Layout - Attitude Already

This has got to be one of my quickest layouts ever. Completed start to finish during Chloes nap today.
I've currently been working on three other layouts that I just can't seem to perfect/am waiting for supplies to arrive so it felt extra good to actually finish this one.

The idea for this layout came this morning when I looked through my blogger feed and saw the July challenge from WOW chipboard, a colour challenge:

The colours instantly reminded me of this photo from just 3 days ago, I was trying to snap a picture of Jayce smiling put he pulled this face instead, the boy already has attitude.

I was also instantly reminded of this scraping paper, the colours match perfectly. 

You may think that the check background idea came from the fact he is laying on a checked blanket but that was actually an after thought. It really was because I wanted to use the cartoon style squares with speech bubbles that are behind the picture and the star paper however they were the same piece of paper and I only had one. Bugger. Solution: cut it up into squares and spread them out so you will never know.

The layout of the page is designed around a sketch from Purple Pumpkin. I've rotated it 90 degrees to accommodate the photo.

Hopefully I'll finish the other three soon... fingers crossed...
XoXoX
Nicole

Materials:
White Cardstock
Creative Imaginations - Signature collection
Bella Blvd - Mr Boy - Borders N Blocks
Best Creation Inc - Back 2 School
WOW Chipboard - AAC Exculsive - Attitude
WOW Chipboard - AAC Exculsive - Seriously?
WOW Chipboard - Classic Alpha - Lowercase
Purple Pumpkin - Twine - Red and Yellow
Purple Pumpkin - Felt Star
Purple Pumpkin - Fabric Button - Blue
Purple Pumpkin - Fabric Button - Red

Big News Card

Way back in October last year on a lonely Tuesday afternoon, I learnt that Jayce was on his way. Yay. So the next step was to tell Brenden, however he had been working away most weeks, this one included.
I didn't want to throw the news at him over the phone while stuck in a truck with his boss. Again. Yeah, I had a lot of room for announcement improvement.
This time I wanted to do it right. Make a big deal. Watch his face expression. Chat about it. Etc. Etc. I had 3 days until he would be home, the paper crafter in me couldn't resist. I made this:

Making it look construction-like and having a silly pun on the front made it totally Brenden.
I made it using mainly kaisercraft, inculding konstrukt 6" paper pad and lettering, plus some yellow ribbon which I stamped onto.
The card opened up to reveal the news and a bit of proof:

To create the rays look I used a scrap piece of paper, cut it up into slices then removed a few and sprayed glimmer mist and repeated with the next colours.

So I had the card made and placed it in between the mail pile ready to be discovered. But of course things never go to plan...
The job Brenden was on took longer then expected and he wasn't going to be home until early Saturday morning. Normally not a big deal, but we had a wedding to attend in the afternoon. Nevermind I thought there would still be time. Then I get a call Saturday morning to say his stuck in some serious traffic and might meet me at the ceremony. Oh sh*t.
I now find myself wondering do I tell him at the wedding in front of heaps of our friends or do I wait until after and somehow disguise the fact i'm not drinking alcohol from an entire wedding party AND brenden too... Neither option sounded pleasing.
By some sort of miracle (and I suspect some speeding) he made it with just time for a shower and shave and me forcing him to look at the mail. When he got to this card he simply asked 'Who is this from?'. Idiot. And off to the wedding we went.
XoXoX
Nicole.

A Layout - Sparkle

Finally a got the chance to complete a layout! Yay! Although it did cost me most of my nights sleep...
I did think my first page back should be about the new man in my life but then I was lucky enough to win the new Kaisercraft Enchanted Garden Collection from the lovely new owners of Anna's Craft Cupboard.

The mushrooms reminded me of Chloes shirt in this picture from way back in March last year when she was just 8 months old. It is one of my favourite photos of younger Chloe! I think it shows her true nature with that cheeky/happy/crazy grin. I can't get over how red her hair looks though.

I never really had a title in mind for this picture until I saw the rub on 'Don't let anyone ever dull your sparkle.' She is sparkling in this picture and that really is something I never ever want her to lose. I used the sparkle kinda as the theme for the page and put nice shiny things around her picture and leading up to the title.

The whole page is Kaisercraft with the only exception being the angel and I can't remember where that came from.

I based the page layout on the Kaisercraft Saturday Sketch #2 for July which looks a lot like this:

Hope you like it. It feels good to be creating again!
XoXoX
Nicole

Materials:
Kaisercraft - Enchanted Garden - Bewitch
Kaisercraft - Enchanted Garden - Charm
Kaisercraft - Enchanted Garden - Allure
Kaisercraft - Enchanted Garden - Rubon
Kaisercraft - Enchanted Garden - Collectables
Kaisercraft - Cardstock - Coffee
Kaisercraft - Sparklets - Hearts
Kaisercraft - Sparklets - Fern
Kaisercraft - Sparklets - Coral
Kaisercraft - Sparklets - Princess
Kaisercraft - Rhinestones - Silver
Kaisercraft - Rhinestones - Soft Pink
Kaisercraft - Rhinestones - Mint Green
Kaisercraft - Rhinestones - Lilac
Kaisercraft - Tiny Alphas - Cotton Candy

One Month New

I'm only a little bit late with this...
On the 5th Jayce was one month new!

It has been a trying first month. He is not a very content baby, there is no lay there and chill for him. When he is awake he thinks his hungry. When he is asleep, he will be awake soon and think he is hungry.
He constantly grunts and groans, constantly! We suspect he may be colic. After you get him to sleep, he will last a little while before pulling his legs up, more grunts and groans and often crys out in pain.

During the day, Jayce feeds nearly every two hours on the dot, no matter what! And at night I consider myself lucky if he makes it 3 hours... By the time I feed him, get him back to sleep, jump in bed myself and listen to him grunt for awhile, I get about an hour before I'm up again.
No matter what time he last feed and got to sleep, 6:15-6:30 is breakfast time. I'm talking he has had a feed at like 5:30 and he still wants more by 6:30.

In case some of you are wondering how I am still standing. Coffee and coffee flavoured chocolate and more coffee. I look longingly at V in the shops but am trying to stay clear considering my previous addiction to the stuff.

The one month stats.
Weight: 5.1kg
Length: 54cm
Head C: 38.5cm

He LOVES the bath. No smiles yet but when in the bath he just gets this happy look on his face and wiggles around in joy, makes it a bit hard to keep hold of him. He also loves to bounce off the wall of the bath and ends up hitting his head on the other end. 

Of course I couldn't get a snap of the really 'happy' look.
Jayce also loves his sister! And Chloe LOVES her brother. He will turn his head looking for her and be happy again while she is near. Thankfully Chloe is amazingly gentle with him, usually just hovering your hand over him or very softly 'cuddling' (touching heads) / kissing him. Often asking "Knees?" which means she'd like to hold him. Unfortunately though if Jayce is crying Chloe goes out in sympathy and gets upset too. So I end up with two cranky kids. Slightly frustrating!

Well he can only get better from here... right ... ?
XoXoX
Nicole

Giveaways!

So about two posts ago I said I wont be buying more scrapbooking stuff on the account of realizing I already have heaps! But it doesn't count if I win it right... ?
There are heaps and lots of great giveaways happening atm, many from the companies new releases. So here I am trying to put them in one nice neat spot for you so that you can have a chance to win too.

Webster's Pages.

New collection - Postcards From Paris 2

New Collection - Recorded

New Collection - It's Christmas

New Collection - Family Traditions

New Collection - New Year New You

Bella Blvd.

Huge prize! All the New Release collections!

New Collection - Snapshots

New Collection - Playdate

New Collection - Trick or Treat

Simple Stories.

New collection - Say Cheese.

Jillibean Soup.

New Collection - Cold Avocado Soup.

New Wise Words.

Playing with Paper
Christmas bits and pieces.

One Scrappy Doctor

Two amazing gift packs.

DIY Photoshoot

I absolutely love newborn photo shoots. They are so so cute. The way they dress and position them is always just stunning. Often I wonder how they manage to get the baby to do that! Unfortunately professional photos wasn't in our budget so I attempted to do my own...
Jayce is almost exactly 2 weeks old, short only an hour or two. Brenden was already back at work and Nanna took Chloe for the day so she could get out of the house (I couldn't lift her into the car seat). It was the first time Jayce and I were by ourselves at home, hence I took the opportunity and set this up;

A blanket on a chair with some thickers stuck on. Nothing fancy. You may notice the 'e' looks a lil funny, probably because it is actually an a with the end cut off, thickers need more vowels especially e and a.

I started with some quick head shots.

He is a bit yellow from jaundices plus being in front of practically black exaggerates it.

For the life of me I couldn't get rid of the glare on the camera. I set up closeish to the windows for the natural light without the wind. I was trying to be as quick as possible since our house is super cold 24/7, I had a lil heater close by but still thought he could get cold.  Especially considering it was time to get naked!

Baby bottoms have to be one of the cutest things ever! That is when they are not covered in poo...

His arms look a lil chubby then they are in these pictures. He was born a heavy boy but still has thin arms and legs, I think all the weight must be in his head.

It turns out Jayce was too long and I needed an extra chair... Annoyingly you can see the gap between the chairs.

Couldn't resist throwing some blue ribbon on him, he is a boy afterall. Again if I took more time I could have done a better job of it.

This would be a great photo if it weren't for the mess of my desk/scrap storage area in the back ground.

Ooh. Pose for me...

I tried using the bow to cover his privates and get some full body shots but sir kick a lot kept moving it and all photos have some part showing, I'll keep those original pics to myself... Until his 21st...

By this photo he is started to get over it. I wanted to take more but he just wasn't going to have a bar of it. Hopefully I'll do another one with better results.

XoXoX

Nicole

Happy Birthday Renee

My creative side has been dying to make an appearance again for a long long time. A seriously long time! But with the two lil rugrats I haven't the time to make a scrap page =( so I've opted for the next best thing, card making.
Today I share a birthday card for Brendens sister, Renee:

Since moving I have realised how much scrapping stuff I really have (a lot!!) so even though I'm trying to start crafting again, I am banning myself from buying anymore! ... Well, for a lil while anyway... Unless I just must have it... Or it is a total bargain... Hmm, I'm beginning to doubt how long this will last...
Back to the point. I pulled out my off-cuts folder and seeing as I'm a slight crafting hoarder, "I might use that one day" is often muttered to Brendens disgust, the folder was full of great bits and pieces and the card is made purely from this stash.

Being one of a rare few cards I've ever made, I needed inspiration. Thankfully good ol' trusty Scrapville came to the rescue with this card sketch chellenge:

The stamped image is hippo from Bella Blvd Birthday Girl collection which I have had for ages and am so glad I finally got to use it. I am, however, now sick of using this stamp. To create the picture I stamped it multiple times on different papers, cut all the lil bits out and then arranged them until I finally found a colour combination I was happy with.

I love to receive cards, the front is always oh so pretty, then there's the nice hand written message on the inside, ahh. But with such hit and miss hand writing as mine, I didn't want to ugly it up. So I added pretties to the inside as well.

That's right. It is Renee's sweet 16th birthday today! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Renees story is actually heaps amazing, born at 25 weeks weighing just a crazy 600g and having major surgeries at hours old, she beat the odds and is now old enough to drive a car! Traffic beware! =P
Renne, I seriously hope you have a fantastic day and an even better year!
XoXoX
Nicole