Out of control

I get the feeling that this is as normal as it gets in this house. I keep waiting for things to slow down and have a chance to relax and I keep thinking that after this I will...
For some reason every time I get past one thing, there's always something else...
At the moment I'm organising the kids for back to school next week (I'm sorry but where did the school holidays go?), Nicholas is off to Victoria for fire brigade championships (and that's been interesting to organise as the only way he was going was if he was flying) and that same week I'm off to Perth.
I keep thinking that once that's all done, we'll be right and there's nothing more and I'll be able to relax for while, but I'm certain something will raise it's head.
I mean Nicholas see's the orthodontist Monday regarding his braces, and I'm sure they'll be off soon, and then there's Easter coming up fast, and the boys want their rooms redecorated...

But amongst all that has been happening I've kept up with the Photo a Day. I have just 1 more to take tomorrow and I can say I've completed a full month!

I think I will be continuing, maybe not a photo a day, but along similar lines. I might make it a treasure hunt once a week or if we have something special happening I might use the photo prompts to take photos of a different perspective.
The options are endless I think!

Life is like a Piano

Another mixed media page.
After I saw this quote it inspired me to create this page. This is a good way of recording quotes I like I think...

I drew the piano keys down the edge of the paper (yes I need work on my drawing!) and the words life and create music using a permanent marker.
I then used a template to draw some white flowers in the background with a white chromograph pencil (it's meant to be impervious...) and then using acrylic paints watered down, painted the blue and green int he background.
I then stamped the greenery downt he bottom of the page using staz-on ink, and added in the rest of the quote, music notes and finally some white rubons.
I do like the effect of the background!

January Cybercrop

There's a cybercrop on this week over at Chook Scraps if you're looking for a kickstart into creating.
There's 4 challenges - 3 layouts and 1 card. The themes for this year is going to be sport, so to kickstart the year we have tennis (only because there's so much tennis being played right now!)

So I had the fun of creating samples...

Challenge 1

Challenge 2

Challenge 3

and the Card

If you want to know what the criteria was, you'll have to head over the Chooks and participate!

Mixed Media

I've started to play a little with mixed media, and of course I needed a journal cover so I made one from scratch!

I cut a piece of bookboard to the size I wanted, then added a title in chipboard letters.
Once I had that in place, I added random chipboard letters over the rest of the bookboard. Once I was happy with them I glued them into place, and then painted a white base over it.
Naughty me then tore some pages out of a dictionary, tore them and glued them into the 2 corners moulding them over the letters.

Now this is where the fun came in. I glued down flowers and embellishments, then sprayed it all with Ranger Colourwashes. It ended up that I wasn't happy with it, so pulled off all the embellishments and then ran the cover under the tap. I figured it was only chipboard so if I ruined it I could start again.
But wonder of wonders, it did what I wanted and lightened the intensity of the colours, without ruining the look.
Then I played again with some more spray, added the embellishments, painted, swiped and generally had some fun and this is the end result...

I love the blend of colours...

Then I covered the inside and the back cover with pieces of dictionary pages, then coloured them with the colourwash, stamped an image with stazon ink on the back.

and on the inside front cover I painted a stencil of a tree and added some text.

Overall I love the way it came out... very different to anything I've done before!

New Year, New Look, New Beginnings

Well with the start of a new year there's been a few new projects on my desktop and I've also decided to give my blog a makeover starting off with a new banner. Like it??? I think it's come up very well!

I also had some big news in that Lorraine at Chook Scraps Scrapbooking has asked me to be a member of her Design Team!
Having been a member of her site for years and being a WA store, I couldn't say no. So far it's been a lot of fun and a very relaxing start which has helped to jumpstart my creativity!

2013 has also seen me start a Photo-a-Day project. I really didn't take many photos last year, so looking forward to taking a lot more. I've only taken them on my phone, but it's enough for a record.
So far, I'm going to stick with doing January, and then see what happens from there. I might change things so that I'm taking photos once a week. We'll see what happens.

But I thought I would share the first  12 days of photos....

 It's been an interesting journey so far. I'm also going to work on a Year-in-Review album which is actually already made up, so I just have to fill in each month when it's finished.
Sounds easy so hopefully it will be.

This year I'm also going to start playing with a bit of mixed media. This is more to learn the effects of different mediums like inks, mists, stains and paints. I really don't know how to use them to their full potential so this year I plan on rectifying this and learning some new techniques along the way.

I've made the cover for the journal and will share later....

And along with that, I might start sharing more projects and also some how-to's... I will see how I go so no promises.