Mid Week Sketch 41-13

OK, so it's not exactly mid week... even here in la-la land, where I am surrounded by boxes, paper and bubble wrap, disarrayed furniture and a distinct lack of the little things that make a house a home. Moving day in just 3 sleeps, and we are going to lose our internet in the next few hours probably, so that it can be switched over to the new house. So I thought I might give you this week's sketch early, as there is no telling in this marvellous world of technology, just how long it will take them to reconnect us.

The electricity, easy peasy, they do it when you ask them to. But phone, oh no, days... up to ten days! We are only moving within our suburb, not to the middle of nowhere. Um... can you tell I'm impressed, lol?

I can cope with most things - I am a woman of a certain age after all, and have learned during this "interesting" life, that stuff happens and we can live through quite a lot, actually, and remain intact. But please, I need my connection to the world at my fingertips. What great Pins will I miss? What fabulous blog posts? What happenings on my social network?

OK, I'm being dramatic. I have my smart phone... I am not entirely bereft, lol. I just find it interesting that it could take so long for the landline stuff. And really, I don't get to whine about much. Have to have my little rant now and then.

So... to the sketch. I had this idea for squares and it just grew from there. Hope you like it.

Normal communications should be resumed in time for week 42. Until then, think of me and the turmoil/fun of moving house and setting up my fabby new scrap room. :-)

{{And by the way, I don't know why the sketches are going blue at the moment. I'll look into that soon, and change them.}}

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 40-13

I don't know what it's like where you are, but it's hot here. I have succumbed to putting the air con on while I work. I prefer fresh air, but it's either air con and work, or fresh air and snooze, LOL.

This week's sketch uses a background die cut shape and a tag to make a pretty page. I know you have both those things lurking in your stash somewhere! Or the means to make them. Pull out what you have and get busy, and you will have a page done in no time.

**Share a page made with a Scrappy Sketch from October for your chance to win a flower pack handmade by me. I have a prize draw on offer, just a random gift really, for one lucky scrapper. All you have to do is leave me a comment under one of the sketches from October and make a page using any one of those sketches to be in with a chance. I look forward to seeing what you do.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 39-13

We have secured a house, yay! Very busy packing because we move next week, but at least we have somewhere to go. It was getting very close to the wire there... nothing like the thought of storage and living in a tent to make you realise how much stuff you have :-o

Anyway, I have had time in the busy round of life to make you a nice masculine sketch. We all have boys in our lives, close or not so close, that we want to scrap, and it's nice to get some pages designed just for them. Hope you like this one.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 38-13

Yes, we are in week 38 already. This is the 38th Wednesday this year... leaving exactly 14 Wednesdays left in this whole year. Don't even talk to me about it, LOL, I am boggle-eyed about the whole idea that it's that close to another year!

I only have a large layout for you this week. Blame house hunting, sorting, packing, filling in hundreds of forms, getting nowhere with rental applications, etc. Meh.

Still, it's a nice sketch, don't you think? Lots of room for personalisation :-) I can see all sorts of yummy papers and misting and other fun things with this layout.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 37-13

I've had this ready to post all day but I have been waylaid about 50 times on the way to do it. I suppose I should be grateful my life isn't boring, lol!

This one came to me while I was folding washing the other day. You never know when inspiration will strike or what will cause the spark - gotta love that about life.

And for the young set, a smaller version.

Either of these would look good turned to the side as well, with the tags below the photos. Two looks for the price of one!

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 36-13

I have a masculine sketch for you this week. It was Father's Day last weekend, so maybe you have a photo of your father or grandfather, or your kids' father, your son or brother as a father, or another Dad you know who deserves a mention in your scrapbooks. There's a lot of Dads out there really, and they are a big part of our stories and memories.

I look forward to seeing how you interpret and put this sketch together. And just as an added bonus, I have a small RAK on offer for two lucky people who complete this page before the end of September, randomly chosen. All you have to do is make your page and share it here via the inlinkz thingy on the side, then leave me a comment and you're in the draw :-) I will take a photo of the RAK and get it up... only just thought of it so I haven't done it yet, lol!

And this week, not a card, but another 6in page for our younger friends to have a go at.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 35-13

Hello everyone, it's Spring in Brisbane, there is the fresh scent of warm days and clover in the air, and jasmine if you are lucky. So delicious.

I am having lunch with a friend today, so I am just posting this quickly so that I can go play girly stuff :-) A Springlike sketch this week, light and fresh and cheerful, hope you like it.

And another card, because I enjoyed doing the card sketch last week.

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 34-13

Still stash busting - this time with some paper strips and random flowers. What do you have lurking that you could play with today? Mix and match some old scraps with some newer ones, go with a particular theme or colour, add some textured papers, update some boring bits with a bit of stamping, ink, distress or crinkle. It doesn't matter what you do, just that you are getting through some of that stash. Add a little ric-rac or braid, some hidden journaling on a tag and you have a page!

And this week, just for a change of pace, I have a card sketch for you as well, instead of the usual 6x6 page for the young set. Hope you like it.

Everything has settled down here by the way - yahoo :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 33-13

I'm reading a book at the moment called, "Just One Damned Thing After Another" by Jodi Taylor - it's an ebook downloaded to my phone, a harmless little fiction about time travel that I am very much enjoying. It's a good mix of humour and drama and it's well written. Unfortunately, the title is quite apt for my life this year... There has been nothing major go wrong, but lots and lots of potential disasters, and minor incidents. Do you get years like that, where one particular year seems more dramatic, or less fun all around than the previous one?

This year, my mother has had eye surgery and some heart troubles. My father has had a minor stroke. My husband had some sort of episode that baffled the doctors in emergency when he was rushed there from the roadside, which he eventually recovered from leaving no clues as to what had actually happened. My son fell in a heap, self harmed, has had girlfriend dramas, had his car smashed into by another vehicle when he was stationary, causing him some injury (and the car is dead), lost his expensive new phone, his computer died, and he left home angry more than once... My daughter is going through her final year of school (drama enough), her best friend died in unusual circumstances, she's been bullied, and has been sick on and off, has suffered significant bouts of anxiety and depression, and missed too much school. The house we are renting has been sold and we have to move. We've only been here a year and a half, because that happened to the last house too.

See what I mean? The title for that book is my life at the moment, LOL! Me? Oh, I'm fine... and the cats are fine too, thanks for asking ;-)

The point of all that information is to begin to explain why the sketch is on Thursday this week instead of Wednesday. Spent the day in the emergency department again yesterday with my daughter, who has concussion and is still in a lot of pain, sick and shaky after a week. I can't help waiting to see what will go pear-shaped next...

But while I am waiting, here is this week's sketch. A nice bunch of circles and little pretties, with hopefully no dramas for you at all.

And a smaller version for my little friends, with just as many pretty things to play with on the page.

Oh and PS, there have been some good things happen all year as well, plenty of happy moments and things to make us smile, thankfully. It still feels unbalanced, but we aren't sinking yet :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 32-13

Oooh, you're lucky to be getting a sketch this week! This morning I woke up to find the black screen of death staring at me from my desk :-( I was all upset - wailing, gnashing my teeth and the whole shabang, but luckily I have a totally marvellous husband who can fix almost anything and make me feel all calm into the bargain, and sure enough, he waved his magic wand and slowly it all came good... well... good enough to use again. Not entirely fixed, but not the nasty void either.

We are still on the stash busting theme, and I have a great little user-upper of bits for you today. I went with a bit of a masculine theme, but you can do whatever takes your fancy. This would be a great layout for random orphan photos that you like but that don't necessarily tell enough of a story to be on their own. Chop them down to 3x3 inches and give them a home on this scrappy page full of little treasures and twinchies.

There is space for nice papers, or maybe some embossed or crimped cardstock, or maybe you could do some arty stuff if you like that sort of thing. I hope you have some fun with it - and remember, I would love to see what you do with it when you're done.

And my little friends aren't forgotten either, I have a smaller version for you, that's just as much fun.

What do you think?

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 31-13

We are officially 3/5ths of the way through this year. Yes, I thought you might like that snippet of information. Thrilling isn't it? There are still a lot of things I want to accomplish with what's left of the year - in fact, pretty much everything I thought I would accomplish this year. Better get my skates on.... time is on a high speed train! Or is that mixing my metaphors, lol? Is it like that for you too, or are you doing well? My year has been less than brilliant for getting things done... maybe it's because I didn't send on that darned chain letter in January, hehe.

Anyway, even if nothing else is happening as desired, at least I am still sketching and occasionally scrapping :-) I recently saw some nice pages with borders and I thought, gee, it's been a while since I made a page with a border. They are a good way to use up scraps and little pretties, and make a pretty page when all is said and done. I hope you find this one inspiring.

And maybe the young folk you live with would like to try a border too:

I love comments and I love seeing what you do - go ahead and share :-)

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 30-13

It's a lovely sunny day here today and I am looking at it through glass, because it's also quite cold out there. I had to send my daughter off to school today in her school shorts, pink and shivery (her, not the shorts, lol). She wouldn't wear the long pants because "nobody else" would be... She'll survive, she's a tough little cookie. Unlike the cats in their fur coats, desperately seeking out slivers of sunshine slanting through the windows onto the floor. They don't want to go out at all.

I hope you find a warm and pleasant spot this week to do some scrapping. However small a time we have, our creative pleasures help to keep us sane in the wild world of tasks for other people, lists of things to do, places to be, people to see and the many things we should be doing instead of whatever it is we are doing.

Here is another stash buster layout just in case you do find yourself with a bit of spare time (haha the idea of actual spare time... ). Look out all those little bits and bobs and get some down on a page. Have fun with the chevrons - mask, paint, paper, doodle, stitch or whatever, there's a few things you could do to make your page rock.

And of course, a smaller page for our young friends, I hope you enjoy finding some treasures to put on your page. It doesn't have to be cogs, use whatever you like - it's your page. 

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..

Mid Week Sketch 29-13

The scrap stash clean up continues... it's pretty slow though. I can't just decide this box or this drawer is all for ditching. I have to go through each individual item and decide it's fate in a realistic way. The questions I ask are: "Am I actually going to use or finish this?" and "When I move, do I want to pack this and take it with me?"

I am trying to not get caught up with the sentimental value of things that I don't need any more. I'm trying to go a bit faster and not act like a hoarder. However, I do think a tendency toward hoarding is an occupational hazard when it comes to crafting. And I have been a crafter all my life, dabbling in one thing or another. It's hard to relinquish buttons, ribbons, pretty bits of paper, and all the myriad other items that are filling my drawers. You never know when you might need just that one thing...

But I am being ruthless. Or truthful. Or something... but whatever it is, I am giving things due consideration and culling. The drawer I went through yesterday now only has a third of what was in it before. I could be horrified that there was so much in it that I didn't need, or I could be thrilled there is now room for more stuff delighted that what is left is what I actually want. It's very satisfying in the end. I know more stuff will accumulate, but at least I won't be adding it to an already over-supplied space.

Now, confession time over, lol, what about the sketch? It's quite different really. It took me ages to get it to behave yesterday, changed it about 20 times, but I think it came together nicely in the end. (Some sketches are like that, and others come together smoothly.)

Use 4 smaller photos as in the sketch, or two 4x6 landscape ones, and have fun with some stitching. Cut up some of your paper stash into circles and layer them up - whether you use contrasting colours or tonal shades, I think this is going to give you a great page. And of course, you can ink, doodle, distress or otherwise decorate your circles any way you like. Have fun!

And a smaller version, simpler but still with the same appeal:

love Heather x ..always be a little kinder than necessary..