Mark

I have just four challenges left now in the Birthday Scrap-a-Thon at Scrap Our Stash, and four days left to do them. This page is for Challenge 13, to use a mini bag on a page. I imagined the bag being layered up with a small photo and picked one of my cousin's son. However, first I had to make myself a mini bag as I don't have any; I used vellum for my bag, but then wanted to fill it with something. I don't have a story to journal as this was just a snapshot that my cousin sent me, but the date of the photo was close to Mark's fifth birthday so I made a collage of number 5 stickers for the bag. Then I layered the photo and bag with an assortment of papers, ran my title up the side and finally used some old baseball stickers that I had lurking in a drawer.

Supplies

Paper - Basic Grey Max & Whiskers, Simple Stories Take a Hike, plus Scraps from Basic Grey

Letters - American Crafts Thickers

Numbers - Basic Grey, October Afternoon, Lily Bee, Fancy Pants

Baseball Stickers - Paper Cellar?

Vellum - Anita's

Ink - Ranger

Ffestiniog Railway

I'm jumping forward with the Birthday Stash-a-Thon challenges from Scrap Our Stash. I have already done the first 9 challenges (of 14), so have five to go. When I saw Challenge #12 - use game pieces - I immediately thought of my Scrabble-style letters and decided to use them on my next page if I could.

That next page uses the March Week 3 sketch from Let's Get Sketchy for two old photographs from the Ffestiniog Railway in Wales. Being old photos they were already printed at 4x6, but one was croppable and the sketch worked easily with the larger picture. My main change was just to move the title to the bottom right, where it runs over some empty space in my smaller photo.

Supplies
Cardstock - Chartwell Studio
Paper - Sandylion Green Spice, The Robin's Nest Light Red Plaid, K&Co Hannah, Basic Grey
Letters - Echo Park This & That Charming
Stickers - Bo Bunny Et Cetera
Washi Tape - Efco

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Woodware Label Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch

Big Cats

More old photos today, some lions scrapped with the aid of the 1st March sketch over at Stuck?! Sketches. My photos are 4x6 but the sketch was versatile enough to cope with that. My main change was just to place my title on top of the photos instead of further out to the side.

I'm also linking to the Birthday Stash-a-Thon at Scrap Our Stash; their Challenge #9 is to use twine or ribbon on a page, so I stapled a length of twine along one of the paper strips.

Supplies
Paper - Lily Bee Double Dutch, Fancy Pants Home for Christmas, MME Bloom & Grow
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Ink - docrafts
Twine - from Stash

Tools
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch

Make Believe

It's that time again - Time for the "Big Reveal" at Scrap Whispers. Over the past couple of months, three teams of scrappers have been scraplifting a page in turn. Each team started from the same layout, but they could have changed drastically since then as each player will pick and choose which elements about her team-mate's page to copy and which elements to change.

I was playing near the end this time - I was given Angie's page and I liked it a lot, so I changed very little. My photos are old ones of my children in the park near my parents' home.

And this was Angie's page:

The main difference of course is that I used circles instead of hexagons. I do like the hexagons, but I have no way of cutting them quickly and evenly, so I fell back on my scalloped circle punch.

I also liked the letter blocks that she used for her title, and scoured my stash for something similar. My letters are individually cut from a piece of HOTP paper. I have a few sheets of this with different alphabet tiles, but I keep forgetting that I own them as I don't keep them with the rest of my letters.


You can see the starting layout and the three chains of pages over on the Scrap Whispers blog: Georgina's Team; Nilsa's Team; Rosey's Team.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets, Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go 6x6 Pad, HOTP Brown Alphabet Tiles, Grey from Stash
Ink - docrafts
Ribbon - from Stash

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Xmas 2002

I have another challenge page for you today. This time I'm combining the March Week 2 Sketch from Let's Get Sketchy with Birthday Stash-a-Thon Challenge #7 from Scrap Our Stash, which is to use sequins or enamel dots on a page.

I don't have any enamel dots (yet) as I think they are quite expensive and you can get a similar effect from gems or tiny brads. Hopefully the price will drop as more and more companies start making them. Thus I was left with sequins, which led me to a Christmas page with an old photo of my husband and our niece.

The red background paper is from a Christmas collection, but the rest are from a 6x6 pad from a Valentine/love collection. The two stitched circles gave me a good place for the sequins.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - Echo Park Christmas Dots & Stripes, Basic Grey True Love 6x6
Letters - American Crafts
Numbers - October Afternoon
Sequins & Thread - from Stash

Tools
American Crafts Simple Scallop Border Punch
Fiskars Circles Template
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Bundle

I'm still plodding my way through the Birthday Stash-a-Thon challenges from Scrap Our Stash, and wondering if I can complete them all by next Friday's deadline. This page was made for Challenge #8 which was to use gesso or textured paste on a page. I've seen some beautiful pages online where other people have achieved stunning effects with gesso, but whenever I try it I find that the page warps too much and I never like the results. With that in mind, I used a simple polka dot stencil to create an all-over pattern on cardstock as a basis for my page.

Once I had my textured background, there were no other requirements for the page so I turned to my list of sketches and picked 'Inspired By' Challenge #3 from Sketch-n-Scrap. In these challenges, a DT Member's page is interpreted to create a sketch. I just used the sketch and the page it came from as inspiration rather than sticking to it faithfully as is the case sometimes.  

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets, Studio Calico Sundrifter, Studio Calico Atlantic, Dear Lizzy Neapolitan
Vellum - from Stash
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Texture Paste - Farrell & Gold
Tag - American Crafts
Sticker - Studio Calico Snippets
Butterflies - Prima
Gems - Papermania

Tools
Dreamweaver Stencil - Background Dots
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

SIPIDI - Gift Card Holder

Fiona, my team leader at UKScrappers, started a new meme earlier this year which she called See It, Pin It, Do It! She's challenging us all to actually DO the things that we pin on Pinterest rather than just collecting lots of boards full of lovely images. I don't actually use Pinterest, but I am guilty of saving images and bookmarking webpages intending to go back to them later, and I rarely do.

One of those bookmarks was actually Fiona's own blog, Staring at the Sea, where she posted a Gift Card Holder tutorial as part of the UKS Christmas Blog Hop. I often give my mum a gift card for her birthday, and I thought that this would make it a little more special, so I duly bookmarked it, and I now I've actually made it.

If you'd like to join in with us, and turn your pins into projects, link up with Fiona - Staring at the Sea this month and she will add you to her SIPIDI! Pinterest board which is fast filling up with craft ideas and yummy-looking recipes.

Zip It

The photos for this page came from the same day as my previous two pages, but they document different things so I haven't used the same papers, though I do have greens, yellows and teal blues on each.

This time I have a set of fun photos of us on the zip wire in the park near the fort, and I adapted a four photo sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap to accommodate six photos.

The sketch features large banners behind the photos, making it perfect for Birthday Stash-a-Thon Challenge #5 at Scrap Our Stash.

This was another page where I shuffled papers for a while. I found a couple of combinations that I liked but the photos got lost against them. Finally I realised that I needed clean patterns (not distressed) on white paper, and Studio Calico's Snippets collection provided all the patterns I needed. I just added a bit of mist to the background, inked my edges for definition and stitched a few crosses on the paper edges.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets
Letters - American Craft Thickers, Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Wood Veneer Pieces - Studio Calico, Creative Embellishments
Mist Cosmic Shimmer Mist
Ink - Ink It Up!
Thread - DMC

Coalhouse Fort

The current round of challenges at Scrap Whispers close tomorrow afternoon, so this will be the last page that I enter. It's for Challenge #169 which was 'All About the Favourites'. It's an easy one - to think about your favourite page size, style, technique, subject, embellishments and so on and to use them all to create a layout with plenty of journalling (whether we like journalling or not).

• My favourite size is 12x12. It means there's plenty of space for photos, writing and pretty papers. I do make smaller pages but I find myself longing for more space when I do. 
• My style is generally clean and simple; I do love a bit of mist but I'm not one for lots of paints or random stamping. 
• One of my favourite techniques is hand-stitching, often a circle around the photos. Given a sketch with a circle on it, I'll generally hand-stitch that circle.
• The main subject of my photos is the places we go, at home or abroad.
• I don't have a favourite embellishment and don't use a lot of them on my pages. I generally embellish with a few punched shapes and maybe a word sticker or some gems.
• I use sketches a lot of the time for my pages (as any reader of my blog will know!); sometimes I follow them exactly, and sometimes they are a starting point for something that looks a little different by the time I've finished.

The sketch for this page comes from Brenda Ragsdale at GrandDiva's Creative Corner and is one of the Scrappy Friends challenges for March. I had a pair of 4x6 photos that I wanted to scrap and this sketch seemed to be adaptable enough to do that. I made the paper panels at the top a little larger, and removed the pieces at the bottom of the sketch. True to my favourite technique, I hand-stitched the larger circle part-way around my photos. Finally I rotated the title to run it along the edge of my photos.

Supplies
Paper - MME The Sweetest Thing, Lasting Impressions, plus Scraps
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Border Sticker - Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Thread - DMC
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Ben - Aged 6

Time is running out on the current batch of challenges at Scrap Whispers. Their challenge #167 is to scrap a large square photo. Mine isn't as large as the photos in the samples, but at just less than 6"x6" it's larger than I normally scrap.

The 15th March sketch with a twist at Paper Secrets featured a single square photo so I've used that sketch as the basis for my page. This time the twist is to use items that start with each of the letters of the word LUCKY. That letter U gave me some trouble but I got there in the end. My items are: Letter stickers from Lily Bee; Union flag (on Ben's t-shirt); paper from Crate Paper; Kraft cardstock and tags; Yellow patterned paper.

I swapped various papers in and out of this page as I worked, and I changed my mind about the background several times. Eventually I put the paper layers together first and then tried them against a variety of backgrounds. The kraft worked fairly well but was just a bit plain and flat until I spritzed it with plenty of white mist and a small amount of teal mist. The mist means that I am also linking up with Scrap Our Stash's Birthday Challenge #6 which is to add mist to a page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - MME Wild Asparagus, K&Co Daydreams, Papermania, Crate Paper Random, Crate Paper The Pier
Letters - Lily Bee
Tags - Maya Road
Border Sticker - Bo Bunny
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Mist - Mister Huey's, Cosmic Shimmer
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Big Shot & Alphabet Dies

Personalised Graffiti

I've been concentrating on challenges from just a couple of blogs recently, and neglecting one of my favourites - Scrap Whispers - so it's time to remedy that. Their Challenge #168 was to scrap a surprise, and to only use two colours. When I first read it I couldn't think of a surprise to scrap, and I was going to pass on this one. 

However I was out walking along the Thames on Sunday when I made a surprising find. This stretch of sea wall (or should that be 'river wall'?) is used by local graffiti artists and varies from scribbles via ornate tags through to large works of art, and it was as if this one had been painted just for me:

My layout is small, just 4"x6", and it will form part of a divided page where I will be chronicling the smaller things about 2014.

Joust

This is my final page for the second Sketch-a-Thon Blog Hop at Let's Get Sketchy. This time I've picked Tone's challenge, which is a four-photo sketch and the twist of using string or twine on the page.

I picked my best four photos from a jousting tournament at Hever Castle last year, and stitched between them with dark brown twine.

I'm also linking up with UKScrappers' March Week 2 challenge. The Glitterbugs gave us a choice of themes, and I chose Sport. They also asked us to use: doodling; ribbon, lace or washi tape; brads, eyelets or buttons; altered flowers. I have doodling, washi tape and brads, but not the flowers so I won't score full points for my team this week, but 25 points is better than nothing. 

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Random, Pixie Press Fall Stripes, Unlabelled Chequers
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Brads - Papermania
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Corner Rounder Punch

Sandra & Frank

Another page for the Let's Get Sketchy Sketch-a-Thon blog hop; this one is for Connie's challenge - to use this sketch and some leaves.

I'm combining it with Stash-A-Thon Challenge #4 from Scrap Our Stash. They are celebrating their birthday with lots of celebration-themed stash challenges and this one is to use one or more bows on the page.

The sketch has three photos, but I decided to use two in different sizes from my colleague's wedding last year. I used pressed leaves in my embellishments and added a bow to our invitation, which I then slipped behind the patterned paper at the top where it can easily be pulled out and read.

Supplies
Paper - Heidi Grace Designs, plus various unlabelled and scraps
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Doilies - Dovecraft
Leaves - Colorbok
Flowers - Dovecraft
Brads - Laura Ashley
Ribbon - from Stash

On Guard

While I've been busy with other things, Let's Get Sketchy continued their birthday celebrations with another blog hop, and another set of challenges.

I've recently listed out all my unscrapped 2002 photos in an attempt to quickly match them to sketches as they arise. I picked a photo of a Martello tower in Suffolk to go with Laura's challenge of this sketch and something wooden.

I used the same sketch twice in the first LGS blog hop, but the versatility of sketches means that all three pages are different, and they'll be in different albums anyway. (The others were What a Handful! and Live, Laugh, Love.)

This time I used a 6x6 chipboard panel as a mask and stippled paint through it onto my background. I also painted the borders at the top and bottom of the page rather than using washi tape or paper. My 'something wooden' is a wood veneer pinked circle which I fitted over one of the circles in the background.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts
Paper - V&A Museum, HOTP Brown Alphabet Tiles, Simple Stories
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Paint - Mixed from Folk Art Coffee Bean and Stencil Collection Bright Blue
Ink - Ink it Up!

Tools
Creative Embellishments Circles Chipboard

52 Walks - February

My '52 Walks' suffered a few setbacks in February. Sundays and Tuesdays are normally good walking days in my diary but I worked overtime on three Tuesdays last month, and either bad weather or family events wiped out some of the Sundays too.

The Tuesday overtime was a known factor (there are only four of us in our office so one person's holiday tends to mean another person's overtime) so I had mentally intended this to be '52 Walks This Year' not 'One Walk per Week'. However I am disappointed that I only did two walks last month (and that it's taken me so long to make and blog the related pages):

Walk 5 - St Clement's Church: This was the church used for the funeral in 'Four Weddings and a Funeral'. I've been meaning to visit it for years, and this little project gave me the motivation to go there at last.

Walk 6 - Warren Gorge: A circular walk through part of the Chafford Gorges Nature Park. It's a walk that I've done many times before, with minor variations in the exact route, but an easy choice when time is limited.

I'm playing 'catch-up' now as I would ideally like to have completed 13 walks by the end of March. It's the 11th today and I've done three so far this month so it seems possible, but I know that I have more overtime ahead of me. Let's see how many walks I can fit into the next 20 days...

Ready for Washing

This is my page for last week's Team challenge at UKScrappers. The March Week 1 Challenge was set by the Chatty Scrappers and they asked us to use a happy photo, bright colours, a Project Life style card and to scraplift one of their team members. (I chose this page from Furrypig.)

I picked out an old photo of my son smiling (i.e. happy) and some bright rocket paper. I've had the paper for years without using it; I still think it's really cute and I'm very happy to have it in an album at last.

Supplies
Paper - 3 Bugs in a Rug Playtime, Unlabelled Spots, Basic Grey Marjolaine. Scraps
Border Sticker - Fancy Pants Home for Christmas
PL Type Card - Sarah's Cards Ltd
Ink - Ink It Up!, docrafts
Gems - from Stash

Tools
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Swim Baby

While working on this week's Team Challenge at UKScrappers, I've realised that I didn't share the page I made for last week's. The February Week 4 Challenge was to use multiple photos, an interactive element and some ribbon.

I picked a set of photos of my son in the swimming pool on holiday many years ago. They are all very similar so hiding two under a flap didn't lose anything and allowed me to use them all without making a double page. I was going to use the ribbon to make a loop to lift the flap but I forgot so there's just a small piece under my title instead.

My page layout is based on the April instalment of the 4x6 Photo Love series at Two Peas in a Bucket. This class originally ran in 2011 and had twelve lessons scrapping 1 to 12 4x6 photos per page; it's one class that I have returned to again and again.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets
Letters - Doodlebug
Glitter Circles - Anita's Glitterations
Gems - Papermania
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch

A Kozak Christmas

This will be my last post from the Let's Get Sketchy blog hop as the deadline is looming. This time I've chosen Melinda's challenge which was a sketch and the requirement to stitch on the page.

Once again I'm combining this with a challenge from Scrap Our Stash. Their Stash-A-Thon Challenge #3 is inspired by the candles on a birthday cake, and we were asked to use any sort of bling on the page.

The small photos in the sketch made me look at the photos that my cousin sends me most years, which seemed to be a good size. The ones I picked are from a Christmas photoshoot so I pulled out my Christmas papers and used traditional red and green. I machine stitched all my papers to the page, added gems to my tiny Christmas tree and used a glittery banner under the photos. (If you are wondering about that title, Kozak is my cousin's married surname.)

Supplies

Paper - Bo Bunny Shabby Princess, Craft Creations Christmas Words, Pebbles Seasons Greetings

Letters - Jillibean Soup

Banner - Teresa Collins

Tree - Jolee's

Gems - from Stash

Present Sticker - WHSmith

Tools

Sewing Machine

American Crafts Scalloped Border Punch

The Smallest House

I'm continuing the dual birthday celebrations at Let's Get Sketchy and Scrap Our Stash today. The second Stash-a-Thon challenge from Scrap Our Stash is to use a paper doily on a page, and I'm combining it with Michelle's challenge from the Let's Get Sketchy blog hop. She gave us a sketch and also asked us to use some bling.

I'm running short of single photos so I went all the way back to 2002 for a picture of the smallest house in Great Britain. It's in Conwy, North Wales, and is just 6 feet wide. I used a doily in my layers and gems to form the bodies of the butterflies in my embellishments.

That border sticker was the last one from the pack and it's been living on my desk for a while in an attempt to use it up. I'm glad that I've found it a home on a page at last.

Supplies
Paper - Unlabelled Background, Crate Paper Restoration, First Edition J'Adore, Various Scraps
Doily - Dovecraft
Border Sticker - Crate Paper Restoration
Letters - Basic Grey Nordic Holiday, Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Butterflies - Prima
Gems - Papermania

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Live, Laugh, Love

Another page from Let's Get Sketchy's birthday blog hop today. This time it's Brenshevia's challenge and she chose both a sketch and a colour combination of pinks, peaches and aquas. 

I was going to skip this one as the colours didn't bring any paper collection to mind and I wasn't in the mood for gathering individual sheets together. However when rummaging for bits for the last page I found a set of freebie papers from Scrapbook Magazine that matched the colours perfectly - a few papers and printed embellishments from Fancy Pants' It's the Little Things. Being a love collection I chose an old photo of my husband and me at a friend's wedding. 

I was short on paper (just a few sheets, and it's smaller then A4) and short on time (the challenge deadline was fast approaching, though it has been extended now) so I kept the page pretty simple and everything came from the free paper pack except the washi at the top and bottom of the page.

I used the same sketch a few days ago (What a Handful!), but the two pages turned out quite differently.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill?
Paper & Embellishments - Fancy Pants It's the Little Things
Washi Tape - October Afternoon
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Creepy Crawly

March is going to be a busy scrappy month - not only is Let's Get Sketchy celebrating its second birthday, but Scrap Our Stash is celebrating a year with its new owners. Plenty of inspiration, and I'm combining challenges from both blogs today.

I've picked Chelsea's sketch challenge from Let's Get Sketchy's blog hop, which came with the twist of using a paper-clip on the page. And I'm combining it with Challenge 1 from Scrap Our Stash - inspired by the layers in a birthday cake, use at least three layers of paper and/or embellishments on the page.

My photos are old ones of my son when he was just beginning to crawl. I actually started the whole page from the notebook edge border sticker and then picked the co-ordinating camera print paper. I piled up the layers of paper and embellishments under and around my photos, adding a person paperclip to the corner.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill?
Paper - Echo Park This & That, Various Scraps
Vellum - Anita's
Label & Border Stickers - Echo Park This & That
Word Sticker - MME The Sweetest Thing
Paper Clip - WHSmith
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer
Ink - docrafts
Glitter Circles - Anita's Glitterations
Glitter Star - from Stash

Tools
Craft Creatives Alphabet Stamps
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

What a Handful!

Let's Get Sketchy are celebrating their second birthday with a Sketch-a-Thon blog hop. It includes nine sketch challenges, but with only five days to complete them you would have to be a champion super-scrapper to do them all. 

My nephew turned 18 last week and my sister posted a load of old photos to Facebook, some of which I hadn't seen before. I pinched one of my son and my nephew with my Nan and looked for the best sketch from the blog hop, picking one from Carol. I rotated the photo, added a few paper layers and moved the title but my page is pretty close to the original sketch.

Supplies
Paper - Kit 'n' Craft, American Crafts, Fancy Pants, Studio Calico, Crate Paper
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - Efco
Hearts - from Stash
Ink - Papermania, Ranger Distress Ink
Mist - Mr Huey's Opaque White

Tools
Tando Creative Harlequin Stencil
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

A Few Birthday Cards

I'm not a prolific card-maker, but I do try to make birthday cards for my family and friends. I used to cross-stitch them all, but it's way too time-consuming so these days it's paper all the way.

The first one was probably the simplest - I stamped a flower with a two-part stamp set and double-matted it before mounting it on a plain card covered with floral paper and finishing off with a peel-off sentiment:

More stamping on the second card. I started off intending this to be a background layer, but I decided to punch some tiny flowers and show it off instead:

The third card was a variation on one that I made last October; that one had a number 10, but this one has an 18 for my nephew. He's a West Ham fan so I used claret and blue with gold for the stars.