Scrap Map for August

Here's my take on the Creative Craft World Scrap Map this month - getting in there at the last minute!

I'm also using this as the UKS wc entry.

Shimelle's Cyber Crop - From the Heart

Here's my random love. I love my Red Spotty Mug. It's very special to me.

I didn't know I owned so many red spotty papers!

And that's all the challenges I had time for.

Shimelle's Cyber Crop - Go Retro

I decided to go back to my childhood. We didn't have a polaroid camera, Daddy used a regular camera and cine film. Anyway, here is my mother, my Teddy and I posing in front of the Cessna that we're about to climb into. On Wednesday it'll be 30 years ago.

Don't know why I hadn't scrapped this picture with this paper before. Just as well I didn't!

Shimelle's Cyber Crop - Chop Your Paper

This one didn't go according to plan. Not that I HAD a plan, just that the picture in my head was no way near to what actually ended up on the page.

I'd already bought a piece of Cosmo Cricket's Joy Ride for the express purpose of chopping it up and cutting out all those lovely circles:

So I did that bit first. Then punched out some smaller circles, larger scallops and some assorted butterflies and layered them up. That was fun. I even made buttons from little circles, doodled on them and covered them in glossy accents. Took the best part of the week as I didn't have much Adam-free time to scrap. When I had all the bits ready I looked at them and thought "Meh." No idea what to do next.

Happily, the UKS weekly challenge involved using some black and scrapping a celebration. These circly things feature black, so I chose a pic of Adam, cut that down as well and made this:

{Adam is now 16 weeks old. He grew out of his dinosur top weeks ago. Looking at this photo I find it so hard to believe that he was ever this tiny. He's STILL a tiny baby and has so much growing to do and yet he's now becoming a little boy with a personality. He's no longer the squishy alien in this photo! Today - Aug. 20. Then - May 3.}

It's not exactly what I had in mind, but I'm happy with it and it'll go nicely in his Baby Album.

Shimelle's Cyber Crop - Half Page

This was a fabulous excuse to not cut into this beautiful piece of Sassafrass!


This is Bob during the Open University 2009 Summer School to Durham. He's demonstrating scale. When taking a photo of a geological feature you should always include a scale so someone else knows the size of the feature they're looking at. Bob is showing that this also works with ice creams and kiosks.

Close up on one of the lovely seagulls that Susi cut for me.

It's going to go into my Geology Album as a 'companion piece' to this one:


For both of these layouts I've used the most recent Quirky Kit - The Milk Bar.

Shimelle's Cyber Crop - Stickers

I love stickers. I have lots of them. When I was little I used to collect them, especially fruit stickers, they were fun. Somehow, though, I just don't seem to use them enough on my layouts, so this was the perfect challenge. In fact, I decided to abandon patterned paper altogether and just use stickers - with a bit of background misting that looks much better in real life, it's very shiny and glimmery!

Some of the stickers are backed onto card and then cut out to make them easier to work with and to layer. I've managed to include:

October Afternoon - Thrift Shop
October Afternoon - 5 and Dime
October Afternoon - Ducks in a Row
Cosmo Cricket - Circa 1934
Cosmo Cricket - Early Bird
Cosmo Cricket - Earth Love
Echo Park - For the Record
Jillibean Soup - Monster Stew
Making Memories alphas

The journalling says that Adam is seven days old and we're heading out on our first trip in the pram - to the voting booths!

Shimelle's Cyber Crop - Grid

Well, I'm still busily finishing off the Explore Prompts, but found some time on Sunday to do a couple of Challenge layouts. Much easier now that my Husband is back from the States and can keep an eye on Baby. Both very happy to be back together. :)

I started with the Grid challenge. I've never been very good at multiple photo layouts, but these days I'm trying to get as much scrapped as I can. The photos of Baby just keep multiplying, my time keeps decreasing and I still haven't scrapped huge chunks of my past that keep slipping further into the past

So I decided that the grid would be photos and the papers would be The Thrift Shop by October Afternoon, because they've been calling me for a while now to play with them again. The first thing I saw was this:


It's already in a grid and mine was half used, so I thought I'd pop out the remaining cards and use them on a layout with cut down photos. The backs of the journalling cards are all patterned paper and I figured I'd be more likely to use them as plain shapes than journalling cards. However, when the cards were all removed, I was left with a negative space that looked like a bunch of little photo frames with a small border of pattern around each one.

I abandoned the original plan and did this instead:

The tartan paper is from October Afternoon's Road Map collection, but the rest of it is The Thrift Shop. Very happy that I managed to use the leftover sheet rather than throwing it away. I'll make sure I keep an eye on all other negative spaces produced by popping out diecuts in the future.

Explore : Prompt 18 ~ Creating Stage A layouts

This really didn't suit me. I expect that's because I barely have time to create a full layout in a day, let alone starting four and taking them to a semi-finished point. Besides, having areas stuck down and then wishing that the newly added section could go under that bit or that bit and not being able to was rather hampering.

I chose four pieces of WRMK papers from the White Out Collection.

Also totally forgot to take pictures of three of the four in their A state. Anyway, here are the three layouts that I've finished to Stage B:


This is the one where I'm most happy with the technique. I was able to add scraps of Cosmo Cricket: Garden Variety and I think it's worked out quite well.


All I could add to this was ink, journalling and the date / place tag. I'm not that happy with the layout.


This one barely features the chosen papers at all! That's probably why I like it so much! All I did to take it to Stage B was to add the dangly flocked spiders.

I'd write more, but the baby is yelping!

Project 12 - June 2011

{click to enlarge}

Pictures this month include the hot day where Adam had to sit around in his nappy, Clive the Turkey at the Gog Magog Cafe, Adams first hairwash, Granfer helping with our decorating and the bunch of fathers at Fathers Day.