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.

Another Weekly Challenge

Still having issues creating straight photos, no matter how hard I line up the camera!

The only summer themed papers I had were the thin substandard AC ones, so I used them despite being a paper snob! They aren't so bad as long as you layer them up and make the page heavier. I even managed to throw in a little October Afternoon and Echo Park, so not all bad!



The criteria this week are as follows:

5 points for including blue - plenty of that!
10 points for Summer themed photo - taken at Summer School in 2009, our last day and a visit to Rumbling Kern.
5 points for journalling - check
10 points for a home made embellishment - I made a flower / circular thingy, not entirely sure what to call it!

Scrap Map Saturday ~ Lolly

The theme this week at Creative Craft World is "All Things Girlie", which I'm not, so I went with a cute picture of me as a child. Lolly is my childhood nickname.


I don't own an awful lot of pink or feminine scrapping stuff, but I do have some American Crafts Dear Lizzy. This is the kind that comes with the album kits that they sell in T K Maxx, the thinner variety that is single sided and tears as soon as you look at it. Have to say, I'm not a fan, but the albums are great and most of the American Crafts embellishments are perfectly fine. Besides, £7 for a 12x12 album, embellies and some paper? I'm not complaining about that! ;)

The circles on the sketch have been transformed into lots of large flowers and I've layered up some Primas and AC flowers on top of them. Jazzed up the flowers with Artemio stamps and, dare I say, the large blue brad is by Laurence Llewellyn Bowen?! In my defence, he was another cheapy from T K Maxx and the brads aren't bad, although the paper sucked!

I did manage to semi-distress some of the AC papers without it tearing and I stitched down one of the corners that refused to stay stuck. Punched some Martha Stewart butterflies out of Sassafrass Lass (woo! I mixed Companies again!!) and made my own journalling spot from some more S. Lass.

This week I used Distress Ink in Tattered Rose.

Well, that's it. March is all but over and my GDT spot at Creative Craft World has ended. I've had a great time this month and look forward to doing future sketches ~ depending on Baby, of course!

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.

Retreat Layouts 2

My next pre-prepped kit was MME - Round and Round to get some more of my never-ending supply of Road Trip pictures scrapped.


A bit basic, but does the job. I'd planned all sorts of things with buttons before I came away and then totally went off the idea. All the buttons returned home with me!

This was an attempt to include some tourist information leaflets. I'd dragged so many home from America only to leave them in a folder and never look at them. Again, this is a bit on the basic side, but my excuse is that I just couldn't sit fussing over it for too long before having to get up and sit on the recliner in the sitting room! In fact, I did the stitching in there. Annoying puffy feet.

All the final pieces of Round and Round gathered together and plopped down! I'm pretty fond of this one and I even did some fiddly cutting out.

Scrap Map Saturday ~ Love

The theme this week was diagonals. I had what I thought was a good idea... and then I became a little side-tracked and forgot what I had planned to do.

I used my new Artemio stamps that I bought in Paris at the beginning of the month and then was going to stamp the hearts so that the text was diagonal inside the hearts... as you can see, that didn't happen. Still, once the hearts are stuck on at jaunty angles the text is diagonal to the page, so it sorta worked!


These were some of the wedding photos that I'd a hard time deciding how to scrap. They're either a bit fuzzy, or there was too much background or we're pulling funny faces. Trimmed down and grouped together like this I think they actually work. Perhaps there's something to be said for multiple photo layouts?!

Oh, and I seem to be the Guest Design Team member for March *blush* - thank you Creative Craft World!

Twisted Sketches #53

Now I'm back from my hols I can finally get back into doing the Twists each week.

I;m trying to do more layouts at sizes other than the standard 12x12 and I have a shiny new 8x8 album to fill, so here's one in 8x8:

The Twist this week is 'acrylic' so I chose to use bits of acrylic paint.

I'm currently on a crazy stamping / inking kick, so the background paper is an piece of cardstock in a garish blue. At least, it was before I covered it in bits of old ripped up book paper and ink (then some more layers of book and ink). The rest of the papers are all October Afternoon: Thrift Shop, in fact, the paper with the title on used to be bright yellow, but I'm a Crazy Inker!

This is John (and Melman the Midget Giraffe) in Nottingham meeting Robin Hood.

Project 12 - April

{click to enlarge}

April is represented by:

• Melman in Lizzy's Cafe, Risby Barns
• John being happy that we have started to clear out the garden ready for the new turf and new pond.
• The Oldest Inn in England, Nottingham - beautifully huge Sunday dinners!
• La Roux concert
• An old Bus at the Nene Steam Railway
• Tatty 2 and Tatty 1 in the flowering "Tat's Money"

Each month I do try to use new paper stash from that month. Of course, I really shouldn't have so much new paper stash, but heyho!

October Afternoon - Cherry Hill

Obviously I also managed to overlook the posting of all my Cherry Hill layouts. I only noticed that today while I was stroking my shiny new OA: Thrift Shop....yum...

Easter trip to the Dorset coast in 2009 to go fossil hunting.

John and I at Forde Abbey (also Easter 2009). I'm not totally happy with this pic as I'm squinting into the sun!

The title is a line from a Polly Scattergood song.

The Winter Garden at Anglesey Abbey a few years ago.

Erm... somewhere I was taken with my parents that I can't remember... there were sheep and peacocks...

The Grand Hotel in Brighton where we stayed during a work retreat in 2006.

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 1.21

The journalling explains that I took the pictures of Winchester cathedral whilst I was at University in the days before digital cameras. My teeny camera couldn't handle the whole front elevation in one shot, so I had to attempt to piece it together when the pictures came back.

The photo has spent most of its life living in a clip frame with lots of my other pictures being shipped from place to place. I eventually decided that I was a bit too grown up for photo montages and since then it was just in a box. However, now I have scrapping to give those pictures a second life.

Old Cyber Crop Layouts

UKS appear to be having a pruning session of their Gallery next month, so I thought I'd better move a few of my old layouts over here:

Sketchy Thursdays 1.07

I've been oddly uninspired by the Crate Paper - Season collection that came as part of a kit, so for this Challenge I made an effort to use it, although I'm still not convinced by it. I chose a picture of my Father and I in Zion National Park during our 2008 Road Trip. Nearly filled three albums now with Road Trip pictures and I still have many pictures left.

In order to jazz it up a bit I added some paint to the background, doodled on everything, stamped and hand cut the title and stitched round the circle. I had assumed, when I was planning it out, that it would be a speedy scrap, but it took me hours in the end.

Nerdy Note: The doodling on the title is the ornament used for cross stratification on a graphic log. One of the most dramatic parts of Zion are the cross bedded Navajo sandstones.

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!

Paris & Cones

Used the new papers that I bought in Pocklington on the day we picked up our new-old table. I've not used My Little Yellow Bicycle before and they're scrummy! The ones on this Paris layout are Love Letters.

I'm quite fond of this, so I bought a 12x12 frame for it. We don't have pics of ourselves anywhere, so this will solve that problem.

This next one is from an Easter walk with my parents. Mother collected a bunch of cones for a display. John wouldn't take the one with the lichen on away from its environment.


The flowers are some old cheapy things that I don't like any more. I almost threw them out, but decided to repaint them to match the layout.

Colour Challenge - 4

Another Colour Challenge layout. I chose to use the colour wheel to make a layout using the analogous combination.



I've also stopped trying to resize things to perfect squares, so now I'm just going to lean them up against something and take their picture! When the house is finished and we have all our stuff back, I'm going to prop them on John's little easel and photograph them on that instead.

Pensford

More catching up. My parents and I took a trip to Pensford - I think it was last year! - these are the layouts for that trip:

Mmm... tuna light lunch.


The tour bus - we had free cereal bars afterwards as Pensford is owned by Jordans, the cereal bar people.


Brilliant tree-art, metal caterpillars and butterflies.

John Layouts

A few old layouts. This bunch all feature my Other Half!

Our fabulous barbecue with homemade rosemary kebab sticks - yum.

An inter-team layout from our early days as a team. I'm not really sure I like it. :(

Cambridge Botanical Garden.

National Scrapbooking Day

I made this layout for the NSD Challenge at Cleo Crafts.

and I won! :)