Dear Loyal Readers...

My most humble apologies for not blogging for... oh, it's been a month!! I can't believe it. I have been so busy with Christmas stuff and scrapbooking competitions. My household has been totally neglected, and I didn't get our Christmas tree up until yesterday!! I am slowly catching up on housework, and am very pleased that I have done most of my Christmas shopping and even wrapping, so getting there. Oh, and I plan on catching up on all my blog-reading and commenting over the next couple of weeks, as well. I only have about 100 posts or so to read, lol...

I have two exciting pieces of news today; first, I am an Aunty again - my sister, Leanne, has had her third child, a little girl called Georgia-Rose, born this morning around 5am. I am anxiously awaiting a photo...

Secondly, I found out that I won the competition over at Scrapbox - I am so excited, my first competition win!! A huge thanks to Julia and the team; Brenda, Lynne and Dallas. My good friend, Liz, and I actually came first equal, so then we had to have a 'scrapoff' - basically, a layout based on a 6 x 12 sketch. I don't know how the judges chose a winner, really; my style is so different to Liz's; and I liked both our pages equally. This is a link to Liz's pic in the gallery. Liz and I have talked about it over the last week, and decided that we like being first equal, no matter who won in the end; we both love each other's work and are happy with our own, so that is what counts. This was my entry:

For the second week of the comp, we had to scrap a Christmas page in non-traditional Christmas colours.
At first I found this difficult, but once I found a Christmas photo that wasn't in Christmas colours, the hard part was really done. This entry came third place.

For the next challenge, we had to make a Christmas table centrepiece. Now, I have not done a lot of OTP, and found this very difficult, but luckily, I ended up coming first!! Yay!! Here is my funky take on a Christmas tree:

I decorated a pencil box, then wrapped ribbon around a tree branch, and decorated it with flocked birds, glittered stars, and flowers with bling.

For the 4th and last challenge, we had to make a set of cards and matching box. I chose to make an acrylic card, mostly see-through. I am really happy with it, but it didn't make the top 3.

I'm loving my new Fiskars lace border punch, used on the bottom of the cards. I stamped a bird twice, then gave it dimension with foam dots, kindyglitzed and added bling. I cut a frame on my new MM Slice, then embossed it on my cuttlebug. The title was AC thickers, inked in green, and the Christmas word was stamped and kindyglitzed. A Christmas message can be written on the inside on the white border.

Next up, I made a Christmas tree ornament for the Christmas comp at Scrapbook Outlet. I kept mine pretty simple, a photo of my Mum in a silver frame:

This is currently hanging on my tree. Unfortunately, I just didn't have time to keep up with this competition, and haven't done any of the challenges since, but there is lots of inspiration happening over there, so go visit the gallery for lots of fun ideas.

I also entered the Stars in Their Eyes competition currently running over at Scrappin' Patch. I came second in the first challenge; which was to do a layout in the style of the famous NZ scrapbooker, Nic Howard.

I totally love this page, and was so proud to come second to another famous NZ scrapbooker, Louise Williams. For the second challenge, we had to do a layout in the style of Mou Saha, which I found very, very difficult. Mou's style is very arty and very different to mine; she even uses different colours to me. This was my take:

I do not like it!! I think it is totally ugly. I don't mind some parts, like the journalling and photo and colours, but I don't like the yellow paint, the title or the buttons. Never mind, this was as close to Mou's style as I can get! I tried to incorporate her spicy colours, handwritten journalling and handmade titles, her use of tags and buttons and lots of paint.

Luckily, the only competition/scrapping thing I am currently doing is this Scrappin' Patch one; with Christmas nearly here I don't have any more time for scrapping at the moment. And the next challenge is to do a project in Emily Falconbridge's style - I am quite looking forward to it; I have some ideas floating round in my head already, and am deciding between 2 themes. But, the deadline is not until early next year, so I have plenty of time, and will probably not start it until after Christmas.

Well, that is everything creative I have to show you at the mo - I have been working on some other stuff, but can't show you just yet. I promise to get better with my blogging!! I will write again soon.