Scrappy Kea

So excited to be part of the Artisan Design Team for Stampin' Up! in 2025! I joined Stampin’ Up! in 2024 and have appreciated the warm welcome given to former Close To My Heart™ Makers. I love creating layouts, cards, mini albums, and off-the-page projects, and find joy in sharing my work and inspiring others. My main focus is scrapbooking, a passion I attribute to my grandmothers, who kept daily diaries. While I may not have their consistency, scrapbooking allows me to curate and document life’s moments pictorially. I also value the long-term friendships that regular craft days and weekend retreats have given me—which is another one of our hobby’s benefits. Outside of crafting, I teach at a local primary school. I enjoy photography and tasty café experiences, loving walks and weekends at the beach. I need a good espresso to kickstart my day, even when I’m away from home. Instant coffee just doesn’t cut it. I’m thrilled to be part of the Artisan Design Team for 2025 and can’t wait ...

 Last Friday was a snow day...this meant no school.  It had started early...when I noticed a bit of a glow through our bedroom curtains when I woke up at 3:30am and on checking outside there was a lovely layer of snow.    Of course I had to get outside and photograph it and didn't stop to put any shoes on... I went back to my warm bed and got a bit of sleep before discovering that it was indeed a snow day and that we wouldn't have any school - handy when I had quite a bit of school work that needed to be done but first, time for a spa! As the morning progressed, I decided the daffodils my husband had picked from our fence line the day before would be a perfect way to document our spring snowfall of 2024. It was wonderful to be able to put these onto pages over the next few days as was joining a group of paper crafters for the weekend.  We did have to head home earlier as more snow was threatening to close roads..it didn't! Supplies for these pages can be purchas...

  My friend Claire organises a scrap day at a hotel near where she lives every six weeks or so.  A few of the ladies asked me to create a kit for them and so my 'Scrappy Kea Layout Kits' started!  These kits have cutting guides and instructions as well as the papers, cardstock, images and embellishments needed to create the layouts - just add your own basics e.g. black ink, adhesive, trimmer and photos. After Sharing the layouts, there was a bit of interest from other Makers for the instructions and cutting guides.  I'm not sure I'm ready to share these far and wide just yet but it is something I am considering as a possibility!   Close To My Heart generally has lovely layout guides with each collection they create too - if you love double page layouts these are the way to go.  My kits are single page layouts which is what I and most of the ladies I create with prefer. Layouts created with the August Stitch & Colour Kit: What leads you to buy scrapbooki...

 As I needed to make some cards for parents who recently helped out at school, the colours of the CTMH cardstock invited me to create with them.  I wanted colours that reminded them of the pool and luckily the colours I used are two long time favourites! It is very convenient that Close To My Heart currently has a ' Cardstock Carnival ' going on and the cardstocks are on special! I have used pattern 15 from ' Make It From Your Heart' Volume 4 and used  Glacier and Lagoon  cardstock.  Our double sided cardstock, where one side is lighter than the other is perfect for this kind of project and I can think of many of the CTMH colours that would work for this card! I raided my scraps box for the patterned paper to back the sentiment (great way to use up some scraps) and embellished the card with wooden flower embellishments and liquid pearls (white opal, robin's egg & sage).   The sentiment was from an older stamp set (C1895) and stamped on white daisy ca...

I was invited by Close To My Heart to create with the 'Sweet Life' double page layout project in the new ' Everyday Moments' Collection for Cricut .  The layout above is the entire project, using the mat colours in the image to create this page using the Cricut and cardstock. I created a process video for this layout: While using the 'Sweet Life' project I kept thinking of ideas I could use elements of it for in creating further pages and my next project was the use of sequins in the citrus segments. Thankfully the camera was rolling while I put this together too so here's a process video: I came up with a few other variations of this project too.. Using the Julep glitter paper in the cricut gave a whole new level of sparkle to this page. Seas The Day Collection created further embellishment options on this single page layout. I cut the citrus elements from a stencil sheet and used this to daub ink through and to ...