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Much Love Monday

Hello one and all, hope you all had a wonderful weekend!!I just got back from traveling around in a tow truck....lol!! Too much fun in one day! Our car broke down in the middle of a round about, we lost all power steering so I had to get out and push the car around the corner. A lovely police woman stopped traffic for us and yelled out the window "sorry I can't help you push but I have a broken toe"....just what I needed to hear whilst nearly peeing my pants from pushing the monster of a car......well it felt like a monster! The tow truck driver asked Mum and I if we would like a lift home so we took him up on his offer. As we were climbing up into the cabin he got a call through to go pick a trailer up so we went along for the ride.....he was such a lovely man, real chatty. Told us about his travels around Australia in his caravan, what days he works, who owns the tow truck.....you know, secret men's business....lol! At least we had fun......

Here is my entry into Much Love Monday....


I pretty little art doll faces!!

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I ♥ Sunday

Some happy link lovin' on a rainy/overcast Sunday afternoon with my yummy hot latte, my fluffy slippers { yes it's getting cool here in Australia so just go with me } listening to Kyle and Jackie O { fav. radio hosts 2dayfm }

I want to start today's links off with an awesome store I recently discovered thru my mindless blog hoppin' called Emersonmade. The flowers that Emerson make are so beautiful and delicately made I could hardly believe my eyes when I was browsing thru the store. Here are just a few of my fav's:

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Make sure you check out Emerson's blog which is filled with the most beautiful photos of her stunningly, sweet, soft and oh so pretty flowers.  I want to cover my whole house with these pretty, pretties!! I think they deserve two little 's today!!

- A goes to Ann from Ann Wood Handmade for her wonderful tutorial on making these paper mache boats:

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- A goes to the two talented ladies from Kitty Robot HERE and HERE. They make the cutest little clay goodies and the sweetest little buttons you will ever see! Find out more about them on their blog HERE. Have a look at this cute little ring:

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- A goes to this stunning room! Imagine having these pretty flowers as your wallpaper:

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- A goes to Cute Tape for these wee little alpha stamps:

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NOTE: Cute Tape also have a wonderful collection of Tapes and Katrina over at Pugly Pixel is giving away 12 rolls of washi tape!! See HERE for giveaway details....good luck!!

- A goes to  Daisy Barn Arts for their oh-so cute vintage inspired art pieces:

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- A goes to this awesome card made by Jody from Confessions of a Ribbon Addict! She has even put together a tutorial so you can make your own:

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- A goes to this super funny crafty blog called Geek Crafts! It's so geeky that it's cool...lol!! Here's one of the many tutorial links the blog has to offer - Apple Pie:

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- The last goes to this gorgeous tutorial by Pascale from Between the Lines on how to make your own messenger bag. I seriously want to make/own one of these:

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Hope you find something creative to do this lazy Sunday afternoon!!

 


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I ♥ Faces - Fix-It Friday #51

Yes I am a little late but with good reason.....I went over my 25gig quota for the month with my internet so it slowed down to 64kbps....very painful to sit and wait to see if a page loads or not. In the end I just gave up!! I had to wait a long 3 days for it to click over into the next month....gggrrrrr......

So, let's take a look at this weeks photo by Allie who wrote "bring out her eyes more and brighten the colors just a bit"


I used actions from My Four Hens Photography in this order:

- Photographer's Tool Box: basic editing
- Color Play: slightly golden
- Photographer's Tool Box: soft pop
- Photographer's Tool Box: eye pop

I added a free texture {can't remember which one, sorry} from one of the many texture flickr group's, over the top and changed the layer to hard light and erased most of the texture from the little girls face, hair, scarf and jacket. That's it!


I will post my "I Sunday" later this afternoon! Hope you are all having a relaxing weekend full of creativeness!!

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Creative Therapy Guest Artist!!

Firstly, I would like to welcome any new comers to my blog coming from Creative Therapy!!

I can finally share my news with you!!!

When Karen contacted me a few months ago to be a guest artist for Creative Therapy, I was over the moon excited!! My catalyst question was "How would you describe yourself as a child" I knew straight away that I wanted to create another canvas similar to the one I created for my niece for Christmas:

NOTE: Want to see how I made the above canvas? See the 7 part series here: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7.

Looking back on my childhood brought back so many memories, good and bad. It made me think about what I do now, the art I create the memories I record. I wish my Mother had been creative in some way when I was little. I can just imagine all the memories recorded of my childhood, all the little mementos, the milestones, the funny, the sad, those kodak moments, makes me smile just thinking about it.
I love to share my creative ventures with my two girls and involve them in what I create whenever possible. Little Miss J {my youngest} has found her creative side and wants to create something on a daily basis but my eldest Miss O hasn't shown an interest in any crafts or art. I hope this will change as she gets older. 


Here is the canvas I created for Creative Therapy called Dreamer. Click on the images to see larger previews:


Here's a what I wrote about the canvas piece over at Creative Therapy:

"   As a child we moved around quite often so I was a very shy girl and found it hard to make friends as I knew I would have to change schools and start over again. My imagination became something I cherished and I spent most afternoons and weekends in a day dream, dreaming up stories I would write down in my journals {story teller}; making little cubby houses out of anything I could find {collector}; sketching what I saw around me and adding color with pencils using techniques that were self taught {artistic}; running away from home quite often, even if it was just around the corner, up a really tall tree or just to the back smoke house on the roof so I could watch my Mother drive up and down the street looking for me {adventurer}. Looking back on my childhood, my life was filled with many dreams and some wonderful self-made experiences. I lived with my head in the clouds, my heart on my sleeve and a great story in my hand!  "

To read more about the process of creative this canvas and how the design team answered this week's  catalyst question, keep reading here....

Hope you like it!!




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Giveaway Spotlight

Found this awesome vintage goodies giveaway over on Natalie's blog Scrap Doctor. Look at the yummy goody bag she is giving away:


To see the full list of goodies up for grabs and how to win them, check Natalie's blog post here.

♥ ♥ ♥ ♥ ♥

Tape strips on photos above are from Katrina over at Pugly Pixel! Grab her new freebie whilst your there:

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Hope your having a wonderful day!! 
 
 

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Be Still My Vintage ♥

On my travels today I discovered this ever-so pretty Vintage Paper Love kit from With a Twist by Tara Anderson. Have a look at this swoon-worthy prettiness:

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I am loving all the other goodies in her store, I want to buy everything!! Three of my favorite items are the Pretty Packaging Kit, Vintage Saturday + Sweet Heart Stickers + Vintage Button Cards below:

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The one thing about Tara's store that really caught my eye is her photography skills and the way she present's her products. Each photo has perfect lighting conditions, eye-catching color combination's and beautiful attention to details in her product previews. To me, this is a winning combination and sure-fire way to get those sales!! You may want to check out Tara's blog The Pink Couch for more beautiful product photos recipes, giveaways and loads of inspiration!!


I wanted to make a special mention about a newly found blog crush I have on Pugly Pixel {mentioned here} and the gorgeous Clipart Tape Strips freebie Katrina has on her blog: 

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 Katrina is offering them for personal and business use! How cool is that?? I am totally lovin' them!! Hop on over to her blog and check them out as well as the rest of her blog and don't forget to leave her some love!! Thanks a bunch Katrina xo
 


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I ♥ Sunday

Sunday is my favorite day of the week as I sit at my PC surfing the net, scoping out inspiration and sipping way too much coffee. I want to share with you some of my favorite things I this week:

- A goes to this little sweetie {gotta the name}:

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- A goes to this little giggle-worthy piece of art by Marc Johns:

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{ mustaches on strings are the finest of things }

- A goes to these awesome acrylic stamps from {kr}:

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- A goes to these AMAZING cupcake kits from Meri Meri:

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 - A goes to this fun album kit by Evalicious:

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- A goes to the pretty, pretty paper kit Sweet Lily by Belladrummer {sweet Debee Campos}:

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- A goes to Katrina of Pugly Pixel for her fun tutorial on Scalloped Edges on photos:

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- The last goes to Roben-Marie's video tutorial on making these shabby-yummy fabric flowers:

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Time to get out of my PJ's now.....lol! { Happy Days ! }

 

I ♥ Faces - Fix-It Friday #50

I am a frequent reader of I Faces and I love looking at everyone's photo fixes on Friday's. So today I decided to play along using this photo from Debbie:


I played with the curves in CS3, brightened up the eyes and fixed some blemishes, ran my favorite action Eggshell from Freshly Vintage at My Four Hens Photography and added a layer of texture. That's it, here's my version:


Had loads of fun doing this, I think I may have to do this every Friday now......lol!!

That's it for today.......more goodies to show you in the next week....fun, fun, fun!!

Petit Jardin + A Digital Walk Through


A gorgeous new mini kit Petit Jardin by Catherine Designs from After 5 Designs was released yesterday and I wanted to share a digital page I created using the April Shot as well as using some of Catherine's part of the After 5 Collaboration kit Little Garden:

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Can you believe that this mini kit {below} is only $2.00!! Here's what is in Catherine's April Shot:

(most elements include one or two shadowed versions)
4 beautifully textured papers ( 12" papers, 300 dpi, .jpg )
1 bird
1 basket
1 herb pot (with one stacked version)
1 bucket
1 duck
3 butterfly (green, blue, orange)
1 wheel ( with a frame version)
1 snail
1 raffia bows
3 garden tools (green, white, orange) 2 'petit jardin' WA
several embellished clusters (including some elements from the store collab 'Little Garden')


Each month the After 5 Designs store designers create a collaborative kit that coordinates with the designer's individual shots, here is Catherine's part of the collaboration:


The collaborative kit Little Garden has some of the best digital scrapbooking designer's in the industry including:
The April Guest Bren Boone, Bisontine, Catherine Designs, Cinnamon Designs, Createwings Designs, K Studio, Kimla Designs, Jazzmin Designs and Lily Designs. 


The Little Garden kit is only $5.00 for 5 days, how awesome is that!! All those goodies for 5 bucks! Be sure to check out some of the other pages created using this gorgeous kit. You will find some in the gallery here & here, and on the kit page in the store.
I just love brown's and green's, makes me think of dirt and grass and the smell of freshly cut lawn....lol!

A sweet friend asked if that was my garden on my layout and no it's not. I simply created the scene using all of Catherine's goodies from her shot and her part of the collab. 

QUICK NOTE: Catherine has posted a tutorial towards the end of her blog post on how to create a natural looking scene on your digital pages.

Once this was created I flattened the image and ran a photo action from My Four Hens Photography called Eggshell from the Freshly Vintage Action collection. I took this paper:


And used the Polygonal Lasso Tool in Photoshop to cut the center circle from the page and promoted it to it's own layer. I used this circle as a mask and clipped my layout to this circle.


I changed the layer to Multiply in the layer palette so that the inner shadow of the original paper would show through:


The scene is looking a little washed out so I duplicated the layer and changed this layer to Soft Light to brighten it up a little:


Now we are left with this:


I really want this page to POP so I changed the outside paper to this:


I simply clipped the paper over the outer side of the circle cut out, duplicated the layer and changed this layer to Multiply:


Now once I turn all the layers back on, added a few more embellishments and a cute title using Catherine's Alpha called Aqua-Lime Alpha {which coordinates with one of Catherine's gorgeous kit called Guy Things} Here is the end result:

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Hope you enjoyed the little walk through on how I created this page. As always, any questions, shoot me an email or leave me a comment....I love comments......lol!! Wishing everyone a very Happy Easter! xo

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