Artastic December Challenge

Another month has gone by ... I can't believe it's december already ... Christmas is just a few weeks away. Time sure flies! Another month, another challenge over at the Artastic blog, and this one sure is a challenge!!! I struggled with it a bit at first. We were to draw inspiration from Botticelli painting "The Mystical Nativity".

I know, it's a tough one!!! And if this wasn't hard enough, here are the criteria which you should try to work into your LO:

• A stable (1 point)
• Angel(s) (2 points)
• Gold embossing (3 points)

It took me quite some time to get a clear image in my head of what I wanted to do, but once I did, it came together beautifully (whole page of the sneak peeks I showed you earlier)

The picture shows my 1 month old son (picture taken 11 years ago) and our German Shepherd Jenny, who passed away several years ago. She was extremely protective of my kids, and this picture means a lot to me. It really shows her wonderful and kind nature.

I painted a "brick structure" - which represents the stable - as the background. I first drew the outlines of the wall, covered the inside with gel medium, and put ordinary sand over it. After letting it dry completely, I painted over it with acrylic paints. The sand really gives it a "bricklike" texture. Here's a close up:

I copied the angel from an image by a very talented artist named DJ, you can find her blog here and here's the work I copied the angel from:

Isn't that just gorgeous!???!!! Thank you so much DJ for letting me use your image, I appreciate it.

The texture of the wings (and also the hair) was once again done with mere gel medium and a palette knife. I just smeared a lot of gel medium inside the drawn lines, and used the palette knife to create some distinct lines. Once it was dry, I gave it a ground colour and later on dry brushed over it with white acrylic paint. Because of the "lines", only the top is covered completely with white, still showing the underlying colour. This really is a wonderful technique to add some texture to a page, it looks fantastic, it really does, and it's so easy!!

And I used stamps on my LO!!! Yeah me!!! Those of you who have been reading my blog, know that although I love the look of stamps on a page, I myself am terrified of stamping. And stamping now reminded me of why again. The first stamp I used was the one on the left hand/bottom side of my picture. I placed it too much over the photo and it turned out too dark!! After my heart stopped racing at 200 beats a minute, I frantically began to dry brush gesso over it, to tone it down a bit. Thankfully, it kind of worked, though I'm still not too happy with the result. As if I hadn't done enough damage, I decided to use my new stamp (oh yes, I don't let my fear of stamps stop me from buying them LOL) on the right hand side of the picture. I inked up my stamp, more or less tried to position it where I wanted it to be, and ... it fell out of my hand, ink faced down!!!!!! Hence the smears on the top of my pic. Now my heart stopped beating alltogether!! After settling down from the shock, I gave it another try though, and I'm quite happy with that attempt. Will I be stamping again any time soon ... I think so, I'm kind of a stubborn girl :-)))

All in all, no matter how hard a challenge might seem at first, if you set your mind to it, you might just create something you really love. So why not give it a try??!! We all have some angels to scrap, don't we? I look forward to seeing you try... Be sure to visit the Artastic blog to see my fellow DT members' take on this challenge!

Christina scrapped!!!

I'll leave you with a LO my youngest daughter Christina made. She wanted to document her comfort blanket from when she was a toddler and how she used to be a thumbsucker...

She managed to use just about all of the bling I own on one single page LOL. As is typical for Christina, she asked me what I would do, and then did the entire thing her own way LOL. However, she did it all on her own, didn't ask for help once, and I think it turned out great! Not bad for an 8 year old, right???

Talk to you later
xxx Peggy

Kreatorville Kraft November Kit projects

Hi ladies,

First of all I would like to thank everyone who took the time to leave me a comment on my previous post. I did me the world of good knowing that you all care and wish me well. I'm happy to report I'm feeling back to my old self again, so much so that it amazes me how quickly a person can recover from surgery these days ... Of course, it does have its downsides ... I have to start doing the work around the house (which hubby took care of till now...) and the ironing (which my mom took care of) again, not exactly jumping up and down about that!!! It does however also mean I can get back to my scrapping, and boy did I miss that!!! I've discovered I'm seriously addicted, now why that should come as a surprise, I have no idea, but it did. It's hard not being able to do something you love ...

Okay, so I would like to show you some more LO's I finished with the Kreatorville Kraft November Kit. This one you've already seen:


Here are two more I haven't shared with you yet:


This gorgeous guy is my husband. This pic was taken quite a few years ago (in Crete), but though obviously he has aged he still looks pretty much the same now ... lucky me right LOL?!!! It took me some time to find the right title for this LO, because every time I looked at this pic, all i could think was "yummy" LOL, which I didn't think was the greatest title ever. But upon hearing the song "my man is a sweet man, ...", I knew I had found my title/journaling! Apart from the embroidery floss and inks, I only used kit products for this LO.


This LO is about my youngest daughter Christina doing so well with her reading. She's ahead of her age as far as her reading skills are concerned, which of course makes me proud but releaved as well. My friend's kids have a reading disability, and the amount of work spent on that problem is enormous, so I'm thankful that for my kids it all goes so easily...

The journaling reads:
"Christina is in the first grade now (10/18/2008), and with learning how to read a whole new world is opening up for her. Just a few months into the first grade, she has already obtained her AVI level 5 ... we're so proud!"

Again, apart from the spray paints and embroidery floss, all products used in this LO are from the November Kit. I tell you, this kit seems to give and give and give ... I still have plenty of material left to make additional LO's, so there's still more to come!

I already told you Christina made the Kreatorville Krafts design team as well, and here's her very first LO (8x8) with the November Kit:


The title on this LO was made by Keandra (and reads "A walk with Vita", which is our dog), and is an example of what can be bought in her etsy shop, go and check it out!
I know, it looks like something I could have made, but I swear I had absolutely nothing to say about this LO (though I tried LOL, believe me, I tried ...). She had seen me working with the spray paint and of course wanted to try this herself. She had seen me cutting out the little dear and mushrooms, so she copied that as well ... I don't mind though, it's fun to see how she takes some of my ideas and makes them her own. The thing that's most remarkable to me though is that I didn't do one thing to help, not one! She even did the stitching all on her own, even putting the thread in the eye of the needle ... This girl amazes me. She's my youngest, but you wouldn't think so when watching her...

Of course being their mom I think all of my kids have unique qualities LOL. Take Chloë for example, she turned nine on the twentieth this month, the same day I had my surgery. Because of the surgery, we had to cancel all of her birthday plans, like the traditional "birthday breakfast in bed", the choosing what to eat for dinner and the family birthday party, which had been scheduled for the day after the surgery... She didn't mind though, she didn't want to have her party without me there. She even waited with opening her presents. Normally she got to open them on the morning of her birthday, but she took them with her to the hospital, so I would be present when she opened them ... how wonderful is that for a nine-year-old! This year she didn't want a "kids-party", she wanted to go climbing with her dad, just the two of them. I'll leave you with a pic of her goofing around. Good thing I wasn't there, my heart would have stopped LOL.


Till next time,
Love xxx Peggy

KREATORVILLE KRAFTS...

... has gone live!!!!! My sweet friend Keandra, aka the boss lady, tells you all about her awesome new kit club and etsy shop here ... go check it out and give her some love!!! Starting up a new business is a big deal, and she can use all the support we have to give.

I do have a more selfish reason to direct you to the Kreatorville Krafts site ... I already told you I would be creating for her, but I haven't mentioned yet that my youngest daughter Christina will be creating for her as well !!! She's one of the kid kreators (oh yes, we have kid kreators ... how unique is that!!!!), and Keandra (bless her!) just dedicated an entire post to her and her first LO for Kreatorville Krafts. If you want to see the entire LO ... click here! Haha, just trying to make you curious enough to go and visit the Kreatorville Krafts blog. Still, Christina (who's tucked in and sleeping like a baby already) would never forgive me if I didn't put at least some pics on my own blog, so I will give you some sneak peeks just to make my girl happy and to hopefully get you curious enough to click here (well, if you haven't found the link by now ... I give up!!!)


Keandra told me to let her be, to let her do her own thing (yeah, she knows me quite good by now) ... so I did, but I couldn't resist giving her some advice every now and then. She listened, I can say that much ... she listened as I gave her some options, and then she did her own thing LOL. She didn't like the circles on the sketch, so she wanted to make flowers ... so I showed her a few ways to make the flowers. I asked her if she wanted them clean or distressed, inked or not. So she asked me to show her the difference. I made one flower of each, she chose to distress and ink, tossed my example in the bin and started on her own flowers ... without asking me once to show it to her again. I asked her if she didn't think the flowers were too close together (because, well, I thought they were...), she said no, and that was the end of it LOL. Same thing with the journaling ... she was a bit unsure about writing english directly on the paper, so I suggested she'd use strips. She wanted red, not the colour I would have chosen, but again red it was supposed to be LOL. I told her she would get more contrast by inking the strips, and again she asked me to show her the difference. I was pushing her a bit to use black, but again ... red was what she had in mind, and red it was gonna be. She did like the inked strips better, so without thinking about the extra work, she started inking. Oh, and see that part of her name ... she stitched the entire thing! She even puts the floss into the eye of the needle herself! I'm so proud of her ... she's so wonderful to scrap with ... she listenes when I explain different techniques to her, but she has her own mind as well, and wants things done her way. She has a vision in her mind and she stays true to it ... I can direct her in a certain direction, but only if she lets me ... how wonderful strong minded is that for a seven year old. Oh, I should mention ... Christina takes after my side of the family LOL. I should also mention (for the sake of keeping the peace in my family and not let jealousy take over ...) that Chloë as well is working really hard on her LO (though she's not on the team) ... she's actually stitching the entire sketch LOL. That girl shouldn't be scrapping, she should be embroidering LOL. Her birthday's coming up, and I'm planning on buying her her own little embroidery piece ... she'll love that!

Keep checking the Kreatorville Krafts blog ladies, there's much more awesomeness on the way (and Christina would be stoked if she were to get some comments .... begging here ladies, put a smile on my baby's face ... please?) LOL.

Love to you and yours
xxx Peggy

Christina's entry for TAAFOMFT

This is Christina's (my 7-year old) entry for the TAAFOMFT challenge.
Her favorite food without a doubt are "smoskes", which literally means "making a mess". It consists of putting as much vegetables between two slices of bread ... yummie!!!!


To my great pleasure, Christina really is interested in scrapping. Chloë sometimes scraps along with us, but she's too impatient to really finish a page. Christina however loves it, and I'm sure she'll keep on doing it. The only problem is she doesn't allow any help. She reluctantly listens to suggestions I make, and then she does it her way anyway. I see improvement though, she's stealing with her eyes I guess. And she's just like me, very careful with her stuff, every stamp and brush is cleaned right after use LOL, unlike her big sister, who thinks the fairies will come to clean everything up LOL.

Anyway, this is her entry ... I'm sorry to say mine will be finished too late. I had a huge problem with this challenge, I don't have any particular fav food, I love all of it LOL, especially if it's bad for the figure ... sounds familiar????

I haven't had time to scrap lately. I've just finished painting my son's room, and I'm still working on arranging all of his stuff into his new bedroom. I did have some time to scrap, but I just wasn't in the mood ... I don't know what's wrong with me!!!!! Ah well, I'm sure this won't last long, and in the meantime I'm having fun catching up on all of your blogs.

Talk to you later my friends.
xxx Peggy

Aussie Scrapjacked Young Scrapper

Hi my friends,

This post is a very special one for Christina, my youngest daughter. She decided to play along with the Aussie Scrapjacked Challenge for young scrappers, which was to jack a LO by the wonderful Ruby Bisson. Here's her entry:


Not bad for a 7-year old huh? She did it all by herself. All my suggestions were politely listened too and then discarded LOL, and I couldn't be more proud of her!
Notice that gorgeous concentrated look on her face:

Now I know that she would loooooove to receive some comments, so if you would have a minute to write a little something, I would be so grateful! Thanks!

Love xxx Peggy