Pieces of my life

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas!

I hope Santa was good to you :)

Wishing you love and happiness

Sonia x

3 sleeps to go!

Yes the jolly man in the red suit is approaching fast so of course I decide to come down with some sort of virus. Nothing too bad - just enough to make me want to lay on the couch and let the world leave me alone for a few hours! Still the shopping is done so I don't have to hit any panic buttons - I just need to keep the princesses entertained!

I had these up on the blog post I did for Addicted to Craft so I have some wrapping ready for 3 presents anyway. The bags were sprayed with Memory Mist and all of the paper and die cuts are October Afternoon Very Merry collection. The flowers on the box are Prima :)

I spent a couple of hours putting this together with the girls - well Alex helped and Isabella ate! If you look closely enough at the icing you'll see finger and fork marks where Isabella keeps sneaking up and trying to get the icing off of the Gingerbread house. This side actually isn't too bad but she's had a pretty good go at the other side!

Sonia x

It's getting close!

Not long to go now. My girls are on count down to the big day and the excitement is getting greater as the week goes on! Besides the joy in watching our children at this special time of the year is the added Mummy benefit of the resulting good behaviour in our offspring with the immortal phase 'remember Santa's watching'. Is is really bad of me to use it? (oh but it's sooooo worth it)!!!!!

It's my turn for a bit of Christmas playing over at Addicted to Craft so pop on over hereif you want to see a bit more of these sneakies:

 

While you're over there don't forget to have a look at the wonderful creations for the Twelve Weeks of Christmas competition. I can't wait to see the entries for the 11 Pipers Piping!

Kym and I took the girls to Claremont Quarter on Thursday so Alex and Isabella could have a play (and have photos taken of course) in the giant snow globe. They had a ball in there but complained that it just wasn't long enough. However the line to get in certainly was so if you're going to visit make sure you get in early!

It's sure looking a lot like Christmas now

Sonia x

My Mind's Eye Challenge 6

Whoo hoo I managed to get a layout in before the weekend! It must be because the Christmas shopping is in hand (now I'm paranoid I've forgotten someone!), the girls are on school holidays and the weather is gorgeous!

The layout is for My Mind's Eye Challenge 6 which was to create flowers for the sketch below.

I've used the gorgeous Abbey Road collection and a picture of my cheeky monkey - Isabella. The instructions to make the large flower are further on in the post and they were courtesy of Liz Weber. I first saw this flower on a card created on Jolene Pienaar's blog and went hunting for how they are made and found the instructions in a tutorial created by Liz. All of the other flowers were created using punched flower shapes and then layering them together. I popped a bit of Kindyglitz around the edge of the flowers to make them stand out a bit more.

How cute are all of the brads from the Abbey Road collection?

 

Ok so this is how to make the large flower:

1. Using double sided patterned paper cut out nine 2" circles

2. Fold the card circles in half and then in half again so you get the quarter creases

3. Keep one circle aside as your base circle. With the other eight circles fold in the bottom quarter   corners

4. Turn circle over and fold in the bottom corners again

 

5.  Attach each folded circle to the card circle using the folds as a guideline

6. This is what it will look like once all of the folded circles are attached

It's always fun to have a go at making your own embellishments and at least you can be sure they are going to match the rest of your products!

Have a great weekend and I hope your list of things to do for Christmas is either done or getting very short. Enjoy this fabulous time of the year!

Sonia x

One layout a week

Seriously - that's all I have time to create at the moment. One lonely little layout a week and I'm having major withdrawal symptoms and missing my scrapping time like mad. Still life has been wonderful with all of the end of year things that crop up and the shopping that needs doing (although that is almost finished - yay!!)

So this is what I managed to squeeze in yesterday. I'm still not sure about this layout as I started without any sort of plan and kept going (and going!) but it gave me my scrapping fix that I needed. It's all Prima (again) with plenty of Christmas sparkle!

Loving the Holiday Lights vine:

The photos on the layout are of Alex in her costume for her Christmas party at school. She insisted on wearing a fairy costume and said she was Santa's helper fairy. I sent her uniform to school in her bag so she could get changed at lunchtime but I should have known she'd keep it on all day. I picked her up at 3pm still in the outfit - but looking a little bit more bedraggled than when I sent her to school!

Isabella also had a fairy picnic with her 3 year old Kindy. The fabulous Fairy Queen Caroline came along to entertain the kids for an hour and they had a ball singing and dancing!

Amongst all of the fairy stuff happening we did manage to get the tree up too:

With only two weeks until Christmas we thought it was time to make the trip to visit Santa so we took the girls and the Grandparents into the City yesterday and visited the Santa at Myer. The girls were so excited and just loved the (pretend) reindeer Santa had sleeping in front of his fireplace in Santa's room:

Then they headed off for a ride around on Santa's train. Such a beautiful set up but I'd go early if you want to get in. When we left the cue was huge!! Sorry the photo isn't great - other parents kept getting in the way!

At long last I managed to go and see this with 3 gorgoeus girlfriends. Thanks for a wonderful night out girls. Fabulous movie but the books still take a lot of beating!!

I promise to update before next weekend. I do - I really do!!!

Sonia x

 

What a week!

I think I'm in danger of becoming a weekend scrapper only at the rate I'm going but there has been so much going on that I haven't had the time during the week! However I've had plenty of photo opportunities going on and after all this craft is about capturing the memories, so it's best to get out and actually make sure there are some fabulous memories to capture!

While I haven't actually done much scrapbooking I have had a big clean up and reorganization of my scrap area and boy did I find some stuff! I don't like too much mess so I tend to pack everything away and of course I then promptly forget what I have tucked in the cupboards. Still at least I feel more organized now and ready to go to it!

Talking about lots of stuff, I received a HUGE package this week which turned out to be my prize from My Mind's Eye. They said I could choose any three collections but I didn't think it would mean everything in that range (and I mean everything!) I have the most gorgeous selection of papers, die cuts, ribbons, brads, journalling cards - you name it it's there. I sure won't be running out of MME products for quite a while!

This is a play that I had this weekend - can you believe it's Prima when I've just received the biggest stash of MME?! I think I was just overwhelmed with the choice and went the easy option! I love these pictures of Isabella after one of our baking sessions enjoying one of the great joys of childhood (and adulthood too lets admit it) - licking out the bowl and spoon / spatula.

 
I just looooove Prima's vines!

Another big thing this week was our trip to the Christmas Pageant this morning. We all had a ball and I have two very tired little girls that will be in bed super early tonight I think! We had some face painting:

Met Fat Cat:

 

Enjoyed the floats:

 
 

What a fabulous way to finish a wonderful week.

Sonia x

More Prima playing

I spent a wonderful 4 hours scrapping and talking with friends yesterday and there were no dramas this time - no fires to be seen anywhere in the vicinity! I took my stash of Prima with me to play with and this was the result. I'm am totally loving the Indeed range of Prima papers - just stunning! The photo is one of the ones that Isabella took a few weeks ago when she had a play with my remote on the camera:

 

The pink lace was actually cream that I painted pink and then went over with a darker pink ink to distress it a little:

If you need a bit of inspiration then pop over to the Addicted to Craft blog as Sarah has posted the most gorgeous Prima mini album for week 9 of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas challenge. There's some great prizes to win so make sure you have a look and join in the fun!

Sonia x

A Prima play

Aaaaaah back to it with a bit of Prima! Sometimes you forget when you're busy just how relaxing scrapbooking can be. It's nice to take some time out to play - especially with a bit of Prima!

My brother has just headed back to England after a brief visit and the girls loved having their Uncle Steve around. He even braved The Fairies Concert last weekend and had a ball watching the girls enjoy the show! It's always great to see the Dad's, Uncles, Grandpas etc amongst a sea of tulle and sparkles! This is a picture I snapped before we headed off on the ferry to see the show:

Love the flowers that Prima produce - sigh:

 

I'm off to a crop this afternoon so hopefully I'll have more to share soon. If you're in a shoppy mood today and you're a Perth local then head over to Scrapbooks from the Heart as there is a BIG sale going on!

Sonia x

Oooops!

How can it be nearly a week since my last post?! Honestly the days just seem to blur into one another at the moment and scrapping has been taking a backseat. However I'm off to a crop on Sunday so hopefully I can get back on track. I love that there is a few more Sunday crops appearing. Saturday is such a hard day to pack up the tote and disappear for the day but Sunday is certainly a lot easier!

I mentioned in my last post that I had my birthday coming up and I was going to spend it with my girls and Kym (a bit of a family day). Well they had a different idea and surprised me with a trip to a Day Spa for a bit of pampering. It was all booked and organized so I just turned up and was incredibly spoilt - fabulous!

Anyway onto a bit of scrapping - I haven't shown this layout before as it was commissioned for an article in SC vol 70 for Show and Tell titled Eco Footprints. It was to do a layout about what I was doing for the environment to reduce my (and my families) eco-footprint. The hardest thing was deciding on the photos! I looked at taking pictures of my reusable shopping bags, the recycle bin etc but none of it was hitting the mark. Then I remembered this picture I took on a holiday to Dunsborough of Kym and Alex's footprints in the sand and I thought it would be perfect! I also had a bit of fun with a Prima paintable and some alcohol inks:

I stamped a butterfly using Lizzie Anne Designs stamps on transparency and coloured it with some of the alcohol inks:

I received some of the new My Mind's Eye 'Love me Do' collection and fell in love with the cloud paper. I couldn't think what to do with it until last week when Isabella went dancing around the garden in her raincoat when it was raining telling me she was doing a rain dance! I'm amazed she actually looks dry in this picture as she'd stood out in the pouring rain at Alex's school when we went for pick up and had refused to come in under the cover. Mind you - if I could get away with it (and not end up with the major frizzies in my hair) I'd run around jumping in puddles and getting wet too!

 

I love the die cuts that MME do with each range:

Don't forget Addicted to Craft is up to week 8 of the Twelve Weeks of Christmas and the gorgeous Kathleen is Guest Designing this week so pop over for a look at her creation!

That's me for now. I promise to get back on track with my posting as I'm itching to get to my scrapping supplies again!

Sonia x

It's a double!

Layout that is! Prima's November sketch challenge is a double pager - eeeek! I actually started this at the crop I went to last Sunday and I spent way to long moving things around as I just wasn't happy with the paper I'd chosen. However once I'd put the Vines and purple flowers on I was quite happy with the result. I think it was the combination of a double layout (which I struggle with) and the colour purple which I love the look of but just can't work with! Anyway here is the final page using the Prima Indeed range:

The sketch the layout is based on:

I struggled trying to get a decent shot of the layouts together so here they are in single shots - the left hand side:

The right hand side:

A close up of the journalling. This was printed out and then a Prima rub on put on around the journalling. I then cut out the rub on and stuck it to the layout using foam tape:

I love these Camelot flowers but one of them was too big and I was one short to finish off the layout. So I took a layer off of one flower and scrunched it up to make another flower and out in some pearl stems to finish off the look:

Miss Alex also had her first school disco tonight. She was so excited to be going and had a ball. It was a beach party theme and she chose her own outfit (I decline to take ownership of chosing this outfit!). Alex insisted on wearing the Scooby Doo t-shirt as she got it while we were on our holiday at the Gold Coast so she thought it was perfect for a beach party! It was done really well with the smaller children (up to Grade 3) going from 5 to 6.45pm and then they left and the 'big' kids came in to have their disco. The room looked great with a heap of sand, deck chairs and even a VW! You'll have to excuse Alex's latest v sign pose. One of the Grade 3's taught her it last week and every time she sees a camera up go the fingers!

 
 

I hope you have a great weekend. I know I will as it's my birthday tomorrow and I'll be spending the day with my family and then we have 4 gorgeous couples coming over for dinner (and maybe a bottle of wine or two!)

Sonia x