Scraps Of Mind

Congratulations Mum, it’s a Dell Mini Notebook

This is my new little baby.

Isn’t she cute?

She’s really dinky. Almost too small to have been taken from her mother.

And she’s purple!

I didn’t want to get anything that looked remotely like it was a work tool. This is all about play and portability.

Having lugged my work laptop across the central business district of Melbourne it does not meet my definition of  ‘portable’.

I wanted something that I could grab and tuck under my arm when I go to my Tuesday craft catch up with the girls.

I wanted instant portability without lots of cables.

I wanted a power pack that doesn’t weigh as much as the machine itself.

I wanted something lightweight enough that I won’t get fed up carrying it about when I go to Europe next week.

My baby comes with a Bluetooth wireless mouse because I hate those touchpad thingys. As with all babies there was a little teething trouble in the beginning but I found a little pacifier to stick in a USB port and the teething problems went away.

I’ve bought a cute little purple outfit for her to keep her warm when she’s having a sleep.

Just think of the digital scrapbook layouts and ATCs we can make together.

Did I mention that she’s purple?

Everyone say, “Aaahhhh!”

October 3rd is National Cardmaking Day So I thought I’d share one of my more special cards with you. Hope you enjoy.

Hybrid Card Making for Someone Special

My daughter recently celebrated a birthday, and in what has now become an annual tradition, I flew up to Sydney to spend her birthday weekend with her.

It’s been a difficult year for her and I wanted to make her a card to let her know how much she means to me and how much I admire her.

I used my favourite card making technique…hybrid scrapbooking.

I always enjoy the enormous scope for creativity I get by combining digital with paper elements. I can tailor my digital elements to suit my project by changing the colours, size and even the overall shape.

For this card I used a chipboard concertina mini book as the base and all the digital elements are from my Night over Rhone kit (available free through the Step by Step Digital Scrapbook Program) combined with some papers from Thao Cosgrove’s Art Journal Kit from Scrap Girls.

I used the masking tool to extract the images of Seona from the rest of the photo so that I could feature her. After all , this card is all about her.

Then I desaturated the background of the photos  and blended them into the background papers by reducing the opacity a little. That way I got a silhouette of Seona whilst still keeping some context of her surroundings.

The arched window from Night over Rhone is one of my favourite elements and it is very easy to change the shape and size of it so that it fits the arched shape of the chipboard page. And there’s something special about putting a photo behind a window frame I think. It sort of gives the idea of looking in on a private moment.

It’s no secret that I am a huge fan of flowers and brads, both digital and ‘real life’ so no card of mine would be complete unless I managed to incorporate some into the design.

Seona was very happy with the card. She said, “Oooh, my first ‘book’ card!”

I and I realised that I hadn’t made her a card in book form before.  She has a significant birthday coming up next year, her first significant one since I started card making, so I’ll really be pulling out the stops for that.

And you can back it in that whatever I decide to do I’ll be using hybrid scrapbooking to do it.

Other Related Articles:

Hybrid Scrapbooking – The Best of Both Worlds

Hybrid Scrapbooking – What’s it all about?

A few weeks ago I wrote an article on losing your mojo. And it got me thinking about my own situation.

Writing Scraps of Mind takes a lot of time and energy to come up with fresh articles on a regular basis. But that’s OK because I’ve always loved doing it and I’ve loved being in touch with so many readers, as well as the wonderful comments and messages I have received over the years.

But after three and a half years it has become more difficult to think up new things. It’s started to become like work!

And that’s not what I want from Scraps of Mind.

So I’ve decided to take a break from regular posting and see how I go about taking my own advice and getting my own mojo back.

I expect that I will still post something new here from time to time and probably still offer the odd freebie as well.

So please pop back every so often to check out the site and wish me luck in getting my head back together.

Don’t forget, the Articles Page is a great place to find all sorts of scrapbooking and blogging tips treasures so why not go and have a rummage whilst you’re here. With over 600 posts and articles  in the archives to choose from you’re sure to find something useful.

Although I have always enjoyed sharing my crafting experiences with you online my crafting, in a physical sense, tends to be done in isolation.

I occasionally have a card making afternoon up at my sister’s place in Wallan, which is always fun and we both enjoy it. But I’ve never really had a group of papercraft-minded friends that I can hang out with. You know what I mean, people who you can talk to about scrapbooking or card making without watching their eyes take on that glazed look and roll back in their heads.

But a few weeks ago I went along to a surprise 50^th birthday party for a work friend of mine and I met his wife for the first time.

Well, it turns out that not only is she into stamping and card making, but she has a bunch of friends who are into it too. She saw the card I had made for Tim (it was a hybrid scrapped card) and recruited me into the bunch.

Yesterday was my first chance to get into it. Marla organised a sensational Christmas Card Making in July Day. And when I say organised, this woman knows how to organise an event.

There were 17 of us in her living room and she managed to cram in work tables for us all, a table with stamps, inks and other stuff which were available for sharing/borrowing, an embossing table with heat guns and embossing powders, and a table with stuff to buy if you wanted to. It was crowded but still comfortable to work in, if you know what I mean.

To get in the right frame of mind the room was all decorated for Chrismas and it was strung with heaps of examples of cards so you could grab one and use it as an inspiration point for your own or straightforward copy it if you liked.

It was a fantastic, friendly day with people sharing stories, tips, techniques and of course food. Just like I had read about in magazines but had not experienced before (my one experience of going to a crop held in a scrapbook store was not a fun memory with the other women there, including the shop owner, sticking to their own clique).

I had a lovely card making day and with all that inspiration around I managed to make five cards. So I was really pleased with my productivity, given that there was plenty of chatting going on.

I think card making is easier than scrapbooking to do in a group situation like this because the projects are smaller and so the need for concentrated focus is not so high. At least for me anyway.

So a big thank you to Marla. You rock.

Do you have any ‘real life’ cropping experiences? Were they good, bad, ugly?

I’d love it if you’d share them in the comments section below.

Other Related Articles:

Are you a Card Making Scrapbooker or a Scrapbooking Card Maker

Scrapbook Cards for Special Occasionsre=