Hello friends

I'm sharing a special project today. This is a photo-heavy post. I saw a tutorial for this mini album (it's actually for a December Daily) on the I {Lowe} Scrap blog. It was SO simple and fun to make that I think this will be my go-to design for future mini albums.

The completed project was a gift for my cousin who recently had a baby. I included some of her maternity photo shoot pics in the beginning of the album and filled up the rest with photos from their first family shoot. All the photos were taken by my talented sister-in-law.

Me again! 2 Posts in 1 day? HA!

I absolutely adored this sketch by the super talented Nicole Nowosad.

My journaling reads: Our first visit to Oliva Farm - October 2008. Grandpa Stefan helps Karla through the long grass.



The layout features a lot of haphazard sewing...



And even some creative sewing.



Sewing is definitely not my thing but I actually enjoyed it (just this once).

Here is the sketch.

Hello friends

Playing around in my journal on Saturday... I had a background and then came up with this idea. Her hair didn't want to work out (it just kept getting bigger and bigger) but I am totally in love with the elegant black dress and the contrasting colourful balloons. What do you think? I think I am going to try this on a bigger canvas.

Love is patient, love is kind... but ANGER has the prettiest colours.

Have you ever tried, really tried, to put all your emotion into a journal page. Ever noticed how, when you're angry, your brush strokes are so much more elaborate and your colours so much more vivid than when you're trying to convey a “gentler” emotion? That was the reasoning behind the words on this page. I sat down to a half created journal page and decided to let all my negative emotion flow into the rest of the page. The result was something so colourful and full of texture that it made me wonder how something so beautiful could be born out of anger.

Trust me, the photo doesn't do it justice



This was the first page (not on page 1, though) of my new journal I purchased from Typo. It's A4, the cover and inside pages are plain kraft and I love it!

We attended our DD's first real prize giving 2 weeks ago. She received a diploma for Maths, Afrikaans (spoken language), Afrikaans (reading) and Life Skills (general knowledge). We are so proud of her. She works really hard and keeps telling me that the thing she enjoys most about school is the “work”.

I loved working with this sketch. It really helped me out of my white space phobia. Although my white space is taken up by the patterned background... maybe that's what helped me.

Here's my layout...



And the sketch...



Thanks for looking! And thanks to Sketchbook 365 for an awesome sketch.

I created this layout for my DD's school album (which is waaaay behind.) The photo was taken at their Grade R ballet concert last year.

I used some gesso on the background paper to lighten the text slightly. The ballerina chippies were coloured with chalk. Don't you love the Bo Bunny ballerina charms?

I have been playing around with mixed media and I really think my art journaling is improving. I am still struggling with the actual journaling part of it. How strange is that? I used to keep journals all the time when I was younger and now I don't have a clue what to write on these pages.

Anyway, I created this page last week and thought it was pretty cool.



I recently purchased a selection of white pens and absolutely love the effect of the white pen on the coloured background. I know, I know, any mixed media artist knows this. But I'm new at this, ok?



I have also been having lots of fun cutting stencils out of transparencies with my awesome Silhouette. This chevron pattern was achieved with some texture paste, black paint and a home made stencil.

This would be my first challenge in a loooong time. My reasons are many but I won't go in on that right now.

I loved this sketch because it is simple, leaving lots of room to play around. And I was looking for a sketch for 2 photos.



These 2 photos are very special to me. They were taken when Karla was only a few days old. In the bottom photo Daddy's paternal grandmother is holding her.
In the top photo she is with Mommy, Grandmother and Great-grandmother (RIP) - four generations in one photo.

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the Scrapbook Convention at Spier Wine Estate on 15-16 September with my friend, Anna. Since I've started scrapbooking I have been wanted to attend this event but this is the first year that I've made a real effort to be there.

6 Classes in total were taught by international teachers from well known companies such as Bo Bunny, Simple Stories and Pink Paislee. I managed to finish all 6 projects within a week after the convention but, you guessed it, only managed to photograph them this week. Ha ha!

One of my favourite layouts was the 2-page spread taught by Matthew Lanoy from Bo Bunny:







My other favourite was definitely the Simple Stories 2-page spread. I happened to have the perfect photos for this layout. All the flowers are hand-made with Simple Stories paper. I love their elements, all made of paper. They really make it so easy to create a layout using only their products.





The flaps open up to reveal more photos and journaling.





My DD's (featured in the photos on this layout) response to this was, “it's very beautiful... and I know you worked very hard on it... but I don't like the colours.”
She's obviously a pink and bright colours girl.

The next layout was by Couture Creations. This was not a favourite for me, mostly because peach and olive are 2 of my least favourite colours. Apart from the colours, I enjoyed creating the layout with all its embossing and extra glam pieces.









The Authentique layout was such a pleasure to create. It had some fun techniques like creating our own washi tape!







I didn't photograph the Pink Paislee album but it was definitely another favourite. The paper and embellishments were stunning and all the little flaps and hiding places made for a very interesting project. It is very similar to the other folder albums on their website so go check it out.

Amy Tan taught this gorgeous little mini album, made from scratch. I loved all the extras we received for this class. So much left over paper from the 6x6 pad and stickers, etc. I will be using this album for photos of our weekend. I had some of the teachers sign it and will be decorating it further when I insert the photos.