Inspired by Amy Tan

So last week you'll remember I was super excited (clapping hands together with glee!) to get to meet Amy Tan, the awesome chick behind  "Amy Tangerine". Well, I've been inspired by her style for ages, and I finally used that inspiration on some pages of my own {high five!}

For this first page, I was inspired by this page of Amy's that I pinned on Pinterest. Me likey very much! I've had this Lime slice paper for 8 years. Yep, I remember I bought it on my first trip to the USA in 2004, so {chest bump} for FINALLY using it! Hooray!!
I paired it with some cool chevron paper, so it looks a bit more "up to the minute". Fun stuff on this page: the speech bubble post it note and the tiny slice of woodgrain sticky tape- both from Paper Source in Washington DC, Washi tape (LOVE!), and I love the sweet little "peanut" sticker up the top. The little birds printed on the chipboard shape remind me of a string of stuffed fabric birds Mum made once. You know the ones Mum?
So for this second page I  was still inspired to hand sew around the photo, which I think is very Amy Tangerine style. I even went to spotty and bought some bright coloured DMC threads particularly for scrapping with! Usually I just use what's in my floss box, but it was time the box got a little facelift with some bright new colours! I love this orange :) It goes so nicely with the hand dyed yellow doily I got from Yvette ages ago! {hugs!}
Fun stuff: I used a page from a big English language dictionary I got at an Op Shop, where it has translations in Spanish, German, French, Italian and Yiddish. What?! Yep, Yiddish! I was flicking through the dictionary looking for a page to use, and I found this page with "Liebe" at the top, which is German for "Love", so I knew this was the page I had to use! Then I found a little frame that would go nicely over Liebe and I was set! I love the little Owl sticker, he's so cute! And of course the "All you need is Love" banner sticker is from Amy Tangerine's line at Spotlight. {heart} it! And I've had that background paper for like, easy 10 years. I'm starting to show my age by saying that, cos I haven't had them since I was 13 {giggles!}
And then lastly, this one was inspired by Amy cos a lot of her line and her layouts include doodling. Maybe not to this extent, but her elements are usually hand drawn and I think it looks really cool! I decided I should step out of the box and try somethign new, so I found a rather bland piece of paper, painted on it a little, stamped here and there, then filled in the rest with doodling while I watched a documentary on TV one night (a WWII doco too, I'm so boring! LOL!) It was fun to step out of my usual scrapping box and into some freehand! I used to draw in my books at High School all the time, so this was a little like getting back to my roots {smiles}. And I love this pic of Will from our trip to NZ! He's so serious!
I hope you've had a chance to scrap lately!
:) C

Amy Tangerine!!

Hi y'all!
Oh I'm soooo excited! {jumping up and down on chair}. Guess who I met today? AMY TAN the awesome chick behind AMY TANGERINE!! (Yep, I'm shouting with excitement!) She was at our local Spotlight store for a Make and Take and to promote her American Crafts line at Spotty.

I have been following her blog for a few years (notice the link in the sidebar) and I LOVE {heart heart heart} her style, her bright colours and her fun sense of scrapbooking, and I was amazed and so excited when I read spotlight was bringing her out to Australia! (Ok, believe me- she is tall but really petite- she makes me look like a giant elephant in this pic! Argh!)

So anyway, this arvo I headed over to Spotlight at Lidcombe and got to be part of the intimate group doing a Make and Take with her! Yep, there was 4 of us! That was a little disappointing, since she is such a cool scrapbooking celebrity! And come on people, not many celebrities come to Australia, and especially to Lidcombe {giggles!}.

We made a gorgeous card using papers, stickers and stamps from her line, and I {heart} it! Ok, so I maybe bought the stamps and some more of her patterned papers afterwards, she was so lovely, I really wanted to support her line! Oh, she signed my card there on the front too {smiles!}

And then at the end she said she had a giveaway- one for who had come the furthest (which clearly wasn't me!) and then she asked would I like the Apron, cos I had been following her the longest! {High Five!} I was SOOOOOO thrilled!! She signed it for me & said to "Keep your creative juices flowing!" Well, I will! Thanks Amy!
So YAY!! If you're in QLD then she is coming to you tomorrow, check it out on the Spotlight FB page. She is so friendly, and lovely and chatty and smiley. Such a great person, which I think really shows out in her cool line of Scrapbooking stuff!
:) C