Fifteen

After a burst of creativity at the beginning of the week, I've been rather slow to make this page. Still with the ABC Crop at My Sketch World, I'm on N: N is for Number - Use a Number in your Title. They also set a one hour sketch challenge (at 1am UK time I didn't join in) combined with the N challenge.

June is birthday month in our house so numbers and birthday photos are easy. I decided to use the sketch anyway so I was all set. Or so I thought. Choosing the papers proved a little tricky. I started with Echo Park This & That, but the combination I picked looked a little sombre for birthday photos. Fancy Pants Wave Searcher had brighter colours, but was too themed; I was picking all 'B' sides which felt like a waste of the 'A' sides. A rummage through all my odd sheets led to me using a combination of older papers from a variety of manufacturers.

I rotated the sketch for a portrait photo and planned the larger circle to take some hidden journalling. It looked a bit random, so I made a smaller embellishment of circles on the left to match.

Supplies

Paper - Three Bugs in a Rug Luke & Lola, American Crafts Bookshelf, Pebbles Fresh Goods, The Paper Loft Flip-Flops, Making Memories Fresh Anthology, K&Co Hannah

Letters - Papermania

Buttons - Fancy Pants

Ribbon - from Stash

Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools

Fiakars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Masked Card

Another post, another letter done in the ABC Crop. This time it's M for Masking - use a mask in creating a card. I have a great harlequin mask that I used a few times when I first got it and then neglected for a while. I used it here to cover the whole of my card with the diamond pattern, added a couple of strips of card and the big white flower. I find these flowers a bit big for scrapbook pages but a great size for cards.

Supplies
Card - WHSmith
Paper - Making Memories Fresh Anthology, Fancy Pants Beach Bum
Ink - Papermania
Flower - Papermania
Brad - Laura Ashley

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Tando Creative Harlequin Mask

2006 Annual Photo

Third post today - and I'm up to L in the ABC Crop at My Sketch World: L is for Lemon and lemons are yellow - create a layout with yellow as your main colour. I don't have much yellow paper, but I have a couple of sheets of alphabet paper which I bought for school photos and which have a yellow background. It's not a lemon yellow but it is certainly yellow.

I followed Glitter Girl's Adventure 20 at Two Peas in a Bucket for my layout as this video was all about scrapping large photos. There's no journalling as there isn't anything much to say about an annual school photo. 

Supplies
Paper - Karen Foster My ABCs, K&Co Hannah, plus scraps
Numbers - American Crafts Thickers
Letters - Doodlebug Rub-ons
Buttons - Fancy Pants

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

Kite Card

I'm skipping over J for now - to create a layout with the word Joy in the title. It's too restrictive and I can't think of suitable pictures; I may come back to it if I come across some.

K takes me back to another card - with a Kite on it. I've paper pieced it from scraps, using a clip art picture as a template, and chalked the card to form a grass and sky background. I've put the kite on foam squares so the tails falls freely.

Supplies
Card - WHSmith
Chalk - Readicut Crafts
Card Scraps - Papermania
Letters - My Little Showbox
Cord & Ribbon - from Stash

Butterfly Trio Card

Back to the ABC Crop and I is for Insect Sentiments - use one of a list of insect sentiments on a card. The list included phrases like 'Bee Happy' and 'Bee Mine'. I chose 'Butterfly Kisses' and used some ancient wooden butterflies on a card with three windows. As I was finishing I realised that I didn't really have much space for the sentiment, so it's on the inside - "Sending you Butterfly Kisses on Your Birthday". 

Supplies
Card - Craft Creations
Paper - from Stash
Butterflies - Craft for Occasions

Kedleston Hall

Still on 2007, but taking a break from the ABC Crop to do Shimelle's monthly class '& now for something completely different' at UK Scrappers. She posts a supplies list on the 10th of each month and 20 steps to complete a page on the 20th. I did pull my supplies beforehand, but once the class was posted I tweaked things a bit.

The main thing that was 'completely different' for me was the number of die-cut shapes that Shimelle used. I don't have many, and the ones I had pulled were just too small, so I substituted a couple of journalling cards and some fabric flowers.

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Marrakech, Scenic Route North Shore, Echo Park This & That
Letters - Making Memories
Journalling Spot - KaiserCraft
Vintage Postcard - Long & Winding Road by Shimelle Laine for Two Peas in a Bucket (Digital Element)
Ticket - Unknown Source (Digital Element)
Stars - from Stash
Flowers - Papermania
Brads - Laura Ashley
Camera - atd

Tools
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch

Christmas Dinner

H is for Holidays in the ABC Crop at My Sketch World, but being an American site, they mean a page about Christmas, Easter, 4th of July etc, rather than holiday as in vacation. Which is a pity as I have plenty of vacation photos and not so many from the holidays.

I went back to 2000 for a this picture of the family and our Christmas dinner. Our daughter was 6 months old then and this was the first meal that we all ate the same thing at the same time.

The layout was inspired by one of Shimelle Laine's pages from the Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapbooking workshop at Two Peas in a Bucket.

Supplies
Cardstock - MME Family Roots, DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper & Tree - We R Memory Keepers Peppermint Twist
Journalling Box - Echo Park Christmas Dots & Stripes

Tools
Big Shot & Alphabet Dies
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Butterfly Card

Back to the ABC Crop at My Sketch World. We're alternating between cards and scrapbook pages and I've reached G: G is for Girly Girl - create a card using girly colours.

I like to use up free papers from magazines for my cards so I chose a pretty butterfly paper from Scrapbook Magazine to cover my card. Then I just added a strip of punched card, a piece of ribbon and a butterfly embellishment. Simple but quite effective.

Supplies
Card - WHSmith
Paper & Embellishment - The Spring Fever Collection
Card & Ribbon - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
EK Success Corner Punch

Preikestolen

These pages have been sitting around half-finished for a few weeks as (like the last post) I needed help with the journalling from my husband. We took a Norwegian cruise in 2009 and the chance arose to take the ferry trip, bus ride and hike to Pulpit Rock (Preikestolen in Norwegian), a giant slab of rock towering above Lysefjord. While my daughter and I explored Stavanger, hubby and son chose the hike; fuller details are on his blog. 

I used the layout from Shimelle's May 4x6 Photo Love class again, but I squeezed in a sixth photo. I've used this class three times now, but all the pages are in different albums, and they have varied a bit.

A few posts ago, I commented on my lack of finishing albums; these pages are the last that I needed to do for this Norwegian cruise, so it's time for a small celebration and showing off the completed album to family and friends. I've been scrapping for three and a half years, finished eight albums and have four more on the go, so I suppose it's not too bad.

Supplies
Cardstock - from Stash
Paper - Basic Grey Perhaps, Fancy Pants Beach Bum, KaiserCraft Seaside
Die Cut - atd
Gems - Doodlebug

Tools
Big Shot plus Alphabet and Nested Circles Dies
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Woodware 1" Flower Punch

Boys, Hills & Rocks

I've been on a go-slow with my scrapping this week; it's taken several evenings to complete this double page, even though I had a clear idea where I was going from the start.

My twin aims right now are to do all of the ABC Crop at My Sketch World and to complete my 2007 album. I'm up to F in the crop: "F is for Frog and frogs are GREEN - use green as the main colour on your page."

My photos are from a walk on Bleaklow in the Peak District and the layout is a scraplift of this one by jbarksdale in the gallery at Two Peas in a Bucket.

I still need to add the journalling to the yellow panel, but I need my husband's help with this as this was a walk he did with a friend and our son. I'm posting it before it's finished so that I can move on to G (which I'm pretty sure won't be for G for Green).

Supplies
Card - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - K & Co Hannah, Basic Grey Perhaps, Basic Grey Plumeria
Letters - Pebbles

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

Envelope & Card

Another card for the ABC Crop at My Sketch World, but E is for Envelope and we were challenged to decorate the envelope to match the card. I have a new stamp from Imaginisce which matches the paper I used on this page, so I decided to make a card from the offcuts and use the stamp on the envelope.

My card was made following a video by Kristina Werner. I've followed her blog for a while but this is the first card I've copied.

Supplies
Card - WHSmith, Papermania
Paper - Imaginisce Sole Sisters, Sweetwater Dots
Flower - Imaginisce Sole Sisters
Rub-On Sentiment - from Stash
Ink - Ink It Up!, Papermania
Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
EK Success Corner Punch
Big Shot plus Tiny Card & Envelope Die
Imaginisce Snag 'Em Stamp

A Week in the Lakes

It's been a while since I did a sketch from Creative Craft World. This is the June sketch which I thought would work well for multiple photos placed in a grid. I decided to combine it with Challenge D from the ABC Crop at My Sketch World where D is for Distressing. 

My photos are from 2007 (trying to concentrate on one year at a time!!) when my husband did his first serious walking in the Lake District. I picked my favourite picture from each day that week and manipulated them to add a description to each one.

I raided my Basic Grey Archaic 6x6 pad for nine different patterned papers, cut them to size and tried distressing the edges with a variety of tools including a sanding block and a nail file; I found that the edge of my scissors worked best.

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Max & Whiskers (Elvis), Basic Grey Archaic ( 6x6 Pad)
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Ink - Dovecraft

Circles Card

And C is for Circles - we were asked to create a card with a minimum of four circles. When I made this layout I thought that the circles would be a great basis for a card.

I decided to give it a go for this challenge and cut four circles in a square card. I backed them with different but co-ordinating papers, stamped on one section and layered a punched circle on foam squares on another.

Supplies
Card - Craft Creations
Papers - Freebies from a Magazine
Tag - Lakeland
Ink - Papermania
Peel-Off & Twine - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Templates
HOTP Sweet Tweets Stamp Set
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Pizza Party

Continuing the ABC Crop at My Sketch World, B is for Banners. I know the scrapbooking world has gone mad for banners recently, but they really aren't my thing so I have struggled with this page. In the end, I stamped the top of my page with this stamp  while masking out the word part.

I chose photos from my daughter's birthday party and papers from the Sole Sisters line. I got these as part of a kit in March and decided to keep them for her birthday pages. The 'Friends' embellishment is part of longer phrase on the border sheet.

Supplies
Paper - Imaginisce Sole Sisters, Kit 'n' Kraft Cafe (Yellow)
Letters - MME Lush
Ink - Ink Me Up!

Tools
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch
Scalloped Edge Scissors
Anita's Congratulations Stamp

Birthday Card

My Sketch World are having another crop - this time it's an ABC crop and they are alternating between cards and scrapbook pages.  A is for Adult birthday card and we were given a list of sentiments to use. I chose "A Pocket Full of Birthday Wishes" and put a checklist in the pocket for my friend's wishes.

Supplies
Card - docrafts
Paper & Sentiment - HOTP Soft Nostalgia
Letters - My Little Shoebox
Ink - Papermania
Chalk - Readicut

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
EK Success Corner Punch

Thor's Cave

Time for a celebration, this is my 100th page this year. As I have 30-40 pages in an album, I should have finished three by now, but I haven't. I do enjoy jumping from project to project, scrapping whatever takes my fancy, but I sometimes feel I should concentrate on one album at a time. I was hoping this would be double celebration as I am close to finishing my Norway album from 2009, but I am waiting on my husband's help with the journalling as the last pages relate to a hike he did with our son.

My 2012 album is obviously a work in progress, but I also have albums from 2006, 2007 and a Far East holiday that I have started, plus one from a Baltic Cruise last year where I have done a few odd pages. In the spirit of concentrating on one album at a time, I pulled out 2007 over the weekend and turned to photos from our holiday in the Peak District. I had a selection of portrait photos from the Manifold Valley, which brought to mind the six photo layout from Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class last year. I only actually had five photos but I replaced the sixth with a large journalling box:

These papers are from an older collection but they are a recent purchase. I had previously dismissed them as a 'Pets' range, but when I saw them in my LSS I realised that the colours are great and while carefully avoiding the paw prints and cute animals there are still enough patterns to be versatile.

Supplies
Card - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Basic Grey Max & Whiskers (Clarence, Gannett, Abbott)
Flowers - Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Dew Drops - Papermania
Letters - Basic Grey Nordic Holiday, Lily Bee Design Double Dutch

Paragliders

This page has been a long time in the making. I printed my four photos months ago, probably last summer, but I struggled with the page and put it aside. I knew that I wanted a sense of movement and a feeling of the paragliders moving away when I chose to print them in four sizes, but the sizes themselves made them hard to arrange on the page. I had a rare brainwave the other day and came up with placing them on a quarter-circle of patterned paper.

The paragliders were 'jumping' off the side of the mountain above Tromsø in Norway when we visited three years ago. I've almost finished the scrapbook from that holiday now, just one more double page to go.

Supplies
Card - Bo Bunny Sea Foam Dot, Papermania (Red)
Paper - MME Holly Jolly
Letters - docrafts
Buttons - Fancy Pants

Schoolboys

Last week's Glitter Girl Adventure at Two Peas in a Bucket was all about using sketches, and the challenge was to create a page based on one of two sketches by Kelly Purkey or Jen Gallacher. I chose Kelly's sketch and old school photos of my son and nephew. I often put school photos on alphabet paper, but this time I chose numbers; all the papers are from Echo Park. 


Supplies
Paper, Letters & Embellishments - Echo Park This & That Charming Collection
Ink - Papermania

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Fun on the Farm

This is the third page from a day on the farm. I used the same papers and lettering on each one, but they cover three distinct aspects of the day.

The other pages are covered in the previous two blog entries and the three together look like this:

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - SEI Seasoned (Spice Cubes), Kit 'n' Kraft, Echo Park This & That
Letters - Scenic Route
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
Bracket Square Shape Templates

Meet the Goats

It rarely happens, but this is a re-work of an earlier page that I did for a challenge and really didn't like. The original page is here and I used some of the leftover squares yesterday on a page from the same day. I have three pairs of photos from that day, for three pages and I want them to co-ordinate so my design was dictated by using more of the squares and a bracket-shaped piece in the floral:

Both of my children have pointed out that I shouldn't have a 'Please Feed the Ducks' sign on a page where we were feeding goats, but I think it's cute and I wanted two of the Echo Park cards on each of my pages. Here are the three together:

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - SEI Seasoned (Spice Cubes), Kit 'n' Kraft, Echo Park This & That
Letters - Scenic Route
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
Bracket Square Shape Templates

Tractor Ride

I've just discovered the weekly challenges at Two Peas in a Bucket (I've only been a member for two years!) and last week's challenge was a sketch from Amy Heller.

The squares reminded me of an offcut of paper leftover from this page which I stitched to the page using my new sewing machine. I decided to scrap more photos from the same day but I wanted to use two of them. I played around with the page until I ended up here:

I almost ruined this page twice. Firstly, I switched the sewing machine from slow to fast instead of slow to manual on one of the lines, and then I dropped my ink pad on the page. Luckily I was able to cover up both of these potential disasters but I must be more careful in future.

EDITED 3 June 2012
While making this page, I decided to re-work the page linked above (which I did for a challenge but never really liked) and make a third page for the day from the same materials. More information on the next two blog posts but the three together look like this:

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - SEI Seasoned (Spice Cubes), Kit 'n' Kraft, Echo Park This & That
Letters - Scenic Route
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Bracket Square Shape Templates

Spring

I'm still working through the "Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapbooking" workshop at Two Peas in a Bucket and this page is a scraplift of one that Shimelle Laine made for that workshop. It will be a companion for this page so I used the same papers, the same set of stickers and the same border punch.

The photos were taken in a nature reserve close to our home. We have lived in the area for 15 years and we didn't know it existed until quite recently. It only opens to the public for six weekends each spring and the daffodils were putting on an impressive display when we visited in March.

Supplies
Card - Chartwell Studios
Paper - Basic Grey Stella Ruby (Lady Kate's Roses), Glitz Design Laced with Grace (Butterflies), DCWV Garden Party
Border Strip & Journalling Spots - Crate Paper Cottage Collection
Letters - Basic Grey Curio

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch