Granfer & Frankie

Weekly Challenge - April Week 3

No patterned paper, no brads, buttons or blooms, one or three photos and not a 12x12 square. Check on all counts! Must try harder to catch us out, Sue! ;)

This is John's half-eaten plate of haggis and mash. I'd never eaten haggis before and found the concept way too disturbing. John, however, managed to convince me to try some and this is how much he'd eaten by the time I gave in and had a forkful. Well, haggis is bloomin' delicious! So I had to take a photo of the first haggis I'd ever had.

Sadly, I had no camera, just my iPhone and the dish doesn't look all that apetising in this state, but the idea is to record these special moments, and I have.

The Latest Batch

Much easier to do a whole load in one go than do a post for each layout. In each case I've cut into new paper collections.

Outside the Opera Garnier / Our balcony

Melman in Paris. I felt that Melman deserved some Steampunk Debutante! Used an October Afternoon sketch for this one.

In the Park in Edinburgh

I was very impressed when I noticed that the die-cuts in this collection matched up to the Buck Naked chipboard that I already had. Of course, I then read on the bottom of the die-cuts that they're meant to go together!

An old Pencil Lines sketch was used for this.


Outside Dartmouth House waiting for everyone to assemble for photos.

I already had some Material Girl, but with the Crafting Kit you also get the stickers, journalling tags and strips. They were all new to me, so I added some in.

PageMaps Sketch.

Melman Went To Scotland!

Thought I'd kill some time waiting for the baby by making some simple layouts of Melman!

Pencil Lines #230

Having tea at Scotland Street School, Glasgow.

One of October Afternoon's Thursday sketches.

Edinburgh Castle, Science Centre in Glasgow and meeting the statue of Greyfriars Bobby.

Felt quite productive making these, getting multiple photos scrapped in graphic style seems to be the way to go at the moment.

Easter

The CCW Saturday Scrap Map for this week.


John at Forde Abbey, hunting for rabbits to win us a Creme Egg! You had to follow the map, find the bunnies and then use the rubber stamp (bolted down to each rabbit!) to mark on the map that you'd located the bunny. Once all the bunnies were found, you got your creme egg.

Yes, it was a game for children and no, we didn't care that we were adults. :)

Duxford

My layout of the day for yesterday. Propped this one up on John's easel to try and get a better shot of it. Tried.

{My favourite plane, the Vought F4U Corsair. Also the Breitling Wing Walkers, a shot of the Balbo & Daddy and I in the beanfield}

Based very loosely on a page map sketch. I wanted a jumping off point to help me with scrapping so many photos at once, not something I'm terribly good at!

Had to do this just to use that gorgeous aeroplance paper. I love Cosmo Cricket, maybe it shows?!

Meteor Crater

Made use of a discount code last week and bought myself some boy-themed BoBunny, Blast Off! Figured it won't hurt to have some boy papers, even if the boy in question is now a couple of days overdue and starting to make me uncomfy.

The papers came really quickly and they're stunning. I wanted to cut into them straight away, but I was a little lacking in space related pictures. However, good old trusty Road Trip 2008 helped me out with these photos from Meteor Crater.

Had a quick play with my new alcohol inks to make a spacey nebula-like mat for my photo and I took the journalling directly from my Road Trip diary.

Chippy

This one is for the latest Creative Craft World Saturday Scrap Map where the challenge was to use shapes. I've stuck with the bracket theme from the sketch and used some different bracket shapes as photo mats and journalling block.


Photos from the fabulous Chippy Doon The Lane in Glasgow that we visited last year. Great chips and marvellous toilets! Pretty good pictures, too, considering I took them with my iPhone!

The People's Palace, Glasgow

This is my last layout / project using the Counterfeit Kit. Sitting at my table and scrapping is just getting harder and I still want to prep some more baby pages if I can. The Kit isn't really suitable for baby stuff, so this is it.

Certainly going to be playing again in the future though, this has been fun!



I cut all the flowers out from a couple of sheets of For the Record and I did it in bed yesterday with my feet up! (See? I'm not even scrapping at my table anymore!) The background paper is MME: Meadowlark, Dawn. I coloured some of it in a bit, doesn't really show in the photo. Flowers look better in real life too, they're mostly layered up on foam pads.

Right. It's nap time again!

So Cute!

Somehow I managed to plan this layout without having a picture in mind to go with it. I'd cut the frame for my "Beautiful" layout and then just dumped the negative part down on the bit of red cardstock. The next day I saw it lying there and just had to turn it into a layout.

I inked the cardstock using a Maya Road mask, stitched the paper onto the cardstock, made the butterfly, laid out all the crochet, flower, bird and leaf parts... then realised that I hadn't really thought it all through!

Finally went with this picture solely because I'm wearing a green t-shirt and I'm outside, so I sort of match both colour and theme! Even managed a suitable title. Quite happy with the way this turned out.

Maze Book of Me

Hot on the heels of me thinking that my mini book skills aren't up to scratch I decided to make a Maze Book! Glutton for mini embellishment punishment, obviously. I do love the folding, cutting and sticking that goes into a Maze Book though, so I enjoyed putting this together.

This one I've made to try and get some of my baby / childhood pictures scrapped before my Baby arrives and I end up just scrapping him instead.

I've had to take the photos with a cushion on my lap as I'm stuck to the sofa today with my oversized hippo feet up on a stool. They aren't happy tootsies today. :(



I've used 4 Heures 37 papers for the covers and Echo Park for the insides. I've not written on the tags yet, there are a couple of pictures that I want to ask my parents about first, then I can do some more journalling. There's plenty of slots of I want to add more as things occur to me.

I used to be cute! What happened?! I'm playing with my toy helicopter, although I always called it a "helicopterdopter". I think that butterfly may need some work, it's a bit plain.

Stamping and ProMarkering fun. I don't do much of that, but yesterday I realised that I do have some bird stamps and thought I should include them in the Kit.



A Basic Grey June Bug bird stamp.

Coming home from Nanny & Grandpa's on my birthday and seeing my new bike for the first time. My father took this reaction shot, but I don't have any pictures of the bike.


Another butterfly that needs a bit of bling - and me in a leotard! Horrors!

Hurdles. In the photo it's vaguely possible to see the frightening second year teacher, Mrs Hoyle, and the lovely Headmaster, Mr Davies.

In the swimming pool on the last day of a holiday in Spain. I swallowed too much pool water and spent the entire flight home being sick. It wasn't the greatest experience.

There. Fuzzy, but photographed. I think I could do with a nap now.

Retreat Beer Mat Mini Book

I honestly don't know why I bother with Mini Books. I can never seem to make them look as they do in my head. Perhaps it's because I haven't the knack to use tiny embellishments well or creatively. Anything under an 8x8 seems to go a bit squiffy.

But I have all these beer mats to use and I do enjoy covering them, even if filling them up is a little beyond me. So, I used the Counterfeit Kit to make it, hoping that the manufacturer mixing might help me. I don't think it did and I'm pretty sure I could do better than this, but I'm not sure I really know where I'm going wrong.

Perhaps I could do with a gadget that punches holes in chipboard so I don't have to poke holes with a compass! Occasionally I think about getting eyelet setters, Big Bites and things like that, but so far I've avoided the serious tools.

Ugh. I'm moaning. I blame the bad night of no sleep thanks to the baby kicking!


Maria in the Deli, Susi setting us up for the Caught in Crystal class and a page of journalling.

Everyone off to the Craft Shop for some serious stash shopping, outside the house getting ready for our Group photo session.

Maria, Sue and my Bump - with very fetching pink PJ bottoms!

One of the handmade flowers from a Quirky Kit that I've been stroking for ages. I put it in my Counterfeit in an attempt to use it up, and I have. :) There's still another one left for stroking!

Beautiful

The vase of daffodills that was on our table when we went to our Retreat in March. There was a box of Milk Tray as well, but we ate that! Jen took the picture, I can't put pictures together like she can.

First attempt at using my Counterfeit Kit to make a layout. I'm fairly happy with it as it's not something I would normally do, the mixing up of so many manufacturers.

Cake Baking & 1976

Kept at it with the Quirky Kit for a couple more layouts!


I wanted to know why Mummy's fruit cake was always so much better than mine when we use the same recipe. So I watched while she made one. Better quality ingredients and more moisture is the key!

Got out the good old Circle Circus again for this one. This is me in 1976 and I'm wondering now how I can possibly be about to have one of these when I still feel like I am one!

Counterfeit Kit Challenge - April

My first time playing along and this is what I've pulled from my stash. Turns out I don't have many items with birds on, but I've included a few. I did have all the For the Record papers, so I've just put them in there rather than counterfeiting them.

Not a big fan or user of ribbons, so I'm using this as a chance to use up some of the little scrappy pieces I have.

As I normally scrap by manufacturer (unless I'm using a kit) I think I might find this a little tricky. For instance, I've pulled the three For the Record papers that are included in the Real Kit, which means I will be using those three pieces up and the rest of the For the Record collection will be sitting there, not being used up.

I'll go back to the rest of the papers some day and three of the sheets will be chopped up more than the rest, they won't have had equal use.

OK. I'm aware that I'm strange!

Ring o' Roses

This week's UKS challenge was minimalist. To use no more than two photos, no more than two different sorts of embellishments, circles and a line from a song for the title. My title should be "o' Roses" not "of Roses", but this was just a bit easier when using a tiny type alpha.

Peckover House, Wisbech

Again with the current Quirky Kit. I'm getting plenty of use out of it! The flowers are cut from the Cosmo Cricket fabric, which I glued onto cardstock and then cut out. Can't take credit for the idea, it came from the QK Ideas Blog, which I can't link to cos it's for subscribers only!

So, fabric flowers and brads are my two embellishments.

Lots of circles thanks to a circle of Stampin' Ups Circle Circus.

Even More from the Quirky Kit!

I've given up trying to get decent photos without PSP, so these are just propped up on my desk, complete with scruffy desk backgrounds.

When this picture was being taken I knew the layout would have to be called "Tosser" ~ sorry Sue!

We were lucky enough that our Retreat fell on Pancake Day, so Susi bought ready mixed pancake batter and we all had a go at making pancakes. Sue was the only one brave enough to actually give pancake tossing a go and it worked!

These are the flowers that John bought for me the day we had a positive pregnancy test. Seems like five minutes ago and now I only have days left!

I used netting on this, thinking that it might tone down the brightness of the cardstock, but it didn't! Still, the photo had come out in very bright green and yellow, so it probably doesn't matter. Inked the CS using a technique I found in the free Craft Stamper ezine, which has worked, but left me with a large pile of inky post-its. Fun though!