Scrapping the important 'stuff'

"Life isn't a matter of milestones but of moments."

~ Rose F. Kennedy (1890-1995)

Not quite three years ago I received a walking frame to assist me with getting around after a fairly serious relapse.  I was not impressed.  Not quite three months ago I used that walking frame in public for the first time.  Have I mentioned I'm a stubborn wench??  Three years is a long time to give up living a 'normal' life because of fear, anxiety and shame.  A seemingly disproportionate, irrational or unreasonable response some might think.  But I'm not alone.  A couple of weeks ago I met some other women who have MS and who have also resisted using various walking aids in public for long periods of time.  My three years seemed trifling in comparison to some.  That day not quite three months ago, when I used my walking frame in public, I realised I didn't want to find myself in another three years perhaps in a wheelchair and regretting those wasted years when I could have been out and about enjoying life with the aid of my walking frame.  I imagined life would be so much more accessible with a walking frame than a wheelchair.  It was a pretty empowering moment for me.

A short time later GB, Max and I found ourselves at Max's favourite beach.  As had become the norm in a very short time, my walking frame was with us.  When GB and Max decided to go for a walk along the shore I was determined to not be left behind.  So, although my walking frame isn't exactly an all weather terrain 4WD model (LOL), I found where there is a will there is a way, and off I trundled in search of firm sand.  Eventually I found some.  Then, in fact, I found a lot.  By keeping to the firm sand and keeping an eye on where I was going, I was able to walk along the beach for what seemed like hours in the sunshine and light breeze with the two greatest loves of my life.  It was glorious.  It was a moment worth recording ...

fly ...

products used include:

K&Co Sea Glass designer paper and K&Co Citronella specialty paper; Core Impressions Jenni Bowlin Collection cardstock; Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake 12x12 cardstock; Li'l Davis Designs Pin-Striped Shipping Tags, Pink; Dymo labeller and black label; American Crafts Thickers Daiquiri, foam, pink; cream ribbon and lace; Making Memories staples; Stampin' Up! stamp sets - Playful Petals, Think Happy Thoughts, and For Everything; Stampin' Up! ink pads - Blushing Bride, Crumb Cake, and Baja Breeze

I used two types of journaling on this layout.  The first is the song lyrics to Gonna fly now from the movie Rocky.  These lyrics really say something about where I find myself today.  The other journaling is hidden and reads ...

We thought we were losing Max.  We wanted to stop time and steal one last, precious moment with him. We wanted to 'test' his spirit to see if it really was his time.  Where better to do that than his favourite place in the world, but the beach at Point Henry?  We learned two things that day ... Max wasn't ready to die, and I was ready to start living.

Although but a moment, in many respects that day felt like a milestone.  A turning point.  The wheels of my life slowly started to turn.  Like the wheels of my frame in the sand, there was resistance at first and I stumble now and then, but if I keep searching for the firm sand, keep my face turned towards the sun, and focus on my goal, I'm sure one day I will fly ...

Celebrating William and Kate

Was it really only a little over three weeks ago the royal nuptials took place?  It feels almost like a lifetime ago!!  I confess to getting caught up in the hype LOL!  I'm not a royalist by any means but I do love a good wedding.  I was laid up at the time so took advantage of the opportunity to curl up on the couch and watch the entire coverage.  It was magical.  LOL like I said, I love a good wedding!

As we all know I also love a good challenge and my friend Anthea (hi Anthea!) decided to throw out a random challenge in honour of William and Kate's special day and challenged us to create an all white wedding themed layout.  Fabulous!  I love a random challenge.  But all white?  I don't think so.  Not so long ago I created an all white layout and I have to say I was less than impressed.  I mean I love the photos and the story but the white on white?  It did not do it for me.  My other problem with the white on white is I have no idea where all my photo albums are just now (everything was whisked away to safety when 'the rains came' and flooded our home) and the only wedding photos I have on my Mac are scanned ones of mine and GB's wedding which I have probably scrapped a million times (yes I confess I've been known to scrap the odd photo more than once LOL).  Soooo I wanted to scrap a photo of GB's parents' wedding from 1946 ... a beautiful old, sepia toned photo for which white on white would just not do.  What to do?  What to do?  Tweak the challenge a little is what I did, and this is what I came up with ...

For ever love

this is a long list of products so please bear with me (or just skip it altogether LOL!) ...

kraft cardstock; patterned paper - Basic Grey Basics Ledger, My Mind's Eye Meadowlark Dawn cards, Collage Press Dollop Dreamy die-cut, Kaisercraft Timeless sheet music, Collage Press Sweet Shoppe Collage Cuts die-cut rings; Prima flowers, Calcutta Minis Seashell; guipure lace flowers; American Crafts White Rose ribbon; Melissa Frances Vintage Trim, ric rac; vintage lace; Websters Pages vintage netting; Maya Road Trinket Pins, Vintage Pearls; Scenic Route chipboard alphas, Plain Berkeley; Making Memories Gameboard alphas, White; Jillibean Soup Corrugated Kraft alphas; Carolees Creations AdornIt Tiny Black alphas; vintage shipping tags; Imaginisce Love Knots, Antique Silver; Queen & Co brads; Daisy D's Standard Cream Index Tabs; Stampin' Up! punches, Extra Large Oval and Heart to Heart; Making Memories metallic staples; Stampin' Up! Embosslits die, Beautiful Wings; Stampin' Up! stamp set, Friends 24-7; Kaiser acrylic paint, White and Antique White; StazOn Opaque Cotton White ink pad; Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake ink pad; Pure Black Zig Writer; buttons, embroidery cotton and recycled cotton string

phew ... are you still with me LOL?!

Okay so its not exactly white on white, more like an ivory on ivory on kraft.  But in honour of the challenge (LOL) I did pretty much paint everything white.  Well with a white-wash anyways.  Plus I inked a lot of things white.  Actually painting my patterned papers with a white-wash gave me a lovely soft, vintage finish which was just perfect for the photo.  It took away that crisp, new paper look.  Inking other items (chipboard and kraft cardstock) white again gave me a lovely soft, vintage finish.  I was really happy with the end result.  As was GB.  He was really moved to see his parents' wedding photo scrapped.  Gotta love that man.  He never fails to surprise me.  Sigh.

Moving away from the soppy love stuff LOL, have you noticed in the top right hand corner the stamped damask image?  Isn't it divine?  That's from the Stampin' Up! stamp set "Friends 24-7".  I actually stamped that damask image several times on the background cardstock but in the end after all the layering you can only see the top portion of one.  I'm so relieved we can see it though because I had set myself a new challenge to incorporate stamping on the next 10 layouts I create.  Why?  Because I have about five million stamps (or so it seems) which sit in their drawers rarely (if ever) used.  Space is of a premium in my studio and its now become a case of use it or lose it.  Because you could only see the portion of one stamped damask image though, I decided to also stamp the damask image on a few of the chipboard alphas I had already inked white.  I used the Crumb Cake Stampin' Up! ink pad to tone in with the plain chipboard and kraft colours and was really pleased with the result.  Plus now I could 'really' claim to having used stamping on this layout LOL!!

So stay tuned.  I plan to use stamping on my next nine layouts (one down!) and if I don't, then I'll be offloading them and you know how the saying goes ... one scrapper's trash is another scrapper's treasure!

A quick card to share

I've recently started decorating the envelopes to go with my cards.  Obviously something you can't do when posting your card, but how lovely to receive a card in a decorated envelope as opposed to a blank envelope.  Don't you think?  Michelle loved her 'birthday suite' (see HERE) so I decided to go the 'whole hog' again with this next card and envelope.

Petal Prints

products used: Stampin' Up! Naturals Ivory and So Saffron cardstock, So Saffron and Rose Red ink pads,  Sizzlits die Floral Fusion, and  Petal Prints and Whimsical Words stamp sets; EK Success border punch; Big Shot Thick Cuts die, Ovals; patterned paper - lilybeedesign Happily Lost 6x6 Tiny Tablet; and organza swirl ribbon and buttons

By the way, do you like the way the ink is blended in a batik type of fashion?  That's a technique I picked up from Miriam the other day.  Looks fabulous huh?  Very simple to do ... simply stamp your ink pad with the main colour ink and then using a dauber, gently add a little of the second ink to the stamp.  When stamped the inks blend together.  Best done with a lighter ink as your main colour.  I also used second and third generation stamping to achieve the faded stamped images.

Incidentally I used the ScrapChat May card sketch challenge for inspiration.  Yet another stunning sketch from Becky at PageMaps (see HERE) ...

Because the card was for a girlfriend I opted out of the love heart theme and rotated the sketch to suit my stamped images.  That's the beauty of sketches in my humble opinion ... they're completely open to interpretation and you can give 20 people the same sketch and end up with 20 completely different results.  Thanks Becky!

PS:  Thanks Miriam!

You're kidding? 365 days?!?!?!?!!!

Does anyone else remember the 365 self-portrait photo challenge from a few years or more ago?  You know, you take a self-portrait photo every day for 365 days?  In other words a year of taking photos of yourself?  A brilliant idea to get us out from behind the camera and actually in some photos in our albums!  A brilliant idea to get us comfortable in our own skins.  But seriously?  365 days?!  LOL in my large circle of scrapping friends I know of only one of us who actually completed the entire 365 days; and there were a lot of us who gave this challenge a go!

I resisted the challenge at first.  Who am I kidding?  At first?  More like for a loooooong time!!  You see the camera just doesn't lie.  It calls it as it sees it; and I don't like how it sees it LOL!!  Seriously I had avoided being in photos for years.  It was under a great deal of sufferance I attended a professional photo shoot with my family oh about 15+ years ago.  I only did so because my family, ordinarily spread far and wide around the globe, would all be in Melbourne for the first time in years and my parents desperately wanted a group family photo.  Quite possibly that was the last time I stood in front of a camera.  But we all know how much I love a challenge ...

So one day back in September 2007 (good grief was it really that long ago?!) I decided to embark on this 365 day challenge all my friends were raving about.  I did really well for a few months.  Diligently taking photos of myself every day, despite the somewhat mixed results!  After a few months my efforts started to peter out and my interest began to dwindle.  But that was a good thing.  Honestly!  Okay so I didn't last the distance but in the time I worked on the challenge I achieved all I had set out to achieve and then some.  I started to accept my physical image.  How I looked, bad angle or not, was how I looked.  And that was okay!  I started to appear in layouts in my albums.  This was great, I had more 'scrapping fodder'!  I even, over time, became comfortable with other people taking my photo!!  Even if the photo was unflattering (?!) that wasn't the point.  The point was these were photos of me with friends and doing things I wanted to remember and so what did it matter, really, how I looked?  Because that's just it ... the physical is only how I look, its not who I am.  I had accepted my physical self.  This was definitely an occasion worth recording on 12x12.

Accepting Self

products used include: Bazzill and Treasures cardstock; Queen & Co brads and photo anchors; Green Tara, Bella and Prima flowers; American Craft Thickers - Latte, foam, white, and Prancer, chipboard, white; Collections chipboard black & white alpha tiles; Fancy Pants clear acrylic stamps; StazOn pumpkin ink pad; orange Sharpie pen; navy Zig writer; Glossy Accents; and embroidery thread

Would you believe of all the layouts to submit for publishing I submit this one, and of all the layouts I have submitted, this is one of the ones to be picked up?!  LOL!  It was eventually published in the Aussie Reader Gallery of Creating Keepsakes Issue 14.6.  D'oh!!!

By the way, I truly believe the 365 day self-portrait challenge is just as relevant today as it was say, five years ago, and honestly can recommend it to anyone a little or a lot self-conscious in front of the camera.

Anyways for those of you interested in 'following' the 12 steps to Accepting Self here they are (and good luck!) ...

1. acknowledge you may not be the fairest of them all
2. acquire a camera (digital is best)
3. start the 365 days self-portrait challenge
4. days 1 & 2: get a feel for the camera
5. days 3 & 4: brush your hair (a little bit of effort won't hurt!)
6. day 5: stare the camera down ... no longer be intimidated
7. day 6: a shot showing potential (!!) ... allow hope in
8. day 7: accept there IS hope and relax
9. day 8: do your make up and hit the town (don't be afraid to look pretty)
10. day 9: accept you look like the morning after
11. days 10 & 11: google and learn the Serenity Prayer
12. accept you ARE the fairest of them all (on the inside)

How did you go?  What?  You haven't got your camera out yet?  LOL!  When you do, if you do, can I suggest not taking photos of yourself when you first get out of the shower and haven't so much as brushed your hair?  But then again ... that really does show true self acceptance now doesn't it???

PS:  Talking about true self-acceptance ... have I mentioned that I took a nude self-portrait photo?  I know ... shock horror!!!  You can't see 'anything' LOL as its 'just' from the shoulders up but the point is I wasn't wearing any clothes!!!  LOL! Psst ... don't tell anyone!!!

More pink piggies!

For those of you who loved my pink piggy card series I have more pink piggies to share!!!  I adore this Sizzix die so if I can find an excuse to use it yep, you can bet on it, out it'll come.  So I'm in this Circle Journal swap at ScrapChat and one of the girls (heh Brooke!) who has recently had a baby decided because she was having her first baby and has fond memories of family reading nursery rhymes to her when she was little, that she'd like a CJ full of our favourite nursery rhymes.  Well as we all know LOL I struggle when it comes to selecting a favourite anything so a favourite nursery rhyme?  Not a hope.  But if I 'did' This little piggy at least I might be able to incorporate some more pink piggies into my creations.  So I did and I have!

This little piggy

products used include: various patterned papers from My Little Shoebox Sky's the Limit, Away We Go, Flying High, Whoo Loves You, and Imagine a Forest collections; Sizzix die, Pig #2; Stampin' Up! Whisper White cardstock; American Crafts Thickers, Delight, Fabric, Black; pink Kindy Glitz; Glossy Accents; black Kaiser pearls; buttons and embroidery cotton

Sign-in

(same products used as above)

Talking about CJs, although not pink piggies, here is another CJ entry for a friend (heh Pud [aka Sue]!) who's CJ theme was the number five ... yes "5".  Talk about cryptic huh?!  Did this theme cause me a headache or two?  Yep you bet it did.  I came up with my idea for my pages loooooong before I actually did them and then when I did them, feeling somewhat gloomy, I felt they were a bit 'political/social commentary' if you know what I mean.  Really the pages are not 'gloomy', rather are a good healthy dose of creative self-expression.

I decided to scrap about five things from the year I was born (1968).  I figured I'd find lots of fun and quirky facts about that time and do something fun and quirky.  What I found instead was a whole lot of irony.  For example, in 1968 the first successful heart transplant was performed and the first Big Mac was sold in a McDonalds restaurant.  Just as well huh?  That they got the heart transplant procedure right (so to speak) I mean.  I probably could have done a mini album dedicated to the ironies of 1968 but was limited to choosing five items and a double 8x8.  To express how I felt about the events I chose, I used lots of symbolism ... I printed my background using Martin Luther King Jr's I have a dream speech on kraft cardstock (the colour represents the preference of a lot of African Americans at [and before] that time for lighter coloured skin) which I then 'white-washed' with white paint.  I even went to the extent of using black cotton in my sewing machine with white cotton in my bobbin.  Of course all relevant because Martin Luther King Jr was assassinated in 1968 when in Memphis to speak out against growing violence in the Civil Rights Movement; one of the five events I included on my pages.  So yep I reckon you could say this is creative self-expression at its best.  Well, my best!

Anyways here is my "5" CJ entry for Pud ...

Ironic

products used include: kraft cardstock; white acrylic paint; Basic Grey Color Me Silly patterned paper; Cuttlebug Arrows die; My Little Shoebox mini alphabet stickers; Fundamentals Petites alphabet stickers; American Crafts Thickers, Subway, Black, Foam; pure black Zig Writer; sewing machine and cotton

Sign-in

(same products used as above)

PS: I used a 'play' on the term "[year] was a very good year" people humorously use when referring to the year they were born.

Well that's enough of CJ pages for today.  Besides, I need to find another excuse to create more pink piggies ...

I could be indecisive

... but then I'm really not sure.  Ha ha.  Seriously though I'm having a really hard time with this Weekly Favourites Challenge Journal over at ScrapChat.  Every week a new challenge goes up and I think to myself "oh this will be a cinch" but then when it comes to the crunch and I actually need to choose a favourite 'something' well, its not so easy.  Trust me LOL, I'm not losing sleep over this ... much.

I've had a little catching up to do with my Journal and have in the last few days covered the past few weeks' topics ... favourite TV show, favourite piece of advice, and favourite sport.  Now do you see my problem??  How do I choose my favourite TV show?  Do I go down my antiques/collectibles passion road with the various reality TV style antiques shows; or the entertaining comedy/humour based programmes which make me laugh; the dramas in which my heart and soul are invested; or the social commentary documentaries I love and adore on SBS?  Just as well we don't have Foxtel!!  Worst still, a piece of advice?  Especially when there are so many wise, insightful men and women in the world who have said, and are saying, so many wonderfully sage things.  When it came to my favourite sport I wondered if I could just leave a page in my journal blank LOL!  Not that I don't love sport.  I did, once.  In fact I used to play and watch an awful lot of it, but times have changed.  After 15 years or so of playing netball and various other sports such as hockey, and 20 or so years of going to what was the VFL (now the AFL) week in, week out to see my beloved Magpies 'fight' it out on the field, my life now is fairly devoid of sport.  I no longer play it, I'm no longer a spectator and, I can scarce believe, I no longer pour over every weekend paper to read all the stats and news of all the games.  What to do, what to do?  LOL!!

In the end it came down to this ...

• If I could watch only one TV show a week what would it be?
• Re the favourite piece of advice, keep it simple, easy to remember, and essential!
• Sport?  Use the quintessential coin toss.  Heads netball, tails Aussie Rules.

Pretty easy in the end (LOL she says) ...

family is everything

(Week 15 - Favourite TV show)

products used include black cardstock, Tattered Angels Gold Glimmer Mist, Stampin' Up! Barely Banana cardstock, Cuttlebug Red Tag Sale alpha dies, and Stampin' Up! round tab punch

note: this page opens out to show photos of the family members and a lot of journaling in the form of a written synopsis of the 'story so far'

Smart Dude

(Week 16 - Favourite piece of advice)

products used include Stampin' Up! Whisper White and Riding Hood Red cardstock, Cuttlebug Harlequin die, Carolees Creations Adornit tiny alphas, recycled cotton thread, red dot Washi tape, black marker, and font - 2Peas Barefoot Professor

note: I know they're hopelessly (?) outdated but I'm loving making my own banners plus how cool is the tatty old recycled cotton thread I 'upcycled'?!

roolz

(Week 17 - Favourite sport)

products used include Bazzill cardstock, Stampin' Up! Whisper White cardstock, American Craft Thickers Daiquiri black foam, Stampin' Up! large oval punch, Cuttlebug dies - arrows and Concentric Stars

note: again, lots of journaling because I figure someone one day might be interested in knowing why I chose this as my favourite sport

So that's that.  Stay tuned for more weekly favourites ... one day ... maybe ... perhaps.