Meet & Greet with Becky Higgins

The original version of this post first appeared on Tracey's personal blog Live.Breathe.Dream.Be.


Last Tuesday I skipped work and headed off to Lidcombe Spotlight to meet a scrapping idol of mine, Becky Higgins. This is certainly not my usual Tuesday morning, but was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.

You may be familiar with Becky through her industry-revolutionising scrapping system Project Life. I'm only new to Project Life and pocket scrapping this year, but I've been a fan of Becky's for over 10 years.

When I first started scrapping, the goto source of inspiration was definitely Creating Keepsakes Magazine (which is sadly no longer published). I can remember spending hours pouring over the submitted layouts, copying the ones I liked, and wondering why I couldn't get my scrapping to look as 'finished' as the published layouts.

Remember, this is way before blogs, Instagram and Pinterest. It was way harder to find great sources of scrap inspiration than it is today. I was also the only one I knew who scrapbooked - it was before I found my lovely scrapping community.

Then I discovered Becky's sketches. Each month she would have an article in CK featuring one of her sketches, and different interpretations of the sketch.

CLICK!

It was like a light bulb seeing those sketch designs! They guided me through my first steps into page design, and pretty soon I was doing my own rough little sketches in my sketch book. As Becky said, 'that was what worked for you at the time!'

Of course, now I've come full circle and get to see my sketches come to life at the Dizzy Izzy Crafternoons & Retreats. It's always such a thrill to see how others interpret something I've created!

I took along my copies of Becky's Sketches books for her to sign. These books were like my scrapping bibles, and are now quite well used/loved. It was so exciting to sit next to Becky, and chat with her about my scrapping journey, and about Dizzy Izzy Scrapbooking.  Becky was gracious enough to answer all of our questions, and then she got stuck into signing goodies like journal cards and core kits.

The first of many days of signing for Becky on this trip

I had seen her on Creative Live, and I'm familiar with her mantra of 'Cultivate A Good Life & Record It', but I was pretty blown away. With Becky, what you see is what you get. One question I asked, as a scrapping entrepreneur myself, was how many hours a day does she work on the business. She spoke about when they first started the business, and the kids were smaller, that they would put them to bed, and she & David would be working until 3am. Every Night.  Now, she said, she has a bigger network and support team, but she still feels like she puts in hours & hours. Every Day.  As a scrapper, and as a woman, I completely admire Becky for both her business sense and also her work/life balance. It's something that I hope to work on and I definitely aim to be more like Becky.

I took along one of our Dizzy Izzy promotional milk cartons to give to Becky - she thought it was adorable! And because I gave her a little gift, I was given a gift in return - a signed Cut & Paste Mini Kit! So generous!  One lucky scrapper will win this treat at our May Retreat - will it be you??

Here is to Cultivating a Good Life, and Recording It.

Tracey xox

Scrap Your Stash Recipe Challenge

It's been a while since we had an online challenge - with so many Crafternoons on we've certainly gotten busy!

I'm still on my never ending quest to clean up my scrap area and make it a more inspiring environment to achieve more scrapping goals. I'm sure there are a lot of you out there who can sympathise with my hoarding... ahem... 'holding on' to papers and embellishments until the 'perfect' page comes along. It's one habit that I am working hard to break, so to help you (and me!) here is another 'Scrap Your Stash' Challenge.

Your layout can be on any topic you would like to scrap, simply make sure you have the following ingredients on your page.

You can add ink, pen, and any letters you wish.

The main criteria for this challenge is to use your stash! That's right - all of your papers and embellishments must come from your scrapping supplies. Use your scraps, offcuts and half opened packs. NO MORE saving those papers for 'special'. Use them! Every layout is special!

The details - 

- entries must be in by 7pm 28th July 2013 11th August 2013 (deadline extended!)

- To enter, please email a photo of your layout to dizzyizzy@y7mail.com Please try to reduce the size of your photo to no more than 700 pixels. You can find details on how to reduce the size of your photos at www.shrinkpictures.com

- The winner will be announced here on the blog and on our facebook page after a brief judging period 

The Prize

A lovely kit of BoBunny papers, matching cardstock and ribbon (photo to come!)


Happy Scrapping!

Tracey xox

May Retreat, Part 2

A certain webstore has had us a little distracted lately, so forgive us for the lateness of this post. 

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An extra 24 hours of scrapping meant an extra bunch of classes and scrap challenges. Altogether across the weekend there was 12 classes to choose from, and a total of 12 challenges to try your hand at.

This retreat our classes ranged from simply recreating a beautiful page, to a class making handmade layered embellies, to beyond the page wall art and bespoke gift album. We even had a card class!

Congratulations to all of our challenge winners and check out their winning submissions. The level of entries seems to increase dramatically each retreat, I'm sure it was hard to vote with so many outstanding pages being entered!

Thanks to all our our helpers and teachers - without you our weekend wouldn't run as smoothly as what it did. And thanks to our lovely scrapping community - we love hosting you all at our events. Our scrappers are what make our events so enjoyable, because we get to spend time with the most amazing and inspiring women. THANKYOU!

Our next Retreat is a 2 night stay in the lovely Acacia building at Stanwell Tops, October 25-27. Make sure to book your place early to avoid missing out!

There is one more post to come... about a certain layout that happened to go viral... stay tuned

February Crafternoon

Last Saturday was a great day to be inside and scrapping - wet and dreary - no sports or outdoor activities to distract and no jobs like washing getting in the way. Then it absolutely poured, and boy were we glad to be inside!

We braved the rain and headed to our lovely little hall at Caringbah to set up shop and scrap for  about 12 hours accompanied by some lovely scrappers.  Fleur and I even got be a little crafty!

Each scrapper received a lovely little Valentine, filled with lollies and hand made embellies. Aren't they just cute?

 Recent renovations to the hall meant that Fleur, Matt and I had to do a quick rethink as to how to set up the room and the shop, but I think it came up nicely. Do you agree?

Elaine checks out the cardstock tubs

Our sale racks for paper were full!

Of course, we had a few competitions, congratulations to Rachel and Belinda for being this months winners - as usual everyone does such lovely work its always hard to vote for just one!

Rachel won the Sketch comp!

Belinda won our Emboss or Stamp Competition!

I hope you will be joining us in March for the next Crafternoon. Email us or check our facebook page for more info!

Tracey* xo

Scrap Your Stash Challenge Entries

I hope you have all been scrapping away, using up your stash to create lovely pages, and to make room for new and groovy things!

Here are the challenge entries, and just to remind yourself of the criteria, you should take a look at this blog post. 

Thanks to everyone who entered - we will announce the winner after our judges have time to look over the entries, so stay tuned!

Memories | Pam Casey

Liam | Carolyn Warran

Michael & Shelley | Gillian Hume

Good Luck Scrappers!

Tracey* xo

Scrap Your Stash Challenge

Lately I've been trying to organise my house and my life a bit better. I seem to be on a never ending quest for organisation. Chaos has descended on on my house - especially my scrap room. It's filled to the brim with crafty goodies and scrap papers - some of which I have held onto for 5 years or more!

I've cleared out some papers and embellishments that are no longer my style and plan on contributing them to the Swaps Table at the November Retreat. But I have so many pretty papers just waiting to be used!  

So I have set myself a challenge to scrap and craft more and to use more of my stash. I know this is a common scrapping problem, so maybe you all would like to take the challenge with me.

To help get you started we have a little sketch competition to launch. Like our other sketch comps, you can interpret the sketch any way you want - turn it, flip it, whatever. Your layout can be on any topic you would like to scrap.  But the main criteria for this challenge is to use your stash! That's right - all of your papers and embellishments must come from your scrapping supplies. Use your scraps, offcuts and half opened packs. NO MORE saving those papers for 'special'. Use them! Every layout is special!

The details - 

- entries must be in by 7pm 14 November 2012

- To enter, please email a photo of your layout to dizzyizzy@y7mail.com Please try to reduce the size of your photo to no more than 700 pixels. You can find details on how to reduce the size of your photos at www.shrinkpictures.com

- The winner will be announced here on the blog and on our facebook page after a brief judging period 

The Prize

Woohoo - nothing like cleaning out your stash to make way for something new and groovy! The winner will receive a pack of new Pink Paislee Artisan embellishment frames, just waiting for you to add your colours -  plus a roll of washi tape and some Prima Flowers!

Happy scrapping!

Tracey xo

Time to mix it up - APRIL CHALLENGE

So its time to mix it up a little.

For the last few months we have been running competitions through our facebook page - this has been a great way for new 'liker's' to find our page, however time has come to make a few changes. While we will continue to let you know about our competitions via our facebook page we will be running our competitions predominantly through our blog and ........ we will be having special guests or a Dizzy Izzy team member judging the competitions.

We want everyone to enter, so we don't want you to be intimidated by the fact that we will be taking over the judging. While technique and design will be taken into consideration this will not form the sole basis of judging. We understand that everyone is in different stages of their scrapping journey and expertise, so we want to encourage everyone at every level to enter. From time to time we will be asking non scrappers to decide on their favourite layout.

APRIL CHALLENGE

So this challenge is a little bit different from our previous challenges. Your layout needs to be based on, and should include the following;

1) Journalling - there must be some journalling incorporated into your layout

2) Twine - you will need to use some twine on your layout

3) Inspiration - your layout needs to take its inspiration from the image below, that could mean the colour palette you choose, or the incorporation of an egg on your page, or a splatter effect - the ideas are endless, can't wait to see what you do :-)

The final details

- entries need to be in by 7pm 20 May 2012

- to enter please email a photo of your layout to dizzyizzy@y7mail.com  Please try and reduce the size of your photo to no more than 700 pixels. You can find details on how to reduce the size of your photos at http://www.shrinkpictures.com/

- the winner will be announced on the blog and our facebook page after a brief judging period

The Prize

Yes yes there is a prize. The winner will receive three packs of ALPHA's see the pic below - YUMMY!

Good Luck and Happy Scrapping

Fleur n Trace x

November 2011 Retreat

Our First Retreat!
Thanks to all of the scrappers who came along to our first ever Dizzy Izzy Scrapbooking Retreat!
We had games, competitions, classes and non-stop scrapping!

Thanks to our guest teachers Kate and Renee, and all of our helpers, it was a great weekend.

Here are a few photo highlights. Enjoy!

The Group

The Dizzy Izzy Store

Late Night Scrapping

Competition Winners!

Tracey's Mini Cookbook Album Class

Kate's Class