i made this layout for the scraplift challenge at Paper Secrets. it was the perfect challenge for me because i've been wanting to do a punched out background, i just needed inspiration first lol. all the paper is from a kaisercraft 6x6 paperpad. it's pretty much impossible to tell that the striped paper is actually 2 peices joined up, pretty sneaky lol.

challenge 4 over at Punky Scraps is a sketch challenge.

here's my take on it:

 

my mum's maiden name is Cooke, and this is an old family photo of the Cooke's (minus my auntie, who i'm guessing took the photo lol). i made the brown circles by dipping a small lid into watery paint and stamping it onto the paper.

and here's the sketch:

your first challenge for January over at Punky Scraps is to use this picture for your inspiration to create: 


 and here's my layout. i drew the polka dots with coloured pencils


 so now it's 2011. i hope this year will be kind to me lol. i just got back from holiday a couple of days ago. spent 2 weeks in auckland (nz) with family. i got covered in mosquito bites and got some pretty bad sunburns, but it was awesome to just get away for awhile. i managed to do some shopping for scrapbooking supplies lol. i found a really good shop near my aunties house, where i got some discounted 6x6 paper pads, rubons and chipboard. the second shop i went to is closed till the end of the month, and the third was completly closed down, so that was a bummer.for some reason my dad's camera kept taking over-exposed photos, but my bro let us borrow his and we took a fair amount of photos before it died (we had no way to recharge it). so from then on we could only take videos with my dad's camera.
this pigeon was willing to eat from my hand, but i didn't like the look of it's sharp beack lol:

 sunset at my nana's house (unedited):



video from Shakespears Park:

challenge 2 over at Punky Scraps is to scrap a layout using the prompt " What is so special about me?" to create a project!

So tell us what is so special about you?!?!

here's my layout:

i could'nt come up with any ideas myself lol, cause i suck at those kinda things, so i asked other people what they think is so special about me.

yep...more christmas cards. i've had a lot of fun making these over the last couple of days.

anyways, i'm going on holiday in 6 days (yay, roadtrip). i still have a couple more cards to make and a bit more christmas shopping to do. oh and i still need to find someone to look after the mice. hopefully someone at my dad's work is willing to, otherwise i'll have to leave them home alone for almost 2 weeks with a huge bowl of food, and spend the whole time worrying about them :(

 lately i haven't been able to do much scrapbooking coz my dad took the laptop out of my scraproom/bedroom so he could convert tapes to mp3s or something. the laptop holds all my sketches and inspiring layouts, so it's kinda difficult scrapping without it, and he just doesn't understand that lol. but at least it's given me a chance to make some christmas cards, i still have about 5 more to make.

and in the spirit of christmas, here's an awesome song by an awesome band: