Life Update - Blog Change

Hello all,

It has been a long time since I've posted and boy has a lot changed during that time. In 16 more sleeps I am catching a plane and flying to England to begin the next phase of my life's journey. I am taking leave from my job here in Australia and going to work in Kent. Due to this big change I have withdrawn from all my scrapbooking commitments and am no longer on any design teams. I haven't actually created a scrapbook page for months! I am not packing any supplies and may not scrapbook whilst away. I have a feeling that I may start painting again, but who actually knows what the future will hold. What I do know is that this blog is going to become a record of my new adventure and I will be posting photos highlighting my daily life on the other side of the world. Hopefully you'll follow along with my new experiences.


Take care,
Helen xx

Unity Stamp Blog Hop

Hello everyone,

The GIU (Growing in Unity Gals) from July and August are hosting a blog hop this weekend and I'm very excited to be taking part. Well I say I'm excited but when I was making my card my son may have said something else as I wasn't very happy! Everything was going wrong, embossing didn't melt properly, stamping was blurry, watercolour splashed badly but perseverance won out! I finally created a card that I'm happy with.

I used some Ken Oliver's Liquid Metals and Color Bursts to create my watercolour background (I had to do this three times!). Then I stamped and heat embossed the floral heart from the Being Who You Are -KOM February 2018 set. After throwing out the first heart as the embossing started to come off I tried again and then I had to fussy cut it out as I blurred the embossing of the sentiment I used, also from the KOM set. It was not a good crafting day! Interestingly enough, I much prefer my final card than the one I was trying to create in the first place, it's funny how this works out when you are paper crafting. Here is what the card looks like:

 To finish off I stamped 3 little hearts from the same set and cut them out carefully too. Some washi tape, black thread and gold Heidi Swapp Color Shine and the card is finished. I hope you like it.

Please hop on over to the other blogs and leave a comment so that you are in the running for a prize.

1. Jennifer Mitten https://jenmitten.blogspot.com/
2. Jeanie Marie Hays https://thewashihorse.blogspot.com/
3. Denise Sayers https://thecraftyledger.blog/
4. Sue Nagata https://foleysfriend.blogspot.com/
5. Aimee Phillips https://aimeesstampingadventures.blogspot.com/
6.Helen Smit https://helenmazengarb.blogspot.com/             THIS IS ME!!
7.Jo Avery https://dottypuddingdesigns.blogspot.com/
8. Teresa Godines https://purplebunnypapercrafts.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by.
Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Life Update

Hello all (or my future self when I eventually read this again!),

Wow, I haven't blogged in so long and life has definitely changed a lot. For starters, I am now living back in my childhood home as I have rented my house out. I am in the final planning stages for a big adventure next year and my life will be very different in 2019.

In the crafting world I have stepped down from the Kitaholics Kits design team and during late August and all of September I took a break from all my other commitments. This was mainly due to everything that was going on in my life. I was part of my school's musical production and that was a very hectic but wonderful time (I was the back stage manager, don't worry no one had to hear me sing!). Following this I got sick, only a cold but still it knocks you about and makes it difficult to teach a class. Then I had to start packing, organised a garage sale and sold lots of my belongings and then got ready to move. It was the week before moving day that I noticed some spots on my torso and lucky me, I somehow had caught shingles. Now finally, I'm in good health, I moved and life is getting back to normal. Albeit I now have to drive 46kms to work and back each day.

Having said all that I have still managed to create a few pages and one video during the last few months. Here they are:

This page has a process video for it, so if you're interested, pop on over to my YouTube channel and have a look at it.

Well that's it for now. Even though it's the last day of the school holidays, I'm off to my classroom to do some work.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Growing in Unity Week Winners

Hello everyone,

Unity is such a generous company as they provide a prize to two people each week who leave comments.  To pick mine I used a random number generator and first chose the day then the comment number. The first winner is:

So that is the 19th comment left on Wednesday =  Jan Vint


The second winner is:



So that is the 9th comment left on Friday = Brandi R

Congratulations ladies. After I receive your details you will receive a prize from Unity Stamps.

Thank you to everyone who left comments throughout last week.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Growing in Unity - Day Five

Hello everyone,

It is with great excitement and anticipation that you wait for months for your week as the Growing In Unity Gal and then bam it is all over! It's my last day today, this week has gone so quickly. To finish off I have made a shiny 5 1/2 inch square card for you.

I started with a piece of mixed media cardstock and stamped one of the floral pieces from the Unexpected Places (kom 2/17) set with Archival Ink and then painted it with some Me & Blue Inklingz from Shimmerz Paint. Next I stamped the an older butterfly stamp and fussy cut that out. I mounted the butterfly with fun foam to give it some dimension and gave it a quick coat of Ride the Tide Creameez by Shimmerz. Once dry I fussy cut it and the saying out. I adhered a doily to the background, adhered the stamp and quote and some puffy hearts. I finished off by adding some gloss gel to the butterfly and a few random little butterflies across the background. All in all a very blue card.

A close up to try and show the shimmer.

Well that's it for my week as a GIU Gal. Don't forget to leave a comment to go in the draw as I will be picking the two random winners on Sunday (Australian time!). Thank you so much for leaving the lovely supportive comments all week.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Growing in Unity - Day Four

Hello everyone,

I'm hoping this Thursday is treating you all well. I have a quick card for you today.

To begin with I made my own background using two distress oxide inks and the packaging technique. If you're unsure what the packaging technique is it is when you smoosh some ink onto a piece of plastic, activate it with water and then smoosh it all around the cardstock. Following this I stamped one of the blooms from the Insightful Meadows set and a saying from the { . . . everything resides in hope} set. To finish off I add some gold Heidi Swapp Colour Shine and some patterned paper and then adhered it to a 5 1/2 inch square card.

Well that's it for today. I'll see you tomorrow with my last creation for the week.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Growing in Unity - Day Three

Hello everyone,

Can you believe it, we're halfway through the week already! Time flies when you are having fun or extremely busy.

Today, I'm doing a bit of a comparison as I've made the same card twice but I have chosen different mediums to colour Tess Girl, from the Angiegirl collection, in with.

For the lefthand card I coloured Tess in with Derwent Inktense pencils, which I activated with a water brush as they are watercolour pencils and for the righthand card I coloured her in with normal colouring in pencils. Some patterned paper, gems and an inked wooden word and this simple card is finished.

Which medium did you like the best?

Thanks for visiting and don't forget to leave a comment. See you tomorrow.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Growing in Unity - Day Two

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for the lovely comments left on yesterday's post.

Well today I have a birthday card for you. I pulled out my Donna Peony stamp set and stamped the outline peony three times onto smooth watercolour paper. Then using Sugar Plum Twinkling H20 I painted the flowers. After fussy cutting them out I layered them onto 5 1/2 inch square card. When you hold the card on different angles the shimmer in the flowers is so pretty. A couple of hand cut leaves and some inking finishes off this card.

Here I'm trying to show the glorious shimmer in the paint.

That's it for today. I hope you find some inspiration maybe pull out your old pots of Twinkling H2Os and have some fun painting. Don't forget to leave a comment to be eligible to win one of the 2 prizes on offer at the end of the week, courtesy of the fabulous Unity Stamps.

Take care and happy crafting, see you tomorrow!
Helen xx

Growing In Unity - Day One

Hello everyone,

Welcome to my little corner of the cyber world. I am very excited to be the GIU Gal this week and can't wait to share my projects with you. I have loved Unity Stamps for a long time and have quite the collection. I sold a lot of my craft supplies earlier this year, however, I would not part with any of my Unity Stamps! I am starting off my week quick and easy with my little hello card!

I have used an Itty Bitty stamp for this card, it's IB-939 hello Daisy. I love the simplicity of the stamp and I stamped it two times for effect. I coloured it in with colouring pencils and then applied a layer of white colouring pencil to blend it all together. I created the background by covering the card with strips of washi tape.

Well that's it for my first card. Please leave a comment below to go in the running for a prize. at the end of the week I will randomly choose two people from the comments left to win a prize pack from the very generous Unity Stamps.

Thanks for visiting. Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Stick It Down July Challenge

Hello all,

This month we have a sketch challenge over at Stick It Down. This is the sketch:

This is the layout that I made:

I used some items from Pink Paislee Summer Lights and from a couple of Dear Lizzy's ranges. I also used some colours from Twinkling H2O and some Lindy Stamp Gang sprays. I must admit I quite like it.

I also recorded the process and made a video:

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you find some time to craft.
Take care,
Helen xx

One Week of Holidays Done!

Hello everyone,

As the title says the first week of the July school holidays is nearly over and luckily I have managed to squeeze in some scrapbooking plus some couch surfing and school work! I have managed to get a few layouts and videos completed plus the week before the holidays I made a layout for my little friend Daisy. Actually I've scrapped this photo twice already as I made one layout for Daisy and one for me.

Here is that layout I gave Daisy followed by the one I've kept which I used for the latest Studio Challenges DT task.

This week I made my third layout/video for Kitaholic Kits using the June kits - I also made the fourth but can't share that one until next week.

Finally, I made a layout/video for The Crafty Maven Getaway Channel for Sketch It Out Thursday, I used a sketch from the June Page Maps collection and cute photos of my great nephew Noah.

Click here if you wish to watch any of my YouTube videos.

Well that's it for today, I'll be back before the end of my holidays with more sharing.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

Life Update

Hello everyone,

It's a big day in my household today as eighteen years ago I gave birth to two beautiful little babies and I mean little! They were around 6 pounds each and just pure bundles of joy.

Now my little babies have just celebrated becoming adults, one with the customary beer and the other with a glass of Lift! I am so proud to be their mum.

Happy 18th my darlings, may your future be bright and full of love, laughter and adventures.

Now on to other news, well news for me. Last year I made the goal to start posting YouTube videos and become a design team member for at least one group, now a year and bit on I am currently on 4 design teams and have grown my subscriber numbers to 444! Last May I was so excited to reach 100 subscribers and now a year later I have quadrupled that. I know for some this may not be a big increase but starting out and finding followers is not the easiest thing especially when you work full time in a very demanding job and only have a few hours each week to spend on your hobby. All in all I am chuffed with this, next goal 500 then 1000 subscribers.

Well that's it for me, it's getting late and I need some beauty sleep.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

June Catch Up!

Hi everyone,

You blink and before you know it another month has passed! Wow it is almost July and in a few days my babies are turning 18! They are growing into wonderful men and have already started their adult journey (albeit a bit bumpy . . . uni changes, TAFE fun!). Here is a layout I made a few weeks ago about my babies and I:

This was one of my layouts for The Crafty Maven Getaway for the month of May.

The layouts for Kitaholic Kits I've made since my last share are:

For The Studio Challenges I have created these two pages:

And lastly, for Stick It Down I created this layout:

Well that's it for now. Let's see if it takes another month for me to update once again!

Take care and happy scrapping,
Helen xx

May Catch Up!

Hello All,

Boy oh Boy May has turned into a busy month! I had a birthday, a special one I turned 50 and got spoilt from my workplace, family and friends - well still getting spoilt as I'm going out for high tea tomorrow with a group of girlfriends. Plus added to this I've been sick😒 even had to have time off work. I have managed to get a few pages created although I still have one or two to get completed this weekend.

To finish off April's pages for Kitaholic Kits I created this page:

The its arrived for May containing lots of yumminess from Simple Stories and so far I have created these two pages, two more will be highlighted in the following weeks whilst we wait the arrival of the June kits:

For The Studio Challenges I created this page for our Stencils and Masks challenge:

For Stick It Down we had a sketch challenge this month and this is the page I created:

Here are the remaining layouts I have created the last few weeks, some for National scrapbooking Day and some for The Crafty Maven Getaway channel:

To celebrate my birthday I had a video go live on the actual day so I made a layout with photos of me over the years. I've also got some closeups of the clusters:

Wow!! That's a lot of layouts. Thanks for taking a look.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx

(Inter)national Scrapbook Day

Hi all,

Happy NSD to you all! I'm having a blast taking part in all the challenges on the Kitahloic Kits fan page, my first challenge will be up soon.

I took part in Morgyn's Tic Tac Toe challenge and came up with this page:

I will be posting a few videos over the weekend and even one where it is just me talking arrgghhh!!

I also have a video going up for The Crafty Maven Getaway. I hope everyone is having a great day.

take care,
Helen xx

Time Flies!

Hello everyone,

Time certainly does fly around here! It has been over a month since I last updated my blog and I have been pretty busy, well except for this week as I'm on school holidays. I've had a lovely and relaxing week, I spent 2 nights away with some of my dearest friends and had a grand time.

Also in this last month I joined a new design team and I doubled my scrapbooking commitments! Here are some of the pages I have created over the past few weeks:

 

This was for the collaboration between Stick It Down and The Studio Challenges and as I am the only one on both design teams I managed to get away with the one layout for both teams.

My first layout for Kitaholic Kits using the April kits.

Second layout for Kitaholic Kits.

My second layout for the month for The Studio Challenges.

My third layout for Kitaholic Kits, still using the April kits with lots of left over papers and embellishments.

My first layout for The Crafty Maven Getaway for the month, it was Free Flow Wednesday however I got a lot of inspiration from Missy Whidden and Paige Evans.

Plus I have created a few videos for my YouTube channel. I'm getting excited as my subscriber base is growing, at the moment I have 395 subscribers and when I think back to last year at this same time I had around 80, that's nearly one new subscriber per day.

Well that's it for now, I'm off to edit my fourth video for Kitaholic Kits and then film my next video for The Crafty Maven Getaway.

Take care and happy crafting,
Helen xx