Tyne Trail

I'm sharing my latest page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, which makes use of the Anchors Border cut-file, either side of my title.

The whole Tyne Trail is 135 miles long, but I just walked the last section, from the Port of Tyne to Tynemouth, on the changeover day between two cruises last month. My husband ran from Wallsend to Tynemouth the same day, using the same path for this part.

I printed seven photos from my walk, and arranged them in a 3x3 grid with journalling in the first and last boxes, then split the grid with my title across it.

Supplies: Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Photoplay Anchors Aweigh, Craft ID Travel the World; Letters - Hip Kit Cub; Stickers - Heidi Swapp

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

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt

It's been a few years since I participated in a Photography Scavenger Hunt, but Amy at Snap Scrap Repeat has set one this year and I decided to take join in. There are 30 prompts, which are being followed by ten scrapbooking challenges to get those photos onto pages.

We've just got back from a cruise, or rather two back-to-back cruises, firstly to Iceland and then Around Britain, and I was aiming to get all the prompts covered while we were away. I toyed with sharing the photos here in chronological order, but that got too tricky, so here they are in the order that the prompts were originally posted:

1. Love - The red traffic lights in central Akureyri are heart-shaped.

2. Reflection - A sculpture called Spegilsmynd (Reflection) by Hans Pauli Olsen, outside the National Gallery of the Faroe Islands in Tórshavn.

3. Wings - A bee visiting the foxgloves in Akureyri's Botanical Gardens.

4. Colourful - A shrine atop Skúlahóll (Skúli's Hill) on Viðey Island.

5. Sun - Approaching totality of the solar eclipse.

6. Bloom - A display in Akureyri; I've never seen ornamental cabbages so big.

7. Looking up - the hillside above Ísafjörður.

8. Stripes - Skólavörðustígur or Rainbow Street in Reykjavík.

9. Path - Another rainbow path, this time in Seyðisfjörður.

10. Travel - On a cruise ship, or a smaller boat?

11. Bridge - We sailed from Rosyth, so this one had to be the iconic Forth Bridge.

12. Shadow - In the shadow of the moon, totality of the solar eclipse.

13. Home - Our 'home' for these three weeks was the cruise ship Balmoral.

14. Clouds - It was cloudy for totality, but the clouds then parted to give us a dramatic sky.

15. Treat - A marshmallow ice cream in Seyðisfjörður, certainly a treat at 900ISK (about £5.50) each. 

16. Entrance - The gangway onto our ship.

17. Wild - Icelandic ponies

18. Celebrate - Winning the evening quiz.

19. Wood - A sculpture outside the Sigurjón Ólafsson Museum in Reykjavík.

20. Furry Friend - Souvenir teddy bears.

21. Looking Down - as a tender docked alongside the ship in Guernsey.

22. Pattern - The paving outside Hallgrimskirkja in Reykjavík.

23. Evening Light - Sunset after we sailed from Guernsey.

24. Glass - A window in Akureyrarkirkja.

25. Stone - A monument to Skúli Magnússon, "the father of Reykjavík".

26. Arch - A whalebone arch in Jónsgarður (Jon's Garden), the oldest park in Ísafjörður.

27. Play - One of the music recitals, with Caroline Clipsham at the piano.

28. Close-up - A hydrangea in Carreg Dhu Gardens, St Mary, Isles of Scilly.

29. Sit - A bench with a wreath in Reykjavík.

30. Water - Strokkur, a geyser, erupting in Iceland.

So, all done in a few weeks. Most are literal depictions of the prompt, and a few are more figurative. Some photos could even have fitted more than one of the prompts. Now I'm itching to start on the albums for this holiday. There will be two, keeping the cruises separate, but more on that in due course.

A Pride of Lions

Continuing with 2026 pages, and a statue trail that I did in June. The statues were lions and lionesses, and the theme a curious mix of pride and the world cup. There were 17 lions; I printed 13 photos (the ones with less street clutter) and then dropped two of them as the page evolved into two areas.  

Supplies: Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Everyday Musings, Paige Evans Whimsical, Paige Evans Wonders; Letters - American Crafts, Simple Stories; Journalling Card - Project Life; Stickers - Maggie Holmes, OneCanoeTwo; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Echo Park

Scotland 2026

Scotland 2023

Moving through the year, I've reached May, when we took a three week road trip round Scotland. This will eventually have its own album, but also needs a double in the 2026 album.

This was our second road trip, following one in 2023, and I took the double page from that trip as the basis for this new one.

I looked through the leftovers from previous travel albums, and went with Simple Stories Safe Travels as I had enough long pieces for the horizontal strips which span the double page. I tried to use up as many stickers and die-cuts as possible, including a few from other collections.

The biggest change is that I dropped the large red-and-white circle from the original page, replacing it with a cut-file, which makes this my second DT project of the month for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files.

I used Circle of Circles and cut it from kraft cardstock at about 11.5" across, using the same cardstock for my photo mats.

Supplies: Cardstock - Make & Create; Paper - Design & Create, Simple Stories Safe Travels; Letters - Hip Kit Club; Stickers - Simple Stories; Die-Cuts - Simple Stories; Enamel Dots - 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.

Tea @ Claridge's

I've reached April now on my run through 2026, and an afternoon tea at Claridge's to celebrate my friend's big birthday. I'd thought that this page would have a mint green colour scheme, to match our cups, and even mentally selected the papers, but the the cool tones did not work with the warm tones in the photos, so I had to rethink.

After considering quite a few collections, I decided on 49 and Market's Plum Grove, using their rub-ons to create a roughly square frame around my photos, with my title across the middle. 

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Plum Grove; Letters - American Crafts; Rub-Ons - 49 and Market; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories

Cycling the Downs Link

I'm trying to fill in the gaps in my 2026 album chronologically rather than picking out the 'easy' pages and leaving all the 'difficult' ones for later. The next set comes from my husband's first major cycle ride of the year, back in March. This was along the Downs Link, a route that runs through Surrey and West Sussex, joining the North Downs Way to the South Downs Way then continuing to the coast at Shoreham-by-Sea.

I printed seven photos, all at the same height, and arranged them in two rows, loosely based on the June sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

There's not a lot of colour in the photos, so I concentrated on the orange from my husband's shirt, this being one of his favourite colours. I found a couple of individual sheets from Bo Bunny which match perfectly despite being 11 years apart in age (2006 and 2017) and both so old that they are well overdue for being used up or passed on. 

I kept the plainer piece as my background and tore the stripes to go in the top part of the page. Later on I tore another smaller strip to go at the bottom (that isn't on the sketch). I also moved the embellishment clusters to go at the ends of my photo strips, clusters made up of assorted oddments arranged around a couple of die-cut chevrons. The cross-stitch sticker was the last one of that colour in the pack so I cut it in two and used bits top and bottom.

Supplies: Paper - Bo Bunny Daydream, Bo Bunny Cottontail, Shimelle Starshine, Pink Paislee Memorandum; Letters - Pinkfresh Studio; Border - Unknown; Bicycle Die-Cut - Simple Stories; Acetate - 49 and Market; Stitching Sticker - Pretty Little Studio; Stars - Studio Calico; Gem Chevrons - Prima; Enamel Dots - Hey Little Magpie, Ebay

Mandala Birthday Cards

There are four newish mandala patterned cut-files in the Twilight Crafts shop, and I've used two of them for birthday cards for my first DT make this month. 

I dropped the size down to about 11cm across and cut them from black card. There were lots of areas to back, so I stuck with plain cardstock as being easier to 'read' than lots of patterns. 

I chose a rainbow of colours for both cards, going from purple in the middle to red/pink on the outside for Mandala 4, and then from red in the middle to purple on the edge for Mandala 8. 

Both mandalas looked isolated/disconnected when I originally placed them on the white card-fronts, so I smooshed some ink onto the cards in pink/purple to match the colours on the outer edges of the cut-files.

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