Rather Large Catch-Up Post

I've been busy sorting out  my albums, so everything is now in chronological order.  I now pre-prep my albums, I know what needs to be done and I know the order that it'll be inserted into the album. I begin by putting the right number of page protectors into the album along with a Post-It that tells me which event will be going into that protector and the date. If there was any ephemera to go along with the trip, then that goes in as well. Perhaps some notes about what journalling needs to be included, a rough sketch or a suggestion as to paper that might match. When the photos come back from the printers they go into the page protector. That way I have everything I need to hand. I don't have to scrap in order, as such, I just know what needs to be done.

These layouts start in May and work towards Jubilee weekend in June. There are two that I've not done yet, but I thought I'd better make a start on getting them uploaded.

Adam with his friend Molly, enjoying the swings. I used the most recent Quirky Kit for this one.  Also attempted a small confetti burst after reading this post by May Flaum during Camp Scrap.  Don't think I'm ready for a huge burst yet!

Then the Grandparents came to stay and we went to Audley End.

Adam had just learnt to walk properly the day before, so he did a LOT of walking that day. Plenty of opportunity to practice with a Grandparent holding each hand and a ball to chase.

I put my own kit together when the current QK ran out. I'm trying to shop my own stash at the moment, to save some money, but kits help me to scrap faster and I think this worked. This is a mix of current Basic Grey PB&J and some older stuff that I've been stroking.  Turned the scraps into herringbone, I love that technique, it's great fun to make!

And then we went on holiday to Norfolk for a long weekend.

Sheringham. We started there because we wanted to buy The Sun (augh!) to get the Lego figure of the day! Then we went for a lovely teacake, it was a bit windy and there was no babychanging. So we went off to the beach to find a nice sheltered spot to do him outside. Adam wasn't best pleased by the experience, but we bribed him with his very first bucket and spade. 

Same day we went to Cromer for lunch - a delicious fish and chip takeaway eaten by the seafront. We also tried to find some knickers. Turned out that I'd forgotten to pack any... no go. Spent the rest of the holiday washing out my pants. Ah well.

Thought we might go home via the beach.  That was a bit of a fail.

These two were made with the Quirky Kit. I have added a few bits and bobs. The second one is 8x8. I'm trying to do a few layouts at a different size.  Maybe if I only have one photo of an event, or it's related to a larger 12x12 that already tells the tale.  I don't want to waste my time telling the same story twice.

Felbrigg Hall. I didn't take many photos here and I had to save one to use in the Project 12 for June. Herringbones again!

 

Had quite a bit of shandy on this trip! So much so that it gets its own layout. Mmm...shandy. 

Blickling Hall. We'd been there on the first day, right before it closed, but as we're NT members abd knew we'd be going back, it was lovely to just go in and sit. That's a layout that needs to be made. These two are from the second visit when we were able to enjoy the gardens properly, although we weren't able to do the house. Nice ice creams there!

The second one is a (herringboned!) 8x8.

Adam was too little for the play-stag, but we'd certainly go back and visit in the future. Great place for a final picnic. Before we had time to catch our breath from the holiday it was time to go to Bristol for Jubilee weekend. I saved the red, white, blue and flag ribbon from the Quirky Kit for this layout - Adam and his Great Uncle Adrian. 

Adam wasn't impressed by breakfast... 

On our way back home we stopped off at Butterfly World. Adam was terrified by the butterflies! 

Had fun on this one. I used the Butterfly World flyer, chopped it up and gessoed it. Nice and painty and inky.

NSD 2012 & Hitchhiking

I've recently signed up to Shimelle's Hitchhikers Guide class at Two Peas in a Bucket. This meant that I started looking at the Two Peas forum a lot more last week than I have been in the past. I'd kind of dismissed it as an American Shop rather than a Global Forum and had stopped visiting. However, I find the forum there and the work posted to be a lot more inspirational than UKS. Expect I'll be hanging out there a lot more in the future. Last weekend was National Scrapbooking Day in America, but they kindly threw it open to the rest of the world! I even managed to get some layouts finished. Both of these are from Shimelle's Starting Points, and tie-in with the Hitchhiking class and one of them also counts as an NSD challenge at Two Peas. 

This layout is also for the challenge - negative space. Now that it's done, I realise that I should've lifted the top layer on pop dots to make it more obvious that the stars aren't punched and laid on top, but are holes with the paper underneath showing through. Ah well. I've learnt that lesson and can use it in the future. Of course, this is now making me lust after the Martha Stewart punch anywheres, do I need two classic butterflies that do different things? I think that maybe I do... Anyway. The layout is Adam, whinging! 

This one is just a Starting Point.  It records Adam's first train ride and the fact that he fell asleep during it (and during the return trip).  I used the planes as a travel theme.  I don't have train embellies, but the planes are cut from a Glitz paper in the current Quirky Kit and a recent Glitter Girl video was about travel papers being used for other things, so I think this works.  Otherwise I'd be hanging onto the paper forever waiting for a plane theme to crop up!

Hatfield House

Over the Easter Weekend we met Grandma and Grandad at Hatfield House.  Halfwayish between us, to save any of us doing the whole drive.  I saved up my Tesco vouchers for this, so we had enough for all of us to get in and for three of us to go round the House.

I've tried to continue with my idea of getting multiple photos onto one layout and have used fake polaroids as well.

Squeezed in some ephmera as well.  The title was cut from the paperbag that my postcards came in and the pictures at the bottom are on a bookmark from one of the shops. Wow! That was a gorgeous shop, it had STASH!! I bought six washi tapes, a set of stamps and a coolbag for Adam.

To cram more photos on I backed each polaroid on another and created flaps. I've written the journalling under the flaps.I called the gorgeous shop the Oak Barn when, in fact, it's called the Oakroom.

I've managed to cover most of the day on one page, which just leaves me with a shot of Grandad walking off with Adam on their exploring adventure and a couple of shots of Adam being blown away by the lady on the the saxaphone. Both of those moments I felt deserving of their own layouts.

Explore : Additional

This layout grew out of various techniques, suggestions, concepts etc covered in the Explore class.

Explore : Prompt 8

Well, there might not have been any pressure to finish a project on this day, but this is what I came up with. I never usually use this many photos on one page. Chopping a whole bunch of them up into smaller pieces, however, has made them fit in a lot easier. I used the "group of nine" technique to display them, wrote on them and made sure that all the pictures are of me, just to ensure I am scrapping myself.


Used the "group of nine" here as well.

Smash Book?

I like the idea of Smash Books, but buying all the "proper" bits and pieces? Nah. Seems a little silly when you can use existing stash and a nice book from Paperchase. So here it is. Well, a little sampling of what I've done so far.

I bought some coloured envelopes and some decorative paperclips so I could display my photos. As they're originals, rather than digitals, this way I don't have to risk scrapping them and potentially ending up with layouts I don't like or grow out of.

The only photo I have from my Open University Summer School to Brighton. I still had part of the diary I kept, so I've included that as well.

Bits and pieces from our trip to York last year. I've included some October Afternoon stickers on this page. On the next few pages I've added in some photos that I know I'll find really hard to scrap, but ones that I love. This way they're somewhere I'll be able to look at. I've added journalling around all the photos that I put into the book.

Duxford and Fleet Air Arm tickets and flyers. This page has been embellished with matching Cosmo Cricket papers and stickers.

Bits and Bobs from a lunch at Loch Fyne and the Bits and Bobs from hunting pigs in Bath. Added in some more October Afternoon and KesiArt.