And the flairs go to.....

Wow!!

Thank you for all of the comments left on the give away post!! I loved reading every single one of them. 

Without further ado however the winner that I have chosen is

Wildfairy with this comment

wildfairy27 November 2014 17:36

My most memorable christmas is from a couple of years ago when out of sillyness i sat on my, then boyfriend now husband's, knee and he pretend to be santa and asked me what i wanted for christmas. I said a baby, only to find out 3 weeks later that we were pregnant with our beautiful baby girl.

This story rang a little close to home for me with us desperately wanting to be pregnant with our 2nd baby at Christmas 2011. A pregnancy test on Christmas Eve came up negative but testing again on 30th December brought us a whole new gift which was by far the best gift we received that year!!

Congratulations Wildfairy, can you please contact me ASAP via email melindasweetman@gmail.com. You have 24 hours to get me your address so I can get these gorgeous flair on their way to you!

To the rest of you that stopped by, thank you again for taking the time to stop in and also to my newest followers, THANK YOU!!

I hope to update fairly regularly over December (time permitting of course!!) and wish those of you participating an amazing December Daily journey! For those of you not participating enjoy the lead up to this crazy fun happy time of year!!

Melinda

xx

A little surprise for one of my lovely followers

Hello there lovely followers!!

Today, a very short and sweet post. The incredibly generous Michelle from The Stamp Spot has has given each of her Documenting December DT girls an awesome little give away!! That's correct, all 10 of us are having this give away!!

Would you love this set of EXCLUSIVE to The Stamp Spot flair?? 

Gorgeous, aren't they?! Even more gorgeous in real life ;)

How do you get your name in the draw I hear you ask? Simple really, leave me a little love telling me what your most memorable Christmas memory is. Be it good or bad or funny I would love to know. 

I will pick a winner 7pm (or probably more like 7:15pm since 7pm is our kids bedtime) WA (Australia) time on Sunday 30th November 2014 and will announce the winner here on my blog. Said winner will be need to contact me within 24 hours of the blog post going live via email melindasweetman@gmail.com All prizes will be sent by Michelle via regular Australia post as a letter. 

Should the winner not contact me within the specified time frame I shall re-draw another winner from the comments Monday December 1st, 10pm WA time. 

Sorry but Australia only please due to postage.

Best of luck to everyone, seriously, you want these flair, they are gorgeous and EXCLUSIVE!!

Mel

xx

December Daily, some foundation pages.....

Hi there!!

Well, today I am here to share with you some of my foundation pages for our 2nd December Daily album using mostly supplies from the main, red add on and teal add on kits from Michelle over at The Stamp Spot. Michelle is slowing introducing all of her Documenting December DT members and my shares are also up for today over on the store blog! 

For a more in depth view of all my goodies head on over here to see my stash!

But without further ado here are the few pages I have prepped in advance.

I will add before I share photos however that I have not done a great deal of sticking etc as I really don't know what each day is going to entail! I have had a brain storm this morning for a few more pages however and hope to get to these this week! 

I plan on finding a story each day and documenting that. Not all will be Christmas specific. Real life still happens and as a Project Lifer I try to keep it honest and tell the stories that happen. Things like the last day at 3 year old Kindy, a friend's child's birthday and a couple of girl's nights out appeared in our DD last year and I plan to stay true to that same idea this year.

Enough of my blabbering now though and onto the paper and pretty things!!

First up, an overview of what our DD will look like:

I sat with my diary, my album, post it notes and couple of pens one night and got a very rough idea of what was happening and when. Obviously, the backs of each page will be the following day. I know I can work with that system because that is how I PL ;)

This is our day one spread. On the left will be a 6x8 photo I think of our tree, one of my most fave things about Christmas!! And that little card will get attached somewhere on top of the photo. A filler (love this from the kit!!), a spot for journalling and 2 photo's. Pretty sure one of those photo's will be the return of our Elf on the Shelf, Pixie.

Obviously, our day 3 ;) I have yet to attach the 3x4 card to the vellum, thinking I will stitch it on with teal thread but will wait until I decide what I will do with day 4. Either a collage of 2 portrait pics (if our cards this year are that way oriented) or an actual card if they are landscape.

Possibly our day 8.... The number is not stuck down as yet. This and the back and front of a full 6x8 page will be dedicated to our Santa photo's this year. I love Santa, the magic of believing and seeing (hopefully!!) my boys face's light up when they see him. The white card is for journalling, the filler and hopefully a 6x4 of either both boys with Santa or maybe even me with Santa ;) Never too old for a photo with the big guy in red!! The 6x8 page will be my big guy on the front and my little guy on the back. Possibly full 6x8 photo's, possibly mini layouts....

Again, number is not stuck down!! This page will be used for Letter to Santa. A nice big bag attached to the back of the page will fit in photo copied letters to Santa (I copied our letters last year and so love them!!) and printed on matte photo paper. I have teamed this with a Simple Stories 4x4 page protector for either 2 photo's (more than likely!) or photo's and journalling.

Last and by all means not least I have put this little 3x4 card together for the day we will head out to see our local light spectacular that we discovered last year. Can't wait!!

Well, that is it for me! I am hoping to keep up this year and get something done every day and if you embarking on your own DD journey enjoy it :)

Mel

xx

Finally, I share my album cover and front page!!

Hi there!!

Today (well tonight, 10pm Perth time actually!!) I am here to share with you my cover and first page of our December Daily 2014 album.

I managed to score myself one of the actual DD albums Studio Calico offered in their kit last year from a local who didn't use hers. And for an absolute bargain! It was perfect for what I wanted as I was after something that was predominately raw chipboard with either red or teal. Red it is ;)

I didn't take a before pic at all but I did take progress pics as I changed it up. It went from a gorgeous embossed chipboard design with a red fabric spine to a stunning GOLD, yes gold!!, album with a red fabric spine and I LOVE LOVE LOVE it!!

Here are my progress shots of the transformation

This was after the 1st coat on both the outside and inside with the white. All I did was found some scrap paper, pinched some of hubby's masking tape and taped the paper to the red fabric strip. The inside was a little more difficult but I also used an extra bit of board to hold up in front of the rings to avoid painting them.

Onto the GOLD!! 

First coat

And done!!

It was really rather scary removing that tape but as I saw the tape come off and a very definitive line form along the gold as it bumped up to the red my heart soared!!

And one GORGEOUS GOLD (I love it!!) album!!

And I couldn't just stop there though!! I did a little decorating on the front - almost as soon as my kits from The Stamp Spot hit my hot little hands in fact!

I have previously shared this little sneak peek, that charm is super cute!! But here you go with the front cover.

All the bits are from my kits I received from Michelle and WOW! those kits are jam packed full of delicious goodies!!

Next up that I created was over cover page for the album. Again, most of the bits are from Michelle at The Stamp Spot but I have added a couple of things and used my sewing machine to stitch down the 2014 - I love stitching on paper!

Well, that is it for me for tonight!! I hope this super photo heavy post has seen you through to the end. Keep an eye out both here and on Michelle's blog here as you will see intro's and foundation pages going live over the next little while. In fact there are some intro's and foundation pages up from some of the other awesome girls on the team already!! Happy reading and happy scrapping!!

Till next time,

Melinda 

xx

Week 41 using Deer & Fawn products

Hi there! I have had my 1st share over on the Deer & Fawn Design's blog this week!! And it looks a little something like this:

I am yet to receive my parcel from Debbie full of what I'm sure will be some lovely goodies so I have used some of the beautiful supplies I have received in my 2 Deer boxes!

My page came together fairly easily when I decided which supplies to use. 

For the spread I have used the We Are Memory Keepers "Hello Life" Albums Made Easy 3x4 and 6x4 cards and paired those with the gorgeous Heidi Swapp "September Skies" ephemera pack. Which, I must be honest, was not something I would normally purchase, all those flowers scare me, especially with 2 little boys running around!! But I actually had a heap of fun making use of them and am super happy with the way my spread turned out!!

Without further ado here are my 2 pages together

I have paired these 2 products with some thickers from my stash and also my sewing machine. Nothing else added!! So impressed with myself!!

Here is a close up of the left hand side

And the right hand side

And I took a couple of close up's of some of those embellishments clusters starting with our Week 41 card

Love, love, love pairing those acetate pieces with the paper pieces. Oh, I have inked all around the paper embellishments with my antique linen distress ink too. All my acetate pieces have been attached with my tiny attacher, behind other pieces when I want the staple hidden and right on top on other pieces (like the little triangles and the "hello").

And another close up of that 3x4 filler card.

This card started out yellow with the "life is beautiful" printed. I added some flowers, some machine stitching, an arrow some of those cute triangles.

That's it for me today, I am so excited to be working with these gorgeous products and seriously can't wait for either my DT box to arrive or for my next Deer box to arrive.

So, make sure you head on over to the Deer & Fawn blog here and the store here. Their boxes are full of amazing goodies and great value!!

I am off on retreat this weekend so hopefully will be back with lots of completed goodies to share but knowing me, I will probably chat more than anything ;)

Until next time,
Melinda
xx

I take a lot of photos and some news!!

Hi there!

Just wanted to pop in and share something I have just been working on.

I can't actually believe how many photo's I take and am now officially into my 3rd album for our PL for 2014.

I came up with (finally!!) a design for the spines of our albums - they are super simple but I love that!

Here they are:

So, the 4 is the number of people in our family, the year, the beginning date and the end date. Pretty simple. Am going to also do this for all our other albums. Pre-children will be the number 2, pre-Hunter will be the number 3. And the boys albums will be either J or H (no number) and very simple the date from and the date to. Simple. Effective. Done. Well, they will be ;)

And here is my latest digi design, the cover page for our 3rd album. An awesome feet shot from a day trip we recently took. I used PSE10 and created my 12x12 page. Lots of layers! And I have cropped to 6 4x6 for easy (cheaper!) printing and the prints will go into a D design page protector :)

I had a heap of fun playing in PSE, always do!! I did contemplate going digital but decided I really do love the paper and glue way too much so have settled for a happy in between :)

Onto my news!!

I have been invited to join the team over at Deer and Fawn Designs as a designer for November/December!! I am thrilled to be a part of the team and look forward to having a play with some of their products.

I have already received 2 of their Deer kits and they are packed full of goodies!! Head over to the shop here and the blog here. They are also on FB here.

Can't wait to share some new creations with you!

As always, thank you for stopping by and happy scrapping!!

Coral Glitz with D-lish Scraps

Hello there!!

Today I am here to share with you my very last creation for D-lish on their Spring Inspiration Team :)

Absolutely stunning board to work with this month, pink, gold, glimmer, PRETTY!!

Here is the board

How stunning is it?!

This month I decided to do something totally different for me! I created a 6x6 canvas that I will use throughout December as a decorative piece :)

Here is my finished product

Lots of D-lish goodies used here - starting with the doily, all of those beautiful flowers, the jar of gold sequin stars, the enamel dots and that gorgeous gold tape for my Dymo labeller!!

You can't see very well but I have also used a polka dot stencil (one of Heidi Swapp's) on the actual canvas along with Heidi's Gold Colour Shine.

The papers I used are digi papers from here - I purchased both the Christmas Ice and Christmas Delight sets.

The digi is a Saturated Canary image available here as a digi. 

Here is a close up of Nevaeh

The copic colours I used are as follows:

Skin: E000, E00, E21, E11, E04 and R20

Hair/Eyes: E21, E25, E29

Clothes: R81, R83, RV34

Shoes: E40, E41, E43, E47

And a couple of close ups 

I had so much fun with this little project and cannot wait to put it up on display on the 1st December -  only a month to go!!! Yay!

Make sure you head over to the D-lish blog here and join in the fun for this months challenge.

As always, thanks so much for stopping by and happy scrapping!!

Mel

xx