A special quote.

I don't often create a layout that simply uses a quote. I much prefer to journal with a story or include my feelings or even use a question/answer style .... but I've had this quote for ages, maybe years now in my little special book and it's one that I really wanted to use one day. It felt right for this layout.

Quote reads:
To the outside world we all grow old.
But not to brothers and sisters.
We know each other as we always were.
We know each other's hearts.
We share private family jokes.
We remember family feuds and secrets, family griefs and joys.
We live outside the touch of time.
by Clara Ortega.

Paper is from Autumn Leaves and so is that cute flower embellishment.
Birdie is from American Crafts.
Alpha stickers are Making Memories.

Holiday layout

I had so many photos from our visit to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary that I created a mosaic of photos. I resized them to 2x2 inches each and then had the mosaic printed.
I was so glad that the new Basic Grey paper - offbeat (with the birds) - was a good match. It's so cute.

I've been doing so many multi photo layouts lately and I'm finding it a bit tricky to still have enough white space on the layout when I scrap 8.5x11. I have been thinking about going back to 12x12 to see if that gives me some more room to play with - should I or shouldn't I ? I'm such a huge fan of 8.5x11.

Pink Ribbon Day

Next month there are quite a few events going on to help raise money and awareness for Cancer in Women - Pink Ribbon Day is designed to do just that.
Scrapchat is holding a fundraising event in Brisbane on the 4th October with heaps of prizes and fun as well as a great opportunity to scrap with friends all afternoon and into the night. Scrapchat is auctioning off a custom made layout created by myself with all the money going to Pink Ribbon Day. So, if you live in Australia and you'd like to donate to a most worthwhile cause and get a layout from me as a little thankyou (using your favourite photo/s), then head on over to the SCRAPCHAT site and make a bid. There are heaps of other items available to bid for too.

On another note, I have a recent layout to share - YOUR ADDICTION.
This is about Joshua and his dummy (pacifier for all of the US visitors).
Fun photos and a simple layout ... but it tells the story and that's what I like to.

I love a challenge!

I have 10 stories planned to tell on 10 of my up and coming layouts.
I have some brand new beautiful pieces of paper and cardstock.
I have some gorgeous embellishments and rubons - even some that haven't hit the stores here yet that were a gift from my dear friend, Severine
... but what was lacking was the inspiration.

So, I remembered seeing a gorgeous layout by the talented Amanda Hall. And I recalled Nicole Southworth from the Remember When Blog saying to scrap your childhood memories. I even had Severine Di Giacomo challenge me last night to use the following on a layout - circles, chipboard and 2 pieces of patterned paper. It all fell into place today and I love the result. Thank you so much girls for the much needed inspiration - what do you think?

Inspiration ???

I'm not sure that I've ever shared this layout on my blog before. It's from Valentine's Day early this year and I was inspired by my friend, Karla Dudley and her amazing work. Somehow, I don't think it has the 'freedom' that Karla's layouts ooze. I have her link in the side of my blog - Creat Something Today - go check her out if you haven't already. Which blogs do you like to visit for inpsiration? I'd love some new links.
Have a great weekend.

Home Sweet Home

The best part about ending a holiday is the thought of coming home to your own bed and pillow - for me, nothing beats that!
We have just returned from six days at the Gold Coast, and although we had Ethan with both high and low temperatures from a virus of some sort, we managed to get to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary on our last day. We had a great time feeding the kangaroos, cuddling the koalas, seeing the crocodiles, emus, echidnae, lizards, snakes, eagles and heaps of other animals.





Thanks for all the comments on my previous post - it's really great to read them.

Looking forward to scrapping some photos - have bought some new paper and alphas and can't wait. I visited the new store on the Gold Coast - Sunbird Scrapbooking at Burleigh Heads and loved the huge range of stock they had. Hope to have something to show you soon.

Hooray !!!

It's official and it really has happened this time. I have a layout featured in the current (October) issue of SCRAPBOOKS ETC. magazine - which is a great US scrapbooking magazine.
The reason I say 'really happened', is that the last time I had a layout accepted by a US magazine, I packaged it up and mailed it, they photographed it and then in the month that it was due to be printed, the magazine (Scrapbook Answers USA) was sold to another company who ceased its publication - it never happened!
But this time, I have waited patiently since April to hear that it IS IN PRINT - I can't wait to see it myself.
It's featured in the MAKING IT YOURS section which is where I was given a photo of someone elses layout and needed to create my layout using theirs as the inspiration - I loved it. Here is what I sent them.



Did I say how excited I am ?
Woohoo !

The super talented Karla nominated me for this award and I'm so excited to be posting it here on my blog. If you haven't seen her blog before, you must check it out - her layouts are gorgeous but her hand made journals are simply amazing. She even has some digi brushes about to be released for sale - this is one clever girl.
http://karlastudio5.typepad.com/



The Rules:
1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girl's you nominated.

So ,now I need to nominate some blogs.

Wendy Bretz - http://wendybretzdesigns.typepad.com/wendy_bretz_designs/
I've loved looking at Wendy's layouts for a long time now.
Mega graphic - if that's a word - she oozes design.

Melanie Louette - http://melanie-notesfromhome.blogspot.com/
This girl has a superb style. Clean, modern and gorgeous pics with a story behind them. Take a peak!

Genmanou - http://leblogdegenmanou.blogspot.com/
My newest addition to my favourites list but certainly not a new friend of mine when it comes to scrapping. This girl has a distictly FRENCH style - go check it out - I love her layouts.

I'm going to break the rules a bit and only nominate 3 blogs because I'm hopeless at trying to link them as you can see and I'm sure you'll all be frustrated at me for not doing this better - sorry - need to learn how to do this - I find it really tricky!

Birthday Celebrations!

It's my Grandmother's birthday today - celebrating 95 years!!!
Her name is Anastasia.
I'm named after her (Anastasia is my Greek baptised name and Leanne is what I'm called in English - it's a version of Ann and Anastasia)
I'm the eldest of her 7 grandchildren.
She has 7 great grandchildren and 1 more due any day now.

We all enjoyed a great day on Sunday with our extended family for Father's Day and she cut a cake to celebrate this fantastic milestone.



I really want to use this photo on a layout and I want to journal with a Question/Answer style. I'd love to hear your suggestions about what questions I should ask. All ideas welcome!

Time flies!

It was only yesterday that I was hiding easter eggs for the annual easter hunt and now it's getting closer and closer to the year ending and Christmas is fast approaching! Where does the year go?
I find it hard to believe that Joshua is two and half years old - but he is and here is the layout I scrapped for his Milestone Album. Both boys have their own album with a layout of them and some journalling about their milestones starting from birth and then one each month until they are 1 year old. After that, I do one layout every 6 months. It's amazing to see them develop and grow into who they are. Have a great weekend!

Finally a layout !

It's not that I haven't been scrapping but I had trouble scanning this layout because the cardstock in the background is metalic shiny silver and kept showing up black in the scan. I ended up photographing it today and so I'm happy to share.

My dear friend, Severine from Switzerland, and I have been chatting online with msn for a couple of years now. We met on the scrap site 2peasinabucket during the time I was breastfeeding Joshua and trying to stay awake until the 11pm feed. I noticed that so many 'clean and graphic style' layouts were being posted on 2peas at that time of the night and many of the girls were French. Severine's (living in the french part of switzerland) style stood out a mile away and I asked her if we could do a layout swap where I scrapped for her and she for me. From that day on, almost weekly, we'd chat online on msn. Our friendship is very special to me.

Just a few days ago, while we were chatting, she mentioned that there was a challenge on at 2peas to create a layout about an online conversation and she did the coolest one about US! You can see it on her blog. http://simply-s.blogspot.com/
I really wanted to do one too and here is mine - hope you like it Severine.

Question time?

Thanks so much for the encouraging comments about my photos - to say I'm a little excited is probably an understatement but I need to be honest and tell you that I was the least experienced photographer at the group shoots - if you have made your way to www.ilovephotography.com and you find the threads from our shoots, you will see some simply stunning images.

Now, to answer some questions ....
Jody - I haven't used any actions on these images. I haven't used an action in a long time. I'm trying to learn to see with my eye what an image needs and not rely on a standard setting - then I work with it on the computer.
Melanie - To get a silhouette shot, you need to meter off the sky and then take the shot. I shoot in Manual and also in RAW - hope this helps.
Sofi - did I read correctly? Are you expecting baby no.2? How exciting for you and your family.
KatherineB - I have a Canon 400D and I use a 50mm f1.8 lens most of the time. I also have the standard lens that comes with the camera. I'm actually considering upgrading my camera even though this one is not yet 2 years old and still has a one year warranty - do I sound like a used car salesman? I'll be sticking with Canon - really love their cameras.

For those of you who want to learn more about photography, Rachel Richter is planning a workshop - go take a peak at her blog - I'm her biggest fan.
www.rachelrichter.blogspot.com/

Just a few more and then I'll stop - promise!

As you can tell by my continual posts of photos, I've had a wonderful time trying to improve my skills and getting some great tips from so many amazing photographers - including the mother of that gorgeous baby in the last photo - anyone guess who it is ? mmm ... I wonder ?

Beach Shoot - Gold Coast

I'm officially exhausted!

Three days this week of trying to keep up with some amazing photographers and going to locations I had never thought to go to. I've had a great time with a zillion images to look at and work on.

Here are a couple from today - on the beach at the Gold Coast and in a little forest like pocket just off the beach walkway.

more photos

I thought I had posted these images also but I hadn't. Isn't this little girl adorable? She is the daughter of one of the photographers that joined us on the day - Elina. Here is her photography blog - http://elfinaphotoart.blogspot.com/

Victoria Point beach shoot

I've been a little consumed with photography this week and after spending another fantastic afternoon with that same group of talented photographers and also Andrea Joki (from Finland), I have been spending most of my time proofing my photos. It's exhausting and I'm off for a quick afternoon siesta while Joshua sleeps after I post this shot. While we were provided with the most gorgeous models (children of all ages), I really ended up loving this shot of my son Ethan. That's OK for a Mum isn't it!



Yesterday, we met at a small beach at Victoria Point at 4pm. There were gorgeous coloured boats anchored in the sand and the children had so much fun in the water.
A couple of girls have asked about how this all came about. I visit a great photography site called www.ilovephotography.com. It's an international site with heaps of hugely talented photographers as well as beginners who are interested in child photography. These get-togethers were organised by a Brisbane photographer who flew out Andrea Joki, a well respected photographer from Finland, to be her Mentor for 2 weeks. She kindly organised for us all to enjoy some days out in their company along with models and props included - at no charge. I have learnt so much and look forward to my last day out with these girls on Sunday at the Gold Coast on the beach - should be so much fun!

Thanks always for your kind comments and hopefully I'll be scrapping some of these pics real soon.

Australian bushlands shoot

Yesterday I met with a group of photographers and models and we ventured into a bit of bushland and took some photographs. It was a great day and with the help of Andrea Joki, a hugely talented photographer who lives in Finland, we were able to pick up some tips. Check out her blog here. http://www.ajatonjoki.com/wordpress/
She is well known for her stunning landscapes and fantasy-like photos.

Photo Wall

Thought I'd share a couple of photos of my Photo Wall. Our home is very open plan and the wall space was so big and empty it was hard to decide how to fill it. I'm so pleased with how this turned out. We used STRIPA strips from Ikea as the shelving and ORSON and BLAKE photo frames. Now we can change our photos as often as we like and not worry about straightening up crooked frames every time we walk past.

Questionairre!

What's better than having a friend who's a scrapper?
a. a scrapper friend who has a huge scrap stash
b. a scrapper friend who lives just 1 minute away
c. a scrapper friend who you see at drop off and pick up every day because her son
and yours are in the exact same class at prep
d. all of the above

If you guessed "d" - all of the above well you're right!

And so I dedicate this layout to my "all of the above" scrapper friend - the talented, Michelle Jamieson (http://chellejamo.blogspot.com/) - for always being there with the just the right product that I need when I'm struggling to finish a layout. And with this layout, she didn't have just 1 choice of brown alphas but 2. To top it all off, the alphas were American Crafts - can it get any better than that?
Thanks Michelle.

Keeping It Simple

In the latest Scrapbook Creations - issue 57 - the Keeping It Simple Article focuses on Colour Combinations. All three of us girls (Helen, Belinda and myself) write about how we choose our colour schemes - if you've read it I'd love some feedback. My layout is called POP ART - I loved these photos that we had taken at the Andy Warhol exhibition - so very ... Andy Warhol - funny that!



On a separate note, thank you all so very much for your kind and encouraging comments about my mini album. I'm overwhelmed at how many of my friends left a comment. It's such a nice feeling to have so much support especially from new friends that visited for the first time - it means alot.