Thursday 30 June 2016

Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt - A Slow Start

We're a month in to Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt, and I've made a very poor start this year. I do most of my hunting in the school summer holidays but I usually manage to take a few local photos as soon as the hunt starts. Not so this year; I have taken photos of precisely ONE item from the list so far.

That one is #13 - The Moon. When I saw it on the list I consulted timeanddate.com for moon rise times and picked the weekend of 18/19 June for my photo, just before the full moon, when it was rising at a convenient time. Luckily the weather was kind to me, with the cloud cover dropping away in the evening so that I got these shots just before I went to bed:



The hunt finishes on 22 September, so there's plenty of time to join in; if you haven't started yet, you are only one photo behind me!

Here's the full list, in the form of a handy printable from Julie in the Facebook group:


:


Wednesday 29 June 2016

Father's Day Card

A few weeks ago, I found a die-cut with the word 'Dad' on it, and put it to one side ready to include it on my dad's Father's Day card this year. Further inspiration failed to strike so, with time running out, I turned to Sketch-n-Scrap and picked their card sketch #75.

I replaced the large sentiment block with a Project Life card, and layered a tag and my 'Dad' die cut over it, washi behind it, and a few sequins and gems to finish off.



Tuesday 28 June 2016

Life Update

There's been no blogging and no crafting around here recently due to me being struck down by illness. I'm on the mend now, and hoping to get some posts scheduled for the rest of this week. I have a few cards to share, plus a scrapbook page from my Canadian cruise album; I think I only have two more pages left to make now so that project will be ending soon.

I also walked another section of the Capital Ring last month, so I have those photos to edit and another post to write for those.

Finally, we're almost a month into this year's Photography Scavenger Hunt already, and I have photographed precisely ONE of the items on the list. I'm sure that Rinda will be hosting her normal month-end link-up so I'll share it with you then!


Friday 17 June 2016

"Teenager" Birthday Cards

Two of my friends' sons turned 13 last week, which found me batch-making two similar 'teenager' cards from shadow card.


I used the Eurostile font and my Silhouette Portrait to cut the word teenager six times from each piece of shadow card, and then stuck them over pieces of the same card with the direction of the shading reversed. Embellishment was quite simple, just adding the number 13 over a layer or two of paper and vellum; I tried adding a few more things but they just cluttered the design and I preferred them like this. 

Wednesday 15 June 2016

Shankill Road

This is the second of a pair of pages from Belfast last summer, showing the murals in both the republican Falls Road, and the loyalist Shankill Road areas of the city. I shared Falls Road last week, and I used a similar layout for this one, but a different colour scheme, as I wanted to emphasise both the similarities and differences between the two areas.




As you might expect, the murals here commemorate their military history as part of the UK and the lives lost on this side during the Troubles.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio II, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Stickers - Anita's Glitterations, Tim Holtz
Washi Tape - Waterstones
Gems - ZVA Creative plus some from stash
Ink & Mist - Docrafts
Staples - Making Memories

Tools
Big Shot & Sizzix Wallflower Alphabet Dies
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Make & Create Script Stamp

Wednesday 8 June 2016

Falls Road

It's been more than a month since I made a page from our cruise last summer but, despite a long detour, I'm going back to it now. The end is in sight as I am making pages from Belfast, our last port of call. The last page, Divided, told of the peace walls which separate loyalist and republican areas of the city; the people on both sides have painted murals on their buildings which show their heritage and the issues that are important to them, and I'm doing a page for each of them now. 

I've started with the Falls Road area which is republican; their murals remember the 1916 Easter Rising and the protests made by their political prisoners who were interred in the Maze Prison during the Troubles. I kept the page design really simple with strips of paper in Irish colours at the page edges; I'll do something similar for the opposite page for the loyalist Shankill Road but in red, white and blue. I'm hoping that when the two pages are next to each other you will be able to see similarities and differences in the two, and the borders in the middle will represent the wall between the two sides.




Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Pink Paislee Memorandum, Three Bugs in a Rug
Stickers - Tim Holtz, Paperchase, WHSmith
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot, Sizzix Wallflower Alphabet Dies & Nested Circles Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Make & Create Script Stamp

Monday 6 June 2016

ELO

This page has been a long time in the making. I saw the sketch (from ScrapMuch?) at the end of April, and ordered photos from an ELO concert to suit it, but by the time I received the photos I was deep in National Scrapbook Day challenges so it took a while for me to get back to it again.

Then I've been so busy recently that it's taken me a whole week to actually make the page, working on it bit by bit when I had both time and motivation. 



As you can see, I kept close to the sketch on the right hand side, but I rotated the photos on the left, which gave me space for journalling strips below the title. I used my Silhouette Portrait for both the title (the band's logo) and for the music note embellishments (cut using a free clip art file). I turned the photo block on the left into a pocket and tucked my ticket and the set list inside.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Basic Grey Little Black Dress, Echo Park Note to Self, My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market
Stars - Unknown
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Tabs Die
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch

Friday 3 June 2016

2 today

This page is one that I made for National Scrapbook Day, for one of the challenges in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group where Natalie asked us to scrap a birthday. I've scrapbooked all the recent birthdays, and a fair few not so recent birthdays, so I had a choice of my daughter's first birthday or my son's second for this challenge. I counted photos, eleven versus four, and decided on the latter. 

Those four photos were all 4x6 landscape and only slightly crop-able, so I decided on a double page. I was sure that Shimelle had done a double page with a long row of photos at some point and I tracked it down to her Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapping class; it's a double with a shaped paper positioned to cross between the two halves. I only ever bought one piece of shaped paper, but it was perfect for a small boy's birthday, and I pulled co-ordinating papers from various manufacturers to run in strips across the two pages. 



Supplies
Cardstock - Unknown
Paper - Best Creation, Sandylion, DCWV, Cherry Arte
Letters - American Crafts, Prima
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Wednesday 1 June 2016

Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt


It's the first of June, so Rinda's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt starts today and will run to 21st September. I can't wait to see what she has in store for us this year; it's always an interesting mix of things I know where to find, things I'll have to track down and things that will require a little help from Lady Luck.

This quote from Rinda's post yesterday sums up what I feel about the hunt, and why I do it every year: 

"The original idea was to create a list which gets people out and about during the summer months to explore places they might not otherwise go, but I also include items which are somewhat challenging to find. It's become a way for people to open their eyes and be aware of their surroundings and also a way to see the great variety of items found around the world."

Thank you Rinda; I'll be joining you again this year.

EDITED: Here's the list:


(Thanks to Julie Kirk in the Facebook group for the graphic.)