NZ Paper chase

May Challenge... Recipe Time

 Hello all,  It's time for a new challenge, but first I would just like to say WOW,  have you all gone over and had a look at the April entries!  AMAZING! 

This months sketch is a Recipe challenge

1 x Card Stock

2 x Patterned Paper

1 x Punch

1 x Hand-made Embellishment

1 x Photo

Metal

String

Dew Drops or Liquid Pearls

and Lastly 1 Doilie

Create a Layout,  any theme go's but you must contain all the recipe ingredients, as little or as much as you want.  You ARE free to add other ingredients to add your own flavour...

 

Here's what I did...

I think most of you know I LOVE G45,  this is one of there new paper ranges.  I fussy cut and painted all the flowers with Distress Stain (so much fun).  and some close ups

My hand-made embellishment

a wee bit of my journalling and butterfly painted with stains. Well I hope you join in again this month, It's been amazing to see every-ones layouts and we look forward to seeing what you create this month. Happy scrappin every one and most importantly don't forget to have fun  xox Donna :-)

Please send your layouts to sonya at Duntroongarage@xtra.co.nz by mid-night on the 31 st of May 2012. Thank you!

 

Here is a lovely example for you by DT member Angela. Angela thought she would have a change and created an A4 sized page.

 

 

 

 

 

Loads of Lay-outs for April.

What a thrill to receive so many top notch entries in for our April Challenge. Thank you Beverley Warick for your wonderful sketch and lovely lay-out that inspired so many!

Again our Design team were given the hard job of choosing a winner, never an easy task.This month we have a first and a very, very close to first.

Our Very very 'close to first' DT award goes to...

Vicky Varvadouka of Greece for her 'FearLess' layout. We love the soft background Vicky has created,her creative use of elements and clever interpretation of Beverley's sketch. 

 

Our winner this month is Dianne Hanson's Thai Adventure

Dianne has a special knack of tying (no pun intended) all of her elements together and her page has that certain 'wow' factor. 

I am going to post photos all of our entries now, I know they are in our April Album already, but Im sure you will agree, they all deserve to be posted on the blog, for the world to see.

Thank you everyone for taking part and we do wish we could send you all a prize!

Beverley Cunningham

 

Fiona Lally

 

Jean Riddler

 

Kim Kendell

 

Lilli Sutherland

 

Marie Mazzcairn

 

Pam Nelson

 

 

Paula Breen

 

 

Peggy Mathie

 

Robyn Preston

 

Sharon Milford

 

Tanya Watson

 

Vicki Parker

 

Such an impressive line-up! 

We sure hope you keep sending use your delightful pages. Be sure to check out our May Challenge 

April's Challenge

I'm very  late getting the prize for this months challenge posted, I'm very sorry about that! Without any further delay our prize is...A set of 12 gouache pens and a 9 X 12 inch canvas.

Thank you for your wonderful entries, and to those of you still thinking about submitting a layout, the good news is that you still have five days left to do so! Remember to have your entries to me at Duntroongarage@xtra.co.nz by mid-night on the 30th of April 2012. Thank you!

Outer Stairstep Template

Here is the Outer Stairstep template ladies!

We have a winner

Our DT were very impressed with the high standard of our March entries, and I will let you in on a secret ...everyone choose a different winner,except for two judges who both voted for Lydia. That means our winning LO for March is....

Congratulations on your win Lydia.

 

 

Below are some of the comments I received from one of our judges, thought it might be nice to share them with you all

Lydia
Can't beat the photo! Fantastic! I especially like the male/female shapes tucked into the layout and the twist of twine to soften it all.

Brenda:
Love the connection between the title and the photo! I also like how the fish appears to be hanging from the blue circles (top right corner).

Danice
The little read love heart in the torn section (top right) pulls the layout together. A nice romantic layout without being too gushy and obvious.

Debbie
Great use of papers and the messy paint adds a neat touch of rural/farmyard to the overall page.

Diane
The use of non traditional baby papers looks great and the title looks good without being overbearing.

Fiona
Love the beehive shapes with the occasional circle thrown in for emphasis. This layout would also be a candidate for Aprils sketch!

Jean
The pinwheel is a perfect compliment to such a cute photo, and the stitching pulls all the elements in together.

Nikki
The transparency on the central photo really showcases the picture. And it's always great to see more than one photo on a single page layout.

Thank you all once again for making the time to take part in our monthly challenge, you are all amazing, and we just love to see your wonderful pages.

Fiona, you are one step ahead of us I think, as your page really does fit April's challenge as well!

Video Tutorial for Our Valued Readers

Hi ladies!

Well, as promised, here is the first of a series of video tutorials I have created especially for you - our readers and supporters! I will create a tutorial for a project that appears in each edition of NZ Paperchase, which really gives you more mileage out of the magazine! This video tutorial walks you through the process of creating an Outer Stairstep Card - an example of which can be seen on Page 23 of the March 2012 issue. You'll need to download and print the template for this, which is available below.

Click here to view the video tutorial.

You'll see a copy of the template in the post above.

We'd love to see your takes on the template, so if you feel inspired to create an outer stairstep card, please post a pic to our facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/362066385406/

I hope you enjoy the video - feedback is always welcomed!

Cheers

Maggie Armstrong

March Entries and a New challenge

 Here are our gorgeous entries for the month of March.

Jean sends us 'Charlie' and I send my appoligies to Jean, for missing uploading her page with the other's last night! Sorry Jean!

This 'fishy tail' is from Brenda

'Eve and Stella' has been created by Danice

'Beautiful Lama', by Debbie

Dianne shows us 'Aunty Essie'

These Blue Eyed girls have been scrapped by Fiona

Lydia has created 'litte Lady'

And last, but by no means least we have 'Discover', from Nikki

 

Wow! Now thats quite a line up of beautiful photos, beautifully scrapped. Good luck to the Design Team with choosing just one winner form this line up! Will be back soon with the results!

Thankyou to everyone who has taken the time to enter, without you all our challenges just would not happen.

Here is our April Sketch Challenge created by the talented Beverley Warwick, our challenge winner last month.

 

Beverley has put together this delightful page,to inspire you all!

Our talented DT member, Angela has also created a beautful layout using Beverley's sketch

Now we want to see what you can all come up with please :-)

Stay tunned in...I will be back soon with our March winner and prize details for our April Sketch Challenge.

Smash Book Swap anyone?

What is a smash book ??

I asked this question when new Design Team member Maggie suggested creating these for a fun swap idea.

 A smash book is a place to store all those random bits and bobs that you just might want to keep one day. A favorite quote, a clothing tag with choice words, a piece of wrapping paper with a colour scheme that inspires you,that chocolate wrapper you just couldn't bring your self to throw away, an old theater ticket...you know, the kind of thing that clutters the kitchen draw.

I have several draws that hold treasure's that look like junk to everyone else!

A Smash book sounded like a lot of fun. Thank you Maggie for the idea.

We hope that you will join us in a Smash Book Swap. Here is how it will work...

Once we have a group of people keen to join in I will post a list of names.

You can choose to have a theme for your Smash book if you wish.

Some theme ideas..

- Favorite quotes,

- A day in my life.

- Remember.

- My Happy Place.

- I wish.

- Create.

- Inspire etc...anything you fancy! If you prefer you can just go with an anything goes approach.The choice will be yours.

Each person in the swap will  create one double sided A5 page for everyone else taking part. So if we have 10 people then you create 10 pages,(taking into account their chosen themes)

Your pages would be best created on light card,or a heavy paper. We will need to leave a 1.5cm margin down the left hand side of the page (so that once our pages have been returned to their owners they can be bound into book form).

Once you have finished all of your pages, pop them into an envelop, complete with another stamped, self addressed envelope. Post them to me and I will send the pages back to you that everyone else has created for your own special Smash Book. 

 The photos here are of a friends Smash Book. Thank you Carol Noakes! To see more of Carol's Smash book pop over to her blog...HERE

Carol has used a Smash Book, I thought we would create our own because if we were to use books we would have to send them from person to person. Pages will cut down on postage cost and time it takes for us to have our 'books' completed. It is always lots of fun to create your book cover, and as paper crafters I'm sure we will have many and varied ideas for bounding our pages into book form.

Do send me photos of your completed books and we can pop them onto the blog for everyone to see!

Check out this YouTube clip for Smash Book ideas

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PFsArr4Z1s

To join in please add your name in the comments section of this post, or to our facebook page

http://www.facebook.com/groups/362066385406/

or email Sonya at duntroongarage@xtra.co.nz if your prefer.

I will post a list of names here on Monday of those taking part and will contact each of you in person. 

Be in quick because we will stop the list at 10 players, and we already have 5!

Hope you can join us! 

 

 

Out now!

NZ Paper Chase Autumn issue is out in a booksellers near you now! 

 

New Challenge!

Tanya Watson has created this months sketch for us.Thankyou Tanya!! Tanya loves to use paint and she challenges you to use either paint,or ink under your photo and patterned paper. Tanya's sketch is lots of fun, try rotating it, or have a play and move the elements of the sketch around.

Check out Tanya's  funky page. The background paper has been destressed with Tim-Holtz ink.

 

Here is Donna's take on this months sketch...

 

This one from Lynne 

Maggie's page

Angela has two wonderful examples for us

 

And this is my take 

Our Prize's this week are from the Basic Grey Collection 'Out of Print'

Our lucky winner will recieve these Bow ties, along with ...

                  ....matching stickers, and...

                      ....Layered Pop Stickers

Special thanks to Steph Milne, editor of NZ paper Chase Magazine for supplying our lovely prize's .

 

Now ladies, do please show us what you can do with Tanya's Sketch. Email a photo of your completed page to me (Sonya) at Duntroongarage@xtra.co.nz no later than mid-night on the 31st of March 2012

 

Check out our Entries for February...and we have a winner

Take another look at Donna's lovely page

Check out the sketch

Angela Knight has created this super fun take on Donna's Sketch, makes you want to get up and dance as well doesn't it!

Maggie Ben has weaved magic into her take on the sketch as well

And I just had to have a go at this one as well.

Now, browse through our stunning entries, I'm sure you will agree that these are all pretty jolly exciting! (I will add the names of the artists once judging has been done).

 

 This 'Dream' page has been created by Beverly.

Rock On Lil Man is very  cute indeed, well done to Brenda.

Love the romantic'ness (is that a word?) of Dianne Hanson's Special Moments.

Leap back into summer with Fiona Lally's bright and sassy New Togs layout.

We are pleased to show you  this very Cool Dude's Explore page brought to us by a new submitter, Jean Riddler.Welcome aboard Jean!

Last, but by no means least we have Tanya's lovely Layout titled What will this Year hold for Me, Tanya has made creative use of White space.

Now, its over to our New Design team to reach a decision on who gets top pick this month. Good luck ladies, it is going to be a tough decision again this round I think! The standard of entries just keeps getting higher and higher!

And we have a winner... Congratulations to Beverly Warwick for her winning page titled 'Dream'.We loved Beverly's interesting interpretation of Donna's sketch. February's prize will be on its way to you soon Beverley.

On behalf of our Judges I would like to make a  special mention to Dianne Hanson who's Special Moments page is a stand out for us, due to Dianne's very clever use of lace and Dimensional Magic, both add a lovely texture, which was the challenge within our challenge last month!