Shimelle NSD Challenge 1 : Pensive in Pink

I am not going to get through all 24 of the challenges set by Shimelle by the end of the weekend, but I do intend to have a go at many of them over the next few weeks. I have discovered that I love working within limitations and a challenge is a great way to do that.

The first challenge was to create a layout using pink. I was quite surprised to discover just how few pink supplies I actually had. With the exception of a kit I have put aside for Miss Three's baby album I had only a handful of papers and Thickers to choose from and almost no embellies. I must be a failure on the Little Girl Mummy front!

Here is the layout I created.

The base paper is an older Studio Calico piece from the State Fair collection. I have also included some older My Little Shoebox and a Sassafrass Lass border sticker. The larger letters are AC Thickers and the smaller font is OA Minimarket. I have a little piece of a journalling card sticking out from behind the photo. This is an SC Project Life card. Probably my favourite supply is the photo itself. It is my first origrami photo that I have used on a layout. If you use Instagram run to their website and order some photos. The quality is excellent and they are beautifully packaged. Did I mention they have free worldwide shipping? And no this is not a sponsored post. I just love their work.

I am linking this layout up with Shimelle's site. 

Watch this space as I am taking part in my first ever blog hop right here later today. Have a fantastic Wednesday!

Layouts Within Limits Part Three: The final layout

I was sure I had blogged the final layout from this challenge but it appears I had not. I was totally inspired by seeing how Danielle used this Tim and Beck paper here. She totally rocked it!

Here is what I ended up doing with the same paper.

 Given the theme of rain I decided to turn the paper around so the arrows were falling like rain.I muted a section of the paper with an overlay of the hexagon patterned veneer.  I used a couple of journalling pages from the Basic Grey snippets booklet . The aqua alpha was a perfect choice. Wood veneer clouds, umbrellas and raindrops and it was done.

Here is a close up of the vellum and rain.

I think I am in love with the veneer umbrella. I really should have bought two packets!

I loved working on this project and am really excited to be part of a blog hop later this week tackling another glitter girl challenge. Watch this space!

Project Life Week 16

I have had a super busy week and weekend and was doubting whether PL would be touched at all. Fortunately I picked up some new release Simple Stories bits and pieces and they made the whole process pretty painless and I am really happy with the colour they have added to the spread.

The first half of the spread is ustilising the back of the MME paper from last week along with a range of the reverse sides from the Studio Calico PL card sets. I used up nearly an entire sheet of JBS label stickers and a few odds and ends from Studio Calico including the Oh Hellp arrow and geotag.

Not much happened this week. We visited Sentosa to see the Oceanarium and eat dumplings. We also received Miss Three's second Lollibox full of crafting supplies. Tet ate a delicious piece of cherry pie and I met up with some Singapore SC scrappers (although I forgoit to take a photo of us all!).

The cards on this spread in the bottom two rows are all Simple Scrapper from a couple of the new ranges. I love the cheery colours. The top left card is from Pebbles and the top right is an envelope from SC.

The top row of photos is all from our dumpling lunch at Din Tai Fung. The right hand photo was taken by MT as she explored the restaurant through the lens. Great food and very reasonably priced to boot. Scarlett has a lovely new selection of hair ties thanks to Hubby's assistant. She gave her a selection of new ones and the purple is a favourite for wearing to school. Hubby and I had a date night to celebrate my birthday early as he was away for the day itself. We enjoyed walking along the river on the way home as much as the meal I think. The final random event of the week was a New Zealand food fair. We bought a lot of favourite treats from home. Lovely.

This week took me under an hour which was great for me. It is not super detailed but it is bright and colourful and the week is recorded! 

How is your Project Life progressing?

Listmania Week 16: I Want To Make

There are so many things I want to make. I have many excuses for not doing this. They include lack of skill, lack of time and lack of materials. I was trying to find one new recipe to try each week but that has fallen by the wayside of late. Mostly because being dairy free is tedious and the enemy of delicious food as far as I can tell. 

However, I hopped onto Pinterest, (or the sucker of all my free time as I prefer to label it)and checked out my boards to see what had caught my eye. One thing is very clear, I need to buy a sewing machine and learn to sew... maybe next year!

The first thing I really would like to try is some handsewn hexies. How cute are these?

 

I am not entirely sure what I would make - maybe the front of a cushion for my daughter's bed and maybe the same for myself. I have been told that they are very easy to do in front of the telly once you get going. The source of the image is also the source of an excellent tutorial. 

As you know I am knitting a top secret project at present. When it is complete I would really like to try making a chevron blanket or throw for my sofa. I really like the look of this one from the Purl Bee.

 

 This particular pattern is a bit beyond my current capabilities but I love the effect.

The final craft I would like to attempt is a simple felt crown or three for Miss Three to add to her play room. There is a great tutorial here.

How cute are these? They look pretty straight forward too.

In terms of food I have been looking at some healthier options of late. I try to be good!

The first recipe that I really want to try is a Butternut squash and coconut milk rice recipe. It looks simple and delicious. I have a butternut in my fridge that has seen better days so I might transform it tonight.

Yum! Source

My current favourite source of healthy and often vegan recipes is the blog 86 Lemons. Almost every recipe shared here looks amazing. I am really keen to try the Pineapple and Portobello Tacos.

I have to say that is enough to have me add a pineapple to my trolley today.

I am still on the hunt for the perfect chia pudding and I am enthusiastic about the apple pie variety I found here.

 

 The colour may not be that appetising but I bet it tastes good.

I am so looking forward to finding more things to add to my cooking and crafty to do lists from the other participants in this weeks Listmania. Check out Home Life Simplified for the full list of participants.

Layouts Within Limits: The First Two Layouts

I have not had much luck with weather for taking photos of these layouts. I held off almost all day hoping the light would improve but it hasn't. I hope you can still see what is going on.

Here are my background paper choices with my photos.

 

 

I worked on the single picture layout first. I love this photo of my friend Stefanie. She had just started seeing someone who she thought was very special and her happiness shone out of every pore. They recently announced their engagement and it seemed a good time to record her early excitement.

 I used a variety of patterned papers including vellum, Amy Tangerine and a recent orange toned paper from an SC kit. I used a generous handful of Freckled Fawn stars, an Amy Tangerine heart and rub on and a Bananafish Studio card along with the two alphas I chose. Simple and having the limited supplies certainly made the process much quicker than usual.

Here are a couple of close ups.

The next layout I completed was the three instagram photos on the bright Glitz Design stripes.

 

I loved the colours in this paper with the Bananafish Studio tags. I was planning to add more patterned paper to this but left it overnight and decided that the fairly stark layout was perfect as it was. The wood veneer seemed made for the tags even though I hadn't even read them all when I grabbed the pack for my kit. I may add 2012 to this layout somewhere with an additional font as there are no numbers on the smaller SC font.

Here is a close up of a couple of the tags.

I will share the final layout next week as this is already pretty photo heavy. I have really enjoyed working with the limited selection of supplies and can see this being a great way to scrap really efficiently.

Thanks for looking. Have a great weekend.

Layouts Within Limits - Inspiration by Shimelle, Toni, Senorita Scrapper and Danielle

Recently Shimelle Laine's alter ego Glitter Girl posted a new way to approach scrapbooking by limiting your supplies. The video was fantastic and super inspiring. A group of bloggers then decided to take up the challenge and created some wonderful layouts from limited supplies. Check out their blogs here, here and here. Toni From, Senorita Scrapper and Danielle Higginbottom-Brown all made some amazing layouts!

I was really inspired by this and decided to get my kit together. I am hoping to have three layouts to share over the next week or so using these supplies.

 

These are my three background paper choices. I loved a layout Danielle did using the right hand paper so challenged myself to use it as a background too.

 

These are my additional paper choices. I have included some older Cosmo Cricket and Crate Paper, some newer patterned vellum from Studio Calico and a selection of older 6 x 6 Amy Tangerine papers. I hope I have enough!

Next I chose a large and a small alpha. The aqua one is an Amy Tangerine and the navy is a Studio Calico.

And finally a range of embellishments and mists to keep things interesting. 

I was super excited to get my Freckled Fawn order in the mail this past week so I had to include these veneer and plastic goodies for this mini kit!

I am hoping my next post will include my photo choices and at least one completed layout.

Does this kind of limitation of supplies sound freeing or too restrictive to you. I think it will be great but I am will know more once I have tried it out. I am hoping it will hope with mojo enhancement at any rate!

Happy Wednesday!

Project Life Week Fifteen

Good morning. This week's spread was a quick and easy effort. We have a busy week planned and I knew I wanted to get it done rather than have perfection. Fortunately I am still pretty happy with the result.

I was a little worried that I would not have enough portrait oriented pictures to use on the back side of this sleeve but it turned out I had plenty. The papers are the reverse of the Amy Tangerine paper from two collections ago that I used last week. All the labels are Twine and Ink labels from my SC Project Life kit. I want to say the Dim Sum letters are Basic Grey but I cannot find any brand mark on them to be sure.

There were quite a lot of food photos taken this week. We went out for a family breakfast at Jone The Grocer. Tet and I had eggs and so forth whereas Miss Three settled for a macaron and a cupcake! The other larger picture was of ballet lesson coffees with our friend and her baby while our daughters attended ballet class. We ate some delicious dimsum at MAD but were not prepared to queue like the hundreds of Singaporeans to try the new Tim Ho Wan outlet. Tim Ho Wan has a Michelin star for his dumplings in Hong Kong and his first Singapore branch has been outrageously popular.  The other three photos are more random. A toy pram for sale with a hefty $1100 price tag. Outside the same mall we enjoyed the free beauty of the rainbow reflections from the Gucci store frontage. Hubby provided the last image as he attended a work bowling match during the week. He was pleasantly surprised by how he went but was not among the top performers.

The visible cards this week are all from SC Project Life kits. I have put them all together so I am not sure which kit they are actually from now. The label on the photo of MT and her Daddy is a cut down journalling card as well. The labels are a mixture of Jenni Bowlin and Twine and Ink.

This page is lots of little snippets of life. A funny sign in a store that threatens to sell unaccompanied children to the circus tickled my fancy. Miss Three has taken to stripping down to practically nothing and demanding to sit on my knee to watch TV. As you can see there is not much watching for me! Tet and MT have been playing mermaids a lot lately, using MT's old sleeping bags for tails. I guess it is a good way to reuse them. Finally our teeny tiny street is the proud owner of a pair of street lights while construction goes on. While it is barely wide enough for two cars to pass comfortably in places, it is extremely busy with some pretty large developments going on. We have a lot of large trucks and so on up and down while the new buildings are being completed. I thought the sequins were a fun echo of the lights.

How is you PL going? Are you still keeping up or, like me, a little behind but fighting the good fight?

I am off to edit some more photos. I really want to be more caught up! We have a public holiday here tomorrow so I am hoping to get some PL time in then.