Crafty chick creates

In 6 weeks

2011-11-07T09:37:00.000Z

In 6 weeks it will be Christmas!! That seems to be coming round rather faster than I'd like and with that in mind I thought I'd better get started on making a few cards. I've bought my cards rather than make for the past couple of years, but this year I'm determined to try and make at least a few of them, so on Saturday at the crop I attend, I got out my Christmas stash and sprinkled rather a lot of glitter around everywhere ;-)

Here is my first card:

supplies: Cardstock, Paper - My Minds Eye, ribbon - John Lewis & K and co, stickles, glitter - pinflair, promarkers, metallic pens - papermania, fiskars paper crimper, rainbow drops, stamps - lili of the valley, basic grey, silver pearl embossing powder, maya road chipboard snowflake.

I went to the Crafts show at the NEC last Friday with some friends and had a great time. There was lots and lots of inspiration (and temptation) and as soon as I saw the Lili of the Valley stamps, I just knew I had to buy one to use on my Christmas cards this year. The only problem was which one to choose! After much deliberating, the angel on my card was the image that came home with me. There was a sample on the stand made with this image and I think it was seeing this that finally made me plump for this one, I've made up the image in a similar way to the stamped image shown at the show - using lots of glitter on the angels outline and wings.

I used my promarkers to colour her in and added a little bit of red stickles on her halo.

For my background, I made some tiny red flowers and glittered the edges of the petals, heat embossed a maya road chipboard snowflake, added some ribbon, rainbow drops and more glitter and stamped my sentiment onto a transparency.

Well, at least that's my cards started lol..............

Re-discovering

2011-10-16T12:28:00.000+01:00

It's been a time of re-discovery for me these past couple of weeks. A few years ago I invested in a cricut - I love my cricut, think it's a fabulous piece of kit and whilst I do use it, would say I certainly don't use it often enough or use it to it's fullest potential. So when a crafting friend told me about a cricut workshop taught by with Melanie Heaton, I decided to go along and learn some new tricks. We did learn some new tricks as well, I felt very re-enthused about all things cricut :-) We learnt a lot about our machines and the ways in which it can be used, for me, the best tip learnt was how to create die cuts using the cricut a la 'nestability' style. I can see I'll be doing that a lot and having had a bit of a practice made a card with just a few of the resulting die cuts:

supplies: cardstock, papers - My Minds eye, Crate. Sew Easy tool and thread. Ribbon and Pearl pins. Fiskars border punch. Embossing folders - herringbone and swiss dots.

I used two carts - storybook and mother's day bouquet - the circle elements were all cut with storybook and I used the mother's day bouquet cart to create the three little cute primaesque flowers.

These are the first three I put together, helped by this fabulous tutorial I found whilst surfing. I don't have a gypsy, so I used my design studio instead, but I think you could use any similar shape flower to achieve the same result if you don't have either of these. I was really happy with the end results - I can see I'll be making a lot of these!

I also made this card a couple of weekends ago to send to a friend:

Supplies: Cardstock, Papers - Pink Paislee - daily junque, hometown summer. Stamps - Pink Paislee Queen Bee, sentiment stamp - HOTP. Distress ink.

I joined in with the world card making day event at Pink Paislee which was great fun - one of the challenges was to create a card where stitching was the prime focus - so I handstitched the borders, a frame and the sentiment.

Framed

2011-10-02T10:56:00.001+01:00

I haven't been doing a lot of scrapping recently, or blog posting - it's definitely been a case of less has needed to be more for a couple of months. After the end of a very intense period of scrapping with many deadlines for various things, what was originally a much loved hobby, completed in order to help me to relax and unwind after a day's work had actually begun to feel rather stressful in itself, so I decided to take a bit of a break and step back for a while. To create just for myself - no deadlines or targets, just doing what I'd like to do and when I'd like to do it. And it's felt really good to do that.

One thing that did make my almost non-existent mojo sit up with interest was this beautiful frame project by designer Jess Mutty. Seeing this made me want to get busy with my paper and glue for the first time in weeks (and I had a large frame bought in a Dunhelm Mill sale that has been sitting around waiting for the right project) so I got out some scraps from one of my favourite Echo Park lines, some material pieces, twine, pegs and raided my embellishment box to create a similar frame:

Here it is in it's frame:

I wanted a colour scheme of beige, white and red to match the colours in my room and the 'for the record' line was perfect for this. I added a layer of netting to my background paper and used Maya road chipboard tags as my base for each piece, inking the edges and then covering some with paper and painting others. the tags were then decorating using a variety of different materials and textures - here are some detail shots:

I created the flower by simply curling up a length of ruffled ribbon and cutting out and sewing a couple of jersey fabric leaves from an old t-shirt. I then printed out a couple of favourite family photos to add to my last two tags to finish. I really enjoyed making this and it's a great project for using up any leftover scraps :-)

Summer holiday season

2011-08-03T17:15:00.000+01:00

Well it feels like summer has arrived doesn't it? The weather is gorgeous in my part of the world at the moment and I was lucky that my summer break this year coincided with some of that good weather so I could get out and about and enjoy some of the sunshine. A couple of weeks ago as part of our holidays this year we took a trip to Belgium, we were based in Brugge but travelled around the country. I loved Brugge, it is just the most beautiful place - like a fairytale, stunning architecture and full of gastronomic delights, we enjoyed (probably rather too many) of these:

and definitely rather too many of these (if my tight fitting waistbands are anything to go by!):

If you are a fan of beer and chocolate like me, then Brugge and indeed Belgium is definitely the place to visit!

Back to crafting and one more thing to love this month has been the ScrapaGoGo August Sweetie jars and skipping ropes kit which was waiting for me upon my return from hols.

It's brimming with product - I particularly liked the wooden hearts from Studio Calico and the Girls Paperie kitsch papers and used both on this LO:

You get a whole packet of the wooden hearts and I used nearly all of them as these were so perfect for the page I had in mind - one which focuses upon my love for my son and contains a hidden letter written to him. I altered the hearts using both inks and embossing powder and as my son is rather camera shy, took a symbolic photo of my cupped hands so I place the hearts as if I was holding them instead.

I used the quote "A hundred hearts would be too few to carry all my love for you" which I wrote on the journaling strips to finish.

Finale

2011-07-25T10:24:00.001+01:00

Well, the ScrapFactor contest ended last night and I'd just like to thank everybody who has supported and voted for me. Alas, it was not meant to be for me, I didn't win but that is totally okay and I was thrilled to bits to make it through to second place :-) I've enjoyed having a go at the challenges each week and have made 21 projects over the 3 months that I wouldn't have made without the contest, and within those 21 there are a number of pages that will always remain very special to me. It's been an (often nerveracking!) experience that has taught me a lot, so thank you again for your support.

Here is the project that I made for the semi final round, our brief was to:

You better get creative this week. Go beyond a traditional scrapbook page to create something original that tells an important story.

You can use any medium for your work and it does not necessarily need to fit in an album, but it should embrace the idea that scrapbooking is all about preserving our most precious memories.

I chose to create a magnetic recipe board that I can hang in my kitchen:

I enjoy both cooking and baking and have many happy memories of 'assisting' my Nan and Mum as a young child in whipping up various culinary delights. I don't have any photographs of these memories though so what I decided to do was to create recipe cards to record 15 or so favourite recipes that I consider to have a family connection - recipes that have either been passed on from generation to generation or have been made for special occasions and become a firm family favourite.

My magnetic board started out life like this:

I chose a couple of papers to decorate the top half and created borders by handcutting pieces from my papers. I then sewed some seed beeds over the top. I created a raised pocket to store my cards within by die cutting a frame, stamping a transparency and attaching it to the board with foam tape. I was inspired to use and decorate actual spoons for the board after seeing an art journal cover by Carol Wingert in the lifelines book. I used a couple of rub on's and some clear alphas to say 'made with love'.

I created a small section at the bottom of the board to attach the recipe cards - I printed out a photo of the family member who I associate with the recipe and used day of the week stickers. All are attached with magnets so are easily interchangeable.

I was really pleased with how my board turned out and it now hangs on my kitchen wall :-)

1, 2, 3.......

2011-07-20T08:13:00.000+01:00

A really quick post just to say a big thank you to anyone who voted for me in the semi-final round of ScrapFactor, much appreciated :-) and to share the project I made for the 1,2.3 week 12 challenge which was to use 1 sheet of black cardstock as the base, 2 photos and 3 patterned papers. Here is the page I made:

A lot of handcutting from the 3 papers I chose which were by WRMK to make the waves, swirls and droplets for my page. I also made a felt embellishment and a black thread flower as an additional embellishment.

Us

2011-07-17T14:40:00.000+01:00

I really enjoyed the week 11 scrapfactor challenge - we were asked to re-scrap one of the very first / earliest pages we had made. It was a bit of a toss up to choose between the first, second and third LO's I ever made, but in the end I decided to go with the second page I ever made as it's one of my all time favourite photos of my son and I. This is my re-scrapped page:

And this was my original version:

I remember being so proud of this page when I'd finished it! As it was only the second page I'd ever made I'd had to go and invest in some supplies to actually make it and remember taking myself off to a LSS, which is sadly, no more. I bought some cardstock, the peach and map paper, a plastic case full of seed beeds and one full of metal frames.

I decided I'd like to stick to a fairly similar colour scheme for my new page and that I'd like to use similar products if I could. Well, I managed to use some of those very same seed beeds, still lurking around in the bottom of my stash :-). It was really interesting to look back and see how much things have changed over the past five years, both in terms of the stash and products now available - so much more choice! and in terms of my personal style and learning. I will always be proud of my earlier page, as it's part of my scrapbooking story and journey but I have to admit I do prefer my re-scrapped page! Be interesting to look back in another five years to compare things then and see what I think at that point :-)

In the Final three!

2011-07-11T22:38:00.000+01:00

I was SO, SO chuffed to discover I'd got through to the final 3 in the ScrapFactor contest when I logged onto UKScrappers on Friday. I really never expected to get to this stage, each and every week there have been so many fabulous pages uploaded by all the contestants. I loved each and every one of the other 3 entries for week 12, so it felt a real lift to make it through.
A huge BIG thank you to all who have voted for me.

So during this week's scrappy time, I'll be busy making a couple of pages to have ready to go just in case I strike lucky and get through to the final two and the very last round. In the meantime here is the page I made for week ten of the contest. Our challenge for this week was to create a page using only cardstock - no patterned paper allowed!

This was my take:

I put my stamp collection to good use for this page! I'd recently travelled up to London and spent a lovely day in the company of my scrappy buddy Fabi. We took lots of photos and these are just a few from our day in the city. As we are both scrapping addicts we had to fit in a visit to Blade rubber stamp shop where of course I was tempted to slide a few new stamp sets into my basket! I bought a border set from My Minds' Eye which I have used to create the border edge on my page. I coloured the stamped image in using a promarker pen.

I used a smaller border stamp from the same set to create the diagonal lines to accentuate my photos, I added a lace border, took apart a felt embellishment and stamped a clock on one of the circles to finish.

That 80's vibe

2011-07-03T19:47:00.000+01:00

The challenge for Scrapfactor week 8 was all about t.v and film. This was our brief:

This week your layout should be inspired by film or television. How you interpret that is up to you: in visual design, quotation, a literal theme or something else entirely!

When I first read this I was a little bit stumped about what to do. But then inspiration struck - it just had to be a page about one of my all time recent t.v favourites - Ashes to Ashes. I just loved this series - the quirky script, the characters and most of all the memories of the 80's each and every episode evoked - the music, the styles, the props, the events - the 80's was my era so watching this on the telly was better than a time machine!

I got out my DVD set and took a picture of the television to create the photo for my page. I printed out two copies one slightly smaller than the other and placed them one of top of the other - raising with foam dots. I chose a colour scheme to match the colour of the famous quattro - red teamed with teal. I wanted to create lots of layers so used my bind it all to crate the frayed sides and cut 3 frames out of different pp's for my layers. I had a piece of patterned paper in my stash - a map of London by October Afternoon, so cut some of that out and placed a negative strip over the top to represent the link to the met.

I finished by creating the flower and cutting out some embellishment strips and here is my completed LO:

Week 12 and the 1,2,3 challenge goes live tomorrow and it won't be long now until the end of contest. I'm very pleased and a little bit amazed to have made it through to week 12 so a huge, big thank you to anyone who has supported me :-)

Up, up and away

2011-06-25T18:00:00.000+01:00

Jumping back in time to share another Scrapfactor page - this was the page I made for the week seven sketch challenge:

This was the sketch we were given to work from:

I decided to scrap a photo I took last summer - it was totally a 'be in the right place at the right time' kinda photo - we'd been out for a long walk in the Derbyshire hills, it was a scorching hot day and we'd just climbed up to the summit of our last hill and had stopped to appreciate the breeze. Just at that point a paraglider swooped by (apparently it's a popular hill to use for this purpose) and I had my camera in my hand ready to go as had been taking a picture of the view. I snapped a number of shots and this one is my favourite due to the positioning of the cloud. As my photo was horizontal I decided to rotate the sketch 90 degrees, but other than that tried to stay pretty close to the original design.

I used a few of the patterned papers included within the May ScrapaGoGo kit as they reminded me of summer - full of blue's, coral's and yellow's. A lot of handcutting for this one to make the layered circle accents:

As there was a lot of detail on the circles I used a white cardstock background, added a bit of journaling and all was done :-)

Should I stay or should I go?

2011-06-23T22:44:00.001+01:00

I've got a bit out of sync in sharing my scrapfactor LO's over here on my blog, I've been using my scrappy time to concentrate on the making of the page's rather than the blogging about them. Although I haven't shared the pages I've made for week seven and eight on here yet, I wanted to jump forward a couple of weeks to week nine, so I could say a big thank you to anyone who voted for me to stay in the contest last week. The challenge for week nine was:

This week we want to see you push the boundaries of scrapping with your most innovative techniques to create unique texture on your page.

This was the page I created - I made a raised, distressed frame comprising of several different layers and textures - I used some tulle material and ruched it for the bottom layer. I glimmer misted my background and stamped a swirl frame and as it was a beach picture, filled in the swirls with actual sand and glued some more sand to the stars too. A heart made from thread added a tiny bit more texture. I have to say I had a bit of a gut feeling that I could find myself in the bottom two this week as this didn't turn out to be a page that I was particulary happy with when it was all finished, so I kinda wondered whether others would think the same, and whilst I hoped it might just scrape me through, it wasn't much of a surprise to find out that it hadn't.

This was the page I created as my survival page - I used some papers from one of my favourite lines from Echo Park for this one, along with a quote that struck my fancy 'life is like photography, you develop from the negatives'.

I splattered some paint onto the cardstock and used a crafters workshop template in two ways - to firstly ink my petal shapes onto my background then to use as a stencil to cut out petals from my paper. I glued the paper petals over the inked shapes to (ironically enough ;-) ) create some unique texture on my page :-) I inked and then covered the butterflies with glossy accents - linked them with pearls and interspersed my quote.

I was very pleased to survive particularly as I thought the other knockout page created by Kacy was gorgeous, so a very appreciative thank you to all who supported me :-)

So, I'm still in the comp for the time being, the other contestents are all very talented so I'm just taking it from week to week, trying to make pages that feel right and are true to me and thinking che sera sera :-)

Pinned!

2011-06-22T08:28:00.001+01:00

It's my turn to create the Wednesday extra project over at the Studio today, I chose to create a pincushion and here is my tutorial in full:

I spent last weekend in York - a city which has lots of gorgeous little crafty shops, quite a few of which were selling hand made pin cushions. My collection of pins is ever growing and I thought one of these cushions would do a great job of storing them safely.

Although the pin cushions in the shops were really cute and I was very tempted to buy one, my crafty brain wouldn't let me and was thinking to itself, I could make something similar at a fraction of the cost!

So instead, I purchased an offcut of material and got my needle out of it's case to make my own pin cushion:

The supplies I used were:

offcut of material

green felt

Scalloped nestability die

Sizzix flower and alpha dies

Big shot die cutting machine

white and green thread

bazzill sewing template

button

I began by cutting out my material for the base using a scalloped nestability die. I also cut a slightly smaller scallop frame from felt. I used the same material to die cut the flowers, rolled them up and stitched to secure their shape.

I attached the felt scallop by stitching a running stitch around it to the front of my cushion and also stitched on the flowers. I used a bazill stitching template to hand sew the swirls in white thread. I used an alpha die to cut my letters and again stitched them on to the front using running stitch.

I then handstitched around the outside, leaving a small gap so I could stuff the inside of the cushion. I used a mixture of small felt scraps and cotton wool for my stuffing. I then sewed the remainder of the border and my pin cushion was finished.

Quick and simple to make but also an effective (and pretty) way to store my pins :-)

Got flowers?

2011-06-16T19:59:00.001+01:00

Going back in time a few weeks now to the LO I made for week six of the ScrapFactor contest, the challenge was to use multiple photos - we'd had a beautiful sunny spell here in the UK and the flowers in my garden were all blossoming.

I'd taken quite a few flower photos as I was so chuffed my garden was actually flourishing this year and decided these pics would be perfect for this challenge. I printed out seven 2 x 3 photos, created a template using a maya road chipboard flag and cut out the section I wanted to use on my page.

supplies: Patterned paper - Basic Grey - Hello lucious, My Minds eye, studio calico. Flowers - prima and Websters pages. Journaling cards - Crate K and Co and Basic Grey. Stamps - Autumn leaves, Maya Road. Bakers Twine. thread and ribbon from my stash.

I handsewed the wavy lines and used the inside as journaling spots to tell the story of how our garden has evolved since we moved into our house. :-)

More things to make and do!

2011-06-09T21:19:00.000+01:00

Here are the last two LO's I made with my June Scrapagogo kit. Every so often I like to make what I call a 'right here, right now' page which details what I'm enjoying, thinking, liking, doing at this point in my life. I aim to make one of these type of pages approx every 6 months and it's a great record to look back on - it's amazing what you forget as time passes!

Included in the kit is a rub on from studio calico which is a great journaling prompt for this type of page - I simpley answered the questions asked - cut the rub on in half and placed the words on one of the Jenni Bowlin chipboard book set plates and the used the other half to record my answers.

I used lots of the June hybrid elements designed by Kirsty Wiseman on the following LO. This page tells the story of our visits to the Pancake house during a stay at Sherwood Centre Parcs - as someone who has always loved pancakes, this was just the best resturant to visit :-) (needless to say, I tried several different pancake combinations over the course of the weekend!)

I particularly liked the hybrid alphas and the little books were the perfect accent for my title :-)

One special photograph

2011-06-02T20:28:00.001+01:00

The challenge for Scrap Factor week five was:

Create a layout with just ONE photograph. How will you give that image the special treatment?

Usually it is the choosing of my papers that can take up quite a bit of time as I procrastinate. a. lot. However, this week it was choosing which photograph to use that presented the dilemma :-) In the end, after considerable deliberation I went with a heritage photo of my grandparents which is a photo I really love. It's one of my longstanding favourite images of them as it seems to capture a sense of their togetherness and I'd love to know what it was that has made them giggle!

Supplies used:
Patterned paper- Websters pages - hollywood line, Cardstock - American Crafts, stickers - Websters pages - hollywood line, butterfly and rub on - Jenni Bowlin, alphas - Cosmo Cricket, alpha stamps, flower and vellum - Websters Pages, ink - versafine.

I love these papers from Websters Pages - I think Webster's make stunning papers but because they are so stunning I don't always find them that easy to use - does that make any sense?! However, I thought their Hollywood line had a lovely delicate, vintage feel and the colours were perfect for a heritage photo so got handcutting :-) I cut out a variety of elements from the papers including a film strip and swirled frames to frame my photo. I double matted my photo in a border of beige and black to make it pop from the page, and then handcut flowers from vellum, placing them around my photo to draw the eye to that area of my page.

I used a border punch and rub on to layer under my film strip, added a couple of embellishments and backed my title alphas onto black cardstock for a bit more visual impact.

My journaling reads:
I find this picture of my grandparents sharing a giggle very endearing, they look so happy, young and in love.

I am so pleased to have remained in the contest and am enjoying those challenges each week, so a massive thank you to those who have shown their support both in the way of votes, and by the lovely messages I have received - I really do appreciate them.

Proud

2011-05-30T11:03:00.000+01:00

Here's another LO I've made using the June 'things to make and do' kit. As a mum to a teenage boy, I'm always on the lookout for papers with a more 'male' feel or ones that could be used on a 'boy' themed page. I was really pleased to discover there are several papers in the June kit that tick all those boxes and used them to create this page which records a very special moment:

I took this photo of my son proudly displaying his sport trophies he'd been presented with during an awards evening 8 years ago - when I looked back at the date it didn't seem possible it was that long ago! Where do the years go?

In line with the grid pattern on my background paper I created a box design and used a splash of red and a small amount of yellow to lift my design. You get three of those little Jenni Bowlin rosettes in the kit - they work so well with pages like this! I added several word stickers onto the ribbons at the bottom of the rosette from the alpha sheet which I thought suited my theme.

making and doing

2011-05-28T12:43:00.001+01:00

This past week has found me putting a couple of pages together using the ScrapaGoGo June kit - 'things to make and do'. Isn't that just a wonderful title for a kit - it automatically transports me back to memories of the vintage ladybird books that were commonplace throughout my early childhood (I'm probably really showing my age here ;-)). I remember having one ladybird book in particular - an ABC book - this memory sparked an idea to use the sheet of Crate toybox Alpha stickers and make a scrapbook page with an ABC theme.

After a bit of deliberation I chose a picture of our cat - Kitkat and used individual letters of the alphabet to detail one of his characteristics - A is for Adventurous, B is big blue eyes, C is for curious etc...

I wanted to keep my page design quite simple to ensure the focus remained upon the ABC journaling, so created a grid by cutting out the numbers from the pink paislee daily junke paper and using the remaining strips as a frame for each letter.

This months stamp also came in really handy for creating the journaling lines in each alpha section.

I'm off to enjoy a bit more making and doing with my June kit this afternoon :-) - see you laters

Telling a story

2011-05-23T18:53:00.001+01:00

I got some of my old scrapbook albums out over the weekend and had a flick through. One of the things that struck me as I did so was that my favourite pages, the ones I return to look at over and over are all pages that tell a story. A proper story, 'Jackanory style'.

Some of them are stories about events in life - the how, where and when, others about random thoughts or feelings but they all share the common denominator in that they contain the words to evoke my memories. Whenever I look at a scrapbook page in a magazine or in an online gallery, the first thing I seek out is the journaling.

To me, the words matter. To me, the words are what adds the substance, they are the backbone to a great photograph. And I think that is why the week four challenge for Scrapfactor has been my favourite challenge so far:

"A Storytelling Challenge! It's all about the journaling. In this challenge, we shall pay special attention to your words. Choose any topic, but be sure to journal creatively to share a meaningful memory!"

Here is the page I created:

Supplies: Papers - Girls Paperie, Basic Grey - Eva line, American Crafts - City Park, Prima, artisan elements - Pink Paislee, stamp - Basic grey, Sticker - Webster's pages, alphas - Basic Grey, American Crafts.

Sometimes it's the little gestures in life that can mean the most and I decided to go with this concept for the challenge. I decided to tell the story about a special and much treasured gift, that I was given by my son.

I wanted the eye to be drawn to my journaling, so kept the design quite simple, framing my text. I wanted my journaling to have a dual purpose - to tell my story but also to carry an additional message that pops from the page at a glance. I highlighted certain words within my text and ensured my 'additional message' was easily visible through use of colour.

I also made some small pin banners and added a short sentence here.

My journaling reads:

In 2004 after several years of studying I gained the qualifications needed to progress within my career and was offered a new post. I was so touched when you returned home one Saturday afternoon and presented me with this sweet little bear, which you told me was to sit on my new desk. It made me proud to have a son like you, with such a sweet and thoughtful nature. It was so generous of you to spend your pocket money on a gift which will be treasured forever.
My additional message reads 'so touched & proud of you'

Altered Keepsake book

2011-05-19T17:27:00.001+01:00

It's been a long term crafty goal of mine to make something in which I can store those precious, irreplaceable keepsakes of my son's early years - the tags he wore when first born, a lock of his baby hair etc... So for this month's Studio project I took inspiration from a book I recently came across called Altered Book Workshop by Bev Brazelton which details lots of amazing ideas about altering and adapting books. I was inspired to have a go at making my own version of an altered book, a keepsake book made for the purpose of storing my treasured items.

Here is my tutorial:

I had loads of fun altering my book and found it really easy to make - it's very adaptable - you can use whatever techniques you like, and it's a great way to use up all those little scraps of stash left over from other projects.

The supplies you will need for this project are:
A hardback book - I bought mine from the sale shelf at my local library for 25p
Wet Glue - I used paper mod podge
Acrylic paints
An empty matchbox
Script Stamp - I used a wooden stamp called manuscript background from Hero Arts
Inks
Craft knife, ruler and cutting mat
Papers and embellishments for decoration. I used scrap of cream fabric, paper scraps from kaisercraft - duchess line, My Minds eye, Bobunny and Crate Paper, brads from My Minds Eye and a Maya Road chipboard tag from the ScrapaGoGo June kit and a Martha Stewart punch.

My book started out life as this:



I prepared the book by taking the jacket off and covering the outside with several layers of acrylic paint - I then inked up and stamped my script stamp and then dry brushed another thin layer of white paint over the top.



I then prepared the inside of my book - you can make as many or few inside pages as you like - I decided that I wanted very few inside pages, instead designed my book to open directly onto the section storing the matchbox tray which incorporates a pocket to store my tags. I glued the inside cover page to the front hardback cover and glued the first ten pages of the book together.

I placed my matchbox on the last page of the book and measured around the outside - do not cut this page as the matchbox will be glued onto this. I then placed the matchbox in the same position on a page higher up in the book and began to cut around it until the stack of cut papers is the same height as your match box.



I took the tray out of the matchbox and applied glue around the box and slid the box only into the cut out which should be a tight fit. I then glued a set of 10 pages over the top.



You may need to remove some page sections from the rest of the book at this stage to prevent the book from being too thick when finished. I removed about 100 pages from the centre.  To make sure everything remained held together I applied glue around the outside edges of my pages and once dry my book was ready to decorate.

I began by applying acrylic paint to all my glued sections and when dry, stamping the script stamp.  The inside pocket was created by cutting the ten pages I'd glued and painted at the front of the book in half horizontally, attaching my patterned paper and gluing the outside edges to the main inside section.



The outside cover was decorated by using scraps of papers covered in a thin layer of dry brushed paint and a chipboard tag which I covered with fabric and embossed using a embossing folder. For the inside cover, I printed out this poem I found on the net:

From a child so fair, A miracle from above, Placed gently in my care, This child is growing up so fast, Tomorrow's the future, Today is the past. Walking, Talking, fading riddles and rhymes, This lock of hair and tags remain, A keepsake of past times.

I added a few embellishments and finished by decorating the front of my matchbox, fixing a small tab of ribbon for easy opening with a brad.

Catch up

2011-05-15T18:26:00.000+01:00

Whew - I'm not quite sure where all the days have gone to this month but they sure seem to have flown by. I have made a few projects but haven't got around to uploading and sharing on here, so this post will be a bit of a catch up!

First off I'm really pleased to have survived the first four weeks of Scrap factor and would like to say a huge thank you to anyone who may have supported me along the way. There are so many wonderful LO's submitted each week, I'm very appreciative to have survived this far. I'm trying not to think too much about the 'bigger picture', to just enjoy having a go at each week's challenge and take things week by week, otherwise it all feels a bit nerve racking!

I'm going to start off in reverse with the LO I made for week three of the contest - the challenge was to create a lyrical LO - to take inspiration from a favourite song and scrap away with the lyrics, title or wherever your creativity takes you.

I chose to use some of the lyrics from a longstanding favourite song - close to you by The Carpenters. I think she had such a beautiful voice and I can recall my parents playing this LP when I was very young. It was also a favourite tune to play to my 'bump' when I was pregnant as I'd read in an antenatal book that playing music to an unborn child was a good thing to do developmentally wise. I used papers and stickers mainly from Echo Park - for the record line (I so love this line!) along with a bit of Jenni Bowlin. I tore my paper to incorporate my lyrics floating from the gramophone sticker and created lots of layered frames around my photo which is one of my favourites and taken when my son was around 3 months old.

The week two challenge was a very different one and a challenge that I really struggled with. We were tasked to take our inspiration from a print ad. Now I'm not a great magazine reader, books - yes, magazines - not really my thing. So I rushed into WHSmith on my way home from work and picked up a Radio Times magazine just as they were closing. The ad that caught my eye was this one:

My initial thoughts were that I could use it as inspiration for a humorous 'welcome to your world' type of LO about some of those teenage traits that emerged as my son reached this stage of his life. This was my finished LO:

I tried to keep it pretty close to the original ad - creating my own world - hand drawing the countries - and using small alpha stickers for the journaling. This is one of those LO's that when I'd finished it, I wasn't really 100% sure about it but didn't have the time to rework it - maybe I wasn't sure because it was a challenge that really did challenge me? I don't know. We also have a bit of a quirky sense of humour in our house, so I hoped the content wouldn't be taken in the wrong way iykwim. Anyways up, I was really glad to survive, so thank you again if you voted for me :-)

In other news - it was my turn to be in the interview hot seat this month on the ScrapaGoGo blog. One of the questions was to show a picture of 'where' I scrap - that made my hair raise slightly when I first read it - I am a very untidy scrapper! My son was very pleased when a couple of years ago I turned our spare bedroom into an office / scrap room as the mess that is usually encountered in there provoked lots of 'you've got no room to talk about me being messy' type of comments lol! So, mission operation tidy up entering into being, and whilst my desk may still appear rather cluttered - operation tidy up was successful as this is incredibly tidy for me!

The good thing about having a sort out is that you unearth lots of stash you had completely forgotten about! and despite being a hoarder, I was very ruthless and got rid of some supplies too!

The July 'things to make and do' ScrapGoGo kit has just arrived in town and is whizzing it's way towards my house - which I am very excited about - love the colours and those rosettes look just the biz! You can see more sneaks over on the club forum if you like the look of / are tempted by this kit :-)

Blog hop winner

2011-05-11T23:03:00.000+01:00

Just a very quick post to say thank you to everyone who hopped onto my blog last weekend and left comments - I loved reading them all. With a little help from random.org I've picked my winner and **drumroll** my winner is:

comment number 9 who is Jo who said:
jo said...

Your pages are simply stunning - and thank you for sharing your tips. Maybe I will be brave and try altering something!!

Congratulations Jo! Please email Lorraine and Janice at mail@scrapagogo.co.uk to claim your prize :-)

Hippity hoppy celebrating

2011-05-07T09:00:00.001+01:00

It's National Scrapbooking Day! Wouldn't it be great if this was celebrated with a national holiday ;-) Well, we may not be able to provide any additional days off work but the ScrapaGoGo team did decide it would be fun to celebrate it by holding a blog hop.  So I'd like to extend a warm welcome to everyone visiting my blog today who is hopping along with us, and to wish you all a very happy National Scrapbooking day!

I'm really excited that you're joining us on our hop as we have lots of fun projects to share and prizes to giveaway. Hopefully you'll have found your way over to me from Kirsty's blog, but if you do happen to start here first, it's well worth making your way back to the beginning at the ScrapaGoGo blog, as that way you won't miss anything!

We have ten prizes to give away in total - there is one main prize to be won and in addition to this, each individual GoGo team member will pick one random winner from those who have visited and commented on their blogs to win a small prize.  So what do you need to do to be in with a chance of winning?  All you have to do is to leave a comment on each blog post and to collect a highlighted word as you hop along. When you have all ten highlighted words, take the first letter of each, unscramble them to make the winning word and email ScrapaGoGo by 10th May 2011 with your word at the address given on the main blog.

I was incredibly pleased to join Team GoGo at the start of this year for many reasons, one of those being the fact that I have always loved making LO's using the products contained within a kit. I think this is because kits often expand creativity as they contain innovative / unique products that maybe I wouldn't always have thought to buy and use myself.
I'm a girl who loves to experiment with and alter products - sometimes my experiments turn out the way I'd envisaged, and sometimes they don't! but I usually have a lot of fun in the process :-) I thought that for my post today, I'd share a few of the products from the GoGo kits I've most enjoyed experimenting with to date, along with a couple of small tips regarding the techniques I used.

Two of the recent kits - the February and April kits, have contained chipboard products. Chipboard is a firm favourite of mine as a. it's dimensional and b. you can alter it in numerous different ways to achieve different looks.

I altered the chipboard flags from the February kit in two ways - painting the bottom layer with cream acrylic paint and covering the top layer with a patterned paper. A couple of tips I've discovered along the way when using these techniques - for covering chipboard with paint I always use a foam brush rather than a paintbrush - it gives a much smoother effect and you don't find stray hairs in your paint afterwards! For covering chipboard in paper I glue my paper to the chipboard with a thin layer of silicone glue as when using other wet glues I've found the paper can sometimes wrinkle. I cut as close to the edge of chipboard as I can using a craft knife then sand the edges. I invested in the basic grey precision file set and have found there is a file for every shape and using these gives a really professional looking finish.

The April kit contained a number of chipboard cameos - I decided to alter using paint again but this time also using a crackle glaze medium to achieve a very different aged effect. I used a bottle of inexpensive crackle glaze medium purchased from my local DIY store and followed the instructions to paint a base layer - which was white - wait for it to dry, paint the crackle glaze over the top using strokes in one direction only, wait for it to dry and then paint a top coat in a different colour. Another tip for this this techique is that you can alter the apperance of your crackles- the thicker the top coat, the wider the crackles.

The March kit contained a sheet of laser cut paper doilies by Basic Grey. I decided to experiment with them in a slightly different way - turning them over to the reverse white side and using them as template to ink through - the joy of this is you can use any colour or type of ink and still be able to use the original side of the coloured doily afterwards. I used faded jeans distress ink on my LO and used a small cosmetic sponge (from the make up section in Asda) to transfer my ink onto my page.

Finally, the last products I've enjoyed experimenting with were the papers and trinkets within the April kit. One way I frequently alter my papers / cardstock is to add a bit of distressing around the edges - dead simple but I think really effective. I always use my precision files for this and if I want a really torn look just up the pressure on the paper a bit. I incorporated the locket into my title and added an accent on the top - an instant alpha!

I hope you enjoyed your visit and I'd love to see some of the ways in which you've altered products on your pages so please feel free to leave a link in the comments if you'd like to :-) I hope you have lots of fun visiting all the blogs and your next stop on the journey is to Sam's blog - enjoy!

The soundtrack of summer

2011-04-29T16:59:00.000+01:00

I can't imagine a world without music, there is rarely a day that goes by without me listening to music of some description. I have a little dab radio in my kitchen that plays when I'm baking or making meals, I listen to itunes when I'm on my computer, my ipod accompanys me out and about and the radio and / or cd player is a constant companion during car journeys.

The beautiful sunny weather and bank holidays we've been enjoying here in the UK have meant additional relaxation time and evoked that feeling of summer. I was sitting in my garden last weekend listening to my ipod and one of my playlists recalled the memory of the time a few years back when I participated in a CJ through my crop. I made a 6 x 6 double LO to detail the songs that evoked summer to me - the soundtrack of summer. I've been meaning to update the CJ page I made back then into a 12 x12 LO for my own album and finally got around to doing so with this month's ScrapaGoGo 'Over the Hills and Faraway kit'.

Supplies: ScrapaGoGo May ' 'Over the Hills and Faraway' Create kit and add on kit - around the houses.

I drew out a large sun shape complete with rays from the My Mind's Eye paper and printed out journaling strips detailing each of my summer sound track songs, placing one underneath each ray. I used the border stickers and paper from Crate's neighbourhood line to create the backdrop for my title. To finish I created a hidden journaling tab under my photo to record the reasons why each song evokes that summery feeling for me.

Do you have a soundtrack of summer or any songs that evoke that summery feel? - I'd love to hear about them if you do :-)

scrapfactor week one

2011-04-25T15:44:00.000+01:00

I was very grateful to have survived week one of the scrap factor contest and would like to say thank you to anyone out there who may have supported me. I thought all the contestants did a great job as did those who are playing along each week - it's really inspirational to see all the work in the galleries. I'm enjoying the challenges, the creative process of making the pages - it makes me do actually do something with my stash which means more LO's full of memories for my albums, so all good.

We've been told we can share our LO's from the previous week on our blogs when the task for the next week begins and here is my page for week one:

using this colour combination:

I loved this colour combination - some of my favourite colours and I always like a pop of pink on a page :-) The pink hues reminded me of a old photo my Dad took of me many years ago enjoying my first ice cream - strawberry flavour, so I printed a copy out and my LO evolved from there. I hunted through my stash and picked out a load of papers I though might go together and shuffled them around until I had a combination I liked. I added a bit of texture by distressing and inking the page edges and folding one of my background papers concertina style and punching the edges with a border punch. I created my flowers by hand cutting a few shapes from patterned paper, layered them and used a snippet of ribbon to create some small flowers for the tops. I pondered for ages about my title but finally settled on 'nice' making a distinction between the letters to spell 'ice'.

Week two gallery is now open on UKS - and this week's task to use a print ad as inspiration really did challenge me - still it's always good to be taken out of your comfort zone methinks and I sought out an ad which sparked an idea and gave it a shot. I thought I'd tackle it from a slightly different slant intended as affectionately humorous, and I have my fingers firmly crossed again that it will be enough to carry me through the second week of the contest. As always the other girls have entered great work so we'll see what happens on Friday, c'est la vie and all that :-)

Bank Holiday Bliss

2011-04-24T16:05:00.000+01:00

I *heart* long weekends, after an extremely busy couple of weeks both at home and work, the thought of four whole days of down time is pure bliss :-) and even better four days with a forecast of sunshine - sublime bliss!

This bank holiday we decided to stay at home and enjoy the sunshine in the garden - no rat race to run, just peace, family time and relaxation. I decided I'd like to create a page to record the euphoric feeling of waking on Friday with the sound of birdsong in my ears and the sun streaming in through the windows and knowing a long weekend lay ahead. Trouble was I didn't really have a photograph to use for this so I opted to take a picture of my deck chair and the book I am enjoying reading placed in my favourite corner of the garden. To me that's bank holiday bliss :)

Here's my finished page:

supplies: May create, G2P and hybrid 'over the hills and faraway' kit from ScrapaGoGo.

This month's kit is as always, gorgeous, and jam packed full of product - so different in feel to last month's kit. I used several of the corrugated shapes from Jillibean soup - painting them in different shades of cream and beige. I got my paintbrush out again and mixed a bit of blue paint and splattered to my hearts content over the die cut background paper. Two of my favourite papers this month are from crate - neighbourhood collection - lots of borders to cut out, and basic grey - hopscotch - again lots of elements that can be cut out and layered.

Whatever your plans this weekend, whether you are having a staycation like me or are out and about, hope you have a good one! Happy Easter!

Scrapfactor!

2011-04-14T08:04:00.000+01:00

UKscrappers recently invited it's members to audition for a place in their Scrapfactor contest, initially I was in two minds about whether to go for it, but when they extended the audition deadlines I decided to throw my hat into the ring and was really excited to see my name on the list of final contestants when I logged in on Monday night! There are 15 contestants in total in three categories - paper, hybrid and digi and I was really pleased to see two of my GoGo team mates Rebekah and Kirsty and one of my scrapping buddies Jemma had also made it into the final 15 :-)

These were my audition LO's:

A no photos LO:

An all about me LO:

A double LO

and two others:

The challenge for week one is a colour combo:

some of my favourite colours :-)

I've put my first LO together over the past couple of nights and I'm fairly happy with the end result - as happy as I think I ever will be iykwim! I've got fingers firmly crossed it will do the job of keeping me in the contest for the first week. I won't be able to show any of my scrapfactor LO's on my blog until I'm out of the competition, but if you fancy a look at all the entries, the week one gallery for viewing and voting goes live on UKS on Monday :-).

Need somewhere to store your stamps?

2011-04-13T08:42:00.000+01:00

It's my turn to create a project for the Wednesday extra feature over at the Studio this week and as an keen stamper I decided to create a Desktop Stamp Storer where I can store some of my favourite and most used stamp sets. I had a go at making something similar a while back and made similar style inserts in a book form. As soon as I had finished making my book, the realisation dawned that if I changed it slightly, I could have a storage piece I couls actually stand up on my desktop, which would be far handier for someone like me, who likes everything visible and in easy reach (far more likely to get used that way ;-)) So I reworked my original project to make this:

Here is my tutorial:

I *heart* stamps and more often than not include stamping of some form on my projects. I tend to find I have some stamp sets I will use over and over, and decided I'd like to try and make something I could keep on my desktop to store the sets I use the most. I wanted a storage system where my favourite sets are visible and easily accessible, but also portable.

To make this project you will need the following supplies:
2 pieces of chipboard sized 6.75" square
Patterned paper - you will need 2 pieces of the same pattern. I used papers from Cosmo Cricket - Delovely and Magenta.
Matching shades of Cardstock, I used a number of cardstock scraps
Variety of Stamps - I used sets from Inkadinkado, stampin up, HOTP, Prima, Basic Grey, Paperartsy and Technique Tuesday
Co-ordinating coloured Inks
2 book rings
ribbon and jems to decorate

Tools:
Cropadile and eyelets
laminator and laminating pouches
tab punch
Double sided tape

Step one:
I began by making the page inserts which will store my stamps using a laminator. I cut a piece of white cardstock and stamped the image from each stamp on the page in black ink. I then used a tab punch to make a tab, stuck this to the edge of my page, placed in a laminating pouch and ran it through the laminator.

The stamps then adhere to the laminated surface on the other side of the page.

Step two:

I then made the covers, you can adapt the size of your stamp holder as you wish, my covers are 6.75" square as I wanted to leave enough room to make different sized inserts, some of which will be larger than the ones shown. I used two pages from a board book for my covers, but you could also use thick cardboard as an alternative.

To cover, I used double sided tape and placed my chipboard on the reverse side of the paper, mitring the corners for a neat finish. In order to get a neat finish, I folded the paper around the chipboard, using a bone folder to ensure sharp creases. Once this has been done on all four sides, it leaves you with clear fold marks - I then cut along the outside edge of the folds as shown on the picture below:

and attached each fold with double sided tape.

Step three:

Once covered comes the fun part - decorating the cover! I used some of my favourite stamps to embellish the cover. I began by creating the heart shape, I stamped a canvas patterned onto a scrap of blue cardstock and cut a heart out of the inside. I then attached a ruffled ribbon to the inside reverse.

I repeated this process with a darker shade of cardstock stamping with a lace stamp from Prima, which I then cut out and used as a frame. I cut out the inside of my heart from a piece of patterned paper from Magenta and stamped one side using a basic grey swirl stamp.

Step four:

I created the frame and letters for my cover using a scrap of blue cardstock. I covered the cardstock with a flower stamp from Prima, then made the frame using a scallop stamp from HOTP.

I then stamped my title letters by stamping a harlequin pattern image from Paperartsy and then stamped the letters over the top.

Step five:
I stamped the bird shape from an image by Inkadinkado and pieced the cover all together. I then used my cropadile to make holes in the cover and inserts and set the eyelets to secure and bound together using two large book rings.

The beauty of this storage method is that I can add and remove inserts as I wish in line with my favourite sets, it takes up very little space and is portable to wherever I am working -very easy to take along to crops :-)

Hope you enjoyed my tutorial,

A wonderful weekend

2011-04-03T21:47:00.000+01:00

Today in the UK we are celebrating Mother's Day, so if you've been celebrating today, hope you've had a good one :-) We enjoyed a lovely family meal (with a bit of help from M & S *winks*) and I was given a humongous box of delish continental choccies from my son :-)

This is the card I made to give to my Mum:

I had a tiny sort out of my craft room last week and unearthed some old stash including a couple of DCWV stacks which I decided to try and use on a couple of projects. I used a couple of their Far East papers for my Mum's card and on the following name tag:

I spent yesterday in the company of these lovely ladies:

'the serious picture'

'the not so serious picture'

Creating the name tag was a challenge for our new 'revamped' crop which met yesterday for the very first time. Some of us had met previously at a former crop which is now no more, so we regrouped and reformed in a brand new venue. It was a great day and lovely to see some familiar faces along with some new faces, although having made my name tag, ever forgetful me then forgot to actually take it along with me lol!

blue eye beauty

2011-03-30T18:02:00.000+01:00

My son took the photo of our kitten used on the LO below a couple of days after he came home with us (he is now nearly 6 so not so little any more). Round about the time when we were considering having a pet, I remember flicking through the Argos catalogue one day and seeing a picture of the most beautiful cream and brown cat with the most amazing blue eyes. After a bit of web research I discovered these cats were from the Birman breed and as if by magic that weekend in the newspaper there was an ad from a local Birman breeder who had a litter of kittens ready to go. It was meant. We went to have a look and were 'chosen' by this little fellow:

Supplies: ScrapaGoGo April 'Cameos and Roses' create kit, hybrids and stamp. Papers: Bobunny Gabrielle, My Minds eye Stella & Rose Hattie Remember Roses and Buttercup, GCD - sweet surrender. Hybrid alphas and elements, pin and flower - Prima.

I used the stamp to create a custom frame for my photo and a number of the hybrid elements for my embellishments. If you fancy the look of the stamp, you can grab it as a single purchase on 1st April and as always, you can download the hybrids completely free of charge over on the site each month :-)

The ghost of childhood past

2011-03-27T21:14:00.000+01:00

I always think there is something very special about old photographs. We used to have a shop in our little town that had a window display full of old sepia and black and white photographs and it always captured my attention and imagination every time I walked by.

The ScrapaGoGo cameos and roses kit is just perfect for all those old black and white photographs (or even new black and white ones ;-) ) I decided to use a selection of photos taken during my early childhood. These were originally on slides, my Dad has converted them from this format and it's been so lovely to view all these pictures I've never seen before. I chose and printed four 3" x 2" pictures in black and white and used a portion of the shaped MME buttercup paper from the Create kit as a frame.

I cut out the inside of the the creative imagination paper including the banner and placed this underneath my frame. The kit contains five prima trinkets which are so pretty (I particularly loved the locket) and decided to 'hang' these from my frame and incorporate the locket within my title. I used some of the left over thread from my February kit to attach them.

I finished by decorating the border with a sticker and some handcut flowers and adding my journaling strips which read:

"These photos tell a story of a time I cannot actively remember and are therefore very special to me as they enable glimpses of my early history".

A vote for all things vintage

2011-03-24T09:37:00.000Z

I arrived home on Tuesday night to find my April kit box had arrived and oh my, it is soooo beautiful - full of papers and products that really evoke that vintage feel - chipboard cameos, lace, beautiful patterned and floral papers with a worn, faded look of yesteryear. I got stuck in straight away and as I always enjoy making scrapbook pages that 'go back in time' and contain a sense of history, I decided to take a step back through the ages and make a LO that embraced a vintage style.

The word vintage generally seems to be used as an euphemism for old or old fashioned, something from another time or something that is old enough to be in fashion again. I chose to use a very old photograph of my mum's grandmother. My mum never really knew her Grandmother but has heard a few anecdotes from other family members, so with mother's day approaching, I thought it would be nice to create a page I could later frame and give to her as a present (and as I know she occasionally has a look on here, I am taking a chance and hoping she is not going to do so before mother's day!).

There are further details and step by step instructions over on the ScrapaGoGo blog if you'd like to take a look :-)

When planning my page the techniques I felt would lend themselves towards a vintage style were distressing, dry brushing and inking so I used a nail file to distress the edges of all my papers then inked them in two different shades - smokey grey and toffee inks from versafine.

I altered one of the chipboard cameos, painting the base in white, painting a layer of crackle glaze (from my local diy store) over the top then adding a layer of grey paint to finish.

I added a couple of the prima blooms and the resin cameo:

and to finish printed out a quote I'd found by Charles and Ann Morse which reads:
"The history of our grandparents is remembered in the laughter and tears of their children and their children's children. It is into us that the lives of grandparents have gone. It is in us that their history becomes a future".

aperture card

2011-03-20T10:02:00.000Z

I haven't made a card in a long, long time. Scrapbook pages alongside a few altered projects have definitely ruled the roost for a while, but as I've got a few birthdays coming up in the near future and was determined to actually make my cards rather than buy them this time, I got busy and here is one completed and all ready to send:

Supplies: Kraft and yellow Cardstock, papers - Jillibean soup - cabbage stew and pasta fagioli, punches -stampin up, martha stewart, corrugated shape and alphas - Jillibean soup, bakers twine, gems, cricut cart - accent essentials, stamps - Scrapagogo and basic grey, ribbler - Fiskars.

I like to make cards with different levels of dimension and have found that a good way of getting that dimension (but not too much bulk so it gets more costly to post through our mail system) is to create an aperture shape as part of the design. I used a piece of Jillibean soup packaging here as a template - just cutting out the inside to make my circle, using the scalloped edge from the packaging to frame and finished by adding a few layers of co-ordinating paper on the inside of the card. I stamped and cut out some swirls and to give them a different feel wrapped the bakers twine around the edges, finishing with a few gems.

2011-03-15T11:40:00.000Z

We holidayed in Sharm a few years ago and were all wowed by the resort we stayed at, our hotel was built into the cliffs and had a vernicular which took us straight down to the beach. This photograph captures the view from the bottom of the vernicular - a picture postcard perfect view.

Supplies: ScrapaGoGo Create and hybrid March kit including Basic Grey Wander papers, tabs and doilies, bazzill cardstock, alphas and twine - jillibean soup, liquid pearls, basic grey fabric flower and small alphas are not in the kit and from my own stash.

I like sketches and each month always have fun creating a LO using the ScrapaGoGo blueprints - we have one each month and you don't have to get the kits to join in with the challenges, all are welcome to play along :-) This is our March blueprint:

As the photograph I had chosen to use was landscape orientatated, I decided to rotate the sketch 90 degrees to fit my pictures.

I'm a big fan of the basic grey doiles and used small sections of different coloured doilies to decorate my page. I decorated the flower strip using liquid pearls, threaded ribbon through one of the strips and fringed the bottom of my cardstock mat to replicate the palm leaves.

Picture this

2011-03-13T11:02:00.000Z

There are several papers in the March kit that are just perfect for LO's with a photography theme, as soon as I saw them in my box, the first thing that sprang to mind was making a page about the first moment I was taken with the photography bug - the moment I was given my very first camera.

A love of photography must must be in the blood as I come from a family which has several keen amateur photographers in it's ranks and so I'm lucky enough to have access to lots of photograph albums stretching back several generations. I raided one of my Dad's albums and took a copy of this photo of myself, probably aged about 9 or 10 proudly holding my first Kodak 110 model.

Very few of my early photographs have survived the test of time, but I well remember the joy of having my own camera, taking my own pictures and feeling oh so grown up in doing so :-)   My LO tells this story:

supplies: Scrapagogo March 'What a picture kit' - create, hybrid and G2P, papers- Jillibean Soup - pasta fagioli, alphas and journaling sprouts - Jillibean soup, card stock - Bazzill, Bakers twine - beanstalks, basic grey doilies and office tab.

I used the journaling sprouts to create a mat for my photo and the twine to add texture, threading it through the doilie strips and around the alphas.

Handmade

2011-03-09T08:34:00.000Z

It's my turn to create a project for the Wednesday extra over at the Studio this week and I decided to create a picture using collage principles detailing some of my favourite crafting pastimes, which I could then hang on a wall in my home.

Below are a couple of pictures of my project and if you'd like to take a closer look you can find all the instructions detailing how to make this project here

It made me smile!

2011-03-06T14:16:00.000Z

I wanted to make a LO to record something my son said that made me smile recently.

I like spending some of my leisure time out and about in the countryside and also enjoy watching the odd episode of Countryfile on a Sunday evening. My teenage son came into the room on one of those said Sunday evenings, looked at the telly in total disbelief and said "Countryfile! What! Are you 75 or something!" (I think his comment was also influenced by the fact he wanted to change channel to watch Top Gear lol!)

Supplies: ScrapaGoGo March 'what a picture' kit

I used one of the Jillibean soup patterned papers from the ScrapaGoGo March kit as my base as I thought it had that 'countryside flavour' to it. I selected a number of photographs I'd taken whilst out and about in the 'great outdoors' and tied the page together by placing a section of the basic grey doilie paper down the middle of my page and placing my title over the top.

Talking of kit's the April kit sneaks are starting to appear on the forum, I love, love, love this kit and can't wait to get my box - just look at the April stamp!

Just wanted to add

2011-03-05T17:26:00.000Z

a quick post to prevent any confusion, if you are visiting my blog as part of the Studio blog hop this weekend - I'm not participating in the blog hop on this occasion - so you won't find a LO I've completed for the blog hop sketch and don't need to comment or follow (unless of course, you would like to that is *winks*) in order to be eligible for the Studio blog hop prize. Hope you enjoy the hop and have fun visiting the other DT members blogs!

Thanks!

Whilst he was sleeping

2011-03-04T22:05:00.000Z

I took this picture which ended has up being one of my all time favourite photographs :-)

Supplies: ScrapaGoGo create, G2P and hybrids from March 'What a picture' kit.

I placed a section of the basic grey doilies from the ScrapaGoGo March 'What a Picture' kit either side of my photo to frame, then used another section of the doilies and inked over it in blue ink to create a different background effect. I then highlighted some of inked segments with a black pen.

I used the twine, brads and buttons from the G2P kit along with a few journaling sprouts and card strips from the main kit to create a fun, twirly border around the edge of my page.

Traditional

2011-02-27T15:38:00.000Z

I like quaint old buildings full of character and here in the UK we are very lucky as there are a lot of beautifully preserved and restored buildings full of character to visit. I wanted to make a page to record our visits to one such quaint building, The Fleece Inn.

We visited The Fleece Inn a couple of times to have a meal when on a short break in the Cotswolds last year, not only was the food excellent (I'd thoroughly recommend a visit if you are ever in the area) the Inn was brimming with history - right down to the witch circles painted in front of the fireplace! I wanted to create a page with a bit of a vintagey feel so used a number of the Jenni Bowlin buttons from my Feb kit including the circle waste from their centres:

Supplies: February Happiness is kit from ScrapaGoGo.

I'd taken a picture of the sign in front of the inn which I cut out, cut the heart shapes out of the chipboard buttons and layered them, placing them over the sign.

Not long until March arrives now (where did February go??) and having been making some pages with the ScrapaGoGo March 'What a picture' kit - I can say with hand on heart this kit is incredible! I love both the sprouts and pasta fagioli papers from Jillibean soup - here's a couple of sneak peeks and you can see the full kit in all it's glory here :-)

And then there was chipboard

2011-02-25T08:50:00.000Z

Chipboard is a favourite medium of mine. I think it's because it's so versatile - a blank canvas that you wave a bit of magic at and can change it's appearance in so many different ways. I also like it because it's dimensional and I am a girl that loves to add texture on my pages.

Included within this month's GoGo kit are a number of Maya Road chipboard flags (and a star and heart embellishment) I decided to use mine as a focal point for my title - decorating some with paper and the rest with acrylic paint:

Supplies: February 'Happiness is' Create and G2P kit from ScrapaGoGo.

One fun weekend

2011-02-24T19:20:00.000Z

There are many things to love about scrapbooking and one definite positive in my book is the opportunity to meet and socialise with people who don't feel at all bemused by and totally understand the obsession with pretty papers. People who share the love of all things crafty. People who totally inspire me. I met a whole bunch of people who ticked all those boxes last weekend.

(photo taken by Eileen Webdale)

Lorraine and Janice organised a fabulous training weekend for the GoGo team to meet up in Suffolk. We stayed here:

surrounded by beautiful countryside and the house even complied with my longstanding childhood dream of having a swimming pool in the back garden! A heated pool, none the less!

It was fantastic to get to meet so many of the GoGo team, although sadly, not everyone could make it on this occasion. I'd met a few of the girls before at a GoGo day event and it was lovely to see them again and great to finally meet Rebekah in person as opposed to online. There was lots of chat, laughter, scrapping and new experiences including an introduction to the T.V programme 'Take Me Out' (there were more than a few howls of laughter whilst watching that, but overall I think I'll be saying 'lights outey' to future episodes lol!) and a midnight swim in the pool.

We were also introduced to our March kits upon arrival - lots of oohing and ahhing and fantabulous projects made by everyone over the weekend. The March gallery is going to be amazing. I found it very difficult to separate myself from my kit *winks* Rebekah photographed for posterity my obvious attachment to it......

On Saturday we had a day of training and planning (including some advance planning re: October getaway!) and on Sunday we had a chilled day, more scrapping, chatting, laughing, Vicki and I went on a walk to take some scenic photos and ended up getting a bit more 'scenery' than we anticipated - look closely, *tee hee hee*

It was a great weekend from start to finish, scrapbooking is grand!

Bright and cheerful

2011-02-17T21:19:00.000Z

A bit of bright and cheerful is always a good thing in my book, especially when it comes to colour choices. I took this series of photos of my sister's puppy last year (very apt, considering the background colour, as her name is Ruby) and I think these photos were destined for this particular colour combo.

I can remember my nan saying in my youth, that red and green should never be seen together - but I think that's one of those pieces of advice to be passed over as I think they are a great mix, certainly when it comes to scrapbooking anyway. I added in a pop of turquoise for some contrast and hey presto, one bright and cheerful LO:

Supplies: February 'Happiness is' kit from ScrapaGoGo. Cardstock - bazzill, papers - American Crafts, October Afternoon, Pink Paislee. Alphas - Pink Paislee. Chipboard - Maya Road. Flowers - (felt) - American Crafts, Sassafrass. Thread - WRMK. Stamp - ScrapaGoGo, designed by Nicola Kerridge. Ribbon from kit.

Whilst I'm a fan of the effect of hand stitching on a LO, I wanted quick and easy and hand stitching is not always quick (at least not when I do it! lol) I decided to try and add thread to my page without getting my needle out once and you can find out / read about the various ways I tried here if you are interested. Btw, don't you think those sassafrass brooches are just beautiful! They are certainly a firm favourite with me at the moment :-)

Nature at her best

2011-02-16T19:09:00.000Z

I do a fair bit of driving about as part of my day job and sometimes pass by the most beautiful landscapes from the road such as tree lined avenues, patchwork fields, distant hills, amazing skies and sunsets. However, as I'm driving, such glances are fleeting at best and it's not always possible to stop and record the moment. There was one instance last year though, where I did get lucky with capturing a view seen from a car window.

We were on our way to the Cotswold's for a short break and had ventured off the main route to have lunch at one very unique and historical inn - the Castle Inn at Edge hill, which really is a castle too! Down one of the little country lanes, we saw a field full of glorious wild poppies and agreed it would have been rude not to pull over and take lots of photos of this stunning view.

I've been waiting for the 'right' papers and embellies to scrap my favourite photo I took of the poppies and lo and behold, they arrived in my February ScrapaGoGo kit:

Supplies: February 'Happiness is' Scrapagogo create and G2P kit - papers, Little yellow bicycle, American Crafts and Pink Paislee, Cardstock - Bazzill, ribbon from kit, Stickles Glitter glue, red felt, Stamps - loyalty stamps -ScrapaGoGo, inks - versafine, stampin up.

I used this month's blueprint and cut 3 flowers from the ribbon and placed a bit of glitter glue in the centre to make my own poppy embellishments. ScrapaGoGo have a somewhat different approach when it comes to loyalty stamps and yes, you get real stamps as a customer reward! I used both the alphas and the images from the the current loyalty stamp set and have a sneaking suspicion that this particular set will be very well used!

A bird's eye view

2011-02-12T22:43:00.000Z

Well, this month's Scrapagogo kit has certainly lived up to it's name - I've been very happy whiling away a few hours creating LO's with the contents of my February box :-)

Here is one of my LO's created using this months hybrid elements:

Supplies: Happiness is - February ScrapaGoGo create kit and hybrids designed Kirsty Wiseman.

I'd taken this picture from the top of Clitheroe castle during a recent visit to the town and as soon as I saw the hybrids, had my theme for a LO - a bird's eye view, complete with a cute hybrid bird / cloud images. I used the heart numbers to create a layered flower embellishment which also spells out the date of my visit. If you'd like to see the instructions for this, head on over the ScrapaGoGo blog. You can find information on how to download the hybrids completely free of charge here :-)

In the bag

2011-02-03T21:29:00.000Z

The current challenge over at All About Me asks What's in your bag? So without further ado, I set about answering that very question!

I've always had a bit of a thing for bags and shoes. Currently I have a big, soft, purple handbag which has these two pretty charms - a butterfly and a flower - hanging from it's handle and it was those, along with the dinky little pockets on the front and it's colour that made me need to 'bag it'! from it's shelf at Next.

Here's my LO:

supplies: papers - k and company, basic grey and prima. stamps - prima, american crafts, ink - stampin up, flower - prima, alphas - basic grey, punch - fiskars, pearls - prima.

which lists what's currently in my bag:
my pink filofax, a work mobile and my personal mobile, gloves, loads of reciepts, make up bag with make up,sat nav, woolly hat, my purse, work photo id, sunglasses, pink ipod and an umbrella. Not quite sure what all that would say about my personality, but one things for sure I 'heart' my purple handbag.

Sunday sketch

2011-01-30T08:13:00.000Z

It's the last Sunday of the month so that means it's sketch time over at the Studio. I really enjoy the sketch challenges as I tend to procastinate and move things about a lot, when putting a LO together. I find having a 'blueprint' to work from does help to speed the process up slightly. This month we had a great four photo sketch to use, and here is my interpretation along with the sketch:

Supplies: Papers - Fancy pants, Hot Chocolate line. Alphas - American Crafts.

I used four photos to make a montage that I had snapped during a family walk on Christmas Day. The sun was setting as we walked and this coupled with the snowy landscape meant we were treated to some beautiful scenes. As it was getting dark, some of the photos were a bit blurry, but printed off at this size you can't tell as much. I printed a couple off in a sepia tone to match the colour scheme and chopped up several papers to create the title section in the corner.

Just one more

2011-01-27T18:02:00.000Z

Phew, it's sure been a busy week over here! The diary for the day job has been full to bursting and I've also been celebrating my birthday so have been enjoying a few social gatherings. I haven't had a lot of time for all things scrappy but have just one remaining LO to show from the January Scrapagogo kit:

When on our hols a few years back we had the opportunity as part of a guided day tour to ride up the side of a volcano on a camel, which was certainly an novel experience that felt different to our usual way of getting around and day to day life!

I did a bit of experimenting when cutting the papers for the borders - I wanted to cut them to symbolise the bumpy 'up and down' ride of the camel, but in retrospect looking at the finished page, I wish I'd done something different as I'm not really sure they work or that I like the look. Anyways up , as always I enjoyed the experimentation process :-)

Just before I sign off here are a few more peeks of 'happiness' :-)
Check out this stamp designed by Nicola Kerridge - I love stamps and I can't wait to have a play with this - isn't it wonderful!

Also, here are this months hybrids which are as always are gorgeous and totally free to download:

Happiness is...........

2011-01-22T10:23:00.000Z

a scrapbooking kit full of pretty papers and perfectly co-ordinated with loads of gorgeous embellishments. Just check out these sneek peeks of the February kit from Scrapagogo.
The papers, featuring Cosmo Cricket 'Togetherness'; October Afternoon 'Modern Homemaker'; Little Yellow Bicycle 'Savor'; American Crafts 'Love'; Pink Paislee 'Sweetness' and My Minds Eye 'Market Street':

Here are just a few of the embellishments included in this months kit:

And here is this months G2P:

When it's cold, dark and dull outside, we all need a little bit of 'happiness' don't we *winks*, know this kit is going to do it for me! If you fancy seeing even more sneak peeks of the kit or adding it to your basket, head on over to this thread :-)

On the agenda

2011-01-19T07:50:00.000Z

What is on your agenda at the moment? The current challenge at All About Me is focussed on that very question and there is lots of amazing inspiration from the Design Team if you'd like to stop by and take a look.

I chose to focus on a topic always close to my heart - food. I love food, love cooking, love trying new recipes and ingredients, love eating it......and over the past couple of years have also become much more aware of what happens to my food before I buy it. I've watched with interest and often horror, the recent programmes about farming methods, discards, use of chemicals and preservatives, buying practices and from this have developed some new principles / aims in accordance - support local produce wherever I can, buy organic, buy food in season, read the food labels etc So on my agenda is to : be aware in relation to the food I eat / buy. I took a photograph of some veggies I bought from my local farm shop and here is my LO:

Supplies: Attic Treasures greeting kit from Scrapagogo and Elementary My Dear January kit from Scrapagogo.

I used this months Scrapagogo 'blueprint' sketch designed by Kirsty Wiseman as my inspiration for this LO - you can find the sketch and all the details here and you don't need to subscribe to the kits to play along.

'Me' time

2011-01-16T08:16:00.000Z

The theme of this week's Studio challenge is what do you do when you have a few hours to yourself. I love and treasure my 'Me' time. Life can sometimes feel like one great big balancing act, zooming around everywhere juggling work and family requirements takes priority over 'Me' time, but whenever I do have a bit of time to myself, I'll be found pottering about the house, (I am a very good potterer lol) reading or making a scrapbook page.

I chose to concentrate on a reading theme and made this page:

Supplies: papers - pink paislee, cosmo cricket, Jenni Bowlin, chipboard - cosmo cricket, stickers - Cosmo Cricket, pearls - Prima, ink - versafine, ribbon from kit.

It's not the best photo - it's been so dark and dismal here this week, difficult to get the light right when photographing scrapbook pages. I used a piece of ribbon under my title which I arranged to symbolise pages turning and a few actual book pages for a vintage feel.

I had a bit of an accident whilst putting the page together - I was going to use a new black paper pen which is supposed to create 'pearl' like dots on projects, bit like the effect of liquid pearls but with a different texture. Well, as I was squeezing the bottle, the nozzle got blocked and the next thing I knew the whole nozzle blew off, spraying the contents of the bottle rocket style all across my desk!! Said 'a la' Craig Revel Horwood, scrapping dis-a-s-ter dahling! A lot of stuff on my desk was ruined (and boy, is that stuff difficult to scrape off!) but luckily, I did manage to salvage some of the papers / embellies I was planning to use for this LO> (although if you look closely, they do bear a few scars from their splattering!) Anyone else ever had any similar scrapping disasters?

Learn

2011-01-13T22:11:00.000Z

You never stop learning in life do you? One of my very best and most enjoyable learning experiences was watching my son grow, learn and develop during his pre-school years. Children often have such a wonderful and unique perspective on things, and they are so interested and curious in their world- seeing him learn taught me such a lot too.

As soon as I saw the January ScrapaGoGo kit - 'Elementary my dear', I knew that it would be just perfect to create this:

A page to celebrate a favourite time of growth and learning - parenting my son throughout this stage of his development was a joy - looking back, there are so many happy memories of this time. I used the fantastic Maya Road wooden bingo numbers from the kit (love these!) along with the Studio Calico wooden stars and several of the papers that complemented my theme.

And in other ScrapaGoGo news, how do you fancy coming along to day events that will be filled to the brim with scrappy goodness and treats (and very easy on the pocket!) Take a look here for more details :-)

What are you

2011-01-09T10:35:00.000Z

passionate about? That's the theme for this week's Studio challenge - to create a page recording your passions. I decided to list some of the thing's in life I love and design a page using a really rich, deep colour scheme to tie in with the passion topic. Here is my interpretation:

Supplies: Paper - Lily Bee, Cosmo Cricket, Cardstock - Bazzil, Punch: Martha stewart, alphas - Pink Paislee and Jenni Bowlin, brad - My Minds Eye, ribbon and Chipboard frame - ScrapaGoGo January kit.

There is lots more inspiration from the Design Team over on the blog if you fancy a look :-)

Hide and Seek

2011-01-08T12:35:00.000Z

We share our home with a very beautiful, rather fluffy and completely spoilt Birman cat - Kitkat. His antics provide much amusement and are the source of inspiration for a number of scrapbook pages, such as this one :-)

Supplies: January 'Elementary my dear' kit from Scrapagogo using the Create kit, the stamp and hybrid elements.

I took this picture of him several years ago now, he loves to hide behind anything and everything (like this wooden arch that was actually bought for our rabbit) and then jump out at unsuspecting feet passing by. Unfortunately for him, and luckily for our feet, he's not perfected the art of hiding properly :-)

The photo of this page really doesn't do it justice, despite much fiddling about on my photo editor. IRL, the colours are much, much deeper. When I saw this month's ScrapaGoGo stamp:

I thought it would be the perfect size to frame my photograph, so cut out the middle section to create my frame. I decided to use the inside section of the stamp to create a patchwork square, grid effect on my page. Further details regarding this can be seen here on the ScrapaGoGo blog. I also used a number of this month's *free* hybrid elements on my page - just in case you hadn't realised, you can download these great images and alpha sets, completely free of charge to use each month - how cool is that! :-)

some of last years favourites

2011-01-03T08:06:00.000Z

2010 was a year that brought so many great scrappy experiences. Right back at the beginning of the year I was really excited to have the opportunity to join the Studio Team as I have always loved scrapping challenges. When I'm thinking about a LO, I have to have a story / a theme - that spark that makes me want to record something on a page. Being given a theme / topic really helps me to tune in and inspires me to get those creative cogs turning. Also, being given a deadline on a team absolutely makes me create something lol! Without this I do have a bit of a tendency to sit there and just think about doing a page rather than actually doing it! I've found some of the challenges more challenging than others but overall particpating in the studio challenges have resulted in a lot of long term favourite pages. Here are four of my personal favourites LO's created from last years challenges over on the Studio blog:

I was also over the moon to be invited to take part in several blog hops, a blog hop was a whole new concept and experience for me and one I thoroughly enjoyed. Here is a page I created for the very first blog hop I took part in:

Scrapping has been a blessing in more than one way, I've met lots of fantastic people I wouldn't have got to meet otherwise, both online and in real life. There are all the girls from the UKS team I am part of, hopefully we will all manage another meet in 2011. I love attending my local crop and hope to see all the girls again real soon. I thoroughly enjoyed attending my first ScrapaGoGo day event and it was also really great to get to meet the lovely Steph from Indigo Mill (miss you Steph x) and join her and Clare at the Stitches show at the NEC. Now there was a fantastic day - surrounded by beautiful papers and crafty supplies, bliss! Steph was kind enough and brave enough lol! to give me the opportunity to design a kit and run challenges on her shop blog - all of which were amazing experiences. Here are a couple of my favourite Indigo Mill pages:

2010 was also the first time I saw one of my pages published which felt so very exciting, particularly as at the time I was having a rather hard time in the day job, so this really lifted my spirits:

I've always been a big fan of creating pages that record and focus upon my own thoughts and feelings about things. A diary of my life - I use some pages to explore an experience, how I'm feeling - a place to get things out. I don't share all of my creations / the very personal pages on here for obvious reasons but have shared a few as I've always found it so therapuetic to use scrapbooking in this way. It was therefore fantastic to join the 'All about Me' team and share some of my pages from this concept. Here is one of my favourite 'All About Me' pages:

And finally there are the LO's completed just for fun - 2010 was the year I really got into rambling and walking and I've enjoyed getting out and about, seeing our beautiful countryside, learning more about my camera and how to photograph and record some of the sights and places seen.

So that was 2010! If you've blogged about your favourite LO's of 2010 I'd love to see them so please feel free to link in the comments if you'd like to. I'm truly looking forward to lots more great scrappy experiences in 2011, I'll be creating some tutorials for the Studio and of course there is lots and lots of exciting ScrapaGoGo news to share and plans afoot for the future ......... watch this space! :-)

Welcome 2011

2011-01-02T11:46:00.000Z

The New Year is traditionally a time when we look back and re-evaluate times gone by and perhaps make some resolutions regarding the things we would like to do differently or even choose a particular word we'd like to apply for the forthcoming year. Over at the Studio our first challenge for 2011 is in keeping with looking back and re-evaluating. A reflective challenge - all about hindsight, is there something that has happened to you that you would deal with differently - what would you change if you could?

Here is my interpretation:

supplies: Paper- American Crafts - city park line, GCD studios, Bobunny - mamarazzi line, ink - versafine, thread from stash, alphas - basic grey, chipboard - maya road from January ScrapaGoGo kit, pearls, jillybean soup journaling sprouts.

I chose to base my page around these words of wisdom by Xenocrates " I have often regretted my speech, never my silence". I think this quote is so true! There have been more than a few times in my life when I've inadvertently opened my mouth and said something that afterwards I've really wished I hadn't said, or upon reflection, perhaps I should have phrased my words slightly differently. Sometimes it's really difficult to know whether something should be said or not, then there are those times when something is said in anger that once out there it can't be taken back.......

I'd taken and printed this photo off a long time ago meaning to use it for something else, then never did. It finally got used though as with a bit of cropping it was the perfect image for this page. I used some symbolism by cutting out a couple of the kites from the city park papers and attaching my words, flying out, up and away.

Over the years I'd like to think that in the main I have got got a bit better at thinking before I speak and when I am in doubt about whether to say something or not, this quote is a great food for thought!

I'll be doing a bit more reflecting tomorrow and will be looking back at my LO's of 2010 and sharing a couple of personal favourites on here, then it's onwards and upwards to lots of scrappy excitement and adventures in 2011 :-)

Tis the season

2010-12-30T21:07:00.000Z

to be merry (been taking that one rather literally ho hum *winks*) but here in the UK we've also had rather a cold spell with plenty of snow and ice so it's also been the season to be freezin'. The arrival of the snow and ice co-incided with some time off work and the arrival of my first ScrapaGoGo DT kit 'Elementary my dear' (which can be seen in all it's glory here), so I stayed indoors, snuggled up warm and got busy with my scissors and glue - bliss. The weather and the colours of some of the kit items reminded me of a set of photographs I took last year on a frosty morning whilst out walking and prompted this LO - 'Tis the season to be freezin'.

Supplies: ScrapaGoGo January Create, G2P and Stamp kit

Stamping is one of my most favourite techniques and I used the cute stamp included used this month's kit to create the tabbed headed - further details can be found over on the ScrapaGoGo blog if you are interested.

Not long until now until we will be ringing in 2011 and I'd like to wish everyone a very happy, healthy and prosperous 2011 - Happy New Year!

sketch challenge

2010-12-26T08:17:00.000Z

I hope everyone has had a wonderful Christmas full of good times and cheer and that Santa was good to you ;-) Even though the festivities are still in full swing ( I'll be hosting a big Boxing Day bash today :-) ) it's still full scrapping steam ahead over at Studio and if you're all turkey topped up and fancy a bit of scrapping, we have a great sketch challenge for you that has been designed by our very own Fabi.

My interpretation of the sketch is below. My page tells the story of a game of crazy golf my son challenged me to whilst we were on holiday. He wanted a particular brand of aftershave from the duty free shop so issued a forfeit that the loser had to buy the winner a gift (do you get where this is going lol!) He's been playing golf since he was five so needless to say, my golf skills did not issue that much of a contest to him!

supplies: papers - restoration - Crate, holly by jolly - My Minds Eye, alphas - Basic Grey and Cosmo Cricket, stickers - Crate and love elsie.

Here is the sketch we used and as usual there is lots of inspiration from the DT over on the Studio site.

Happy Christmas

2010-12-23T16:04:00.000Z

It's very snowy here in the UK at the moment, I've been enjoying some time out from the day job all snuggly and warm at home. I've been kept busy both preparing for Christmas and scrapping away with my first ScrapaGoGo kit (which is truly lush) and I'll be back soon after Christmas to share the pages I've made. In the meantime here is a page made earlier this year which I forgot to put on here. A page that celebrates a walk I completed on Pendle Hill in Lancashire. I didn't meet the 'infamous' witches but it was a beautifully sunny day which seems a world away from today looking at the snowy scene from my window.

supplies: Papers - My Minds eye, corragated shape - Jillybean soup, brad - Crate, alphas- basic grey and American Crafts, punch - Martha Stewart, ribbon doily - basic Grey, Bakers twine.

Well not long until the big day now and as I'm not likely to get back on here for the next few days I'd like to wish everybody lots of seasonal best wishes and I hope you all enjoy a very happy Christmas. I've already met Santa this year and sat on his knee ;) and here's the proof *giggle*

Happy Christmas!

Traditions

2010-12-20T18:35:00.000Z

I've been joining in with discussions on a couple of forums about Christmas traditions, it's really interesting to give some thought to both my own family traditions / general traditions here in the UK alongside hearing from scrappy friends about the different traditions that exist in their part of the world. I've decided I'd quite like to try an Australian Christmas - sunshine and barbies on the beach sounds festively unusual but very good to me :-) This weeks challenge at the Studio is in keeping with the festive season:
This week your challenge is to take a photo of something that puts you in a Christmassy mood! Then, once all the festivities are over, you'll be able to go back and scrap the picture at your own leisure.

(and I was so thankful that Amanda set us a great but quick and easily achievable challenge at this very busy time of the year :-) )

As a result from the conversations regarding my festive traditions I decided to take a photo of something I do each and every year:

Buying a poinsettia to put on my mantelpiece is a tradition that signals for me the feeling that Christmas is truly on it's way and gives me that first tingly Christmas feeling. I'd love to hear about your Christmas traditions....

My 5

2010-12-15T08:10:00.000Z

The latest challenge over at All About Me is inspired by one of the mobile phone companies recent marketing schemes to make unlimited phone call calls to your favourite 5 people. The challenge is to create a LO about your 5. It could be about your favourite 5 friends, places, songs, memories - endless possibilities...

This month we were also sponsored by Sassy Studios so had the choice of two digital stamps to use on our LO's. My theme was inspired by one of the stamps and as an avid reader, I created a page to record 5 of my favourite reads.

supplies: patterned paper - Holly jolly by My Minds Eye, alphas - Pink Paislee, jillybean soup, stamp - sassy studio, journaling sprouts - Jillybean soup, twine, brown smooch spritz.

What's your 5?

Couple of cards

2010-12-08T21:32:00.000Z

I enjoy making my own Christmas cards to send but am rarely organised enough to be able to get them all finished in time to send! Each year I plan to start making a few each month in advance, but before I know where I am, it's December already and I've run out of time. This year I've made the grand total of two so far lol - both fairly quick and easy designs using paper scraps left over from last years Christmas projects.

I also made a couple of little gift boxes using a K and Company kit, I found this kit which was an old QVC TSV on the bargain shelf in TkMaxx a while back. I dithered over buying it at the time, but am glad I did as these little boxes really add the perfect finishing touch to a small gift and are so easy and quick to put together.

Title - less

2010-12-05T08:50:00.000Z

The Studio challenge this week is to create a LO without a title. Ho, hum, she says scratching her head. To me, a LO without a title feels a bit like fish without chips, Christmas without turkey......somewhat nontraditional. Still, challenges are supposed to be challenging so although creating a LO without a title felt a bit peculiar, I got my papers and glue at the ready to meet it head on.

I decided to downsize from my normal 12 x 12" page, instead making a 5 x 7" sized LO so I could put the finished page in to a photo frame. I used an old photo I have of all of my grandparents together and here is the finished page:

Here it is in the frame:

Supplies: Bazzill Card stock, Martha Stewart Punch, Papers - Lily Bee, Catching Fall, line, Thread, HOTP stamp, Brad - MME, Rose Trim from Oct Nook kit.

Although I did find this challenge one of the more difficult that we've been set, I am really happy that I now have this picture frame to display and I actually do quite like it, hey, maybe I should try Christmas without turkey next lol!...........although I suspect I might have a bit of mutiny on my hands from the family if I tried that one ;-)

Super, super excited

2010-12-02T20:52:00.000Z

to be able to share the following news:

I have to keep pinching myself to make sure I didn't dream it! It goes without saying that I am chuffed to bits to be one of the four ladies joining this amazing team and I am so looking forward to having lots of fun creating with Lorraine and Janice's wonderful kits!

Style file

2010-12-01T07:32:00.000Z

We are kicking off in 'style' for our first December challenge over at AAM. It was my turn to play host for this challenge - all the challenge details can be found here.

I chose to create a page about an 'era' that has always appealed to me in terms of style - 1930's and 1940's Hollywood style. An era that in my mind is associated with glamour, elegance and allure - always perfectly coiffed and beautifully presented in that silver screen style. And the perfect paper line for this theme.... Well it just has to be Cosmo Cricket - Circa 1934. I ADORE this line! Here is my page:

Supplies:
Papers: Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934, chipboard - Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934, alphas: Basic Grey, Brads - My Minds Eye, Cardstock - Bazzill, Ink- distress in old paper.

I didn't have a photograph to illustrate this particular style / time in my life so had to improvise with a picture that was taken fairly recently. I chose this particular photograph as the side view felt a bit similar to one of those studio posed portraits that were also very popular at this time.

My journaling reads:
I've felt a lifelong allure to the glamorous styles depicted in 30's and 40's black and white films. I wanted to be exactly like one of those sophisticated, elegant, graceful screen goddesses. As a teen I adopted my own style in similar vein, shopping for vintage clothes, waving my hair and owning a large collection of red lipsticks!

Studio Wednesday Extra Tutorial

2010-12-01T07:26:00.000Z

If you've joined me from over at the Studio, welcome to my Wednesday extra tutorial.

It's that time of year when we start to think about the process of decorating our homes for Christmas, and so in keeping with this, I thought I'd devote my Wednesday extra to a tutorial that is all about decorating an item. I often think to myself that the many beautiful papers and embellishments we scrappers have at our disposal deserve to take centrepiece within our homes, so decided to decorate something that could be displayed in my home both throughout the Christmas festivities and beyond! I was also mindful of the fact that it's an extremely busy time of the year so wanted a project that was super easy to make and required minimal time, effort and thought. In came the Kaisercraft handbag tidy that I've had sitting inside my stash for a while now combined with a couple of minature plants and hey presto, one finished project: a decorated handbag planter.

These Kaisercraft beyond the page items are perfect for a quick project, all the cutting and measuring that normally gives me a bit of brain ache to figure out has already been done, and the only thing left to do is the fun bit - the decorating!

The supplies needed for this project are:

Kaisercraft beyond the page handbag tidy
acrylic paint in your chosen shade
Patterned Papers to decorate - I used Circa 1934 by Cosmo Cricket - Ginger, Bette, Gable and Astaire
Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 chipboard
Artisan Elements (circles) - Pink Paislee
Ribbon
Pearls
Ink pads - distress ink in old paper and versafine in black
Sponge brush
Nail file
Scissors and craft knife
Strong glue - I used pinflair silicone glue.

The first thing I needed to do was choose my colour scheme. As it was going to be a Christmas gift I chose colours that were fairly traditional for the festive season but not instantly recognisable as Christmas papers, so the gift can be displayed long after the festivities have finished.

I started by giving all the handbag tidy pieces a couple of coats of acrylic paint - I used a cream shade and used a sponge brush to apply as I find using this tool to apply paint leaves a much smoother finish. When dry I daubed distress ink in old paper over the top for that slightly shabby chic look.

The next step was then to cover the two base pieces with my patterned paper (circa 1934, Ginger). To get very smooth edges, I drew round my base, cut out with scissors then ran my craft knife as close to the edge of the base to trim the slight excess left. I then sanded the edges with a nail file.

I then covered the clasp section, I cut out a 5" inch circle from my paper (Circa 1934 - Astaire) - this will cover both sides. I then used one of the Artisan elements circles for fringing (if you've not used artisan elements before I'd highly recommend giving them a go - for those who haven't they are a textured, flexible embellishment that you can alter in lots of different ways) I altered the artisan elements by daubing a light coating of black ink and then added this to the outer edge.

The last step before adhering the clasp to the base is to cut out scallops in two different co-ordinating colours to edge underneath the clasp to add that pop of colour and interest. My chosen papers had printed scallops I could hand cut from the design or alternatively you could use a circle punch and cut your punched circles in half.

I then made the 'button' for my clasp by cutting out one of the scalloped flower circles from the Circa 1934 'Bette' paper and layering two ribbons, prima leaves, hand cut flowers from the Circa 1934 'Gable' paper and finishing my embellishing with a little chipboard flower and some pearls.

Next step was to glue it all together using the silicone glue. I chose not to use one of the dividers supplied in the pack as I wanted a much larger middle section to leave more space for my plants.

And here is the front view once it had all been assembled.

Perfect for planting :-)

great timing!

2010-11-28T08:28:00.000Z

It wasn't planned that way but my latest page for this weeks Studio challenge is all about snow, and given snow has arrived with us here in the UK and the forecast is looking like it might be here to stay, it's a very topical theme lol!

Supplies: cardstock - Bazzill, alphas - American Crafts, artisan elements - Pink Paislee, gems - Prima, punch - Martha Stewart, pearls and thread from my stash, buttons - ScrapaGoGo, transparency - Hambly, snowflakes and sheer - Maya Road, Stickles, Rub on letters - ginX, Snowflake embossing folder, Fiskars embossing board.

I've wanted to scrap this photo of my son for a long time, it brings back many happy memories. The challenge set was to use this sketch:

and to scrap with a monochromatic colour scheme. Making a monochromatic page was a first for me and I decided to go with the snowy theme using many different hues of white including a bit of sparkle for some added interest. I love the end result so guess I'll be experimenting with some more monochromatic projects in the future!

Check out the challenge over on the Studio site - you've still got time to upload any pages made for this month's challenges to be in the running to win this months prize from the Crafters Workshop.

This month

2010-11-24T13:05:00.000Z

I was so excited to see some of my pages published within the ezine ScrapStreet, here and here. If you haven't checked out ScrapStreet yet, I'd really recommend you pay them a visit, each month this mag is filled to the brim with so much visual delight - it's incredibly inspiring!
This is the final page I submitted for an article with the theme 'from the heart'. I created this page ooh must be going on for a couple of years ago now, and I still love it because it is a page where I really did record my thoughts and journaled 'from my heart'. It always makes me feel slightly wistful whenever I re-read it.

supplies: Paper: Basic Grey, Sassafras Lass, SEI, Collage Press, Cardstock: American Crafts, Alphabet Stickers: American Crafts, Cherry Arte, Flowers: Prima Marketing, Journaling Spots, Lace: K and Company, Pens: Micron, Other: buttons, pins. Tools: Stamps: 7Ggypsies

My journaling is probably the best explanation regarding the story behind this page:

I am lucky to possess a variety of photographs of my ancestors and on this particular photograph, I can put a name to all the faces. What I can't do though, is tell the stories behind their faces, add substance about them as a family - their individual experiences, relationships, hopes, ambitions and trials. I find this so frustrating - why didn't I ask these questions when I had the chance? My younger self just didn’t realize the importance of asking for their stories and now that I do, I can't turn the clock back. This is why I scrapbook, in the hope that one day, if my son wants them, he can access my stories.

My page can be seen here in the magazine.

Shop til you drop or not?

2010-11-21T10:08:00.000Z

I am one of those strange people who quite enjoys shopping - even the weekly food shop! I like mooching around the shops, browsing and looking at all the wares. The only thing that turns shopping into something unpleasurable for me is huge crowds - not a fan of 'mall' shopping at busy times, places like the Trafford Centre at Christmas turn me a little stir crazy! So when the Studio challenge was to scrapbook about shopping, I chose to create a page about a new shopping tradition - a day out to the big stamp and scrapbooking show in London.

I make this trip twice per year - internet shopping for stash is fantastic but I do love being able to see papers and colours in person and having all the different types of stash - card, embellies, papers, stamps........ under one roof to look at is always a real treat!

Here is my page:

supplies: Papers - Cosmo Cricket - Circa 1934, Cardstock - kraft, Bazzil, punch - Martha Stewart, stamps - 7 gypsies, Maya Road, brads - My Minds Eye, Stickers and small alphas - Jenni Bowlin, alphas - Sassafras Lass.

I made my own envelope from Kraft Cardstock to store my show tickets and receipts.
You can see the full challenge details and the inspiration from the DT here.

When I grow up

2010-11-17T08:29:00.000Z

It's time for a new challenge over at AAM: When I grow up I want to be.........................

Well, I never really knew and never really gave it much thought until I absolutely had to. I alternated between being a 'here and now' person and having my head in the clouds through much of my teen years.
I was more interested living in the moment than planning for the future and I'm still a bit like that today. There was no set plan in relation to what I wanted to be or do. Every so often I'd have an idea, usually because I'd read a book and identified with a character - ideas ranging from the sensible like being a teacher to the bizarre like being a spy.

So, I created this LO which tells it exactly as it was:

supplies: papers - apple jack line Sassafras lass, chosen digi doodle image, promarkers, pearl dots, paint, glitter glue, ribbon, ink - stampin' up, stickers - Sassafras lass, alphas - Sassafras lass.

I used this photograph of my 13 year old self 'striking a pose' Madge style (or not as the case may be lol!) as it fitted in really well with my chosen digi stamp image from digi doodle - our sponsor over at AAM this month. The image originally had a horse in the middle which I cut out and replaced with my (somewhat embarrassing) photograph.

Journaling reads:

This girl never really had a plan about what she wanted to be when she grew up. Her head was full of the here and now - school, friends, the music she listened to and the books she read. She didn't have a vocation or any great aspirations. When she was asked to think about it, she vacillated. The future was so full of exciting possibility. She dreamed of being many different things from the sensible to the ridiculous, but she still didn't have a firm plan..... At 13 she was thinking about being...... a photographer, spy, teacher, archaeologist, journalist.

Lucky?

2010-11-14T08:13:00.000Z

This week there's a question to be answered over at the Studio - Do you consider yourself lucky?

Now, if I was considering luck in the sense of winning in raffles and the like, my answer would be usually not! However, in lots of other areas of my life, my answer would be a resounding yes! I'm blessed with a lovely family, home and friends, a sense of purpose and direction in life through my career, good health..... So when it came to thinking about the next part of the question - what's your idea of luck - create a LO about you and what being lucky means to you, I went right back to the beginning - childhood. A time in your life that should be fun, carefree, full of love and nurture with the opportunity to grow and develop within a safe environment. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had all of the above which was my theme for this page:

supplies: papers: Sassafras Lass - Indie girl, Kaiserkraft - Chatsworth line, October Afternoon - Thrift shop. Pearls, leaves - Prima. Stamps - Cats Life Press, American Crafts. Alphas - Collage Press. Chipboard - Tattered Angels. Corrugated Card - Jillybean Soup. Punch - Martha Stewart.

I was so lucky to have been given a very happy childhood and my experiences have played a part in shaping me into the person I am today. Very, very lucky.

Now onto someone who obviously does have luck when it comes to raffles *winks* - with a little help from random.org - Irini, you are the winner of the small RAK I promised to give away as part of the AAM blog hop. Congrats and if you could send me your address by emailing me at craftychickcreates@yahoo.co.uk, I'll get your RAK posted out you :-)

Cardstock Crazy

2010-11-07T07:38:00.000Z

Although I would hold my hand up to being a complete patterned paper addict, I'm also a firm fan of cardstock and for me, cardstock is just the scrapbooking staple. Couldn't do without it! I love that it comes in every shade imaginable, love that it's so versatile with endless possibilities and mostly love the balance and white space it can give to page designs.

I therefore, had a lot of fun with this weeks studio challenge:

This week your challenge is to create a page about friendship. Interpret this however you like, but there's a twist - you can't use any patterned paper on your layout!

The challenge reminded me of the many, many uses of cardstock. I chose co-ordinating colours to match my chosen photo and altered the cardstock using a few stamps and inks. With the addition of a transparency, some stickers and alphas for my title, my page was complete.

I ended up with a page I love and there is not a whisper of patterned paper in sight! (and I will confess that I didn't miss my patterned paper as much as I thought I would! lol!)

All About Me is a hopping!

2010-11-03T07:01:00.000Z

That's right, it's time for the All About Me Blog Hop! and I'd like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone hopping along with us :-)

I'm real excited that you've joined us as we've got lots of fun projects to share. Hopefully, you'll have found your way over to me after visiting Rachel's blog, but if you do happen to start here first, it's well worth making your way back to the beginning at the main All About Me blog, as that way you won't miss anything!

And our theme for today? It's a 'majestic' theme that brings to mind all those long forgotten fairy tales I was read as a child - mysterious far off magical kingdoms, the valiant, handsome princes who fearlessly fight wicked creatures to win the hand and heart of fair princesses......

Yup, it's all about ROYALTY!

Like a lot of other little girls, I used to play out those fairy stories. I had a dressing up box and I'd spend many a happy hour 'transforming' myself into one of those storybook princesses - adorning myself with my plastic gems, putting on long floating party frocks and on very special occasions even borrowing a bit of my mum's lip gloss for that total princess feel. Of course as we grow the realisation ultimately hits that life is nothing like those fairy tales - the handsome princes are not waiting for you around every corner (mores the pity she whispers *winks*) and the 'happy ever afters' these tales depict mostly begin and end in the story books.

But.......despite all the cynicism, there's a tiny part of my adult self still yearning to capture and hold on to that inner princess feeling. Every time I'm getting ready for a night out to go someplace special, that 'transforming' process still works it's age old magic. Out comes all my finest grandeur - I'll spend a long time figuring out what to wear, or even better treat myself to something new with the aim of feeling spectacular, I'll style my hair, make my self up more than usual..... All with the aim of valuing me, making myself feel special, inside and out. As they say in that well known advert - 'we're worth it'! And that brings me onto our latest challenge topic at All About Me.

Most of us will something in our lives that we have to have done in a certain way, or a particular product that we'd rather use 'cos it makes us feel good, helps capture our inner princess. We think it's the best of the rest, something we could describe ourselves as being a little bit 'snobby' about. In my case it's the creme de la creme of hair straighteners - ghd's. You've heard the phrase 'crowning glory' (get the royal theme there *giggle*) used to describe hair? Well, for my inner princess to stand a chance, the hair has gotta feel right! and ghd's are my saviour for the times when I want to straighten my curly mop.

So yes, my name's Nic and I'm a ghd snob!

Supplies all from My Scrapbook Nook - papers: Lily Bee catching fall and sassafras lass indie girl, Kraft card stock, basic grey ribbon, alphas and bloomers, jillybean soup pins and corrugated shapes, Cosmo cricket alphas, stamp - Maya road, gems - zva.
I used this months AAM sketch by Vicki Murray as my springboard. Sketch can be found at AAM site.

My journaling reads:

I have thick hair with a natural wave and a tendency to frizz. Over the years I've spent hours and hours battling against nature, desperately trying to straighten those kinks. Nothing ever really worked until the arrival of a wonderful new product - hair straighteners! I bought myself a cheap pair which definitely helped tame but didn't completely cure. Then the miracle happened! My hairdresser used a pair of GHD's to style my hair and well! these babies were the creme de la creme of hair straighteners! Frizz? what frizz! I rushed home, went online and blow the expense! I got some!
It's kinda ironic that now I'm in my late 30's, the battle to have straight locks no longer seems that important. I'm happy to be as nature intended - a curly haired lass and there's some great products out there to calm my curly frizz! Still, it's great to know I have the choice if I want straight hair........................when it comes to taming those curls, nothing but GHD's will do!

So, come on then, what are you a snob about?? I'll be offering a small RAK to one of you, so why not leave a comment to tell me :-) Don't hold back tell me all about it!

I hope you enjoyed your stop off at my blog and hopefully you'll come back and visit me again in the future, but for now your next call is to hop on over to the talented founder of AAM, our very own Melissa! Enjoy!

spooky sketches

2010-10-31T07:59:00.000Z

I love sketches so was very happy when the decision was made that the last Studio challenge of the month will be a sketch challenge from now on :-)

This week we had a great sketch to play with along with the criteria to make your page with a Halloween theme! Here is the page I created:

using this sketch:

Using the sketch was no problem but the Halloween theme was just a tad more tricky as now my son is all grown up, we don't tend to really celebrate this holiday any more and we don't have any photos from the times when we did.

This fact was echoed in my stash, as after searching through it all I only had the one piece of Halloween themed paper! Not to be defeated, I had the idea of creating a page about my son's scooby dooby doo room guard toy which he loved in his younger days. And after all, scooby and his gang were the ultimate ghostly goings on crime solvers............so a bit of a Halloween link there ;-)

My journaling is hidden under the photos and reads:

"Ghosts, ghouls and goblins beware, Scooby doo is a waiting for you! Scooby began his guard duties outside your bedroom door when you were 7 years old. You'd chortle away as he warned you of anyone approaching by shouting out one of his famous 'scooby dooby doo catchphrases'. Ten years on, he's now lost his powers of speech but he's not yet moved from his guard post outside your door.

A bit of brightness

2010-10-29T19:35:00.000+01:00

is exactly what is needed when it's all grey, drizzly and gloomy outside. We've had several days this week where it's never really gotten light and all around seems grey, grey and a bit more grey! I'm a sun loving girl and after getting home on Tuesday felt the need to create something. Something bright that reminded me of summer!

I automatically turned to my Bobunny papers - the sunkissed and flower child lines as I love the vibrant, summery feel both of these have. I decided to play along with the current challenge on the Bobunny blog and created this page:

using this sketch:

The purple in the sunkissed line was a perfect match for these photos! I rotated the sketch and created the aster flowers from paper scraps using this fab tutorial.

My journaling reads:
Rambling out and about in the countryside has many advantages, not only is the peace and serenity a real hiatus from everyday life - I also get to see beautiful sights like this!

Lets Celebrate

2010-10-28T20:38:00.000+01:00

Several weeks ago I reached my third blog- a- versary and felt like it was time to celebrate with a giveaway draw with this prize on offer :-)
I assigned each and every follower a number and with a little bit of help from random.org this number was drawn:

True Random Number Generator

Min:
Max:
Result:
2

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

which means the winner is..................................................................................................................

Congrats Miranda, if you could confirm your details by emailing me at craftychickcreates@yahoo.co.uk, I'll post your goodies out to you :-)

I was also celebrating this week as I had a lovely surprise when I opened this months My Scrapbook Nook newsletter to find it included this:

Friday Faves October 1:st

After another week of fantastic layout in the gallery, Carol has picked yet another favourite among the artwork, and this week, the lucky girl to be in the spotlight is:

Nic-B!

Her LO is gorgeous! The diagonal flow, the cute details and that vertical journaling...

We love it all!

CONGRATS, Nic!

Layout by: board member Nic B

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) Thank you Scrapbook Nook!

She's got more rabbit

2010-10-24T12:34:00.000+01:00

than Sainsburys was a phrase I used to hear from my parents a lot as a little girl!
(and if you've never heard that one before and are wondering what on earth I'm on about, it's a line from 70's pop song commonly used in my childhood to describe someone who talks a lot :-) )

That habit also tends to extend to my journaling on my LO's. I am never short on what I want to say and can rabbit on and on and on........ my problem is always how to fit all that I would like to say into the space I have available on my LO - some journaling squares are teeny, weeny, tiny for someone like me! I can spend ages trying so condense my journaling down and so I was delighted to see the challenge Amanda had set for us this week at the Studio which is:

"Your journaling must take up at least 50% of your scrapbook page."

and here is my completed page:

I chose to make a LO about my much loved teddy. He's not the fanciest teddy in town but he has been well loved over the years and is the only toy I still have as an adult from my childhood. This LO tells his story - how he was given to me and about why he's special to me.

When planning my journaling, I wanted to try and achieve a faded, worn look to symbolise the age of ted and the passing of the years, so I didn't want to make a page where the journaling was the first thing to jump out and hit you when you viewed it. So that was my challenge - to journal on at least half of the LO but to try and make it part of the furniture, so's to speak.

I decided to experiment and got out a pencil, some tissue paper and my modge podge and had a go at paper mache-ing my journaling onto the background paper. I wasn't sure how it would turn out but I was really pleased with the end result - it was just the effect I was after :-)

Talking of all things Studio, did you know they have a sister site called Scrap That where you can find lots of honest reviews about all things scrap booking. Definitely worth checking out if you would like to find out what others really thought about a product, kit, paper line etc. There is also a giveaway for a purple cows cutter which you've just got time to enter if you're quick! Take a look here.

Errant mojo's, life n' other stuff!

2010-10-21T20:09:00.000+01:00

These past couple of weeks I've hit a bit of a creative slump. Life gets real busy sometimes, so much so that you meet yourself coming backwards trying to juggle family, work, social stuff and all the stressy busy bee activity has meant my mojo just fluttered out of the window. Haven't wanted to be creative or even think about crafty stuff, which is so not me, as usually I need a bit of a daily crafty fix, whether that be looking at a mag, surfing, chatting online or actually creating something. So, I thought I would have a bit of time out and last week, put a bit of distance between me, the craft table and the 'puter.

It was much needed and hopefully downing the crafty tools has done the trick, whilst my mojo is still running slightly amok, I did make this page at the weekend for the latest All about Me challenge which is to scrap about your proudest moment or accomplishment:

I chose to create a LO about buying my very first property which felt a huge step but very big accomplishment at the time. I used the gorgeous lily bee papers from this months nook kit and created a hinge which can be lifted to reveal the following journaling:

"Number 32 was a very special home to me, as it was the first house I was able to buy. Before no 32 we had lived in several houses rented from the L.A, so this house represented a real step for me, somewhere truly mine. No 32 was a two up, two down in exactly the area I wanted to live - 5 mins away from my parents and my childhood home, my friends and old haunts. Buying no 32 equalled status, achievement, security and pride. I knew this house was the one for us from the moment I viewed it, it just felt right. I put in a offer which was accepted and after 3 months of waiting, finally got the keys!! We moved in in September 1998 and this wonderful little house became our home for the next 7 years and was my first step on the property ladder"

Guilty as charged?

2010-10-10T21:24:00.000+01:00

Today's studio challenge focuses on those little guilty pleasures we all enjoy........
I loved reading about the other girls guilty secrets and even share a couple of them - not telling which tho lol ;-) For my page I created this:

Yup, my guilty pleasure is having a PJ day – you know, one of those days where you stay inside clad in those comfy PJ’s, keep the world at bay, and completely chill out. I don’t manage to fit them into my schedule as often as I would like, but when I do squeeze one in, I always feel a little tinge of guilt for doing so as thoughts of the 101 others things I should be doing often creep into my consciousness!

I didn't think the world was ready for the sight of me in my PJ's lol! so I took a piccie of my pink slippers instead. I used the sassafrass indie girl papers from the August Nook kit - so loving this colour combo. I attempted to create a circular border frame to mimic the fabric flower on my slippers – this folds down when placed in a page protector.

So there you have it, that's my guilty pleasure - what's yours?

The Artist in you

2010-10-06T21:00:00.000+01:00

The new challenge is up at All About Me today. This challenge provoked a lot of head scratching for me - I wasn't at all sure how to interpret it - Melissa posted a couple of fun quizzes to get those sparks of inspiration flying:

What type of artist are you
what sort of artist should you be
what art movement are you

and this worked as apparently (according to my results!) I am an emotional artist with a way with words and this sparked my inspiration. Words have always fascinated me, as an avid reader I find words both so powerful and inspiring and the majority of my LO's start with the story.

So I created this LO:

aptly entitled it's all about the words. Creating this LO was also a great way to use up all those old thicker letters lol!

My journaling reads:
Words have always fascinated me, they inspire and enable me to express myself and convey my thoughts and emotions - add meaning to my art. The words add the substance to my stories. It's always all about the words!

Why not have some fun with the quizzes, find out and create something to record what type of an artist you are :-)

Home

2010-10-03T12:11:00.000+01:00

This week's challenge over at the Studio is all about 'home':

There's no place like home. We'd like to challenge you to create a page featuring your home. Maybe your favourite spot, the flowers in your garden, or even the leaking pipes under the bath. Just make it an authentic snapshot of your life right now!

I decided to approach this challenge from a slightly different angle - having been inspired by fellow DT member Andrea, and her lovely art hanging a couple of weeks back, thought I would use something from my home along with my scrapping supplies to create a framed picture to hang in my hallway.

I used to enjoy doing cross stitch and a number of years ago made a stitched house picture accompanied by the quote 'Home is where one starts from'. I decided to use my cross stitch piece instead of a photograph on a LO in a 6 x 12" format.

Here is the resulting LO:

I created my own background paper for the bottom half of the LO by typing a sentence of prose I had read in a book and which totally summed up everything I'd ever want to say about 'home':

"A home is not a static place. It is the canvas on which we paint our personalities. We change and grow and our home evolves. A home is also the storehouse of our family histories, a living archive that holds the treasures of our personal lives. Every picture, every book, every object tells a story, it speaks of where we've been and who we are and what we mean to each other"
I then framed the LO and it now hangs in my hallway :-)

Page Maps

2010-10-02T09:43:00.000+01:00

I've been a long time fan of Becky's page maps ever since I discovered scrapping, so it goes without saying it was a total pleasure to create a page for the October 2010 maps.

Here is my LO:

which was based upon this 8.5 x 11 horizontal sketch Becky sent me:

It did take me a bit out of my comfort zone as I don't usually scrap in this size - I'm a 12 x 12 girl at heart but did enjoy the experience :-) I tried to keep as true to the original sketch as possible whilst adding a few additional touches to make it my own. Thanks to Becky for having me and take a look here at the other Studio girls interpretations of their sketches :-)

Blog-a-versary Giveaway

2010-09-28T21:13:00.000+01:00

I realised the other day that September is my blog-a-versary month :-) Yup, 3 years ago back in September 2007, I dipped a very tentative toe into the world of blogging and compiled my very first blog post. As time has gone on, I've developed quite an attachment to both my little blog and the crafty bloggy - sphere in general.

Whenever time allows I love having a little hop around a few of the crafty blogs out there and it's always both inspirational to see the many beautiful projects and interesting to have a little glimpse into lives. I've tried quite a few different arts and crafts over the years but scrapbooking is the one that is here to stay! and I think blogs are such a great method to share our pages and record whatever you want to record about life.

I'm also always incredibly appreciative to all those who take a bit of time out of their day to view, read and comment upon my posts and the projects I share on here. It really does give me a happy, smiley feeling to read that someone has enjoyed looking at or has been inspired by a project and always feel very honoured when someone likes what they see enough to add themselves as a follower :-) So I'd like to say a BIG blog-a-versery thank you to everyone who visits, comments or follows me. And what better way to show my appreciation and celebrate 3 years of blogging than by having a blog-a-versary give-away :-) It's only a small RAK but I hope it will find favour:

Anyone who is a follower of my blog will be eligible to win the RAK which consists of: an 8 x 8 post bound American Crafts album, 9 pages of 8 x 8 everyday papers, 2 packets remarks birthday stickers, selection chippies, a flair badge and one packet of cosmo cricket tiny type alphas. I'll put all followers names into a draw using random.org in about 3 weeks time which means it'll take place either on or round about the 12th October.
Here's to blogging! :-)

Perfect days, stash and butterflies

2010-09-26T10:23:00.000+01:00

It's Sunday so that signals a new challenge over at the Studio and this week, it's a fairy tale challenge all about your perfect day - if you could spend a day doing anything - what would it be?

Gotta say, I needed to do a lot of thinking about this theme, there are so many things I would like to do, places to see, lots of days / experiences I would deem as having had that perfect feel to them. What to do? I kept coming back to a theme of simple pleasures - it really doesn't take much to please me - a family lunch, trip out with my son, shopping and lunch with friends - all 'everyday' perfect times. This lead me to a thinking perhaps these times are so special as I spend so many hours at work each week -the responsibilities and long hours that go hand in hand with my day job can, and often do, impact upon my leisure time, so those everyday, simple pleasures are really treasured and enjoyed. That meant I'd got my theme and created this LO:

I used the wonderful restoration papers from Crate that came in Septembers My Scrapbook Nook kit. These are just sooo beautiful and the best quality!

My journaling reads: My perfect day would be spent doing the things I love and spending time with the people who are special to me. Round the edge of the page I listed the components of a perfect day ie: a lie in, a full English, sunshine, a family get together etc...

I could also deem yesterday as a day that felt pretty perfect :-) I travelled down to London to the Big Stamp and Scrapbooking show here:

It's the fourth time I've been now and I was kinda in two minds about whether to go or not, as I have amassed quite a stock of beautiful papers and embellies to be going on with. In the end, as I'd booked advance train tickets decided not to waste them and to still go, but to keep to a very strict list of buying mainly essentials and then go off and do some sightseeing.

Here is the stash purchased:

There was plenty of stash to have to resist, but I really did stick to the list and was very proud of myself for doing so. On my list were page protectors, and essentials such as glue, DST etc. Thought I'd try some of the pinflair glue as I've read really good things about this, so will see what it's like. Patterned Papers are a huge weakness of mine - so I tried to keep well away from those tempting display stands and only bought 7 sheets :-) Finished with a few little treats - a new Martha Stewart punch and ticket stamp I've had my eye on along with a couple of alpha sheets. The show was very, very busy so in some respects it was great to have finished and travelled back into the city by midday for a spot of lunch and shopping in covent garden. ( tip: I discovered there is a very good reason for the warning sign on the underground stairs at covent garden stating it is a climb of 194 steps to the street - they are steep, seem to go on for ever and have a better effect on the lungs and leg muscles than completing 20 minutes of exercise on the steppers at the gym!)

Following that I walked through Regent's park and made my way to London Zoo. I just loved the butterfly house - it felt totally magical to have these gorgeously coloured butterflies fluttering about your head and even landing on you. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a camera mishap - note to self: always remember to check your camera battery before going out! So the only pictures I managed to capture were this first steamed up one and the second one before my batteries gave out! doh!

Still, the battery mishap meant I experimented with my mobile camera for the first time - am not sure they will turn out to be the best quality, but all in all, it was a lovely day - stash, shopping, sunshine and a bit of magic - perfection :-)

magnet memo board

2010-09-22T08:25:00.000+01:00

A few months back I went on a Scrap-a-go-go 'total textures' day event, one of the projects we made in a class designed by Janice Warren, was this cute little magnetic memo board:

The base for the board is simply a piece of 6 x 12 cardboard covered in white cardstock and then decorated with squares of patterned paper. We covered, decorated and attached a memo book to the bottom of the board and made the top peg piece from a piece of muslin backed with cotton wool pads. Magnets were then attached to the back of the board so's it can be placed on a fridge :-) Super clever idea eh?!

Towel Art

2010-09-19T10:22:00.000+01:00

We have a special challenge guest over at the Studio this week - Lain Ehman. Lain set us a wonderful challenge that truly was a challenge! Here are the details:

Use holiday theme stuff on a page that's NOT about that holiday. I have tons of holiday stuff (Christmas and Halloween in particular) that only makes it out once a year - I'd love to use it in some creative ways and see what other people can do.

As soon as I read the details (after initially thinking eeekkk! lol) I knew I wanted to use some of my Christmas themed papers - I have a separate box of christmassy stash, bought to make cards / received in kits that rarely gets to see the light of day, as I'm not really a huge 'theme' scrapper. So I decided this challenge was the perfect opportunity to make a small dent in and actually use some of these supplies - I chose a variety of papers from Luxe's Candy Cane collection which I received in a kit a couple of years ago and set to work! Here is the resulting LO:

In 2008 we had a fabulous holiday in Egypt - my journaling explains it all:
Each night as we returned to our hotel room, we would be treated to the sight of a towel folded into a different shape and adorned with petals - so creative and such a wonderful touch!
I took these photos of the 'towel art' and was so pleased to finally create a page about them! I really wasn't sure that this LO was going to work as I was doing it, but as the page evolved it did all come together and I have a resulting LO that I am very happy with.

I cut out various elements from the Candy Cane papers - the leaves to make the flower, the small squares, lots of circles and cut sections to create all the borders.

Check out the challenge here :-)

One little word

2010-09-16T08:19:00.000+01:00

Challenge 26 is now live at All About Me and it's a good un! The challenge is to choose just one word that defines you and create a LO using your word. I went with the word that jumped straight into my mind the minute I thought about this challenge - determined. I've really needed to call upon this quality at varying times in my life so it's a good job I have a lot of it!

Here is my LO:

Each month we have a different sketch displayed on the site - this month Michelle McClung has designed this great sketch which I enjoyed using.

My journaling reads:
Life is full of uphill struggles and disapointments. Sometimes your path just does'nt lead the way you planned. I try to always remain focussed and have faith in myself. I truly believe if at first you don't succeed, try, try and try again. Never give up on a goal.

Patterned Papers are all Crate Paper - Blossom Hill. Cardstock is DCWV and Bazzill. I made the trim by using a fiskars border punch.

Extra time!

2010-09-15T08:15:00.000+01:00

If you ever check in over at the Studio, you may know that each Wednesday we have an extra feature where we share additional projects, tutorials, set challenges, share inspiration etc.....

This week it was my turn and chose to use my extra to share a super cool discovery :-) There really is so much inspiration and talent out there in our scrappy world and every so often I come across a project that really piques my interest. A couple of weeks ago at my monthly crop we were treated to an unexpected class - a lean-mean-mini book which had been designed and was taught by one of our regular crop gals - Jemma Sharrock.

Jemma's design is incredibly inventive - it's a super easy to make mini book (size 5" x 3.75"). Now, as the girls at my crop will testify ;-), my brain does not cope with any complex paper engineering / origami type projects, so if I managed to make this - it really is super easy to do! The book is constructed using just one sheet of cardstock and one sheet of double sided patterned paper. With a few strategically placed cuts and folds, your paper and card magically metamorphasise into an 8 page mini book where every inch of the original paper and card are put to good use! There are cleverly constructed pockets, tags and mats and it is all bound together into a little box form with a ribbon tie.

I thoroughly enjoyed the class and was wowed by the design, so asked Jemma if she would mind if I featured her design over at the Studio, so lots of additional scrappers could also be introduced to and enjoy her lean, mean mini book design. I was really pleased when she said yes!

Please pay a visit to Jemma's blog where you can see a slide show displaying some of the gorgeous 'lean mean' mini books she has created. You can also access / download Jemma's PDF tutorial and mini book instructions over at the Studio.

Here are a few pictures of the book I made in Jemma's class:

I chose to tell the story of my newly discovered love of walking as I felt this book would be the perfect medium to chart some of the individual walks I've completed this year, with plenty of space to add more as I complete them. The little pull out mats are just the right size to display a 2 x 3" photo and journaling square, so I used these to create individual graded walk guides. The pocket was the ideal place to store some of my downloaded route maps.

A big thank you to Jemma and I hope you have as much fun using her instructions to make a lean mean mini book as I did :-)