Pages from Haugesund

Back to the cruise album now - Haugesund was the first port of call of our Norwegian cruise this summer, a small town on the North Sea coast. 

While making these pages, I was also reviewing what I've made so far; I'm sticking with white cardstock backgrounds and plenty of ink to colour them but I felt the need to make sure that the different styles of inking and the uninked all balance, no method dominates and nothing is so rare that it jars. Of the 14 pages before these, for two ports and some onboard activities, I have:

• Six stencilled pages 
• Five uninked pages
• Two with ink smooshed on the pages via the 'packaging technique'
• One where I swiped ink onto the page directly from the ink pad

While I may need to do a bit more smooshing, this is a technique that I feel should be used sparingly and only when it suits the subject matter. However, it should be easy to make more pages where I colour the cardstock by swiping the ink pad directly over it, so that the only one I've done so far fits in better. 

I've used a 50/50 mixture of letter stickers and cut-files for my titles, and I'm happy with that mixture. Using the same font whenever I cut them on the Silhouette adds to the cohesion of the album as a whole. 

I chose to use hexagons as a repeating shape in this album, a decision which was inspired by a PhotoPlay paper, and I haven't used that paper at all yet. I must rectify that soon. I've also only cut my photos into hexagons once and I'd like to repeat that at least once, if not a couple of times, before I finish.

(The numbers are my page count for the year.) 

107. Haugesund

My sub-title page is similar to the ones I made for Nordfjordeid and Trondheim, but this time I have more photos in a mix of orientations. Using some portrait photos gave me a bit more space on the right, so I got my hexagon stencil out again. The star is a stray one that I found and decided to use immediately.

108. Haraldshaugen

This monument was built in 1872 to mark 1000 years since King Harald Fairhair united Norway. I used my trellis stencil on the background and chose a classic two-photo layout, with my title running vertically. Now I see it on the screen, I'm going to try to move that title down a bit so that it sits  directly opposite the journalling.

109. Kyststien

A couple of photos of views from the coastal path that we followed from Haraldshaugen as part of a circular walk, and one of Kvala Fyr, a tiny lighthouse. I chose to make this one as a 'no ink' page but the edges look too plain now so I might add some ink later.

110. The Rising Tide

I went inky here, picking up the colours from the sea. The four horses of this sculpture are loosely based on the four horsemen of the Apocolypse and are a warning against climate change. More info on this link. 

111. Kvala Batteri

A simple layout and one I've used before, with a stack of three photos and a 6x8 paper cut in two to fill the rest of the width of the page. This battery was built by the Germans during WW2 to protect the town.

112. Our Saviour and the Fishermen

A classic three-photos-across-the-page layout, but I 'bounced' the photos up and down and filled the gaps with a stamp-print paper. This is one where I felt it to be right to repeat the ink-swiping rather than using either stencil again.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Safe Travels, Simple Stories Summer Snapshots, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025, Maggie Holmes Sunny Days; Letters - Basic Grey, KaiserCraft, Tim Holtz; Stickers - Simple Stories, Heidi Swapp; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft, Vicki Boutin; Chipboard Star - Studio Calico; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, Pink Paislee, 49 and Market, Cocoa Vanilla Studio, Twilight Crafts

Parkrun Pages

Now a couple of pages for my Parkrun Continued album, which is 8x8 in size. I try to use up my scraps on these pages so these both have two part backgrounds. I count them as half-pages so always share them in pairs to keep the page count even.

(The numbers are my page count for the year and I have now exceeded the 105 that I made last year.) 

105.5 Queen Elizabeth

We ran at Queen Elizabeth Country Park in July en route to Southampton for our Norwegian cruise. I had a 12" tall chevron shaped paper scrap which I cut down for the left side and paired with green spots.

Supplies: Paper - My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus, Bo Bunny Little Wonders; Stickers - Crate Paper, October Afternoon; Enamel Shapes - Carta Bella, Cocoa Vanilla Studio

106. Happy Birthday Thurrock

Our home parkrun celebrated its 10th birthday in October, so I picked a photo of us all at the start line. I had a scrap of birthday paper which I decided to use, leading to a pink and navy colour scheme.

Supplies: Paper - Bo Bunny Little Wonders, DCWV?; Letters - American Crafts; Enamel Dots - Carta Bella; Cake - Unknown

Dartmoor Selfies

Another page for the 2025 album today, and another of my husband's exploits. He walked the Dartmoor Perambulation in August, a modern recreation of a ride round the royal hunting ground made by 12 knights in July 1240 on the instructions of Henry III.

The walk goes through 33 checkpoints and he took a selfie at each one. There's an account of the walk on his blog if you are interested.

I picked 18 photos and arranged them in a circle on my page, with title and journalling in the middle. I used the Boot Tread cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files to fill the corners, cutting it in white and colouring it with three brown and green Distress Inks. 

I wanted to include a map, but I ran out of space so I cut a slit in the page and made a pocket on the back for it to sit in. The lace-printed strip is at the top of the map card, it pulls out easily and I've referenced it in my journalling. 

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Nature Study, 49 and Market Hike More; Letters - Tim Holtz; Washi Stickers - 49 and Market; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Page 105 in my count for the year.)

Grays 10k

I'm taking a short break from Norway to make a few pages for my 2025 album instead, aiming not to fall too far behind. 

First up is the Grays 10k which my husband ran in September. I printed four photos which fell into two pairs - during and after the race - so I kept them that way on the page.

My colour scheme started from the blue of my husband's vest and led to a mixture of three of Vicki Boutin's collections.

Supplies: Paper - Vicki Boutin Color Study, Vicki Boutin Fernwood, Vicki Boutin Sweet Rush; Letters - Fancy Pants; Journalling Cards - Project Life; Die-Cuts - Vicki Boutin; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Puffy Stickers - Elle's Studio, Jen Hadfield

(Page 104 in my count for the year.)

Pages from Trondheim

Trondheim is Norway's third largest city, and was the fifth place (of six) that we visited on our cruise this summer. It's the second that I'm scrapping though as I deliberately go out of order so that any progression in style from beginning to end is disguised.

(The numbers are my page count for the year.)

98. Trondheim

My sub-title page for Trondheim is very similar to the one for Nordfjordeid, and I've decided to stick with the column of motifs next to a vertical title for each one, but I already know that the number of photos will change for other pages, while still placing them in a block with the journalling.

99. Stiftsgården

This is the royal residence in Trondheim and I have photos of both the front and the back with gardens that are now a public park. I used the sketch from GoGoGetaway's September cybercrop for my page but my photos are considerably larger than those on the sketch, and I chose to use the pair of tags for my journalling so had to make them larger too. This led to me juggling all the different elements around the page to suit my needs, but I believe you can still see the original sketch in the finished page.

100. Kristiansten Festning

I went with a stencilled quadrants for this page, holding three photos plus title/journalling for a fortress on the hill above Trondheim.

101 & 102. Nidaros Cathedral

I made the right-hand side of this pair first, a simple grid of cropped 4x6 photos of the inside of the cathedral, with strips of stripey paper top and bottom. I then repeated those strips on the left side before filling in the middle of the page with the aid of Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class (which ran in 2011 but the designs are timeless).

103. Statuary

My last page from Trondheim has six photos of the statues we saw around the city, placed in two rows across a stencilled background with torn paper strips at the sides.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Pink Paislee Memorandum, Shimelle Never Grow Up, Sandylion; Letters - Hobbycraft, Simple Stories, Craftelier, Basic Grey; Stickers - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Jillibean Soup, Pretty Little Studio; Die-Cuts - October Afternoon; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market, Simple Stories, Shimelle, Studio Calico

Trek the Deck

Trek the Deck was a charity event on our cruise, with passengers walking round the promenade deck one morning to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

This is my second October DT page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, using the Hexagon Border cut-file cut from black cardstock. I cut my photos into hexagons too, matting them as one piece to layer over the cut-file.

I inked my white cardstock background direct from the ink pad and added a couple of strips of paper down the left of the page before positioning the cut-file and photo block. 

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Maggie Holmes Sunny Days; Letters - Hobbycraft, Creative Devotion; Stickers - Heidi Swapp, 49 and Market; Enamel Shapes - Shimelle, Simple Stories

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Page 97 in my count for the year.)

Badness

Another cruise page, but we're back on board now. Badness, a Madness tribute band, was one of the best guest acts we've seen on a ship. I followed the First Idea from Shimelle Laine's recent One Two Punch class, which was based around repeating lines of punched shapes.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025, Shimelle Never Grow Up; JOurnalling Card - Project Life; Puffy Stickers - Bella Boulevard; Washi Tape - Unknown; Enamel Shapes - Latech

(Page 96 in my count for the year.)