Paper Issues Design Team!

Hello Friends! I am super duper excited to let you all know that I am part of the Paper Issues Design Team from February to July 2018! It is such and honour to be included in this very talented and inspirational team of ladies. Please head on over to the Paper Issues blog, website, Facebook page and their Instagram page for lots of inspiration and fun! For those of you who don't know, Paper Issues is an online scrapbook shop. It sells all the newest, trendiest and most beautiful scrapbook goodies that there is to offer! The awesomeness does not stop there! If you add my code 'Leslie' in the coupon box when checking out at the shop you will instantly get 20% off your entire purchase!

So Grateful

Hello Friends! Today I would like to share this layout with you that I made using an older Kaisercraft collection called Rose Avenue. It is such a beautiful, soft and feminine collection. The two little photos are of me when I was a baby, I'm not sure how old I was, sadly none of the photos I have of my childhood are dated. I thought it would be fun to make a grid layout. So I took different elements out of the collection and cut them to the desired shape and size and made a grid. If you look closely you will see that I added some tissue paper to the backs of my photos, it adds a softness to the photo and I just plain like the way it looks! I love dimension and so I popped most of the elements up on adhesive foam. I also added stitching the to squares and rectangles to further make them pop. I love me some stitchin'!! And that is all for this layout. Short and sweet. It came together quite quickly (except for the stitching of course).

Love our Secret Garden

Hi everyone! Today I am sharing with you this layout I made using a very old picture of me and my sister. I must have been around a year old, and my sister must have been about 4. As you can see, we are picking blossoms off a bush of some sorts. So, I thought it appropriate to use the Kaisercraft collection called Secret Garden. It is one of their older collections, and I don't think its even available in the shops or on line anymore. I have it in my stash and now I got some use out of it! It is such a beautiful, soft, feminine collection. The pinks and the greens are so subtle with the blues offer an accented contrast to the rest of the colours. I just love making diagonal layouts, it is so easy to embellish and everything always seem to flow so well together. As you can see I did what I do on most layouts, I fussy cut a lot of the flowers on one of the 12x12 sheets in the collection pack. If you don't know me by now, I just LOVE fussy cutting! I can spent hours fussy cutting, basically until my hand cramps up! There is not much technical to say about this layout. I placed my photo on the bottom half of the diagonal line and I arranged the flowers in a sort of a bouquet popping out from behind the photo. I have to say that the chain stitching around the layout took quite a while, but worth it!

Happy Smiles

Hi! Today I'm sharing this layout with you that I made a few months ago. I wanted to do something different and break away from any of the collections I had at that time. So I went online and found these amazing printable florals. I printed them out on my Canon printer and just cut them out with my scissors. The flowers and leaves are very basic and easy to fussy cut. Let me tell you a little about the photo. It was taken when Emma was about 5 months old. On Sundays the family gathers after church and we have a massive Sunday roast. On that particular day Emma and her cousin were both all dolled up in their pretty dresses. Her Auntie was also dolled up, and I thought the three of them together would make such a lovely photo.

 I used 12x12 textured white card stock and I applied Gesso as I knew I wanted to do some mixed media. I used the packaging method, I just rubbed some blue Gelato's onto the plastic packaging, added water and made sure the Gelato's and water mixed well. I turned the packaging over and just smudged the blue paint onto the white card stock. I just wanted to add some interest in the background to counter the stark white of the card stock. I layered some pink pattern paper from my stash behind the photo and added a little green doodle sticker from an old Doodlebug collection. As you can see I layered the flowers behind the photo to create a sort of bouquet. I also added some stitching in the shape of the flowers and I tried to match up the colours of the thread and the flowers as best I could. I felt that the layout was very busy on the left hand side of the paper and needed to be balanced out a bit, so I added a little cluster of the fussy cut flowers and some more stitching over on the top right corner. All in all I feel happy with how this layout came out. It is a very happy, simple and bright layout. See you soon!!

A girl and her Cat

Hello Friends! Today I want to share this layout I created. Let me first talk about the photo. I took this photo of my oldest daughter a few months ago. She was sitting on my bed with her very messy and tangled hair clutching our cat ( poor cat). She was reading out aloud to our Kitty, and I thought it was the sweetest thing. So I got the phone out and snapped this cutie! I got one of the cut apart sheets from Carta Bella's very beautiful collection called 'Flora no. 1' a few months ago, and I thought the colours in the collection would go perfectly with the colours in the photo. Her dress is a 'dirty' pink, and the same pink is present in this collection. I unfortunately only had the one cut apart sheet, so I had to work with a plan. I fussy cut some of the florals from the sheet and placed them on the photo on adjacent corners. I also cut out some of the journaling cards and used them for layering. I had to go digging in my stash for a co-ordination paper with florals. You will see those florals behind the photo, I fussy cut them out. I have no idea what collection that floral paper is from, its a very old paper, so I can't even tell you for referencing. However, I can tell you loads about the background. I absolutely love working with Gelato's.

 I was first introduced to Gelato's while watching one of Missy Whidden's many fabulous process videos on Youtube. Please do yourself a favour and go ahead and watch her videos, they are amazing. Okay, back to the background! I used a plain white piece of 12x12 cardstock and primed it with Gesso. After the Gesso dried I went ahead and rubbed the Gelato's directly onto the paper in the shades that I wanted. I applied it liberally! To blend the Gelato's and get that beautiful gradient effect I blended the colours with my fingers and I also used a hard bristle paint brush, (I applied very little water to the brush). The alpha's and accent stickers I used to embellish the page are all from my stash. 

While creating this page I was reminded that you don't always have to work with a complete collection kit, you can pick out one paper and build an entire page theme around the colours in that one paper. Just as I did with this layout, I had one cut apart sheet of the ' Flora no.1' collection and I made a layout. See, you can do it! Go dig in your stash for coordinating colours and themes and slap them all together, you will be amazed! Get creative with your background, don't be afraid to get messy, you can always clean it up after wards!

Little events and happenings...

Hello friends! 

 Welcome to my blog. Here you get a glimpse into my life by the stories the photos tell that I scrapbook and journal about. My life is marked by little events and happenings, by beautiful serendipitous moments. I have always had a fascination with photos. As a little girl I would stand and stare at the photos in my grandmother's photo gallery in her house.

 I remember one photo in particular, it is of her grandmother. This beautiful regal young woman adorned in her Victorian dress sits on a picnic blanket, holding a little baby, my great grandmother. I remember the young woman's eyes, they had a piercing quality. Today, that photo still hangs in my grandmother's house, but the face of the striking young woman has all but faded away. All that is left is a ghostly figure, a stiff Victorian dress holding a faceless baby. Her face is gone, her identity has faded away, all that is left of her is her story. That got me thinking.  What part of me will fade away? 

I started memory keeping when I was in primary school. It started with a very basic diary, with every entry starting with the very original ' Dear Diary' ( face palm). And so, very slowly I started documenting the little events and happenings. The small basic diary turned into bigger diaries which in turn became books and books of ramblings, ideas, happy moments, sad moments, boyfriends, friends, x-boyfriends, x-friends. It grew and grew, until the day I started dating my husband. I gave him all my books and he read through all of my ramblings. I figured that if he had to get to know me, what better way to help him along than my books? 

 So here we are, almost 11 years later. I wanted to document our life together, but I wanted something more visual. I had dabbled in scrapbooking in my early twenties, but being a student, I couldn't support the hobby. So when our first child was born I began documenting his little events and happenings with scrapbooking. If you have ever struggled to get into scrapbooking have a baby and then it will be very easy to scrapbook! The cutesy papers and adorable embellishments will have you hooked in no time. So, welcome to my blog, here you will get a glimpse into my life by the stories the photos tell that I scrapbook and journal about! Enjoy!!