Well that's what a busy term will cause!

Hi All,

Term 4 at school is always hectic and this one has been no different, full on to say the least. Mind you in amongst all the busy times I have managed to find my scrapping mojo! Well that's report writing for you, I'll find almost anything to do to put off writing them . . . even housework!

These are the pages that I have created whilst I should have been writing reports. All but one have some mixed media element to them as that's how I roll. Sorry about the amount of photos but i should post more often.

First up Sam and his new second cousin at the speedway.

A photo of me from last year after a trip to the hairdressers.

At work we all wore beanies to raise money for cancer, we were supporting a few of our collegues who are going through difficult times.

A photo of Sam and I out for lunch last year. Ben was there too but he hates me taking photos.

A photo from my trip to the UK in 2013. I've already scrapped it once but gave it to Mum as part of the album I made for her about our mother daughter trip.

This page came about because I saw the chipboard piece from Dusty Attic at the shop and I knew I wanted to make a page about how my life is now since my separation.

I was also lucky to be a student for a change, I took one of Finnabair's classes that she taught at my local scrapbook store just a few weeks ago.

For my November art journal class we made this page:

This is the page I prepared for my December class, I always like to do a Christmas page and I loved the stencil by Kaisercraft so it became the inspiration for the page.

And finally, I had my class make little elves using a photo of themselves for our window display, which my teacher assistant Jodi did a wonderful job with. I can't show the window display but here is my elf.

The other thing that has me happy lately is that I finally have lovely finger nails. I've never been a biter but they just never grew but all of a sudden I noticed that they had a grown a bit over the ends of my fingers so I whisked down to the local nail salon and got SNS polish put on. Well now I have lovely long nails and I feel so girly! I just got them redone with Christmas colours for the girls in my class, here's a snap of them.

Well that's it for now, school holidays are almost here so I aim to post a bit more regularly and not so photo heavy each time, even thinking I might make a video or two!

Take care and happy crafting,

Helen xx

Hello!

Hi all,

I know long time since I've added a post but life's been busy. Term 4 at school has already started and I recently went to the Sunshine Coast in Queensland to visit my friend Beth plus I spent two nights in Brisbane and managed to fit a bit of shopping in at the craft fair.

Also this month I have had a layout published in the Australian magazine Scrapbooking Memories (Vol 18 Issue 5), it was in the Self Gallery - what do you think?

Here is a close up of the embellishment cluster.

Tomorrow I have am teaching my next art journal class at my local scrapbook store. Here is the double page the ladies will be creating:

That's it for now, just a quick share as I should really be finishing my next month's spread for class tomorrow.

Night all and happy crafting!

love Helen

Crafting - what's that?

Hi all,

Well life has been flat out and there hasn't been much, if any, crafting around here. Ok, I had to do some tonight as I am teaching tomorrow and I didn't have the next class prepared, so I had to get that done so I can show the ladies during the class. But other than that nada, nothing, no time for crafting at all! I still haven't managed to find time to work on my canvas for Elsie but hopefully next weekend as my school is having a long weekend I will have a free day on Monday to finish my zebras. Anyway I'm off to the shop tomorrow (well actually later today seeing as it's 1am in the morning!) to teach my August art journalling class, of which this is the double page the ladies will be making.

Here is a sneak peek of September's class where we will be getting nice and grungy.

Well that's it for now, I'm tired and off to bed.

Night all, take care and happy crafting,

Helen xx

Where has my creating time gone?

Hi all,

Well school is back in session so my creative time this week has gone out the window. I am supposed to be writing programmes (I'm not getting sidetracked at all!) but thought I would post the picture of the last layout I completed on the school holidays plus I found 2 other fairly recent layouts that I haven't, until now, photographed.

This layout is of my sons and I out for afternoon tea in the school holidays, it was freezing but I managed to get them to walk, well limp for me, along the foreshore down in Rockingham. Ben wouldn't get in front of the camera so he took the photos of Sam and I.

This is a photo of Ben taken late last year, one of the rare photos that I can get of him.

This layout was one of my Design Team pages for my local store.

This is last weekend's art journaling class I taught at the store. We all had lots of fun and got some crafting done.

This is a section of a canvas I am working on for my real estate lady. Whilst she was selling my previous house she enjoyed looking at all my artwork and asked me if I would create a canvas for her on zebras. It's not quite finished but getting close, the challenge for me has been that Elsie only wants me to use black and white!

Well that's it for now, I think I've procrastinated enough and I should get to work writing programmes for my gorgeous class of Year 2 students. They are lovely and I've really enjoyed being back with them this week after 9 weeks away. Mind you when I told them I was going to the hairdressers after school on Thursday they suggested getting my hair died rainbow colours and then one said if I curled it I could be a clown! I didn't quite follow their advice, don't know why, but it is back to being blonde.

Take care and have fun creating,
Helen xx

P.S. Just before I go I thought I would include the latest photo of my shelf at the store. Four of us on the design team have each been given a shelf to display some layouts which we need to change each month and this is the photo of my July display.

Layout Share

Hello all,

I have been organising my craft room, in particular my stamps. I watched a video by Jennifer McGuire about how she stores her stamps in clear pockets produced by Avery Elle and decided to do this as well. After buying up the pockets from an online store here in Australia and using them all up I am waiting for some more being delivered from the US, when all sorted I will take some photos and share.

I have also been busy scrapping, my foot is healing really nicely and I can now sit at my desk without it hurting thus I have completed quite a few layouts. Can't share them all as one has been sent off to a magazine for consideration, 4 are for a competition but these 2 I can share here:
(sorry the photos aren't the greatest but it has been grey and wet for days and getting some nice light for photos hasn't been easy!)

 This photo is from a holiday last year to Norfolk Island, most of the embellishments are from American Crafts and paper is Kaiser plus and oldie from my stash.

This photo was from last Christmas, my twins with their older cousins. I had fun using my new stitched rectangle dies from Lawn Fawn.

The other area I organised was my embellishments. I used to have some hanging on my clip it up and others stashed all over my room so I gathered them up and sorted them by company, my brain seems to work better this way.

Well that's it for now, take care and happy crafting,

Helen xx

Art Journalling Teaching Update

Hi all,

This weekend we had a V.I.P. night at Made With Memories and I taught a make and take based on a Gelatos and gesso tag. I wanted to work out a way of making Gelatos permanent, I tried the Design Memory Craft glaze but didn't want the glossy finish but then I watched a video on You Tube where the lady was activating Inktense pencils with gesso and I figured it would work with Gelatos and it did!  The background was created by colouring in with Gelatos and then mixing in gesso to each colour to make a paint. Here is the tag:

My art journal class I'm teaching in August is based on this Gelatos and gesso idea. Here is a sneak peak of part of the page.

I've been on sick leave for the last month and a half after a foot operation and haven't taught an art journal class since May, I'm looking forward to my next class in July. Here is a sneak peak of the page:

Well that's it for tonight, but I'll leave you with a photo of me teaching at the V.I.P. night. I've recently coloured my hair, it's a lot darker than I've been for years and my sons don't like it, they think I should be blonde!

Take care and have fun crafting,
Helen xx

Two Posts in One Night!

Wonders will never cease, 2 posts in one night! No I'm not really putting off writing reports . . .  I just forgot to add a photo of my new look. I went to the hairdressers tonight and came home with brown hair, the boys think it's not right!

"You're supposed to be blonde!" they said.

What do you think, are they right? Should I go back to being blonde or stay a brunette?

Well that's really it for tonight!
Helen xx

Hello, hello, hello

Well long time no posting! What excuses do I have? Well the boys and I have moved house, we sold the family home and I have bought a new house to start the next phase of my life. The boys love the new house as do I, although my new craft room is only half the size I had before! Having said that it has a huge window that lets in lovely natural light. When the room is tidy I'll make a short video showing how I'm squeezing most things in (some not so often used supplies are now residing in the garage as I can't fit them in!).

Currently I am at home on sick leave recuperating after having foot surgery. I thought it would give me lots of time to craft but I didn't factor in how my foot would throb sitting at my desk so I have spent weeks watching tv with my foot up and not much time at my desk. Hopefully things will change soon!

Some projects I have worked on since my last post are as follows. Please ignore the bad photography as I took these images at night on my phone but I figured some photos were better than none!

 She is actually teal though!

 I'm having fun drawing and painting faces.

This was my last art journalling class at my Made With Memories, I have been teaching this class for two years now. I have a core group of four ladies that come every month and over the months others join us for a lesson or two or ten!

Well that's it for now, I have to go and finish writing my reports for my Year 2 class, my work avoidance has gone on for long enough!

Take care and have fun crafting,
Helen xx

Life

Hi all,

We have had a long weekend here in WA and I managed to get some art time in. I completed another week of Life Book 2015, with my friend Pascale, and we painted our affirmation feathers. Here is my attempt:

I also watched a youtube video from a lady in Canada (Creationscece I think??) who looked at different ways of sealing Dylusions and one of the ways that worked, that I'm going to try, is by spraying Golden's Airbrush Medium through a mister.

The other big thing that happened this weekend was that I started packing! Our home, that we built 14 years ago has been sold and our settlement date is 8th April so I've got 5 weeks to pack everything up. I managed to pack 25 boxes yesterday but they were mainly my novels and scrapbook albums! Let the fun begin!

Well that's it for today. I hope you manage to find time to feed your creative soul,
take care,
Helen xx

Finally I'm Checking In

Hi all,

Boy have I been busy at work! I've forgotten how much talking I have to do down in the younger years. I finally found some time this past weekend to create some art. My friend came over for dinner and we did one of our lessons from Life Book 2015, I had a great time, thanks Marita. Here is my A3 size piece of artwork:

I did manage to teach my art journalling class at my local scrapbook shop two weeks ago plus prepare my April class, here is a sneak peek of April's page.

Well that's it for now, I hope you are all well and finding more time than myself to have some crafty fun.
Take care,
Helen

Door Sign

Hi all,

School holidays are almost over and I'm getting ready for my change of year grades, after 8 years of upper primary I'm heading down to Year 2. I haven't actually taught Year 2 for 20 years so it should be an interesting year! I spent a few hours making myself a really cute (well I think so) door sign, what do you all think?

I am taking part in Life Book 2015 and loving it so far. The first lesson "Beacon of Light" was the inspiration for this girl.

I've got a few last remaining hours before I go back to work so I think I just might go and play in my studio as I probably won't get a chance for a few weeks.

Happy crafting,

Helen xx

Holiday Crafting

Hi all,

It's funny how you think seeing as you have 6 weeks of school holidays that you're going to get a lot of crafting done and then all of a sudden you have only 1 week left and you realise you haven't achieved as much as you thought! Mind you I still have managed to get a few things done although I can't share all of them as they are upcoming classes at Made With Memories.

This year for my art journaling class I teach once a month I've chosen the theme "Inspired by . . ." where each month I will highlight a well known artist and use her/his work as inspiration. For January I was inspired by Vicky Papaioannou from Clips-n-Cuts. This is the page we created.

You may be able to tell who the artists are that are

inspiring our February and March pages.

Today I went to my friends house for some art journaling fun and I painted this gorgeous girl, my inspiration was a picture by Tamara Laporte from Willowing. I had so much fun painting this girl.

I have also created a scrapbook layout but this is up in the shop already as it will run as a class in March, here's a sneak peek:

Sorry, you'll have to do the class to see the full double page!

Well that's about it for tonight. I must go and finish the cleaning that I started this morning as we have an open house tomorrow, I so hope that this house sells soon, I've got my fingers crossed and my toes!

Take care and happy crafting,

Helen xx

Happy New Year

Hi all,

I hope 2015 has started off very well for you all. It's been quiet around here, spent time with my boys and my mum in the garden getting ready for a home open. I'm sure hoping that 2015 brings some changes for the better around here.

In between the gardening and cleaning I have managed to finish a couple of pieces so I thought I would share them. One is in my large A3 sized journal and the other is the start of my 2015 journal where I want to write about my adventures this year, I'm hoping they're going to be amazing!

Donna Downey inspired.

 

Close up!

Well that's it for tonight. I hope you find some time to get arty!

take care,

Helen