It's a Creative World

Card making with hand made paper

Hi all from MaDdi

When I was on holiday in Scotland, I bought a little pack of hand paper in Morrisons of all places. Each sheet was just big enough to use on a card.

I used one piece of the paper which was actually like cardstock to make the basic card and scored it about 1inch off centre so that the back was bigger than the front. I then just attached the black and gold paper, about  1 and 1/2 inches from the opening and wrapped it all the way round so it covers some of the inside of the card as well.

I found the cute little blackberry heart on one of my shopping trips and just attached it to the front with narrow ribon. I have not added a sentiment, but you could add whatever you want on a small piece of ivory cardstock.

So when you are doing all that boring grocery shopping have a look at the stationery department and you may be surprised at what you find.

Thanks for visiting IACW

MadDi X

Christmas Papers - Sneaky Peek

Yes, yes, yes. I'm sure you're all not thinking about the big C at the moment but unfortunately it is creeping upon us very quickly! In fact, if you want me to be really cruel, i shall tell you it's only 97 days away!!!!

I am normally a last minute girl but this year i've been taking a look at some of the new papers available so i can get Christmas cards organised. Most of my friends will tell you i'm mad cause i;m usually the one with fingers in ears singing 'lalala' when anyone mentions Christmas.

Have you thought about it yet???

Well have a little look at some of these beautiful papers winging their way here soon!

New Basic Grey - Wassail

Cosmo Cricket - Oh Joy

Making Memories - Fa La La

My Minds Eye - Be Merry

October Afternoon - Good Cheer

So, what will you be buying??

Cath xx

Welcome Sherry Steveson - author of 'When Life Gives You Lemons'

Hi  - Jakey here, and I'd like to introduce you to Sherry Steveson, a hugely talented scrapbooker and writer who has recently published an amazing new  book chock full of ideas and tips on how to use those imperfect photos we all get from time to time.      Over to Sherry:

Sherry Steveson has been passionate about scrapbooking for over ten years. Finding a hobby that merged her love for photography with her gift of writing, all wrapped up in a creative outlet was the catalyst for a life long devotion. Her work has been published in many of the major scrapbook magazines and idea books and always brings a thrill to her family when they see their faces on the pages of those publications. She has also found her calling in the world of teaching scrapbooking to others. She is the author of When Life Gives You Lemons; turning sour photos into sweet scrapbooks and currently writing The Scrapbookers Embellishment Handbook. When she isn’t writing, scrapbooking or teaching, she has a very full schedule with her three children and husband’s landscape business.  You can read more about Sherry at her Sassy Schtuff blog: http://sherrysteveson.typepad.com/my_weblog/   and she invites you to join her at her challenge blog Making Lemonade http://makingsweetlemonade.blogspot.com/

Close your eyes for a second and picture this scene. As you stand there with camera in hand ready to capture your precious child’s face on Christmas morning, you picture all the fabulous memories you will capture on that special morning. What you actually find when you get back that photo sleeve from the developer or take a glance at the photos captured on your memory card hardly portray an accurate image of a Norman Rockwell moment. Quite the opposite, in fact. Blurry faces and poorly lit surroundings are all you see. Has this scenario ever happened to you? While this is not what you imagined when you were all set to capture those perfect holiday moments, it’s all you have to remember that moment. That is the way life happens. Imperfect moments happen all around us and so it would seem that our scrapbook pages should reflect life. I have developed a few tricks and techniques for dealing with those imperfect photos of our perfect moments of life.

 

1.       Make the blur work FOR you

 Simply put the blurry photos to work for your page by capturing the feel of activity,         time passing by quickly or an out of focus theme. Another great trick is to reduce the size of blurry photos to minimize the blurry appearance.

2.            Tips for clashing colors or backgrounds

Find a subject to focus on and use their colors as the focus or use a monochromatic color scheme. Camouflage the background with scrapbook embellishments.

3.               Black and white can be our friend

When colors become too difficult to work with a simple solution is to create a neutral palette to work with.

4.               Red Eyes

Red Eye is an image in which a subject’s irises are red instead of black that can be corrected using simple photo editing software commonly available.

5.            Using photo editing programs

Changing the lighting within a photo can give a photo new life with a few simple tricks from many of the photo editing software’s that are available

 

6.            Embrace the age or preserve the photo

An older photo can add a sense of nostalgia to a layout in spite of its imperfections. On the other hand, preserving the photo can breathe new life into memory.

7.            Incorporate the design of your page to flatter the cropped subject

 Quite commonly when a subjects head has been cropped too much or a portion of their body is missing, we can find a way to creatively use these photos as clever designing moments

When I see an imperfect photo, I often times will challenge myself to see the photo as an opportunity to tell a better story within my journaling to engage the reader. Telling a compelling story can often balance the imperfections within the photo and allow the charm of the moment shine through. This is why it is always important to scrapbook even the most flawed of photos because the story that needs to be told can make a great scrapbook page. The imperfect photo will still support the story and provide another insight into the memory.

 

Here are some layout examples to show you how I tackle the challenge of an imperfect photo.

Too Blurry:

 

Change to black and white and add a vibrant color scheme

 

 

Distracting background, can't see the focal person as well

 

 

 

Place a design circle around the focal subject and add pops of color in the design to focus on the energy in the photo

 

 

 

I hope these will give you some ideas on how to work with your imperfect photos. SO. Instead of hitting the delete button on your camera next time a photo doesn't turn out exactly as you would like, please take a moment to think about how you can use improve upon that photo with a little help.

Sherry

 

Many thanks to Sherry for sharing her ideas and work with us today

love from the creative girls xx

A huge welcome to our guest Tracy Gough

Seeing Stars

I’d like to say a massive thank you to the girls for inviting me to do a guest spot on IACW. I am totally honoured to be part of such an amazing and inspirational blog.  This is the first time I’ve been asked to guest on a blog, so I am a bit nervous.

 I am a 40 year old, wife and SAHM to one boy, and just love nothing better than playing with paper.

 I have been making cards on a regular basis for just over a year now, before that I just scrapped and made the occasional card just for fun (but rarely sent them), but now scrapbooking has been put on the back burner and I’ve become totally addicted to making cards. I’ve even sold a few!

 I love using stars on my cards, especially when they are for males, but I thought to myself, how versatile stars could be and used for all styles of cards, and for all occasions.

So here are three examples of using stars to create three totally different looks, from a soft baby card, to a funky teen girl and a bright and bold card.

I hope you like them.

 

  

 

Thanks Tracy for being a fantastic guest.

If you would like to see more of Tracy's work then you can visit her blog.

Gardening - the rewards

So how has your garden grown this year?

Have you been digging for victory?

The weather may not have been great this year but at least we didn't have a hosepipe ban and everything has flourished....even though we may not have been able to do much sunbathing!

Hi from Lemon I have been really pleased with the rewards my garden has given me this year.

The new vegetable plot has been a huge success,I have not had to buy anything for months.

The carrots are delicious.

 

My new favourite vegetable has to be the runner beans, they have not stopped and have been delicious.

 

The verbena bonariensis is so graceful at the bottom of the garden

Finally my rudbeckia are finally starting to blossom....well I think that's what they are...I might have labelled them wrong but they are very pretty.

 

And hello from MaDdi. I do hope you have reaped the rewards of your gardening efforts.  I enjoy the rewards of gorgeous smelly roses. If you have "dead headed" you should still be enjoying an abundance of roses.

 

Hi from Caz.

Harvest is a great time of year, getting in the last of the summer veg and preparing it to keep in the winter. If you store potatoes and onions correctly you can have 'fresh out the garden' all winter long!
Carrots and beans are a little easier because they can be frozen, just check which veg needs to be blanched before freezing.

 

 

 

 

We have been so lucky over the past three years to have such success out in the garden!

haPPy harVEst!
IACW girls
xx

Welcome to our talented international guest - Tamara Wheeler!

Please welcome Tamara, a talented scrapbooker, cardmaker and sketch artist.

My name is Tamara Wheeler and I live in Germany. I moved here in September 2006 from America. I have 5 kids:  Shantal 10, Spencer 9, Hannah 7, Emma 3 and Ian is 2. I have been married for 14 years to my wonderful and supportive husband, Gardner.

I have been scrapping for 14 years. Some of my favorites are Bazzill, Basic Grey, Scenic Route, Cosmo Cricket, Primas,  and the list just goes on.  I am a flower junkie! You can never have to many.  I love virtual crops as I don’t know any scrappers that live close to me here in Germany to get together often with. I tend to chat more than I scrap, but that is how it is with me.   You can find my work in the gallery at Scrap Freak

I have a Sketch blog called, Sketches! {by tamara},  where I upload a new layout sketch every Monday with an emphasis on multiple photos and a new card sketch every Thursday. We are starting our Recipe Challenges back up each Tuesday starting September 2^nd.   I hope you will stop by and see the fantastic work of the Sketches! Design Team.

I am very excited about sharing this sketch with you.  I can’t wait to see what you do with it!

{tamara}

Tamara has provided us with this exclusive sketch 

and you can see our interpretations below: 

Jakey

 

Caz

I've flipped the sketch and done a 6x12 layout :)

 

Lemon

 

 

Hi from MadDi and i loved the sketch - here is my interpretation:

 

Can't you just tell that I love to pose in my new pink shoes and a new WIG!!!

 

We hope you like the sketch as much as we do.

Please post a link to your layouts, we'd love to see what you come up with for this sketch!

Love from Jakey & the creative team!

Here comes Halloween

I know that it's still September but time is marching on and Halloween will be here before we know it  It's Maria here and I've been rooting around the big ole www for some ideas to get you started.

I found this FREE printable COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN CALENDAR complete with 31 fun Halloween activities.  I like this one as it looks fun rather than scary ....... I am a bit of a scaredy cat.

On the same site I found these fabulous PUMPKIN TREAT BAGS which would make perfect party favours or gifts for trick or treaters.

 

My search for something for the littlies led me to this CREEPY CRAWLY SPIDER BRACELET

   

Or, how about these super scary ORIGAMI BATS to swoop on unsuspecting visitors?

   

I hope that these ideas have whetted your appetite for a scary October.  There are lots of ideas out there and to save you wearing out your surfing fingers here are a few linkie dinks for you.  They are all FREE so having fun needn't mean spending lots of money.

Activity village

Enchanted learning 

Holidays.net

All crafts  

Have fun and please share your spooky creations with us cos we're nosey.

Toodle pip

Ooh, can I make a very special mention for our Trish?  She knows why ..... wink wink!!!

A to Z Journal - S Pages

Hi all and it's S for September and Sunshine LOL

Here are a few ideas for the letter S:

Book of me/you: Soppy, Staid, Stylish, Sassy, Spouse, Sincere, Studious, Shy, Sexy, Silly, Suave, Smart, Soft, Stupid (LOL), Spendthrift (Hee Hee ME) ...

Book of baby: Smooth, Sleep, Spoilt, Sweet, Surly, Sticky, Sleep, Soothe, Son, Sick...

Book of everyday:  Supper, Soup, Shopping, Sunshine, Smile, School, Swimming, Snow, Sleet, Smoothie, So So, Sublime, Share, Space...

Occasions/ Life:  Sunshine, Summer, Spring, Sister, Splendid, Serendipity, Serenity, Salvation...

Tools and Techniques: Scrapping, Stamping, Stash, Scissors, Stables, Sew, Space, Scraps...

Knitting: Sew it together, Stitches, Sample...

Caz

 

heehee, yes that's me lively & spirited :)

Lemon's Book of Growing Up

S is for School and documents one of the trials of a first day at a new School.

Di - Book of my Life

Oh how I remember when I was a like a Sunflower in full bloom. But now I am in the last phaSe (Stage) -  a withering Sunflower. And yeS this phaSe (Stage) is the moSt gloriouS...

 

Thnks for visiting us and lets see your A to Z journal pages

Love from the cReative giRls X

School Diary

Hi Everyone

I hope you're all gearing up for the weekend ahead!

My darling son Corey started school last week. After a few days of him telling me what he had been doing that day and relishing in his enthusiasm i realised that i should be recording all this information. I have a blog but didn't think it the best place to write all this kind of stuff down so i thought it would be a great keepsake to start Corey's own little diary where everyday(if anything interesting has happened) i can document his antics.

So, i had a Sarabook lying around that hadn't been used and i thought i would put it to good use. 

I prised apart the metal spine so i could take the cover off, this is really simple. 

To cover the front i used Love Elsie fabric paper which is already adhesive and worked well. 

To make the holes in it so i could put the spine back in i simply used a pair of large scissors and poked them through the fabric, although i'm sure there's some gadget out there that will do it properly.

For the school days title i used Doodlebug stickers and for the wording at the bottom i used computer print, then just added the little picture. I used paper with trees on as the school emblem is Acorns.

I still have the inside to finish but it's going to be fairly basic with just a few 

pictures and oddments that Corey brings home. Here are the first couple of pages.

REMEMBER, if we don't record the memories that are important then who will??

Take care

Cath  xx

Making a banner for your blog...

Hi from MadDi (who BTW has worked in Information Technology for more than 40 years) but still does not do the digi stuff!!!

When I wanted a new banner for our blog, guess what, I wanted to try and make it! The new banner caused so much discussion on our forum with all the creative girls providing great feedback. I

 started with this sort of idea - the banner I made as a practice for my blog:

Here is some of the HUGE discussion we had....

"Hi girls.oh I wish Andrea was here. We need a new banner that better denotes what we do. So something crafty maybe with lots of stuff - a layout some crochet some decor and a cake!"

"Yes I think we need a mosaic type banner!"

"I like that idea and maybe if it was in a frame type of effect or edging"

"It's really looking awesome! Did you try different fonts??"

"here is another font - papyrus"

LOL - believe me you get LOADS of ideas from the cReative gIRls!!!!

Making the banner: Now I am sure there are loads of ways to make a banner, but this is what I did.

Firstly the theme: We wanted our banner to reflect what IACW does - everything! So I went throught our blog and collected loads of images. Where necessary I cropped them. I selected different shape photographs - some square some portrait and some landscape.

Then the layout: I used Microsoft Digital Image Suite Editor and created a 'project' - a flyer.

I then dragged the photographs on to the 'project', reduced their size (carefully) and moved them around untill I had the right layout.. This took quite a few attempts!

I then added some text and played with loads of different colours AND fonts.

So we had LOTS of versions - here are a few:

We changed the font and the colour:

We changed the size of some images:

And we created a border:

You will see on the blog shortly what we ended up with!

OK it's our first attempt! But If I can do it believe me anyone can

Have fun playing with your computer and your photographs

Thanks for visiting IACW and have fun CREATING.

MadDi X