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

I have to do this…

…post this entry now, that is, because I am smack in the middle of having my studio refitted and I don’t know how long it would be before getting a chance to scrap again 🙂

So before I say anything else, let me post up some photos of the most recent little projects I have created –

ONE: – handmade Chrissy cards.

This year’s colour theme – Kraft card, white, pink and silver colour scheme.

TWO – Handmade Christmas Village:

Using My Mind’s Eye “A Colourful Christmas” paper range – i love it, but more importantly – the kids helped me make it – it was a fabulous family project! LOL….I won’t say I wasn’t tearing my hair out by the end of it but I will say that there was a lot of laughter, bickering and gnashing of teeth to make it happen – in short, a perfectly normal Christmas activity.

Another project I have been working on (shhhhhh…..secret squirrels) is the 12 Days of Christmas Crop over at Scrapbook Divas – Yay!

Here is a sneaky peek of what we will be doing in my “class”…

If you get a chance and you are stretched for inspiration, why not join in on the Diva’s Forum and 12 Days of Chrissy celebrations?? There is going to be plenty of motivationa, a great team to work with, some prizes and other fun stuff PLUS the chance to get to work with Marion Werren, Anne Marie Cox and myself as Guest DT as well as the wonderful regular DT who have all sorts of yummo projects lined up for you!

Last for this week (but certainly not least) is that we are up  to WEEK 9 (!!!) of the TWELVE WEEKS OF CHRISTMAS celebrations over at Addicted to Craft. I can’t believe we are at week 9 already – how fast has the year gone??

This week it is my turn to show you something special – and I have been given the new PRIMA transparencies and other gorgeous mid season realease Prima products to tempt you inot entering our wonderful competition…

So far we have had some fantastic entries and some great guest designers – who knows? the next winner could be you! But you have to be in it to win it, right?

To enter, simply follow the instructions on the Blog entry page 🙂 This week’s theme ————9 LADIES DANCING…wonder what I come up with, hmmm? (wink).

That’s all from me for now – but keep posted on a regular basis for news of what we are all doing during the Christmas break – when you need some inspiration and motivation, simply visit me here or drop me a line – I’d love to hear from you!

Take care all,

Sares xxx

Busy Busy Busy and more Busy

I don’t think I know of any other way to live, LOL.

Some good news – little Oscar is doing very well and will soon be out of hospital – we are counting down the days until he can be home with his mum, dad and big sister. Yay!

I have been stuck in one of those – “Gotta get those blimmin projects finished or else” kind of moods this week. I started the ball rolling for my new Studio (thanks so much Caz!) and it looks like it will be going ahead. Why does that freak me out? Because it means that every bit of jumk I have accumulated in this studio in the last 5 years will have to be moved out. EEEEEEEEK!

Get ready for a massive cleanout people – there is stuff in here I had forgotten I even owned. On the plus side, though – new Studio! Yay!

In honour of all things “new” I also decided to re-upholster a chair that has been in my studio for about a year.

Here are the before, during and after shots:

The chair before I tore the stuffing out of it.

The chair after I stripped it and pulled out a BAZILLION staples.

The chair as it now sits in our front lounge room.

DH’s grandfather made that chair, so it wasn’t going to be dumped in some antique shop. It needed a new life – and I love love love it now. Except no-one is allowed to sit on it. You hear me, kids?

On to the fun stuff – the kids had a Halloween Disco at school which was great fun – who doesn’t like dressing up and painting faces all night? lol

Everyone had a great time and the kids slept like logs well past 8am the next morning 🙂

Now for the scrapping stuff:

“Life is Full of Possibilities”

TIP – use your kid’s clothing labels as part of your LO.

TIP – paint over areas in the background to make the whole foreground “pop”.

“A Hug From You”

TIP – cut out some leaf shapes from scraps with a pair of fancy-edged scissors, ink them and layer them.

“Christmas Angel”

TIP – paint some extended star shapes in the background of your LO – especially if it is a Christmas theme.

“Princess”

TIP – Paint a frame around the base of the photo (without the photo on the page, of course), and then flick the paint around the top left and bottom right corners to make it look like it is “spraying” into the LO.

TIP – Once you have done the painted frame, stitch over the top in a contrasting coloured thread and paint within that frame.

OK, that’s all from me for the moment – I need to go back to sorting out this studio 🙂

Take care all!

Sares x

 

 

Some Sincere Thanks

As we speak I am printing out all the Thankyou notes for all of the individuals and retailers/wholesalers that got on board the Memory Gifts Project – all 600 of them! lol

There are certainly too many contributors to mention here in one place, so look out for the postie in the next few weeks while i get this job finished and please forgive me if I don’t get to you – I’ll get there at some stage, I promise!

There are a few of you who have asked how the Memory Gifts have been received and I can say that there have been quite a few “thankyou’s” from the recipients so far but I have to assume that people are still rebuilding their lives and find it difficult to even look at an album, let alone send a thankyou. That day may come – it may not and I don’t care. It wasn’t what we did it for, was it?

There are a few passages from people’s emails and letters that I would like to share with you, however:

“Our family would like to express its delight at receiving this lovely album.   You should be congratulated for the tremendous effort that has gone into creating and organising such a massive project.  The delight I have been seeing on families’ faces when they were presented with this wonderful gift brought tears to my eyes.  Their first new photos now have somewhere special to reside.  I visited your wonderful website and read all about you and was wondering if you could please convey our gratitude to all the amazing people that helped make these albums possible.

 

I am an avid card maker but have never tried scrapbooking.  While things are still very hectic at the moment your album has inspired me to give scrapbooking a go.  It is heart warming to know there are so many wonderful people out there who have helped support us through this difficult time.  Thank you again.”

“To Sarah
I have received one of the thousands of Scrapbooks that you have contributed. I am in grade 6 and love sport.I love it and will have so many good memory’s in there because of you, my sister has also got one and treasures it more than i can say.I am very touched by the way you have lighted up our days and so many people will be smiling because of what you have done and this is not like any other donation it is more and i am so very happy to get it. Thank-you a thousand times and more.”

 

 “I must admit that it was quite emotional receiving my albums, remembering the two I had as an ongoing project for my two children.  After losing all my photos in the fire I didnt know where to start.  You kind of push it to the back of your mind because day to day sometimes is an effort in itself.  This is the incentive I needed to start tracking down some copies of the ones that i had. For this I have to say thank you because I have located some wonderful photos from family and friends…ones that I had forgotten that I had given them. 
 
My husband and I are so very grateful for the time and effort put into these beautiful albums and I am excited to start putting them together along with the new photos we have started to take. Memories will always remain with us even though we lost everything in the fire. These memories we made in the past will forever remain in our hearts and now we can make new ones.  Its the generosity from people like yourself that is so overwhelming.”

 

Give yourselves a pat on the back everyone.

If I had to do this whole project all over again, I would, based on what I read in the above letters. Cheers girls xxxx.

The only other thing to tell you from this week has been the very exciting arrival of my new little nephew Oscar :). I have to say, he hasn’t had the easiest delivery or first week of life, but he’s getting there and we are all doing our best to help. Little man, pull up those socks – it’s time to go home with mum and start your little life, ok?

I wont show you the rest of the pics I took of him – too distressing. I was lucky to get these. But he’s gorgeous – he takes his good looks from his aunty, of course 🙂

And then of course, we had a full weekend of family stuff. This is what we decided to do this afternoon:

What coud be better than a Sunday afternooon at the local down at Salamander bay? Glass of champers, beach, steak, awesome live music and taking photos. Didn’t matter about the crappy weather. James (after promising he would NOT get wet) did a face plant into the water about 2 minutesafter these pics were taken. Picture a dripping wet, screaming kid being dragged out of the water. Not screaming because he was wet, but beause he didn’t want to get OUT. God help me.

One last thing I managed to complete was some wedding ring demo shots – I needed a few more for my website – here’s a few shares:

Happy with that last shot, especially. DH was having a heart attack because he thought we were going to lose both rings and spend the afternoon snorkelling to find them 🙂

That’s all for me folks – lots more scrapping happening this week so there will be heaps to show you next post – stay tuned!

Love to all

Sares xx