anne’ books were some of my favourites when I was growing up, and there’s always a kind of magic in revisiting a book you loved as a child. The above quote has stuck with me ever since I first read it, and it’s been echoing in my head pretty often these last couple of weeks. We still miss our dear old dog Jas, but at the same time I’ve been more and more aware of lots of small happinesses around me – not the big, momentous things, but the little ones that weave themselves into everyday life so quietly and unobtrusively that it’s only when you stop a moment that you really appreciate them.

So, in deference to this year’s One Little Word, I thought I’d take a moment to See Appreciatively. Little things making me happy at the moment:

·        It’s Autumn. All around me trees are blazing into colour…my garden is showing signs of life again… The days are golden and the nights are silver and full of stars, with the smell of woodsmoke on the air.

·        Seeing kangaroos in our front yard at daybreak. (evidently still have enough of the suburbanite in my soul to get excited by this…)

·        Getting a new book I’ve never read by an author I love.

·        Just finished knitting a beanie for myself out of the most divinely soft wool imaginable. Am wearing it proudly, despite Aaron’s occasional comments re cancer sufferers.

·        It’s cold enough to be making soup again. Plus, I finally seem to have converted the rest of the family to the concept that soup is a valid meal by itself.

·        A “just because” present from a lovely friend – a bougainvillea exactly like the one that grew at my great-grandmother’s house. J

·        Watching the kids and Aaron play soccer in the back. (And no, I don’t play. After all, someone has to clap and cheer.)

·        Sitting with a book or watching a dvd with the open fire going. So cozy.

·        Mint Slice biscuits. Enough said.

·        And last for now, but certainly not least, as of this week, I am Officially Caught Up with layouts!

 Yup, at the close of Week Nineteen, I have layouts Eighteen and Nineteen to post. Here they are:

I think the happy state of mind may have spilled over into the design process for these, especially with the second...Good fun :D

Have a wonderful week – hope it’s filled with your own little happinesses J

It's been two weeks since I last posted, and the answer to last time's question, "could the scrapping mojo be returning?", appears to be "not so much". Well, to be exact, it got sidelined a little last weekend when our beautiful border collie of nearly fourteen years passed away. She'd been slowing down for the past month, and on Sunday night, surrounded by all of us, she very peacefully breathed her last.

I honestly don't think any of us expected to be as upset as we were. After all, we knew she was getting old, and wouldn't be around forever, but even so, to not see her running up to greet us as we arrive home, or trotting at our heels is taking some getting used to. But we did have a little funeral for her, when we all said the things we loved about her and then thanked God together that we could have her as part of our family for so long, and somehow after that the sting has gone out of the grief. We still miss her, but now the thought of her is making us smile rather than tear up. End of an era, really...

One thing I have realised is how relatively few photos of her we have. It's worryingly easy to forget to record the everyday bits and pieces that make up most of life - I've resolved to be a bit more diligent about that from now on.

On to layouts, then. At the end of Week Eighteen, I have No.s Sixteen and Seventeen to post. (At least, I think that's what I'm up to. Will have to double check.) Like I said last time, I did toy with counting the double as two separate pages, which (hypothetical drumroll please) would bring me up to date, but have instead decided to be honest. Page two of the double really doesn't stand alone, anyway.

The nice thing about getting these done is that they've been sitting, in bits and pieces, on the desk for about three months. You know those pages which, no matter what you try, don't seem to come together at all - to the point where they almost put you off scrapping entirely? I present Exhibit A and B....

So, 'tis done, 'tis finished, 'tis finished, 'tis done. And hurrah for that! Maybe mojo will be a bit more forthcoming now...

Have a wonderful week :)

Could It Be,,,

...that the scrapping mojo is returning? It may be too early to say for sure, but in any case I have Layouts Fourteen and Fifteen to post this week. Here we are:

This page wasn't actually the one I had next in line to scrap, but the other one had been sitting on the desk for two weeks without any inspiration whatsoever. So I let this one jump the queue, and I think in the end it was one of the quickest layouts I've ever done - maybe 15 minutes, total. You have to love cooperative photos! (Although it's faintly disturbing that this is one of the very few photos of all five of us together...and I'm wearing Aaron's jocks. Glamour eludes me once again.)

And here's Fifteen:

Credit where credit's due: photography by Joel Krivan :)

I quite like this one. Went the "instinctive" approach that I tried with No. Thirteen, and just pulled out paper and bits I liked, without worrying too much about whether it fit the footy theme. So there's no real justification for using orange and teal other than that I wanted to. The paper's from Kaiser's Technologic collection (as is the yellow on the first page, come to think of it), which I really like - fantastic boy colours and patterns. I'm always on the prowl for great boy paper...

Have the next layout half-assembled on the desk. It's a double, so depending on whether I'm feeling like going easy on myself re catching up, I may count it as Sixteen and Seventeen. We'll see!

Have a wonderful week :)

Officially Behind...

Well, as much as I hate to admit it, as we come to the end of Week 16 of the year, I am Officially Behind Schedule. Or, to put a slightly more positive spin on it, I've been on Scrapping Hiatus. Either way, I've just got the one layout to post this time. Here's No. Thirteen:

Doing this page made me realise how differently I work on layouts now than when I first started scrapbooking. Back then, I used to plan everything before I dared to cut out or stick down anything - mainly because I was so worried about making mistakes. (It was for Posterity, after all...ho hum) Now, I have no idea how a page is ultimately going to look as I begin it; it's all down to experimenting and letting the thing evolve. It's less a case of "but what if it doesn't work?", and instead a focus on "I wonder what would happen if...?"  Much more satisfying! And besides, there's always another page.

I'll try to catch up a bit over the next few weeks, but in the spirit of 2012's jettisoning the "should do's", if it doesn't happen, I won't beat myself up over it. There are always peaks and troughs in Creativity World; next month I may be so inspired it's all I can do to STOP scrapping... We'll see!

Have a wonderful week :)

It's been an interesting few weeks in this corner of the world. It's funny how, often, just as you get used to doing life in a particular way, everything seems to change at once - and you have to learn how to negotiate and juggle and order all over again. I don't mind changes, not at least when the foundational, fundamental things - family, faith, friends - are unaffected, but transitioning from one phase to the next can take some concentration. So far I think I'm doing okay; everyone's had clean underwear in their drawer and fruit in their lunchbox, anyway!

The upshot of all this is that I haven't had much energy left over for high-octane scrapping. I did, I confess, find myself just starting to reproach myself for that, but - hip, hip and a big fat hooray! - this time I managed to catch myself before I slid into a scrap slump. (Frankly, I call that a giant leap forward in personal growth...)

Had to remind myself that scrapping is meant to be enjoyable, not another thing on the to-do list. I really do want to do a layout a week this year, but I really don't want it to become a burden. So I took a slightly different approach this week. I usually leave bits out on the desk for a few days so I can see how they work together and evaluate objectively. This time I gave myself 5 minutes or so to pick stuff - purely going by instinct - and then 15 minutes to put it together. (Although I gave myself an extra 5 minutes since I'd picked alpha stamps. Why can't somebody invent self-cleaning stamps? Why? Why??)

You know what? It worked. While I wouldn't call it my favourite layout ever, the satisfaction of completing a page - and quickly! - snapped me out of the reluctance and got me buoyed up to do another page. Which, incidentally, is sitting in bits out on the desk for a few days, so I can see how they work together and evaluate objectively...

Anyway, here 'tis:

Here's to not over-thinking it!

One last thing. I don't usually post anything that's not scrap-related, but since I mentioned my knitting fever last time, I thought I'd show my latest finished project. This was for a friend's new baby grandson, and I'm quite proud of it. Had never knitted a toy before, or done anything in the round, so it was a challenge, but one I loved doing. Can't imagine being able to come up with the pattern for this. Aren't people clever!

Have a wonderful week :D