Vroom

It's the end of the month, and I've finally done this month's Scrap Map Challenge from Creative Craft World. I've used the sketch more as a starting point rather than copying it exactly, and I used a small photo of my cousin's son when he was two.

I picked up on the star motif from the sketch and used an ancient piece of starry paper, punched more stars along the top and bottom and used a border strip of stars too.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Unknown
Letters - docrafts
Border - Bazzill Half the Edge
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter and Circle Templates
Woodware Small Star Punch

Lizard Point

Another page from the Green Buttons Fun Night now; this was a sketch challenge and, to be honest, I went to bed and did this one next day. It was a nice and simple sketch but I shuffled papers for ages trying to find the right mix of colours for my photos from Lizard Point in Cornwall.

I ended up picking two green papers so I wanted to accentuate the edge between the two, but just inking the edges wasn't enough. I decided to distress the paper edges with my scissors and I think that has been more effective.

My photos are a bit larger than those in the sketch (despite the fact that we were told to start with two 4x6 photos) so I turned my journalling sideways. I didn't have enough letters of the right size in any suitable colour so I stamped my title. I should really do this more often (rather than as a last resort) and get some more use from my stamps.

Supplies
Paper - EK Success Inspirables, Basic Grey Porcelain, plus Unknown Green
Buttons - Meiflower
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Pebbles ABC Stamps

PJ Day

Friday's Fun Night for Green Buttons House at UKScrappers kicked off with a Speed Scrap. We were given our layout instructions one step at a time and it was surprisingly successful, despite a bit of left/right confusion at times. Most of us ended up with something similar to the example page that we couldn't actually see.

Once we reached the end of the instructions, I did move some of my page elements around to suit my own preferences and I ended up here:

The photo is one of my daughter and her friends when the school had a Pyjama Day to celebrate World Book Day. We were given a disk full of photos when she left the school after Year Six.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Kraft
Paper - Pink Paislee Snow Day
Letters - Trimcraft
Ink - docrafts
Thread & Epoxy Squares - from Stash

Scenes from the Bridge

Last Friday was a Fun Night (with speed scrapping) for the Green Buttons House at UKScrappers and we had a couple of warm-up challenges earlier in the week; one was this sketch from Mary with three to six small photos.

I normally group my photos into block, rows or columns, so I found this quite hard to get going. I chose photos from a visit to the bridge on our cruise ship a couple of years ago. I had quite a few photos, but lots were poorly lit or slightly blurred. I ended up picking four and moving some of the page elements around the page. The lengths of 'chain' aren't quite so bright in reality; they're closer to the colour of the yellow bars at the top and bottom of the page.

Supplies
Paper - atd, Kit 'n' Kraft plus some unknown
Letters - atd, Joanne's Essentials
Borders - Bazzill Half the Edge (painted)
Paint - Folk Art
Ink - docrafts

The Little Mermaid

Back to UKScrappers and the weekly challenge there. January Week 3 was set by suzycad and had four elements: to use her sketch, to sew on the page, to use ink or paint and to include a quote or title from a poem.

I seem to have scrapped most of my older single photos, but I have loads from a cruise a couple of years ago and I decided that Copenhagen's Little Mermaid was worthy of a single photo page.

I chose a neutral background paper and started by painting through a new dotty stencil and machine stitching the circle. Then I pulled out my Follow Your Heart 6x6 paper pad as I knew that would have lots of small coordinating patterns to build up the layers behind my photo. However I spotted the hexagons paper and cut out a couple of sections from that. Once I had them in place I felt that more paper layers would just be distracting.

I turned to Google to try and find a mermaid-y poem to quote. To my surprise, I found that there were several poems simply titled 'The Little Mermaid' so I went with the obvious title. Challenge complete.

Supplies
Paper - Lily Bee Double Dutch, My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart 6x6 Pad
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Gems - Dovecraft
Paint - Wilko
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Sewing Machine
Fiskars Circles Template

See the Spitfire Fly

Shimelle's second 'Sketch to Scrapbook Page' video last weekend featured two large photos in opposite corners of the page, but I decided to adopt her suggestion of scrapping four smaller photos.

I have a huge pile of photos from our visit to the Imperial War Museum at Duxford a few years ago, so I picked three of the Spitfire that was flying that day and added one of my daughter pointing at it.

I chose a clocks paper for the corner pieces as I thought that the clock dials could look like the dials on the aircraft instrument panel. I've gutted the spotty paper so that I can use it on other pages from the same day.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Yukon Gold
Paper - Basic Grey Aged & Confused, Teresa Collins Vintage Finds, plus scraps
Letters - Mustard Moon, Doodlebug
Word Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Exeter Cathedral

While we have been busy with the CHA Challenges from Two Peas, Shimelle has published not one but two 'Sketch to Scrapbook Page' videos on her blog. The first sketch has two 4x6 portrait photos, but I rotated them to be landscape, and then moved the other elements around to suit.

My photos are of Exeter Cathedral and my journalling tells how we lived in the City for seven years without ever going inside the Cathedral, and it was only when we were living on the other side of the country and re-visiting Exeter while on holiday that we finally went inside.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Teresa Collins Vintage Finds, My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline
Letters - Basic Grey Marjolaine
Border & Label Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Gems - Papermania Dew Drops

Up Above

This is the tenth and final page from the CHA Challenges at Two Peas in a Bucket. I started Challenge 9: Grab 9 Items on Your Workspace Right Now a couple of times before, but diverted those pages to other challenges.

This time, I started by picking my photos and deciding on their placement. I thought that they needed a light coloured mat so I picked aqua and white pages from the DCWV Mat Stack that I keep on my desk in an attempt to use it up. I took the aqua colour from these mats and pulled out the brown and aqua patterned paper from my stash. Then I picked the background - a paper I rejected from another challenge - and just added anything and everything that I had handy and that matched these colours.

The photos were taken from the Heights of Abraham, a park above Matlock Bath in Derbyshire, which is reached by cable car.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pant Wave Searcher, K&Co Life's Journey,  DCWV Garden Party Mat Stack
Letters - American Crafts Thickers, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, We R Memory Keepers
Gems - Making Memories Paper Reverie
Butterflies - Prima
Ink - docrafts

Ribbon - from Stash

Plas Mawr

This CHA Challenge from Two Peas in a Bucket was probably the hardest of all. Challenge 2 was to scraplift two concepts from other scrappers. I'm fine with scraplifting a whole page but I found it hard to pick elements from two pages and combine them. I spent some time browsing the Two Peas gallery, and it was the backgrounds of the pages that caught my attention. I eventually chose to combine the painted background of this page and the grid of paper squares on this page. 

Plas Mawr is an Elizabethan townhouse in Conwy (North Wales). Most of the building has been restored and furnished with antiques and there are the usual rules about no touching and no photography. However one room had modern replicas that we could touch (and sit on).

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Basic Grey Plumeria
Letters - Basic Grey Periphery
Paint - Folk Art Yellow Ochre
Gems - Dovecraft
Ink - docrafts

Tools
EK Success Corner Puch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Woodware Small Flower Punch

Giddy Up

Another CHA Challenge; another page done. This is for Challenge 3: Play With Three Trends. When we had a similar challenge last summer, I chose chevrons, banners and washi tape; this time it's gold glitter, vellum and misting. I sprayed white mist on my background, but it doesn't show up very well in this photo.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - American Crafts Dear Lizzy Neapolitan, Teresa Collins Timeless, Unknown Woodgrain 

Vellum - The Robin's Nest

Letters - American Crafts Thickers

Mist - Mister Huey's

Metal Embellishment - Papermania

Tools

Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Sam & John

As I started this page, I was undecided as to whether it would be for CHA Challenge 8 (use eight different materials) or Challenge 9 (grab nine items in your workspace right now). As I worked I found myself digging into my stash for things and I decided to go for the eight materials.

There are certain similarities with the previous page as I used the circle template again, and a few buttons sneaked into the design too:

My eight materials are: cardstock, paper, mist, chipboard, vellum, border sticker, washi tape and buttons. I've also used thread and ink.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Echo Park This & That
Border Sticker - Doodlebug
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Buttons - Meiflower
Thread - DMC

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template

Rock It

I started this page in response to CHA Challenge 9 at Two Peas in a Bucket - create a page with 9 things in your workspace right now. I'm pretty good at clearing away paper and card but some embellishments live on my desk and some just get left there, and my tools are always close at hand. I had a circle template and a bag of red buttons, but as I added red washi tape to my collection, I realised that I should divert this page towards Challenge 1: Use One Colour.

We're allowed a neutral (black, white, cream or grey) in addition to our one colour. I chose white cardstock and added red thread and red letters to my buttons and washi tape, but absolutely no patterned paper:

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts
Letters - docrafts
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Buttons - from Stash
Thread - Anchor

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template
Bazzill Piercing Tool

On the Shivering Mountain

CHA Challenge 7 at Two Peas in a Bucket is to combine seven different patterns on a page. I decided that the easiest way to do this is to take my papers from a collection pack. Echo Park's This & That collection has spots, stripes, chevrons, grids, checks, newsprint and woodgrain and I lined them up across the page beneath two photos from Mam Tor, nicknamed the Shivering Mountain because of the frequent landslides.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts
Paper & Embellishments - Echo Park This & That Charming
Letters - Bo Bunny Et Cetera
Ink - docrafts

Triops

I'm jumping to the final CHA Challenge at Two Peas now. Challenge 10 is to combine ten different brands of product on one page. At first sight, this seemed quite difficult, but when I looked back at my pages I realised that I do regularly combine that many manufacturers and that it shouldn't be too hard after all. With no other guidelines I decided to try to meet this challenge with my next page, whatever it would be.

The weekly challenge at UKScrappers was published on Monday and it was set by the Scatty Scrappers. They asked us to use this sketch, some new stash and five of something.

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to combine challenges. I've been re-organising my digital photos following a change of computer and I came across some that I had forgotten about, including photos of my son's first pets - some triops - and I picked one for this sketch.

My five of something are the row of glazed brads and my item of new stash is the stripey paper from Fancy Pants Winterland; it's a 2011 collection, but it's new to me having bought it on sale last week.

As for 10 different brands, I have two brands of card, three brands of paper and two brands of letters, plus the brads, twine and ink.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts, DCWV
Paper - Fancy Pants Winterland, MME Miss Caroline, Sandylion Sand
Letters - All My Memories, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type
Brads - Papermania
Twine - Divine Twine
Ink - docrafts
Pen - Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen in Sepia

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Nyhavn

My third CHA Challenge from Two Peas in a Bucket is Challenge 6 - to use six embellishments on a project. With no other instructions, I found it hard to get started, but I eventually turned to a page that I started and didn't finish a couple of months ago. I was scraplifting a page then but although I liked the original I didn't like my own page. I pulled it apart and used some of the pre-cut paper pieces with the original photos, from Nyhavn, the three hundred year old 'New Harbour' in Copenhagen. We took a boat tour of the city from here, so I tucked our tickets into the page.

My six embellishments are the yellow dew drops which I placed on the points of the zig-zag paper.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV, Bazzill
Paper - Pink Paislee Prairie Hill
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Gems - Papermania Dew Drops

Investigating the Great Fire

My second CHA challenge from Two Peas in a Bucket is Challenge 4 which is to use a four word title. Not too difficult, and this page is about my daughter's school trip to the Museum of London and the Monument when they were learning about the Great Fire of London.

I based my page on #20 of Niki Rowland's '52 Layouts' series at Being Scrappy, but I used slightly smaller photos and I moved things around a bit.

Supplies
Paper - Bow Bunny Shadow Dot, Fancy Pants Winterland
Letters - American Crafts Thickers, October Afternoon Mini Market Stickers
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Bracket Shaped Square Template

Dunster Castle

Twice a year, the scrapbooking companies showcase their new collections at the Craft & Hobby Association trade shows in America. The winter show takes place in January and Two Peas in a Bucket are celebrating with 10 new challenges, based on the numbers 1-10.

Challenge 1 - Use 1 Colour

Challenge Two - Scraplift 2 Concepts

Challenge Three - Play with 3 Trends

Challenge Four - Titles with 4 Words

Challenge Five - Feature 5 Photos

Challenge Six - Scrap with 6 of the Same

Challenge Seven - Select 7 Different Patterns

Challenge Eight - 8 Great Pieces

Challenge Nine - Grab 9 Items On Your Space Right Now

Challenge Ten - Combine 10 Brands

I started with Challenge 5 as this gave me the push I needed to tackle a double page that I had left for my 2006 album. I recently came across the 4x6 Photo Sketch Blog and I used one of their sketches for my page:

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics (inked darker)
Paper - K&Co Peabody, Kit 'n' Craft, American Crafts Dear Lizzy
Letters - American Crafts Remarks
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Ink - docrafts, Dovecraft
Buttons - from Stash

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

So Tiny & Cute

I'm still in the mood to scrap whatever photos I come across, rather than working on any of my half-finished albums. Today's photo is of my nephew when he was a baby (nearly 17 years ago). It was originally 10" x 8" but the top part of the photo had some floral bedding that was distracting attention from the baby. I had tried and failed to scrap this photo before, but I decided to crop out the top part, giving me a 10" x 6" photo.

I've seen and liked a few pages recently where everything is aligned at one side of the page. I decided to try this out, so I layered all my papers on the right hand side of the page.

I did make a mistake when cutting my papers - I originally planned to use the spotty paper as my background and the gingham as the strip below the photo, but I picked up and cut the wrong paper, so I ended up swapping them over. Oh well, no-one will ever know (except you, dear reader). And I will be more careful next time.

Supplies
Paper - Lily Bee Double Dutch, MME Lime Twist, MME Miss Caroline, Karen Foster Oh Boy Stripes
Letters - American Crafts Dear Lizzy Foam Thickers
Metal Words - Making Memories
Ink - docrafts
Paint - Mister Huey's Opaque White

Laugh & Smile

This is my final page with a 10" x 12" photo, the one I mentioned a few days ago where I was waiting for the navy blue letters to arrive. 

I initially found all the blue a bit overwhelming because there isn't a secondary colour in the photo at all. I chose the spotty paper as my background because it has a few shades of blue and a lot of neutral colour. I wanted a border on the left, and chose another neutral, then more pieces from the same collection to go on the right.

Supplies

Paper - Cherry Arte Basic Blue Spots

Border Sticker, Camera & Cards - Echo Park This & That

Letters - Jillibean Soup

Family Portrait

Following on from the monthly challenge at UKScrappers, I also tackled the January Week 1 Challenge. As always, this was in three parts and this week Siân asked us to use a single photo (preferably a large one), our scraps and a quote.

I've recently done a series of pages using 10x12 photos, so the largest one I had on hand was a bit smaller than 8x10. This was a family photo taken on a cruise a couple of years ago. I thought about a quote, and googled a few ideas, but I didn't find anything I liked so I decided to miss out that part of the challenge (meaning that I will only score 20/30 points this week for my team).

My photo takes up a lot of the page; the strips to the right of the photo and the border above and below it are all scraps.

I'm also sharing this page on Two Peas on a Bucket in response to Glitter Girl Adventure 52: Tricky Title Trouble which was about the size and placement of our titles. I wanted to place mine to the right of the photo, but there were two issues: the paper area is rather narrow, and the letters might be hard to see against the patterned background. Choosing a smaller font to fit the space would result in the words being even harder to see against the pattern. I solved both problems with the addition of the paper flower, which increased the space for the words and draws the eye to the title so it doesn't get lost against the background.

Supplies
Paper - Teresa Collins Vintage Finds Tiles, V&A 8x8 Paper Pack, Echo Park Yours Truly
Flower - Teresa Collins Vintage Finds
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

4 Generations

One aim for this year is to complete as many of the House and Team Challenges at UKScrappers as possible... and not to leave them until the last minute.

The January House Challenge is a sketch, which I used as a starting point, rather than copying it exactly. My photo was taken on New Year's Eve and has four generations of my family in the female line - my daughter, myself, my mum and my nan. 

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Random, Echo Park This & That, Echo Park Yours Truly, 
                  Dovecraft Eastern Promise, MME Miss Caroline
Letters - American Crafts Remarks
Flower - Bo Bunny Mama Razzi
Brad - Laura Ashley
Ink - docrafts

Christmas 2012

One of many good things about last year was the '& now for something completely different' series of classes from Shimelle Laine at UK Scrappers. Her December class used 12 photos for a review of the year, but I opted to use the layout for 12 snapshots from Christmas time.

I'm really pleased with the fact that I have actually completed pages for all twelve classes. Please click the label below to see them all. 

Supplies
Paper - Sandylion Textured Green, Pebbles Welcome Christmas
Letters - Making Memories
Numbers - Scenic Route
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Ink - Ink It Up

Tools
Woodware Small Star Punch

16 Months

This is my fourth page with a 10" x 12" photo, but I also tracked down a couple of smaller photos that were taken at the same time, and I fitted them on the edge of the page. The stripey paper is an old favourite, but I am running out now.

I have one more large photo page in progress, but I'm waiting for some navy blue letters to arrive in the post. I'd ordered them before I started the page but I think they will be just the right size and colour to finish it off.

ETA: I actually started this page before Shimelle posted her Sketch of the Week for 3rd January, but the two are so similar that I thought that I would link them.

Supplies
Paper - HOTP In the Kitchen, Kit 'n' Kraft
Numbers - American Crafts Simply Chic
Letters - Basic Grey Curio

Rebecca

Another large photo page today; this is my daughter at about 5 months old, and I decided to go asymmetrical with the page. I chose paper to match her dress on the left, but I wanted to draw in the blue background via a second paper. The floral was a good match and the border strip is from the same manufacturer though a different collection. This introduced a lot of yellow to the right hand side of the page, so I added some yellow embroidery thread to the left to try to balance it.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Random, Pink Unlabelled
Border Sticker - Crate Paper Restoration
Letters - Basic Grey Hopscotch
Embroidery Thread - DMC

Baby David

I have another of those 10" x 12" photos today. This is my son at two months old, and I decided to centre the photo on the page with symmetrical borders:

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Sandylion One of a Kind
Letters - Making Memories

Tools
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch

David at 7 Months

It's just as well that I didn't make any New Year's resolutions about my blog, as I would have failed already. However I did make one to clear out my study/scrap room and sell, give away or throw away anything that I don't use or want. During this process I re-discovered an envelope of 10" x 12" baby photos and decided that the best way to tidy these up is to scrap them. So stand by for a series of large photo pages.

The first is my son; I made a page with some smaller photos from the same photo session nearly two years ago, so I decided to turn it into a double page. Luckily I still had another sheet of the plaid paper that I used before.

There's no title on this side; the one on the opposite page can double for both pages.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Junkitz Earth Petite Plaid
Border Sticker - Basic Grey Archaic

Top 12 Pages of 2012

I've seen a few blog posts recently with round-ups of 2012 so I've been looking back over the 230 scrapbook pages and 256 blog posts that I made last year. Choosing a Top 10 or Top 12 for the year would have been an overwhelming task, so I've decided to share my favourite page from each month of last year:

January: Remember the Details - photos from our holiday in Singapore, using a sketch from Get Picky. Sadly the Get Picky blog closed in April.

February: Fort Canning Park, another page with photos of Singapore, using the 4x6 Photo Love class from May 2011. I've used this class over and over again; a similar page appears in most of my albums, but this was the first and is still my favourite. The page also has one of my favourite papers from last year - the stripe is from Crate Paper's Little Sprout collection.

March: Counting the Days, my son and his advent calender, scrapped with the aid of a sketch from Scrap Whispers. This site went quiet during the second half of 2012 but they are promising new challenges for 2013.

April: 1.2.3 - my nephew, son and daughter in the same baby chair at similar ages, from a scraplift chain challenge at My Scrapbook Nook; the site closed in September.

May: Stockholm - a summary page for our day in this city, using a new mask for a National Scrapbooking Day challenge at My Scrapbook Nook, and another of my favourite papers - the floral is from Pink Paislee's Prairie Hill collection. 

June: Spring - a page scraplifted from one of Shimelle Laine's example pages in her Hitchhiker's Guide to Scrapbooking workshop at Two Peas in a Bucket.

July: Cheerful Day - an old photo of my Grandad's first five great-grand-children, scrapped using Dear Lizzy Neapolitan papers.

August: We're Off - I only blogged it yesterday, but it belongs to August. This page for the Scrap Whispers chain of pages was one of only five that I made this month.

September: Family Snapshots - Photos from Malaysia, using the August scrap map from Creative Craft World. This is one of very few pages in my Far East album with photos of people rather than buildings and scenery.

October: Fly the Flag - Us in the Olympic Stadium, during the Paralympic Games, and the first time I used my sewing machine on a page.

November: 3 Boys - My son and his cousins; the page was made as part of the 10th Anniversary CyberCrop at UKScrappers.

December: Climbing the Walls - a page from my day in Conwy last April, inspired by one of the prompts from Shimelle Laine's Scrapbook Remix class.

So there you have it, 12 favourite pages from last year. One thing I have noticed while picking these, is that my favourites are not necessarily those with the latest papers or following current trends. My favourite pages are the ones with some of my favourite photos or with photos that invoke good memories of a day or event. And that is why I scrapbook.