In 2010 "i went to Paris" . . .

We went to so many lovely places last year, Wilson's Prom, The Grampians, Foster, the goldfield areas, Europe!

In the Stampin' Up! Autumn/Winter mini catalogue is this totally gorgeous Designer Series Paper called "Sweet Stitches". It's all in lovely, lolly colours and is bright and retro with a fun home-made feel about it. I couldn't help but choose the Daffodil Delight sheet full of apron prints to go with my "Cheese" photo from a sunny market in Paris!

I love that on the day, I was wearing a shirt that matched our Concord Crush edged ribbon and that in my collection I was able to find a few buttons and bits and pieces which also co-ordinated.

On this layout, you can see the copper (or is it bronze) paint that I have sponged around the edges. This matches with the brushed copper strip which is on all nine of my layouts and also on the facing journalling pages, to tie the whole album together.

And of course, what layout about Paris would be complete without at least one Eiffel Tower (and since I have several in my collection, it was about time I used one!!).

Well, this was all very cheesy and fun!  See you soon!

Kathryn

I chose to complete my i-statement "i am . . . " with the words: "taking time to smell the roses".  I took lots of nature photos last year that I played around with the macro setting on my camera and had two or three goes to get a shot I was really, really happy with.  It was easy to select one of my favourites for this layout.

The colour which jumped out at me was Bravo Burgundy, so when it came to selecting a matching printed paper, I went digging through my "retired" collection to find this strip of Designer Series Paper from 2007.  The other embellishments are also from a recently retired Stampin' Up! catalogue - which just goes to show that you can use your old stuff!!

I love the simplicity of this layout, and the luxurious feel of the embellishments.

This was such a fun class - I completed more layouts in two weeks than I did for the whole of last year!  So much for last year's New Year Resolution!

I'll be back later this week with another one to share with you.  Hope you're having a nice week!

Kathryn.

You may have just arrived here from Alisha's blog - welcome! Or if you have just popped in to check up on me, then you're in for a treat because it's blog hop day with my little group of friendly stampers. Only 7 of us today, so you'll be able to check out all the blogs nice and easily - if you're having a lazy Easter Saturday, that is!

All the projects today feature products from the Stampin' Up! Aus/NZ Autumn/Winter Mini Catalogue which is current now and is just packed with totally gorgeous things!

I have created an 8"x 8" double layout for you - my new favourite size, based on the gorgeous album on page 21 of the mini.

I have selected a couple of pages from the Botanical Gazette Designer Series Paper pack on page 15 of the mini, and just added a couple of subtle images from the co-ordinating Nature Walk stamp set, another new favourite.  Just love these realistic images for stamping just the outline or for filling in with a light watercolour wash.

The little leaves are one of our favourite Sizzlits Dies, for use with the Big Shot. It's amazing how many projects I have used these leaves on recently!

And for those with an experienced eye, you can see I have used Not Quite Navy & Cherry Cobbler Card and the Scallop Trim Border punch for the finishing touches.

Hope you like it!  If you'd like to follow the rest of the blog hop, here are all the other talented ladies, starting at Ros and finishing back here with me. Enjoy your day!

Ros Davidson
http://www.rosdavidson.typepad.com

Di Dunk
http://www.stampartbydi.typepad.com

Nikki Sadler
http://www.inkyart.com.au

Christine Blain
www.christineblain.blogspot.com

Judy May
http://www.judymay.typepad.com

Alisha Watson
http://www.ratherbstampin.typepad.com

Kathryn Ruddick
http://www.katlodesigns.com

While most of my classmates seemed to go for ". . . my family" or ". . . my husband" or ". . . my kids", to complete their i-statement : 'i love . . ." I wanted to avoid the cliche and really focus on something that WE both enjoyed last year APART from our wedding.  It's really easy to remember 2010 as the year we got married, but we also did a whole lot of other things together that need to be celebrated.

We both love OLD things and we visited several historic towns, went to antique markets, visited amazing museums (in Europe) and it was great that we managed several great photos of some of these things we love! So, my completed statement became :

"i love . . . old things, shiny things, collections of things"

I selected this photo from our visit to Saint Ouyen Antique Markets in Paris to represent everything old, shiny and collectible that we love, and matched it with a couple of embellishments and some retired Designer Series Paper.

I haven't completed the facing page with the journalling on it yet - I have in mind that I'd like to use "Compliments of the Chef" stamp set to stamp some cutlery in the brushed copper paint that I have sponged around the egdes of all the layouts, and stamped the journalling blocks with.  Better add it to my wish list as the knife, fork and spoon in that stamp set are totally gorgeous!

Well, that's another of my i-scrap layouts.  There's seven more!  Don't forget to check out our new mini catalogue blog hop here on Saturday!

Hugs, Kathryn

Following my camping trip, I had the urge to work further with the stamp sets and colours that I took away with me, so rather than packing them away when we got home, I left them in the bag until Friday when I was able to steal a couple of hours of creative time.

Here's a shot of the rest of the cards - all the same design but in a couple of delicious colours, just to remind you what I did in my beautiful riverside campsite.

I love the En Francais background stamp, and the sponging with Soft Suede ink to create a vintage feel, even though the other colours are so fresh and bright.

With Easter and Mother's Day coming on, I felt this same design could be nicely adapted to some gift boxes, either for Easter Choccies, or for that special little treat for mum.  We have several gorgeous Big Shot Dies to create easy peasy gift boxes from, and I selected the Fancy Favour and Mini Milk Carton Dies.

Don't you love those little half pearls adding a bit of bling to the front of the Fancy Favour Box?  And here's a close up of the handle - notice I used the french text stamp and more sponging on the off-cut from the box die, to continue the theme on the handle.

This was great fun - I don't often find time to just create little boxes for the sake of it!  There are going to be some lucky people in my family this Easter!

Here's a close up of the Tiny Tags I created for one of the milk cartons - I love these stamps, and the co-ordinating punch.

This week the girls in my stamping group are working on another blog hop for you - it goes live on Easter Saturday, and will feature projects made with supplies from the brand new Stampin' Up! Autumn Winter Mini Catalogue, which is current now.  Be sure to check out what the girls have done on Saturday!

After a couple of extraordinarily busy weeks (months??) at work, hubby and I decided to take off for the weekend for our first wedding anniversary.  The destination of choice was a lovely green camping spot at Big River in the Victorian High Country, which we departed for late on Friday afternoon.

We set up camp in the dark, and were joyous the next morning to see sunbeams breaking through the early morning mist, and steam rising up off the beautiful river.

Here's a view towards the river from our campsite - early morning sunlight filtering through the trees.

Saturday proved to be a perfectly summer day, and whilst Tony went off for a drive to Marysville, I got out my small bag of stamping supplies and stamped up a storm beside the river.

I made a good 12 or 15 cards, all the same pattern but different colours - and I had pre-cut most of the cardstock at home before we left . . . I came up with the design earlier last week whilst making a birthday card for my lovely friend Di. I liked the finished result so much, I decided to do a heap more.

I have used "Just Believe" stamp set, with Crumb Cake card and Soft Suede ink and the background is stamped with "En Francais" then sponged around the edges. The main image is inked with markers to allow the different coloured flowers.

The butterfly is cut out separately and mounted over the stamped image - saves you cutting out the legs and antenna's then!

So, as you can see, I really was on "stamp camp" and had a couple of very productive hours in the gorgeous sunshine, with the river soothingly bubbling along behind me!

I'll be back later in the week with some more of my i-scrap layouts to share with you!

Take care, Kathryn.

I have just been doing a fab Big Picture Class called i-scrap, which included producing 9 layouts (more than I did in the whole of last year!).

My first layout is for the statement "I wonder . . . at Nature's Palette".  I went back to some retired Designer Series Paper to match the Riding Hood Red colour scheme I chose for this one.  Here's a pic of my supplies gathered together.

We were allowed to select only 5 embellishments, 1 piece of ribbon, one piece of patterned paper and one sheet of card, to go with our photo, and this was to be selected before we were given a brief for our page. As you can see by the finished layout, I have cheated a teensy bit, by adding a piece of linen thread for the hodge podge, and a small piece of the reverse of the dsp inside the hodge podge. Shhhhhh! please don't tell anyone! LOL

Don't you love the colours of those leaves? There were in the gorgeous Chinese Garden in Darling Harbour in Sydney, which a group of us visited at the end of the 2010 Stampin' Up! Convention, before flying home to Melbourne later in the day - stunning, stunning garden, even though it was pouring with rain most of the time.

I'll share some more of these layouts with you over the coming weeks - as I continue to work on the journalling which goes on the facing page.  Enjoy your day!

Kathryn

Wow, another month has been and gone in our One Little Word journey. My word for 2011 is GROW and our prompt for March was to decide on just one little activity and document it, AND DO it.  This was easy for me, as I had already registered for an online class which started in March and was part of my growing and developing, guided by my word.

Ali Edwards, our class instructor again provided templates for us to use to record our activity for the month, so the biggest challenge was actually doing the activity, and recognising that we had done it and had allowed our word to influence our life in March.

The template fitted into different size pockets, where the smaller ones are actually double sided and flip over. I am sewing my own pockets for this one, and haven't dug the machine out from the bottom of the linen cupboard yet, so here's a photo showing the reverse side of the smaller cards, without the pockets.

The little GROW button was a gift from my stamping friend Claire Daly who is also on this OLW journey. If you have a chance to check out her blog, her cards are to die for!  Thanks Claire, your little gift arrived the day before I read the March prompts, and I knew straight away I was going to use it in a similar way to Ali's metal edge label on her small cards.

I loved how Ali used printed paper with numbers on it - sort of a reminder to be accountable sometime during the month, and as I had some lovely (uncut) Stampin' Up! DSP, I decided I would use numbers too. When I went to punch out this circle, I deliberately lined up the number 4 as it was kind of significant in March for my GROW journey.

So, what was I was doing all month, to increase my creativity and try something new? Another Big Picture Class - i-scrap by Stacy Julian. A fabulous class!

This is a bit of a random pic of all my photos, ribbons and embellishments for my nine i-scrap layouts. Hopefully over the next few weeks I will finish the journalling and I will post some finished layouts here to share with you too.

Well, that is totally enough from me!  If you haven't done a blog hop before, and are starting here, all you do is click on the next link to Jen's blog by clicking here.  Then at the end of her post, click on the next link. It will eventually take you full circle and back to here, and during the journey, you will be totally inspired by what these strong, talented, motivated women are doing to move forward in their lives.

If you happen to get a bit lost on the journey or some of the links don't work, here's the original list for you to come back to. Have an awesome day and a fabulous weekend (it's already Saturday in Australia!).