Pretty in Pink

Recently I decided I needed to do some scrapping that was 'just because'!  Something pretty...

So I decided to pull out some of my leftover configuration boxes and create a floating configuration box.

It's all very pretty in pink, black and white with lots of little bits and pieces, lace, pearls and flowers.

I've used the cover for a configuration box with the acrylic insert. The boxes are all left over from the original configuration box I did and the configuration tray that I had done a while ago. 

I've glued the boxes together at various depths and then glued them to the acrylic insert which has been taped to the back of the box and I've used pearl brads as feet.

Creating it this way, it seams as the boxes actually float in the middle of the frame.

I've used lots of little bits and pieces, pearls, muslin, lace and flowers, basically whatever I came across and felt like adding. Then when I finished it all got a light misting of gold glimmer mist to give it a lovely shimmer!

I have to thank the girls at Dusty Attic who sent me some mini bricks that I've been chasing for absolutely ages - it was the one thing I needed to finish it off!!!

Kennedy Ranges

For the past week or so I've been working my way through a mini album. Figured it was time to get back into it and get some of our holiday photos done.

This one was for the photos I took out at the Kennedy Ranges when we were up in Carnarvon a few years ago.

I wanted something interesting on the front and love the look of acetate with the actual cover page under it.

 I've used some Kaisercraft Hunt and Gather range for the pages as the colours worked really well and coloured muslin with the Tim Holtz Distress Stains to match the colours and provide texture. I didn't want to go overboard with embellishments as I didn't want it bulky and I wanted the photos to take centre place.

I'm actually proud of myself for actually making this album using everything from my stash and without purchasing anything for it!!!

Now if the weather would clear up I'll take some photos of a configuration box I completed a little while ago.
Or maybe I need to set up a photo booth to take photos of projects....?

That escalated...

...very quickly!!!!
It is now official.
After 23 and a half years I will now be out of a job in 5 weeks, August 9.
I'm glad to have some dates finally and am no longer in limbo. But now I have some decisions to make. I know what it is I want to do, but need to find out some information first but it'll be a major step in taking control of my life.
I do know that I want a break before starting a new job, even if only a couple of a weeks. Just long enough to get my breath and get some jobs done around the house I want to get done like painting and redecorating and getting some work done on the gardens.

I was reconsidering having a blog, but after some thoughts on it, I've decided it's a good place for me to record events and happenings, and to share my scrapping. So even though I might not update regularly I'm going to keep it going. And you never know... I might actually have more time to actually update!

And it's been a very big week all around!

Nicholas has been away at the high school Country Week. This was his 5th and last year attending.
We were very proud to hear that he was a finalist in the Active Achiever Award, though unfortunately he didn't win, just being a finalist was enough!
He was named ESHS Team Captain - woohoo!!!
And he played very very well all week despite having the flu and scored a lot of goals (I lost count!) with a lot of them off short corners and the boys came away with a well deserved win in B-Grade... He's going out on top.
It makes us very proud!

Kristofer has been doing Army Cadets this year, and this week he was promoted from a recruit to Junior Cadet! He's worked hard and it's paid off!

And all the boys have brought home good reports so that's made me very happy!

So 2013 is definately going to be the year of changes and big things!
Bring it on....

At a crossroads...

In the last month we were notified at work that we would be made redundant sometime in the next 12 months. It's not been a shock as such as we've been expecting it for the last 2 years. What's been so frustrating has been the lack of information in regards to a timeline. 12 months is a long time to put your life on hold knowing you're about to lose your job after 23 years.

But this has now made me stop and analyse my life and where it is I want to go and what I want to do.
One thing that has held me in the same job for so long is that fact I love my work... graphic arts allows me to be creative. I have to admit that the shit that goes along with a newspaper like deadlines I'm going to be glad to see gone.

Career-wise I have some ideas. I'd like to find a nice part time job and I'd like to do some graphic arts work on the side from home. It sounds almost ideal for me, so fingers crossed that is what happens.
I'm hoping that way it'll lead to a lot less stress and more time for me and the kids.

Personally I've been struggling. With all the stress and uncertainty of the redundancy I've stopped a taken a good long look at things.
I keep telling Nicholas not to spread himself too thin and try to do too much, and I've been doing exactly that thing. So what am I going to do about it...

Well the big one is to take back control of my life.
For the last 6-12 months I've just been stumbling from one crisis to the next one. Life just keeps getting in the way. As much as I've tried to put a routine into place it just doesn't work... I'm thinking of that spreading thin thing again... too much to do and no time so none of it gets done!

I've had no inspiration to scrap, I've done very little with the family history, let alone do the cross stitch Mum asked me to do for her. The only thing I've been doing is reading, but that's because it requires no effort, and lets me escape for a few hours.
I love all of these things and don't want to give them up, but I'm really going to have to work out how to balance it all... I keep thinking I will get time soon to do them and maybe I will.

Another one of my considerations has been this blog. Should I keep it going or should I stop blogging. Do you really still want to continue to see my work here? I feel like I let everyone down when I don't blog for months and I get dragged down with it.
Is it worth continuing here or maybe making a totally fresh start?
Something more simple?
Let me know your thoughts...

and thanks for listening to me venting ideas.... maybe this will be the encouragement I need to starting putting things into order and getting my life back!

It's another CC

CC weekend over at Chooks this weekend (though entries don't close until end of next weekend) so lots of challenges and fun to be had!!!

This month's theme is Rugby League... a sport I have absolutely no idea about!!!

But the challenges were fun.

Here are my samples...

There's also a card challenge but I never got a chance to get the sample done!

But I did manage to get the DT challenge done...
This month they gave us texture, blue or maroon (I went blue), 2 photos and an oval!

So now I'm off to cover some boxes for my little ink pads. I really needed them sorted into colours, so decided the little gift boxes were ideal!

I might need to take some updated pics of my studio now as I have redone the wet area as I added a few Distress stains, and I'm getting some distress markers next week... shhhhhh......

April CC

Told you I've been slack. I haven't even shared with you the layouts for the April Cybercrop for Chooks and this week we have May's Cybercrop.

But never late than never as they say...

These were all the samples for the challenges and this one below was for the DT challenge.

It's been a busy weekend with the hockey season starting, and I have Nicholas playing U17s and seniors, Kristofer U17s and Juniors and Jonathan in Juniors. Nicholas and Kristofer are both playing in the same U17s team which will be the first and last time as this is Nicholas' last year in U17s.
Makes for a busy day, but they all did well and all of them won their first games.

Also Gryfn has been quite sick this weekend and we've discovered it was his teeth, so he was into the vets this morning to get them cleaned up. So much for the Maine Coon biscuits which were meant to help prevent this from happening. He's very sore and sorry for himself and I'm still trying to get him to eat something.

Heritage box

I actually did some 'just because' scrapping recently, decorating this 'writing desk' from Kaisercraft.
I never had a set idea on what I wanted to use it for, but just felt like making it pretty.
I ended up using a range of Bo Bunny papers that I had bought just because they were pretty... I seem to do that a lot and I think I needed to use some of them up!!!

So from the top...

and the obligatory detail shots...

The flowers I've used are some Prima ones and they've all got a gold highlight to them, and I've coloured the lace and the paper doilies with a range of glimmer mists... my new favourites Burlap and Kraft. The colours do come up well!!!
The butterflies are all handcut from one of the Bo Bunny papers.
The whole top of the box has then been sprayed with a gold glimmermist so it has a very pretty sheen to it!

Now from the front...

Again the lace has all been coloured with the glimmermist again.
The textured corners have been created using a mix of texture paste, gauze, and then sprayed with the glimmermists again. Not quite what I was going for, but I'm happy with the effect at any rate!
I haven't done this to the back corners and am wondering if I need, but I think it will be too much. anyway the lace is there!

The inside of the box...

I found the jade paper I used for the sides was a bit on the bright side, so I added some more glimmermist. That toned it right down to match in with the outside.

And finally the inside of the lid...

More flowers, butterflies, doilies and glimmermist!
I think I used half a bottle of glimmermist on this project alone! I'm going to have to find the bigger bottles of Burlap and Kraft... !

I love the way this box came out... it's pretty enough that I can use it for anything from heritage, to maybe some old letters... or even storing some of my stash...