Monkey Business Scrapbook Pages!

Scrapbook pages are always a lot of fun to make, some are simple, some are fun, some take a while to evolve and of course when children are involved in your life you have a vast array of material waiting to be preserved at your fingertips! One of the gorgeous things about children is some of their words or phrases, especially when they are explaining things to each other - so this months scrapbook class is dedicated to "classic kids quotes" which I have combined with some punch art monkeys from the super talented Kim Score. Our scrapbook class is approximately 2 hours and is a double layout with all materials provided - for my class schedule you can check my website or sign up to my newsletter, of course if the time doesn't suit, I would be happy to bring the class to you at a different time if you get a few friends together.

Pretty cute hey! The pages are designed to fit a 5"x7" photo on the left page and a 3"x4" photo on the right. Journaling for the pages can either be done around the pages, the piece next to the right hand monkey was designed for adding a name and date and further space is hidden under each tag - they flip up.......see I hadn't glued them down wonky - they move!!

Just in case you were adding things which might embarrass your children when they get older!!! These pages were done for a boy, but for a girl I would do the photo mats, small stamped circles & hearts on the monkeys in Pretty in Pink instead of Bashful Blue and add a pink butterfly bow in the monkeys hair as well to "girly" it up a bit - although glitter might also work!

All of the edges of the pages are sponged to add dimension and give the pages a softer look.

So if you would like to join us for some fun, please contact me or check out my website for other classes that are coming up.

Stamps: You're a Gem

Card Stock: Chocolate Chip, Crumb Cake, Early Expresso, Bashful Blue, Real Red

Ink: Chocolate Chip

Accessories Crop-o-dile, Jumbo eyelets, metallic brads, paper piercer, mat pack, Tombow Glue, SNAIL, 1/4" chocolate chip ribbon (retired but you could use Early Expresso), paper snips, LOTS of punches, stamping sponge, black stamp 'n write marker and white gel pen, dimensionals.

Hippopotamus Punch Art - too cute!!!

Okay I am slowly working my way through the Kim Score punch art designs, this one was a lot simpler than the crocodile I posted previously, but equally cute. I teamed it up with one of the super versatile new stamp sets called Party This Way.................so what do you think???

I must confess I was really pleased how it turned out and the only thing I realised after I made him was that I have to go and make another one, as this one I made using the retired going gray card stock, so I am in the process of redoing it in basic gray and it still looks lovely. 

Stamps: Party This Way & Tiny Tags

Card stock: Going Gray (retired), Whisper White, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue & Basic Black

Ink: Going Gray (retired), Pretty in Pink, Bashful Blue

Accessories: 1/4" Pretty in Pink grosgrain ribbon,  white gel pen, Stampin' Write journaller pen, paper snips, hemp twine, basic pearls, Tombow Glue, Stampin' Dimensionals, SNAIL, Stamping sponges, Stamp-a-ma-jig & too many punches to list!

Here's a close up of it, I love how Dimensionals and sponging really add to the depth and texture of cards

Don't you just love the new Basic Pearls along the party pennant that I turned into a little sailors hat (and such a good price). The details were added by hand using a white gel pen and Stampin' Write journaller pen. I can't wait to make the rest of the set of zoo animals, there are five in all so three left to go.........if you want to join in the fun and learn how to make this card of any others you see on my blog, please get in contact with me as I'd love to share my tips and hints with you!

Crocodile Punch Art

What a busy week it's been, I've had two brilliant classes this week (more due to the participants than the content, although the later wasn't too shabby!) - one for Christmas cards and the other for masculine cards and an upline meeting. I still stand by my quirky statement from years ago  that stamping is so much cheaper than therapy! Now of course they are advocating people who have any sort of mental illness, seniors wanting to stay young at heart, stressed work-a-holics or stay at home mums who are starved of adult company who just need time out,  take up a hobby and I have to say stamping & scrapbooking can be a very social thing to take up as a hobby. Hmm wonder when there will be a government rebate on Medicare for stamping supplies!!

Anyway as part of the monthly upline meeting I go to, aside from getting to see lots of lovely people, getting new ideas and brushing up on old techniques and learning a few new ones we have the option of joining in a themed swap. This month was punch art - about 3 months ago I bought a tutorial on some wonderful punch art animals (Zoo Collection at Kim Score's website under her list of punch art tutorials if you are interested in getting the directions yourself or I will be doing some classes later this year if I find time - if not feel free to book a class for punch art and I can come to you and teach them there!) Now I just need to find some time to finish the other 4 animals that come in the tutorial and I'll be able to do a double page 12x12" layout featuring the zoo animals or an entire set of wonderful punch art greeting cards as a gift!

How cute is that! You really don't even need to add the greeting to it unless you wanted to - how fabulous would that look on a scrapbook page for a zoo visit?

See how wonderfully dimensional the crocodile is with all the layers, Stampin' Dimensionals and the texture on the card stock from the sponging, white gel pen and textured embossing folder.

Stamps: Picture This, Trendy Trees

Card stock: Old Olive, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, Real Red, Pacific Point, Pumpkin Pie, Yoyo Yellow, More Mustard.

Ink: Old Olive, More Mustard, Real Red, Basic Black.

Accessories: Stampin Dimensionals, Tombow Glue, Stampin' Sponge, SNAIL, Polka Dot textured embossing folder, Big Shot, White Gel Pen and too many punches to list individually!

Treat Tube Challenge from Kim Score

I love to visit blogs of really talented stamping artists and I love punch art, I don't do that much of it, but I really admire some of the awesome work that can be created using punched shapes. Well this week one such artist issued a challenge to turn her gingerbread treat tube holder into our own personal design using the base instructions for the tube. So here is my end result:

Pretty damn cool hey!!! Even if I do say so myself. I confess to the idea of making a cannon barrel as not entirely being my own - I made up the tube in scrap card stock and was holding it and musing on it as you do and DH came to see what I was up to and we entered into one of those what could you make with this conversations (some bizarre and funny suggestions were bandied about, but then we settled on making a cannon). Thanks to Google I managed to get some half decent pictures of what a cannon should look like and I went from there. I actually extended the tube from the base design to be 5" by 5" in size as the original tube was a bit short for a cannon barrel. The carriage is cut entirely from one piece and the wood effect was done with a marker pen and sponge (I am so waiting for the new woodgrain stamp to be released in Australia in about 2 weeks time!).  I even went shopping for gob stoppers to be the cannon balls, but apparently they don't sell them in our supermarket and I had to settle for chocolate orange balls instead. The good thing is that you can fill the entire barrel with the chocolate orange balls and it doesn't tip over as the designer brads counterweight it nicely!

Card stock: Soft suede, brushed silver, basic black.

Ink: Chocolate chip pad & marker

Accessories: Star designer brads, 1 3/8" circle punch, 1" circle punch, vintage black brads, 1/16" handheld hole punch, 3/4" hold punch, fancy flower extra large punch, Sticky Strip, Stampin' Dimensionals, Stampin' Sponge.

Of course whilst taking photos of the cannon to upload to my blog, DH raided our sons Lego Duplo box and added a few extra props...........

Too funny - loved the challenge & the original idea that Kim had for the treat tube, thanks for visiting!