This is one of my favourite Layouts in a while. I am working on a painting and misted a part of it with a butterfly mask. There was a lot of leftover ink on the mask so I grabbed the top paper in my section white papers and pressed it into the ink. I loved the pattern that it left, complete with paint transfer on the top of the paper. I put it aside to dry and decided to create a LO with it on the next Tuesday Night Scrapbooking Session (I am making a commitment to regularly scrapbook. I have an ISCA training call in the afternoon and I am always buzzing with excitement and energy on Tues night so picked then to be creative). This Layout came together really quickly while I listen to an audio book.

I am still loving this set of Thickers! The colour, the scribbling, the size. Oh My! I put the geo tag on as a reference to the fact that be we need to be ourselves, that it is a place to be all the time, rather than a destination to strive for! I am also loving the date stamp at the top. I had a large one, but I found this at my friend's place when I was helping him tidy his office. I told him how much I loved it and he said that he never used it so I could have it. YAY. Now every time I use it, I think of him and his family (the reason I was there in the first place was that his wife had just had a baby! Yay)

I love this random layering! I first saw this messy thread nest technique done by Lisa at RecklinghausenMusings. I decided to give it a go and I am so glad that I did. Most of this page was from my kit, but I added the butterflies and thread from my own stash, along with the two buttons and brad that I used.

The butterfly that inspired everything stayed being a major focus on the page. I loved what I did with it. I used the mask to cut out parts of the wings for a little dimension and I layered paper underneath. I used two smaller of the misting masks to create other butterflies to layer. I had a black velvet butterfly in my stash that I then put on the very top. Each layer moves to reinforce the being-free theme (that is a very strong need of mine!) Finally I had some crystal swirls left over from a 21st so I cut them into antenna to top the butterfly. I added another thread nest to the bottom and added a red brad button to bring the red back onto this side as it was quite heavy on the right. The bottom strip is two free hand cut paper strips stitched down with the washi tape layered under it. I am so very happy with the outcome!

Lately I have been getting really inspired by challenges and blog posts. Unfortunately, I often I just think that I am too busy and read and then move on. As a way to keep these blog posts together I use GoogleReader. I have a lot of great inspiration in my GoogleReader feed including the great blog shimelle.com.  There were a series of posts that fed into one another to get me jumping OFF the computer and over to my scrapbook desk. This one, this one and this one. Go on, click them, they open up in new pages so you can read them and then pop back. I will wait, I promise ;) Okay, so in summary Shimelle and a couple of guests were using frames as inspiration to create scrapbook layouts. My brain had been percolating ideas but the handcut, layered frames was so very motivating. I grabbed my March Crazy Monday Kit and whipped up this gorgeous layout. I added a few tidbits - a deep teal paper from Studio Calico, bits and pieces of the Everyday Eclectic kit that I had as well as a wood veneer bird to reinforce the up and away theme. Just like with a traditional polaroid I will write my journalling across the bottom (hence the 'notes' sticker) This photo as taken when I was on my very first training call with the Inspired Spirit Coaching Academy. 2 years later I am still studying with them in the advance programme that she now offers. I love being a Life Coach and get quite emotional looking back at this photo that literally catches the beginning. I want my journalling to be very heart-felt and I am not going to rush it. I will jot ideas down on paper and work and rework them until I get what I want to say. It is such a different approach from how I normally work. Generally when I scrapbook, I write my journalling on the layout and embrace all the imperfections that may crop up. Spelling mistakes capture where I am now and my handwriting is often changing depending on my mood. It is a great way to capture the here and now of me and my life.

I came across this photo in my box of photos to sort. As I looked at it, I realised that SO many things had changed from when this photo was taken. I thought February's Kit from Crazy Monday would work best with the pink in Kat's top and the love paper that was included. The bright blue paper, the shaped journalling box and the mists I added to help lift the colour of my top out of the picture as well. That way the two main people in the story were more prominent. I love capturing a different story from what is obvious in the photo. This was actually a farewell dinner as John and I had decided to leave Piha to move down to Otago. Pa came up as he had not visited our place yet and this would be his only chance. Kat, Llew, Pa, John and I had a fabulous dinner together. Everyone helped us sort through old things to pare down and also to pack. Pa bought a new van and took a load of our stuff back down south. In the end though, we decided to hire a moving company to come and pack us up and take everything down, rather than putting things in storage. It was a big decision to make in only a week. Still, it was the right one for us. Three and a half years later I am still here and John only just left a couple of weeks ago.

Ma is in her 60's and the papers that I had left in my kit felt very 'her'. I loved the colours and the feel of the papers. I also really wanted to add these textured flowers to the card as I knew that I didn't need to put it into an envelope as I was seeing her for lunch on her birthday.

 Everything is from the kit, except the embroidery thread that I wrapped around the card. The stitching around the card and the thread was done to be seen on the inside to lift it up a little. I then added another sticker on the inside and doodled around it to personalise it. I like to write personal messages inside rather than the generic. As Ma is the full-time carer for a boy with developmental delays she rarely gets time to herself. As X has just started school at the end of last year, she is now getting a few hours five times a week to catch up on things that matter to her, like gardening. I haven't been able to help as much as I wanted to due to my poor health. I am now getting to the point where I can volunteer myself again as my strength and energy are returning. As John left not too long before Ma's birthday (after taking her out on a dinner date first) I got a 'quote' from him to add to the card so that he could be with her on the day too. Ma loved the card and we had an interesting time out for lunch.

When I saw the geo tag cut-apart I wanted to document a place. I then looked through my photos and saw this one of me taking a photo my brother Levi via Skype. Most of our relationship is conducted via Skype so I decided to document this aspect of our life again. In the geo tag I wrote both our physical locations (which I have blurred out for privacy reasons). I felt that the speech bubble paper was an excellent fit for this topic. I only added a few things from my stash. I am often really inspired by You Tube user MercyTiara and I watch all her videos. She has a signature style of outlining papers and elements and I felt it really fits in with MY style so I have been implementing it into a few of my Layouts. I love it so very much! It adds such a playful, whimsical feeling to this Layout and as Levi and I are always joking around and laughing it is a great match!

I was looking through Facebook when I saw that Challenge Me Happy had a new challenge up. I still have a huge chunk of the Crazy Monday Kit left so I decided to play along. It so happened that I was listening to the end of Paulo Coelho's audiobook of 'The Zahir' and wanted to document more of how this man is changing me so profoundly. I have a second-hand photo printer that my ex found at an Op-Shop for a mere $8. Unfortunately I don't know how to fully use it so the photos were NOT the size I wanted. I resized them in photoshop (PSE10 for Mac) and then went across to the chemist to print them off. That was the longest part of the layout. The rest of it took about 10 mins to put together and I LOVE it. As The Zahir is about love and I have great affection and admiration for this man's work, I thought the February Kit with it's love theme would work well on this LO. I had envisioned using the 4x4 Divided Page Protectors as a second page but I decided in the end to just create one and only focus on the books that I have listened to so far.
Journalling reads:

My first LO from the February Crazy Monday Kit. It is about half kit and half stash. I love it! The texture is awesome. I even used some of the tissue paper packaging so bonus points for that! It has deep and meaningful journalling, a photo I love and paper. This is scrapbooking nirvana to me! I have it displayed up on my studio shelf.

I love the journey that I am on. I love the growth that I am experiencing. Yes, it can be hard, but it is always worth it! The way that I view the world has changed dramatically and I will never, ever be the same again. Through various avenues, such as the ISCA, the internet and the various books and audio books I've devoured, my mind has expanded to the possibilities that life can bring.

I am currently listening to Paulo Coelho's 'The Zahir' and it is really making me question so very much. I am questioning relationships, co-dependency and it's destruction in our society. Questioning if I can release the need to control someone and allowing someone to control me Questioning the need to be married or even if I want to bond myself to another human being? Do I even need to have a boyfriend to express myself physically or is a lover what I require? Are affairs bad? Is monogomy the way to go? All I know for certain is that being honest and expressing myself is the key. The key to my soul, to my desires, to life. And that's enough.

There is change occurring, so much change. Through all this exploration of my soul and discovery of my beliefs, I feel more authentic and alive than I ever have before and I love it.