In the remote north of New Zealand is a region called the Coromandel, famed for its beaches, forest (and its alternative economy centred on less than legal crops). We spent several days there a few years back and, as always after a trip, I was looking for a quick but fun way to scrap the photos and create a travel album. This week's new template album coming to the store at The Lilypad (and 50% for Wednesday) was the solution: Here's Cathedral Cove, where they filmed a fa

It's the first of the month, which means this week's new releases are part of the "Build Your Own Collection" (BYOC) event at The Lilypad. All the designers have been creating with the same gorgeous Spring palette. 'Rummaging' among my files I discovered a special photo of Daughter-Two reading from one of our photobooks to a soft toy we made together: Luckily for me, with this summer's photos still to scrap, it worked with photos from the beach as well: ~ Lynn #photoshop #B

I have been using these old edges created from vintage children's magazines and text fragments on so many of my layouts that I finally decided to package them up for the store. Here's just a few of the layouts I've used them on as a finishing touch: I used them on this layout too, which uses the Posy kit that is also coming to The Lilypad today: Also new are some big torn paper templates: And Arte Banale has put them all together in one absolutely beautiful page: But check ou

I love both traditional "arty" scrapping and documentary style / pocket scrapping, so this week's new products to arrive at The Lilypad are some of my own favourite creating supplies. And I had the perfect use for the Madras kit - grabbing a photo off Google Streetview in order to scrap about how we started going to "hot yoga for cool kiwis". We are still usually the least bendy and stretchy of everyone there but we hang out at the back of the room and are well and truly addi

It is officially Autumn here in New Zealand, although we are still having some wonderfully hot and sunny days. But I do feel that I was robbed of summer after a disastrous attempt at a summer break in the sunny North. After spending Christmas with family we got quite a way on our drive North before The Husband admitted to a nagging doubt that he hadn't actually booked the holiday home. A search of his laptop confirmed that we had nowhere to go, so we turned tail and head

When Daughter-Two was a newborn we decided it was time to upgrade to one of those fancy "digital' cameras everyone was talking about. So we went along to a megastore and asked the scruffy but apparently knowledgeable youth that approached us about our options. We mentioned that we were also considered upgrading our old video camera. That was our big mistake (although listening to the spotty youth at all was the real mistake) because he said the obvious solution would be t

When we were in England a year ago, The Husband was given the choice of where to go one day. He picked Bletchley Park, the wartime home of the codebreakers led by Alan Turing. We had not yet seen the movie set at Bletchley Park ("The Imitation Game") but it was still fun to see - and sit in! - the sets which were included in the exhibition ... and Daughter-Two cried at the quote prominent on the wall. It was (along with lots of episodes of Downton Abbey) the inspiration fo

Every year in England and New Zealand (and probably in Australia as well) there is a designated "book day" when the children dress up as a favourite book character and parade about. Daughter-Two has been a fairy, and a witch and a Warrior cat - but last year the shopping list was very simple. A white shirt and a gun. She was going as Artemis Fowl, criminal mastermind. She could fit into my work jacket (!) and the tie we made from some old black felt we had lying aroun

It's Something Old, Something New Time at The Lilypad with 50% off my Rosie Kit, Battered Backgrounds and a new template set. The Rosie kit was created to scrap Daughter-Two's toddler album, from her favourite hat: To her favourite books: And fun with Daddy: The worn and distressed theme continues with this big collection of worn, textured backgrounds: And a template set with worn, torn paper that you can use for either double or single page layouts: #TheLilypad #digitalscr

Can you see the question mark at the end of that title? The wooden wordart doesn't come with it, but I had to add it because I think that "Love Bug" was probably the last thing my parents called me (even though it is what we call our youngest all the time). I cried all the time apparently, and food and I were never friends. It's the first Friday of the month and that means it's BYOC (Build Your Own Collaboration kit) at The Lilypad. The colour palette given to all the d

It's Wednesday again ... the weeks just seem to fly by at the moment. Not just the weeks, but the years as well, as I was reminded when scrapping Daughter-Two's toddler photos. It's a while since we had a baby or toddler around the house but recently a distant relation had a baby and we visited with presents and hand-me-downs. Fortunately we didn't take the pinkest and most traditional of Daughter-Two's clothes, because the new mother commented how annoying it was that

My Dad was a keen photographer and we loved to see the photos he took. But his format of choice was the slide, or colour transparency. Which meant that, instead of getting packets of photos to pore over, we had to wait until the special evenings when he would pin a white sheet up and pull out the slide projector and the boxes of slides. In between, we could use the little 'pre-viewer' designed to allow you to check out a photo before you projected it onto the sheet. But, trut

SOSN (or 'Something Old, Something New') happens every Wednesday at The Lilypad, and this week I have arriving in store the Tate Kit (which is new to The Lilypad) .... .... plus "Blendy Brushes and Masks No.01" (which are completely new). They are the brushes I use to create my own pages, whether as paint brushes or soft erasing brushes - or as clipping masks to clip photos or even patterned paper to. One of my favourite tricks is to clip a photo to a mask, then add a color

It's been a sad week for Harry Potter and music fans everywhere, but hopefully you will find something to smile about at The Lilypad. From now until the 18th there is 30% off - plus, to celebrate the arrival of new designers at the site (including yours truly), there is a collaboration kit free with purchase (when you spend $15 or more). You can see my contribution at the top right and the full kit below, along with the two layouts I used it for. It's also been an exciting w

After its tour of the North Island on the roof of the car, the kayak finally made it into the water at Scorching Bay the other day: While The Husband and Daughter-two have been sporty, I have been getting messy playing with ink: And some hand-drawn swirls and vintage text, and you get the sort of brushes I love to place behind photos and elements on my layouts: Here in pink: And here in blue: And in black by Jenn: And in patriotically French colours by Arumrose! We used some

There's something about warm, sticky weather that just doesn't say December/January or "Christmas" and at this time of the year it always feels slightly wrong to be sweltering in summer. But at least I can design for the 'right' season. A few months ago I was reading about the Scandinavian concepts of "hyggelig" and "koselig" - there's no simple translation but I think of it as the art of enjoying the simple and comforting pleasures of home in order to get through winter. Tha

Every year the children at schools here (and in the UK when we lived there) dress up as a favourite book character for the "book day parade". This year Daughter-Two decided she would be Artemis Fowl. Because I discovered that she could now fit into my own old black suit jacket (!) the shopping list she wrote for me consisted of "a white shirt and a gun". The teachers also get into the spirit of it, and this year the teachers for her year level went as Thing One, Thing Two and

The new Big Fade template album is perfect for mixing and matching to create double page spreads, including spreads with a big photo stretching across both pages. #NewYork #photobooks #templates #digitalscrapbooking