Bluebell Engines

I'm jumping about a bit with my pages for this year's album, and this page is from the end of August when we visited the engine sheds at the Bluebell Railway. We regularly visit the Memorial Garden at the railway as we scattered my dad's ashes there, but this was the first time we'd looked round the engine sheds in some years.

I printed six photos, a mix of landscape and portrait, all at 3" high, and matted them in a block. My background paper had some lovely stitching and faux layers printed on it which I wanted to keep on show so I backed the photos on a narrow border of layering pieces and placed them within the stitches. This pushed them off-centre which I balanced out by tucking a filmstrip under the right-hand edge. 

There's minimal embellishment on this page, as the detailed background paper is doing all the work.

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Hike More; Die-Cut Pieces - 49 and Market Sage/Natural Collage Stacks; Acetate Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Enamel Hearts - 49 and Market 

Nomads Weekender

This is a double page for a weekend camping trip that our running club organised at the end of September. My photos fell into three groups - Saturday's parkrun, a local walk and general camping shots - so I re-used one of the sketches from Shimelle's Start with a Sketch class. That class originally ran in 2020 but I still find myself returning to those ideas now six years later.

Shimelle's page had a large cut-file on it, but I went smaller with mine, using just the tent from the Lockdown Holidays Tent cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny-Wren Cut-Files. I cut it from a mid-brown cardstock and backed it with various scraps, flipping it over to use the plain side rather than the textured side after I'd cut it.

Most of my embellishments come from a OneCanoeTwo sticker book, and I journalled on paper strips.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill, DCWV, American Crafts, Carta Bella, Bo Bunny, Payper Box; Paper - DCWV Romantic Life, Craft Sensations Dreamy Pastels; Letters - Simple Stories, October Afternoon, Authentique; Stickers - OneCanoeTwo; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin, Unknown

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

Essex Way Relay

FTLOPP Sketch

I've moved onto September now in this year's album, when our running club entered two teams in the Essex Way Relay, running 81 miles rom Epping to Harwich.

I used the September sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper for my page. I had photos of seven of our pairs of runners and the plaque at the end of the trail, which I cut to 2.5" circles. I kept one of the circles from the sketch as patterned paper to provide an anchor point for my title (which sits on a branding strip). I had more journalling than would fit on the strips on the sketch, so that went in the middle of the page.

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Plum Grove, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio 2; Letters - Basic Grey; Rub-Ons - 49 and Market; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market, Stampin' Up!

Scallop Squares Card

A quick post today, sharing a card I made with the Scalloped Square cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files.

I shrunk the digital cut-file down to about 5" across and cut it from five patterned papers from the same 6x6 pad. I then arranged them so that each row and column has all five patterns. I inked all the edges of the squares and also the outside edges of the card, and added my sentiment on glue dots for a little height. The final touch was a few small silver peel-off stars on the green squares.

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

and the Old Castle

This page (and its title) follow on directly from the last and will sit opposite it in the album. It's the fourth from the same weekend so I've kept to the same supplies.

My page design is a variation on one I've used several times before which originally came from Shimelle's A Most Magical Scrapbook class back in 2017.

Supplies: Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Heart & Home, Photoplay Family Ties; Letters - American Crafts, Glitz Design; Arrow Sticker - Cocoa Vanilla Studio; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Echo Park, My Mind's Eye

Sherborne

This page follows directly from the last one in my album, as we stayed overnight in Sherborne after the Giant's Head Weekend before returning home. I've used the same supplies to link the pages together as being part of the same trip (though I had to find a new woodgrain as I'd used two whole sheets as the background of the last double page). 

I had three photos of historic buildings which I'd printed at 4x6 and 4x4 so they took up quite a lot of the page. The layout was largely driven by the sizes of papers that I had left and what would fit where behind the photos.

Supplies: Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Heart & Home, Photoplay Family Ties; Letters - American Crafts; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Echo Park, My Mind's Eye

Giant's Head Weekend

I'm in June now for my 2026 album, and a running/camping weekend spent in Dorset, near the Cerne Abbas Giant which gives his name to the event. I've gone for a double page, using the 'Kicked Up Quadrants' sketch from Shimelle's 2020 class called Start with a Sketch, so I have separate areas for the camping, my 10k race, my husband's half marathon and a visit to the Giant afterwards.

 

Supplies: Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studio Heart & Home, Heidi Swapp Wanderlust; Letters - Hip Kit Club, Glitz Design; Stickers - Heidi Swapp; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Puffy Hearts - Cocoa Vanilla Studio, Hip Kit Club