September, October & November Monthly Layouts

Graphic 45 are posting my September, October and November Layouts which are long overdue so first of all I would like to apologise for the delay. The months have just flown by and so much has been happening I haven't had a chance to get them to Graphic 45 on time.
I always appreciate the patience of the lovely Graphic 45 team.

September

For me September is all about the Father’s Day celebration, so it was an easy choice to do a layout on Malcom.

We have been married for over 32 years. We met through our Church youth group, I was a city girl and he was a country boy. We dated for nearly three years before we got married. 

We have five children so life for us while they were little was very busy.  We both are very active members of our church so there is always a lot happening in our lives. Malcolm works very hard at his day job and has been with the same company for his whole working life to date, having started as an apprentice at age 17. He also helps me with my two businesses in his not so spare time.

 Malcolm has a wonderful tenor voice and has had years of training.  He has performed many solo pieces at performances over the years of our married life. His singing in the shower is amazing and I love listening to it.   Marriage is a work in progress and requires commitment, patience, and understanding along with a lot of love.

The secret is to not take each other for granted and to put the other person first.  With everything happening in our busy life this doesn’t always happen every time, but we both are committed to our marriage.  I am so grateful for having Malcolm in my life and I do love him very much. We have so many things in common, our children, our faith, love of music and more.  We are now starting another stage in our marriage with our grandchildren starting to arrive and old age becoming something we are starting to think about and plan for.

I am very grateful to have Malcom alongside me and for his support in everything I do.  Without him, my life would be so much harder and without his love – a lot lonelier.

October

Well, October is my month; I was born on the 26^th of October 1962 in New Zealand.

I wasn’t even sure if anything happened of any great importance that year, so I googled it.

I discovered the following:

The winner of the Nobel Peace Prize was Linus Pauling.

The USSR announced that it was going to build missile bases in Cuba until Kennedy ordered a Cuban blockage which he lifted after Russia backed down.

The Yankees won the World Series over the San Francisco Giants.

Rod Laver won the men’s single title at Wimbledon.

The Oscar for best picture went to West Side Story.

The song of the year was Moon River.

Marilyn Monroe passed away.

I am sure there were many other important things that happened that year, but these are just some of the high lights I chose.

My life so far has been pretty easy. I didn’t have a great time at school though, due to being dyslexic and my teachers telling me I was just lazy. I knew I wasn’t but a lot of what I was learning just didn’t make any sense. I wanted to be a school teacher, but with my learning difficulties I would have found UNI too hard. So I worked in retail and really enjoyed helping & serving customers.

 

I grew up in a Christian family and from a young age attended everything happening at our Ecclesia.  I  met and married my husband over 33 years ago.  Have 5 wonderful children and now have three lovely sons-in-law.  My grandchildren are now starting to arrive and I am loving this next stage in my life.

I have had some interesting events in my life and some challenging ones too, but with my faith and support from family and friends nothing has been too big to handle.

So on the whole it has been really good and I am so grateful for this. Not everyone can say that about their lives like I can.  Through scrapbooking I have met some lovely ladies who have had not so good lives. Some have really sad stories to tell and I am always touched that they feel they can share with me. I always hope they feel better for sharing and not so alone or at least that their load feels lighter afterwards. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if everyone had an easy life and could be grateful like me?

 I know we need to have sad times in our life so we appreciate the good times. I always think of our lives as quilts or now a scrapbook layout – that we work on as our life happens. The highs in our lives are the bright colours – the reds, yellows and oranges. The lows in our lives are the blues, greens and browns, and the really sad events and tragedies are the greys and blacks. A quilt or layout in bright colours is too much to take in. It’s the lows and the sad events that give us the shadows against which our bright colours really stand out and make our quilt or layout really beautiful.

So I am grateful for how my layout is turning out, at this stage it is very bright but with a little blue, green and brown. It has a touch of grey but thankfully no black.

Hopefully there are still quite a few more years for me to work on my layout. It will be interesting to see how it changes as time goes by.

I would love to hear how everyone else’s quilts/layouts are going.  Please share in the comments so I can read them all.

 

 

November

 

 

 

We are so blessed – our first grandchild has arrived safely with all 10 toes and fingers.

Harry James is just beautiful and I know that you may think I am biased but I did ask around at church and everyone assures me that he really is beautiful and I’m not just imagining it.

I didn’t think I would be such a doting Grandmother, but I am. I had taken 200 photos of Harry by day 4! I have to keep stopping myself from showing everyone I meet all of them!

I can’t go more than a couple of days without a cuddle and I can’t believe how fast he is growing. It’s going to be so hard next time around as our second grandchild, due in March, will live in a different state.  I won’t be able to visit this little treasure as often as Harry. Hopefully we will be able to skype and watch this one grow daily.

Babies are a miracle and not to be taken for granted. I didn’t really understand how precious and fragile babies were until at age 22 I had Anna.  She was so sick and needed major surgery to live, we were given the option of not having the operation and leaving her to die in the hospital – unthinkable now, but we were given that choice back then.

I didn’t even consider it – she was mine and our responsibility. She was given to me for a reason and I just needed to work it out. Well, after so many years, I have worked it out; she teaches me more about myself and life than I have taught her. She teaches me to be compassionate, patience and loving.  Not to take life for granted anymore and to treasure each day. Her life is quite simple, she doesn’t worry about too much – she leaves that to me. She doesn’t want much, her needs are quite simple – she has no concept of needing everything she sees or what brand names are.  She has her likes and dislikes and she doesn’t bear a grudge. If she is angry with me, she forgets quite quickly and forgives even quicker. She finds delight in little things and loves sharing. She’s not an angel by any means and sometime drives me batty but we love each other and at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. If I had my time again I would not change anything.

So my November month started out with me being grateful for my first grandchild. Feeling so blessed that he arrived safely with everything as it should be. Watching my daughter take to mother hood, like she has been doing it all her life, has been so rewarding. Watching my son in law being so protective of his first child is a real delight. But I know that it isn’t always like this for everyone and from my own experience I know how hard it can be when it doesn’t go according to the plans we make.

In our family, we have so much to be grateful for. My children are quite close to each other and supportive. They keep in touch and watch out for each other. They help each other out  and they all know that they are there for each other when needed. For that we are very grateful and with another grandchild on the way there is even more to be thankful for.

Thank you for viewing my blog. For more inspiration make sure you visit Graphic 45's Blog.
Jane

Graphic 45's "A Christmas Carol" Collection - Cards

Hello Everyone,
Graphic 45 are sharing a pair of Christmas cards I recently made using their beautiful "A Christmas Carol" collection so I thought I would share them too.

I have wanted to do some pop up cards for quite a while. When I saw the new Graphic 45 “A Christmas Carol” collection I decided that this was the collection to use. I really love the Charles Dickens feel to the cards with all the vintage images.

I fussy cut lots of pieces from the Christmas carol sheet; I loved the flower clusters which were just begging to be put on my card front with foam tape. A touch of glitter to the flower centres just finishes them off.

It’s always lovely opening a card with a pop out surprise. The first time I taught these cards my ladies really enjoyed the pop out feature, especially when it actually worked; there were lots of Oooh’s and Ahh’s. These cards will be the perfect Christmas cards for those of my friends who appreciate the work involved

 

Card 2

 

 

Thank you for visiting my Blog. Make sure you visit Graphic 45's Blog for more inspiration!
Jane

Imagine Layout

 

Hello Everyone

 

Graphic 45 are sharing one of my new layouts on their blog, so I thought I would share it here too.

It's called Imagine...

 

A layout using Graphic 45's “World's Fair” range.

 

My eldest daughter was married late August this year, after being with her partner for 5 years. They had a beautiful wedding with lots of stunning photos taken by David Henry for me to use.   

Before their wedding they had a photo shoot with David and again I got another lot of stunning photos. Beth has the most amazing coloured hair – I don’t call it red, but rather copper. Anyway it is just beautiful though she does not agree. I have always told her to be grateful as you cannot get her hair colour from a bottle!

 

Every time I see a collection from Graphic 45 with red, yellow or orange, I open my box labelled “Beth’s Photos”. So when I got my bundle of “World Fair”, I just loved it right away. The colours are amazing, blue and green with all that bright orange and yellow; it’s just perfect. But more important are all the wonderful images just begging to be cut out and built up with foam tape.

I chose a selection of Beth and Noah’s engagement/pre-wedding photos for this layout.

I am sure you will agree with me that the photos and papers look really great together.

I did rummage through my old papers to find an orange border for my layout. It is one of the papers from “Olde Curiosity Shoppe”. I just happened to have a few sheets of it left.  I added a very narrow blue border just inside of my orange border.  Another old paper I used, was for around my photos, I wanted something a bit more dramatic as a mat for the photos to bring the orange from the background paper out.  I chose a paper from Happy Haunting, which had lots of smaller squares I could cut out and use for the photo mats.

 

So starting with my sheet of “Counting Down” I just cut my piece of “Mind over Matter” to fit inside. Then I added a piece of “Inspiration Station” to go under my photos. I decided to mat my bigger photo and place a larger blue photo mat under it.

I did some fussy cutting for the bottom of my layout using foam tape to give it a more 3d look. “Be yourself everyone else is taken” looks great matted on some black cardstock and fits so nicely on my layout.

I painted my Imaginarium Chipboard flower stem with some green silks paint – this gives them a rich shimmer look. I added some beads and glitter to my flower heads. To help them stand out, I just tucked a paper flower underneath the flower heads. Some Prima wire rapped around the stem just looked great. An orange ribbon and mesh with a heart charm, all add to my layout. I added a chipboard title at the top, some blue brads in the corners along with some black photo mats. Then all I needed to do was choose which of Beth and Noah’s beautiful photos to use.  

I love the way I can use any Graphic 45 paper from any collection and they all work together.

 

This layout will be making its way online as a kit early next year if all goes well.

 

To view my range of kits available just visit Seriously Scrapbooking.

There are also a few Christmas projects available including a Christmas Layout, a Christmas book & Christmas Cards will be coming soon.

 

Thank you for visiting my blog.

 



The Wonder of Christmas

Its almost Christmas...

Today I'm sharing a Layout called "The Wonder of Christmas"

“Twas the Night before Christmas” Paper Collection

Again Graphic 45 have designed a perfect Christmas collection for anyone to use. I love the traditional feel to this collection and the brighter colours make every paper just pop. I don’t celebrate Christmas quite like everyone else does. For my family it’s a time to get together and remember the true meaning of Christmas, without most of the trimmings that make everyone else’s Christmas’s so traditional.  So I don’t have the traditional family photos or photos of a Christmas tree to use on my layouts and projects. I always have to “borrow” someone else’s Christmas photos for my work. This is a very special Graphic 45 little gentleman  and I loved doing my layout for him.

I like working on a square within a square for my layouts. This restricts the area I have to work on. I don’t like adding too many embellishments to my work, as I love Graphic 45 papers so much, and I am happy to just have them. I also love fussy cutting, so this layout was the perfect excuse to get my scissors out and start cutting.  I have tried to create a wreath around my Father Christmas, using foam tape to build the ivy up. Some white snowflakes, just added the touch I needed. 

I matted the photo of the “little gentleman” and adhered it to my layout. I added some brads, photo corners, a ribbon bow and a title from Imaginarium Designs to finish the layout.

It is quite a simple layout really, not too hard to make.  I think that the combination of wonderful Graphic 45 papers and a perfect photo is really all one needs for a great layout.

I have the instructions for this layout finally ready. Kits are available for purchasing as pre-orders on Seriously Scrapbooking's Website here. We are waiting on a few papers, you can still purchase the kit and we will post them as soon as the papers arrive. Hopefully next week.

 

 

 

 

Another project I would like to share is my 12 Days of Christmas pop-down book. You may already have seen this one or even made it yourself.

 

 

 

 

The 12 Days of Christmas Book is an elaborate pop out project which opens out from a book to a magnificent Christmas display consisting of six stunning pages. The pages when the bottom flap is folded down open out to a detailed 3D scene featuring the days of Christmas from the well-known song.

 

 

Using papers from Graphic 45’s Twelve days of Christmas Collection, chipboard from Imaginarium Designs and metal charms from Seriously Scrapbooking, this project is a perfect Christmas gift for a special person, or just yourself. To personalise this project there is ample space for photos on the reverse side of the project.

 

 

 

 

 

This book is available as a kit with detailed instructions. The kit includes all the materials to make the entire book including the cover.  

The kit is available for purchase on Seriously Scrapbooking's Website Here. It has been very popular and we now only have twenty or so kits left.

I hope to share some more of my Christmas projects with you, I have a few up my sleeve. For more Christmas inspiration or just any inspiration ☺ visit Graphic 45's Blog.

Thank you for reading my blog ☺

 

Hello Everyone

Last weekend we had a very special family get together in Sydney celebrating the wedding of our beautiful daughter Beth to her partner Noah.

Leah and Stuart flew up on the Wednesday and along with Beth made the wedding cake. Stuart was chief bottle and cake tin washer. Josh very kindly offered to hold  up the bottom layer so in the photo you can see just how big it was. Layers of chocolate cake with chocolate mousse and raspberries between each layer, then kilo's of chocolate ganache all over it. Thin rectangles of dark chocolate standing upright all the way around the bottom layer to finish it.  The top layer was vanilla and lemon cake with white chocolate ganache.   Looked stunning and tasted amazing and big enough to feed an army. Lots left over and in the freezer for another day or two!



 

The weather was beautiful, lots of lovely late winter sun streaming in. Made taking photos a bit of a challenge, so will need to wait for the photographers as mine are a bit washed out.

Noah walked down the pier to the "the Eye of the Tiger" and really nailed it.
Beth chose to walk down the pier with her Dad and to the song to "feels like home" by Edwina Hayes and I must confess to a tear or two or three.

It was so nice meeting all of Noah's family and Beth & Noahs friends. A great time was had by everyone attending. Beth had booked a trio to play a bit of Jazz. Anna spent the night dancing with everyone there and having a great time.
I had done a page for August using Graphic 45 Time to Flourish collection, as part of my gratitude album and left the spaces for the photo's so I could add some from the wedding. I will now wait for the photos from David Henry who was amazing. His pre wedding photo's are stunning so the wedding ones will be amazing.

 

I love the sunflowers on this months page. They will look amazing with Beth's beautiful red hair and her cream vintage dress.

I now have one wonderful son and three wonderful sons-in-law. Each one of my sons in law are different but they all share a common link. They each love and respect one of my special daughters. I am so grateful the my girls have wonderful partners to share their lives with. Strong men who love them and cherish them - so blessed.

Will share more photo's of the wedding once I have some better ones.

thanks for looking

Hugs

Jane

 



Autumn Escape - New Zealand

Hello Everyone
I am very proud to announce that I have been asked to teach at the 2016 Autumn Escape. The Autumn Escape is organized by Craft Events New Zealand and as their name suggests, the Autumn Escape is held in beautiful New Zealand which is where I am from.

It looks to be a promising weekend, there will also be two other teachers, so lots of scrapbooking, treats and food all in a luxury resort. What more could one want? Follow the link above to their website for full information of the event, Here is the brief description from their website:

22nd – 24th April, 2016,

Wairakei Resort, Taupo, New Zealand

Registrations are now open!

About Autumn Escape:

Immerse yourself in a luxury 4 star resort in the heart of the North Island. There isn’t much that beats the beauty and ambience of the Wairakei Resort… that is, unless you add a weekend full of paper crafting, giveaways, candy and shopping! It’s always a weekend of fun, laughter and total indulgence!

This three day weekend provides something for everyone; from simply kicking back cropping the hours away while chatting with your friends to having a busy schedule enjoying many amazing classes hosted by equally AMAZING tutors to a combination of both that suits your schedule. We really do have a weekend that caters for everyone.

The tutors for 2016 include Jane Tregenza, Lowri McNabb and our third talented artist will be announced shortly!

 

For a full overview of the weekend & package options follow this link.

 

 

 

I will be heading to New Zealand to teach at the autumn escape straight from the cruise I am teaching on, needless to say I'm looking forwards to April 2016 very much ☺

 

Thank you for reading my blog.

Jane

Time Creates Wonderful Memories

Hello Everyone, today I am showing you a beautiful layout I made when Graphic 45's "Artisan Style" collection was released.

 

This new “Artisan Style” collection from Graphic 45 is just beautiful. I really love the Art Deco feel to it. The colours are vibrant and strong, with a wide range of colours to work with.

Each time I get a new collection from Graphic 45, I spend time just looking at all the elements on each page. Then I turn them over and check out the backs. It’s the backs of the papers that I really love working with.

 

For this layout I have chosen to keep it simple. The layout doesn’t need a lot of stuff on it as the papers are so beautiful. I wanted them to be the feature, along with a special photo. So I only chose 3 print papers + the back of one of them. I had to use one of my favourite papers from another Graphic 45 collection to give me a plainer background to show off the more vibrant colours of the “Artisan” Collection. In keeping it simple, I used the back of “Decorative Flourish” for the background. I really love those Art Deco Dragonflies and as soon as I saw them, I knew I had the perfect metal charm to really set the print paper off. Next I used my favourite print paper from this collection.  “Attention to Detail” is stunning and I love both sides of this paper. I love it so much; I used it two times on this layout with the lovely floral side showing, and a third time on the other side with the blue pattern.

Imaginarium Designs Chipboard- flower and fern, along with a title and some charms all help to make it a quick layout.

 

With a perfect photo of three of my girls – this layout is already a favourite. This layout is perfect for anyone wanting a simple but lovely Graphic 45 Artisan Style layout. Its even available as a kit on the website of Seriously Scrapbooking as well as the kits for many of my other layouts. The Imaginarium Designs Chipboard is also available for purchase on their website.

 

Thank you for looking at my blog.
Jane

 

Lazy Summer Days

Hello Everyone

Today I'm going to share my Lazy Summer Days Layout with you all.

I love this collection from Graphic 45. I have always love the sea and way it’s always changing, one of my dreams is to retire to a house by the sea with an old rocking chair on a veranda and loose days just watching it.  So when I saw this collection, lot of ideas jumped into my head.  I have made a few different projects with this collection. This one is a layout for my daughter Kate. I chose the papers I wanted to work with and some matching cardstocks. I used “by the sea” for a frame around my page and cut the middle of it out. I matted it onto a piece of  Cajun cardstock and used foam tape to build it up. I used “Set Sail” for the foundation of my layout and added the frame on top.  I used the middle bit I had cut out when I did the frame from my “by the sea” paper, matted it onto some black cardstock and adhered it to my layout in the middle of my frame. I added some borders to the top and bottom of my page.

I used a second sheet of “by the sea” to cut out some of the images that Graphic 45 are so famous for. I added them to my frame with foam tape to build them up. I added some charms, flowers and ribbons to fill it all in a bit more. I found a photo of Kate taken at the beach and matted it. A chipboard quote was all I needed to add to finish the page.  The beautiful images and colours in this Graphic 45 “By the Sea” collection work so well together. the perfect collection for anyone lucky enough to live by the sea, or had holidays by the sea or like us, just visit from time to time and dream!

 I taught this layout at the 2015 Brisbane Scrapbooking & Papercraft Expo and it was enjoyed by all. Graphic 45 are kindly sharing it on their blog and I though I would share it with you too. Graphic 45's blog is always worth having a look at, click here to see their blog.

I have in fact been organized enough to make this layout into a kit which is available for purchase on the website of Seriously Scrapbooking if you would like to make the page.

 

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Jane Tregenza

 

 

Raining Cats & Dogs Book & Box

Hello Everyone
Graphic 45 have done a blog post showing projects made with their Raining Cats & Dogs Collection. Their post includes my Raining Cats & Dogs Book & Box.  Which I designed and taught at Seriously Scrapbooking. The book and box very popular and I really enjoyed watching my ladies delight as their book and box all came together.

 

When I saw Graphic 45’s Raining Cats and Dogs Collection I knew it was time to do something special for our gorgeous dog named Smudge who passed away several years ago. The papers were just fantastic, so many happy and bright colours with lots of wonderful images to use. The book opens out to a star shape and comes with a gorgeous tea caddy style box to keep it safe when not in use.  I used a new technique for this book; the floor of each page is carefully folded to enable the pop out elements on each page. Just perfect to showcase your very special friend.

 There are five pages each with pop out elements and a space for a photo.

Many people have been asking for kits of this project since Scrapbooking Creations published it in one of their magazine editions but we are still a while off kits as it is quite a complicated project to write instructions for. So many things are always happening at once all the time, I have started the long process of writing the instructions, but it is going to take a while. I also need to make the book again so the step by step photo's can be taken. So keep in touch, once I have them done - I will post it on my blog here and on facebook.
Thank you for looking at my blog, be sure to have a look at Graphic 45's Blog (click here) to see more amazing projects.
 Hugs
Jane