Exciting news!

Hello there,

I'm so excited that I can finally share this great news with you all! I am so honored to have been selected for the 2016 Design Team at Scrap Our Stash! You can read the announcement here!

I'm so excited to get started! I hope you will be following my adventures over at Scrap Our Stash from January! 

See you there,

XXX

Oh Deer! - my first Christmas layout ever

OK...So when I saw this free (yes, FREE!) cut file Alex Gadji designed for October Afternoon, I knew I just had to use it as soon as I get a chance. It was perfect timing that we went to the Frankfurt Christmas market and I finally had holiday photos :).

I love backing cut files...It's a lot of busy work, but I'm just watching my favorite series in the meantime (so I guess it takes twice as long to finish a layout than it would without watching TV ha!). And I was dying to use my fave Christmas collection, Christmas Wishes from Pinkfresh Studio and backing this gorgeous tree cut file was a great way to do it! I won't lie, it was a bit more difficult than with any other collection so far (even though I have every single piece from this collection!) because there's a lot of white in the designs and it was hard to find a lot of different bits and pieces to cut the hearts from. But eventually I did manage!

For background paper I chose a stripy paper and stamped some tiny trees all over the bottom to sort of resemble woods. Then backed up all the little hearts, stamped Merry Christmas on the trunk and put the whole file on 3D foam stickers to add some dimension to the layout. Matted my photos with some pieces of papers and added a couple of embellishments (not many because I wanted the tree to be the main focus), title, and done!

I really love how it turned out! I love the non-traditional Christmas colors and the cute drawings in this collection!

Thanks for stopping by!

PS: sorry for the blurry photos, I am now trying to avoid flash so that the dimensions and textures can be seen on my layouts but I simply don't have enough daylight...I really would need some studio lights but no space for them :(.

December Daily Workshop with the amazing Kelly Purkey at Scrapbook Werkstatt

Hello there,

Well... Actually this WS was already weeks ago, I just didn't get round to write about it until now...

I had been so excited for weeks to finally go to my first ever scrapbook workshop and with no other than the gorgeous and insanely talented Kelly Purkey! Who also happens to be the person whose scrapbook video got me into scrapbooking! Back then I was still into about baking/decorating, so I was watching a lot of tutorials on Craftsy and for whatever reason I accidentally bumped into Kelly's class, bought it, loved it, bought her collection Grand Bazaar (still my favorite!) and a couple months later started scrapping! I do hope this hobby will stay with me for good because I'm tired of getting bored with each craft after a short time! Baking/decorating was the longest I'd been interested in something I think with a bit more than 2 years...

I always invest a load of money into buying all the supplies for each new craft I want to try...I have a huge cupboard full of baking supplies, many of which I haven't even used once!

But back to scrapbooking...So the WS was off to a rough start...We received an email from the girls at Scrapbook Werkstatt the night before saying that Kelly's flight had been cancelled! Long story short they managed to get her on one of the owner's husband's flight (who happens to be a pilot and happened to be in the States that day, flying back to Frankfurt that night!). He also "hand-delivered" Kelly to the WS from the airport! Proving that Lufthansa pilots can do more than strike all the time :). So the WS started a little late, but not bad at all considering what that poor girl had to go through! She said she had broken down at the airport in front of everyone worrying she would not be able to come! Awww!

So naturally we were all celebrating when she finally came through the door! She also took all the supplies with her, so much stuff! Her DD kit is just beautiful and so unique! Not traditional Christmas colors at all.

She was amazing and very helpful. Smiling all the time - I'm not sure I would have been able to do that after all the trouble with the flights! She even took pictures with everyone and wrote a few kind words in our albums!

Of course I had to scrap the photos I took (not many because I was busy trying to keep up hahaha!) right away. I did 2 layouts using, what else, her Grand Bazaar collection :).

I'll also post some photos of what we made at the WS!

Hope you like!

Scrap Our Stash - November sketch and stash challenge

Hello there,

Another day, another challenge. Thank God for it too because I don't seem to find my mojo. I hope all is going to get back to normal soon because I cannot deal with days like these!

On another note, I am going to Kelly Purkey's December Daily workshop this Saturday! So very excited. I am not certain I will actually document my December because there really isn't much happening to us every day. Work, school, work, school that's pretty much it! Same old same old. BUT, I wanted to go anyway because come on, it's Kelly Purkey! Her Craftsy class was the very first video I've watched on scrapbooking less than a year ago and she is very inspiring!

Now back to my original topic. The Scrap Our Stash challenge. It's actually two challenges in one. There's a really fabulous sketch and a Bingo card from which one has to choose a row or column or diagonal filled with supplies that have to be used on the layout.

I went with:

• Tulle (light blue tulle under the photo)
• Journal card (the one with the heart is a journal tag)
• Mist (I've used Heidi Swapp color shine)
• Kraft (I chose a kraft journal tag)
• Gesso

And here is my take on this inspiring sketch!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you like x

My first ever online crop - hosted by the fab ladies at Paper Issues

This is going to be a long post. With loads of photos. I apologize. :)

Where to begin? So there was this fall crop organized by Paper Issues on Nov 6-7. Since this was my first, I had no idea what to expect. I was just very excited! The first day it started at 1 am our time and there were 6 challenges, 1 each hour. I wasn't planning to stay up till the end but I was on a roll and not tired at all, so eventually I was up till 7.30 am...Lucky for me my son only woke up at 9 am, asked for breakfast and then let me sleep another 2 hours :D. 

Here are the challenges of the first day and my take on them. I have to add, I never manage to finish a layout in less than 5 or 6 hrs, often more, but now...I wanted to keep up so I went for simple and quick designs and I managed all of these in an hour or so (per layout!).

1. We had to do a project showing what we are thankful for. Right away my mind went to a LO I saw a while back from Missy Whidden. That was my inspiration.

2. Scavenger hunt where we had to find this list of items:

I grabbed the first things that I lay my eyes on and what I found really funny was that everything I pulled out actually matched! I didn't even think that time that we would have to make a layout using all of these products and sadly I totally missed this challenge, I simply didn't notice it by the deadline. But it was a whole lot of fun!

3. Get in shape challenge: luckily nothing to do with fitness ha! We had to use either min 10 triangles or squares or circles. I went with triangles and stencils since this was the quickest!

4. Mood board challenge. My goodness, this mood board was so amazing! Totally my fave colors!

Here it is:

 5. A flair for buttons challenge: we had to use flair buttons on our projects. Well this was pretty simple since I use them pretty much on every layout and if you are following my blog you already know that A flair for buttons is my fave shop!

6. Negative space challenge: we had to do a LO leaving about 2/3 of the page empty. Urrgh. Shudder. I tend to fill my whole page, I'm just not the simple, clean LO type of person! But I think I managed to pull this off anyway.

7. The second day continued with 17 (SEVENTEEN!) challenges, one each hour. Starting at 2pm and finishing at 6am (our time) the next morning, I wasn't gonna pull this off! But luckily we had till Nov 14th to finish all projects...So I slowed down and only did a couple of layouts that day and about 2 a day after. Also, I didn't do all challenges because I don't do Pocket Pages or Planners etc...

So this challenge was a free files challenge: we had to pick a cut file from the Paper Issues shop and use it on a project. I went with a simple circle design. Well, because I love circles. No secret :D.

8. Handmade challenge, we had to use some handmade embellishments on our projects. I don't remember ever making an embellishment but I could be wrong. First thing that came to my mind was some string art circles. Yes, circles haha!

9. Swag bag challenge. Since I don't own any PI swag bags, I had to skip this one.

10. Pet challenge. We had to scrap a photo of our pets using non pet related products. I almost skipped this one since I have no pets but then I went for scrapping my 3 generations of monchhichis ha! Furry enough ehh?!

11. Planner challenge - I had to sit this one out since I don't do planners.

12. iSpy challenge: we had to scrap photos that we posted on the iSpy challenges on Facebook before. I only joined a few weeks ago, so I only had fall photos. Not that I mind :).

13. Challenge: use something orange on your project. Hmmm, really not one of my fave colors, I was very lucky I got some Halloween papers in my MME surprise package a few weeks back!

14. Big ass title challenge hahaha - we had to use a biiiig title on our projects. No problem! ;P

15. Challenge: create your own patterned paper and use it on your project. I first made a tag using inks and stamps and embossing powder but I didn't like it cos it was orange ha! So eventually I went with a stencil and watercolors. My god, I'm in love with watercolors!

16. Kid and pet free challenge ie. no pictures of kids or pets are allowed on the projects ha! I loved this one. In fact I took a few selfies before the challenges started just for this reason. I am not a selfie kind of person but since no one was at home...I just came back from the hairdresser and wanted to take pics of my hair. Didn't fit in the frame hahaha!

17. Tag, you're it challenge: we had to create a tag or use a tag on a project. I think I didn't see this second, much simpler option and went for the first one ie. creating a tag...Here's mine, though very simple. 

18. BINGO!!! This was sooo cool. I have never in my life played bingo, nor did I understand what it was about. I've only ever seen it mentioned on various American TV series. But man did I enjoy it! Of course I didn't win but that wasn't even important. Now I convinced my son he needs to ask for a Bingo board game for Christmas ha!

19. Color challenge: we had to use the below colors on our projects. I wasn't sure I'd do this one because I thought I had nothing in these colors...But of course I found some stuff :). It turned out to be one of my fave LOs! I love all the texture the leaves give this LO.

20. Pocket Page challenge - had to skip this one too since I don't do Pocket Pages.

21. Pinkfresh's challenge. Of course I was gonna participate in this one! Pinkfresh Studio is one of my fave scrapbooking brand. Everything they do is so unique and special! The only Christmas collection I bought this year is from them. Absolutely stunning. I am in love with every single piece. However the LO I did turned out to be one of my least fave ones :(. It is just very random...The challenge was to use some item on our LOs that wasn't a scrapbooking item. I picked some of my son's clothes tags that I kept because I found them really cool. The mistake I made I think was that I wanted to use only Pinkfresh products on the LO at all cost and they just were very random...Anyway...Here it is:

22. Pop it up challenge ie. we had to pop up some items on our projects. I put pop dots under my picture on the left and also popped up the clock on the right. Hard to see cos I have to use flash in my apartment, there is never enough light when I am at home. Flash makes the LOs so flat...

23. Last challenge was a scraplift! We had to lift a beautiful LO from Becky Monmaney. Well again, I chose the wrong collection for this one. I still have so many pieces of the Maggie Holmes Shine collection left and I wanted to get rid of some...

So this was it! I am very very happy that I managed to do 17 layouts in a week! Normally I would never have managed this many in a month...It seems it's better for me not to overthink designs. But of course I hardly used cut files on these layouts and that cuts the time significantly!

I haven't included a product list or links for each layout because it would have involved too much thinking and this post is already way too long...But if any of you is interested in something please let me know and I will check for you.

I'd be really happy if you left a comment!

Thank you for stopping by! XXX