Giveaway Reminder..

Hi all, just reminding you that you still have a few more days to enter my February giveaway..

FEBRUARY GIVEAWAY

Now, if you missed out that time never fear! here is one more giveaway I am having for the month of February

(apologies for the picture..it is a cold, cloudy windy and rainy day here in Sydney today and it is supposed to be Summer!) 

This pack consists of packaged:

*Fancy Pants alphabet

*Tattered Angels Glimmer Glass

**Heidi Swapp alphabet mask

**Kaisercraft mini alphabet stickers

**Teresa Collins flowers x 2

*Teresa Collins Blingage x 5 packs

*Numbers mask

*Kaisecraft Bonjour journalling tags

** lace x 6

**assorted flowers. 

Details

1) Please become a follower of my blog if you aren't one already. 

2) This is open INTERNATIONALLY! Yep.! Everyone can enter NO MATTER where you live. 

3) This is open until midnight 29th February 2012 (Australian Eastern Standard Time). I will use random.org to choose 1 winner who will be announced here on my blog in early March.  All postage will be covered by ME!

4) All you need to do is write your FULL NAME & COUNTRY using the Inlinkz Button down the bottom of this post. If you do not have a blog, you can just write your name and where it asks for a URL address, please enter the address of this blog. 

That's it! Good luck to all of you and THANK YOU :o)

Day 1....

Today I wanted to share with you my last projects created with Graphic 45's An ABC Primer collection which I was kindly sent by Suzanne to work with as part of my DT kit from Handmade by Suzanne. 

This layout is called Day 1. This is the first day of kindergarten for Maria, which was on January 31st this year. At the back of this layout, I have written my feelings and thoughts of ..Day 1 without her. 

* I used An ABC Primer papers and chipboard (Tags 2) . 

* I cut the alphabet border of  An ABC Primer - Building Blocks patterned paper and pasted it over An ABC Primer - Calico Kids.

** I used my trusted  Martha Stewart Crafts - Punch Around The Page Set - Cherish to create the border strips behind the photo. 

* I misted and inked the edges of a large paper doily. 

 **I used the journalling tag and other chipboard from An ABC Primer Tags 2 . 

**I combined a number of different flowers including, Kaisercraft Paper Blooms (Honey) and Kaisercraft Mini Blooms (Honey)  , Prima Romantique Coventry  and some other Prima from my stash. The orange crochet flowers were in a Prima pack I was sent from Suzanne but sorry I cannot locate it in the shop. 

**some of the same flowers I mentioned above and the chipboard. 

**I am in love with this new paper punch I bought from Suzanne's recently. Its called Fiskars - Large Easy Squeeze Punch - Jenni Bowlin - Scalloped Banner

**Alphas are American Crafts Thickers - Eric

I also made a card with all the left overs. I was inspired by a card I saw by Karola Witczak somewhere. Inspiration is a wonderful thing isn't it? To see something and to just want to create  is an awesome feeling. 

** I used my Spellbinder's Shapeabilities Fleur De Lis Motifs to create the scallop circles and swirls. 

**I punched squares out of a square paper punch and positioned them on the front of the card using 3D dots. 

Before I leave you, let me show you the other 2 layouts I created with this collection which you can see more details in my previous posts..

I hope you have been inspired somehow to create something new today. Hope you are all having a great day. Don't forget to visit Handmade By Suzanne where most of the materials I used for all my creations with this collection are available HERE.  

Bye for now. 

Once Upon A...Sketch February 15th Challenge + handmade By Suzanne

Hi there everyone. 

I hope your week has started well. Its a typical crazy Monday here. I went back to the gym today after a 6 week break and it felt pretty good. Its raining like crazy which is so strange as we are still in our summer season here. But that's OK. I love the rain, I love the cold and the whole feel of winter.. A tad nutty huh? LOL. 

Well anyway. I have one more layout to share with you today using my DT pack from Handmade By Suzanne. I was sent the Graphic 45 An ABC Primer collection which is primarily a school themed collection. THANKS Suzanne and Marelize for being so thoughtful. You see they knew Maria started school a few weeks back so they KNEW I must have had a million "first day" photos to scrap!

But this time I actually decided to challenge my self, as I do all the time, and use this collection to create a layout for the current challenge I set at Once Upon A...Sketch. 

February 15th Challenge

Journalling criteria/theme: HOLIDAYS/VACATION 

Have you printed out all those photos from your last holiday/vacation or most favourite holiday/vacation? We would LOVE to see them and hear all about it. With the theme of holidays/vacation for this challenge, we would love to hear about: your favourite holiday/vacation of all time or a favourite place you would LOVE to take a holiday in . Or how about the last holiday/vacation you went to?  Maybe you have not travelled yet? Then tell us about your DREAM HOLIDAY /VACATION destination. 

Remember that you are allowed to also create a card or altered project based on this sketch and theme and instead of the journalling criteria you need to use a quote. 

You must combine our journalling criteria/theme with this sketch.

Here is what I created for this challenge..

Here we are in Melbourne in January. Here we visited Victoria Markets which can be seen in the background. They are right in the middle of the city which can also be seen behind the markets in the photo above. 

The last time we went on holidays, it was for our 10th wedding anniversary which was a very memorable day in Australian history. Memorable for all the wrong reasons. We went to Coffs Harbour, which is in New South Wales for 1 week, and it was 7th of February 2009. This day will always be remembered as the Black Saturday Bushfires day here in Australia where almost 200 people died in Victoria and many lost their homes or were injured in out of control bushfires. Such a sad sad sad day. But besides that , it was a very difficult holiday for us as Ioanna was only 3 months old and Maria was just 2 and , to put it nicely, it was a nightmare! Coupled with this natural disaster , it was best forgotten. 

So this time, I was so hesitant to go anywhere and to be honest we were not expecting to go anywhere as I was supposed to have my baby in a few days. But when plans changed, we saw a window of opportunity and went and we had SUCH a good time. The kids ask us every day "when are we going to Melbourne again?" . Its a fantastic city. I can't wait to go back. 

Here are some close ups...

**I have used here An ABC Primer papers and chipboard stickers (Tags 2)

** I was also sent the small Kaisercraft Mini Blooms (Honey) 

**I created the large circle with Webster's Pages Western Romance trim, by overlapping it.  

**I added some Kaisercraft Paper Blooms (Ruby)

 **I was also sent those lovely crochet flowers in a Prima marketing pack, but I cannot seem to locate them in the store. 

**I used 2 pieces of Imaginarium Designs chipboard - Clock Face 3" and  Sharing The Good Times title . I simply inked them with white ink a couple of times. Then I went over both of them with Versa Colour Cube (Sand beige). I then used a darker brown ink on the title and went over it with Ranger Glossy Accents 

** I also layered some ABC Primer chipboard (key and journalling spot) 

* I have seen the string around the photo a few times lately on some people's layouts, but I cannot remember where! I am sorry if it was your idea!

Well that is it. 

Please visit Once Upon A...Sketch HERE to see details on the awesome prizes we have up for grabs!

Please also hop on over to the Handmade By Suzanne gallery to play along with the monthly sketch challenge there. Here is the sketch this month, and just by entering you go into the draw to win AUS$30.00 (+ free shipping) in a random draw!

Take care everyone :) 

C'est Magnifique Kit Club **MARCH** Kit Paper and Add Ons Reveal

Oh I thoroughly LOVE being on the Design Team at C 'est Magnifique. If I was not on the team, this is the one kit club I would have joined because the kits are just SO my style. The Design Team is so lucky to receive the kits about a month in advance and this is awesome for me as I have a lot of time to play with them. 

This month's kit is just absolutely gorgeous and ..well..April's one is just as stunning! It should be here in the next week or so and I cannot wait. Everything is so well coordinated and it all just comes together so easily for me. 

Today, I wanted to show the paper and add ons for March. Each month, the upcoming papers and add ons are revealed from the 15th onward as well as an example from each Design Team member until the FULL reveal on the 1st of each month. 

SO let me start by showing you the INCREDIBLY gorgeous papers from Pion Designs.. *sigh* These papers were designed just for me I think! :)

"A Breath of Spring".   

*Remember this is only part of the main kit. The full reveal will be on the 1st of March

Flower Add-on featuring flowers from Manor House, Prima and Petaloo

and

Embellishment Add-on featuring items from Want2Scrap, Ranger, Melissa Frances, American Crafts and KaiserCraft

Please remember that if you want to receive our add-ons every month, contact Leslie by e-mail at leslie@cestmagnifiquekits.com to sign up

Here is my first layout with this gorgeous kit ..

Here is a layout I created using a photo of our recent holiday to Melbourne. While there we met my scrappy friend Jasmine Shea for the first time and she has 4 GORGEOUS children. I went for a monochromatic look here as I kind of wanted to give that "old feel" or a "vintage feel" to the layout to express my desire I guess that we will see this beautiful family again and hope to stay friends for a long time. 

I put my Martha Stewart and Fiskars paper punches to good use here as I was trying to create a detailed and layered vintage effect."

All materials are from the MAIN KIT, whose embellishments will be revealed on the 1st of March. 

From my stash:

**Martha Stewart Punch Around The Page - Swirling Lace

**Martha Stewart Deep Edger Punch - Vintage Doily

**Glimmermist - Coffee Shop

**Cheery Lynn Designs - French Pastry die (the one that looks like a doily) 

**2" and 2.5" circle and scalloped circle punch

**Ranger Liquid Pearls - Bisque

**gesso for the chipboard

**brown ink 

** October Afternoon Mini Market alphas

**Fiskars - Large Easy Squeeze Punch - Jenni Bowlin - Scalloped Banner

I have to tell you the C ést Magnifique kits are selling out VERY fast and unfortunately this one has already sold out. The same goes for the add ons, but if you still like some items there are some available HERE 

If you like the look of these kits and wish to secure one each month please have a look at how you can do that HERE.

There is also a sketch challenge happening at C 'est Magnifique for February with this sketch designed by me..

Sorry for the long post!

Hope you are well wherever you all are and whatever you are doing. Love always, Nadia. 

My first Imaginarium Designs DT work!

SO happy to share with you my very first Design Team work using Imaginarium Designs chipboard. Please do check out the Imaginarium Designs blog HERE, but I will share my work with you here on my blog too!

So here is what I created for your inspiration this month. 

Creating 12x12 layouts is second nature to me. It's all I EVER do!! So I decided this time to challenge myself to create something different and I thought creating some lovely tags as gifts was a clever idea and something I could probably handle! I also wanted to show you how versatile this chipboard is and boy was it SO easy and quick to create these. 

This first one is a gift for my eldest daughter who is 5 years old. I called it "Our Story" and explained to her that every family has a story and her story is that she was the first born child of this family. I used soft colours and a beautiful 3" Clock Face Imaginarium Designs Chipboard to give this tag a romantic and feminine touch. What little girl wouldn't love this hanging on her wardrobe knob or her door? I can tell you MINE did!

A close up...

Now, I will confess that I am no champion at doing all kind of fancy things with chipboard but I find that a little 2 tone ink and some glossy accents on top will create a stunning result which is what I have done here. 

SO all you need to do is go over the entire chipboard with gesso a couple of times allowing for it to dry each time. The you start with the light coloured ink and go over the chipboard a couple of times and the what I did is take the darker ink and dab it randomly over the edges. 

Once that is dry just over it with Glossy Accents and you are done! As I said...no fancy stuff here!!

Products List

** Imaginarium Designs Chipboard:  3" Clock Face

**Webster's Pages Winter's Fairy Tales : paper, fabric tag, fabric bloomers,

**Kaisercraft : paper blooms (fuchsia)

**Prima Marketing: large white flower

**Martha Stewart: Punch Around The Page Cherish paper punch

**gesso

**Glossy Accents

**light and dark pink ink (brand unknown)

**gauge

** string

**brown tag

**Glimmer Mist : Coffee Bean

My next tag was a gift for my second little girl who is 3 years old.  She loves bright colours so I knew this would appeal to her. And it did! I layered a couple of different Imaginarium Designs chipboard pieces as well as some other elements and again I applied the same technique to the chipboard as I mentioned above.

Products List

**Imaginarium Designs Chipboard: "Love You" title and Swirly Frame

**Webster's Pages Winter's Fairy Tales : fabric bloomers, flower

** Prima Marketing : Shabby Chic Metal Treasures - Bird Cages/Pillars, Romantique rose

**Light and Dark purple ink (brand unknown)

**white and purple ribbon (brand unknown)

**Gesso

**Glimmer Mist: Coffee Bean

**Glossy Accents

**Brown Tag

 

 

My last tag is for my super sweet friend also named Nadia, who lives just a couple of minutes away from me. She has helped more than she knows the last few months and I wanted to give her something handmade by me as a token of my appreciation.

 

I wanted to keep this tag romantic looking but still elegant to give to a 30 something mum so I changed the colour scheme a little. I used an Imaginarium Designs LARGE Butterfly placed on top of some flowers as well as an Imaginarium Designs Mirrored Frame. For the frame, I simply used Gesso and nothing else a few times to give it a rustic look, while for the butterfly after applying gesso a few times over it I inked again randomly with a brown ink.

 

Products List

*Imaginarium Designs Chipboard: Large Butterfly and Mirrored Frame

**Webster's Pages Winter's Fairy Tales : fabric bloomers

** Prima Marketing : Green flowers, Romantique rose, pearls

**Martha Stewart: Deep Edger Punch (Vintage Doily)

**brown ink (brand unknown)

**pearl ribbon  (brand unknown)

**October Afternoon: Mini Market alpha stickers

**Gesso

**Glimmer Mist: Coffee Bean

**Glossy Accents

**Brown Tag

**gauge

 

Lastly I want to share with you my last project which is one of my little 3 year old! 

As soon as I had the Imaginarium Designs title "Adore" in my hands and her close up picture it was a match made in heaven as I, simply put, cannot find another way to describe what I feel for her little sweet face.

For the title I used the same old trusted method I used in the tags above, which includes the inking and then covering in Glossy Accents.

 

This was one of those PERFECT pictures you catch of your children which are SO rare so I wanted to "frame" it in a way so what better way to do that than using this 6" Swirly Frame from Imaginarium Designs? I simply once again went over the frame a few times using gesso and once that dried I applied a sand coloured ink and then some clear Crackle Medium on top of that. I then inked the edges slightly.

 

 

Lastly, I find that these little Mirrored Frames add a special little detail to the layout and as well as that they create a nice contrast on top of the bright pink.

 

Products List:

**Imaginarium Designs Chipboard: Adore title, Mirrored Frame, 6" x 4" Swirly Frame

**Webster's Pages Winter's Fairy Tales : paper, fabric tag, fabric bloomers,

**Martha Stewart: Punch Around The Page Cherish , Swirling Lace and Layered Arches paper punches .

**ZVA Creative: pearl flourish

** Flowers: Prima Marketing, Manor House Creations, Petaloo

**leaves, brown ink, puffy paint

PLEASE NOTE: You can purchase all Imaginarium Designs chipboard HERE

For more inspiration using Imaginarium Designs chipboard and to share your Imaginarium Designs projects please visit the ning site HERE

I hope I have inspired you all to try something new today! 

Thank you for letting me share my creations with you all :) 

Once Upon A..Sketch + Get Creative February 15th .

Firstly...a very big THANK YOU for your encouraging and supportive words in my previous post. I will never get used to the words that you all type about me. I just won't! You are all just..such positive energies in my life and I thank you for your wise words. Thank you to the people that took the time to email me personally, thank you to those people that took the time out of their CRAZY BUSY lives to say something to make me feel better. I hope I replied to everyone, but some people I just couldn't find their email, but THANK YOU :) 

I want to stress once and for all that if it is one thing I am not it would be an attention seeker. I,  in fact, walked away feeling sick after publishing that last post because I know that every single person out there is dealing with something and NO BODY wants to hear negativity or bad thoughts. So I am very sorry if I saddened you with my last post. This blog , I think, has kind of interlinked both my creative and personal life as it seems that one cannot escape the other. I am sorry if my tone is not optimistic at times. But one thing I have been with all of you since starting this journey is HONEST and i cannot start changing now. I guess I will have my bad days too..just please do not ever think I am bearing my soul here for any reason other than to get it out of me and find some solace in all of you. 

I try to stay very positive but ... some days, just like last week..I will hear a song, or a phrase and it will set everything off. I AM a positive person..I really am. 

So let's go on to some scrappy stuff. I cannot say I have been entirely full of creativity this past couple of weeks. I have created some things for DT projects which I cannot reveal yet but here is one for the current Get Creative challenge. 

It's time for another Design Team swap between Once Upon A...Sketch and Get Creative. We have had so much fun doing this swap. I hope you all liked it too and got to meet some new people and discovered another challenge blog to play along with. 

Now remember that being part of the OUAS Design Team , I played along with this sketch from Elina from get Creative. 

Here is my take on this sketch..

A bit different from me huh? 

I was sent Graphic45's collection  An ABC Primer from Handmade By Suzanne to work with this month which is quite busy and school themed. Perfect for my school photos of the first day of kindy for Maria. 

Here are some close ups

 You can find the collection of papers and chipboard elements (tags 2)  HERE .

 Also used  Martha Stewart Crafts - Punch Around The Page Set - Vintage Flower which is also available at the shop. 

 There we some gorgeous pictures which called for fussy cutting on these papers. You can see the 2 I cut just above (the 2 girls) 

 The chipboard title is from Imaginarium Designs and you can find it HERE. I simply inked it with 2 types of ink and then went over it with Glossy Accents. LOVE that finish. 

 The various flowers you can see around the page were also from my DT pack. Some leaves and other flowers were from my stash and others you can find at the shop HERE. 

Just showing you some layering. 

SO if you head on over to Get Creative you will see what else the OUAS team did as Guest Designers over there and then why don't you head on over to Once Upon A...Sketch to see the current challenge and see all the details of prizes etc and what the Get Creative team did with my sketch. 

I have created a few more projects with this collection from Graphic 45 and I will show you in upcoming days. Remember it is available here 

Have a great week everyone :) 

On A Journey To The Past.

Hi everyone..

I was reading an article in a magazine just a few days ago that said that a few years back, a young , beautiful, popular and wealthy British woman was found dead in her apartment after 3 years. I was horrified. I wondered..would anyone miss me if I disappeared tomorrow? These thoughts were playing heavily on my mind the last week or so. Sometimes I wonder who I am..What am I doing here? What purpose do I serve? If I am a good mum, wife, daughter, teacher etc. If I am making a difference. For me, its a constant battle. A daily struggle because I do not let my self become complacent. A few days absent from blog land leads to many emails and questions from you . I guess..maybe some of you would notice if I was gone tomorrow. That is a selfishly wonderful feeling and it makes me feel better. THANK YOU !

My first born started school 2 weeks ago as you all know. But did I tell you that for the last 4 or so years her starting school was the last thing on my mind every night and the first thing every morning? Yeah..it was. That's what i am like. I think about everything years in advance. Its the only way I can cope. And I don't know if I have coped with her starting school. I know ..I KNOW just how good it is for her. I KNOW everything you will all  say. I know it! But against ALL that I know and have studied and learnt throughout my years as a teacher my heart is aching so badly right now. I know this is also connected with the loss of the baby last year and year before and the fact that in 2 weeks time I should have been having my 3rd girl. It is all gelled together and I can't let go. I know she will thrive at school. I know ..I know...I know.. But, she is gone and our days here at home will never be the same again and as I have said before I just do not deal well with finality and I guess you could say this past week I have been on a ...

Journey To The Past..

Have you seen the kids movie Anastasia? ONE OF MY ALL TIME FAVOURITES!! I fell in love with it when Maria was watching it when she was a toddler and we had not seen it on DVD for a year or so now. So the other day they decided to play it in their car DVD players and while I was driving it bought everything back and thoughts and feeling started flooding in my head and my eyes filled with uncontrollable tears. I haven't been the same since the day everything happened last year. I am not who I was. A part of me died along with that baby and it will never be resurrected. Its so painful. Its so so so so so so horrible too go through the whole process of labour and not have a baby to hold at the end. You are all women . You understand that feeling I am sure. I can't get out of my head the moment the baby came out..I just remember that feeling so clearly because the previous 2 times that feeling meant relief that my baby was out and OK. Not this time.

I will let you all know openly that we have started the too often heartbreaking path of conceiving again. Something that happened SO SO miraculously easy with my first 2 children has become the biggest fight of my life right now. I am not giving up but I am so lost. There are simply no guarantees..no real answers. You tell me..where will this road lead? What will happen? You can't tell me can you? And as much as I say "Que Sera , Sera" (Whatever Will Be, Will Be) it just aches to know what I almost had and what I lost. 

I wish this pain on no one. And I know this will sound SOOOOOOOOOOOO cliche' but please just hold your children really tight today and tell them how much you love them. Take a really good look at them. I mean...REALLY look at them. Look at their arms, and hands and think what an absolute miracle they are. I know I will do that with mine. 

I hope you have a chance to see the movie and if you have a few minutes maybe you can hear the song I like from the movie called "A Journey To The Past" and you will understand where I have been these last couple of weeks. 

Just wanted to share a piece of my mind with you..Thank you for letting me share. 

I hope you are doing better than me wherever you are. 

Until next time, its goodbye for now .