Always dream in vivid color!

This is a layout I've made for the March first challenge on Get Creative.Like I've said before I first planned to make another layout for this challenge,but that didn't work.But I really liked the challenge(a true challenge I've got to admit) and I decided to try and play with it.This is another picture of my baby nephew (I'm changing themes after this,I promise,lol) I've had and love.I liked it was all black and white and I decided to play with that!

For this challenge we had to use 1 pattern paper(base paper Bobunny,I think it's from their Back to backs collection,but I might be wrong),1 cardstock(I used black cardstock for my picture matting and also the same around the letters in the title),1 strip of ribbon or lace(I used a white ribbon with black stitching),1 button or brad(I used a small red button I had lying around),1 die cut(that's the black/white/grey frame you see around the picture.I bought it in a collection pack with a whole of other die cut shapes/frames etc at a local craft store.It's from a brand called Artemio and it's handmade in India from 100% recycled paper and it's gorgeous!),1 title(I used MME Wild Asparagus Alpha stickers and the small white letters I printed and cut into 1x1cm small squares,yes I'm cross-eyed right now!) and of course 1 picture.

I actually like the way it turned out.It's the first time I'm using different fonts/letters to write a title and I actually like the results!I hope you like it as well!!

Dino-mite

This is the first layout I've made with a picture of little Sander(and my sister told me it's ok to show you all withouth blanking his face out,yay!!).I loved this picture,he's so cute and happy in it and the colours are beautiful!!

To make this layout I used a sketch from Scrapbooks etc..When I first started it I was planning to make the sketch work with the challenge of Get Creative,but after a while it became obvious I couldn't make it work without using two strips of tape so I decided to make it as I thought was best and just make another layout for the challenge(which I still haven't made,and have no idea if I'll ever get to it).

The sketch I used was #121 which you can find here.The base paper is from Core'dinations,as is the white-beige tag(which actually is a hard cardboard tag I glued some core'dinations paper on),the brown paper is Bobunny,the striped tape is from a local toy store which carries some craft supplies and the letters I've made myself a while back.


I hope you like it!

Mr. Chaos

After a not so nice Sunday when I was sick today I'm feeling somewhat better,still not 100% but good enough to share one of those other layouts with you.

I've got to say I'm in love with this layout.I've had the idea of using scraps of paper for a long long time,I had done so before when I first started scrapping,only I used the technique when I was making coasters from cd's for a friend but never before in a layout.I had this big picture of Mori for a while now,and I knew I was going to make a layout out of it,but I didn't know how to use it properly.So it all came together.I now kinda wish I had kept his eyes their original colour instead of making the entire photo black and white,but it works like this too!

I love the bright colours and I love the fact that the layout is so colourful and happy,it makes me happy when I look at it!!I think it's probably my favorite layout of all the layouts I've made!I hope you like it too.




The base paper is Coredinations and the scraps of paper are from different collections and pieces of paper I had lying around.The letters are from the Cosmo Cricket Blackboard collection.

Feeling so grape

These days there's something wrong with me,I've been feeling very creative and I've made 2 layouts (and I've got another one waiting to be glued together) and a card in the past 24 hours!!I don't know what's wrong with me,but I like it :)

This layout is made with one of my favorite pictures.It's pretty old,from one time when my dad decided he wanted to make wine in our yard.Both me and my brother went crazy with stomping on the grapes,we fell in them and basically made a mess rather than actually helping,lol!I still have very fond memories of that day!

To make it I used two different colours from the Core'dinations colour range.I tried to match the colours with the colours of the pants my brother is wearing in the picture.I've made a bunch of grapes with quilling(haven't done that in ages either).After encouragement from my scrapping friends I decided to test my hand at doodling.Ok it's nothing major yet,but it was one of my first times trying it and actually liking the results!The title is with some of the left over stickers from the Winnie the Pooh paper pack I bought to make my sister's mini album with.

It's a very simple layout with lots of "white space" which I'm not used to,but I kinda like the result.I hope you like it too!

Hello little one

This is a mini album I made for my new baby nephew.Last summer when my sis and her boyfriend visited us,she saw some of the stuff I've made over the past couple of years and she totally loved a mini star album I have made with Mori as the center of attention.She told me,half serious,half joking she wants me to make her one for the baby.So of course I kinda had to(you can't get away with making an album for your cat but not your nephew now,can you?) not that I didn't want to,but since I'm kind of a perfectionist I beat myself up a lot when making things and I tend to stress so much about them,especially if they are meant to be presents given to others.

As always I'm not entirely happy with it.I think it looks pretty much like an amateur's job(which of course I am)...but I figured as long as my sis stays away from other crafters blogs I'll be fine.

So here it is,hope you like it(and sorry for the many,many pictures).





























P.S I forgot to mention the mini album is from Sfragidomania.I have to thank them once again for doing such an excellent job for me!Also for those who are interested(I'm sorry I'm just adding this,this was actually my third attempt making this post,shady internet around here these past couple of days) the papers are in their majority from a Disney Winnie the Pooh paper pack I found on ebay at a bargain price(I think with p&p charges it ended up costing me a bit over 10 euros).It was full with happy,colourful papers,a sheet of stickers and a sheet of cardstock embelishments.It's lovely and I highly recommend it for children's projects!

Very cute...photo!

This is a layout I made a while ago.It was during one mini-crop session we,the Heraklion based scrappers,held at my house,for the first time.It was great to get together and create,even though I usually end up watching what everybody else does and get inspired just as we're about to stop!My dear friend Melenia helped me a lot with this layout so I have to thank her once again!I'm not entirely happy with the title,but since I still don't have a small font alphabet stickers and the only alphas I do have are huge it's going to have to do for now.

Since it's an old picture of my mom I wanted to keep the theme kinda romantic and old fashioned.I'm not entirely sure if I succeeded,since this isn't my style at all,but it was my first effort trying something new and at the end of the day if you keep doing the same things over and over again you aren't making any progress!!





I hope you like it.

It's not bragging if u can do it!

For this layout I used a sketch from scrapbooksetc.com (I used sketch # 36).In the back of my mind I had Irini's challenge(for her get creative blog) and I liked how the sketch in this layout somewhat had a cross like pattern(like our flag).The challenge was also to use the colours of our national flag(blue and white) and to use the word no,either in the title or the journaling.I did cheat a little(I don't know if it counts as cheating since,the challenge doesn't specifically express we have to use ONLY blue and white but that's how I understood it) but it was turning very very one note with only blue so I used the same shade of red as in the picture(at the end of the day,I love a good challenge but I have to make a good layout and showcase the photo as best possible,that's what's my first concern).

So the journaling might leave some of you confused,since it's somewhat of an inside joke.We've been calling our brother Popeye for years,because one day when we were watching it(when he was little) he pronounced it really weird(very literally) and wondered why they called him Popeye(as it's actually pronounced) in Greek!It was so cute and it stuck with him,and both me and my sister have been calling him like that since then!He's even listed that way in my cell phone,lol!So I liked the whole nautical theme and it was working great both with the colours and the picture so I went with it!

I am terrible at remembering the names and brands of the products I've used,but if any of you really wants to know I'll make an effort to list them (I know I should anyway,but meh!)

I hope you like it!

When you be-leave!

Here comes the second post for today!I've made this layout for the get creative October 1st challenge.When I read about it I immediatelly got excited,because like I said in the previous post,autumn is my favorite time of the year!I love all those colours,the fallen leaves and the sound they make when you step on them etc.I feel really unlucky that I live in a part of the world where fall only lasts maybe a bit longer than a heartbeat but also doesn't have all those gorgeous colours I see in pictures/movies from around the world!

This is probably my most time consuming layout ever.I've put a lot of work and different techniques in it and I'm pretty happy with the result(even though when I see all the other layouts I get depressed...I'm such a beginner!).I started with the leaves.I didn't have leaves nor a leaf stamp so that left me with only one other option:The internet!Luckilly there were lots to chose from and I decided on a set from Creativity portal.I printed them out(and almost ruined the printer in the process) and cut them out.Then I painted over them with a medium thick layer of crackle paint.I did this as I wanted cracks that were visible but not too heavy!The really cool thing about crackle paint is that as it dries it kind of shrinks so the leaves already took a really nice,natural,curled up form.Then after they were all dry and ready(that means the next day) I painted them.I used distress ink in the mustard seed colour and also a red alcohol ink and using my ink blending tool it was done easy and mess-free.

After that I decided on the photos.None of the photos I had were really suitable for what I had in mind so I picked two of my favorite photographs from two of my favorite places:Australia and Africa.As I say in the layout itself it's a dream of mine to work and live there for a few years in the future,so it was perfect(since I already had the title in mind).After that it was just a matter of choosing the colours and deciding how to combine them.The letters were of black chipboard so I inked them in a purple colour and then heat embossed them with embossing powder (eggplant colour) and they turned out great(you don't get to see it in the pictures much but they actually have a shiny blue-ish tint over them in the light).I distressed the edges of my green paper I used for matting my photos quite a bit(the fact it was a lighter shade of green inside because it was of the core'dinations range was an added bonus).The strips of paper on the bottom right are from a paper pad my friend Melenia gave me for my birthday(thank you again so much!).

I hope you like it!

Take a break

No not literally,don't worry I'm not going on another hiatus!I told you I was back and I'm planning to keep that promise(both to you and most importantly to myself).The title is simply the layout title I used for my latest layout.With this LO I'm taking part in the Scrapbooking in Greece 12th challenge.

A while ago my laptop died.This caused me much stress,because a. all the learning matter for my exams was on that hard disc,b. most of my photos(including the ones of stuff I've made) were on that hard disc and c. I had no money to get a new one.Fortunatelly the hard disc was salvaged(it turned out the mother board was the cullprint) and my parents got me a new laptop (awww, aren't they sweet??).So I had that previous laptop for a few good years and of course,since I'm not carefull at all wear and tear was showing.There were a few of the keys missing(which happened during an unfortunate attempt to clean them) and that's how I found out something really interesting:Laptop keys are replacable.Which means you can take them off and put new ones in their place.There are actually quite a few sites selling them online.Of course I never replaced mine(see reason c) and at the end that turned out to be a good thing(since my laptop died a few short months later).But it got me thinking...hmmm the laptop died...time for some key harvest methinks!

So I had all these laptop keys and I knew I wanted to use them with scrapbooking but I had no idea how!And then this challenge popped up and it was the perfect solution.The challenge asks us to use only one piece of paper.This means you're stuck with the big empty space of your backing material and you'll have to find a way to fill it because you aren't allowed to use any other form of paper.Since I suck at doodling and my sticker collection is quite limited,the laptop keys were a great solution.

It's a bit grey-ish but that was intentionall(since I wanted to simulate the computer/laptop environment).On a later thought it might have worked out better with a different colour cat(since you could let the cat be it's original colour while the rest of the picrure is black and white) but my cat is black and white anyway so...The 0101 on top is to simulate the binary code computers use and recognise(and later my brother told me it's the number 5,which is one of my favorite numbers for multiple reasons so yay!).I distressed the paper(and the number stickers while I was at it) quite a bit to add a bit of a lighter shade(and also illustrate what happened to aformentioned laptop,lol).I wanted to add a bit of journalling but unfortunatelly the background paper is a bit too dark so black doesn't work and neither does silver.So I left the comments out,it's pretty self explanatory anyway!

So if you've made it this far after my life story,I hope you like it ;)

ABC's...

I know,I know,I've been gone for so long!!Even though I was counting down the days till I came back from Thessaloniki from my exams(I did great BTW ;)) once I came here there were other matters pressing me for time(like "making" my new apartment livable and to my tastes, photos will come soon) so no time for creation.
At this point I need to say I met a great friend while in Thessaloniki,Maria and she gave me a wonderful present!Thank you so much Maria!!!I love everything you gave me.
As you might guess I was dying to use my new products,so I decided to try something new!I took a cereal box and decided to make my own alpha's from it.I used an acrylic paint dabber to color them and the glitters are from an old pair of jeans.At the time I wasn't sure why I kept them,but in the end,I'm glad I did ;)
Now I only need to use them in a layout or album ;)

Breda

I know I've been absent for a while,but not without a good reason.It's my exam period and after a break I took last year in order to see what I want to do,this one is the first exam period I'm back,full time!Monday and Tuesday were two rough days since I had my first exams(one of which was oral,which I hate) but that is behind us now and we can focus (for a little while) on the fun stuff!!!
This one is the last of the four layouts I did the last two nights before leaving Heraklion to come to Thessaloniki.It's alongside the previous one I posted,my favorite so far (saved the best for last ;)).The pictures are taken in the city of Breda in the Netherlands.I spent two months last summer in Holland,part of my figuring out what to do plan and worked in Rotterdam zoo for 6 weeks(I really should do something with those pictures as well).Most weekends I got together with my friend Nina and we would visit festivals and just do fun stuff.These pictures are taken in the city she lives in,where I spent a lovely day,cycling to a nearby village(I hadn't been on a bicycle for over ten years!) and just having plain old silly girl fun!
I loved the colour of the background paper so much(again Core'dinations) and I wanted to use it badly and I think it suits the photographs perfectly.My aim was to put the photos kinda random,I wanted to give the impression they accidentally fell into place on the paper(Melenia,great minds huh?).I loved the dotted paper(which is from Dovecraft the Masculine collection) and I thought it gave a great contrast to the whole layout.I also cut the letters from that same paper.And of course I couldn't help but to add some of Holland's national colour in the form of the buttons ;)