Peace and Joy

I'm not going to have much time to scrap in the next week but that won't kill my mojo - I've rediscovered my love of scrapbooking :-)  I'll definitely try to flick through some of my accumulated scrapping magazines during the week though (even they went ignored in last year's scrapping desert) - they are full of great ideas and inspiration ...

In the meantime, here is another layout I have produced this week.  We had a quiet christmas day with just the four of us, which is unusual in this house; I'm more used to catering for 8 - 12 people, sometimes more.  Anyway, partly because it was so quiet, I didn't have many interesting photos, so instead of choosing one photo as a focal point, I chose three smaller ones to tell part of the story  ...

Again, most items are from a ScrapaGogo kit, this time December's (very appropriate).  I also used a distress ink with the ScrapaGogo stamp to add pattern to the plain beige cardstock (underneath the photographs) and some lettering from a previous ScrapaGogo kit.  

Sonshine

And no, it's not a spelling error, it's a play on words

It's an unusual photo as it has me in it (I'm usually on the other side of the camera) and it was a sunny day (taken last summer, which was more rainy than sunny).  And the "sonshine" reflects the fact that I am incredibly proud of my two wonderful sons.  (Sorry about the quality of my photography today - it's a dull day and I didn't want to use flash as it reflects on the photo and distorts the colours).

The layout continues my recent run of creativity - I think my scrapping mojo is here to stay :-)  I loved the ScrapaGogo kits I received last year but never got round to doing much with them so I was itching to use some more of them.  This layout is a mix of items from the August and September kits and I think they work very well together.

Last year ...

... wasn't a complete scrapping desert; I did do some scrapbooking, but not much and I didn't always enjoy what I was doing.  Not much of it is worth showing off, but today I was looking through some of what I did last year and found a few pages that I remember enjoying creating ...

 This is my favourite of the three.  As soon as I saw ScrapaGogo's September kit, I knew I had to use this background paper, and the other bits and pieces went together so well with it.  I like the faux-Polaroid effect and the random lettering.  I think it turns a not-very-exciting photo into one that you want to look at.

These other two layouts were also created using ScrapaGogo kits.  They are probably not the best layouts I've ever created, but they make me happy because I enjoyed creating them.

Happily, my creative drought appears to be over and I have been scrapping a fair bit over the past few days.  I hope to share some more of my creations soon ...

 

New Year, new focus

Happy New Year!

It's been a long time since I last blogged.  Much of that is because I didn't do much scrapbooking last year, and not as much stitching as I'd have liked to either.  A combination of things got in the way - work being done around the house (a new kitchen, a new patio and driveway, complete redecoration of the lounge), work and other commitments, and my creative mojo going AWOL for a while.

BUT, things are calmer around the house now and my mojo appears to have returned, so I'm busy stitching again, have sorted through all the photos (a HUGE job as I'd not even done much of that last year either), and I've been doing some scrapbooking and really enjoying it.  So I thought it was time to restart the blog ...

... and my first post is about one of the pages I completed today -

   
It is a page for an A4 sized "book of the year" that I am compiling for last year.  Each month has a double page devoted to it with a selection of mini photos and journalling.  This is the final page, devoted to one single photo that is one of my favourites of the whole year - I love the photo as it is so bright and colourful but also because it was such a happy occasion as my 17 year-old son returned from a long trip abroad.