Hope - Scrapping Fun Kits Design Team

Today I have the second layout I created during my latest Tilt Train trip.  This time it is a 8x8.  I went with 8x8 as I was only taking a small suitcase for our clothes and a backpack for all our other supplies needed on the trip so I could not take a 12x12 background, 8x8 meant I could get this layout scrapped and if need be add it to a 12x12 background paper layout.

For this layout I took the Hope wood veneer that is in the Scrapping Fun Kits May 2019 Awareness Kit that Jodi from Corbett Creations created for the kit along with a assortment of Yellow supplies from Scrapping Fun Kits September 2018 kit and from some old D-lish Scraps from a friend when she was destashing.

 I started by tearing my papers and then I decided to use the half of the paper bag from the September 2018 Kit that I had with me as a journalling pocket behind my photo and layers so I sealed the cut side with my Helmar Acid Free Glue and adhered it down.

Here is the opening of the bag.

I created a little cluster next to my Corbett Creations wood veneer with a crochet piece from the September 2018 kit and a flower and tag from D-lish Scraps that I received in the destash bundle I bought.









I finished off my layout by inking the edge with some Distress Ink in Mustard Seed.

I love how my layout turned out.
If you would like to order a kit head to the Subscription Tab and fill in the form.  Enter May into the promo code box,

Harmony Day TN layout - Scrapping on the Tilt Train - Scrapping Fun Kits Design Team

I decided to pack the flat items from the May 2019 Awareness kit to take with me on the Tilt Train so I could get some special Awareness Day photos scrapped on my journey. 
I do love TN scrapping and 8x8 scrapping for occupying my time while I travel on the Tilt Train, you can see some of my posts about this Here.

I had forgotten that I had taken the scissors out of my travel pencil case so this layout and the 8x8 I created which I will share with you in my next post are featuring paper tearing.  Silly me but I love how the layouts turned out.  Thankfully I had pre-cut my photos and some white cardstock to use as mats.








I added some other flat orange items to my train stash for this trip so that I would have some options for building layers and embellishing when scrapping my Harmony Day photo.  I had forgotten to print the other photo needed for this spread so I went with a single page layout on the right hand page of a spread and I will do another layout with the same supplies on the left page when I get my second photo printed.

I brought my favourite Helmar glues on this trip as I would need them for the 8x8 layout so I adhered my layers and photo down with Helmar Acid Free Glue. 

I picked out 2 papers that worked well with my photo and tore them to a size that would suit.  I even tore a little section out from the middle where it would be hidden behind the photo.  I used this on the bottom right corner.    Adding a sticker from a old sticker sheet I scored at a destash to this cluster.
This cluster formed a perfect base to add the year to my layout.

I then added Harmony Day to the top right corner to balance things out.












And my layout was done.  I love how it turned out.

If you would like to order one of these kits please head to the Subscription Tab and fill out the form, enter May in the promo code box so I know which kit you would like to order.

Awareness Ribbon YouTube Hop

When working out themes for this year we wanted to have some themes we haven't done before and we had some great ideas suggested.  One that I was really passionate about was a project about Awareness so we decided to go with Using a Ribbon on your project and that the projects would be about raising Awareness about something important to the person creating the project for the hop.  So we have a wide variety of projects for you about various things that are important to Hop members.
It is interesting to see how everyone took this challenging themed and created such beautiful projects.






For this Hop we have a wonderful Sponsor who has donated a awesome prize pack so make sure you follow all the steps to enter the draw for your chance to win a fantastic bundle of goodies from Ruby Rock-It.

Check out all the gorgeous projects in this hop.

Each member of the hop chose what was important to them to raise awareness and how they would interpret that into their art.

Here is the hop order so you can find the videos you would like.

Chrissi
Kristina
Niamh
Raelene (me)
Silvia
Wendy

And here is the Playlist I created for the Hop.

For my project I decided to make a Banner for the Endo High Tea I was hosting on March 30th.  You can find a blog post about my High Tea here.

I started by gathering everything yellow I could easily get to on my desk so as to make playing and creating easier.  As I progressed I grabbed out some gorgeous Crafter's Choice bling and a pack of Bella! wedding themed wood veneer.

Items Used
Ruby Rock-It Faded Empire Chipboard alphas
Bella Wedding wood veneer
Crafter's Choice Bling
Scrapping Fun Kits September 2018 Kit.
Twine from Scrapping Fun Kits January 2018 Kit
Tissue paper from Scrapping Fun Kits TN promo kit
Dear Lizzy Happy Place 6x6 paper pad
Pink Paislee Summer Lights 6x6 paper pad
Doodlebug Designs Petite Prints 6x6 paper pad
Helmar Acid Free Glue
Helmar 450 Quick Dry Adhesive
Mini Distress Ink Mustard Seed
Ribbons from Lincraft
Banner from Officeworks

I initially intended to just create with without letters so that it could be reused for other events like Easter or my daughter's Birthday but once I had my 4 pennants decorated I felt they needed the letters so they would look finished so I grabbed out some gorgeous Ruby Rock-It Acid Free Chipboard gold alphas and spelt out ENDO on my pennants.

I love how my banner turned out, it looked so cute on the table at my Endo High Tea.

For more information on Endometriosis visit Endometriosis Australia and Pelvic Pain Foundation
The Pelvic Pain Foundation has some great info for parents, teens, women, men and health professionals.
Here is a link to the website
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au
Here is a link to the parents info.
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au/for-parents/
Here is a link to the teens section which even has links to a children's book that is about children having pain, all types including migraines so a great resource.
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au/category/for-teens/
Here is a direct link to the children's book.
https://www.yumpu.com/…/61002…/a-journey-to-learn-about-pain

Endo High Tea

I am hoping to get this post up quickly as I think it is important I share it today, the last day of Endometriosis Awareness Month and the day after my Endo High Tea.

Next weekend is the next Aussie YouTube Hop and the theme is based on Awareness raising and using a ribbon on your project so you won't see all the photos from the High Tea in this post as one of the decorations I made was for the YouTube Hop, so make sure you check out the Hop next weekend to see how that came together and how it turned out.  ;)

I also filmed my process of making the door prize so I will try to get that edited and up asap.

I decided to host a Endo High Tea this year as it is so important that awareness is raised of this painful and debilitating that is suffered by 1 in 10 women and the High Tea sounded like a great way to raise awareness and funds while enjoying lovely food and company.

I spent some time over the last couple of months looking for Yellow items for my Endo High Tea.  I found my gorgeous yellow table cloth, the doilies and the Yellow Cupcake Stand at my local op-shops over a period of about 5 weeks. 
I often see people say they can never find what they need at op-shops but I have found the key is going regularly and having a basic sort of list of what you are looking for.  I have a lovely collection of solid coloured tablecloths now but that is another post I think.

I found my gorgeous Teapot set on Gumtree and pick up was right near my daughter's boyfriend's work so he picked it up for me and I collected it when visiting my daughter in February.  A very round about way to do it but it all lined up and worked well.





 

Now onto the food.  With how hectic life is right now it was really important I keep things as simple as I could for myself but I also wanted to explore some foods (preparing and eating them) with my boys I otherwise would not get around to.

I decided to try making cucumber sandwiches, my sons love cucumber so I knew if no one ate them I wouldn't be stuck with something going uneaten for long but I know cucumber sandwiches can have a bad rep so I did some research online and after reading several recipes with good reviews in the end I winged it on the day.  My sandwiches were a big hit.  There was very positive reactions and feedback from guests.
To ensure they were as fresh as possible for guests I prepared my fillings at home but didn't assemble my sandwiches until at the venue, as I went a hour early to set up and once I had everything set up started assembling sandwiches.

Cucumber Sanwiches
1 225g packet of Cream Cheese (room temperature)
1 15g packet of fresh Dill
Juice of half a lemon
a crack or 2 of salt from the salt grinder.
Place cream cheese in a bowl and with a fork stir until creamy and free of lumps.
Add Dill, Lemon Juice and Salt.  Stir to combine.
Refrigerate overnight.

On the day thinly slice cucumber in sandwich sized lengths.  Pre-butter bread with a thin coating of butter (you could probably skip this but I was planning on doing a assortment of sandwiches and most needed butter so it was easier to do it this way).

To assemble spread a generous amount of the cream cheese mix on each slice of bread.  Cover 1 slice with cucumber and put the other slice on top.  Cut and Serve.

Low FODMAP Quiche Cups -  note only lofo if you tolerate dairy

Another easy recipe we made was Quiche cups.  I tried doing the bread base option but you can skip this if you have a silicone muffing tray.
This recipe make 12 quiche cups but you could spread it out if you want flatter quiche cups.





4 Large Eggs beaten
2 slices of ham cut into small pieces
Diced spring onion greens
300ml Milk
100g shredded tasty cheese
Bread flattened with a rolling pin, crusts removed for the crust.  You can do 1 slice per Quiche Cup or a half slice if you wish but the egg mix may go through the bread.

Preheat oven to 180c.
Spray muffin pans with cooking oil spray.  Place bread in them.
Mix beaten eggs, milk, chees, ham and spring onions in a bowl.
Spoon evenly into muffin pans.
Bake until golden on top.


I also made mini Caprese Salad with Yellow tomatoes.  E and my first every attempt at making a Balsamic Glaze, it was so yum.
And Mini Cheesecakes which I merged 2 recipes to create, the base was not the best so I won't use the base recipe again but the filling was delicious, I did put way more lemon juice in than it called for.  Instead of measuring with a spoon I used the juice of 1.5 lemons.  Here is the link to the recipe that is the filling I used.  I made 20 in a mini muffin pan and 5 in a standard muffin pan.  I baked until they were just starting to crack on top.  Next time I will do a base with arrowroot biscuits, butter and sugar I think as the one I tried used vanilla wafers and it wasn't as good as a arrowroot biscuit base I have made in the past.

To reduce how much work I had I bought a Lemon Slice, Madeira Cake with lemon icing and some yummy shortbreads.  I cut the Lemon Slice and Madeira Cake into small squares.

My friend Tracey brought some delicious cupcakes and mini banana muffins so we had a really wonderful spread for our small group of attendees.

We had a lovely time chatting and we all knew multiple women with Endo who had had dreadful experiences with Doctors dismissing them so hopefully with the improved awareness we are now seeing this experience will become a thing of the past soon.

For more information on Endometriosis visit Endometriosis Australia and Pelvic Pain Foundation
The Pelvic Pain Foundation has some great info for parents, teens, women, men and health professionals.
Here is a link to the website
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au
Here is a link to the parents info.
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au/for-parents/
Here is a link to the teens section which even has links to a children's book that is about children having pain, all types including migraines so a great resource.
https://www.pelvicpain.org.au/category/for-teens/
Here is a direct link to the children's book.
https://www.yumpu.com/…/61002…/a-journey-to-learn-about-pain

#100outof100 Together Always - Journal tip in

On March 20th I started seeing posts about horrendous, ignorant and ablest advice Dr Phil gave a couple on his show and like every disabled person in my feed that was sharing their outrage and hurt I too was feeling deeply hurt.   
The hashtag #100outof100 started that day with so many lovely interabled couples sharing their successful relationships and I really wanted to share mine but as I was not feeling up to posting a photo of myself that day I took a photo of us holding hands and me wearing my oval8 finger splint. 
I typed up my post that spoke so much of our journey and I wasn't feeling up to sharing all that with the world so I hit delete.  I tried again a few hours later and once it was all typed and I found I wasn't up to hitting publish.  The act of typing up the post was so mentally draining that I couldn't hit publish.  I had this beautiful photo though so I kept it in my phone thinking when I am feeling up to it or can find better words I will hit publish.
When printing my photos on Thursday I included this beautiful photo as a 3x4 thinking I would just add it into my journal and journal about how wonderful it is to see so many people educate Dr Phil on how epically wrong he was, I didn't think I would scrap it though.

On Saturday when I was setting up to make decorations for my Endo High Tea next weekend I had to move the printed photos off my desk and I was drawn to this photo and I just had to scrap it.  I stopped doing everything I was meant to and just zoned out creating something that I feel is beautiful from the harm Dr Phil's words have caused.

I grabbed out my half used sticker sheet from the Simple Stories Kissing Booth range, Doodlebug Designs Petite Prints 6x6 paper pad, a half a red doily from Scrapping Fun Kits Gaming kit, some baby girl thickers, Maggie Holmes Willow Lane alphas, Fundamentals tag, pink twine.

I just played with my supplies but one thing I did know I wanted to do was create a pocket from my photo mat so I could use tags for hidden journalling with what I wanted to say but couldn't publish.
When creating the pocket I used The Stickmaster Heat Resistant tape to ensure it would stand up to the climate here.

I loved all the tiny words on my sticker sheet so used a bunch that seemed appropriate down the left of my layout and cut 2 of them to add to the end of my title so my title read #100outof100 together always.

I finished things off my inking the outer edge and tag edges with a mini Distress Ink in Spun Sugar.

So while I am not up to sharing what I wrote I thought I would share my layout to show that this horrible ableism inspired me to created something out of my and my husband's love.

RARE Banner - Helmar Creative Team

Rare Disease Day is very special to my family, every year I share social media posts however this year I decided to host a Face Painting Afternoon Tea so we could get together with other local families and paint our faces in the Rare Disease Day logo colours and take a group selfie to share on social media for the #showyourrare campaign.  I thought a little decorating might be fun at the event so I decided to make a banner in addition to using tablecloths in the colours of the logo (I made some awesome op-shop finds for the 3 tablecloths).

You will need
Banner pieces, I just got this pack from Officeworks
Large die cut letters or wooden letters
Helmar Acid Free Glue
Helmar 450 Quick Dry
Papers and embellishments in the logo colours.  I used -
Pink Paislee Summer Lights 6x6 paper pad
Dear Lizzie Happy Place 6x6 paper pad
I decided to pull in some zebra items since the zebra is the mascot for Rare Disease/Rare Diagnosis from the 2018 fundraising kit from Scrapping Fun Kits and also used the butterflies from the cut apart and the awareness ribbon charm from this kit.
Paper doilies and tassle from a very old (I think it was 2016)  Kitaholic Kits embellishment kit
Blue and Pink hearts from Charms Creations
Pink, Blue, Purple and Green Twine.

I started by creating paper clusters by tearing my papers, adding in a paper doily or scrap of tissue paper and gluing them on to on each banner with Helmar Acid Free Glue.

For each piece once I had my paper layers down I added my letter, but first I cut the part off the top that was there for hanging the letter.  I then added embellishments to each banner piece with Helmar 450 Quick Dry.















Once my Banner pieces were done I joined them together with a piece of green twine, tying a know on one corner of each piece to avoid movement and then added twine in the other colours to each flag so as to hid the knot. 
I will hang the banner by adding more Green twine at each end on the day.
I really love how my banner turned out.  Photos of my decorations on the day and our face painted selfie will be up on my social media on the 28th of February so for now here is a pic of the banner on my table so you can see how cute it is.

A great thing about this banner is because I used Helmar and my Scrapbooking supplies it could go in my album with photos from the day as a double page spread or a fold out spread of some sort.  Now to decide if I want to keep it for next year or scrap it.
Do you love making Banners?  If so do you make some that are a little outside of the box in theme like this one is?

White with 1 November Challenge - ET Awareness - Guest DT

When I saw the colour prompt for this month it was really special to me as I have been planning to do a fundraiser inspired by my Mum's journey with a rare blood cancer next year and had just started to select items for that kit.  The colour for Essential Thrombocythlamia is Orange so the kit will have some lovely orange bits.






This was a difficult layout for me to do mentally as I was working on it in October which is always a tough month for me as her anniversary and her birthday both fall in October but I think it was a important step in my journey of grief.

I wanted to make a TN sized layout to add into my October Daily as a tip in for the date of her anniversary, so I cut some watercolour paper to size as my base.

I pulled out my orange bits from the fundraising kit and from my October 2017 kit.  As well as my Distress Oxide in Carved Pumpkin and just started playing.









Here is a process video showing how it came together.  The next day I decided to change it a little so check out the below pic for the finished result.

In addition to the paper bag I added a label and flower from the October 2017 Kit cut apart and added a number 9 sticker to form a sort of date cluster for my October Daily.
































I greatly appreciate all the support I had with my fundraiser in May.  Due to the support of my subscribers and fans I was able to make a good sized donation and with your continued support hope to do so again next year.  I will announce which charity it will be as soon as I have the donation approval letter from them, so make sure to check our social media regularly so you don't miss out on this announcement as Facebook doesn't always show you posts from pages you follow.

Strong - Scrapping Fun Kits Design Team - Scrapbooking on the Train

When I was packing for a trip on the Tilt Train with my son for his Rheumatology appointment I knew I would take my TN set up but that I wanted to add all the flat pieces from the May Fundraising Kit to it as so many of the photos I currently am working with are of our EDS journey.

The first photo I chose to scrap was this photo of C having his first trip to the park using his wheelchair.  I journal about how the wheelchair gave him more independence and how important that was.

Having cut my tissue paper into strips made it even easier to scrap on the Tilt Train as those tray tables are very small so the less I needed to to do pull a layout together the better.  The only cutting I did was my photo and I just tore the length of the tissue paper to shorten it.
I had scraps of the gorgeous blue paper from another layout with me so I used one of these as a matte for my photo.  Adding some of the blue butterfly washi to the layers behind the photo.

I repeated things a little on the left with the left over piece of tissue paper and some of the washi and I added the left over piece of the cut file that says strong to that cluster as my title.  Ideally I wanted my titled to be Independence but I had to work with what I had and strong did seam perfect for the photo I was using.

I took some clearer photos once I was home.

I love how the layers turned out on the left, you get to see more of what is hidden behind the photo and it just pulls the layout together.

I love the torn effects of the tissue paper, and the little butterflies on the washi tap.

There are still a couple of the May Fundraising Kits left so if you would love one of these kits head to the Subscription Tab and fill in the form or email scrappingfunkits@gmail.com

Scrapping Fun Kits is fundraising for Starlight Children’s Foundation this month. All profits from sales of the May Embellishment Kit and kit extras will be donated to Starlight Children’s Foundation. If you would like to donate directly to Starlight Children’s Foundation you can do so via their website https://starlight.org.au/donation-form