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.

Retreat Layouts 1

My plan for the Retreat this year was to only take offcuts of my old papers, do a bit of pre-Retreat planning, add some embellies and create my own mini kits. It worked to a certain extent. I did get bits used up, but between the planning and executing stages I changed my mind about how I wanted things to come together. Unfortunately, by that point, all my stuff was at home and I was in deepest, darkest Olney! Never mind!

Two wedding layouts using MME - Love Me Do.



I prepped the butterfly at home using Faded Jeans ink, Faded Jeans stickles and GA. I then buggered up the layout by using my new Chipped Sapphire ink on the title after I'd stuck it down. I managed to ink the alpha, the paper, the butterfly AND the photo.

Luckily, I've not played with the photos so it doesn't show up too badly! Actually, neither of these came together exactly as I'd hoped.

Scrap Map Saturday ~ Springtime

This week at Creative Craft World the Scrap Map Saturday theme is "spring / seasons".

Thought at first it might be a problem as I didn't seem to have many pictures from Spring (or autumn, or winter...), certainly not eight of them! I don't have photo printing capabilities at home, I always send them out to be printed, so my photos are always sized at whatever options I'm allowed on Photobox.

Then it occurred to me that, obviously, sketches are jumping off points, they're for kick starting your mojo and sending it off to scrap. My mojo came up with this:

{Forde Abbey in Dorset, Easter 2009}

I cut one photo into six pieces, displaced them a little and filled the gaps with daisies and my journalling. Also made my own background with Distress Inks (mustard seed, peeled paint & faded jeans) and a Maya Road butterfly sheer sheet.

Once I'd done that I didn't want to cover up my background any more than I had to, so I added a teeny title.

Then I had to go away and play with the Sheer Sheet as I'd not used it before and it's FUN!

Scrap Map Saturday ~ Fun?

My first layout as a Guest Design Team member for Creative Craft World - and I choose to scrap a picture of me in a bikini!!

The theme this week is 'circles'.


Oh yes, don't I look miserable! I never really grasped why going to beach is a fun thing to do. Sand gets everywhere. Of course, now I go to the beach, turn my back to sea and study the geology of the cliffs. Much more fun than beachballs. Although, I suppose I'll have to take my baby to the beach at some point. Maybe I'll suddenly discover the fun?

This is the very last of my Cosmo Cricket Snorkel paper, had so little that I punched the smaller circles from the larger ones and teamed it up with Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety to make it go further.

I Distress Inked the background with Broken China and Faded Jeans, then Glimmer Misted over the top. Still a bit of a newbie when it comes to Misting, but I'm pretty happy with how this came out. Doodled on the circles (yes, I cheated and used a Template!) and the journalling lines.

Creative Craft World Challenge

Here's my entry for the latest Challenge at Creative Craft World. This time it was a sketch challenge, gotta love a sketch!

{The View from from Welches Dam RSPB Reserve}

I've been doing a lot in 8.5x11 recently, but forgot to scale the sketch to the paper after I decided to flip the sketch! It was after I stuck the title down that I realised what I'd done wasn't what I'd planned to do, still, I like it.

My process was different this time. After spending ages colour coding my buttons, brads, cardstock and blooms they're now all easy to get at, easy to pull out the pots that match the photos... it's lovely!

I'm not going to sort my papers by colour. I'm still too much of a Paper Snob to let certain Companies mix with other Companies! But I do know what I own and what the colours are, so I pulled out all my pieces of red and green for this in the hope that I could mix them up. It didn't go as well as I'd hoped, the main papers are still both from the same collection (Cosmo Cricket - Garden Variety), but there is a Basic Grey rub on in there, and a punch from a matching paper and a Fancy Pants overlay that's been sitting around for ages.


Layering! Hurrah! Thanks to Wendy and Christine I will never let an unlayered embellishment near a layout again. :) Besides, it helps me to overcome my Snobbishness and mix up those Companies. This one fetaures stash my Dad bought from a boot sale, BG Cupcake, BG Boxer, Crate Cottage, Prima, American Crafts and a flower that came from goodness only knows where!



This one is my favourite. It's a shame that the Boot Sale Stash only had one piece of each item, so that's the ruffley green ribbon all gone and the red button with the doodly edge all used up. Still, must stop stroking and start using.

Melman in Glasgow

Here's Melman holding the umbrella for us when we got so wet in the grounds of Pollockshaws Country Park. He's such a helpful giraffe! I've used some of the giraffe print ribbon that he got for me from Michael's last week.

More layering practice!

I've started following Christine Middlecamp who is a genius at layering (not to mention on the DT for one of my favourite paper ranges, Crate Paper) and am especially impressed with this: Embellished Paper Doily. I have them all tagged in Delicious to read and study later.

John brought a Somerset Studio magazine back from the States and that is full of inspiring things. Makes me want to get a proper journal and start an Art Journal properly rather than just messing around at it.

Melman in Scotland

I seem to have had a run on scrapping Melman in Scotland, in 8.5 x 11 format, using up old scraps.

This picture was John's idea, Melman munching on the undergrowth in Princes Street Gardens!

This was supposed to be a grid background, but it went a bit wrong when I started to stick things down in the wrong places. Melman is now in Glasgow outside a House for an Art Lover.

This one is an attempt to use up lots of Sassafrass Lass. Lots of papers that I think I like, but I don't really. They're all far too busy and hard to work with. I've tried to use the sides that have simpler designs on for this.

Mainly made for a UKS Weekly Challenge in June.

And now an attempt to use up Junebug! John and Melman are in the cafe at Edinburgh Castle.

Twisted Sketches #55

A bit late in putting this one up, and I haven't done Twist #56 yet and #57 will be up today! Still, the twist was to use Flags, so I made some banners out of ribbon and came up with this:


The photos are all old shots of me, various quality, especially that one in the middle of my 7th Birthday!

Once again, I've used Jo's papers. Thanks Jo! These are all K&Co. paper snob in me wants to know what they're called and I think they may be Mira, but I'm not sure.

Father's Day Challenge

Here's my entry for the lastest Creative Craft World Challenge!

Well, the biggest challenge was choosing which picture of my Father to use and trying to avoid doing yet another Road Trip layout as those albums are full to bursting! So I decided to pick one of the most recent. I took this last month on a trip to Duxford. Each year we go and stand in 'Farmer Bob's* Field' and take pictures of the planes.

This year the Parentals are going to be away during the Flying Legends display, so we went during the Spring Airshow instead. Different sorts of planes than the ones we usually see, no Corsair and more modern fast things.

Here is Daddy, taking pictures:


and here's a close up of the plane. I think it's Sally B, but I might be wrong:


As you can see, I've chosen to do this Challenge as an 8.5x11.

EDIT: I won!

*no idea if his name is really Bob, but it's somethig to call him!

Twisted Sketches #50

I loved this sketch and it worked really nicely with an 8.5 x 11 layout.


This is one of the Oldest Inns in Nottingham - the twist was for "old", so I hope 1240 is old enough!

I love October Afternoon. This Thrift Shop is so beautiful.

Layouts for No Reason

I do keep making layouts for challenges and never seem to make them just for myself. The Paperclipping Roundtable seems to think that this can sometimes be bad for your personal creativity, so I've made up a few that aren't sketch based. I'm also loving 8.5 x 11 as a size at the moment, not that I have any albums of this size, I just like the rectangularliness of it.

This first one is Melman at Risby Barns in April. John took the shot of me standing by this giraffe print, Puppet on hand, looking silly. Not one person looked as us and the cafe was packed. Oh well, so much for being embarrassed.


I bought a piece of Three Bugs paper on purpose as it had giraffe and lion strips on it. I've already used the Lion strips. I took some elephant pictures earlier this month, so now I have to keep hold of the elephant strips! First use of my new giraffe stamp.

This next one is another of my old pictures from the hot air ballooning days. This was taken on a trip to France, we'd landed in Farmer Lambert's field and they invited us it for coffee and a drink (it was about 10am, time for a Mirabel).


I was penpals with the girl in green for a while. The farmer kept his guns in the downstairs toilet and the fly papers were so full of flies that they were fighting to get a leg on. Good fun had by all. :)