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..

Mid Week Sketch 28-13

I have been inspired to clean up my scrap stash this week, hunting out the little bits that are stored in the wrong place and filing them in their rightful place, finding the little lurkers and oh my, that top drawer was full of stuff that had been shoved in, in the hurry to tidy for one reason or another. It was all accidental, really. I just went to put something away and that simple act turned into a task that is now going to take days because it's spilled over into every other area, LOL! Oh well... obviously it was needed. But while I was sorting, tidying, culling and rearranging, I decided I need to use up some of my stash in a big way. The next few sketches are going to be stash busters, with layers and little bits tucked here and there. I hope they work for your stash too. :-)

And not forgetting our little friends :-)

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

Flower Shop

I have just added a new page to my blog. You can find it on the tab at the top of this page, or here: Flower Shop. It's dedicated to the flowers that I make, which you can now buy from me right here on Scrappy Sketches. They look fabulous on any project you are doing - pages, cards or off the page creations. Indulge in one or two and I promise you will be happy with them.

And just as a special bonus for the month of July, if you purchase 4 packs, you will receive another pack free - bargain! It's a lovely and ever changing selection, with more flowers to be added regularly, so please feel free to check it out today :-)

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

Mid Week Sketch 27-13

Oopsie, forgot to put the sketch up this week before I came away to my sister's house. I've just popped online for a bit, and suddenly remembered, so here it is, a little later than usual sorry.

Hope you like the sketches. We are past the half way mark of the year and into the second half now, so get busy - it will be Christmas before we know it! :-)

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

Mid Week Sketch 26-13

Hi there, hope your week is treating you well. Mine is now - my son gave me a bit of a massage and I can move my neck again, yahoo! His strong hands can come in handy occasionally...

Anyway, I'm strapped for time this week with one thing and another. The house we are renting has gone up for sale, so I have been busy showing people around, cleaning up so they can get in, making another mess only to have to clean that up so more people can come through, starting the decluttering process again in case we are on the move, school holidays, etc. So... a nice easy layout for all those people who are similarly lacking in time this week. Only two layers, and some nice little dotty embellishments for some added fun. Hope you like it.

And a smaller one for all those on school holidays - get busy making pinwheels kids :-) 

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

Mid Week Sketch 25-13

A simple but cute sketch for you this week. Nice and easy to put together and fun to look at, I think. Hope you like it. Please share your layout if you do one, would love to see what you make of the sketch.

 And a smaller version for my young scrappy friends :-)

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

Mid Week Sketch 24-13

So... this week we are turning away from scrappy pages and making some cards - cards for the boys in our lives. Cards for boys are always a bit more tricky - girls are easy peasy, but boys are less so. Here are some sketches to get your creative juices flowing. Make a stack and have them on hand for your next masculine event. Have fun, whatever colours you choose to use. No special ones for the younger set this week, because I think they can all manage the main ones.

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