July's Crafting

Well I managed to get some craft done in July. Having challenges to do helps me focus & gives me some motivation to complete layouts as my mojo has been lacking of late. I have also joined two more craft forums....MysticalScrapbooks and ScrapTherapy and have done some of their classes and challenges.

I am still trying to do the WhiteWithOne challenge each month as that really makes me think. July's was Black with a home made embellishment & June's was Blue. I couldn't resist taking a photo of one of the banksia seed cones .... I have always loved their shape & texture. For June I had a photo of sunset over the caravan park at Lismore and used crackle medium for the frame.

This was a blind challenge I did with Scrap Therapy. I had never done one of these challenges before & found it very interesting. With no pagemap or photos to follow just instructions to place papers, photos and stamped images in certain places. It was really great to see how each person interpreted the instructions. The photo was taken in our back paddock a month or so ago about 8:30am. It is very unusual to still have mist hanging around at that time of day.

With Mystical Scrapbooks we made a lovely little album. It is basically one piece of cardstock which is cut and folded in a certain way. Then front & back covers added & the album decorated. I loved making the different tags too. The tags are for journalling and slip into pockets between some of the pages.



The LO & Card challenges for Blumars this month had Autumn tonings. Here is my card:-

And this the my layout. I found this wonderful paper which had beautiful leaves in browns printed on it and then I just added some punched and cut out leaves. Shadow loves "helping" when we rake. She watches the rake so intently that even when you put it aside for a while she will continue to guard it just in case it starts moving again.

The OTP challenge was to decorate a pot. This was very basic with just stenciled geckos that I cut out and glued into place on the pot and then varnished.

I managed to complete a couple of weekend workshops - one was Blumars where we had an Anniversary card to make and a LO to do titled "Having Fun".

I had these photos of my niece learning to play tennis waiting to be scrapped & this title just seemed to fit.

The OTP was another easy one - just to decorate a gift box. I actually prefer OTPs sometimes to doing layouts and cards.


The Quick Technique Challenge this month was a favourite of mine. We had to use the photo from the photography challenge a few months back. This is a photo of one of the ginger flowers on Dunk Island. By duplicating the photo and changing the one on top to black & white I was then able to erase the flower part leaving the coloured photo showing through from underneath.

I wasn't able to manage to do Scrap Therapy weekend challenge but was able to attempt Mystical Scrapbooks Mammoth one mid month. Of the 6 challenges I managed to complete 3 so was quite pleased with that effort.

This was following a page design. It is a photo of my sister & niece when they were on holidays in Melbourne earlier this year.


The layout above had a theme of time with three titles to choose from - I choose "How Time Flies" and a clock had to be included somewhere as well.

Then finally I did the challenge where we had to use different patterned papers - one of which was to be stripy. These photos are from when Graham & I did the trip to Cape York last year with of course Gunde' who travelled with us....LoL.

Not feeling the best

Haven't done any craft the past couple of weeks - the cold weather really doesn't agree with me & I've been stiff & sore all over plus just feeling so tired. Seem to have lost all motivation for doing anything or going anywhere.

Am finding though that my arms have been particularly irritated & am having to be careful as to how much I do on the computer. I have managed some graphics though - have done a couple of PI challenges & tutorials which are fun.

With this twisted tutorial we were given instructions to make the little sheep but then had to put our own slant on things. I think they are just so cute.

This challenge was to use plug-in filters to make a frame for around our photos. I love the misty one which was taken in our back paddock only a couple of weeks ago.
Another tutorial was learning to make frayed edges. I can see this coming in very useful for digital scrapping or for making tags.
This is a lacy flower which I did just for fun from another tutorial. This one was particularly fun to experiment with having so many patterns & colours to choose from.
Had more heavy rain early this week - over 2 inches again. We needed the rain again but I find the cold, wet days very depressing. However the last couple of days have been chilly with the south westerlies although the days themselves are beautiful. Clear blue skies & sunshine. Just need to find a spot in the sun out of the wind.

Today I am hoping to have a go at a layout and a pot which I need to finish decorating - will just see how things go.