Let The Reveal Begin!!!

WOW, this month has come around so fast for me, with organising Birthday celebrations, Completing Design Team obligations and organising a scrapbooking weekend I think I may need the weekend just to recover.  lol I know funny hey, who goes away on a scrapbooking weekend to sleep generally you go there to come back sleep deprived. Well the cars are packed so now just to update my blog and let my friends know that I will faithfully catch up on all your blogs when I get back.

So onto the Cést Magnifique June Kit Reveal

This page uses a picture of my Dad when he was a kid.  I used the secrets paper, because anyone who has had a dog growing up as a kid knows how many secrets you tell your loving companion. I also wanted to show some versatility with this kit so that you could also see this range used for a masculine page by pulling out the browns and greens.  The Dusty Attic chippies went beautifully with this masculine theme and  I absolutely loved the way it turned out.

I used the Tim Holtz Cog die on the canvas buttons for the flowers on this page. The Strips cut of from the bottom of the paper read secrets so I decided to incorporate it onto the spools turning them into little banners.

Papers

Les Papiers de Pandore: Au Jardin

Les Papiers de Pandore: Secrets

Les Papiers de Pandore: Etiquettes

I have also used the cutoff paper strips for the spools.

Embellishments

Prima: Wood Tickets: Sun Kiss

Maya Road: Canvas Buttons

Dusty Attic: Grass Cluster

Prima: Blossom Bud Ink Edger

Maya Road: Skinny Mini Spools

My Stash

Matha Stewarts - Doily Lace Punch

Twine

Jenni Bowlin - Malted Milk Dabber

Nestabilities - Grand Die Labels Four

Crafters Workshop - Chicken Wire Template

Making Memories - Velvet Brads

Tim Holtz Alterations - Gadget Gears Die

WOW - Super Fine Glitter

Thanks for looking, sorry for any errors I'm trying to get this uploaded before I go and I will have to get the rest up when I come back.

Thanks for looking and for you any lovely comments that you may leave whilst I am away.

Take Care

Check It Out!!! Sketch 17

Hello everyone, welcome to sketch #17 of our Anniversary Sketch a thon!  

Please, PLEASE check out our Sketch a thon forum for full instructions and details on how to participate.   Once you have completed the layout for this sketch, please go to the Gallery and post your layout then pop back into the event and post your comment along with your layout link.  

Make sure you tag it CC2012sketch17

Here is my sketch

I have created this myself and tried to do something a little different, this is my 2nd Sketch I have ever created so I hope you will give it ago.

AND MY TAKE

I don't often use a picture more than once unless its needed for another album, this is a picture of  my Grandma when she was a little girl, someone who passed when I was a few months old, so I never had the opportunity to learn anything about her from her herself.  Yes people can tell you stuff  but this is in no way the same coming from the horses mouth.  While most of you might only scrap for the sole purpose to fulfil a creative need don't miss the opportunity of journalling as well or you might just regret it.  If your great grandchildren were to open you albums and see all these pretty pages they might discover you enjoyed scrapping but would the discover anything else.  Yes we all LOVE, ADORE, CHERISH but page after page of these words will it still hold the same meaning.  Anyway just my thoughts, I'm not asking for anyone to agree or disagree just wanted to give some food for thought when you next create.

  I have used the Fairy Belle Collection from Prima.  The hexagons have been machine stitched and the large one was hand stitched, not sure why because I have covered it and you can no longer see it. I have a little tag hidden behind the photo which reads - I wish you were able to stay with us longer so that I may have gotten to know you.  I see this adorable little girl but no nothing more than that. 

The transparency is by Hambly and I have randomly cut and placed around the layout.

I have also used one of the beautiful Dusty Attic chipboard's that I have applied gesso to, stamped and inked before applying some glitter.

Products Used:  Prima Papers & Blooms, Dusty Attic Chipboard, La Blanche Stamps, Webster's  Paper Messages to You, Gesso, Crafters Works Shop Template Cherry Blossom, WOW Glitter, Hambly Transparency, TA Glimmer Mist, K & Company Grand Adhesive Sticker.

Again thank you to those who have stopped by and left comments on my previous post, I have been super busy so I am hoping to get some blog hopping done tomorrow and check out all the lovely work that you have all been posting creating.

Bye for now

Reveal Time

I get so excited when I hear that our kit has shipped, then you play the waiting game, checking the mail box daily feeling disappointed that it hasn't arrived, yer right like its going to be there the next day...lol  then the joy of when it arrives and you finally get to play with it  all.

After the fun part of creating with it, I love when we get to reveal it as I'm sure you as the viewers do as well, it always amazes me how each Designer Team member creates something so completely different and beautiful for you to look at.

Well  today I can finally reveal my first page, and I can honestly say this isn't the usual style of paper that I would purchase, so never be put off joining a kit club if this is what worry's you.  For someone like me that likes to do a lot of fussy cutting I was worried that the paper was going to stump me.  However I really loved working it, I had enough images to fussy cut and it was great opportunity to pull out my punches and dies and get really creative.  I had only the basic kit to work with no add ons, and I am more than pleased where my creative took me and that I have inspired you to get creative.

JUNE KIT

This is a picture of my mum and me, rh side, and her sister with her little girl, we are about 4 months apart.  I  thought the colours in the picture were perfect for these colours in the papers.  I used random scraps to create the banner type border and stitched the lace down with my sewing machine.

I created the pinwheel using my QK die and then cut it down a bit smaller with my decorative scissors.  Flower were created with my Nestabilities die and EK Success punches.  I used BB Java cardstock as the base making the colours really pop off the page.

Products Used

Papers:

Les Papiers de Pandore: Etiquettes

Les Papiers de Pandore: Au Jardin

Les Papiers de Pandore: Secrets

Les Papiers de Pandore: Ouvrages en cours

Les Papiers de Pandore: Pique-nique

Les Papiers de Pandore: Atelier confitures

Embellishments:

Bo Bunny: Country Garden Combo Stickers

May Arts: Checked Ribbon

Prima: Blossom Bud Ink Edger

Wrights: Two Tiered Lace

My Stash:

Quickutz Pinwheel Die

Tim Holtz Dimensional Pearls

Brad

Nestabilities Spiral Die cut set & EK Success Punches

Gesso

Glitter

Thanks for looking and for any comments that you may leave, they are welcome reads,so thank you. Although most of us create because we have a passion for it,its also nice to hear that you have inspired someone in some way. 

Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend, the sun is shining here so I am going out to enjoy it with my DD and hopefully stop for a Lemon Cupcake....yum!!!

Case Solved - Sandra the real deal!!

For the entire month Cést Magnifique is sponsoring CSI, for part of this sponsor we get to be guest designers so I would like to share with you the page that I did for Palette 19. 

There is a little bit of a story to why this page came about. I'm sure most of you have noticed that I have a Chat Bar on the side of my blog, I thought it would be something fun, you know if your friends just wanted to say hi whilst they were checking out your work. Well, it was fun up until a few weeks ago, when someone by the name of Sandra Gierke said Hi. Well, it just so happens this is the same name of a good friend of mine, someone I have known for nearly 10 years and lives about 2kms away. Normally, we catch up weekly but she has been busy working so we had been catching up via Facebook. Sandra is also a scrapbooker but only participates online as a spectator. Like all good friends, she checks out my blog to see how I am doing and supports me with regular comments & visits. So, as you can imagine, why would I think that this person Sandra G is anyone in my chatbar other than my friend Sandra Gierke.

First it was just a simple hi, then a comment about how the feed-it bar is great because she can go to all the great places that I visit (okay nothing strange about that) then she discloses to me about how she had been hit by identity fraud. Now, I thought that was odd because my friend is not a big computer buff and does not hold a credit card. Under normal circumstances, I would have phoned her straight away but it was a case of, I was busy and instead let cyberspace play its part and just replied in the chat bar. If I hadn't been so busy, I would have thought it strange that my friend Sandra would even mention that in such a public place. A week or so later, I decided to leave a message in the Chat Bar as I have had a couple of people stalking me via cyberspace. Since I could see them ‘on-line’ I left a message saying “You still there". This was just to let them know that I can see when they log onto my blog and download my pages.

Well, Sandra G left me a reply. She responded by saying she was upset with me about asking her “why was she online”. This comment was really out of character for my friend as she knows me well enough - that even if it was directed at her - she would not take offense (like I said she knows my character well enough that this would not upset me). It was then I decided I to telephone her asking to drop in after her school run, have a coffee so that we could catch up. I hit her up about the identity fraud, where her reply was “she has no idea what I was talking about”. After a quick explanation of what was happening on my blog, she said it wasn't her response and by now was a little worried that maybe someone REALLY had stolen her identity.

Whilst Sandra and I were having coffee this other Sandra came online. I tried to explain to her my confusement, not realising that there was two Sandra Gs. She then in turn accused me of calling HER a fraud (this was not mentioned at all) and thought it was strange that someone would get so defensive about a simple mix up (especially since I have a friend with EXACTLY the same name). I wasn't trying to be rude, I just thought it was odd that some stranger would just start telling me her personal details in an online chat bar - especially for everyone to read. Also, this person has the same name as one of my good friends and yet does not have a blog, no online gallery's and was not a follower of my blog. I'm sure if that person wasn't trying to trick me into thinking they were someone else, they would have been quite understanding, rather than trying to make me look rude on my own blog. The sad thing is, I know exactly who it was because whist we were chatting online, I was able to grab there IP address, then matched it to their emails (all emails have an IP address as well) and discovered it was most definitely not my friend Sandra Gierke or any other Sandra G. 

Thankfully, these people know they have been caught out and have finally stopped their stupidity. So with that said, I now have to moderate both my blog comments and the chat bar. This is such a shame because these people were once considered friends and I cannot believe they behaved like this. People should be aware that IDENTITY FRAUD is serious business and people can track you through your IP address, it can't take you to their exact house number but it can take you only streets away.

Well for those that did read all the way through, sorry if I have bored you but sometimes stories need to be told, so many judgements are made on people without the full story, as I always say there is 3 sides to every story, theirs, yours and then the truth and really no one should make a judgement when they only have one corrupted side.

Okay now on to the fun stuff.  I used a some older products mixed with new products.  I had fun creating the little hidden journaling block, tongue in cheek, I had to redo 2 before it folded out the right way, lol I then added two eyelets on either side so that the ribbon could be threaded through so it could secure the journal placement.

Product use:  MM Alphas stickers, Kaiser die cut, Prima & Kaiser Blooms, Websters Alpha stickers Websters & Cosmo Cricket Papers, Nestabilities die cut shape for matting photo, Basic Grey Chipboard Stickers, Cosmo Cricket Chipboard Stickers.

Thanks for looking and if you haven't checked out the Cést Magnifique website pop on over and say hi, even if your not up for a kit there are some fantastic products  in store such as the beautiful La Blanche Stamps. I found these really hard to find and if you can't see what your after drop Leslie a line as she is very accommodating.   When I get a chance I will try and photograph  my newly acquired collection of these stamps.

Have a great week, xox

Sketch 8 - Colourful Creations Sketch-a-thon

For those of you who haven't heard we are having a Sketch-a-thon as part of our Birthday Celebration, what this entails is for us to post a sketch a day and for members to participate and get as many completed  by the end of the month.

 Its also been great seeing so many people playing along and taking the time to leave praise to others, the fun thing about this site is the different levels of scrapbooking, even  beginners like the encouragement from being featured as much as someone who is a veteran scrapper.    This site isn't trying to get you to change your style  to what they think is feature worthy its just a fun site for all levels building a fun friendly community that everyone has the same opportunity's so come on over and check it out.  I also wanted to say a big thank you to those who not only signed up but are also participating.

Okay so now on to my sketch, I can honestly say I have never even drawn a sketch. I don't know why other than to say I have no problems most times getting whats in my head out onto my page.  But after playing along at a couple of Sketch sites I do get the relevance, it really does speed up the process of getting pages completed when you struggle coming up with something on your own.  They are also a good starting point for someone who just need to get their creativity juices flowing by having a starting point.  Well here is my very first digital sketch that I have created and the page I created for it.

This photo was taken when our new pup was only a few months old, she was absolutely fascinated with our cat, unfortunately our cat feels at his age he doesn't need any new friends especially some little annoying dog.  Sophie learnt that Puss Cat is off bounds after a few scratches that was sorted out quick smart and now they have a mutual understanding about leaving each other alone...quite funny really, Sophie now knows she is bigger and that just makes her the boss. Lol!!!

I have randomly stamped the background with a Tim Holtz Distressing stamp and used the K & Co rubons. The Circles were cut from two of the Prima papers using my Nestabilities GD's and I have machine stitched these down. I also stamped around the photo using a TA acrylic stamp.

I cut part of the DA Filigree Heart up and painted with JB Malted Milk before applying super fine glitter.  The little floating stars were punched from a really old corner snow flake punch.

Product Use:  K & Company Roam Borders & Filigree Rubons, Tim Holtz Distress Stamp, Simply Stories Alpha, Prima Song Bird Paper, Bloom.  Dusty Attic Heart Filigree, Papertrey Ink diecut, WOW glitter, Stazon - Timber Brown. Nestabilities & Tattered Angels stamp.

Well again thanks for looking, I hope you like both  my sketch and the page I created for it.  I don't mind anyone using it for their personal use all that I ask is that you mention that I created it.

Happy Scrapping

C'est Magnifique Sponsoring CSI

For the Month of May "Cést Magnifique" will be sponsoring CSI, as part of this we as the Design Team members are asked to play along as Guest Designs, so I thought I would share with you my page.

Its no way spring here as we have just headed into Autumn the colours definitely had a spring feel to them with all the green and yellows, reminds me of spring here when the trees bloom with their beautiful yellow flowers, can't think of the name of this tree I just know it makes me sneeze...lol

Not only did we have to use colour but also had a list of evidence and testimony to use as well.

Evidence -   Webster's Pages Bloomers (or other similar product)

                     ·      Leaves

                     ·       Bakers Twine, twist something (as inspired by the stem)

                   -  Bling - teapots have silver embossing, as inspired by her necklace

Testimony -   I chose to journal about GROWTH,  the growth of friendships and the growth of leading you away from people that really where not friends to start with.  I have journaled on the tags hidden behind the photos and this is what it reads.

Friends come in many shapes and sizes,  they also come in all sorts of personalities as well.   It took a recent event to happen,  for me to open my eyes and see my friends for who they truly were. This left me with my oldest friends proving to me they will be there when needed although we might not be around each other all the time, whilst the others just faded away out of site.  I don’t expect my friends to share the same views, I love that we can discuss and agree to disagree and still walk away knowing that we are friends.  There have been times over the years that we might go our separate ways for a while, maybe to even seek new friendships, this is all part of growing and discovering who we are.  There will be times I’m sure when we annoy each other, need a break, or our lives are just hectic, for whatever reason none of it means we no longer want that person in our lives.    I think if we all thought about it there are always going to be things that are going to annoy us about each other at some time but this never outweighs the reasons why we are friends in the first place.  What a boring place the world would be if we all shared the same views and thoughts.  

This is what my friends know about me - I am opinionated and not scarred of confrontation, I will ask the questions that people want answered but are not confident enough to ask themselves or worry about the back lash they will get if they ask.  And sometimes they know they will not always hear want they want to hear from me but they also know I am not trying to offend. 
Good friends except you flaws and all and thankfully I have grown and now know who these friends will be.

Thanks CSI for getting me to solve the Case and learning about what the word GROWTH means in my life right now.

Hope everyone had a creative weekend, my friends and I joined in on the "Big Picture"12 hours Creative Crop that we thought was supposed to start here at midnight, we weren't the only ones who obviously worked out this time...lol  We stayed up until 2.30am I think, slept until 6.30am and cropped until 4.00pm Sunday before we called it a day.  Now I can honestly I did not get one of those challenges completed or should say started as I was working on DT projects however both Rachael and Marissa gave it a good go, at the end of the day it was all about spending time scrapping which we did or maybe  we mostly chatted...lol

Products Used:  Papers are from Cést Magniqifue Store "Cherry Cherie "Range from Les Papiers de Pandore,  Webster Bloom Trims & Stickers, Kaiser PP "Sweet Nothings" & Li'l Primrose, blooms, Cosmo Cricket Carton Gris chipboard, Micro Beedz, Seam Binding, Petaloo blooms, Bazzill Cardstock, Tim Holtz banner die, Nestabilities Grand Scalloped Oval Die.

As always thanks to those who make the time to leave me your wonderful comments, its one thing to know people enjoy your work its another when someone can take 2 mins from their hectic day and leave you a comment, so thank you it really is appreciated.

Take Care
PS:  Its sleep deprivation that has caused spelling and grammatically errors, lol

Celebrate Card

Happy Friday Everyone!!!

I love Friday's even more when I know we are also going to have a public holiday on the Monday, who doesn't love a long weekend.   I have an exciting weekend planned kicking off today with me getting to pick up my new car, with much regret I have had to sell my Mazda CX9, this 7 seater is way to big just for me now and doesn't serve much purpose when it sits under the carport not getting used.  So I get to pick up my new Holden Cruise CDX Turbo Diesel, I wanted it in red but there is none in the country and the best delivery time they could give me was early August so I have settled for black, oh this we have to settle for...lol.

I also have scrappy weekend planned as well, I have a friend arriving tomorrow morning and then another one turning up a little later in the day, no kids to worry about and I'm sure my husband will have not problems being on food duties.  As I mentioned in my earlier post we have decided to join in on one of the USA Challenges its 12 hours and starts our time at Midnight, so this is going to be one interesting weekend with hopefully some actually scrapping getting done and not us falling asleep on our cutting mats.  Now that would be a great photo moment!!!

Well before I head off for my busy day I thought I would share this card I have made for invites to my husbands 50th Birthday.  We seem to have a lot of Birthdays in June & July but this year we have not only my husbands 50th I also have my DD 18th so we decided we would just do one big celebration.  Now that the date is getting closer I have some busy weeks ahead getting it all organised.

Products Used:  Kaiser Papers & Bloom, Magnolia Knife & Fork Stamp, PaperTrey Ink die cut & Stamp Set, Matha Stewart Punch. Tim Holtz Distress Pearls, Super Fine Glitter.

Thanks for looking and have a great day.

Challenges for May

Who like me likes that start of a new month?  Well if you don't its because your not looking hard enough for some new challenges to get your creative juices flowing.  Well I am here to help you out with some.

In no particular order this is what is on offer this month that I have found so far, I have linked them all up to take you directly to the challenges so why not go and check them all out.

Cest Magnifique - May Sketch Challenge

Colorful Creations - Sketch-A-Thon 

RAK up for grab to the person who completes the most sketches by the end of the month

DUSTY ATTIC

Oh and last but not least don't' forget National Scrapbooking Day, there is loads going on for this, my friends and I have signed up for one already and because its in USA time we are having to get up at Midnight to particpate...lol... I know right!!!  Waking up is going to be very hard it will be interesting to see how we fare and if we can see out the 12 hours, I will keep you posted.

Happy Creating Everyone!!!