Thursday, 30 September 2010

Massive Weekly Challenge Catch-Up!

I did get all these done on time, but my lack of mojo and general enthusiasm has meant me not taking the pictures in time and getting them loaded onto UKS. So here are a bunch of layouts for weekly challenges taken yesterday in rather dodgy light!


Baby Blue / 3 of Something / Bunting / Celebration
Last Christmas with both sets of Parentals.


Ice cream colours / Change / Stripes / Journalling
Me as a child. I was able to use up a lot of bits of Crate Paper - Blue Hill that I've had lying around for ages.


Guilty Pleasure / Chocolate Brown / Circle
John and I indulging in morning tea at Little Bettys in York. I saved one of the doily things that go under tea cups to catch the drips - gotta love emphemera. Also managed to use one of the beautiful Lakeland doilies that I've been stroking for a while.

Different Fonts / Inspired by Nature /Make an Embellishment
Used some of the skeleton leaves that Daddy found for me at a boot sale. :)


Panorama / Stamping / Altered Lettering
This one is actually current! Grand Canyon from North Rim. Stamped journalling boxes and painted thickers.

Book Lists

Decided to scrap the books that I read each month as 6x6 layouts. After I'd made the first one I thought it would be a good idea if they were all companion pieces to the Project 12 layouts. So, from February, they all match. I'm all out of January's papers anyway, so that wouldn't have matched anyway!


January's non-matchy layout is made from Cosmo Cricket and Sassafrass Lass.


I put a star by my favourite book each month.


June isn't an exact match either, but I've stuck with the tartan theme and used the Lewis Chessman.

Monday, 6 September 2010

Mojoless

My mojo has gone for a wander.  I hope it comes back soon as I am completely uninpsired.  Of course, I actually do know what's happened to it so I'm not bothered.  It'll come strolling back.

Friday, 3 September 2010

My Ring

I now have my shiny engagement ring. :)

Designed by Alice at Harriet Kelsall.

Monday, 30 August 2010

York

Our posh 5* hotel room at the Cedar Court Grand, York. I've posted my review to TripAdvisor and you can find that here.

Saturday, 28 August 2010

The Bottom of the Venus

I wanted to do something non-Halloween with the gorgeous new Halloween papers from MME - strokable flocking! - and this is what I made.

Everyone was taking pictures of her front and the crowds were so large it was hard to get a decent front shot. So I decided to be different, go round the back and get this angle of her instead!

I was also able to use the stamp set that I bought simply because it featured the Venus de Milo...

Sunday, 15 August 2010

In which I use Glimmer Mist for the First Time!

I bought myself a set of Glimmer Mists that were on sale and when they arrived I couldn't wait to use them all. As you can see, I've not quite grasped the concept of using them lightly and subtley. The mist came out rather more as a deluge, but I guess that's part of the learning process.


Also used the Blended Ink Tutorial that I found on Studio Calico. I think I had rather more success with that than I did with the misting!

I seem to have gone from someone who doesn't stamp to someone who stamps on everything...



And this is what happened when I tried to Mist through a Crafters Workshop template!


Very runny and blobby! Another thing that requires practice. Must go in search of a tutorial!

Friday, 6 August 2010

Tatty and Tarepanda

Had a clear out of some boxes a few days ago and came across a bunch of cute Japanese panda stickers that I must have bought over ten years ago, hoarded and never used.

Also found a card a I bought with a Chinese phrase on it. I remember I bought that because I regretted not buying more cards when I was in China.

So I chopped up the card and inked it up for a title. This is a mere 18 of the Tarepanda stickers, but it's a start.

I then looked up 'panda' in Chinese. It's actually 'bear' plus 'cat' and in one of the stickers the panda is dressed as a cat!

Wednesday, 4 August 2010

Grinding and Sight-Seeing

I forgot to upload this one in time for the Weekly Challenge on UKS last week, still it was done in time. You had to use brights, ribbon and a page size that you don't often use. It's been a while since I did an 8x8, so I went with that. I've also been wanting to use up more of my scraps, so I made this from Christmas papers. Next challenge to Self will be a non Halloween layout using Halloween papers. I have a lot of them now and very few pictures from Halloweens.

Just a quickie of Edinburgh Castle. You can see me reflected in it...

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.

Project 12 - July

Once again I've had to take photos in less than perfect conditions, which is a shame, because I'm actually really happy with the way this Project 12 turned out. Best one in my album so far.

{click for full size}




I left some gaps for stuff I don't necessarily want plastered over the net, they're filled in now.



Monday, 2 August 2010

Excessive Pink

Wow! That's a lot of pink buttons.

Buttons...

I think that's enough buttons for now!

Sorting Flowers

Decided the flowers needed to be stored by colour. So I've started with these divisions.

They look a lot better. I did the buttons yesterday and they also look as though they'll be easier to find / use now.