More TZ Pages

When living in Dodoma we had no end of problems with our guards miss locking our gates and at times this led to us being locked out.  This one day I had my camera on me and so could record it as Peter had to break in.

For the background I made a lattice of quilling papers and stitched each crossing place down using a single cross stitch.  I then had great fun painting quilling paper and making the paper chain.

I mounted my journalling onto painted corrugated card so that it tied in with the gates in the photo and stuck a key form my collection of odds and ends on as an embellishment.

 This page is all about the armed guards I would give a lift to in the mornings.
Two fo the large circles are left overs from one of my ATCs and were made by layering on acrylic paint, dimensional paint and stamps.
The other three circles were embellished by stamping and embossing with clear and then inking over the top.

I had great fun making these rolls of paper and then tying cotton through them or hanging seed beads on threads from them.

This layout tells the story of the one and only time I preached in church.  It was the first layout I made after I had bought my distress and alchol inks so of course I had to use both on the layout.

 My main materials were a sheet of grey card and a sheet of acetate plus my inks.  I made my embellishments using scraps of paper for the bunting, white embossed stamped letters for the bible text and a few gems for the corner and then stitched it all together.

Schools Out

Still working through my Tanzanian photos but I have at last finished those of the school I worked in.

At one time the school server broke and computer lessons were not practical.  Instead I extended the RS lessons and we spent time making a frieze of the Easter story.  It wasn't one of my best craft ideas as some students felt it was too childish.  Others enjoyed it and it was a great to spend time with them in a more restful setting.

As the pictures were made up from screwed up tissue paper I really wanted to use tissue on my layout.  For the background I placed a large piece of tissue over my card and then just crumpled it to fit and sewed a grid over it to keep it in place.

I coloured the ribbon using my newly purchased distress inks and finished with buttons and some fimo embellishments I had made years ago.

 This layout is all about two cousins I taught.

It mainly consists of simple paper layering but I was very pelased with the flower embellishments.  I cut flower shapes form plain cardboard which I then stamped and chalked and inked the edges.  I then folded or rolled them to give them a 3d effect and put matching buttons in the centre to co ordinate them.

 

This was one of those photos which represents more the spirit of fun that I had with the children rather than the event.  

I struggled with the lettering.  I wanted something different as the rest of the layout was relatively plain.  I cut it out of card and then spread silver 3d paste over the cut out.  I'm not convinced it has worked but maybe it will grow on me.

 The photo on this layout is after the event which gave this layout it's title.  I had seen cheese holing years ago and having seen it again in the last issue of Scrap 365 I thought I would give it a go as everything falling apart at the edges was quite central to my journalling. I hadn't realised how much hard work it would be but it was very therapeutic as life was quite stressful and bashing holes was a real stress release.

I wanted to continue the idea of small circles in the title.  I put acrylic paint over an embossing folder and wiped the excess off leaving it just in the dips.  I then used it to emboss the paper.  his resulted in the embossed part coming out painted as well as embossed.

 

I got this wool from our local work aid shop and fell in love with it.  I wound it round metal rings and used it as a frame for my journalling to continue the circle blobby theme.

Ever since learning to crochet flowers I have been making them in spare moments even though I don't use them on too many layouts.  These ones just seemed to fit though.  The green flower was made with cream thread and then coloured using distress ink.

Wanting to have a bit of fun and frame the picture a bit more I hung these dangling flwers down the right side of the picture.

This layout is to remember saying my goodbyes to the secondary students.

 Years ago I made tiny flowers form little rosettes like these.  now they are fashionable and come far larger than I started with.  I filled the centre of this one with glue and then filled it with tiny beads.

 Using up one of my many paint charts I shaped the edge and slotted the writing under the photo and a frill which I had made from some packaging material.

This Layout isn't school but a coffee farm.  This was our last holiday in Tanzania and it took us the best part of two days to get there.

 

My journalling is framed with two floppy disc covers.  I removed and covered the metal sliding part of the disc with the same paper I had used for the lettering.  I then cut the end of the journalling block into strips and wove them through the hole.

For the background to my 'coffee' stamping I tore and coloured paper using my chalks.  I then layered this paper and stamped my wording.

Oops another long time has passed

Another batch of layouts.  I didn't realise that I had so many to put up.  

This layout used shades which I don't normally use and lots of paper pieces as background.  Although it took me ages to get the thrown together look I was after I was really pleased with the end result.

 I had a tag with a picture of a crocodile on it sitting on my desk for ages.  When I came to scrap this picture of a crocodile of children I realised that I had a perfect use for it - although I did have to enlarge it quite a bit.

I made the scales using layers of borders which I had cut out using my new cuttle bug.

 To make this more interesting I sewed seed beads onto some of the circles on the backing card and allowed them to overlap the main section.

I made the clock by putting a rub on onto acetate and then mounting it onto card using a black brad in the centre. 

 This layout was about a lesson where the children made tadpoles from painted finger prints so I made a tadpole border using the same technique.

For this layout celebrating some scrapbooks made by students I made an embellishment from techniques used in lace making.  It was a fun layout to do because the theme loaned itself to me throwing every embellishment I could think of at it.

 I had recieved a pack of paper the edge of which had been damaged in the post.  Although I had recived a repalcement I kept the origininal.  For this layout I tore the edge of the paper and used it as a centre mounted on another piece of card.  I cut away the card under the centre panel and used it to mount the photos on.

Our Last Few Weeks

I have decided to do something which I should probably have done months ago and that is work through my photos in some sort of order.

In the last few weeks I have been working through those that I took during our short stay on the health centre compound after we were burgled.  These photos reflect the last three months of our stay in Tanzania and form a time of reflection not only on our time there but on things we left behind.

In good missionary fashion we sold off many of our belongings before we left.  This was a process which we were dreading but was actually accomplished without too much pain.  We simply spread them out over the floor and left a donation bowl on the side.  With a steady stream of visitors we managed to get rid of quite a lot.  The journalling still needs ot be done on this page. 

I tucked some pleated fabric under one side of the photo not because we were getting rid of any but because it was so much part of our life there.  I was amazed at how many stickers I had of things that we got rid of.  I stuck them onto acetate and then used foam pads to stick them on the page.  I couldn't resist adding this little mouse peeking out the corner.  No there weren't any mice but the mess was such that I am sure one would have loved to hide in it.

 The border of my for sale sign was made by cutting thin strips from a wall paper sample.

 I took this photo on an evening walk.  It just struck me that the bell appeared to be shut out of the fenced in building site and sparked a train of thought which I felt deserved a page to itself.

 I have recently become the proud owner of a cuttle bug and used this for cutting the strip bordering the photo and the orange net strip.  The stiff net was made by gently heating a shower net sponge with my heat gun.  I used  a variety of rich fibres layered over simple string to portray my feelings that under a glossy surface there was poverty in the area.

 We were really blessed with amazing sunsets and sunrises during our stay in this house and this paper was ideal as a background for them.  I used my favourite chalks to draw a border for the photos and used old film and clock rub ons as embellishments.  To give the clocks a translucent background I rubbed them onto an empty matt laminating sheet which I had already run through the laminater.

 The photo on the left is hinged and opens to show a sunrise photo.

 This layout speaks for itself.  For the last few weeks we lived in a luxurious house in wonderful green suroundings, while those outside the gates lived in a barren wilderness.  My jouranlling reflect my mixed emotions of joy at luxury and guilt and anger at divide.  The two green cut outs on the layout were made using my cuttlebug.

 Although this photo was taken during the last few weeks of our stay, it reflected my feelings form the whole of our stay.  It was always expected of us that we would provide local employment by having a house girl.  While I hated having someone else ordering my house around I knew that I would not be able to do all the house hold tasks manually and work.  It was always a pleasure though to leave for work in the morning with a full dirty linen basket and come home at night to this, a pile of pristinely ironed clothes.

 For my title I used water paint to colour a textured fabric and then used pva glue to stick it to letters which I had cut-out from cardboard.  I then cut around the letters again and sealed the edge of the fabric with more pva.  Apart from the dress which was a stamp I drew all the clothes by hand and mounted them on small folds of material to reflect the edges of the ironed clothing.

Back to 12 x 12

These photos were taken at one of our farewell meals in Tanzania.  We were really good friends and both wanted a photo but neither of us took a decent photo.  Despite numerous attempts there wasn't a single good shot of both of us.  I really wanted to scrap this moment and our friendship and so decided to print the best photos up small and make the fact that one of us always had a funny expression part of the journalling.

 For the top of the bunting I used this old blind cord and painted the string between the balls black to tie in with the background.

The next layout was inspired by a child's comment.  The journalling reads:-

Conversation with Marlana on a journey home form CAMS.

'Miss Alison, what happened to your back window?'

'Some naughty boys threw stones and broke it.'

'Oh it's so beautiful, it's all sparkly.'

I saw the damage and destruction, she saw only beauty.  Let me look past the damage and destruction in life and see the beauty.

I spent ages cutting up paper forthe background and then of course I didn't wnat to cover it but the photos needed framing.  I came up with the idea of mounting them, the title and journallling onto acetate.  It gave a subtle framing and didn't cover the background.

 The dots between the paper pieces was done using metallic enamel paint and the lettering was cut out of semitransparent paper, mounted onto a background and sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer Mist.

 The mian photo was mounted onto acetate sprayed with Cosmic Shimmer Mist.

 This layout was created for a Wycombe Scrappers Crop where the challenge was to use buttons and celebrates the only birthday cake I bought in Tanzania.  It wasn't until quite late on in our stay there that good western style cakes were available to buy and I just loved this one.  The journalling tells to story of the treat and how I got it home on a hot day while being stopped by the police.

I created the title by cutting the letters out from the same paper I had mounted the main part of the layout on and then embossing with Ultra thick powder.  To add depth I rolled the edges of the centre panel.