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