living on the crafty side of life

Maya Road 5 product challenge

Our latest Maya Road design team challenge was to create a project from five products. The Maya Road girls sent DT members a brown paper bag with five Maya Road products. We were allowed to use extra products like adhesive, paints and pattern paper.

The challenge was published in the Maya Road consumer newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter HERE.

It was a lot of fun. Although I keep my scrapbooking simple, taking away the freedom of adding whatever I wanted was a little challenging. I struggled when I saw the chipboard gear shapes in the brown paper bag, but was OK once I turned them into flowers. Here's what I created from the contents of the brown paper bag.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for visiting. Have a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x

mid march catch up

We've been busy here since my last post. I've actually been on a road trip and driven to Lismore and Ballina since my last post. Paul and I drove Phoebe to Lismore to compete in the Little Athletics State Multi event. We had a lot of fun, even though it was very tiring driving such a long way in such a short time. Emily didn't come with us, she had a long weekend with her nana and poppa here in Sydney which everyone enjoyed (including Hugo the dog).

Last week Phoebe coloured her hair for the World's Greatest Shave. She went with blue hair and a purple fringe.

She had a few friends around to celebrate the event and help colour the hair.

We made colour co-ordinated cupcakes for afternoon tea ...

 

Phoebe has raised over $200.00 through online and cash donations. I know a few blog readers kindly sponsored her, thank you very much.

 

She has now washed her hair, and quite a bit of the blue remains, and possibly will for some time, I think.

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Emily recently worked on a project for school. Her task was to make a photographic essay for her Connected Curriculum subject. She has been out and about on excursions taking photos of her local environment. This project was pulling all her information together. She used a Maya Road sheer tab binder album, and made this book while we wereaway in Lismore. Here's a few photos of her book.

 

 

 

 

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A quick Ribbons Galore update. I have added a few very cute bunny ribbons which are perfect for Easter projects.

   

Speaking of Easter... I have some exciting things lined up. But you'll have to check back in a few days to find out more.

That's about all. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona x

Maya Road dt blog post & Aussie Cardmaking Stamping & Papercraft magazine

It was my turn to post over on the Maya Road Design Team blog last week. I wrote about a little book I made for Emily's birthday. Lots more photos of the book are on the MR blog.

 

I was also excited to receive this publication in the mail a few weeks back. I had a set of cards published in Australian Cardmaking Stamping and Papercraft and one of my cards was featured on the cover (Celebrate You - top right). I didn't know this card would be on the cover, so that was an extra little surprise.

 

Hope you have a great week.

Thanks for visiting.

Cheers

Fiona xx

 

Homegrown, cooking and crafting

Yesterday we picked some of Phoebe's produce from her veggie patch. It's only a small space (we converted the old sand pit in the back yard to a veggie patch a few years ago), but she grows some fabulous veggies and herbs.

 

This year she's grown three different varieties of tomatoes... and basil (summer would be the same without fresh basil in our garden), as well as some other herbs.

 

This is our second "harvest" from the garden recently.

So dinner last night was fresh tomato and basil pasta. Very quick easy and delicious. Here's how...

• Roughly chop the tomatoes, no need to peel the tomatoes and keep all the juices and seeds.

• Heat some olive oil in a fry pan, add a little garlic (1-2 cloves, chopped) and cook. Add the tomatoes and gently cook for about half and hour, stirring occasionally.

• Towards the end add a splash of balsamic vinegar and a splash of mirin (if you don't have mirin, add a couple of teaspoons of brown sugar).

• Cook your pasta, drain, etc.

• While cooking the pasta pick the basil leaves from the stems, don't bother cutting them up, they are yummier left whole.

• When all is ready, toss the pasta into the sauce and stir around to cover the pasta.

• Toss the basil into the pasta/tomato sauce combo and let them wilt slightly. Plate up and enjoy with Parmesan cheese.

We were talking last night after our dinner saying how some of our favourite meals are often the most simple to cook.

And now for some crafting....

Here is another Maya Road project created for their CHA booth.

 

The chipboard book used as the base is the Car Key Chipboard Coaster Book. There are quite a few new products used through this album. Some new trinkets flowers mixed with old.

 

New little sheer birdies...

 

I've used some older tags from a coaster book as the mounts for the quotes. The little birdies rub-ons are very cute and match the sheer birdies perfectly.

 

 

We, the design team, were asked to create a Valentines tag for the Maya Road booth as well.

 

I used pieces from the Maya Road Love Key chain Set which I then covered in Stampendous Fun Flock, which gives a fabulous fuzzy-flock finish to the chipboard.

 

I've also added a couple of the new trims from Maya Road. The Pink Vintage Sequins Edging and a new large pom pom trim.

 

That's about all for now. My girls are now back at school, settled in nicely, new teachers, new classrooms and new schedules to learn.

Don't forget there is still a day or two left to enter the RAK. Leave a comment on this post, you might win a set of Maya Road Cupcakes stamps.

Thanks for visiting, hope you have a great weekend.

Cheers

Fiona x

 

long time...no blog...

...but it is summer and school holidays.

It's been about a month since my last post. We've been enjoying the laziness of school holidays. I love having my girls home.

Christmas was nice and relaxing.

New Year was... nice and relaxing. We were at Hawks Nest for about a week... nice and relaxing. We packed a picnic and headed for Jimmy's Beach for New Years eve to watch the fireworks over at Nelson Bay. There were hundreds of people on Jimmy's Beach (busiest I've ever seen it!), many bonfires were blazing. It was a great night.

January has been nice and relaxing. Many trips to the beach, catching up with friends, movies, shopping, staying cool during our hot weather.

Here's a photo taken at Balmoral Beach. There have been several days spent sitting under the trees chatting with friends while we watch the kids enjoy themselves.

 

I have created a few projects during January. CHA-W 09 is just around the corner, and I have sent a few projects off to the US for the Maya Road stand. Here's one of the my mini albums... using a new chipboard suitcase book. You can view the new Maya Road catalog HERE.

 

I still have lots of photos on my camera which I haven't checked yet, once I have I'll post more project photos very soon.

These little cupcake cards {below} were made for the Maya Road Design Team blog. We, the design team members, are now writing posts on the blog. Every few days a new post is published over there. So far there have been lots of great ideas, so make sure you bookmark it and visit regularly.

I've used the Maya Road Cupcakes stamp set. Instructions are on the MR DT blog.

 

 

 

I LOVE this set of stamps, and I actually have ONE SPARE. So I'm going to start the new year off with a RAK. If you leave me a comment here on this post by January 31, your name will be included in the draw for this set of MAYA ROAD CUPCAKES STAMPS. I'll post anywhere in the world! edited: thanks for all your lovely comments, I now have a winner.

Good luck, have fun and thanks for visiting my blog.

Cheers

Fiona x

Sydney Royal Arts Show Easter 2009

I recently received the online newsletter from the organisers of the Sydney Royal Arts Show, held in conjunction with the Sydney Royal Easter Show, next year.

I always love looking around the arts and craft section of the Sydney Royal Easter Show, and thought I'd include some links below that will help you find out more about entering:

• Sydney Royal Arts Show Competitions page: this page has the latest news about the competitions and important dates for entering.
• Sydney Royal Arts Show - Arts schedule and online entries: information about entering the arts competition.
• Sydney Royal Arts Schedule: this PDF document has all the details of conditions of entry and the criteria for each class in the show. {If you are a scrapbooker, the scrapbooking section is on page 16.}

You can also subscribe to the online newsletter through on the Sydney Royal Arts Show website. I'll look forward to wandering the isles of the arts and crafts section next year to see all the beautiful work that has been created throughout the year.

Cheers

Fiona

more maya road projects

These are the last of my Maya Road projects from CHA-S08.

Australia Day album using Maya Road's sheer scroll album:

Flower tags using Maya Road chipboard tags, ribbons and flower chipboards. I've also used one of my favourites at the moment, fabric covered buttons:

Below is a card set I made for the latest Creative Paper magazine. I've used lots of Maya Road chipboard and rub-ons, Ranger Crackle Paints and Luxe Designs papers and rub-ons. This was my first time published in this magazine, so that was pretty exciting. This magazine has a really fresh new look and feel.

I've popped more images over in the gallery of my website, if you'd like to see more.

Hope you're all having a great weekend.

Thanks for visiting.

Fiona x

maya road scroll binder book & chipboard wings album

Here's a couple more Maya Road project using two of their new chipboard books, the Scroll Binder Book and the Wings Album, both released last week at CHA-S 08.

First up is the Scroll Binder Book. The shaping of this book is gorgeous. The paper I've used throughout this book is from the Office Lingo collection by Pink Paislee, one of my new favourites.

The "phoebe" is made from the Maya Road Noah chipboard alphabet set. The letters in this set are a great size. Being smaller than the original MR chipboard letters you can fit a larger title to the front on a book:

The 100% Girl Sheer Calendar Turn fitted well with the theme of this little book:

Inside page, a MR chipboard tree shape and a new sheer ticket:

And a few inside pages from the book, my favourite photos of Phoebe growing up over the last 10 years:

And another newly released album from Maya Road, their chipboard Wings Album. This little book now documents the lullaby I used to sing to my girls when they were babies and little girls. They used to love this song, and as they got a little older would sing along with me. I wanted to put the words down in writing, just so we have them around. Papers used inside the book are by Sweetwater from their Giggle Girl collection.

Some inside pages:

That's me and Emily over 12 years ago:

And me and Phoebe over 9 years ago:

I've a few smaller Maya Road projects to show, but I think that's about enough for today's blog post!

Thanks for visiting my blog. Hope you're all having a great week.

Cheers

Fiona x

Scrap-n-Crop, Malaysia

Valerie from Scrap-n-Crop in Malaysia asked me to be a guest designer for her store this month. Here's a little look at a few things made. The full gallery is up on the Scrap-n-Crop site now. Thanks Valerie for inviting me to work with you this month, it's been fun creating!

Here's a few of the new things I made...

This layout is just about documenting my girls at the moment, a little memory for the album, about how they make me laugh in such different ways.

I was just trying to take a photo of them together. Phoebe stood and waited patiently... and Em, well she was just being Em!

After a short time Phoebe looked at me very seriously and said "can't you just photoshop us together?"  A classic Phoebe comeback.

I love writing little messages on my layouts, like the one above "good idea gorgeous!" I'm thinking well into the future here, when, hopefully, my girls might look through these scrapbooks and read little thing's I've written to them.

Another project for the store, Maya Road Bottlecap Memory Game...

I've used the Maya Road chipboard Motifs set and set them into the Maya Road Mega bottlecaps.

I've been enjoying many Memory games in the evenings recently. Phoebe beats me every time.

I also made a set of cards, this one was a spare one, the rest are in the gallery.

The rest of my projects are over in gallery at Scrap-n-Crop.

That's about all from me today. Thanks for visiting.

Hope you have a great day.

Fiona x

Birthday month

June sees the start of birthday month in our house. Both Phoebe and I have June birthdays, my niece and a few friends also celebrate during this month. But for some reason Phoebe's birthday celebrations seem to last the whole month... (usually overshadowing my birthday completely).

On the weekend we took Phoebe and a few friends to the Sydney Observatory for her birthday celebration. She wanted to go to the Observatory last year, but we left it all too late to arrange, so this year we started early. Just as well, as we couldn't get in next weekend as planned (that's the Observatory's 150th birthday and there's big things planned there) so we had to go a week early for Phoebe's birthday.

We arrived at Observatory Hill early, and the girls had fun running around the rotunda. They watched a bridal party have their photos taken, then the girls insisted the bride and groom kiss, which they willingly obliged.

I tried to take some creative photos, but without my tripod, they didn't really work out. Here's one of the better ones.

The view from the rotunda was beautiful looking north over the harbour to the Harbour Bridge and Luna Park.

The Observatory was great. We looked through two big telescopes including the large one in the domed roof. The most amazing thing we saw was Saturn, we could actually see the rings around the planet. Quite amazing.

After the visit to the Observatory, it was back home for the Starry-Starry night pinata cake. We saw this cake being made several weeks ago on Better Homes and Gardens. Phoebe loved it when she saw it and ordered one (from mum) for her birthday.

Armed with wooden spoons the girls had to smash their way through the chocolate outer shell to reach the cupcakes and lollies hiding underneath.

Phoebe and I made little starry time capsules for the lolly bags. We found the plastic containers at Reverse Garbage. We then wrapped a strip of Scenic Route paper around each container, added a scalloped punched oval shape, a star shape (with doodling) and a Maya Road chipboard letter to finish.

I just have to say I love my new Marvy Uchida scalloped punches. After searching here in Australia for them, and not being able to find them, I finally bought several from Papertrey Ink in the US recently.

That's about all for now. Thanks for visiting!

Cheers

Fiona x