Excerpts From The Diary of a Designer Vol #8

Life Moves Fast

Monday the 21st of August 2017

Dear Diary...

Now that I'm trying to squeeze in work, uni and family, life it seems is just a tad crazier than usual and keeping up has become quite the effort. 

This week the uni has given us a 'study break', so there are no classes or lectures. 

[insert party meme]

This couldn't have come at a better time... because I'm EXHAUSTED!!

I've been desperately trying to keep up with a mountain of work and readings mostly centring around French painters and art critics from the 1850 -1900 period.

Now don't get me wrong... I'm actually loving it .... there's just something about staying home with 6 kids for 20 years and watching Wiggles reruns endlessly that makes pretty much ANYTHING ELSE in the universe mind blowingly interesting... but still, I've been buried under all the paperwork!

I dont know why but most of my assignments were due at the beginning of study week ... of course it would have been nice to use study week to complete them in .... but none the less it has resulted in the boon of actually having no work left for study week which means .... a week off!! 

YAY.

The house is filthy again and I haven't had a chance to scrap in ages so this week off is going to be AWESOME! 

I started today by creating a fabulous storage box for myself ... during August the Imaginarium blog featured loads of ideas for storing your chipboard collections and I confess ... looking at them  I became quite jealous and covetous !! 

I have traditionally stored my chipboards in the package they arrived in ... but after seeing everyone else's cool ideas I decided to create something for myself.

This is a Kaisercraft MDF wood recipe box and it makes for 

THE BEST chipboard storage space :)

Of course I decorated it up all pretty with chipboards, but the real magic is on the inside....

where all my different chipboards are stored in individual CD pouches that have a clear plastic panel on the front so I can see easily what's in each pouch. I picked up 100 of these on ebay for just a few $, I knew they would come in handy one day 🙂

And the recipe box dividers work brilliantly as dividers for my chip board sections :)

Tuesday the 22nd of August 2017

Dear Diary...

I thought I should clean my house today before indulging in scrapping so got cracking on that nice and early. 

Firstly I made all the kids vacuum a section of the house each before they left for school,

this consisted of 30mins of arguing about doing the vacuuming and around 5mins of actual vacuuming!!?! 

After they left for the bus I got stuck into it... 

'If I can just finish the whole house before lunch then I'll get half a day to scrap' 

...was the fantasy I sold myself.

Tradigically 4 minutes later all the kids returned with the news that they had missed the bus.

Well there goes my morning ... Now I had to drive them to school, a two and a half hour round trip!!!!! I was in a fabulous mood when I returned

 [she states flatly dripping with sarcasm] 

and promptly decided not to clean anymore, 

but rather to console myself with some scrap therapy.

this is the first double page I have done in ages ...

Im feeling so arty at the moment ... I suppose it comes from looking all those art works in my Framing Modernity class.... in any case I attacked these pages with white gesso and Inka Gold wax, a ton of metal embellishments and some gorgeous Imaginarium chipboards.

Wednesday the 23rd of August 2017

Dear Diary...

Not wanting to make the same mistake twice the kids were out the door early today and securely placed on the bus!

Now back to the cleaning ... 

I managed to get the bath rooms done before the first of many annoying phone calls started. I'm not talking about two or three rings here .... it was ridiculous ... every 5 mins the phone would sound with another person offering me the deal of a lifetime or some fabulous solar installations! 

After 7 calls in one hour I just couldnt believe it, I remember ages ago signing up for the 'no advertising calls' register, that you can do here in Australia, and I hadn't been bothered by sales calls much at all after that. 

I figured their system was broken and I needed to let them know this, but when I called the hotline I found out this directive only lasts for 2 years and mine had run out the day before!! 

Well there you have it. 

With that annoying activity taken care of and half the day gone already I happy abandoned housework for some more scrapping.

I recently got my hands on an awesome PebblesInc paper pads and had been dying to have a go with the papers. I just adore the full picture (or photo) pages and loved creating this layout that feels like an extension of the photo...

I melted embossing enamel onto the chipboards to give them that vibrant and shining effect and they were all that I needed to add to this layout along with some pearls and butterflies. I can get a tad tizzy with my layouts but I do love it when a page can look full and complete with little effort 🙂

Thursday the 24th of August 2017

Dear Diary...

Oh how I loved scrapping that page yesterday ... I couldnt wait to get rid of the kids this morning ( although I do love them with all my heart etc etc) so I could start again on another layout using the same full picture pages I used yesterday ....

 I'm LOVING this look :) 

I worked all morning on these pages and loved every second of it. I spent the afternoon uploading pics to Pinterest and googling 'sarcastic animal photos' ... I haven't laughed that hard in ages!! Of course dinner was toasties because I had forgot to do the shopping ... but hey, it was worth it ♥

Friday the 25th of August 2017

Dear Diary...

HOW IS IT FRIDAY ALREADY???

I got to bed at a terrible hour last night as I had to duck into town after hours for some late night shopping so I was totally stuffed this morning.

I had completely forgotten about this craft show I was working a stall at this weekend and as it turns out I needed to pack to go to that today!! 

So I spent THE WHOLE DAY packing and organising for that.

I loath real work.

Saturday the 26th of August 2017

Dear Diary...

Left home for the craft show at 6 am this morning ... returned at  6pm today.

But it was sooooo awesome, I'm feeling massively inspired by all the AMAZING things people make and do. Despite my extreme exhaustion from the huge day out nothing could stop me from sitting down to get cracking on a layout .... you see I got this FABULOUS string of beads at the craft show that I was dying to use :)

It's a well know fact that one inspiring embellishment is all it takes to get the creative juices flowing.... So this whole layout was pretty much just put together so I could drape this AWESOME string of blue beads on it ! lol

 I inked the chipboard at the top and put shine lines on them and shadow lines around them so they would pop off that boarded background.

The two little flourishes at the top are actually one of these cut in half.

Sunday the 27th of August 2017

Dear Diary...

Today I am barely alive!

Another full day at the craft show and I've talked so much I have lost my voice now.

I packed up after the show and brought everything back home ... 

the place looks like a bomb has hit it. 

Boxes, products and craft supplies EVERYWHERE in my studio and the house.

 It was an awesome show but it's going to take me a week to clean up from it. 

I would head off to bed early but I'm afraid that's just not possible...

You see uni lectures start back tomorrow morning and I still have three 25 page readings to get through.

Soooooooo glad I had a whole week 'off' to 'catch up'!!!

_______________________________________________________

Kelly-ann Oosterbeek has been a scrapbook and paper craft designer for the last 18 years and lives in Northern NSW with her super-sized family.

She has her own line of gloss finish butterfly stickers ( featured on the projects in this post), and sells these along with Kaisercraft Collections and layout kits online ...

You can find her and all her links at :

www.kellyanno.com

www.kellyanno.com

Excerpts from the Diary of a Designer Volume # 7

Old dogs and new tricks...

Sunday the 9th July 2017

Dear Diary...

I woke up this morning so nervous it was ridiculous... tomorrow I head back to Uni!!

I applied for and was accepted into a 4 year double degree in Arts/Education at Southern Cross University... I did a degree in Social Science when I first left school twenty....something years ago.
They say it's just like riding a bike ...
You never forget!  And for the most part this is true.

I never have forgotten how to ride a bike... but bike riding has changed over the years ....  it gets SUPER harder to ride as you get older!

I now I need one of those extra wide padded seats and after a mere 4 km, one of those paddled resuscitation devices comes in handy too.

Yeah I can still ride a bike ... but not very well!

What if studying is just like riding a bike ? Sure I can read a text book, but will my brain understand it?? How will I keep up with all those young whipper snappers straight out of high school?

It took 3 seconds for all of these thoughts to pass through my mind when I opened my eyes this morning and by the 5 second mark my heart was jumping out of my chest. 
There was only one thing I could do after that...
Avoid thinking about it all together!
So off to my scrap studio I went and picked up photos from our last family holiday
and reassured myself that 'today I shall just scap these and try not to think of you-know-what!'

I used some of the new Maja Road papers to make this romantic layout. I used purple and gold Colour Blast paste with templates, a heap of laces I picked up at Bella Paperie and these divine Imaginarium Chipboards...

 I love using complementing chipboard flourishes on layouts

And they come in a set of 2 which is very handy 🙂

As always Imaginarium have the biggest and most beautiful range of chippie titles
and this is one of my favourites... here I've covered it in Inka gold wax.

Opps... lost that 'be' in this photo ...lol

here's what it's suppose to look like...

 So it ended up being a nice day after all ... with all thoughts of my inadequacies successfully avoided
🙂

Monday the 10th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

Today my first lecture was not due to start until 12 pm so I has all morning to do the 15 page reading they suggested you do to prep for the lecture. 

The course is called 'Framing Modernity' . After I googled what this was I started the reading. I KID YOU NOT .... if it had been printed in Chinese characters I suspect I would have understood the same amount of the content!!  

And honestly I still couldn't work out what this subject was about?

So with a lump in my throat I put on my big girl pants and marched off to the classes. It took about half an hour of the lecturer speaking before I successfully worked out that this subject was in fact Art History ... what a relief ... I can get a handle on that I thought, as the information progressed 'Picasso' this, 'Manet' that etc .... and the best part of the whole lecture was when one girl put up her hand and asked 'What was that assigned reading all about? It was like trying to eat a brick?'  the man beside me added 'A brick covered in toothpaste!'  .... I was stoked ... I have no problems not understand stuff , just as long as no one else can understand it either!! lol

By the time I got home I felt much better, but was mentally exhausted ... will my brain really ever catch up to where it needs to be???

Tuesday the 11th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

I don't have another lecture at uni until Thursday and there are no prescribed readings for that unit anyway so I'm free to scrapbook to my heart's content. 

I've decided creating is the cure for stress of every kind ... I can't worry about anything while I'm cutting, gluing, painting... I get lost in the process, it's so sublime ... unless I cut the wrong thing or drop paint on a photo ... then I scream like a little girl and cuss like a sailor... But you know - all the other times it's a calm blue ocean of craft 🙂

This was my layout today ... using more the hand dyed laces from Belle Paperie and papers from Maja Road as well as my Imaginarium chipboards.

I sprayed these words with a fine 'mint twist' mist made by Marker Maniacs

and popped just a bit of Crystalina Kindy Glitz on it to give it a bit of sparkle as I was wanting to create a touch of magic on this page ... not sure if that comes through in the photo, but it worked out perfectly on the actual layout 🙂

Wednesday the 12th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

Another day to kick back and create ... my next lecture is tomorrow, the subject is called 'DESIGN' .... sounds awesome ... exactly what are we designing? Why can't I find a course outline? Half the battle of going back to uni is learning to navigate the online universe where apparently EVERYTHING now exists, and every lecturer uses differently!?! 

On Monday in the tute, after the lecture I was asked if I had checked Black Board to see if this tute conflicted with VAS? I looked at the man next to me and honestly answered ... 

'I haven't seen a black board in 15 years and I don't know what VAS is!'

He just laughed and explained that 'Black Board' is an online resource center for students and VAS was a visual arts unit ... I did look quite stupid... but out of 30 people in that room, he was just one person ... exposing my extreme lack of knowledge to one out of thirty people I reasoned was pretty good odds ... I could live with that!

Uni may turn out to be an excercise in working out what levels of humiliation I am and am not willing to live with ... when I put it like that though .... it sounds A LOT like normal life!!

Anyway ... one thing I can design with confidence is scrapbook pages, so that's what I spent yet another day doing ... this time I got right down to the nitty gritty process of making my own coloured texture paste ... I started with white gesso and added Colour Crush powders until I got this divine matte, teal paste. You could use any pigment powders to create this effect ... Lindy's colours are particularly bright and pure for this purpose.

Then I just used a Kaisercraft leaf stencil to apply the paste to the page in segments,

I treated my Chipboards with purple ink to compliment all the green tones on the page and popped some little flowers on the shapes to pull in the flowers theme in the photo.

This is a divine little chipboard set that gives a funky twist to the 

classic flower look on a layout.

Thursday the 13th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

TODAY WAS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE!!

I was under the impression that my lecture for DESIGN was starting at 2pm today, but just to be sure I ducked into my 'Black Board' resource center to check ... and there in big bold red was an announcement that had been posted on Monday that the Thursday class was being canceled and everyone now had to join the Tuesday 9-12pm class.
Opps ... I missed it!!

the rest of the day was spent in a vicious cycle of self loathing ... 
I've drawn a diagram here so you can understand the big picture ...

Friday the 14th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

 Yet another day spent in self loathing/hissy fit land.

Saturday the 15th of July 2017

Dear Diary...
today I received an email from the Australian Government just letting me know that as of last year they have a new exam that I am required pass before I can be allowed to complete my education degree ... they suggest I sit it next month and it only costs $180 !
In order to pass I must understand the basics of literacy and show competency including, 
but limited to the following areas of numeracy ... proportional reasoning, ratios, fractions, percentages, decimals, scientific notation, interest calculations, and formulae calculations!!!!!

Right... 
I grabbed my husband and told him I would be ducking into the uni on Monday to withdraw from this degree! Literacy I could handle but I'm dead in the water when it comes to maths ... thats why I want to be Art teacher and NOT a maths teacher!!!!

There was some additional howling ... more hissy fitting... and even a good amount of tears. In the end my husband had to give me the old 
' You can't quit the first time things get hard' speach... one he had long practised on the kids to perfection.

I agreed to try.

Monday the 16th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

While at uni today I found out that I don't have to sit my basic literacy and numeracy exam until the very last prac session of my degree, so it turns out I have almost four years to prep for the test rather than 1 month! Thank goodness!! I may just be able to handle that.🙂

I also managed to get some scrapping in this afternoon ... finishing this layout made with the new 'Lilac Whispers' collection from Kaisercraft and Imaginarium chipboards...

Purple ink and Crystalina kindy glitz were the main ingredients in this layout ...

          

   

Tuesday the 17th of July 2017

Dear Diary...

I had the most amazing day today ... things might actually be looking up for me. 

At 9am I FINALLY made it to my 'DESIGN' class ... it turns out to actually be about 'Photoshop' .... I was so stoked ... I have ALWAYS wanted to learn how to use Photoshop. Especially when I gain weight - I can see MANY practical application for this program when it comes to weight gain😜 

But the best part of the class was at the beginning when the teacher explains that just before he starts teaching us how to manipulate images using the computer he wants us to experience what its like to use the original tools .... then he hands us magazines, scissors and glue. 

'Make me a picture using these' he says ...

OMGosh ....

it's SCRAPBOOKING!! I think to myself .... YYYEEEESSSSS .... 

well the rest of you can just go home now because I own this .... I WIN this round!!!

.... wait ... did I just say that out loud???

_______________________________________________________________

Kelly-ann Oosterbeek has been a scrapbook and paper craft designer for the last 18 years and lives in Northern NSW with her super-sized family.

She has her own line of gloss finish butterfly stickers ( featured on the projects in this post), and sells these along with Kaisercraft Collections and layout kits online ...

You can find her and all her links at :

www.kellyanno.com

www.kellyanno.com