It's a Date

I've done most the classes that I want to do from the Cybercrop. Some of them are beautiful pages or projects, but just not me. I was in two minds about doing the Earlybird Digi Challenge from last Thursday, as I don't do digital. For me, scrapbooking is about getting the photos out of the computer to somewhere they will be seen; if I did digital pages, I think they would probably remain on the computer alongside the original photos.

I decided to treat the class template as a sketch, and its four photos in a mix of orientations was a bit different from most I've seen. I went all the way back to 1991 for these photos of a visit to Rochester Castle with my then boyfriend (who I've now been married to for 19 years). There's not a lot of colour in the photos, so I chose a softly patterned paper as my background and framed it to add a bit of a stronger colour. I did end up moving things around compared to the template as they suited my page better that way.

Supplies
Card - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper & Embellishments - K & Co Life's Journey
Letters - Anita's Glitterations, Authentique Petite Type
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch

Five Go to the Zoo Together

On Monday afternoon, Tricia Berry aka Chick gave us a class called The Wonderful Thing About Tiggers which used her electronic cutting machine. I don't have one and tried to think of an alternative way of cutting her confetti pattern in the middle of the page. Last time I did something similar I cut circles with my Fiskars shape cutter, but this time I wanted something a bit more interesting than a grid of circles. I toyed with using punches, but mine don't reach far into the page. Eventually I decided on ovals and alternated their direction for a bit of variety. 

Tricia used Echo Park's Paradise Beach papers and I copied her bright summery colours by picking Fancy Pants' Wavesearcher collection. I had already earmarked this photo for the papers and it fitted the centre of the page nicely.  The five are my children, my nephew and my cousin's children, on a trip to Howlett's Zoo Park ten years ago.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, plus a white scrapbook insert

Paper & Journalling Block - Fancy Pants Wavesearcher

Letters - Papermania

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Ovals Template

Lydford Gorge

This is a scheduled post for Shimelle's '& Now for Something Completely Different' class at UKScrappers. The difference this month was that she only provided written instructions and no pictures of her page.

She asked us to keep our pages under wraps until Hallowe'en when we can all reveal them simultaneously, so here's mine:

I didn't follow every instruction, omitting the ribbon and some of the gems, and I added extra flowers as my page felt unbalanced; now to go and check what everyone else produced...

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper & Transparency - Basic Grey Plumeria
Letters - Basic Grey Periphery
Gems - Dovecraft

Baby James

Yesterday's cybercrop challenge came from Suzysnail, and was called 50 Shades of Grey. I expected this to be a black, white and grey page and hers was, but the challenge was to use at least five shades of any one colour on the page.

I decided to use more of my blue scraps, and I made another patchwork page, but with punched squares rather than the fussy cutting of hexagons or triangles. I'm not sure how many shades of blue are on the page but there are about 15 different patterned papers. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper Scraps
Letters - Sandylion/Disney
Ink - Papermania

Tools
Dovecraft 1" Square Punch
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Let Sleeping Babes Lie

There are a great variety of classes in the cybercrop and this is very different from the last one. On the Road by Yorkshirelass is all about layers, lots and lots of layers, and quite a lot of white space.

I knew that I would need lots of co-ordinating papers for this page, so I chose them first - a 6x6 pack in peaches, soft greens and aquas. I thought that I would find a good photo of my daughter for these, but in fact it was my son that I ended up scrapping, fast asleep in our bed.

Supplies
Cardstock - Chartwell Studio
Paper - Dovecraft Princess Fairytale 6x6 Paper Pack
Letters - American Crafts Foam Thickers, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Woodware Medium Tag Punch
Woodware Small Star Punch
Lakeland Background Stamp

Playtime

Another class from the cybercrop; this one is Oliver Twist from Jemma Sharrock aka jimjams. It features a string art pattern around a row of small photos. She provided a template for all the holes and clear instructions for the sewing, so this wasn't as difficult as it appeared at first.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill?
Paper - Making Memories Fresh Anthology 6x6 Pad
Brads - Dovecraft
Letters - Scenic Route
Ink - Ink It Up!

Lulworth Castle

Today's challenge from the UKScrappers cybercrop is called Papillon and it's another sketch, this time it was an old one from Page Maps.

I have already scrapped a row of three photos this weekend, so I've adapted it for a landscape photo and a square photo. Also, it's 8.5 x 11 but I scrap 12x12 so I have a bit more space on the page.

I've run out of cream cardstock, as has my local scrap shop, so I chalked a white scrapbook insert to the colour I needed.

Supplies
Cardstock - White Scrapbook Insert
Paper - K&Company Life's Journey
Peel-Off Letters - Goldlabel
Gems - Dovecraft
Chalks - Readicut Crafts, Studio G

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch (with guard removed for scallops)

Black Watch

As well as the classes in the Cybercrop, there are a variety of challenges on offer. Yesterday's challenge was Digital Fortress from Karen Leahy, better known as scrapdolly. She offered a template for a digital page, but we were free to treat the template as a sketch for a paper page.

The sketch immediately made me think of cutting papers from a 6x6 pad to 4x6 and layering the pieces with a 4x6 photo. I chose the Follow Your Heart pad and a photo of the ship we cruised on last year. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill (SeaSalt), Papermania Kraft Basics (for tag)
Paper - MME Follow Your Heart 6x6 Pad
Letters - Making Memories
Corner Peel-Offs - Hobbycrafts

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
'Ordinary' Hole Punch

Changi

Another class from the Cybercrop; this is Mapping It Out from sutty. Her page had airport photos and bits of map, which inspired me to finally make a missing page from the beginning of my Far East album. I adapted lots of things: her gesso became plain white paint, her glassine bag became a home-made vellum envelope and her hexagons metamorphosed into circles on my page.

Supplies
Paper - Karen Foster World Travel, Crate Paper Static, K&Co Sea Glass
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Journalling Tag - Making Memories
Vellum & Word Sticker - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Dunwich

Next up  is a class from Iruk; her page is called Our Story, and uses three photos in a row, on a misted background. I don't have any mists so I adapted her methods for acrylic paint flicked at the page with an old toothbrush. My paint colours led me to choosing a trio of beach photos and, having already ploughed through my scraps for the patchwork page, I knew what was in the  box and pulled out some larger scraps which would complement the paint colours, rather than looking for full sheets.

Supplies
Cardstock - White Scrapbook Insert
Paper & Tags - K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Journalling Card - Long & Winding Road by Shimelle Laine for Two Peas in a Bucket (Digital Element)
Letters - Scenic Route

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch (with guard removed for scalloped edge)

Banana

The cybercrop at UK Scrappers is well under way with three classes and a challenge posted yesterday. I won't be able to do them all so I am picking and choosing my projects. The very first class, The Patchwork Papers from Suzysnail, involved making a patchwork of papers behind a single photo following a traditional quilt pattern.

Suzy made her patchwork from four colour groups, but when I went through my scraps I found that I had many more blue and green scraps than other colours so I went with a two colour patchwork and an old photo of my son.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics + Unknown Cream
Various Scrap Papers
Letters - Mustard Moon
Tag, Heart, Mesh & Ribbon - from Stash
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Thread - DMC

Inside the Olympic Stadium

I'd originally foreseen this as a three-photo page, including the family photo from my last post. Well, as you know, my plans for that page changed too. This one turned into a relatively simple two photo page, with a wide shot of the stadium interior and one of the phenomenal crowd. I don't think I've seen so many people in the same place before.

The cybercrop at UKScrappers is well under way now, so this will be my last Paralympic page for a while (unless somehow I can combine the two).

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus
Letters - MME Lush, Bo Bunny Et Cetera
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Woodware Star Punch

Fly the Flag

I started off this page with its circle of scraps as a multi-photo page, but the photos I had printed covered too much of the circle. A quick hunt for a single photo led me to one of us in the Olympic Stadium and a different page from the one I originally imagined.

 Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus, K&Co Cut 'n' Paste
Letters - MME Lush

Tools
Sewing Machine

Medal Trees

While following one of the mascot trails in London over the summer, we came across lots of medals hanging from trees. Somewhat puzzled, we snapped a few photos and continued on our way. After a bit of googling, we found out that this was another installation from the Mayor of London. Each time a Team GB athlete won an Olympic medal, one was hung from the trees of Leicester Square.

I've scraplifted a Glitter Girl page from Two Peas in a Bucket with two 4x6 photos across the page, making a change from a squarer block of photos.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus, K&Co Cut 'n' Paste
Letters - docrafts
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter and Frames Template

A Day at ExCel

I'm back-tracking a little in my Olympic and Paralympic album - this page comes before the four that I have already done for the judo, sitting volleyball, powerlifting and table tennis that we saw with a day pass to the ExCel exhibition centre.

I picked photos of the inside and outside of the building, decked in its paralympic finery. I had a photo of my daughter draped in a flag that I wanted to use, but it is out-of-focus so I kept it quite small, and added one of Mandeville with another flag. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - MME Wild Asparagus, Papermania Portobello Road, K&Co Cut 'n' Paste
Letters - MME Lush, Bo Bunny Et Cetera
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Big Shot & Traditional Tags Die

(Purple) Mascot Trail

Another page of Olympic and Paralympic mascots now; the purple trail was the fifth of six trails we did in London and took in the shopping streets and squares around Mayfair.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - MME Wild Asparagus, Papermania Portobello Road
Ink - Ink It Up! & Un-named Dabber
Rub-On Stitching - Papermania

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Tag Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Woodware Small Star Punch
Pebbles ABC Stamps

Geography Field Trip

The third pre-crop class at UKScrappers was posted on Friday. Design Tips for Dummies by Rachel Millington aka Taniwha is a simple graphic page accompanied by a video of design tips.

Her page is based on an 8x5 photo, with all the paper pieces building up from those dimensions. I modified it for a 6x4 photo of my son and his class-mates on their geography field trip last term.

The next class will be posted on Thursday so I have a few days to get back to my Paralympic pages before then.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper, Letters & Embellishments - Echo Park This & That Charming
Buttons & Thread - from Stash
Ink - Ink It Up!

"Negative" Cards

The fourth pre-crop challenge at UKScrappers is another technique challenge, this time to use the "negative" of a die or punch on any project. I decided to make a couple of cards. The first one is for my nephew, and I used some old letter stickers as a template to cut his name from the front of the card, and backed the holes with patterned paper:

I used two punches for my second card, a 1" square and a 3/4" flower, to make a patchwork of squares, with flowers punched through the pink squares:

Green Mascot Trail

I'm returning to my Olympic and Paralympic album now, with another page of mascots. The green trail was set within Regent's Park, somewhere we hadn't really visited before. We, and several other families, spent a sunny Saturday following the trail around the park, and I'd like to go back and explore further.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Ink - Ink It Up!
Thread - Anchor or DMC

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

The London Eye

From a very old photo on the last page, to some very new ones on this page. We've had Merlin passes for the last year, and as they come to an end we have been squeezing in the last few trips, including a return visit to the London Eye a couple of weeks ago.

I used the September '& now for something completely different' class from Shimelle Laine at UKScrappers for this page. The class was all about using up journalling cards and spots, but I don't have many so I adapted her layout with patterned paper instead. I also found that Shimelle's page, with just small circular photos, was a bit too 'different' for me, so I added a 4x6 print to  the mix:

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart 6x6 Pad
Letters - Glitz Design
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Future Racing Driver?

Pre-Crop Challenge #3: The Time Traveller's Wife was an interesting one. Jimjams asked us to do a class from any previous UKS Cybercrop. Cue some intensive gallery-browsing, where I decided on Rachel Millington's "Twister & Shout" class from the Wicked CyberCrop (November 2009).

The page that Rachel produced matched my general style, and got me machine stitching on the page. I had a new sewing machine for my birthday in May but I haven't used it as much as I intended on my pages.

I had to go back all the way to 1998 to find a single portrait photo to scrap, one of my son soon after his first birthday. The colour of his outfit led me to the Plumeria collection of papers from Basic Grey. This was rather pleasing as Rachel had also used Basic Grey papers in her project two years ago.

And for now, I've caught up with the challenges, but there will be another one posted tomorrow!

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Plumeria
Chipboard - Papermania
Letters - American Crafts
Ribbon - Kit 'n' Craft
Ink - Papermania, Dovecraft

Tools
Sewing Machine

Botanical Tags

The second pre-crop challenge at UKScrappers was to make a tag, any tag, so that by the time the challenge closes there will be a gallery full of tag inspiration. I was in need of that gallery already, as I don't really make tags except for challenges like this. I've been mulling it over for a few days hoping that inspiration would strike, and while looking through my craft stash I remembered a little pad of botanical ephemera that I have had for a while and not known how to use. I decided to put the two together and made a trio of botanical tags:

Meerkats

Another day, another class from UKScrappers. Class #2: A Perfect Day, from Carole Bryson aka Hysteri-Cal, was about embracing 'white space', painting chipboard and making our own embellishments. I have nothing against white space and make most of my own embellishments anyway. The hardest part was actually deciding which photos to use. I eventually chose some meerkats and, as there wasn't a great deal of colour in the photos, I decided to use the same papers as my previous page.

N.B. Anyone noticed the ticker in my sidebar? I set a goal of three pages a week at the start of the year...and I'm nearly there! One more page to go...

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - Basic Grey Recess, KaiserCraft Lush
Letters - Making Memories
Buttons & Ribbon - from Stash
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Ninety

I decided to stick with the pre-crop activity at UKScrappers and tackle Class #1: A Patchwork of Poison from Karen Lowe aka Beanpole. Her page has a beautiful collage of purple hexagons with photos of foxgloves.

I changed the colours and the subject matter for a page from my grandfather's ninetieth birthday:

I'm tempted to outline the letters, but don't want my pen to slip and mark them or the background.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Basic Grey Recess, KaiserCraft Lush
Ribbon - from Stash
Letters - Pebbles Fresh Goods
Ink - Ink It Up!

UKS Birthday Card

UKScrappers are celebrating their 10th Birthday with a CyberCrop from 26 October to 4 November, but the pre-crop fun and challenges have already begun. The first challenge is a birthday card using the UKS colours of red, white and blue.

I used a base layer of MME Wild Asparagus paper and layered up some white pearl paper, red and white gingham paper, a chipboard flower coloured with blue ink and a white button.

Now, more paralympics? Or the first pre-crop class?

Table Tennis

I'd done 21 Olympic and Paralympic pages in 4 weeks when I started this page, and I hit an inspirational brick wall. I had a number of table tennis photos from ExCel, but once again, they're very similar and a lot of them are blurred as the players moved. I knew I wanted an overview of the hall, and a number of smaller supporting photos, so I looked through my sketch collection and found one from Sketchy Thursdays from January 2011 which I could adapt. I reversed it as the photos fitted together better that way, moved the positions of the title, journalling and embellishment compared to the sketch, and added extra paper panels, but it certainly helped to keep me scrapping.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus, K&Co Cut & Paste
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Ink - Ink It Up!
Rub On Stitching - Papermania
Buttons - from Stash

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch (with guard removed for scallops)
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Judo

Going 'backwards' a little, the first sport of our day at ExCel was judo. There were two contests at a time and each one lasted a maximum of 5 minutes so there was a fast turnover of athletes. I adapted this month's scrap map from Creative Craft World for my page. The sketch has four portrait photos, but I've  gone for a panorama of the hall plus four square photos of the competitors. I love that the word 'judo' is short enough that I could use my big letters again.





















Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus, K&Co Cut & Paste
Letters - MME Lush
Buttons - Meiflower
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Sitting Volleyball

We had good seats at the sitting volleyball at ExCel, and I actually got some decent photographs of the two matches we watched, so I decided to print two of them at 6x4 for this page. The rest of the design came together pretty quickly, just by using the pieces left over from other pages, rather than thinking too much about what sizes to cut. My title uses Anita's Glitterations again. I do like these, they're cheap and versatile and you get plenty of each letter, no problems with the four Ls in volleyball.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Papermania Portobello Road, MME Wild Asparagus
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Ink - Ink It Up!