It's been one of those days...

A little welcome

Hey there!   If you're looking for new posts, scroll down!   If you've come here via the Pinterest pin that went viral (guys, that's crazy, literally millions of views!) welcome, there's over 600 posts here, enjoy browsing my arty, crafty, mixed media, journaling, scrapbookey kinda groove.  

I'm just a girl that had a hobby that took her places teaching her papercraft.  I had small children and a love for writing and papercraft, and this blog was my home for all of it. I no longer contribute regularly, but there is so much to see here. From stories of parenting small children (the joys!) to accounts of my overseas adventures teaching papercraft, to details of the amazing retreats we used to hold here in New Zealand. The couch is comfy, settle in, there's lots to see :) 

 

Some kinda planner loooove

I am now a planner addict.   Coloured pencils and keeping a diary were probably where it all started for me as a 10 year old watching The Snorks on TV.   Since then I've been a scrapbooker, a Project Lifer, a Blurb photobook maker, a tassel necklace maker, a jumbled-book-of-photos-and-pictures kinda girl but finally I've found my groove.  

Yea people, it's a MAMBI product, the Create 365 planner.  I know, calm down  It's kinda scrapbookey huh?

So it comes like this.  A planner.  About 24 x 20cm (9x7").  Heavy duty rings, laminated cover, a few different designs but I liked this one.  

Sitting on my desk, this is the perfect inbetweener.  You know, inbetween checking facebook & picking up the kids.   Inbetween paying the bills & making lunch.  Just whenever I have 5 minutes.  I write what I like, seriously who cares what it is, there's no judging here, these are my memories, it is the most guilt-free thing ever.

I even missed out a block through winter where I lost the plot a bit and had to dig myself out of a bit of a mental hole.  Many of us go there sometimes, right?  I rolled with it.  Those pages are blank, no guilt, remember? 

So there ya go.   It's been 2 years since I scrapbooked, but I'm still keeping memories.  I enjoy it and I've tracked down my planner for next year too.   I watched so many YouTube videos on the different planners, Webster's have them (a HUGE range, actually!), Heidi Swapp have some gorgeous options and even Prima has a planner now - with an instagram account dedicated to plannery stuff.  You can't get much better than that.  

Anyway,  it's nearly my birthday and I've chosen my new planner in true-I'll-buy-my-own-present kinda style.  I went for the MAMBI version again, so sitting lonely under my husbands office desk is a package with my name on it.  Good shopping huh?   He should just think himself lucky I didn't go with all the extension packs, the fitness tracking stuff, the recipe stuff, the stickery, plannery, clippy kinda stuff.... 

Laters
  

Tags, cards & other gorgeous tag projects

Creating mixed media tags can be additive, but what to do with the tags?   I've used them as stand-alone gifts, on the front of cards and in frames.  Some of my favourites have made it to a prime spot on the front of a scrapbooking layout.

Step-by step instructions for creating a tag can be found here.   If you've been creating other papercraft projects and have leftovers or a pile of scraps in your 'one day' pile, you need to gather that gorgeous stuff together, click on that link and get creating.  

Then of course the possibilities are endless. We all get caught out without birthday cards, easy fixed, tag on a blank card!   My tradie hubby just loves them pinned to his lunchbox in the morning.  (I wish you all could feel my sarcasm!).  At least I'm happy creating, right?  A favourite example below of my tags on layout from a class taught a few years ago.  Ahhhhh timeless creativity.  Enjoy :) 

Supply List: White cardstock, Prima paper, Prima Letters, Resin heart & metal trinkets by A Dozen Ideas, Glimmer Mist by Tattered Angels, Perfect Pearls Mist in gorgeous Turquoise #whereistheIloveTealHashtag

(As usual, all sharing, pinning and spreading the love about my little website much appreciated :) 

Trinkets & Treasures Tag

This super easy method for creating this impressive tag can be used in so many ways. Originally designed for jewellery making, the trinkets & treasures featured at A Dozen Ideas are used just as commonly in mixed media artwork.  I choose to design on tags because they are small, they are FUN, and they can be incorporated into a card, a layout or a home décor piece.  Love, love, love tags! 

Materials: Working base, paper scraps, flat embellishments, resin heart, paper flowers, A Dozen Ideas trinkets & resin pieces, gesso or white paint, coloured sprays.

1. Choose a canvas, tag or other small working base and add layers of small, flatter embellishments such as canvas pieces, papers or chipboard shapes.
     
2. Build up clusters of embellishments.  Start big in the middle and tuck smaller embellishments around the edges.  I have used a resin heart, two large flowers, trinkets cut into half, leaves, smaller flowers, and resin pieces.  Remember that colour does not matter, we will colour it all anyway!  You could try using old clock parts, watch parts, electrical bits and pieces, trinkets, paperclips, can tabs, laces, mesh, fabric, washi tapes, and all our trinkets & treasures in the store are perfect!  
   
3. Paint any resin pieces and trinkets with gesso and let it dry.  This allows the colour to stick, where it would usually run off.
   
   
4. Use coloured mists and sprays to apply a light colour first.  Then add other colours, concentrating quite close in different areas rather than thin layers of different colours all over.  My favourites are Glimmer Mists or Perfect Pearls mists.  End with a black spray just in the middle to add grunge.  Finish with some metallic rubs or perfect pearls powder if you have it - rub on to the raised edges for extra dimension!

Tip: Don’t overthink this – it’s all about creative play, remember!  Don't forget to support us by pinning this project on Pinterest (button below!) and visit A Dozen ideas on Facebook, we'd love to hear how your own projects go!

 

So is that it for you and scrapbooking, Nic?

A question asked of me on facebook last night:

So that's it for you and scrapbooking Nic?

And my answer:

That's it for me and scrapbooking.  No regrets, just great memories.  

I kinda think I lost interest when my children stopped saying cute things, when I stopped being able to tell their stories without embarrassing them, when I stopped being able to take hundreds of photos and showing them publically.   I know people without children or people with grown children still scrapbook and they love it.  For me it wasn't about the crafty part, it was about telling stories.  When being able to tell the stories changed, so did my love of scrapbooking.  I was never as good as being creative/actually scrapbooking as I think I was at telling the story. 

Once one stopped, I found it hard to do the other.

 

So my last kit has been released and once that sells out, that is it -  I walk away from scrapbooking with an incredible amount of fond memories and valued friendships, pride in what I acheived from the very first scrapbooking items imported into New Zealand back in 2000, to an online store, smashing international competition barriers, travelling the world teaching, a successful book, not to mention enough scrapbook pages to sink a battleship.    Thanks everyone for being part of that.  We can chat it over at the bar sometime ;)

Retirement lane...

 

I've been writing this blog for years.  And years. And years.

While I still hope you'll visit my 'Class Kits for sale" page, this blog for now, is retiring.

It's seen me through toddler times, teen times, teaching times and everything inbetween.  It's come time to retire now though - my energy is taken up elsewhere.  Those that know me will know where to find me. Those that have stuck with me for years of ramblings and posts, thank you.  I truly appreciated your company. 

laters.

Working. Scrapbooking. And a little Hayday too.

There’s life in the old girl yet. I say old girl not because I am, (we’re only as old as we feel, right?), but because that’s what one says when they find renewed energy.  Kinda like when I say it’s bedtime to a certain extremely tired 10 year old and she suddenly finds the energy to cartwheel around the room.

 

It’s been 3 months since I blogged and in that time I’ve achieved the most weird and wonderful things.  I’ve filled each day with work from the businesses my hubby & I run, I’ve successfully held another amazing retreat hosting 140 ladies during April, I’ve completed monthly taxes on time, I’ve attended rugby games, hockey matches, hiphop rehearsals and not panicked that I don’t have enough time if friends want to come over at the weekend AND I’ve completed some scrapbooking as well.

My personal scrapbooking is still in the form of a handwritten journal with doodled drawings and home printed photos.

Occasionally I draw on other stuff too.  Like this envelope that held some money I owed someone. 

And so it’s fabulous to find peace.  You know the kind.  Like when you reeeeally want that chocolate fix and stumble across not one but THREE Whittakers blocks of chocolate.  And then realise they’d been in your home for the past 2 months.  How it managed to stay undetected for so long I have no idea.  It doesn’t matter, the point is, I’ve found that kind of peace.

Actually although peaceful, the past 3 months have been some of the most trying of my life.  You know that thing that’s going around facebook at the moment saying how you never know the dirt someone’s being dragged through by their rosy appearance on facebook?  Yea that’s me.   It’s lucky I decided to set my travelling/teaching aside because I swear the big guy is dealing out all the crap to us right now.  We all have times like I’m going through at the moment it’s just nice I can dedicate some time to dealing with it. 

But then inbetween the shite, there is this.

My family watching my brother at Dirt Track late in April.  Rough times have bought us all closer together. 

 

and then there is some of this.

There were 22 of us that day including my grandparents, hanging out on Kariotahi beach.

And then of course, there is still some of this.

A sneaky peek at one of the kits I released last week.

So although a little quieter on facebook and the active scrapbooking front, I’m still here.  I’m still hitting the gym hard, working during the day, (I admit a little bit of hayday play in there too – addicted much?), scrapbooking in the quiet times and doodling random pictures on envelopes.  My goal is to keep the balance while blogging occasionally and keeping you up to date with new kits as they release.

Like these two… (click the link for details of my 2 new kits) .. enjoy.

laters.

Scrapbooking, being creative and hanging up my teaching apron.

 

 

"What will you do if you lose your scrapbooking job?" - out of the mouth of babes this morning.  "Why is that, Abby?" I ask - avoid the question by answering with another question, great parenting tip, that one.  "Because I want to be like you when I grow up and if you don't do scrapbooking, I don't know what I will be.  Unless you are a florist.  Yea, you could be a florist and I think I could do that".

She's a good kid with a heart of gold and has always been the first one there to help me cut, tie, pack orders, price or organise during these crazy years of too-much-to-do-and-not-enough-time.  She's been around just as long as I've worked in the industry and I realised with that little conversation, as well as some rumors I have heard circling the internet, that I probably owe her an explanation.

And perhaps you as well.

It's true - I am retiring from teaching and I'm stepping back from scrapbooking.   I've scrapbooked for 15 years,  worked in the industry for 10 years and taught internationally for 8 of them.  I've travelled to Canada, South Africa, the USA, Australia and all over New Zealand.  It's been a great ride, but I've made the choice to step away and have slowly done so over the past year. 

It was a decision that almost made itself.  I started to turn down teaching jobs about a year ago - just after I was in the USA and a family tragedy at home meant I had to get an emergency flight back to my family.  The fact that something tragic happened at home, a family member passed away and I wasn't there to comfort my kids and my hubby, to give them the support a strong family bond provides, the fact I was missing, I wasn't there when they needed me, that was the start.   Yes, they survived.  Yes, they are okay.  But like any one of you, I would rather have been with them.

Not long afterwards I turned down a job in Vietnam.  And then Malaysia.  And then Australia and the USA.  My friends and my family (including my hubby) all asked if I was crazy. 

Nope, I just want to enjoy more of this:

And this:

And maybe even this:

The scrapbooking world has been fabulous to me, I have met an amazing amount of wonderful people (and that seems like an incredibly cliche thing to say but it's true).  I adore so many people in this industry and the cool thing is that I'm giving up teaching and my heavy involvement in the industry, not the friends I have made.  Can't get rid of me that easily.

I am at peace with the new enjoyment of my surroundings, embracing more time at home and investing a lot more time in the other businesses I run (my husband and I have other businesses too, it's ok, I have plenty of things to do - the beauty is that I have time to do it now).  I have time to complete my other jobs, my hobbies, look after my dodgy health issues AND hug my family at night.  Because my kids are growing up far too fast.  It's all very well saying I need to appreciate them while they are young but until I took the step back and said "I'm doing this for you", I wasn't truly embracing that.  I wasn't giving them what they deserved.   I'm doing it now.

I realised I should have said something on my blog earlier when I started to receive emails asking where I was - I got some pretty cool emails though - some people were concerned, some people wondered if I was locked in a gym somewhere and couldn't get out, one person even offered their sadness that I wasn't requested so much to teach anymore... stepping back from scrapbooking was a choice, I promise you, the requests are only slowing now that I've made it fairly public I'm stepping down...   here's a few answers to the questions I'm being asked. 

1. It's true I no longer travel to teach.  I'd still love to create kits and and sell them via my blog.  There is still a market there, right? (Please tell me there is because I have THREE amazing kits to release over the next two months).

2. My facebook & my blog have gone a little quiet because I'm hugging my kids more. And spending time at their after-school activities instead of dropping them off and running back to work.  And spending organised time doing other work. (and making some amazing dinners and I don't even fall asleep in movies anymore.  Actually I lie.  I slept through Cloudy with Meatballs 2 recently).

3. Yes this was a choice.  No I didn't just become 'unpopular'.  I did this.  it. was. a. choice.   I'm happy. 

4. Is Autumn Escape for sale?  Yes it is, infact we have a sales contract in the works, but sorry no I can't tell you who it is with.  I can tell you I am EXCITED that it is someone that is taking something Lucy & I have nutured and loved since 2008 and is going to continue it on the way it has always been. 

4. Do I still have creative time?   Yep, I have the kits AND   I also adore the time I spend working with new Prima products, creating tradeshow booth artwork, turning them into Prima kits etc.  Yes I still love getting arty-creative with it.  I still create stuff.  When I want, though.  What a concept.

5. Do I still scrapbook?   If scrapbooking to you is keeping a record of times we want to remember through photos and writing, then yes.  I do.   These days it is a Visual Art Diary from Warehouse Stationery, a pen, some coloured pencils and home printed photos stapled in a book.

And that makes me happy too.  I hope you'll be happy for me.
Laters

 

 

A fab summer and a new layout to share.

At this late stage of January if I was a judge in a court of blog-crimes, I think I'd find myself guilty of not posting regularly AND instead taking advantage of the quick-fix that facebook offers.  Information lacks on this blog because it's far easier to facebook from the couch, or the beach, or you know, the kitchen while I'm waiting for that pot to come to the boil or something. 

It's been a mixed bag of a summer, I've not scrapbooked a lot except for some CHA work I did for Prima.  Instead I've been keeping a journal with a photo a day, I've consumed far too many QF shots at the beach and I've become the Howard Rummikub champion.  That's an actual game, it's nothing to do with Rum, which I know is a surprise to some of you. 

I've also been in hospital, played tag with a silly heart condition (or two), been told I need to take heart meds for life and gained a pretty bit of jewellry in the way of a medic-alert bracelet.  All par for the course, no-one's perfect, right?  My heart is one of the most healthiest out there, it's just a pity it's confused about what it should do.  In more than one way. 

So anyway, the creating part - I created layouts for Prima, for CHA (the tradeshow just passed).  It was very cool, very relaxed creating which I enjoyed.  I don't take a lot of pics these days (i'm Ok with that) so I turned to some old favourites.  You've seen these pics before but there is nothing wrong with using them again and being reminded of one my favourite happy places.  With my hubby.   Awwww altogether now, sweet.

Ironic thing is that I know in this pic I was incredibly ill, this was taken in Sth Africa.  I ended up in hospital not long after this pic too.  Didn't know then what it'd all lead to.

Supplies:(All Prima).  Paper: 950989 Princess Lily paper, 950996 Princess Mia paper,950958 Princess Ava paper , 814083 Something Blue ATC cards, 813987 Everyday Vintage Paintables, 814120 Something Blue ATC cards, 574383 Princess Castle flowers, 574406 Princess Happily Ever After flowers, 574314 Princess Whimsical flowers, 565435 Hello Pastel Flowers, 951078 Princess Stamps, 572150 Stencil, 569792 Alpha, 573430 Alpha, Ink Black, Ink White

 

 

Happy long weekend to you all.  I plan to get covered in crazy paint at the Color Run here in Pukekohe. 

Laters

 

 

We built a pool yesterday

We built a pool yesterday.  The whole process probably took about 20 minutes from start to finish and it was the biggest hit since New Zealand invented Pavlova.

I should start from the start.  We had 27 degrees, burn-your-feet-even-thinking-about-walking-barefoot kinda 27 degrees.  Can-I-have-an-Icie kinda 27 degrees.  (The this-is-not_Fahrenheit-it’s-celcius-and-that’s-lots 27 degrees).  Actually in the scheme of things it wasn’t the hottest day but it was paired with about 95% humidity so I’m calling that hot enough to demand a pool.

As ya do.

So I say to my husband “I’m done, we need a pool”.  The kids are hot, I’m grumpy and we need a pool.  In his best condescending, let-me-get-that-for-you voice he promises to get me one.

Nek Minnit…. (I can’t believe there is a Wikipedia definition for that…)

In case it’s not so clear, this is a trailer, hooked on to the back of his work-van.  That is a tarpaulin, usually in his work van.  Those are my sons filling the make-shift trailer-pool thing with water.

Freakin genius.

And then this happened

Yep, said pool was in use within minutes.  Abby looks on while our neighbour attempts backstroke.  The backstroke wasn’t entirely successful but she did do more lengths than she has ever done before.

Standing looking important at the back of his work-van is my hubby.  The mastermind of the pool.  “Wife want pool, man provide”.

The pool sat hitched to the van for a few days when sadly the trailer needed using for, well, … work purposes.  AND the van needed a WOF and my hubby didn’t think it’d be so smart to drive it through a Vehicle Testing Station to get a warrant with a pool attached.  Smart Guy.

So *someone* declared the pool needed emptying.

And this happened.

And then this happened.

And then it was gone.  The pool became a trailer and life down our street returned to normal again. 

Until the next time, of course.

Laters

Easy Christmas giveaways

Christmas is cool,I especially love the copious amounts of giving that goes on, the majority of it being treats that we eat with less guilt than usual.  I join in on that fun, baking Christmas goodies and giving them away to anyone that hesitates long enough for me to hand them some.  White Christmas, chocolates, shortbread and oreo balls have already been made in the Howard home this year, but the favourite has to be this one:

I originally saw Jen Hall create these little packets of goodness, adding a picture on facebook and making more than just me exclaim outloud how cool they looked.   I couldn’t get to the supermarket quickly enough after that, there were reindeer noses to package. 

Any excuse to buy Jaffas and Maltesers, really.  Actually I need about 4 packets of Maltesers to the one packet of Jaffas.  There is only one Rudolf nose in each little pack of noses, after all.

And THEN I visited this site, the original download place of the topper for the bags:  Thanks so much to Kate Hadfield Designs for making this available.  It was easy enough to download, change the image size to suit my cello bags and print out.  If I’d thought about it long enough I might have added “From the Howard Family” to the topper before printing it out but I was too keen to get the Jaffas packet open, if I’m telling the truth.

(Visit the website here for the real PDF download).

And so many, many gorgeous little packets of giveaway goodness were created.   They were given to Abby’s friends, attached to Christmas presents, sent with courier packages and Uncle Vaughan seems to be getting more than his fair share too – (Nanc, are any even getting home to you?!)

Enjoy this easy gift.   (Love this time of year!)

laters