Hainan Temple

The technique challenge at Scrap Whispers this month is to include at least a paragraph of journalling on the page. This wasn't difficult for me, as all my Malaysian pages have writing on them.

This one, about the Hainan Temple in George Town, is a bit different from recent pages as I used one piece of cardstock and just a couple of scraps of paper. The Chinese name for the temple is Thean Hock Keong, and is for the same deity as the Thian Hock Keng that we saw in Singapore. I scrapped the Singaporean temple on the same cardstock, but I made that page a long time ago and my style has evolved in that time. I hope that by reverting to a plainer page I can link the two temples and also link the start and end of the album.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Far East Stack
Letter Stickers - All My Memories
Brads - Papermania
Paper, Vellum & Peel-Offs - from Stash

The Yorkshire Dales

I'm behind with Shimelle's Scrapbook Starting Points. This is last week's and she published another yesterday. I know that the next few pages from Malaysia are all going to be doubles, so I went back to my 2007 album to make the companion page for this layout. 

I wanted to use the same papers so it was an easy job to pull out the leftovers and the same lettering. I rotated Shimelle's page and made the small box bigger. I also used the same border punch and similar buttons.

Supplies
Paper - K & Co Hannah Scrap Pad, Fancy Pants Papa, MME Wild Asparagus, plus one unlabelled
Letters - American Crafts Remarks, JoAnn Craft Essentials
Buttons - from Stash
Thread - DMC

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Rocking Fun

Lilith has a one page layout class on the blog at My Scrapbook Nook this month. Her page has loads of circles which she cut on a Cameo; mine is the low-tech version using a Fiskar's Shape Cutter. 

I cut my circles and placed the resulting sheet on woodgrain paper as Lilith did. I backed some of the holes with patterned paper and drew stitches around a couple of the holes (Lilith machine stitched hers but my machine has died), but then the rest of the page was my own, rather than a slavish copy of hers.

Supplies
Paper - K & Co Wood, DCWV Denim, Basic Grey Archaic 6x6 Pad
Border Strip - Basic Grey Archaic
Letters - Basic Grey Blitzen

Tools
Fiskar's Shape Cutter & Circles Template
EK Success Corner Punch

Counting the Days

The second challenge from Scrap Whispers is a sketch. It has a lot more embellishments than I normally use so I used it as a starting point rather than following it to the letter.

I decided to use a single landscape photo which meant using a larger panel of paper for my photo and title in the middle of the page. I kept the scalloped edges and the stitching from the sketch, and added a trail of circles punched from my patterned paper.

The title may require explaining if you can't read the journalling - the piece of cardboard on my son's lap is his advent calendar. You wouldn't be able to tell the time of year from the photo, so it was great that I had a couple of winter papers that matched his clothes and each other so well. The Pebbles paper is double sided which gave me the snowflakes and the green.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pants Winterland, Pebbles Snow Fun
Letters - docrafts
Thread - DMC
Pen - Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
'Ordinary' Hole Punch
Bazzill Piercing Tool

Nice Weather for Ducks

I'm interrupting the flow of Malaysian pages to do a couple of challenges from Scrap Whispers. The first one is a scraplift challenge, using this layout from Kelly.

I kept the two patterned background (using both sides of a double-sided paper) and the position of the photo, but I added an extra 8x8 panel of paper behind it. I cut down on the number of embellishments though I used the branch sticker to match with Kelly's borders below her photo.

Supplies
Card - White Scrapbook Insert, K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Paper - MME Wild Asparagus Collection
Letters - Authentique
Branch Border - Doodlebug
Ink - Dovecraft
Pen - Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen

Fort Cornwallis

This week's Glitter Girl video at Two Peas in a Bucket is all about using up our scraps, and one of the pages she makes uses 12 1" strips of paper to make a panel across the page. I took this idea a bit further with a multitude of 1cm strips all the way across a double page:

It's another page from Malaysia, and most of the strips of paper are offcuts from other pages that I have made recently. How many do you recognise?

I made a couple of pockets behind the strips for our tickets and a leaflet about the fort. The bottom of the leaflet pocket is covered by one of the photos.

I didn't feel that the page needed any extra embellishments which would just compete with all the paper patterns.

Supplies
Paper - atd plus scraps 
Vellum - Anita's

KOMTAR

KOMTAR is the Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak, a skyscraper in George Town named after Malaysia's second Prime Minister. There is a viewing platform near the top, but once we had walked there we found that is was closed for refurbishment.

I recently saw a layout by EmilynW at Two Peas in a Bucket and I liked her treatment of one landscape and one portrait photo on a page. I've flipped her page and moved the title and journalling but the basic idea was hers. (I would have linked to her page, but it was in a thread not in the gallery.)

Supplies
Card - Chartwell Studio
Paper, Journalling Spots and Flower - HOTP Soft Nostalgia Card Kit (free with Simply Cards & Papercraft)
Letter Stickers - Docrafts

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch

Kuan Yin Teng

Back to Malaysia and I've used the first of my pins, the one with the green beads. My page is based on another of Shimelle's Scrapbook Starting Points, but I moved the labels further down the page below a block with my title.

The photos are of the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy in George Town - the local name used up far fewer letters.

Supplies
Card - Echo Park Yours Truly
Paper, Tags, Die Cuts & Border - K & Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Letters - Basic Grey Nordic Holiday

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
EK Success Corner Punch

Decorative Pins

I have seen pretty pins on a number of cards and scrapbook pages recently but I haven't seen them to buy anywhere and I'm not sure that I would actually buy any if I did see them. Sheila at ScrapFit has a solution to this with her latest step class - a tutorial for making your own pins. I concentrated on one of her methods, gluing beads to jewellery head pins and rummaged through my stash for neglected beads. I managed to make a number of pins very quickly.

I'll post links here as I use them:
Butterfly
Small Heart
Blue Shell
Three Beads
Large Heart
Green Beads

Supplies
Head Pins - The Bead Cafe
Beads - from Stash

Out on the Hills

The colour challenge at Scrap Whispers this month is beige, blue and green. I thought that this would be relatively easy and have kept it in mind as I started each page recently, but it's quite a sombre palette and my Malaysian photos have demanded somewhat brighter shades.

Thus I turned to my 2007 album (one of three in progress) and photos from a walk that my husband and son took in the Lake District that year.

I used a shapes tool in Word to make the oval for my journalling, and coloured it with chalks to co-ordinate with the blue in the stripey paper. I've been frugal with the Archaic papers (which I love) and both pieces are L- shaped.

Supplies
Card - Bazzill (probably)
Paper - Sandylion Travel Stripes, Basic Grey Archaic
Letters - Basic Grey Blitzen
Chalks - Readicut Crafts

Rosebud Card

A quick break from Malaysian scrapbook pages for the Mini Challenge at Creative Craft World - the February challenge is to create something smaller than 12"x12" with a link to Spring. The rosebuds on this patterned paper inspired me to cross-stitch another rosebud and layer the two with a scrap of mulberry paper on a card.

Curry for Breakfast

I'm still in Malaysia for this page - I wonder how long can I keep it going? This page comes straight from the "Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapping" workshop at Two Peas in a Bucket. 

I initially picked (and rejected) these papers for the last page, and I'm glad that I did because I think that they work much better here.

Supplies
Paper - Bo Bunny Et Cetera, KaiserCraft Up, Up and Away
Letters - American Crafts, Pebbles
Dew Drops - Papermania

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Smile

Another day, another page from Malaysia, but this time it's children rather than buildings. I took my inspiration for the overlapping rectangles from this layout by Magda in the gallery at Two Peas in a Bucket.

I struggled with a colour combination and turned to the message board at Two Peas, where the wonderful Shimelle suggested a few possibilities from the Design Seeds website. One of those combinations lead me to the Mia Collection by Crate Paper. I only had two sheets, but they are double sided, giving me four patterns to play with.

Supplies
Card - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper & Letters - Crate Paper Mia Whirl/Water Lilies
Ink - Dovecraft
Thread - DMC
Pen - Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch
Bazzill Paper Piercer
  

Kapitan Keling Mosque

Another page from our holiday to Malaysia. I started with one landscape and one portrait photo which is always awkward, so I initially picked an old layout to scraplift.

My photos have a really intense blue sky, which made picking a colour scheme tricky. Following hints from the recent Glitter Girl video at Two Peas, I focused on the terracotta colour of the roof tiles, pulled one piece of paper, and built my colours around that.

I moved my page elements around compared to the original page and I am happy with the end result, which has no blue at all, and uses a green which wasn't obvious from the photos:

Supplies
Card - Core'dinations Nightfall
Paper - K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad, MME Wild Asparagus
Tag - K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Ric-Rac - Papermania
Ink Pad - Ink It Up!
Thread - DMC

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Colonial George Town

Still in Malaysia, I skipped over this set of photos previously as I couldn't decide how to lay out 5 photos on a single page. I have recently signed up for Shimelle Laine's new class at Two Peas in a Bucket - the Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapbooking - and took one of her Starting Points (6 vertical strips of paper with borders above and below) to make the page:

Supplies

Card - Bazzill (probably)

Paper - docrafts V&A collection, Kit 'n' Kraft

Letters - Bo Bunny Et Cetera, Basic Grey Nordic Holiday

Border Sticker - Bo Bunny Et Cetera

Little India

Hurray, Shimelle has brought back the Scrapbook Starting Points on her blog, though they have moved from Saturday to Monday. This one, with its "four squares and three lines" is reminiscent of one from last September, but I took it in a very different direction this time.

I chose photos from Little India in George Town, Malaysia and picked out my paper. Then, I added my "three lines" (paper, ribbon and border sticker) in three places, before layering up my photos and a small cluster for my title and journalling. I cut out the flower circle and the doily in that cluster from two of the papers and inked the edges for some contrast with the paper behind them.

Supplies
Card - DCWV
Paper - Fancy Pants Summer's End
Lace Border Sticker - Crate Paper Random Collection
Peel-Off Letters - Gold Label
Ink - Papermania
Ribbon - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template and Shape Cutter
EK Success Corner Punch

Waxworks

I got a bit obsessed with challenges recently and have been scrapping a lot of really old photos. Time to get back to the modern stuff and try to finish a few albums. I want to complete 2011 before I start on 2012 and I still have a Far East holiday from 2009 to finish. And I still have one double page from 2010 that I keep putting off.

Anyway, these are some pics from Madame Tussauds last October. I took dozens of photos and some were better than others. I decided to make a grid of the best and add borders top and bottom, similar to the March (3 photo) layout from Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love series last year.

There weren't many colours in the photos, just a few splashes of red and one with hot pink, so I decided to use paper from a Valentine's range that I received in a mixed lot from Creative Craft World last week.

Supplies
Card - Chartwell Studio
Paper - Fancy Pants Love Story
Letter Stickers - Pebbles
Stars & Ribbon - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
EK Success Corner Punch

In Grandma's Kitchen

Today I have yet another layout of my son as a toddler for you - my daughter is getting jealous so it may be time to break out the pink paper for her. Over at My Scrapbook Nook, Hilde took this layout by Scrappin_in_AK from the gallery

                    and turned it into this sketch:

Then it was our turn to make pages from the sketch, rather than scraplifting Scrappin_in_AK directly. I kept the general position of the papers and journalling, with a larger photo and came up with this version:

I had trouble with the cluster of tags and ended up dumping them in favour of stars and buttons which I moved around the page.

Supplies
Paper - Pebbles New Addition Boy
Card - DCWV
Felt Stars - Pebbles
Letters - American Crafts
Buttons - from Stash
Thread - DMC

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
EK Success Corner Punch
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Hold on Tight

Another layout for My Sketch World's sketch-a-thon and another page with old photos of my son. It's so much easier to pull out old photos than to choose and print newer digital pics. The sketch-a-thon finishes tonight so this will be the last page that I enter; I've done all but one, and that's a better hit rate than this time last year.

I stuck pretty close to the sketch this time, just moving the title up and the journalling (such as it is) over to the right.

Supplies
Paper - First Edition Paper Spring Feast, KaiserCraft Seaside Collection, DCWV Garden Party Mat Stack
Letter Stickers - Creative Crafts
Ink - Papermania

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
(Plate used as Circle Template)