Hello all!

After a few months, off, I am back.

Where did I go? Nowhere special, just buried under a pile of kids and the usual Christmas hijinks. Phew, what a year!

The Photography business took off like a rocket towards the end of last year and I was literally snowed under with jobs – what a great way to be!

I hope everyone out there had a lovely and joyous Christmas season and a fabulous New Year!

Now that the New Year gas started I can also OFFICIALLY unveil a new project of mine – “SARAH’S SPACE”.

Some of you may remember that, last year I was awarded the position of Scrapbooking Memories Master and I began a year’s worth of work for the magazine over here in Australia.

I know that the mag also gets published and sent around the world, so a big HELLO! to all my girls in America (both North and South), Canada, Asia, the UK and South Africa!

Boy am I glad to see some happy, familiar names and faces amongst you all!

“Sarah’s Space” is an article I will be writing for Scrapbooking Memories magazine once a month. It is going to feature in it everything from new products and new techniques to

fascinating new sites, blogs and things from the scrapping digital world. I am so excited to be bringing it to you! Of course, I have had to keep it a secret for MONTHS, which has nearly driven me bonkers, but if you get a chance to pick up the magazine and see the first article, that would make me smile. The first article is in the current issue – Volume 13 Number 2 and it is on page 71. Woot!

Some other projects that have been published this month are:

 

This is a LO I created about my son who is a bit of a dreamboat. You can almost hear the cogs whirring around in his head and when he shows you what he has been creating, you literally hold your breath. I drew the background in with felt tip pen to picture what I thought was constantly going on inside his kooky little mind. I then hand coloured it using Watercolour pencils. I love this technique – it’s perfect for those of us who freehand doodle while we are chatting on the phone! lol. For those of you who have the current issue of Scrapbooking Memories magazine, this page is being used for the Technique of the Month (page 41) and there are some close up shots and some tips and techniques for creating this page yourselves.

Another fabbo accomplishment I had over the Christmas holidays was to score the cover of the Scrapbooking Memories magazine for their Christmas issue – woot!

Here it is, with my gorgeous eldest son as the subject:

And here it is on the cover:

EXCITING!!

So, what else has everyone been up to? For those of you in the southern hemisphere, scrapping while the kids are on holidays? I hope so!

For those of you interested, here are the images from this month’s “Sarah’s Space” article. The article was all about Dry Embossing and using it in ways on your scrapping pages and projects that brings a little “lift” in dimension as well as gets to use your products in ways that are a little “Outside the square” (I hope!).

    

Two cards using embossed cardstock from the Cuttlebug, plus some Die Cuts from the Quickutz range.

The LO using the same technique – just taking things a step further. This time, after embossing some white cardstock through the Cuttlebug machine, I hand cut out some pieces and then coloured them with small cubes of ink. After they were placed around the window frame and layered, they were spritzed with some Glimmermist. I LOVE this effect. The sky is the limit in terms of how you place everything. You could use a canvas as a base, for example, and cover the entire thing with embossed and cut out sections of cardstock to make it look like an entire GARDEN of 3D scrumptiousness.

Well, I am going to head off now and have a cuppa before bed – this is enough to keep you going for a little while, I hope!

I will be back soon, of course, with more details of techniques, more Photography tips and even more ways of getting your work to look better and better using some of the newest products around.

Have fun and happy scrapping!

Sares x

A Busy month…

I sat down and started writing  out my calendar today – just for the next few months. Before I had a heart attack I stopped and took a few deep breaths into a brown paper bag – sheesh!

It seems like every minute of every day is accounted for but I know that’s not true. In fact, as I get older, the less I stress about this stuff because it always happens that you have more time to do things than you think.

Having said that – could someone please send me the Tardis from Doctor Who?  Failing that, that Time Turner thingy that Hermione wore in Harry Potter? I need more hours in the day!

So, you might ask yourself, if you are so time poor, how do you manage to get LO’s done? Hmmmm?

Well, smarty pants, I work late, ok? 😉 I also work early and somewhere in the middle as well. I don’t eat. I don’t sleep. I don’t play. OK maybe I eat, because James told me tonight that I was “a little bit fat”. Noice. Thanks babe. Love you too. lol.

So here we go – layouts to share!

Yes, I know – all Hannah Banana LO’s. I am trying to catch up on some holiday pages, that’s all. Believe me, there are a ton of boy pages in here, too!

And one OTP as well:

I have been a productive little chook, haven’t I?

For those of you in my classes that are held here, at my studio, have a sticky at the side widgets for dates and materials lists for classes – they have been updated until April so I hope that helps.

For those of you who are in Sydney for the mid March CRAFT EXPO at Homebush, I will be teaching there on behalf of Scrapbooking Memories magazine! Three classes per day on March 11, 12, 13 and 14 – just come and see me at the Express Publications stand and I will be thrilled to catch up with anyone of you. Woot!

So it’s going to be a very busy year. Who am I kidding, it’s going to be hectic. But that’s pretty normal for me. You are a long time dead hey?

Take care all!

Sares xx

Some Studio Time…

Before I get into the meat of this post, let me start by saying a big THANKYOU to all those people who emailed or messaged me or left a comment here to congratulate me on winning one of the SM Masters spots. It’s been a fantastic week!

We are still in the school holidays here in Australia and the kids have been a pleasure (most of the time lol). Everyone has behaved themselves. Except for the time Hannah threw all of James’ undies down the stairs. And except for the boys fighting over who has shot down more zombies ono the DS. Oh and don’t forget sticking bubblegum to the underside of the coffeetable. And harrassinig the dog. And the cat. And………..oh, MOVING ON.

I have had a chance to move everything into my studio now and I have been able to take some pics of what it all looks like completed. Here is a collage of them all: (just click on the image for a larger version)

Yes, it’s girly. Yes, it’s moderately organised. Well, I cleaned it up for the photo – you should have seen it afterwards! lol. I LOVE IT. It’s mine. I can shut the door. I can escape. I can play music. I can even run away through the front doors! I am in a happy place. 🙂

I have also managed to do some real scrapping this week, too. I know! It’s been a while since I showed you some. I have been flat out, trust me. Here they are:

Using some left over Halloween papers for some grungy looking boy themed LO’s.

One of the Stamp sets I received as part of the Masters prize pack was Fancy Pants “On a Whimsy”. This is just my first attempt at having a little play with them.

Of course, there is probably a flood of Christmas pages around the forums and galleries at the moment. Here is one more LOL.

“Cherry Bomb” is a LO created t the end of a tutorial. If you’d like to create this page, or at least learn about the technique I used, click HERE.

Playing with my new camera and some light setting scored me this shot of Hannah in silhouette. I knew I had to scrap it immediately!

This LO was created using large sheets of rubber stanps from Darkroom Door. If you’d like to create this LO, or learn about the techniques I used to create it, click HERE.

For another lesson using my Tips and Techniques – Using GLIMMERMIST to Create Custom coloured flowers, click HERE.

The last thing to show you is this – the new Floating Frame from Twiddleybitz. I went down to Sydney to have a go at creating one with Sherry Mendoza and her class. Love it! Very easy and quick to put together – I did this in 1.5 hours.

I’m going to leave it there for now while I go sort out some more stuff in the studio. Apologies to those on dial up for this picture-rich Blog post but it had to be done! lol.

Right – I am back to creating and making a mess – that studio looks far too clean and it needs to be DIRTY. 😉

Love to all and please keep safe on the roads these holidays!

Sares x

 

A Little Special Something For You…

….I have not always been a huge promoter of online stores etc on my Blog, but you may have noticed that on the right hand side of my Blog there is a list of certain places I like to shop.

I have listed those places there myself – without any pushing from those shops (or kickbacks) – because they continually offer good products, great service and communication and fast postage.

I recently received an email from the owner of Blue Bazaar thanking me for that link and – HERE COMES THE GOOD PART – offering you, the reader, a special deal to go along with it.

Read below:

*BLUE BAZAAR www.bluebazaar.com.au is offering readers of my blog a 10% discount on your next order over $40.00.  To receive the discount include the following code in the comments field of your order: JANBLOGSG.  Note discounts do not apply to items already discounted, on sale or subscriptions.  The code is valid for this month until the 31^st January 2010.

So Happy New Year everyone!

Take advantage of this great offer while you can – WHY NOT??

Love to all,

Sares x

There’s a Bear in There…

….a Wee Bear that is 🙂

We had Book Week this week at school and the kids had to come dressed as their favourite book character. I just HAD to show you these pics of James:

“ROWRRR!”

Is that not the cutest thing you have ever seen? I mean, I know he’s my kid and all and I’m a bit biassed (well, a lot biassed) but still! Sometimes there are days when I am grinning from ear to ear because of my kids.

I’ve been doing a bit of “virtual tidying” here in the computer and getting rid of some old files and I thought I’d pull out some “oldies but goodies” – LO’s that have been done a while ago but have never seen the light of day on here.

Here’s a few shares:

I’ve also finally finished off this Mini Book (no longer so mini) about my trips to the USA – here’s the front cover:

and here’s some thumbs of the other pages:

Of course, there are tons more pages but I won’t bore you with them, lol.

I have also completed another TWO more tutorials for you here on the Apprentice.

Check out:

Tips and Techniques: Using Spellbinders and the Sizzix

and

Tips and Techniques: Button Trees

for some easy to follow instructions on creating some of your own embies for papercrafts.

It’s been a busy week but it hasn’t finished yet so I had better get back to creating and cleaning before the kidlets get home.

Have a great day everyone!

Sares x