So long since i blogged

I just haven't felt like there was much to blog about recently so consequently have been very quiet. But I figure that I need to make a bit of an effort and maybe tell you a bit about my CT stuff and other excitement.
You know that it is so long since I blogged that I think it dates back to before we went to Mt Baw Baw for our snow weekend. The boys went snowboarding and the rest of us tobogganed! The photos aren't that good because the weather was pretty overcast and snowy. But it was a fun experience. Probably would have been much more fun if we had booked early so we could have stayed 3 nights in one place instead of having to shift accommodation every night! It was such hard work lugging all our stuff from one place to the other through the snow! And of course being disorganised we hadn't packed well and there was lots of bits and pieces. A nightmare i tell you! It was soooooooo expensive too. I know we could have had a week in Queenstown for the same price including ski hire etc. But you gotta try these things don't you? One of the most frustrating things was the chain hire. You have to hire chains to drive up the mountain. You don't have to put them on the car as there was no snow on the road. If you drive up without them, then they send you back down to get them. So you hire these blasted snow chains and put them in your car and then you take them back! Another good money spinner.
So.. moving on from the delights of the snow. We have been working hard since then and I have been doing lots of scrapbooking. I have now set myself a huge goal, I want to make at least 2 and preferably 4 hybrid albums by the end of the month... or at least mid September. These will be thank you gifts for the ppl we stayed with in the UK this time last year and one for each of my friends that i went with. I have been working hard and today made the first page. Will post a picture once I have it all glued down properly. I am spending a fortune buying all the supplies, had to get new paint brushes, new glue, need new ink... and it is all just so much fun to buy!

I have also been quite busy making new pages for HeatherT, I do love being on her CT because she is so creative and her kits are so different! Not only that but she has such serious talent on her team that I really feel like I need to produce the goods! (that is a positive thing!). Heather has just opened up a new store, so in addition to selling at the amazing Pixelcanvas she is also selling at gottapixel. So we have been busy getting lots of new layouts up for her kits at gotta pixel as well as the pixelcanvas ones. Certainly i was using lots of pixels! Most recently I have been playing with Schools out which incidentally is 50% off at pixelcanvas at the moment. Love the red white and blue colours, i am a bit of a primary colour nut! Here's what i came up with.

First of all here is a look at the kit:

and the matching alpha which is just way cute, is available on Heather's blog.
And here are my layouts:



Which reminds me that the last one, Train Ride hasn't been posted yet. I just forget stuff sometimes. I am getting old now you know.

I have just downloaded a beautiful new HeatherT kit called Delicacies which has the most gorgeous elements and lovely natural shades and oodles of texture. I am really looking forward to making something with it! It is in store already at pixelcanvas so don't forget to check it out.

Before I move on to my other CT projects I will take a short break to tell you how wonderful the Digital Artist Magazine is this August. Wow! For only $5 you get so many downloads that it more than pays for itself. And there is the most gorgeous kit from Lorie Davison aka Studie Lorie at scrapbookgraphics. If you have ever looked at her magnificent fantasy characters and wondered if you could create something magical, then grab DAM and download her free kit and see where all those frogs take you! I can't wait to have a play!

Now Sara of Sweet Blossom Designs has cut back a little and is now putting out her kits fortnightly. I personally think you have to be some sort of a dynamo to manage a new kit every fortnight, and how she was managing it weekly along with a job and a family!! Her new kit which has just hit the shop this week is in two parts, His days gone by and Her days gone by. It all mixes and matches and is just perfect for a heritage type layout. Lovely rich creams and pinks and blues, with aged postcards etc.







And this is the layout I made using a rather gorgeous picture of my mother which had been hand tinted. Style-wise it was a bit of a departure for me as I am usually quite linear, but I decided I wanted to try my hand at the feminine flowing look, and I am pretty happy with it.

And lastly just to had to my busy schedule I have another Ct position for Pure Creativity designs over at Digitalscrapcafe I have only done a couple of layouts for her so far but Chelcee has a lovely bright colourful style plus some gorgeous templates available in her store. Here is what I have made so far
The first one uses a kit called Going to the Beach



and the second layout is using a new colour series which Chelcee has just released. These papers are a great coordinated series in a variety of different colours. All very mix and match. To me they look like gorgeous quilting fabrics!


So.. a lovely long blog with lots of layouts. I am working on a new template for you at the moment and then i think I might have a stab at finishing off my outback kit. I got a bit hung up when I discovered that my extractions were woeful! I need to do so much more work on them. I sort of put it in a box and forgot about it for a while (figuratively speaking).
Everyone is pretty healthy and happy here, although poor Caitlin is not doing too well with her job hunting. It can be so demoralising. Still I have helped her revise her Resume tonight so hopefully that might help. I always think that it pays to make sure that they are using grown up language and have spell checked it. I am really hoping something will come up. She is a hard worker and only working one day a week she is just developing a life of leisure that really is not sustainable!
Will try to get back a bit sooner next time..

After my dissatisfied rant the other day Schellie left me this comment "It's good to try to learn new things,but at the same time be satisfied with the great things you do right now. You can never fail, it's your creativity!" And i thought how true. You can't fail because it is your own creativity. And endlessly comparing yourself with others only makes yourself unhappy. In fact I have noticed that sometimes the people you admire, when you get to talk to them have the same concerns and hang ups that you do yourself.. or I do myself i guess. So I really do have to work on being satisfied with my own work and my own creativity. They did warn us when we went to the photography course that many people are less satisfied with their photography afterwards. I think for two reasons. Firstly you are so much more conscious of what you are trying to achieve, and thus unhappy when you don't achieve it. And secondly because you are branching out and trying to utilise the camera's settings, it becomes more likely that you will have dud photos when you haven't picked the right settings. I have to admit that I am now much more conscious of my photography (see more self criticism) but when you look at scrapbook galleries the first thing I am drawn to is the amazing photographs. So many beautiful pictures, so many 'perfect moments'. That is not to say that I don't have my own share of 'perfect moments', but I am greedy... and I want more. But having said that, one of the things that amazes me the most is the people who create beautiful layouts with photos that are much less than perfect. perhaps once again it is about being happy with what you have!
Ok.. enough philosophising. This week at pixelcanvas we had a great challenge to create a page using papers that look like fabrics, use stitches and buttons, sewn-on bits and baubles, felt letters and shapes...to create your page.

Journaling: Record on your page something that is really important to you. Could be a world issue, a personality trait, or a belief...
This challenge really appealed to me, perhaps it is the 'sewer' in me that liked the idea of making a stitched up page. Here's mine. I was really happy with this.


I used HeatherT's new stitching set which I might add is on sale at pixelcanvas at the moment. They have a sale on at the moment with lots of stuff for 40% off. The ecofabulous kit is over 60% off! I have used that kit so much! And I love all the 'green' stuff in it. Heather's new stitches are very cool and look very real. Worth checking them out as I think the sale finishes tomorrow.
Then using some more HeatherT product I made this layout using her template


This template is available at Gottapixel.com for only $1.00! So cheap, and while you are there have a look at the Luxuriant kit i used to make this layout.

So it is the middle of Winter here in Australia, and way down south here in Victoria it has been pretty cold and miserable. But we have had some sunshine this week which was really cheering. Lucus stayed with us on Tuesday night, so on Wednesday i asked him what he wanted to do today and he said 'go beach'. So we did. The sun was just right for a trip to the beach and Ellie (our cocker spaniel) and Lucus chased each other along the sand. Mike and I just followed along snapping lots of photos. I have been experimenting with shooting in raw and jpeg so I can adjust the white balance and settings when i import the photos. So far i have only got to the import stage and haven't experimented with using Lightroom to 'process' the photos (as described by our guru Scott Kelby). However I must see how it works, because I took some phenomenally bad photos at the snow when I had the white balance set to flourescent when we were outside in the snow. The photos are a kind of glowing blue. Oh darn.
Our two big bits of news for the week are this.. 1. Greg the 17 yr old has got a part time job (hopefully leading to full time when he finishes school this year). And 2. We went to see Harry Potter - The half blood prince. I loved it. but i am a huge HP fan.
It's Friday now and another week has slipped by, Ben's birthday looms ever closer. His requests are simple... he would like a bass guitar and amp. I did find them on ebay for under $200 but I do wonder if we should bite the bullet and pay $400 at the local shop so we can have some after sales service since Mike and I know Nothing about guitars. I couldnt even replace a string. However Ben is now keen to play in a band (once he learns to play i guess). He has a friend who has a drum kit so I guess that is half a band... Apparently there is another boy who will be singing. So nothing will do, but he needs a bass guitar so he can follow his dream! I do miss the small children stage when they were really thrilled with whatever you bought them, and sometimes they would be just as happy playing with the box the toy came in!
Well, I guess that is another enthralling installment from the Kennedys. Stay tuned..

Today

Today there was a big event in my life. You have to understand that although I have been digiscrapping for some time now, I am still constantly frustrated by what I don't know. I am always admiring the skills of others and am rarely totally satisfied by my own work. But yesterday I put together a layout. In fact I did it quite quickly (and I might add with tears streaming down my face as I dealt with some of the most painful events of my life... darn more tears now). I had to put it together quickly and post it or i would have chickened out. So today when I found my layout at Gallery Standouts I was stunned. Yes it was simple, yes the journalling was heartfelt, but I just didn't expect to make the grade. Not me. So.. I was pretty thrilled, I felt really honoured to have been picked out. But here at the end of the day I still feel Dissatisfied. I just always want to do more. To know photoshop intimately and to be able to create brilliant art. Although I wonder if we are ever satisfied with our own work.. perhaps that way leads to complacency and that may not be helpful either.
I am determined to work on my photoshop skills though, I feel that by understanding my tools better I can work more effectively. So, I think it is time to work my way through some tutorials and try and learn how it all works better... Its kind of like a new years resolution for July.
So.. after that rant, if you are still reading, you may wonder if everything is all right in my world. And I guess it is. My children are going through a squabbling stage. I feel that it is totally unreasonable considering that two of them are almost adults. Why on earth do they behave like children? And the youngest one? He is talking constantly of the Birthday. 15 this month. I believe that he has finally settled on a bass guitar as his chosen gift. I had almost bought the video camera he had previously wanted, when he changed his mind. Typical. I guess a guitar means music lessons. Its funny how gifts have ongoing costs.
Perhaps since it is now tomorrow instead of today I should go to sleep. Before I go here is a little of my 'art'.

new template

It is a bit of a surprise to find myself blogging two days in a row, but here I am again. Last night after I logged off I decided to make another freebie template and now that it's made I thought I should post it. Although I have to admit that at the moment anything that relates to the internet is a bit of a struggle. We are having Issues. We aren't even sure what is causing the issues, I don't think it is our ISP which means it is our modem (probably). I don't really understand why a perfectly good modem suddenly starts not working properly but it appears that is what has happened. Last night I spent about an hour trying to open the 4shared site. No go. Today it opened fine. Downloads are a bit of a joke, with occasional items downloading reasonably ok, but mostly they either don't download or when I get them they won't open. I have stopped trying, as I am sick of getting frustrated by it. Now the big question is do we need a new modem, and does that mean we need new cards in our laptops as someone suggested. Essentially like most computer repairs it is all sounding expensive! Hopefully we can get it sorted this week because it has been more than a week so far of patchy internet and as i am obviously addicted to the internet, I do really need to get a decent Fix.
Theoretically with all these internet issues you would think that I would have been doing lots of scrapbooking, but somehow that is not the case. I am still not all that productive, and keep reworking the same photos/pages over and over trying to get it right!
I have made some cool pages though, here are a couple I did for HeatherT at Pixelcanvas.

This one uses her painted corners and dividers. I love the freehand look, and they are easily recoloured to fit in with your layout.



This little mini kit is so cute, it's called Growing up 2 fast. I think the whole growing up subject is on my mind a bit with all the kids having birthdays at this time of the year. Ben, my baby is turning 15 this month! And Lucus the grandbaby turned 3 last month! While you are visiting pixelcanvas you really should check out Heather's tutorials. They are amazing, detailed instructions on a variety of really useful subjects, including extractions, shadows and masks.

I have also done some new pages for Sara of Sweet Blossom designs.


This one is made with her Funky Baby kit which is full of bright funky colours, suitable for both girls and boys. And below is the page I made with Sara's All fired up. Both kits are available at www.scrapthatidea.com.

One of the comments I got about this layout was that it would make a great template, so... here it is.

Here is the link for the new template

As always I would love to see your layouts! Come back and post them in the guest book or in the comments section.

not a great blogger

I have decided that i am not the worlds best blogger... not even close. The problem is that i forget to do it, and that kind of defeats the purpose. Of course like most people I consider my life to be fairly mundane and not really 'blogworthy'. I keep resolving to do better but so far I am not going to be winning any prizes. Although I did in fact win an award a few months ago - something about being a polite blogger and leaving nice comments. I did feel very good about that as it is something I am passionate about. I know that for me personally, I love to hear from people who have visited my blog, just a hi, or thanks for your whatever is quite buzzy, when you are a novice blogger and aren't sure if you are getting it right.
But this was not a rant about the importance of leaving comments, because I haven't done much that has been comment worthy lately. In fact right this very second I am having a little afternoon nap having returned from a couple of days at the snow with the kids. Of course my kids are teenagers so I thought it would be a good bet that the boys at least would love playing in the snow and we were right. Ben loved it! Ben spent two entire days snowboarding and didnt even stop for lunch. He is now trying to work out how he could make enough money to take up snowboarding as a holiday. I think he will need a good job, because the whole snow sport thing is so expensive here. I think we could have flown to New Zealand for a week's skiing/snowboarding for less or certainly not much more. But the kids hadnt been to the snow since... well when they were toddlers i think. So we went. It was exhausting. It was cold. It was expensive. But it was fun. Greg is not a natural snowboarder. He turned up back at the lodge midway through the 1st morning for a break, he had numerous bruises and injuries from impacts with trees and snow, and I think also damaged himself falling off the ski lift. So it is only Ben that is our snow sport enthusiast. Greg much preferred playing pool in the bar afterwards. Each to their own i guess.
My scrapbooking has been limping along. I still don't feel like I am really achieving as well as I want to, I am still struggling a bit. But things are getting better. Our internet is an ongoing problem, so we might have to get the computer tech out tomorrow as we have very limited success with downloads and looking at any web sites with pictures (that pretty much covers all scrapbooking doesn't it?). Hopefully Craig can get it working properly, although I suspect that it is going to cost... doesn't it always? Now I am determined to get another template organised, I feel like i have been slack lately, so stay posted.. hopefully this week.