Get Creative with tags ...

Get Creative have introduced a tag challenge into their monthly mix.  This first challenge is free choice.

I have inked a manila tag in blue and teal, and then stamped and embossed it with hearts, flowers and the Happy Birthday saying.

Orange Paperie for April ...

I loved the inspiration over on Orange Paperie & Co this month with the added criteria of stamping and punching.

 

It's a very pretty piece and when I first saw it I immediately thought of the gorgeous lines from Crate Paper - any of the Random, On Trend or Maggie Holmes series certainly bear striking resemble to the colours and patterns and indeed the themes shown in this piece.

 

I've used the absolute last pieces left from some of the Random range I have used previously for my page.  I had only a couple of journaling cards, a few stickers and chipboard embellishments and a minute amount of paper scraps left .  I used a  punch to cut out circles which I topped with rhinestones and the crown on one of the small tags has been stamped.

 

 

A little Bee Gee joke ...

In the early 80's I was staying with a girlfriend at The National University in Canberra for the weekend and she took me to see The Hee Bee Bee Gees who were performing on campus.  I have never laughed so much.  I was in total hysterics as I watched this parody group tear the Bee Gees apart with Meaningless Songs (In Very High Voices) and Ah and then moved on to spoof Status Quo, David Bowie and Michael Jackson.

I will never forget them standing on stage in their tight white pants, scarves around their necks and hairdryers in hand.  What a night!

When I saw the current song inspiration on Scrap It With a Song was The Bee Gee hit "I started a joke" I could not help but think about that "other" Bee Gee group I had seen so long ago and how incredibly funny they had been.  The joke certainly had been on them!!

Smaller can be better ...

I like scrapping in the 8.5x11 size - in fact I often wish I had started off in this size rather than the more traditional 12x12 format - I think it would have saved me considerable money over the years and also a great deal of time.  These days I do the odd page and have learnt to just happily mix them in with my existing 12x12 albums.

Show us your stuff had a 8.5x11 challenge this month so a great opportunity for me to create another smaller format page.  I've had a handmade embellishment (well it is probably more of a title but that would be splitting hairs!) in my stash for ages - it came in a handmade embellishment swap I participated in a while ago but I haven't found the photos that were quite right for it.  However a trip to the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney suddenly came to mind and immediately this little embellishment made a whole heap of sense.

Get Creative card ...

The card challenge over on Get Creative this month is a little bit different  - to make an unusual shaped card (no squares or rectangles allowed!). 

I decided to make a cute little handbag card for the niece of a friend of mine.

 

After I had taken the picture of this is realised I should also have taken a photo of the inside of the card.  This card is so easy to make up but really cute for any little girl.

 

 

 

Child's Play - challenge 2 ...

The second inspiration on Child's Play Challenges this month is the classic movie Mary Poppins.

 

This took a little thinking time ... hmmm what to do for Mary Poppins???  I haven't seen a stage production of this and it is years since I actually watched the movie.  The obvious choice was umbrella's or dancing/singing (I seem to recall LOTs of that in the movie) and then I remembered the scene of Julie Andrews and company on the carousel horses and a layout was born!

 

 

Hope you like my Mary Poppins inspiration interpretation.

 

 

 

 

My blog entry would not be complete without letting you hear this beautiful carousel in action - they certainly don't make carnival rides like this one anymore.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh Love me, Love me .....

Week 2 with Scrap It With a Song and we have certainly taken a trip down memory lane with a song I haven't heard for years and years - Love Fool by The Cardigans (gosh who thought naming yourself after an article of obscure clothing was a good idea!!).


As songs go this one is pretty cheesy (and does nothing for the strong woman image) 
but full of scope for a scrapbooking layout :)

 

and my take on this ...

 

 

My daughter has been going out with her boyfriend now for three years and to say they are a little besotted with each other is the understatement of the year!   Ah young love !!

 

A little Child's Play in April ...

I really like the cute kid related challenges on Child's Play.  Love to encourage you to go have a look and enter a layout (or two) over this month.

First challenge is all about Matchbox cars ....

 

 

My son loved Matchbox cars - he had so much fun with these over the years.  I can remember taking a little plastic lunchbox filled with these literally everywhere we went at one point - he would happily sit for ages just playing with them on the floor wherever we ended up.  It was cheap, no frills success!!

 

For my layout I decided to take a slightly different approach with a bit of tongue-in-cheek about how kids will use things in a manner other than for which they are intended :) 

 

Scrap It With a Song is getting a little loopy this month ...

Woo Hoo - I made Top 3 over on Scrap It With a Song last month - now that was a bit of a thrill :)

This month I have a feeling things are going to get a little loopy with some fun April Fools inspiration coming our way.


First up is the perennial favourite,  Frankie Lymon and the teenagers, with Why do fools fall in love? 

I thought since being silly seems the appropriate course of action this month I would take the opportunity to scrap a few silly photos I have sitting in my ever diminishing pile of "yet to scrap" photographs.  This one is of my daughter when she was young getting herself into a spot of bother .... well getting herself into the bother was no effort at all but getting herself out of it was another story altogether !!  I could not resist a simple Why? as the title.

From Screen 2 Scrap for April ...

FREAKY FRIDAY1pt = Green and Purple cardstock
2pts = The word 'FREAKY' in your title
3pts = A cut out figure/s on your page

Entries close on the blog midnight 30th April.

 

Hope to see your take on this challenge - here is mine (freaky eh??).

 

 

 

 

 

Some Archi-scraps inspiration ...

We are going all spooky for April ..

The extra criteria is chipboard

 

 Think gothic towers,haunted castles,halloween,spooky things like bats, spiders,mummies,the Addams Family or the Munsters.

BE INSPIRED BY THE PHOTO.

It is important that you keep in tune with the picture, random entries that bear little resemblance to the topic won't be judged.


Here is my take ...

 

This inspiration building certainly had a sinister air about it. I ran with that theme and thought, what can be more foreboding than black ravens at the Tower of London where so many cruel and heartless acts were carried out in centuries past in the name of the English throne?  Legend has it that should the ravens ever leave the tower then the kingdom will fall.   I used a brick template to ink the background of my page in several colours based on the foundation piece of notebook paper I used, then inked over the top with a number stencil.  Several pieces from an old transparency sheet fitted my theme perfectly.  I added in some inked chipboard and a few other finishing touches and voila!

Upload your layout in the linkitz area on the Archi-scraps blog by 30th April to win.

Our ARTastic inspiration for April ...

comes to you from ...

Australian Indigenous Artist, Trevor Nickolls with his piece Warmun Mandala.

Criteria - Use these colours on your entry

A little about Trevor Nickolls

Born 1949, Adelaide, South Australia, Trevor Nickolls is a significant “urban” Aboriginal artist who has been working as an artist since the 1970’s. He has inspired and influenced many artists. He is represented in collections of all of the major art museums and galleries in Australia as well as in collections in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the United States of America and Canada.

 

Trevor Nickolls' work is innovative and unique. His work often shows a complex iconography with many layers of meaning. A major theme in his art is “Dreamtime to Machinetime” a theme which articulates the cultural transition which many Aboriginal people have undertaken in their journey from their traditional cultural heritage of living in the Dreamtime, into the world of mechanisation and technology. Trevor Nickoll’s work often presents various interactions between these two different worlds or shows the dilemma of living within both. Subject matter includes the spirituality of the Aboriginal people and their interrelationship to land, sea, sky and cosmos; where people and elements are seen as integrated rather than separate.

 

Trevor has had interactions with other artists, including Aboriginal artists like Dinny Nolan and Warmun artist Rover Thomas with whom he shared the spotlight as the two artists representing Australia at the 1990 Venice Biennale.

 

Click here for more information about Trevor Nickolls.

 

 

We'd love to see you playing along with us this month.  Please upload your entry to our ARTastic blog by the end of the month.