MKPLxSU: My Favourite Kit

Hi!

This month the Memory Keeping PLxSU Design Team have decided to run with the theme of our favourite kit.  Which is your favourite kit? Mine is the Seasonal Snapshot Collection, which is funny as I was never going to buy it. In the catalogue it didn't appeal to me, but in my hands it's gorgeous.

The Seasonal Snapshot Collection is perfect for scrapping Halloween layouts. My husband and kids go out Trick Or Treating each year.  Hudson doesn't usually last long, so this year after we visited homes in our street he and I stayed home while the rest of the family went out. I took some photos before they left and then grabbed the bottom right photo from Facebook.  I was literally finished scrapping the page before they arrived home!

I'm not as into Halloween as the rest of the family, but I did have a lot of fun helping Ada put her outfit together. She wore a tutu from her dance performance a few years ago and we made her up to look like a zombie. She took a bit of convincing to dress up like this, but once she was finished she loved it.

The title and journalling cards were Kraft and Whisper White.  I added a few witch punchies to add a bit of interest and I was done!

What's your favourite PLxSU Collection? We'd love to see a layout over on our Facebook group.

Here's the rest of the Design Team Blogs for you to check out:

Julie Kettlewell, UK - http://www.juliesjapes.blogspot.com
Delys Cram, New Zealand
Constanze Wirtz, Germany
Janet Morrow Wakeland, USA
Elizabeth Richards Peterson, USA
Kate Denyer, UK
Linda Higgins, Australia

And our Guest Designer

Denielle Bernauer

Bye for now,

Tina

JAI #242: Just Add Inspiration

Hi!

Apologies for the blog absence, both Hudson and I have been sick, so blogging had to take a back seat.  We are on the mend now though, just in time for the new Just Add Ink challenge.

This week Trish has challenged us to use this inspiration picture to shape our creations.

Isn't it pretty? I love the watercolour look on the left side, but I ended up taking my inspiration from the flowers on the right side.

This card was made for a very special lady who turned 60 recently.  I know she loves having flowers in the house, so I decided to make her a card full of daisies.

It was a big hit! The flowers were super easy to create using my Flower Patch stamp set and the matching Flower Fair framelits.

I even added some daisies to the back of the card. I think that there can't be many people who don't smile when they see daisies, they are such a cheerful flower.

So, what direction will this inspiration picture send you in?  I can't wait to see over at the Just Add Ink blog.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 67 and 68

Hi!

I'm nearing the end of my Paris trip layouts - only 2 more weeks to go after this week!  I hope you're not sick of them yet.

As exhausted as we were when we flew into Singapore on our way home, we decided that we wanted to get out and see a bit of the city while we were there.  It was really tempting to stay at the airport and try to sleep a little more,  but I didn't want to regret not going into the city, so off we went!

After discussions with the lady on the help desk we decided to splurge on taxis rather than to attempt the public transport system on the amount of sleep we'd had!  In the end it wasn't much of a splurge, as the taxis were quite cheap.  Our destination was the Marina Sands Resort and the Art Science Museum as there was a Titanic Exhibition there that we were both keen to see. We wandered around the Resort for a little while and saw the amazing Casino, which looks like it has a boat on top of 3 pillars!  We also saw people getting a fish pedicure (yuck!) and some costumes from Wicked!, which was showing there.  Sadly, we didn't have enough time to catch the show.

The Museum is an incredible building that is in the shape of a lotus flower.  So pretty!  There are several ponds surrounding the building that are full of lotus plants.  There weren't many flowers in bloom, but the ones that were blooming were beautiful.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 59 and 60

Hi!

As another weekend draws to a close I realise I have forgotten to do my 100 Layouts post.  For those of you new to my blog I have challenged myself to scrap 100 layouts this year and I'm posting them 2 at a time on the weekend.

LOL, I call this one my 'Pretty Woman' layout! Not because someone was rude to me in a shop, but because I was carrying so many bags by the end of my shopping trip.  Rob and I had a free afternoon so we decided to hit the Avenue des Champs Elysees for a spot of shopping.  Oh, who am I kidding?  I wanted to go shopping and Rob was happy to tag along and carry my bags for me!

I had lots of fun, especially choosing some things for the kids.  Ada's favourite was some Disney Princess perfume from the Disney shop.  I enjoyed the experience, but the strangest part for me was the communal change room in one shop.  I was in line waiting to try on a top and I was able to work out that the shop assistant was telling us that if we didn't mind an open change room we could jump to the front of the line. I said "oui" and went straight in!  It was women only, but a big open room.  A great idea to move things along a bit faster, but not so great for your self esteem if you happen to be next to a gorgeous, slim woman!

The next day we took the Metro out to Saint Denis to see the Cathedral out there.  It's kind of the 'sister' to Sacre-Coeur, as apparently St Denis had his head chopped off at Sacre-Coeur, picked it up and walked off to where the Cathedral at Saint Dennis now stands!

The Cathedral is where a lot of the French Royalty are buried, but it's a very long and turbulent history.  As fascinating place, but so very cold inside!  The guides all had very thick jackets and little heaters under the desks they sat at.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 51 and 52

Hi!

I'm a day late with my usual scrapbooking post, but better late than never I guess! It's a photo heavy post today as my layout of the Eiffel Tower spread over 4 pages!  First was the Musee Rodin though.

We pretty much went to the Musee Rodin to see the Thinker sculpture.  We'd seen the back of it from the Hop On Hop Off bus several times but we wanted to see it up close.  The Museum had 2 entry prices.  It was only €2 to tour the gardens and a bit more to add in the Museum.  As the Thinker was in the gardens we only paid the €2.  It was a lovely day to wander the gardens and see the sculptures.

I was actually a little surprised by the number of his sculptures I knew, even though I didn't know they were Rodin's.  I think most tourists pose by the top left sculpture.  The cheeky ones do the Beyonce pose, but I wasn't feeling cheeky that day!  Outside the museum was a light post where people leaving the museum leave the stickers you are given upon entry. We skipped that 'tradition'.

We then strolled around to the Eiffel Tower.  I'd prebooked a behind the scenes tour and we had a little time to kill before it started so we grabbed something to eat and sat and people watched.  We got scammed into having a portrait drawn of us and paid a ridiculous amount for a really bad caricature.  Sigh, you live and learn!  I'm glad I booked the tour as only one of the three lifts was working on the day so it was at least a 2 hour wait in line to ascend unless you wanted to take the stairs.  No thanks!  We got to go underground near the tower to a radio control room that was used during the War.  It's now mostly used as storage and as a secondary kitchen area for the restaurants on the Tower.

We then got to skip the line (yay!) for a behind the scenes look at the Tower itself.  We saw the machinery that powers the lifts and heard more about the history of the Tower.  We were then taken to the second level of the Tower and some of the landmarks pointed out to us.  I'd planned the timing of the tour so we would be on the Tower as the sun set.  It was very romantic!  It was also very cold up there, so we enjoyed a hot chocolate while we waited for the sunset.

We also went right up to the top of the Tower.  It was a bit scary in the lift as you can feel the structure swaying a little in the wind.  The views are incredible though!  We were up there while the lights were flashing on the Tower so we could see all the flashes going off as people took photos of the lights from the Trocedero.  The bottom right photo shows the finishing line of a marathon race.  It was on the second level of the Tower.  I felt so sorry for the runners - they started out near Versailles and after running all that way they had to finish the race by running up the stairs to the second level of the Tower!  There were quite a few runners getting treated for cramps at the finishing line.

As we were waiting in line to catch the lift back to the ground level we heard a few Australian voices, and then a whole lot more!  Some of them were runners and their support people and others were diners in the very posh Jules Verne restaurant.  We all had a chat while we waited and laughed about how you can't get away from Aussies - you're bound to find some no matter where you go!

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 49 and 50

Bonjour!

I'm a little late today, but here's a little more of my Parisian trip.

The Invalides, as the name suggests, was built as a hospital for those who were injured at war to recuperate.  It's now a museum dedicated to war related stuff, but I believe there's still a small part of it still used for it's original purpose. The war stuff didn't greatly interest me, but Rob was keen to see it, so we spent some time here.

I must admit though, that I was fascinated by the Relief Map part of the museum.  It housed these incredibly vast small scale 3D maps of areas that related to battles.  It was astounding to think that they were transported to the battle sites to aid the Generals to plot their moves, especially in the digital age!  Most of the maps would have required a cart all to themselves.

We also visited the chapels at the Invalides.  One side was for the soldiers and the other was for Royalty, separated by a giant window.  The difference between the two chapels was incredible. The top left picture shows a stained glass window in the soldier's side - pretty, but very plain.  The Royalty side was very opulent.  It also contains Napolean's Tomb, which was very grand.

The tomb is located under this huge gold dome - there's 12kg of gold just in the decoration!  It really was an incredible place to visit.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 46, 47 and 48

Hi!

It's been a really miserable week in Adelaide.  Perfect weather for staying inside and scrapping.  I was hoping to finish my Paris album this weekend, but we have a very busy weekend so it looks like it probably won't happen.  Oh well, there's only one more school week until the holidays, so hopefully I can get it finished then.  In the meantime, here's a few more pages.

The Grand and Petit Palaces are opposite each other on the banks of the Seine.  We had planned to tour both, but after lining up for a short time at the Grand Palais we realised that the line was for a fashion photography exhibition.  We were unable to tour the building itself, so we left and headed across the Rue to the Petit Palais where we were able to tour the building.  It houses an art museum that focuses on the Fine Arts.

It was a gorgeous building, with many beautiful works of art. For me though, the highlight was the courtyard in the middle.  Paris was emerging from Winter into Spring and so the trees were just starting to blossom.  So pretty!

Our next destination was the Invalides and to get there we had to cross the Seine.  We crossed le Pont Alexandre III several times, and each time we were impressed with the beauty of the bridge.  I just had to devote a whole page to it!  The photos were taken on different days, hence the sunny and cloudy skies in the photos!

I hope you find some time to do something creative this weekend.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 43, 44 and 45

Hi!

Are you having a fabulous weekend?  I hope so.  I'm getting a bit of stamping time in, which is lots of fun.  I'm hoping to finish my Paris album soon - I got the last of my photos printed this week ready to scrap.  In the meantime, here's a few more layouts.

We'd done a lot of walking this day and visited a lot of different places, so by the time we got to Notre Dame we were pretty tired!  We decided to sit a people watch a while so that we could rest.  The front courtyard of Notre Dame is a perfect place for people watching!  We were also able to revisit our favourite crepe vendor, so we sat and munched on ham and cheese crepes while we watched the world go by and see how Notre Dame came to life with lights as dusk settled over the city.  We may have also snuck in some lemon and sugar crepes too.

We had been waiting for dark so that we could do the 'love locked' thing on the Pont des Arts.  What you do is buy a padlock, engrave it with your names, lock it to the bridge and throw the keys into the Seine.  The reason you do it is so that you are forever love locked.  How could we go to the world's most romantic city and not do it?

It was a lovely night on the bridge.  It's a pedestrian bridge, so there were many small groups of people picnicking on the bridge and just hanging out. We felt a little self conscious doing it, but no one paid us any attention.  I'm sure they are used to tourists doing it all the time!

Sadly, I saw on the news last week that they have had to cut all of the locks off the bridge as the weight of them had caused a section of the handrail to collapse, making the bridge unsafe.  Just another reason to try to get back to Paris to do it again!

The Pont des Arts is near to the Louvre (and the Metro station we needed to get to).  We had to cross the courtyard to get to the Metro and as we did the Eiffel Tower caught our eye - we saw the sparkling lights for the first time.  We decided to wait and watch it again, as is was so very pretty.  There is also plenty of people watching to do at the Louvre, so we found a quiet corner and settled in.  There are a heap of illegal souvenir sellers in the courtyard.  During the day they sell cheap Eiffel Towers, but at night they sell these little light up things that shoot off into the air. They were lots of fun to watch as we waited.

Thanks for coming on a little more of my Paris journey with me.

Bye for now,

Tina

Farewell I Am Me DSP

Hi!

I think the I Am Me DSP has well and truly been my favourite DSP in this catalogue.  I really love the combination of colours and patterns in the paper.  I used it to make this mini album, which I made for a Secret Santa gift last Christmas.  I think the recipient was fairly easily able to work out that I'd made it, so I'm safe to post it on my blog.

I made a chipboard cover for the album, which I covered using some of the I Am Me DSP.  I left the front blank so that a photo could be adhered there if desired.

I made a double page for each member of the family, but half of the pages had flaps to lift, so there ended up being 4 pages for each family member.

I also left some space at the front for some family photos.

I die cut each family member's name for their page and added some matts for photos.  All they need to do is trim the photos to size and adhere them in place.  Easy!

Under each flap I designed an "All About Me" page in My Digital Studio for each family member.  You can see the types of questions I had on the page.  I changed them for the adults, things like their workplace instead of school.

I hope the family had fun putting the rest of the album together.  I thought it would be a great memento of this particular point in time that they could look back on in years to come.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 40, 41 and 42

Hi!

A little more of  my Paris trip for you today.

Our next stop on this day was the house of the author Victor Hugo.  I am a huge Les Miserables fan, so of course I had to visit one of the places where he lived.

The photo on the top left of the page above shows his writing desk.  I was fascinated to learn that he wrote while standing up.  We also walked a lap of the square his house faces onto - Places des Vosges.  It used to be a Royal Residence and gardens, but the inside is now this gorgeous park that is tucked away from the main road and quite lovely and peaceful.

After we left there we continued down Rue de Rivoli towards the site of the Bastille. I'm also a fan of the works of Alexandre Dumas, who references the Bastille in his Muskateer books.  The Bastile itself is long gone - it was torn down and the bricks reused to build Pont de la Concorde.  At the site is now the Colonne De Juillet, built to mark the July Revolution.

Apparently the bodies of the Revolutionaries are buried under the monument.  The base of the monument is quiet graffitied, mostly with social protest slogans.  The Column is still a site of protest - apparently protest marches follow the Rue es Rivoli and end at the Column.

Our next stop was the famed Berthillon. It's on Ile St-Louis, which is the island beside the one that Notre-Dame sits on.  According to the Lonely Planet Guide Berthillon makes the best icecream in all of Europe.  As we were in the area we decided to give it a go.  Rob was amazed that we had to line up for nearly half an hour to get our icecream, but I insisted.  I thought it was worth the wait, but Rob didn't enjoy his choices as much.  We both had 2 scoops.  I had Lemon and Raspberry gelato.  The server was very clever, putting the raspberry on the bottom and lemon on top.  The lemon was very tart and a big contrast to the sweet raspberry.  Rob ordered Coffee and Ginger and I think he found the ginger a bit too overwhelming.

See you next week with some more of my Paris album.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 37, 38 and 39

Hi,

I think I skipped a week or two with my scrapbooking layouts, so I'm posting 3 today to try to catch up a little.

This first one is a bit of a mish mash of photos of a transport theme from around Paris. Top left is an electric car recharge station, which are parking bays that allow you to recharge your electric car - for a fee of course!  Bottom left is a petrol station that was just around the corner from our hotel.  It consisted of one bowser, a sign and a small shop front.  Drivers don't even pull off the road, they just stop on the side of the road, fill up and go!  On the right is a pic of one of the many, many hire bike stands around the city.  There are a countless number of them all over the city.

One of the things I was really interested in doing in Paris was visiting some of the cemeteries to see the graves of some famous people.  This was the main cemetery in Paris, where we saw the graves of Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Chopin, Champollion (he discovered King Tut's tomb), and Jim Morrison.

The grave of Jim Morrison is blocked off as too many people were vandalising it.  Tradition dictated that visitors shared a beer with James, but now they can't get to the grave they stick their chewing gum to a nearby tree.  At Oscar Wilde's grave it seems the tradition is to kiss the perspex fence that surrounds the monument. No thanks!

The next stop was the Hotel de Ville. We only looked at the outside of the building though as the exhibition there didn't interest us very much.  I had planned that we would walk towards where the Bastille used to be, stopping at a few landmarks along the way.  In the above layout the bottom left picture is the street where Jim Morrison lived before he died.  We couldn't find the exact house though.  The middle picture is one of the oldest houses in Paris, called a half timber house.  The photo on the right is some very cool graffiti we saw around the corner from the half timbered house.

The bottom photo here is a closer look at the graffiti.  Someone has used a thin stream of paint to create head silhouettes on the ground.  Very funky!

Have a great weekend!

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 35 and 36

Hi!

I'm still at Convention in Melbourne and having the best time!  Today is the last day, which is a bit bittersweet.  I will miss my Stampin' Up! friends, but it's nearly time to come home to my beautiful family.

The layouts I have for you today are more of my Paris trip.  Are you sick of it yet?  I'm only half way through!  Yes, we took a lot of photos and have a lot of memories to record.

In my last post I showed you the layouts I had completed  about Versailles and the Gardens there.  In the gardens are the Palaces de Trianon, which were the summer houses of the Royalty.  These were certainly not a little shack at the beach!  While nowhere near as luxurious and extravagant as the Chateau, they were still astounding.  The French do luxury so well!

We had a lovely day for wandering around the buildings and gardens at Versailles, but I made the mistake of wearing thin ballet flats and my feet were killing me by the end!  Thankfully there was a little 'train' you could catch back to the Chateau from the Palaces, so we jumped on that for the ride back.

We had to change trains at the Metro station that is located underneath the Arc de Triomphe, so we decided to take the opportunity to go and see it while all lit it.  It really is a spectacular monument.  I forgot to look for the 'Diamonds and Rubies', which is the pretty sight the car head and tail lights make as they travel to and from the Monument.  I'm sure I was so tired by then I was just thinking of bed!  Oh well.

Bye for now,

Tina

Layouts 31 and 32

Hi!

Today I'm continuing my Paris scrapping with you.  The first layout is three pages that show our visit to the Louvre.  We got there fairly late in the afternoon and only had about 3 hours to try and see it all.  it's simply not possible!

We had a skip the lines pass, so at least we didn't waste a lot of time in lines!  We quickly went through the Medieval foundations of the building and then emerged into the Egyptian section.  This was probably a mistake, as Rob is absolutely mad on anything Egyptian and he probably could have spent all three of our hours just in this section!  My feet were killing me by this point, so I sat for a while and let him explore before I hurried him on to other sections.

We were using the Lonely Planet Guide to France to guide us through most of the Museum.  They have a "cheats" map that takes you on a route that goes past all of the more famous exhibits.  We weren't strict to the map though and explored as much of the museum as we could in the time we had.  We were a bit surprised by how big the Mona Lisa was - yes that's right - how big it was!  We had so many people tell us how small it was before we left that we were just about expecting a postage stamp sized portrait.  Well, not quite, but you get the idea!

In our rush to see it all we forgot to go and see the inverted part of the glass triangle.  I don't think I even realised until we were home in Australia that we'd completely overlooked it. Oh well, just another reason to try to get back to Paris one day!

This layout was about the doors all around Paris.  it was just one of those things that I noticed about the city - the huge, beautiful doors everywhere.  Some lead into buildings, but others open up to allow you through to a courtyard in the centre of the building.  Most of the doorways were built when horse and carriage was the main form of private transport, so they are very wide and tall.  Some were plain, others were very ornamental.  They were all beautiful.  Can you imagine coming home through a door like these every day?  I think I would smile every time.

Thanks for sharing a bit more of my Paris scrapping.

Bye for now,

Tina