She Scraps

Yep I've been playing with paper again, a lot lately right!? Well This time I cut some butterflies with my silhouette and then added acrylics, water colours and Heidi Shine.

 Once I'd done that I added them to this Dear Lizzy paper then I just had to add the photo of Lizzy! how could I not! Did I tell you that I met her during her spotlight tour! It was the best!!By the way, I seriously wish I could wear those glasses! How cute are they!!

 I just couldn't stop the colour, oh man I love these colours, so much fun!!

There is also some freckled fawn in there and some washi's.

Loving Dear Lizzy's Happy Place collection! And meeting her, the BEST!

Make it Christmas: #1 Star Ornaments- Minc that Star!

I've been playing with felt and my Heidi Swapp Minc machine to create foiled Christmas stars and I thought I'd show you how I did it so you can do it too!

You will need some double sided fusible webbing for Fabric, a Minc machine and foil, scissors or dies to cut your shapes and the felt pieces that you want to add foil to.

 First cut the adhesive to match one of the stars. In whatever shape you would like.

  Peel the backing off of one side of the adhesive and place on the front of the felt piece that you would like to foil. Put this inside a piece of folded parchment/ baking paper (or scrap paper) to prevent adhesive getting on the Minc folder. Put this inside of the Minc folder and then run through the Minc. I put mine on the highest setting of 5 which worked well.

 The adhesive should have stuck to the felt.

 Now peel the paper off of the top of the felt, place the foil on top then back inside the protective parchment paper then inside the Minc folder then run through the Minc again. Now you can pull back the foil to reveal a foiled felt star.

 You can stitch this into your star ornament any way you would like.

Its super easy and works really well!
I'm really loving the 'joy' ornament. so much fun to make and this wont be the last of gold foiling Christmas ornaments!

She Scraps

I've been scrapping these pictures from Christmas eve. I still really need to finish my December Daily Album! EEEEK! Hopefully with the photos that I just got printed that can happen fairly soon!

Anyway this happens to be a close to my heart kit called Charlotte, I think it worked well with these pictures. I loved  being able to restrict myself to one kit sometimes, it makes decisions much easier.

I'm also loving that these layouts will fit into my 2015 album and help to complete that album. I have too many unfinished albums !

I've been super inspired lately to scrap so lets hope the inspiration stays around!

Project Lifeing

I recently started using the project life app that I've had sitting on my phone for months. After meeting Becky I was super inspired to just make it simple again. I so often over complicate scrapbooking but really my goal is just to keep memories and all that really takes is pictures and words.

 I'd like to think that I could create albums that have both physical project life pages, digital project life pages and traditional scrapbook pages. And to just go with what works for me at the time, not get hung up on it but keep the focus on documenting memories and less on feeling like I should do things one way or another.

 The truth is that I LOVE it all. I love being able play with different ways of doing things. sometimes I love being more creative and sometimes I just wanna get it done. Both ways are great! 

These last two I've put into a book of our holiday last year in Queensland,My mother and hubby both took photos and then shared them with me and I was able to use photos from the three of us! I loved that I was able to get so many photos into one book using the app. 

Make It Christmas: #1 Star Ornaments

First things first, I have to say a quick word about your theme for the year, I know its too early to be thinking of such things but really having a theme is the best way to achieve a cohesive look at Christmas, it would be confusing to be put modern  wrapped pressies under a traditional tree!  For me this is the most important thing, it takes a lot of stress out if you decide this super early because you can then plan for it.
You can see my post about Christmas themes here. Or My post about Christmas planning here

Taking off from last year I thought it would be fun to make some felt ornaments first up. What I love most about them is that they can be a pretty gift in themselves, there are people who I like to give more than a card to but just a little something extra and this is where a cute felt ornament works well. I also LOVE attaching them to gifts, using them to decorate the packaging or wrapping! Usually most of my felt ornaments get given as gifts, I may keep one or two .

What you will need:

Scissors and thread

Felt in a variety of colours

Ribbon or thread for the loop at the top

Stuffing

Bells are optional

Pattern (at the bottom of the post)

So here's how to make them:
 Cut star shapes from felt using the pattern
Cut two the same size to be the front and back of your star and then cut extra for layering in different sizes.

Layer as many star shapes as you like together, sew them on to the front piece using whatever different stitches you like, or you could simply glue the layer pieces to the front of the star.
 At this pint you could also sew on a bell.
Stitch the front to the back piece leaving a hole to stuff. Once stuffed continue stitching the ornament closed. You can then add a piece of ribbon or string to hang the ornament.



I've made four stars and some of them I have popped through the minc and added some gold foil. I simply used some double sided fabric adhesive that I put through the minc on top of the felt then again with the foil on top of that. It has a cool effect and works really well.

Ok, so this is no fancy smancy blog, I have hand drawn a pattern for you. Its not perfect, it totally has my own hand writing on it and also this is my first ever PDF so don't kill me ok?? ;)
Star Ornament Here

She Scraps

Keeping memories of the things I love is really important to me. I love looking through my albums and seeing things that I have loved over the years.

These shoes are kind of my favorite at the moment, I just cant go past a bit of gold glitter. So of course I had to add gold to the page!

There is polka dot vellum and gold letters, lots of freckled fawn embellishments and even some lace.

I've gold embossed this love love love wood veneer that I had stashed away for something I really love and I think it worked well here.

I love sparkly shoe days!

Make It Christmas: The Plan

Last year I created a challenge for myself to create 180 ornaments and honestly I thought I would completely fail, I thought that I wouldn't be able to keep up with it and I thought that I would totally flop! but some how I managed to make it the year and create 180 ornaments to go on the tree, funnily enough I ended up having a real tree for the first time and I ended up using only about half of what I made because I wanted the tree to be the star! Never fear they will be treasured for years to come. 

A Christmas Pinata that I made for some little people in my life

This year I wanted to create a new challenge for myself but after creating 180 ornaments I was ready for a break from thinking about Christmas. I have been spending a lot of time seriously thinking about Christmas for the last two years. Obviously I am quite passionate about it! I've analysed why I love it so much and why I love to make things for Christmas, why I love to make it such a special time. And it boils down to this: the feeling of love in my home and in my heart is so magical and so special that It is worth all that I do to create it. I want the people around me to feel that love that is shared and have special memories from it.

Christmas Eve Dinner table all set
Creating that magical feeling brings  me so so much joy!

The truth is that I can not create that feeling overnight, it is almost impossible to create it if you leave it till the month of December. When I organize and create everything prior to the season I find that December becomes so much more enjoyable, it takes that horrible sting out of Christmas that everyone else is complaining about and opens up a beautiful stretch of days where my family and I can enjoy each other, where my children's excitement is growing, intentional love fills the space between my husband and I and we have an inviting place to spend time with family and friends.

Our Hall table with a reindeer I drew

 My favorite thing to give is something handmade, making something from an idea to something tangible feels amazing! And I'm not saying that I make all of my gifts-most of them are bought but adding some extra love with some pretty gift wrapping or a card or tag, its all those little things that really add up for me.

My kids Advent Calendar

And so I decided that I would like to go on an adventure this year and really bring all the things I've been thinking about together. So I am Challenging myself to create one Christmas thing a week until Christmas and share it right here every week.There are  about 34 weeks left, I'm hoping to do 38 things.I have lots of ideas and hopefully some inspiration. 

I  really hope you'll come with me on my adventure and I hope that I can make it!!