Retreat Layouts 4

Finally, the using up of Lily Bee - Vintage Poppy. This is the very last of my final Sarah's Cards kit from last year. I mainly scrapped our Isle of Wight holiday with the kit, so chose some more pictures from that trip to use with these scraps.

John being brave on a high wooden bridge.

Another case of what was in my head not coming together on paper. I was goingfor something a little more like the Edinburgh Castle layout I made in June, but it's failed rather badly. I might have to add something to it later when I'm feeling more inspired.

After these two layouts I had planned on using up some of the gorgeous Up, Up and Away by Kaisercraft, but my mojo and ability to sit failed me. So I prepped some baby pages for Frankie's arrival. I managed six (I think) and will take their pictures in the future when they're finally complete.

Mother & The Map

Just something I did for fun this weekend. I've been gazing at this sheet of chipboard for months and not used it. Then I thought I should just use up all the flowers in one go on a layout without any patterned papers. This is the result.

My mother, supposedly studying a map, when, in fact, she's standing guard so that walkers don't come wandering over while my Dad is peeing behind a hedge...

The chipboard was part of a kit and I can't remember what company made them.

Twisted Sketches #45

The lastest Twist is Laugh and this is what made us laugh at the Retreat - The Settle.  Whenever you wanted something it was probably on the Settle... I guess you had to be there!  So I've scrapped a picture of Susi on the last day, sat upon the Settle.

Sketchy Thursdays 4.8

Might be a little late with this one! I'd forgotten that I'd not done the main sketch after doing the Second Chance and the Blog Hop!

The Bijoux Belles at our first retreat taken during our class.

Cosmo Cricket - Early Bird

I've no idea how I overlooked posting all of these! I loved this paper collection so much and must've just used it all up and not even thought about posting the layouts to my Blog. They did all end up in my UKS gallery though!


From my UKS post: My mother and I up Glastonbury Tor. I love these Cosmo Cricket pp's so much that I decided to simply block them rather than layering them so I can just appreciate the gorgeous patterns. Totally lazy LO!


From my UKS post: My parents at Burrow Mump, for our weekly challenge.


From my UKS post: Song title from either Sting or Gwen Stefani - yes (although I have to say that I didn't know what the song was about until after I made the LO and now I wish I'd picked something else...)


From my UKS post: My folks after they jumped the wall and went into Muchelney Abbey without bothering with the main entrance. We already had tickets, but I felt rather guilty. They're such a bad example!

Sketchy Thursdays - 3.4

This is one of the layouts I made on the Retreat last weekend.

The photo was taken on a girls holiday to Ibiza in October 2001.

Retreated

These are a bunch of the layouts that I made our Retreat last weekend. I only took BoBunny papers, so they all match!

InterTeam Challenge during the Retreat, to scrap a black and white of another Teamie. I did Susi, who is, indeed, Super!

Sketchy Thursdays 2.25

Today I found some natural light to take these pictures... on top of the radiator by the back door! Not too bad for a really rainy day. On the other hand, you still can't see all the gold dots on the chipboard very well. Still, getting better!

I wasn't expecting it, but this is the February Kit from Sarah's Cards.

Sarah's Cards Challenge

My entry for the December Sketch Challenge on the Sarah's Cards Blog. The pictures were taken at Niagara on the Lake, overlooking Lake Ontario and out to America on the far side.

All the papers and embellies came from my Teamie Sue in our Secret Santa last year.

Christmas 2009

Took this picture during the December snows. Made for the lastest Twisted Sketches. The twist was "glitter", which doesn't show up here at all well, sadly. Still, I used a glitter button, some gems and the chipboard elements are all very glittery.

This week's UKS Challenge entry.

The challenge was to use the sketch, ribbon and a celebration theme. So I chose a photo of my Dad celebrating Christmas with some Leffe.

Decision Made

I'm going to have to quit the Sarah's Cards kit. It's a shame because it's always so good and has opened my eyes to different paper companies, but I've had three problems with them this past couple of months and I just don't want to be worrying about it every time I place an order.

Back in October I ordered some extra cardstock and only one piece arrived. I finally manged to get that sent on to me, but then the November kit arrived minus the Design Team leaflet, which includes a Kit Contents List. Not such a bad thing, but when I finally had a copy of that I discovered why that months kit wasn't as good as previous months, there was stuff missing.

This time I was missing a piece of card, a sheet of journalling tags and a die cut sheet. Have tried emailing, private messaging on the UKS forum and phoning. Nothing works.

If it was just that I was complaining about I'd be miffed, but I wouldn't be angry. However, this third problem is the one that as tipped me over into quitting the kit. Two and a half weeks ago I placed an order in their Sale and it's not arrived. I've certainly been charged for it as my bank statement makes that clear, but no product has arrived.

Of course, it's probably been shipped and is lost, but there's no way to track it. As far as I'm aware they just send them out in the regular post, which means they aren't tracked. This is what I find odd. They might be a small family-run business, but they're still a business and as such should be able to compensate their clients if there's a problem like this.

On the other hand, if I can't get hold of them, how are they supposed to help me? What kind of business is impossible to get hold of? Not one I want to give any more of my money too, that's for sure.

I will now be spending my money at ModScraps, Scrap Shed, Indigo Mill, and Gotta Craft. The last two named do kits (as long as you're quick off the mark!) and that's where I will be going in future. Gotta Craft were the company that introduced me to Wild Saffron by K&Co!


Ranting won't make her reply to me, or my stuff show up, but it makes me feel better.

I Love That Giraffe!

At this point I was missing all the journalling bits of the kit, so I had to make up my own journalling spot. It hasn't come out too badly, actually.

Storm Clouds Are Gathering

Took the picture during a retreat to Hunstanton with John's work colleagues. The weather wasn't brilliant, but it did make for some great moody shots of the sky!

Made with the November kit from Sarah's Cards and also using this for the Sarah's Cards sketch challenge on their blog

Central Park

Old picture using new stash!

Forde Abbey - again

Another layout with this months Sarah's Cards kit and another picture of Forde Abbey! It was really photogenic, so all the pictures couldn't be helped.



I've also used this layout for one of the days in Shimelle's Colour Challenge. "Try cutting motifs from sheets of gift-wrap or scrapbooking paper and decorating with gems to make cards or embellish layouts." The challenge was actually for PJs or paper, but there was no way I was going to carry that off!

Sarah's Cards - June Kit

The new kit arrived yesterday morning and rather than stroking it like I did last month, I cut into it as soon as I came home from work and made my first three layouts from it.

John and I took our Melman the Giraffe puppet to Paris in May - so I have loads of pictures of him "standing" in front of various landmarks. Luckily his fur matches the kit, so:


Finally I'm scrapping the picture of the brilliant Sam Adams bottles. Well, the bottles are just bottles, but their ex-contents were brilliant! I took the pic deliberately to scrap it at some point and even kept the caps for that purpose.


I'm not so convinced by this one, all the frames within frames and only using one paper and one sheet of Bazzill. Anyway, this is one of the pictures that John took in the Musee D'Orsay, his favourite painting by Manet.

Still have plenty of kit left!

Weekly Challenge & SLYMI

I managed to squeeze eight layouts out the May Kit before all the papers were used up. So, for once, I actually did the weekly challenge as a paper layout and followed it up with Scrap Like You Mean It #22.



SLYMI was a minimalist sketch, so I was able to use up the final largish piece of paper. I do love 'white space' layouts.

Subscribing

After a lot of umm-ing and ah-ing I decided to sub to a scrapping kit. Then I spent a while looking for something that I knew I'd enjoy - it actually didn't take long to decide to go with Sarah's Cards. First kit arrived last week and I've now used it all up! Well, all the papers - I still have loads of embellies to play with!

Here's a few layouts that I've done with it:





Both of those are Forde Abbey in Dorset.