Calling all blog stalkers...

Now and then I hear someone say, "oh I read your blog" or "I love looking at your layouts on your blog" or "when are you going to update your blog" well if I knew there were people interested in reading my blog then I might make more of an effort LOL. 
To date I have really only blogged to create an online record of my scrapbooking for me to look back on in the future. 
 If you are one of my blog stalkers then please leave a comment, cos feedback is nice (and polite) hint hint

Here are some of my 2013 layouts so far, I do have others to upload but haven't photographed them yet. (but that will give you an incentive to pop back to my blog again soon *wink*) 

Don't you think this is a great idea for a layout? photos of each of us at one year old. awww we were all such cute babies. 

I love scrapping the funny things my family say and even though the colours in the photo of this layout are a bit off (Alyse's face isn't that colour LOL) I still wanted to share this simple layout design and Alyse's funny story.

Another funny story, this one from TJ. I love the grungy look of this layout and the simple cluster of embellishments. I made the chicken wire embellishment myself by simply printing out a digital image onto the transparency.

Inspired by a layout I had saved a while ago, but cannot remember who was the original designer. So easy to create with the word strips which you could easily make yourself in WORD or PSE etc.

I will endeavour to upload some more layouts soon, and maybe even some Project Life style travel pages.

The last of them plus a few stats

Today is the 14th January 2013 and I am only two days passed my personal TWELVE deadline...yes that means I have completed my 156 layouts (plus there were about 4 or 5 extra layouts not counted), one of these 156 layouts was an OTP (off the page) project and that includes 473 photos in total scrapped!!! Admittedly some photos were triplicates as I created a layout for both kid's albums and ours but I'm still counting them.

Here are the last few layouts...

Everyday Life - gosh if it wasn't for the flair button at the bottom this would have been an embellishment-less layout LOL. But my main embellishing was in the title, by using the different fonts.

People - super easy layout only made to look better because I used some transparent stickers and some rub-ons.

Me - yes this is a photo of me and hubby but the little bit of journalling is how I feel when I look at this photo. This is my first attempt at Steampunk inspired by Finnabair and Nic Howard. While I loved using texture paste with the brick wall stencil and the glimmermisting I didn't like how it was hard to keep everything stuck down so there wasn't a white margin around the elements.

Photos I Love - our old cat Molly who just walked in the door as I typed her name LOL

Seasons - this little positive test was the very beginning of my season as a mother of two! I have the photos of my first pregnancy test (with our daughter) and the layout will look almost exactly the same but in pinks! (I crocheted the large flower aka tiny doily).

Family Stories - this story is one of my daughter's school-family stories. Again a layout with very little embellishment and the skewed photo makes it look weird LOL

My big goal for 2013 is to create travel albums for the kids big holidays and I am going to use the Project Life Clementine and Turquoise kits throughout the albums. I have purchased the digital kits in these versions also just in case the paper kits are discontinued at any stage. 
Wish me luck because already there are over 1000 photos to scrap and I am not sure if they will be in the correct orientation for the pocket pages!

So close to my goal...

Only five more layouts (plus the Photo I Love layout which cannot be created until I have finished the rest) and I will have reached my goal of 156 layouts, trouble is though I only have until midnight tonight and that is in eight hours and I still have chores to do and dinner to cook (I wonder if Ross will oblige there cos its only him and I home for a meal tonight) and I am not great at staying up late. Meanwhile here are my latest layouts...

Inspiration (left side) - Of course I had to scrap about Stacy Julian and how she has inspired me since at least 2007. The 'scrap big' and 'think big' badges were given to me by Stacy when we met IRL in Wellington. The journalling is partially hidden in a pocket (read it below). The background strips were inspired by the TWELVE journal that BPC sent everyone who enrolled in the TWELVE online class (see photo on right side layout below)

Inspiration (right side) - the title spot was inspired by the journal cover (as was the layout background). Journalling reads (long) ...

This lady is a huge inspiration to me and my storytelling!

I met Stacy Julian at a Crafting Connection event Wellington in 2007 and was impressed with her enthusiasm for recording our life stories in a simple creative way. I remember one of the classes even involved some dancing around the tables whilst clicking our staplers to the music! Hilarious! 
 In 2011, I took Stacy’s online BPC Finding Photo Freedom class. I learned how to get some control of my 50000+ photographs and to create a plan to manage stacks of memorabilia, as well as my scrapping supplies and to organise my layouts using Stacy’s “Library of Memories” system. I am still tweaking the names of each of our themed LOM albums but so far I am thinking My Life; School Life; People in my Life; Places in my Life; Enjoying things in Life and Celebrations in my Life. Sorting, purging, collating and tagging is an on-going process.

In June 2012 I created Colour Drawers similar to Stacy’s. My supplies are now totally stored by colour. WOW what a difference this has made to my scrapbooking. In the past most of my layouts were embellished only with buttons because they were close at hand and sorted by colour. Now I can just open one of the ‘colour drawers’ and find several choices of lovely colourful embellishments that could work on my layout.

I have almost finished a year-long class called Twelve (in 2012) where Stacy has taught us to make lists, curate content and cultivate ideas to help us all to become better storytellers. I created over 140 layouts in 2012 as a result and hope to reach my goal of 156 by the end of January. One of my most favourite projects created during this class is the ‘Photos I Love’ album using one photo from each month teamed with patterned paper scraps from the layouts created in that month, simply embellished with a jewellery tag, a heart brad and a title block. I added a simple embellished jewellery tag to every layout created in 2012 as a reminder that the layout was inspired by Stacy and her class!) There were 12 topics to scrap each month: Everyday Life, Family Stories, Fun and Holidays (aka Easter, Guy Fawkes & Christmas as opposed to vacations). I included Celebrations in the Holidays topic also, as well as Inspiration, Me/You, People, Personality, Places. Rituals, Seasons, and Things, plus the Photos I Love topic. The course was full-on inspiration and I’m going to re-read the class materials and re-watch the online videos in 2013 to be inspired by Stacy all over again.

Photo I Love November - yaaay a photo of Ross actually smiling, so it doesn't bother me that you can see all the lines on my neck! The title embellishment is a wooden piece from Typo that I found in their bargain bin, which I painted. This PIL album is the single favourite project I have created in 2012.

Places - this is one of those page kits that I have had sitting in a folder for simply ages! The only thing I added to the kit was the jewellery tag and plastic embellishment. I am hoping to get help from the family with the journalling/anecdotes about living in and around this place and will either add it on the back of the layout or in a 12x6 protector

Personality - I know it is a boy thing and not just TJ's personality to enjoy getting muddy! The title isn't so easy to see in this photo but it says 'all you need is mud' and is made with a re-purposed chipboard element and chipboard thickers and lots of muddy looking ink!

Rituals - oh yes what dog wouldn't want all the attention on a regular basis. These are old photos, the background paper is old and the title alphas even older! Again an older kit with the jewellery tag and embellishment added.

Things - I was so happy when I found the plastic jandals/thongs embellishment in my colour drawers and glued teal cardstock over the green stripes in the top patterned paper to match it LOL. I will add a wee bit of journalling along the bottom but the photo of the display board is the main journalling on this layout.

Holidays - (Port Douglas 1990) a favourite photo of me with both my parents for many reasons firstly because I don't have many photos of us together, secondly because I loved my 'mullet', yep I really did and not too many days after this photo was taken I got a very short haircut and regretted it, but never grew a mullet again, thirdly because we looked so relaxed and fourthly this is a favourite photo because I am so slim and tanned! I think this is the wording I will use on the layout and simply write it around the outside edge.

Fun - a super quick and easy layout using some funny photos (can you tell what the painting is of?) LOL

Best get on to the last few layouts, so check back again in a day or two.