Swim Time

I have been finishing my 2010 album so I have posted less challenges here recently. I am now determined to finish the album for our Norway cruise in 2009 before we cruise again this summer. Thus I used this sketch from Pencil Lines for a couple of photos of my daughter in the pool on the ship. 

I have had the mosaic paper for a while (actually for a different set of photos - but I've got another sheet) and it reminds me of the tiles in a swimming pool. I originally wanted to use 4 different papers for the squares but I couldn't find four complementary patterns so I settled for just two and repeated them.

Supplies

Paper - Stamping Station Cruise Mosaic, Making Memories Fresh Anthology Collection, Stripes from Stash

Card - DCWV Neutral Stack

Letters - Papermania

Vellum Tag - Making Memories

Star - from Stash

Pen - Sakura

First Snow

I like this sketch from Sketchy Thursdays, but it is similar to others I have done recently which left me hunting for suitable photos. Back to 2001 and I have these of my son in the snow. I tried a few combinations of paper but none of them worked so I left this layout with just the patterned background paper and the white photo mats. I also tried a few different white alphabets but they got lost against the paper so I eventually settled for these blue letters. I had less journalling than in the sketch so put it on strips next to the bottom photo.

Supplies

Paper - Unknown - Bought from Hobbycraft

Letters - Papermania

New Slide

A really simple sketch from Pencil Lines, and this layout came together quite easily. I inked the edges of the circle to add contrast between the two green papers. I am running out of E's so I used a couple of 3's turned back-to-front.

Supplies

Paper - Crate Paper Little Sprout, S.E.I. Be Bop, Dovecraft Paper Pack

Letters - American Crafts

Southampton Water

I wanted a multi-photo layout for the start of our mini-cruise as we have lots of pictures but none of them is particularly important or high quality. This sketch from Get Picky was perfect and I managed to squeeze a couple of extra photos onto the layout without it being overcrowded.

Supplies
Paper - Carol Wilson Fine Arts, Bo Bunny Ocean Dot, plus some from stash
Alphabet Stickers - atd
Beads - Spare beads from clothing
Embroidery Thread - Anchor

Reclining Buddha Temple

Sketchy Thursdays have posted a double page sketch this week. It's the first time I have done a 2 page sketch challenge and I found it quite tricky. I decided to scrap a collection of photos from Wat Chayamangkalaram or the Reclining Buddha Temple in Malysia. Looking at the sketch and my layout, you might find it hard to see the correlation between the two, but I assure you that the layout was inspired by the sketch, but it evolved as I worked on it.

I started from the fact that my main pictures are landscape and rotated the left page of the sketch to become the right page of my layout with an extra photo. Then I rotated the right page of the sketch to become the left page of my layout. However it didn't feel right and I moved things about including placing the small photo on the left page at the end of the row on the right page.

Supplies

Paper - DCWV Far East Stack, Making Memories 6x6 Stack, Laura Ashley Velvet Paper Pack

Ribbon - GCS

Letters & Borders - Docrafts

Buddha Card - from Temple

Diggers

Another sketch from Pencil Lines, and more old photos. I enjoy doing these but feel that I do need to get back to finishing my 2010 album, and a couple of older holiday albums.

I chose to use a scalloped paper rather than the bracket shape in the sketch. The white border helps to tie the white letters to the layout as I didn't have any better colour to use. I really love these Basic Grey archaic papers; now that they have been discontinued, I feel the need to ration them so the spotty panel is actually a couple of small offcuts from another layout, positioned to appear like a larger piece.

Supplies

Paper - EK Success Garden Trellis (reverse), Basic Grey Archaic paper pad

Sticker - Basic Grey Archaic Elements

Alphabet & Spiral - Doodlebug

Brads - Bazzill Basics

Tea Ceremony

Given a couple of extra days, this is my first version of the Sketchy Thursdays sketch which I am now happy with. I rotated the sketch to use landscape photos and had some trouble jiggling them to fit comfortably. 

The photos are of part of a traditional Chinese wedding ceremony and this will be the left page of a pair. The other page will have the same papers with the sketch rotated the other way to put the photos across the top and the journalling below in place of the title.

Supplies
Paper - Dovecraft Eastern Promise
Card - From stash (unlabelled)
Flowers & Centres - Papermania
Ribbon - From Stash

Page Boy Playing

This was my second attempt at this sketch from Sketchy Thursdays. The first was using landscape photos with a rotated sketch but it wouldn't quite work so I have put it to one side for a day when I have more time. I dug out these old photos of my son in 1999 and stuck more closely to the sketch to pull this together quickly. The title doubles as journalling - the red letters clearly say 'Page Boy Playing', but if you include the small blue letters then it reads 'Being a Page Boy Won't Stop Me Playing.'

Supplies

Paper - Basic Grey Wisteria

Card - Papermania

Letters - Basic Grey Blitzen, Paper Cellar Blue Stars

New Gear

I almost forgot to do this week's sketch from Sketchy Thursdays, but have uploaded this just in time I think. I chose photos of my children on a walk and teamed them with the 'Walk in the Park' paper. I played about with a few trimmings including some lovely dark green ric-rac but had trouble matching the colour. In the end I decided to stick with a scalloped paper trim, exactly as in the sketch. I changed the orientation of the title so that I could fit in the journalling spot and also leave some of the background paper unobscured.

Supplies

Paper - October Afternoon Walk in the Park, Basic Grey Sultry

Card - Bazzill (I think)

Letters - Scenic Route