This is my first foray into scrapbooking! I really enjoyed creating these three 8" x 8" layouts featuring my kids at our favourite weekend-away-spot - Kawhia. I used a lot of the same techniques that I use when cardmaking (there is a lot of cross-over), however and I found it more time-consuming than cardmaking as I had to get it "just right". I learned a lot while doing this and next time I would do a few things differently. I still love what I created!

Last weekend I had a wonderful time meeting and catching up with other demonstrators in the area. At the gathering we got to make some cards and shared some good tips and tricks. It was great to attend a workshop instead of running one! Anyway, Rhonda demonstrated how to use a Stamp-a-ma-jig. Being the perfectionist I am, I use this tool a lot! This is the lovely masculine card that we all got to make using the Stamp-a-ma-jig.

I have been asked by a couple of people about masculine cards lately. It seems we all have trouble with cards for the boys and men in our lives. Here are some tips for making masculine cards:

Yes, it is birthday season for our family! This is a tri-fold shutter card that I made for my mother-in-law's birthday. My mother-in-law is a stamper as well, so I always try to do something special to wow her and this card surely does that. I love the Designer Series Paper in this catalogue, the DSP I used for this card comes from the Washington Apple set.

Here is the very pretty and very girly birthday card that I made for my daughter's birthday, she turned 6 yesterday. I didn't put it up earlier because she often looks here and may see it!

Yet another card using the faux-silk effect! This one is for my nephew's 1st birthday, which is tomorrow.

After Tuesday night's workshop I was playing with the Faux Silk Effect and created the card below. Unfortunately, the camera doesn't quite capture the texture! It is a really lovely way of adding texture to cards and scrapbooking pages. To see the card that we created at the June workshop using this effect, click HERE and check out the previous workshop projects.

Last night I finished making twenty of these pretty cards. Anyone that requests information about the up-coming June workshops will receive one of these as my gift to you. As I said, there are twenty but if I need to make more I will...