Parkrun Pages with Jenny Wren Cut-Files

I'm sharing a couple of 8x8 pages for my parkrun album today, both made with Jenny Wren Cut-Files as my DT projects for Twilight Crafts this month.

I used Numbers Background on the first page to celebrate my husband's 200th parkrun in October. It's not an official milestone so a guy called Gary Davies made a t-shirt for his own 200th run and now he lends it out every week with everyone signing it after they've worn it. I cut the numbers from dull brown cardstock and backed all the openings with the same blue patterned paper.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill; Paper - Kanban Industriana, Shimelle Glitter Girl; Letters - American Crafts; Stickers - Studio Calico, Jillibean Soup; Pearls - Scrapberry's

Secondly, I used Triangle and Squares Background to mark me running new PBs three times in September, after setting my previous best time way back in 2019. 

I flipped the cut-file over, filled three squares with photos and added my title to a fourth. I originally imagined journalling in the last box but I had too much to write so it ended up on strips on the right of the page.

Supplies: Cardstock - Unknown; Paper - Scrapbook Magazine Freebie; Letters - American Crafts, Violet Studio; Washi Tape - Shimelle; Enamel Dots - Carta Bella

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

(I count 8x8 pages as half-pages in my count for the year, which is now on four.)

Pages from Ålesund

Ålesund was the sixth and last port of call on our Norwegian cruise this summer. We'd been here three times before so my husband and I made separate plans for the day there.

(The numbers are my page counts for 2025 and 2026.)

117. Ålesund
Starting with a sub-title page which splits the album into sections for each port. These have all had a strip of stamp-print paper then a vertical title then a large block of photos in a variety of sizes with a journalling block at the bottom-right.

118 & 119. Sunnmøre Museum

A double page for my visit to an outdoor museum where they have collected together old buildings from across the region. I put two general views on the left side and a grid of individual buildings on the right side.

120. To Hessa and Back

Meanwhile, my husband went for a run round the island of Hessa, including the climb to its summit. I split the page in two for this, with a large photo of Hessa from the port in the top part and a collage of hexagons from his run in the bottom part.

3. Byparken

We both visited the Town Park (by=town, park=park & en=the) separately after our other activities, including the statue of Rollo the Viking (who is my many times great-grandfather so we always go to visit him). 

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Safe Travels, Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025; Numbers - Dear Lizzy; Stickers - Simple Stories, Jillibean Soup; Die-Cuts - Vicki Boutin; Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Paige Evans

Portsmouth

Over the next few weeks, I'm taking part in a series of challenges from the Scrapbook Challenges UK group on Facebook where we compete in teams to score points each week. The first week we were asked to use white (excluding white backgrounds), thread or twine, three or more layers, circles and (bizarrely) a warm drink. There were also bonus points available for using this month's Freaky Fast Formula from The Scraproom Blog with the other items.

I started from the Formula and picked a trio of photos  from Portsmouth that I thought would work with the paper sizes. This is a companion page to Great South Run so I used papers from the same collection, including an arrows print, even though I don't have any left of exactly the same papers. I picked white for the title letters, have plenty of layers, used circles with bundles of thread in my embellishment clusters, and even squeezed in a couple of warm drinks.

Supplies: Cardstock - Docrafts, Bazzill; Paper - My Mind's Eye Market Street, Pinkfresh Studio Happy Holidays; Letters - Doodlebug; Stickers - Heidi Swapp, Studio Calico, Elle's Studio, Jen Hadfield, Shimelle; Washi Tape - Unknown

Pages from Lofoten

Moving on to the Lofoten Islands now, which was the fourth stop on our Norwegian cruise this summer. Out itinerary gave Leknes as the port of call, but we moored in the bay between Leknes and Gravdal and went ashore in the ship's tenders. There was a shuttle bus to Leknes but we'd been there before so we decided to explore the countryside on a circular walk which took in Gravdal instead.

(Numbers are a mixture of my page counts for 2025 and 2026.)

115. Lofoten

The usual sub-title page, with two strips on the left and then a block of photos and journalling.

1 & 2. Let's Go Exploring

I'd reserved all the postage-stamp paper strips that I needed for sub-title pages and that gave me two left which have found their homes on the opposite sides of this double page with 11 photos from our walk. The title is a sticker that I otherwise probably wouldn't have used, and I've added 'Haugheia' (the hill we climbed) as a sort of subtitle running vertically on the left. It blends in to the background, but I don't mind that and I'm happy to repeat these alpha stickers which have only appeared on one other page so far.

116. Buksnes Kirke

Finally a page for Gravdal's main church which was built in the 'dragon style'. It's on a slight hill and visible for miles around.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Summer Snapshots, My Mind's Eye Market Street; Letters - Basic Grey, Tim Holtz; Die-Cut - Paige Evans; Journalling Cards - Project Life; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin, Stampin' Up!; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Papermania, Studio Calico, Altenew

Christmas is Coming

This is my final DT page of the year for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files and, since it's an open-ended role, you'll be seeing more from them next year.

I picked the JWCF601 Camera Shutter Lens 1 cut-file for my page using it as a decorative circular element rather than needing to see it as a camera shutter. I daubed the background with pink, green and yellow inks behind the cut-file and backed my photo with laser-cut pieces from 49 and Market's Rouge Cluster Kit. Finally I layered leaves from the same set mixed with bells from Christmas Spectacular following the shape of the lens to make two sections of wreath.

Most of the 49 and Market supplies for this page came from last year's Mystery Box; I haven't bought this year's as I still have plenty left, but they are available from Twilight Crafts and if you  are a fan of 49 and Market they are sure not to disappoint.

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Nature Study; Laser Cut Pieces - 49 and Market; Stickers - Shimelle Christmas Magic, American Crafts Very Merry; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin

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 114 for the year.)

Great South Run

I'm flip-flopping between albums at the moment, here with a new page for my 2025 album. It's a page from October when my husband, sister and brother-in-law all did the Great South Run.

I mostly followed my husband's progress and have photos of him in a few places, only one of an back-view of my sister and nothing of my brother-in-law who I must have missed in the crowd as he passed. Therefore I decided to used the official photos, and left them in their branded frames. My brother-in-law's was poorly framed with him running out of shot but it's all I have.

I based my page on Sketch #188 from Scrap a Sketch, running my photos in a row with a square frame behind them. Taller photos meant less space for the title where indicated so I moved it onto the frame, and I tucked in a journalling card at the bottom. My embellishment is smaller too, with die-cut stars and arrows. The weather was very wet that day, so I cut the stars from a journalling card with a raindrops pattern.

Supplies: Cardstock - Papermania; Paper - My Mind's Eye Market Street; Letters - Doodlebug; Journalling Cards - Studio Calico, Elle's Studio; Phrase Sticker - Tim Holtz; Puffy Stickers - Elle's Studio

(Page 113 for the year.)

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