My Creative Affaire...

My Busy Life

Gosh, it's been so long since I posted but sometimes life gets in the way and we only concentrate on what we have to do instead of what we would like to do. Since my last post I have been traveling, preparing new classes and teaching.

CREATIVE ESCAPE was held in at the end of August and was one of the most amazing experiences I have had as an instructor.  I don't even know how I would begin to describe the weekend.  Everyone was so generous, amazing, friendly and it was such a rewarding experience.  I was so nervous heading to the event but once the Trunk Show was over I knew that I would survive and the weekend would be wonderful!

 

My Creative Escape Trunk Show Display

 

After being home for only a couple of days after Creative Escape, my husband and I went on a two-week vacation to Austria, Germany and London to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary.  Without a doubt, Austria has to be one of the most scenic countries I have ever visited.  I took well over 1500 photos, now if only I could find the time to print them out and mange to put them all into an album!

 

Apart from having scones, jam and cream for afternoon tea, one of my favorite things to do in London is to visit the Fortnum and Mason store.  Each month the windows in the store are stunningly decorated, all with a common theme and colors.  This month the windows were adorned with candy and cookie themed products, all in beautiful pastel colors.  Are these sugar mice not the cutest things you have seen.  I have to admit a couple of packets of them found their way into my luggage.

 

Are these little sugar mice not the cutest things you have ever seen - I have to admit a couple of packets found their way into my luggage!

Since returning from our trip, I have been so busy designing classes for October and November.  I am so excited to be going home to Australia again at the beginning of November and I will be teaching two days of classes in my home state of Tasmania.

Before I leave for Australia, I am so excited to be teaching at one of my favorite stores and it's right here in Boston - Absolutely Everything.  I feel so inspired each time I visit the store and I always know I am going to find something new.  I will be teaching three classes over two days.  Two of the classes will be Holiday themed and I will also feature a Fall Wall Art Piece.  If you live in Massachusetts, I would love to see you in one of the classes.

This is a sneak peek at the Christmas sampler Wall Art class I will be teaching.  I fell in love with this collection of beautiful papers and embellishments at Summer CHA.

Now that you are all up caught up on what I have been up to, I will be back more often. Thanks for stopping by, Lynette

In Love Again

with my Heather Bailey collection of products.  When these products were first released onto the scrapbook market, I fell in love with them, after "finding" them again in my cupboard a couple of weeks ago I fell in love with them all over again.

I made this sweet card with Heather Bailey papers and a combination of my favorite embellishments from Prima, K & Company and Melissa Frances.  I love how with a little pre-planning, products from five companies can be combined to create a special project.

These beautiful flowers are from Prima.  You can't really tell from the photo but I lightly sprayed them with Glimmer Mist to add a little shimmer to their petals.

Recently I have been loving the results of using Melissa Frances resin pieces on my cards. I think they add so much detail and really dress up a project.  These resin pieces can also be painted with craft paint to change their color to match any project you may wish to use them on.

More projects to come soon!

Lynette

Summer is slipping away

and that makes me sad as it is my favorite season.  My days have been filled with time in my little garden, day trips to some of my favorite places including the lakes region in New Hampshire, Boston city, Orlando Florida for CHA, and then to Disneyworld for some fun.

The end of summer means Creative Escape - just two short weeks away and I have been busy creating projects for my Trunk Show Display.  Because I love making cards so much, I have been busy creating a "clothes line" that will be filled with them as part of my display.

This card uses a combination of "old and new" products.  I have combined some Classic K and Life's Journey by K & Company with some of my new favorites from Graphic 45 and Prima.  I was cleaning out my craft room recently and sorting through all my papers, my initial reaction was to donate some of the older ones when it dawned on me that just because they are a year or two old doesn't mean they are still not beautiful and that I still can't love them.

I absolutely love the little metal scissors, they were part of the original Life's Journey collection, I have been saving them for just the right project.  

I have another card that I am almost finished with using a Heather Bailey collection that came out over a year ago.  I am excited to be creating with some of these beautiful products I have had in my "stash" for a couple of years.

I will be back tomorrow with some photos of the Heather Bailey card.

Lynette

Thank You

so much to all of you wonderful students who came to my recent Trade and Expo classes in Brisbane.  It is always such a thrill for me to come "home" and teach, educate, share and re-connect with all my Australian friends.  One of those friends emailed me to say "thank you" because she always felt inspired after she had attended one of my classes, well the feeling certainly goes both ways.  When I leave an event, although "exhausted", I am always inspired at the thought of being surrounded by all the things I love in my craft room creating again.

There are quite a few changes going on in my life right now, but more on that in a future post, I am also working on setting up an Etsy storefront to seel my class kits through.  When the storefront is up and ready, I will post it on my blog.  In the meantime, I am busy planning some upcoming classes to be taught in Arizona and also for later in the year when I return home to Australia, and for those of you asking, yes there maybe even one or two I am planning to teach in Massachusetts - stay tuned!

For those of you who attended my Wild Raspberry Accordion File Folder class in Australia, the album is now posted on the left side of my blog.

Thanks again to all those wonderful students, as I sit in my craft room in Boston, Australia already feels a million miles away.

Lynette

Christmas in July...

Many years ago in the Blue Mountains,of Australia a new tradition was born - "Christmas in July".  As I have packed my bags and left the beginnings of a new summer season in Boston and arrived home in Australia I felt it only fitting to design my trade classes for this coming week around this special Aussie tradition.

This sweet little fellow is one of the fun projects I have planned for my Christmas classes at Print Blocks.  I am so excited to once again have the opportunity to spend time with many of the store owners in Australia as we spend two days together this week sharing our love and passion for this industry.

Even though it is hard to be so far away from my husband and sweet little kitty, I am so grateful once again to be home in Australia teaching and spending time with friends, teaching and then next week beginning a three-week visit with my family.

Lynette!

Take flight.....

It seems like I have been non-stop flying from state to state, Boston to Phoenix and back for Creative Escape Preview Weekend, from Boston to Barbados and back for a little sun and relaxation and when I have been back in Boston, I have been preparing kits for the Brisbane Scrapbook and Papercraft Expo.  I can't believe this time next week I will be taking flight again - this time home to Australia!

I have spent days and days preparing samples for my classes and new goodies to display on my "Expo Wall".  Once I return I will be able to post some photos of the projects.

In the meantime, I wanted to share some exciting news with you all.  For the past six months all of us EK Success Brands Creative Artist Team members have been working on creating literally 100's of projects for a special project - SPOTTED CANARY.  Spotted Canary is a resource community where creative ideas take flight!  The great thing about Spotted Canary is that is gives you ideas, complete shopping lists and step-by-step instructions to re-create the projects, a forum and so much more.

My username on the website is Crafty Koala - how original.  If you do a search under that name you will be able to pull up all the projects that I have created.  A couple of my favorite projects from the website are shown in the photos below.

 

A Wedding Invitation, Response Card and Menu using Martha Stewart Crafts and papers from the Brenda Walton "Madeline Collection" from K & Company

 

Cookie Presentation using Amy Butler "Lotus" Collection by K & Company

 

This little mini album was one of my favorite project assignments.  The mini book is made with tags from the "Ancestry.com" Collection by K & Company and is held together with a set of antique keys.

So don't forget to "fly" on over to Spotted Canary and view all the amazing creations.  My thanks in advance for placing my first and last name in the Promo Code area when you are completing your registration.

Lynette

Life is Busy...

Do you ever feel as if you are on a treadmill of never-ending jobs and you just can't get off!  Well, I have been crafting up a storm in the past couple of weeks (the reason why there has been no blog posts!).  In the past two weeks, I have completed more than 24 projects - now for a slow crafter like myself, that means crafting 7 days a week, day and night.  The projects were all finished, packed and shipped at the end of last week so once again, I feel as if I can breathe a little.  My poor craft room is in need of a good clean-up, one side is covered in Halloween products, the other side is Christmas and my desk has K & Company Life's Journey all over it.

Today, I just finished up my Life's Journey Wall Art class that I will be teaching at the Brisbane Scrapbook and Papercraft Expo in June.  I cannot wait to go home and teach again, I love teaching in Australia.  Below are a couple of sneak peaks at the Life's Journey project.  Over the next several days I will be posting sneak peaks of the remaining classes. 

If you are interested in attending the Scrapbook Expo be sure to register now as classes are filling up fast. If you are in the Brisbane area, over the June long weekend,  this is an event not to be missed, there is great shopping and an amazing line-up of classes available.

   

 

 

In this Life's Journey Wall Art class, we will be designing a trio of panels that hang vertically.  The background panels are made from pages of an acrylic book and all the beautiful embellishments and papers are from the Life's Journey collection.  So far, this is my favorite project!

Back soon with photos from my Wild Raspberry Accordion File Folder Class.   Lynette

 

Lucky Ladybugs...

My favorite colors to work with are pinks, and soft "shabby" colors - BUT I couldn't resist this beautiful new collection of papers and embellishments I found at the weekend at Target.  The Eliza collection caught my eye with it's bright, bold colors and sweet glittery embellishments.  I love layering, so the die-cut flowers were perfect for making dimensional flowers.  I just used foam mounting tape between each layer.  I also love ladybugs - I don't know why, I just think they are cute so of course, when I noticed the tiny ladybug accents, I knew this collection was coming home with me.  I played last night and came up with this single page scrapbook layout with a photo of my Niece and I.  All the decorative elements on this page came from the Eliza collection and I cut the brown scroll with my Cricut and the Plantin Schoolbook cartridge.

  To finish off this post, some fun random Ladybug facts for you...

• There are nearly 5,000 different kinds of ladybugs worldwide
• Ladybugs chew from side to side and not up and down like humans do
• The spots on a ladybug fade as the ladybug gets older
• If you squeeze a ladybug it will bite you, but the bite won't hurt
• If you find a ladybug in your house in the winter - you will have good luck   

 

Lynette

Creative Escape Lottery

Just a quick reminder that the CREATIVE ESCAPE LOTTERY is MARCH 15, 2009...

 

Hurry on over to the website and register now. This event should not be missed!

 

 

You can't use up creativity...

A quote I have been holding onto now for several years reads:

"You can't use up CREATIVITY.  The more you use, the more you have"  Maya Angelou

Do you ever sit at your craft desk and feel as if you hit a "road block"?  I have for the past couple of weeks, nothing I tried to create was working,  I was afraid - what if I couldn't craft anymore - what would I do then?  I remembered the quote I had been saving and thought maybe, just for once I should make a project for ME, afterall, isn't that why I began this as a hobby!  Maybe if I used up some of my creative juices on a project I was excited to make just for ME I would then be able to tackle more of those class projects I have to design that are mounting up!

My favorite release from CHA Winter was the Madeline Collection by Brenda Walton that I  mentioned in my last post.  I love it so much.  I had purchased several pin boards from Pottery Barn to "one day" create some art work for my studio walls.  An idea came to me, I would make a piece of Wall Art with the Madeline Collection and some photos I took on my last trip to Australia.

The end result......

 

I love this piece so much (even though it took me over a week to finish), but thats okay, I wasn't in a hurry and I wanted to just enjoy the time I had to create something for ME!

 

I used all my favorite trims, ribbons, jewels etc that I had in my "stash".  It made me so happy to see them all on a project I could keep forever, and it made me happy to do something for me.

 

Next time you are feeling a little "road block", make something just BECAUSE!  It's amazing, I am now on a creative roll again and working on all those classes I have to design for the Brisbane Scrapbook and PaperCraft Expo in June.

Lynette!