Pages from Olbia

I'm starting my cruise album in the middle, with the pages from Olbia on the Italian island of Sardinia. It's just a small town which only needed four pages, and less daunting than starting with the title page for the whole album with so many choices in front of me.

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

94. Olbia

This is my sub-title page; I always make one of these for each port we visit to break the album into distinct sections for each place. We were in Olbia for 12 hours so I have two photos of the town taken from the ship, one in the morning and one close to sunset.

95. San Simplicio Basilica

This is one of two significant churches in Olbia, built in the 11th century in honour of the town's patron saint. I have large photos of the inside and outside, plus two smaller ones of St Simplicio and the Virgin Mary. My page is loosely based on one in a November YouTube video from Shimelle.

96. Chiesa di San Paolo

The second church is St Paul's; again I have photos of the inside and the outside, but this time close-ups of the multi-coloured dome and one of the frescoes. I arranged the photos on a wide band across the page, wanting to get away from stacking the larger ones on top of each other as I did on the last two pages.

97. Parco Fausto Noce

The 'Park of Auspicious Walnuts' (according to Google translate) was a lovely green space in the city. I have two 4x6 photos again which I deliberately split up on the page with the title across a central band. I used natural embellishments with my outdoor photos for the December challenge from Hey Little Magpie.

Supplies: Paper - Heidi Swapp Set Sail, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Heart & Home, Photoplay Travelogue, Craft Sensations Dreamy Pastels; Letters - American Crafts, Cocoa Vanilla Studio, October Afternoon, Jillibean Soup; Die-Cuts - Heidi Swapp; Stickers - Heidi Swapp, Studio Calico, 49 & Market, Jen Hadfield; Tickets - 49 & Market; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Enamel Shapes - Maggie Holmes, Simple Stories, My Mind's Eye, Altenew, Studio Calico

A New Project - Mediterranean Cruise 2024

I generally make two types of scrapbooks - annual albums and travel albums - and it's time to start a new one for our Mediterranean cruise earlier this year. Since 2015 I have assembled a kit for each holiday album in advance and this is no exception.

Our cruise was 'Islands of the Mediterranean' from Newcastle-on-Tyne, and saw us visit five islands (Corsica, Sardinia, Majorca, Menorca and Ibiza), plus Gibraltar Cartagena and Cadiz.

I first saw and liked Heidi Swapp's Sail Away collection when it was released in 2022, but I had no need for it then. However, when I saw it half-price at the beginning of the year I decided to make it the basis of this new album. I have the 12x12 pad, a few individual sheets with different patterns, the 6x8 pad, an ephemera pack, the Thickers and three packs of stickers (motifs, words and labels). Both paper pads are single-sided so I've cut up all the cut-apart pages already to give me a pile of tags, journalling cards and layering pieces, some of which are in both sizes.

However, much as I like this collection, most of the papers are monochrome; I felt that it was really a set of backgrounds and I wanted to add in a some multi-coloured patterns. I ordered Cocoa Vanilla Studio's Heart & Home collection kit (also half-price) at the same time with no thought of using the two together, but once they arrived I was struck by the close match in the colours, although the Set Sail papers are more distressed than those from CVS. I also ordered the matching mini puffy alphabet stickers and the puffy hearts and dots.

Later on in the year, I added in a third collection, Travelogue from Photoplay, which shares the same colour palette as the first two and is more travel-themed. I'm a bit uncertain about using three collections with different styles together, but we'll see how it goes.

On to embellishments now, and I have a few packs from 49 & Market; I've rolled the washi tape stickers from Everywhere that I used for the last holiday album on to this album, I bought the filmstrips and wishing bubbles from Moonlit Garden for this album and I received the tickets from Mariner in a mystery box. I bought the puffy alphabet stickers and enamel dots from American Crafts' Cedar House collection, and I've pulled in some stickers and enamel dots from two Maggie Holmes collections plus a sheet of travel-themed paper snips from Bramble Fox. Lastly, I'll date my pages using stickers from Studio Calico; I used some of them previously for my 2018 Iberian album but luckily the remaining dates cover our port days this time.

For titles, I have a mixture of old and new alphabet stickers, I have alphabet stamps and dies which are endlessly repeatable, and I have my trusty Silhouette Portrait for either cut-files or individual letters.

The kit will form the foundations of the album, but I won't be limited by what I've chosen so far. I will be adding washi tape, more enamel dots, Nuvo drops and anything else I wish to this selection as I go along, and once I've used something I will add it to the kit to be repeated on future pages. 

Art of the Brick

Just one page today, but it's a mammoth one - a double with an insert - for our visit to Art of the Brick in March. This was a touring exhibition of artworks created from Lego bricks, and there were plenty of them. I had trouble whittling the photos down to just these twenty. I'd originally thought that I would use lots of primary colours to match the bricks, but it turned out that yellow was the best match for the photos and I just added a bit of green. Embellishment is sparse because I really wanted to focus on the photos for this one.

I'm down to three gaps in my 2024 album now: a page from the recording of a QI episode (and I'm waiting for it to be broadcast so I can perhaps take some screenshots); a double for my husband's TGO Challenge walk across Scotland in May; and a few pages from a weekend camping in the Peak District in August.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill; Paper - Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon; Stickers - Tim Holtz, Studio Calico

(These are pages 91-93 of my page count for the year.)

Pages from Starting Points

I sometimes make 'starting point' pages, a term I have taken from Shimelle, pages that I start without photos and finish at a later date. I do this either in order slim down my scraps box or to kill off a collection pack. And, eventually, they do generally get used even if that's years later, like these two pages.

89. Girls' Night Out
I started this one back in 2016, one of two pages that I started with the remnants of Basic Grey's What's Up collection.  I planned it for a single 4x6 vertical photo and it's taken eight years to get one that suits the colour scheme. I finished it using the Girls Night Out cut-file from Twilight Crafts which I backed with some of the scraps that I had kept, before fussy-cutting some leaves and a flower as embellishment.

Supplies: Paper - Basic Grey What's Up, My Mind's Eye Cut and Paste; Letters - My Mind's Eye; Stars - Rosie's Studio; Nuvo Drops

90. #Boyznite

My second page is only five years old, and was started with an assortment of blue and green pieces from my scraps box. I cut down the blue paper with the writing on as it wasn't completely right for the page once I had decided to use it with this photo, and tucked in a journalling card to the side. I based the embellishment clusters around three punched circles that I had kept and finished off two packs of puffy stars.

Supplies: Paper - Cherry Arte, Jillibean Soup, Sandylion, My Mind's Eye; Letters - American Crafts; Stars - Pinkfresh Studio, MRI; Enamel Dots - Altenew, 49 & Market, Ebay

This just leaves one starting point page in the folder, waiting a bit longer for its finishing touches. Though my scraps box is getting rather full again ...

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

Pages with Jenny Wren Cut-Files

I've been trying to keep on top of my 2024 album as we go along. There are a few gaps, but I'm not doing too badly. These are a couple of pages where I have used Jenny Wren Cut-Files from Twilight Crafts.

87. Celebrate 70

A page for my husband's aunt's 70th birthday in August where we had afternoon tea at a local hotel. I used a smaller version of Flower Lace 1 for this page and paired it with a soft pastel blue background and fussy-cut flowers.

Supplies: Paper - Carta Bella, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Daydream; Letters - Heidi Swapp; Numbers - American Crafts; Stickers - Cocoa Vanilla Studio, Jen Hadfield

88. Trick or Treat

I used a Hallowe'en cut-file for the title on this page, cutting the whole thing from black cardstock and then separating out the pumpkins for embellishment in two sizes.  

Supplies: Cardstock - Papermania, Bazzill, American Crafts, DCWV; Paper - Simple Stories Simple Vintage October 31st, Pink Paislee Memorandum, 7gypsies Avignon; Puffy Stars & Gems - Paperchase

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

Parkrun Pages with Scrap Squad - Part 2

Last post I shared four parkrun pages made with scraplifts from the 12 Days of Autumn event over in the Scrap Squad Facebook group and now I have another four to share. These bring my parkrun album up to date, which was one of the tasks I set myself to complete before I can start my cruise album.

84.5 250 Runs

I completed my 250th parkrun back in July and used the scraplift from Day 8 for this page. Ours is a two lap course so we often get two photos and I generally use the better one, but we had heavy showers that day. It was dry at the start so I risked running without a raincoat. Big mistake and having got soaked through I swapped my sodden shirt for my waterproof for the second lap. Hence I used both photos and printed them small as neither is very good but they contribute to the story.

Supplies: Paper - Kay Miller Designs Simple Pleasures; Letters - American Crafts; Phrase Stickers - Pretty Little Studio

85. Monsal Trail

Moving on to Day 9, and Monsal Trail parkrun which we ran in August while camping in the Peak District. The original had a circular cut-file, lots of stitching and some fussy-cut leaves, but mine is much simpler as I deliberately keep these 8x8 pages quite flat.

Supplies: Cardstock - DCWV; Paper - Docrafts Spring Chic; Making Memories Fresh Anthology; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories

85.5 150 Runs

My husband completed his 150th run this summer, and I've recorded that with Day 10's scraplift and lots of diamond shapes. The original page had a small landscape photo but I chose to crop mine to match the papers.

Supplies: Paper - Dovecraft, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide; Letters - Simple Stories; Washi Tape - Unknown; Enamel Dots - Hey Little Magpie

86. Y Promenad

You might have seen this photo before as I scrapped it recently for my 2024 album on a 12x12 double page as part of a weekend away in Wales. However, it also needs to go into my parkrun album so I went back to the scraplift from Day 4 as that was the only one left that I could make work with a 4x6 photo though I tweaked it so that it wouldn't look too much like South Woodham Ferrers/Day 7.

Supplies: Paper, Die-Cuts & Puffy Stickers - Vicki Boutin Fernwood; Washi Tape - Little B

Parkrun Pages with Scrap Squad - Part 1

I started bringing my parkrun album up to date when I came back from my holiday, and this coincided with the 12 Days of Autumn event in the Scrap Squad Facebook group, so I aimed to do as many of their scraplifts as possible with my parkrun photos. 

These are the first four and they are all 8"x8" so I count them as half-pages in my count for the year as they are roughly half the area of a 12"x12" page.

82.5 Blaise Castle

I started with Day 5, using two small photos offset diagonally with papers from a 6x6 pad. I ran here on the weekend of the Twilight crop back in May.

Supplies: Paper - Dovecraft, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye

83. South Woodham Ferrers

Next was Day 7, a page with layers of paper across the the top and a single landscape photo. We did this one in August to tick off 'South' in the compass point challenge.

Supplies: Paper - Dovecraft, Vicki Boutin Storyteller; Sticker - Vicki Boutin

83.5 Jubilee

I then went back to Day 1, with three big tags and a single portrait photo from Jubilee parkrun in Spennymoor which we ran en route to our recent cruise.

Supplies: Paper - Dovecraft, Heidi Swapp Wanderlust; Stickers - My Mind's Eye, OneCanoeTwo; Nuvo Drops

84. Hoblingwell 

Then Day 6 with another portrait photo on a large banner. Hoblingwell gave us an H for the Alphabet Challenge.

Supplies: Paper - Fancy Pants Little Sprout, Bo Bunny Little Wonders, Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams; Glitter Tape - The Works; Stickers - Jen Hadfield; Enamel Dots - Altenew, My Mind's Eye