Triathlon

Continuing with my London 2012 album, I'm sharing a double page based on Shimelle Laine's May 4x6 Photo Love class from last year, though my photos are a tad smaller and proportioned 3x4.

We didn't manage to get any Olympic tickets, so we had to content ourselves with some of the free events, the women's marathon as documented earlier, and the men's triathlon. We found a good spot for the cycling phase in Hyde Park and cheered on Alistair Brownlee, Jonathan Brownlee and Stuart Hayes as they passed us seven times. Once the cycling was over, we moved to one of the big screens to watch the running and cheer some more.

There's a huge amount of writing on these pages, but I'm hoping that by writing directly onto the background it doesn't overwhelm the page. The four cycling photos are mine, but I've pinched the runners from triathlon.org.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper & Die-Cut - Papermania Portobello Road
Letters & Numbers - MME Lush
Ink - Ink it Up!

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Red Mascot Trail

Back to the Olympic mascots and the Red Discovery Trail in London. This ran from County Hall to Lambeth Palace, across Lambeth Bridge and through Victoria Park Gardens to Westminster Abbey.

I kept the photos at the same size as on my last mascot trail page, and as there were a few less, I could fit them in two rows with wider borders at the top and bottom of the page. I'll admit to being 'embellishment-challenged'; I just don't see the need for every page to be smothered in extra bits and pieces. However, those wider borders needed something, so I layered up a few shapes at the top-left and bottom-right of the page, duplicating the arrow shape that I also used on the previous mascot trail page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus
Letters - Pebbles
Ink - Ink It Up!
Gems - Doodlebug
Arrows - from Stash

Tools

Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Big Shot and Nested Circle Die

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

GB Girls

This is my final marathon page, with the focus on the British runners. We originally had three, but Mara Yamauchi pulled out before the pack reached us.  We did see Freya Murray and Claire Hallissey who finished 44th and 57th respectively.

I used this month's sketch from Creative Craft World as the basis for my page. It makes a nice change from arranging my photos side-by-side. I added extra paper panels behind the photos, and used up some ancient rub-on stitching. The Portobello Road papers came with four union flag die-cuts, so I used one on the right as the background for my title and journalling. 





















Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics

Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus

Letters - American Crafts Thickers, Papermania Alphaminis

Ink - Ink It Up! 

Eyelet Brads - Pebbles

Rub-On Stitching - Papermania

Thread - Anchor

The Runners

Another page from the Olympic marathon, one with three 4x6 photos of the runners. There's quite a lot of journalling, but it's mostly listing the athletes in the photos and their finishing positions. I managed to photograph most of the top ten and all the medallists, though I didn't know that at the time. 

It's three landscape photos again, but I hope there is sufficient contrast with the last page. I've noticed that I tend to put my photos on the left and my titles and journalling on the right, so I might try to change this up as I go along. I  chose this embroidery thread along with my papers when I started this album, but it's the first time that it's made an appearance.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics

Paper - Papermania Portobello Road

Letters - MME Lush

Ink - Ink It Up!

Thread - Anchor 

Tools

EK Success Corner Punch (with guard removed for scallops)

Ready for the Marathon

My London 2012 Album is coming together so easily. I think that this may be down to limiting my supplies; I don't waste time looking through my stash for the 'perfect' paper or wondering which shade to use for the background. I even have time to think about the next page while I am making the current one.

The first event that we actually saw was the Women's Marathon; this page has a few photos from before the runners reached us near the 6/14/22 mile point. My next page will have three landscape photos again, and I didn't want them to be too similar, so I decided to use smaller pictures on this page, and more patterned paper, while the next one (with the runners) will be 4x6 photos with less paper.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus
Letters - MME Lush & some old unlabelled
Ink - Ink It Up! 
Brad - Laura Ashley

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Wenlock & Mandeville

While I was planning the journalling for the last page, it occurred to me that I should explain the mascots, the origins of their names and the symbolism behind some of their features. A few of the mascot statues on the trails were 'naked', rather than being painted as characters, so I picked two of those for a new page. I printed them at 4x6 and the page came together really quickly and easily.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Symbols - PebblesInk - Ink It Up!
Paint - Stencil Collection
Metal Tags & Thread - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

(Blue) Mascot Trail

I wasn't originally a fan of Wenlock and Mandeville with their steel bodies giant all-seeing eyes, but they have grown on me over the summer as I have seen dozens of them dressed up as characters or buildings across London. 

Eighty-three mascot statues appeared in London over the summer, arranged on six discovery trails. I'm a sucker for a list, so we set out to complete all six trails over the summer holidays. First up was the blue trail with sixteen mascots. Once I had printed all my photos for this page, I realised that I just didn't have enough space left for my title and journalling. I looked at Shimelle's April 4x6 Photo Love class from last year for a solution as my 16 2x3 photos were the same area as her 4 4x6 photos. I didn't follow her page in the end, but I did use the idea of a flap opening up to show extra photos and my writing.

This is the page with the flap closed:

And with it open:

I plan to cut a slit in my page protector for the flap so it can be opened easily; I hope it will stand up to any rough handling.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road
Letters - Doodlebug, Papermania
Ink - Ink It Up!
Stars & Arrow - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Photo Scavenger Hunt 21 & Bonus

I've really enjoyed Rinda's Summertime Photo Scavenger Hunt, but there has been one photo that has been bothering me all summer - a bride. I haven't been to a wedding for some years now and I didn't want to hang around the local church on Saturday afternoons...

The hunt ends on Friday and I'm running out of time so I am going to use my emergency back-up solution - this plate that I have on a shelf in my study. I've almost forgiven my son for breaking it 13 years ago - the join looks really obvious here but somehow isn't so bad in real life:

I have also found a heart-shaped stone which could be used as a substitute item this year. This is my daughter's necklace; I forget what the stone is but it came from Wales earlier this year:

So that's me finished, all 21 and the substitute, even if one or two of my photos don't quite fit the obvious subject matter. Thank you so much to Rinda for setting the challenge,  and I hope we can have another next year.

Olympic Torch Relay

I am scrapping the Olympics and Paralympics chronologically (at the moment) so the next page in my album is the day that the Torch came to our town:

I don't have enough of the Lush letters that I used on the last page for the whole album, but I am wondering about sticking to red and black for some sense of continuity.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus
Letters - Papermania
Ink - Ink It Up!

Countdown to London 2012

As I mentioned last post, I have decided to make an album for our experiences at the Olympic and Paralympic Games this summer. Despite the number of half-finished albums that I have on the go, I want to make this one straight away, before I forget anything. My other albums have all been collections of individual pages, but this time I am planning the album as a whole. 

All my pages will be kraft cardstock and I have chosen two paper collections, the newish Portobello Road and the remains of my old Wild Asparagus papers, most of which coordinate well. I'm hoping that limiting my supplies will help to speed me on my way. Also, as I use any embellishments, I will add the rest of the pack to my supplies so that I can repeat those elements throughout the album.

My first page is of the countdown clock in Trafalgar Square. The title is 'Countdown to London 2012' but the first two words are in small peel-off letters and are hard to see. I don't actually mind this, as it means the title can be read as just 'London 2012' which is a good opening page for the album.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus
Letters/Numbers - MME Lush, docrafts
Brads - Laura Ashley
Ink - Ink It Up!

Photo Scavenger Hunt 20

I've been mulling over the 'Border' photo that I need for Rinda's Summertime Photo Scavenger Hunt for some time. I didn't want to take the flower border approach, we weren't going abroad so a national border was impossible, and most of our county borders are marked by signs but not by anything obvious. However a few are marked by rivers, including the River Thames which forms the border between Kent (opposite bank) and Essex:

For more information about the Photo Scavenger Hunt follow the link above and to see more of the photos I have taken for it, click the 'Photo Scavenger Hunt' label below. 

Family Snapshots

August was a very quiet month on the scrapping front, and September hasn't started much better, partly as we had tickets to fours days' events at the Paralympics. The children went back to school today and the Paralympics finish on Sunday so I am hoping to get back in the swing of things very soon, especially as I now have hundreds of Olympic and Paralympic photos to organise and scrap - so many that I think they will get their own album, something that I have only done for major holidays before.

Speaking of major holidays, I really must finish the album for our Far East trip in 2009 (how many times have you heard me say that?!). This page will follow on from the double page from Kek Lok Si that I did a few weeks ago. This was a trip with my husband's extended family and the page features photos of most of us around the temple, rather than photos of the temple itself. I used the August scrap map from Creative Craft World as the basis of my page, but I played around with the number and proportions of the photos. My journalling is on the tag tucked behind the group of smaller photos.

Supplies
Paper Echo Park Yours Truly (cream), HOTP Asian Writing, Best of K&Company Too Pad
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Buttons - Meiflower
Embroidery Thread - Anchor
Coin/Token - bought at Kek Lok Si
Tag - from Stash
Brad - Papermania