Thursday, 29 January 2009

My First Six-By-Twelves!

The very first attempt was this one of Melman at Christmas, where I also practiced my doodling:


I bought myself a bunch of Christmassy papers in order to try and make up some cards for next year, but they're all so pretty that I wanted to scrap with them. So I decided to try for a smaller layout size. Now I have a few cards made up, a pair of layouts and still have lots of paper left over. :) Best of both worlds.

This is a cold & frosty afternoon walking to Sir Beville Grenville's monument on New Years Eve.


All papers are MME and the lace came from my Teamie Janet. {{hugs}}

Oak Creek Canyon, Arizona

Did this yesterday for fun and then realised that if I used some deco scissors on it that it would count towards my 'donuts' for the UKS cybercrop. It's a scraplift of this. There's still no way of getting Layouts into decent lighting at the moment. As soon as they build up over the back window there'll be even less light.

Also got round to taking a photo of the latest UKS weekly challenge entry:

The challenge was to scrap an animal, use black, red & gold and to do some stitching. Done!

Wednesday, 28 January 2009

Monday, 26 January 2009

Cowboy!


Another Scrummy Stash Cafe challenge done. This one was to do a boy-themed layout, so I chose this "dead" Cowboy from Tombstone, Arizona. I've semi-scraplifted this layout by Scrap, Paper, Scissors.

I've tidied up all my stash over the past couple of days, so I'm trying to use up bits that I had tucked away and had pretty much forgotten about. So, ribbon, brads and random alphas.

Also made this over the weekend:



This is my Father in the City of Rocks looking out over the endless desert of New Mexico.

Saturday, 24 January 2009

Friday, 23 January 2009

Spooky Halloween

Well, it's Halloween again! After I finished off my Balloony layout I decided it was time I finally scrapped the other couple of balloons that I had taken deliberate pictures of - the Witch and the Pumpkin - and if I was going to scrap them then I had to cut into some more of the Halloween papers that I bought in Tuscon.

This one is mainly made from Cosmo Cricket's Nevermore. I used scraps of it to make myself some matching bats. The skeletons and pumpkins are cut from Creative Imaginations Spooky Borders. The alphas are Doodlebug that I've coloured in to match.

Same as before, but this paper is Macabre. I originally tried putting Nevermore bats on Macabre and vice versa, but they looked odd. This way they look more spooky as they are flying against the same paper - well, I think so.

Thursday, 22 January 2009

Balloons and Food

Wow! I actually did a layout because I wanted to rather than doing it for a class or a challenge. Obviously I want to do all the layouts I make, but I always seem to be catching up wth the things on UKS (especially now in Cyber Crop season!) and at the Scrummy Stash Cafe. Anyway, this is yet another layout for my Road Trip album.


When I saw this balloon I knew it was just asking to be scrapped and this was the best shot that I managed to get of it - they don't all fly into perfect positions, sadly!

The plan with this was to use up as many of the bits and pieces that I had left over from buying kits which had a lot of Crate Paper, Blue Hill in them. There are a couple of other papers in there, but it is mainly Crate. All I have left now are a few chipboard flowers and some die-cut embellies - they take up a lot less space. :)

I need to try this trick with a few other collections that I have.

Then I made this to add to my Recipe Collection:


I've been wanting to use this cookie paper for a while now, but couldn't think of a decent cookie recipe to use - so I haven't. This is a recipe for Marzipan & Mincemeat Apples. It's very simple, and probably will only be used once a year when I have leftover mincemeat to use up, but now it's scrapped and to hand in my recipe album.

It's also yesterday's entry for the UKS Cyber Crop Daily Challenge - to use eyelets. This features a couple so I'm counting it. :)

Tuesday, 20 January 2009

Is it a Card? Is it a Mini Book?

Well, I think it's a bit of both. When I started I thought it would be a fold-out, multi-photo holder to be stuck on a layout. Then I realised that if I gave it a front cover I could use it as a birthday card for my Dad, or maybe a Father's Day card, or maybe my Mother would like it. Anyway, it's sort of a mini-book to be given as a card!


The pictures aren't brilliant as the best light comes through the back of the house and that's been blocked off and is crawling with builders!






Made it for the latest Scrummy Stash Cafe challenge.

Monday, 19 January 2009

Winter Happiness

Another layout for a challenge! This one is for the UKS weekly. The challenge was to scrap a winter picture with summer colours, to have stars and stripes to celebrate the new President (yay! This time tomorrow the world will be a better place!), stitching and a homemade embellishment. I've not made much digi stuff myself, but the button on this LO I made from scratch!

We went to Bath on New Years Eve for a bit of shopping and on the way home stopped off here at Sir Beville Grenville's monument to take some pictures of the wonderful frost formations.

Kit: A Little Sassy by Stacey Towers

Sunday, 18 January 2009

Guilty!

Our pre-crop challenge yesterday was to finger-print our families. Well, there's just me and John in this household, so it wasn't a huge challenge! I did get a nice picture of him all covered in charcoal, which I thought would make a fab layout.



Kit is Country Life by Vicki at A Work in Progress and her date circles available from Scrap N Art.

Thursday, 15 January 2009

Jurassic Park!

{click to enlarge}

My very first double layout! I wanted to scrap these three pictures at the same time and a double looked like the way to go. Still scrapping the Road Trip, barely made a dent in the 300 pictures that I had processed. Anyway, here's my Dad and I at the Albuquerque Natural History Museum meeting Alberta the T.Rex and Spike the Triceratops. The third, samller, picture is a reflection of us in the doorway - made us look much taller and thinner than we are!

I've used Basic Grey Archaic papers and embellishments. The chipboard dinosaurs were perfect for this layout. I still have some dino's left, so I'll need to find something else to scrap with them.

Wednesday, 14 January 2009

Jacob Lake


On our third night in America my dad and I stayed in this cabin in Jacob Lake. I include the link for the sake of interest only. The website is quite excellent and promises all sorts of joys. The reality wasn't so much fun. I'm not going to be doing layouts of the interior of this place, particularly not the dodgy heating system with wires hanging out, or the stained sinks in the bedrooms, or the odd toilet/shower/corridor thing between the two rooms. You just have to imagine them for yourself. Nor did I take a picture of the abrupt staff member who dealt with us when we arrived.

The location was fine, close enough to the North Rim of Grand Canyon to get there and back in an afternoon and at night the stars are pretty amazing. I went for the cookies, but in the end I just bought a trilobite, so I guess that would be another point in it's favour.

The papers are Crate Paper - Static, apart from the squirrel, which is part of their Lemongrass range. One of the Jacob Lake Inn logos is a squirrel, so I had to include him! The journalling reads, "Little Cabin in the Big Wood's. Laura's Pa!" I was always fond of Little House on the Prairie as a kid because of Laura and how she had such a wonderful father, just like I do. So this picture is of my Pa and a Little House in Big Woods!

Tuesday, 13 January 2009

33rd Birthday

Using more Crate Paper Lemongrass! Love it. Not happy with the numbers, but they'll do.

Made for a UKS Weekly Challenge.

Sunday, 11 January 2009

My "Believe" Album


The album was my Secret Santa present from my not-so-secret Teamie Susi. :) I decided that the thing I Believe in most is geology, so that gave me a good excuse to make an album of rock-related things from my Road Trip last year.




This one came out a little fuzzy!


This is the first Cairn of rocks that I made


I had to balance the pages on a vase in the window to get as much natural light on them as possible, hence the odd bits at the side in all these pictures!



The flash has nearly hidden the House Sized Rock, but it does look like a tiny blob on the picture anyway.












Zion was glorious and almost had the entire album to itself!

Pumpkins!



Random layout of the Pumpkins outside a Smiths Supermarket in Mesquite, Nevada. I love Pumpkins. :)


Pick of the Patch
Kit by Raspberry Road Designs
Font - British Writing

Friday, 9 January 2009

New City


Made for the lastest Scrummy Stash Cafe challenge with the theme of something New for New Year. I've gone with a new city, well, new to me, that is. This La Pedrera in Barcelona on my birthday last year. I've used a bunch of Crate Paper, LemonGrass for this, the colours don't look nearly so good as they do in real life. :(

Thursday, 8 January 2009

Xmas


Another layout for a UKS challenge. I know that my New Year's Res was to post more of my paper LOs, but I'm not doing them at the moment. Currently studying and putting together a Bobunny word album that's taking longer than expected. Pictures of that when it's done. In the meantime:

Celebration theme - Christmas!
Use buttons - yep
Use 12 of something - buttons!

All I Want - A Holiday Kit by the Sweet Shoppe Designers
Font - White Board

Tuesday, 6 January 2009

New Layout!

This wonderful background is by Nicole Young. I use her page kits a lot in digi layouts, so it's lovely to finally have a scrappy layout with her design. :)

Saturday, 3 January 2009

A Killer Spider!


Made for the weekly challenge on UKS:

I scored mainly “C”s, so I had to do this:
- Use 3 or more pictures on your layout
- Use one of the following colour combinations:
hot pink and lime green OR orange and black OR yellow and blue
- Your layout should be about yourself
- Include at least 4 different types of embellishments (stickers, ribbon, staples & stitching)

I bought a beautifully fluffy spider at the Botanical Garden in Tucson, I've named him Cholla after the cacti that appear to be fluffy and teddy-bear like! Drank a bit too much on Halloween and ended up with a bunch of pictures of him "attacking" me...

Font - British Writing
Shabby Princess
Fall Splendour kit
Stickers by Kate Hadfield

Thursday, 1 January 2009

Valley of Fire, Nevada


I've used some of my new Crate Paper to make this. It's nice when Santa brings scrapping goodies. He also brought me a couple of books on Doodling, so I've bravely bought myself a decent white gel pen and have started making some swirls of my own. Not too good on this layout - but practice will make perfect!

Made for the latest Scrummy Stash Cafe challenge, nice way to start the year with a bit of scrapping.