Well, where do I begin, I am sure most of us cannot believe that the world is in ‘lock down’; we are all affected. I do hope wherever you are, you are in isolation and have all you need. Look out for one another in these difficult times.

On the brighter side of life – we are all ‘stuck’ at home and what better way of using our time but to scrap. Now is the time to drag out all the old projects you never finished (or began) and get working on them. I am sure most of you have enough photos to keep you going for a while having just had the Harvey Normal sale. I know, I got over 300 printed.

In Western Australia we managed to sneak in our planned Retreat over the weekend. All the ladies were happy to come and we had the venue to ourselves. Not far from the beach, not that we got time to enjoy the view, but we had plenty of room for a trestle table each (keeping that distance).

The ladies worked on their Loire albums. On the first day we worked on single pages and then went on to the more difficult sets of two and three pages.

The first page we worked on was a simple page with two landscape photos and decoration. We worked through the different effects you could create on your paper with the AZZA Silicon Stamping pad.

Sandy created a beautiful page showing how the Silicon pad could be used to ‘mirror image’ your stamp. Sandy used the Swan from the AZZA Frosty Lake range.

Those of you that receive Mail Out will receive this Silicon stamping pad and instructions of how to use it in April (if our shipment arrives from Europe, if not May). If you don’t get Mail Out and want a lesson on the Silicon stamping pad get hold of your Consultant. A list of Consultants can be found on the AZZA website. If you are interested in receiving the monthly Mail Out from AZZA Australia or would like to know more about it, please e-mail me: lynholmes@rocketmail.com.

Our evening meals were enjoyed with a little drop of Rose from the Loire Valley in France.

On Saturday we moved on to the double page, using the beautiful Loire cutting die. This page was created by Tracy Burn. Apologies for it not being straight, the photo was taken at the Retreat.

The triple page brought a little confusion and we soon realised the stencil could be used in two different positions along the top flipping page. It was important to get it right with this one as the chalking lines matched throughout the three pages. If you are not doing the chalking ‘visual’ it would not matter. Sorry Ladies, a little stressful this one was!! The lesson I learned, always note where the ‘AZZA’ logo on your stencil goes then you will get the right orientation. I will include this in the instructions next time.

As you can see on the page below, the vertical lines do not run one below the other. Once you have cut your pages, it is up to you where you put your photos/paper/chalking or inking and decorations.

Your first step in planning the triple page is to see how many photos you want on your page. Next is to see where you will be cutting your pages – the most important step with this process is to see what extends out from behind your flipping pages. With the set of pages below the front page and lower page are all market product so it flows:

You can also use your flipping page to have someone or something ‘peek’ over or under the flap:

The albums were then completed either with the Zutter and ring binding or with the AZZA MDF covers. For a larger album the MDF covers are lovely and can be decorated easily.

Anita Day in Queensland made a beautiful family album decorating it with the AZZA Australiana products:

Here you can see Anita has placed the lovely bronze corners on both the back and the front cover.

Anita continued the Australian theme through the album – above she has used the lovely Gumnuts embossing folder on her plain paper.

It is easy to find our Australiana products on our website – go to All Categories and you will see the ‘Australiana’ section.

Another of Anita’s pages featured ‘school’. Anita has used the Seasonal papers from the Home Sweet Home collection and a micro stamp for the books.

With the AZZA papers please note that we have our Patterned CLASSIC Essential range which are the colours that remain in the catalogue, the pattern is always the same, new colours are released. The Patterned SEASONAL range is brought out for a season and when they are sold out there are no re-runs.

Don’t go thinking that the A4 Loire stencil is only for an A4 page. The stencil can be used easily on your normal 30 x 30 scrapping page. Susan Talbot, our NSW Consultant created this page from her Spanish holiday.

Sue has used the Loire stencil, die, texture stencil and the Seasonal patterned papers.

When I saw her lovely ‘Hola’ it reminded me of our AZZA Micro stamps for the Travellers out there:

Lastly a few more 30 x 30 pages created by Rosalie Seguin-Noel in Europe, both these pages a beautiful! Thank you Rosalie for sharing them with us.

On the page above Rosalie has used a stamp from the AZZA Floral Large stamp set and the Floral embossing folder.

These stamps are lovely on the page and also perfect for cards.

AZZA Australia do have stamps with a selection of words:

On the page above Rosalie has used the Loire embossing folder:

The March Texture Basket has both the Loire die and embossing folder, you can save a little getting them as a basket.

That should be enough to keep you going a while. I have a mini album to show you created with the Loire stencil – watch this space.

I will blog a little more often as I am sure a lot of you will be scrapping more than normal – hopefully you can find something new and inspirational for your pages.

Happy Scrappin’

Lyn