Ile aux Marins

I'm moving on in my cruise album to our third port of call, Saint-Pierre. This small island lies 16 miles off the coast of Newfoundland, but it's French not Canadian. From there we'd planned to visit the Ile aux Marins, an even smaller island that was inhabited from 1605 to 1965 when the village there was abandoned, but it was too foggy for us to risk the crossing.

We took a few photos of the island from the ship when we arrived, before the fog descended, and I used those for my page. The top photo has the whole of the mile-long island and the others have close-ups including some of the abandoned buildings.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Graphic 45 Artisan Style, My Mins Eye Just Splendid
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - Tesco
Wood Veneers - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug
Ink - Ranger, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Little B's Arrow Die
Stampendous 'Travel Words' Arrow Stamp
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

16th Birthday Card

My friend's son turned 16 this week, and this called for a new card rather than a 'stock' card. I picked the latest card sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap as I thought I could replace the butterfly with a large number 16.

Once I'd picked two papers for the background, I rotated the sketch as I had a narrow strip of the 'Happy Birthday' paper and I obviously needed the words to run in the right direction.

St John's

After a brief diversion, I'm going back to my cruise scrapbooking today where I'm making a 'title page' for each of our ports of call to divide up the album. I'd imagined each of these as having two 4x6 overview photos (though Sydney didn't) and that's what I've chosen for St John's (in Newfoundland).

I chose an old sketch from Shimelle for the page, one with an L-shaped design.

My photos were taken from the ship, in the middle of the harbour. The page is an introduction to our day in St John's and I have repeated the 'Entry Date' stamp that I've used on these pages before. I have a piece of map print paper in my layers and I've added a gem to mark the city's location.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Glitz Designs Uncharted Waters, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Letters - American Crafts
Tag - Graines Creatives
Wood Veneer - Creative Embellishments
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Stampendous 'Travel Words' Stamp

Stick It Down Blog Hop Winner

Thank you to everyone who hopped past here over the weekend, and left such lovely comments. I had a prize up for grabs and I asked you to enter by telling me your favourite colours for scrapbooking. Lots of comments, but only six lovely ladies answered me and they gave a variety of colour combinations:

• gold and red
• neutrals - browns, tans, white - with pops of color to match the photos
• all shades of blue
• green and blue
• blue, purple and yellow together
• messy earthy tones, a mix of browns with pink

My draw was open to readers in the UK and Europe, and one lady declared herself ineligible, so I did a random draw from the other five using the random number generator at random.org:

The first comment left was from Monica:

She's in Italy, so she is my winner.

Monica, please email me with your address and I'll pop your prize in the post. 

Thanks for hopping everyone.

Stick It Down - Floral Trio Card

When this month's card sketch from Stick It Down was published, I first saw the coloured part and it reminded me of the tri-fold card blanks that I have with three apertures.

I soon realised that there was more to the sketch, but I stuck with my first impression. I lined my card with 'Happy Birthday' printed paper and filled the apertures with a trio of Prima flowers which were originally part of a Quirky Kit last autumn.

I have a few more of these cards, and I might experiment with different 'fillings' for the apertures and use up a bit more old stash.

Teeny Tiny Me

Scrap 365 - June 2015

I'm 'supposed' to be working on my cruise album, but I'm easily distracted into other pages when inspiration strikes. This time the distraction was a sketch challenge in a Facebook group that I belong to. It's a sketch that I knew wasn't going to fit in with my cruise album, but I had the perfect photo sitting on my desk.

It's an old passport photo of me, taken in 1980 I think. I have no idea how it's survived so long as it hasn't been kept in a special place. 

The photo is tiny, just 4cm by 4.5cm, so I used a chipboard frame and a doily to increase its space on the page. I rarely use pink for my pages, but I took the opportunity to use it here. My background is an embossed paper from Pebbles, and I raided my pink scraps for the other pieces. I love the enamel butterfly but I've not had a good opportunity to use it before, so I'm really pleased to have it out of my stash and onto a page. I journalled about the photo on a Project Life card which is tucked behind the page, attached to the layers at the top where it can be pulled out easily and read.

Supplies
Paper - Pebbles New Addition, Pebbles Fresh Goods, Basic Grey Sultry
Letters - American Crafts, Docrafts
Chipboard Frame - Creative Embellishments
Doily - Dovecraft
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Enamel Shapes - Teresa Collins
Stars - Paperpania
Gems - ZVA Creative
Chalk - Readicut Crafts

Tools
American Crafts Open Scallop Punch

Stick It Down Blog Hop: James - First Christmas

Welcome to Stick It Down's November blog hop! Several of our design team members have created Christmas projects to share with you using any of our past sketches. If you've never participated in a blog hop before, you'll "hop" from blog to blog to visit each designer's page and project and leave a comment at each stop along the hop. The hop starts and ends at the Stick It Down blog, where you can comment to let us know you've completed the hop and you'll be entered to win the grand prize. You should have come here from Hanne's blog; if not you might want to start again from Stick It Down.

I don't have any recent unscrapped Christmas photos, so I went all the way back to 1996 and my nephew's first Christmas for this page. I used last December's single page sketch and a 6x6 paper pad from KaiserCraft, turning the chevrons in the sketch into hexagons on my page.

My letter stickers were kraft, but I sprayed them gold with mist and used more gold stickers for a subtitle.

You should be heading to Terri Ann next, but here is the order of the hop, in case you get lost:

Marci

Irmeline

Lore

Hanne

>>  Amanda  <<

Terri Ann
Alison 
Evelyn

Ronna

Ali

Ashley
Katy
Stick It Down

We have several prize packages and one grand prize lined up! Paper Wings Productions is generously sponsoring our blog hop and is offering a $25 gift certificate to the online store!

Paper Wings Productions is owned by Carrie Edelmann Avery. All of the PWP stamps are produced in the USA and are made using the highest quality of materials. You can check out the PWP online store to see the red rubber cling stamps and the clear photopolymer stamps!

You have until Monday 23 November at 11:59pm (EST) to complete the hop and the winner will be announced on or before 25 November.

In addition, I am offering my own prize, a set of the papers I used for my page, plus a few Christmas embellishments and a set of gold letters. Just tell me your favourite colour combination for scrapbooking in the comments below. Entries will close on Monday at 10:00pm GMT; I'll do a random draw from all entries and announce the winner later in the week. 
(Open to UK & Europe only due to postage costs. Sorry.)

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - KaiserCraft Outdoor Trail, KaiserCraft Chrismas 6x6 Pad
Letters - Hobbycraft, Dear Lizzy
Washi Tape - Papermania
Enamel Dots - Trimcraft
Mist & Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die

My Sketch World - Thank You Card

Last month I made a quartet of cards for World Card-Making Day based on sketches at My Sketch World and I was stunned to receive first prize for my efforts. I am now the owner of a new set of stamps, and Lucy has invited me to guest for two card sketch challenges.

The first one has a theme of Fall or Thanksgiving. We don't celebrate Thanksgiving here, so I chose to make a Thank You card with autumnal colours. I die-cut my envelope from the leaf paper and then pulled in co-ordinating papers for the other elements.

Supplies
Paper - Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go, Studio Calico Sundrifter
Flowers - Great Expressions
Ribbon - Unknown
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Docrafts, Ranger

Tools
Big Shot, Sizzix Envelope Die & Tag Die
Heidi Swapp Stencil
All Night Media 'Thanks!' Stamp

Sydney

That's Sydney in Nova Scotia, not it's more famous namesake. It was the fourth stop on our cruise this summer and this is the 'title' page for that day. I'm making a introductory page for each port in my album, and this is the second (Killybegs was the first). I'd imagined using two 4x6 landscape photos for each of these pages, but looking through my photos from Sydney I soon changed my mind, and picked three pictures instead.

The top photo is the view of the town as we arrived, the bottom left has the town's name in signal flags and the bottom right photo is the largest fiddle in the world, a symbol of the island's Celtic culture.


I used the 6 November sketch from Scrap Much? for my page, but I rotated it and flipped it to suit my photos.

I'm trying to use my stamps in this album, as they make motifs that are easy to repeat. In particular, each of these 'arrival' pages will have an 'Entry Date' stamp with the day and date.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, My Mind's Eye Record It, My Mind's Eye Hello World, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Letters - American Crafts, Jenni Bowlin Studios
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Wood Veneers - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Tesco
Pearls - Craft for Occasions
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Stampendous 'Travel Words' Stamp

He Paints

A few weeks ago I made a page titled She Reads about our daughter's habit of reading whenever and wherever she could on holiday. I intended it to be one of a pair and now I've made the second. One of my husband's hobbies is watercolour painting, and he likes to paint the places we visit in situ. Sometimes we sit near him while he paints, but sometimes we abandon him and return to the ship. This cruise I made a conscious effort to take photos of him as it's a regular but undocumented part of our holidays.

I used Sketch #92 from Sketch-n-Scrap for my page, but I changed some of the layers. I'm working with a paper pad for this album, and I've cut into most of the sheets now so I have to work with the pieces that I have left whatever shape and size they are.

My photos are smaller than those in the sketch (being squares rather than rectangles) and this left some extra space at the top and bottom of the page, so I added a couple of paper strips. It wasn't intentional. but the spotty strip under the title reminds me of a row of paints so I'm rather happy with the way that turned out.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Graphic 45 Artisan Style, HOTP Travel
Letters - American Crafts
Stars - Heidi Swapp, Studio Calico
Ink/Mist - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Corner Punch

On the Heritage Trail

Back to my cruise album, after the diversion of the last page. I have two approaches to albums like this, firstly to make random pages inspired by sketches and challenges, and secondly to fill in the gaps in the 'story'. 

This page falls in the second category, and is from our afternoon in Killybegs. It's a small town and has nothing obvious to attract the visitor, but I found a Heritage Trail leaflet online and we followed this around the town. It was an interesting overview of the town, but there was no one special building to feature so I decided on an eight-photo double page for the whole trail.

I deliberately printed the pictures in different sizes for interest, but I still ended up with my default two rows of photos in the centre of the double page. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Glitz Design Uncharted Waters, Pink Paislee Cedar Lane, Heidi Swapp No Limits
Letters - Anita's Glitterations, Glitz Design
Epoxy Stickers - Ebay
Pearls - My Mind's Eye
Washi Tape - Unknown
Washi Paper - We R Memory Keepers
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
7Gypsies Stamp
Amy Tangerine Camera Stamp

Who's the Mummy?

My daughter's an Explorer Scout, the division of scouting for 14-18 year-olds, and although she does plenty of activities with them, I don't get many photos for scrapbooking. So, when their group leader posted some Hallowe'en photos on Facebook I was quick to grab them for my album.

I chose the 1st November sketch from Stuck?! Sketches, as being one that could be adapted for different shaped photos. I had one portrait and one landscape originally, but I cropped the landscape one down to a square.

I don't buy a lot of Hallowe'en themed papers, but I used October Afternoon's Witch Hazel collection for my Harry Potter album and I have some pieces left. I decided to use as many as possible, and in particular to kill off the pumpkin paper.

I had no whole sheets left, so pulled in an orange polka dot paper for my background, which I distressed with modelling paste and stamping.

After I took this photo, I realised that the page needed another fussy-cut pumpkin on the end of the bottom row. All done now, but I haven't taken another picture.

Supplies
Paper - Echo Park Happy Camper, October Afternoon Witch Hazel
Letters - October Afternoon
Tag - October Afternoon Witch Hazel
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch
KaiserCraft Bubble Wrap Stamp

Awesome

I wasn't a follower of The Studio Challenges (I am now) but I saw this sketch on two different blogs recently and liked what both ladies did with it (thanks Kerry and Laura). It seemed to be a useful sketch for a single landscape photo, and I soon found one to scrap with it. 

It looks like a sunset photo, but in fact there is a pod of dolphins in the foreground. They were really hard to photograph; you have to know they are there to spot them in the picture. This is it:

Can you see the dolphins?

And this is the page I made:

We saw dolphins (and whales) several times on our cruise to Canada. This was the first occasion, the evening before we arrived in St John's.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Lily Bee Double Dutch, Graphic 45 Artisan Style
Vellum - The Works
Letters - American Crafts, Tim Holtz, Hobbycraft
Stars - Paperchase
Washi Tape - Unknown
Gems - Want 2 Scrap
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Big Shot & Little B's Arrow Die
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

Stick It Down - Pole of the North

Today's single page reveal day at Stick It Down, time to see what the team have done with this month's sketch. It's an unusual one, with the tree below the row of photos, and I wasn't sure how to tackle it at first. Then I decided to just ignore the tree and concentrate on a row of three or four photos. 

A hunt through our holiday photos for a group of portrait photos that could be printed in a smaller size took me to the 'Pole of the North' which stands in the grounds of Government House in St John's. I used a taller photo of the whole pole in place of the banner on the sketch, plus close-ups of three of the carved animals.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset, Papermania
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits
Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon
Label Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Washi Tape - Efco, Tesco
Pearls - Mark Richards
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch
Scrapberry's 'Around the World' Compass Stamp

Come Dancing

It's more than a month since I made this page. I tend to pick my Scraplift Challenges whenever I find myself lifting an old page, which I did here. 

The original challenge post is here, and the page we are lifting this month is one from Disneyland Paris - Meet the Characters. 

I wanted a four photo layout for these photos of my husband and I learning to dance on our cruise. The lighting in the room was terrible so the pictures were rather grainy and orange. I toned down the colour to give me a sepia-like tone, which I rather like for an old-fashioned activity like ballroom dancing. 

I kept fairly close to the original design here, just dropping the mason jar and including a couple of doilies. I picked a cursive alphabet for my title and initially overlapped the letters to give a 'joined-up' look to the writing. They were a bit lumpy like that so I trimmed the excess 'tails' from some of the letters so that they are just touching and lie flat.

It was while making this page that I took the decision to have all my titles in black in this album. I have thirteen part-packs of black Thickers, plus two new packs that I bought for this album, so I think that I can do this.

Now it's over to you. I'm looking forward to seeing your versions of my page. Happy scrapping!

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits
Letters - American Crafts
Doilies - Dovecraft
Stickers - Tim Holtz, Anita's, Jillibean Soup, Bo Bunny
Gems - Mark Richards
Washi Tape - Unknown
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

October Scraplift Challenge Winner

Three entries last month, which were great to see. Less than five though, so I'm rolling the prize on to November and I'll pick my favourite from both months to win my prize package.

However, we can still have a winner, and my favourite October page came from Natalie. I love the different strips of washi tape that she used instead of patterned paper behind her photo.

Natalie, I'd like to invite you to be my Guest Designer for December. Please email me if you are interested and I'll let you have the December page to scraplift.

I posted a new challenge yesterday - a page with a row of smaller photos - and I'll post my own version tomorrow.

I hope that you join in too, and look forward to seeing your creations.

November Scraplift Challenge

Hello! Happy November! The months are flying by, and I'm here to bring you my penultimate scraplift challenge for 2015.

Looking at past entry levels, it seems as if you prefer a simple layout, so I hope this one sparks your interest. It's a four-photo page, Meet the Characters,  that I made from our trip to Disneyland Paris last year, though it could easily be adapted to use fewer pictures, or perhaps a journalling card in place of one of the photos.

As always, I've done the challenge myself, and I'll be sharing my new page with you on Tuesday.

Now I challenge YOU to make your own version of my page, taking as much or as little from it as you like, so long as I can see a likeness between the two. 

Post it somewhere online, please link back to my blog and link up to the gadget in my sidebar. Paper pages only please; entries close at 10pm (GMT) on 30 November.

I had fewer than five entries last month, so the prize will be rolling over to this month, and I'll select a winner from all entries. There's a selection of 6x6 papers from Studio Calico plus assorted other pieces.

Full challenge rules are here. Now, get scrapping!