Stamps Ahead

One of the reasons that I joined the Radiance of the Seas cruise that left Sydney on 3rd January, 2018 was that this cruise was a once in a lifetime chance to visit Tonga.  Tonga, featured largely in my childhood, it was a mission outpost and we regularly heard tales of this friendly island in my Sunday School days. Our first port of call in Tonga was Vavau. Settle back sail with me, it is a long post. Vava'u is a group of more than 50 islands, either coral limestone or coral atolls. The main town of Neiafu (known as the Port of Refuge Harbour) is a common destination for yachties sailing the South Pacific.  The waters are known for their clarity, it being said that you can see the bottom at 40 metres. Lots of places to explore tropical forests, limestone cliffs and caves to explore and traditional villages.  Yep, book a tender from ship to Naiafu in the morning and start exploring. The Cruise Compass magazine delivered to the cabin the night before had a forecast of...

Another layout today for Paper Issues challenges.  This challenge called "Fall back in time" - use old techniques to create a layout. My layout incorporated torn paper, fussy cutting, a sheet of old rubon alphas and eyelets.  I really had fun creating this layout of Melissa Kennedy, owner of Unmistakable Creations, scrapbook teacher and creative designer for Kaisercraft.  I had the opportunity to attend a class with Melissa in country Victoria recently. Melissa loves fussy cutting and most of her classes include this technique - so this is my homage to her!!! The papers are Kaisercraft.   A close up - what is interesting the eyelets are years old and as soon as I started hammering the paint start of come off - that is how old they are! Before die cuts became to popular and available fussy cutting was the way to go! Thank you for looking, Margaret

Another layout to share with you today, this was for a challenge over at Soul Scrappers . It was a lift challenge where you are given a layout (this time by Melissa Kennedy, see below) and you can take from the lift to create your own layout.  You can be inspired by whatever  you see in the layout...stamping, using stencils, texture paste, sprays, a nautical theme, inks, distressing or anything else that you see in the layout. I decided to not go with a nautical theme but take the basic concept of the layout to create mine.  Lots of stash used.  I wanted papers that had a resemblance to Indigenous design on them. This photo of me was taken after I had completed my 3/4 circuit of Uluru recently.   I was truly exhausted, hot and relieved to have a sit in the shade waiting for the shuttle bus.  It was an experience that I thoroughly enjoyed and getting to see Uluru up close and personal was a joy. Here is the inspiration layout by Melissa Kennedy. ...

Today, I am sharing several layouts I have created on my return from recent Royal Caribbean scrapbooking cruise to South Pacific and Fiji with Unmistakable Creations and led by Melissa Kennedy.  More to come including some of the layouts we created when the ship was at sea. It was my sister's first cruise.  Here we are at Circular Quay - our brother met us for a cup of tea before we boarded and helped to carry our bags to the drop off point. Professional photo of us as we boarded the Explorer of the Seas.   For this layout I applied Gesso, with my hand and fingers,  to the blue background paper.  One of the finds of our cruise was the beautiful Mare Island.  It is the second largest of the Loyalty Islands of New Caledonia. We were on the first tender off the ship and got to explore and walk the beach before the rest of the boat descended onto Yejele Beach. It was great to have the ocean breeze as we wandered on the white sands. Anothe...