End of an Era

I'm still scrapping 2016 photos in a futile attempt to get caught up before we go on holiday again. This set of pictures came from my daughter's phone and were taken with her friends in her last few days of school. It took a 'Back to School' challenge in Mercy Tiara's Facebook Group to give me the push to get hold of them from her and turn them into a page. That challenge was open to very generous interpretation and any school-themed or school-supply-themed page was acceptable.

I picked the three best group shots, Sketch #111 from Sketch-n-Scrap, and a blue and orange colour scheme for my page. I have several packets of blue rub-on alphabets that I want to use up and I've long thought about using them on the background of a page. I did it here, around the edges of the page and along one side of the circle, but I didn't come close to using one pack up.

I played around with that circle for a while, and cut two different pieces, this blue and an orange book print, as I tried to decide which one to use. The print was too distracting and a poor match for the rest of my orange so I opted for the blue. However it felt rather plain so I cut a vellum piece to lie over it, adding some interest without adding more colour. I used part of the Inner Circle file from The Cut Shoppe (a freebie earlier this month) only realising afterwards that the chevron pattern would tie in with those on the sketch.

All in all I stayed pretty close to the sketch, just using one extra photo and moving the title up the page to make space for my journalling.

Supplies
Paper - Echo Park The Apothecary Emporium, Colorbok Travel, Heidi Swapp No Limits, Papermania Portobello Road
Vellum - Make & Create (The Works)
Letters - Simple Stories, Papermania
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Star Gems - Papermania

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template
Silhouette Portrait & Inner Circle Cut File from The Cut Shoppe
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Dies

Team 5in5

I'm combining a sketch from Stuck?! Sketches with another of Shimelle's prompts from The 20 Project today. 

I'd printed a photo to go with the sketch and was just choosing papers when Shimelle prompted us to break our habits and pick a different colour combination for green, outdoor photos. I would normally turn to earthy colours like orange, brown, green, navy and mustard yellow, but I've changed direction here.

I started by looking at my newest papers, and picked a white, yellow and grey one from Studio Calico. The page needed a third colour (I don't count white) and I tried a few before deciding on aqua blue. It's another page made mostly from scraps and with embellishments picked from my colour drawers.

The photo is of my husband and his team-mates before they took on the 5-in-5 Challenge, climbing five Lake District peaks in five hours.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico, Heidi Swapp No Limits, old scraps
Letters - American Crafts
Die Cut - Simple Stories Carpe Diem
Stickers- Crate Paper, Pebbles
Flower - Prima
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Echo Park
Washi Tape - The Range
Tag - Unknown
Mist - Docrafts, Cosmic Shimmer
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Sewing Machine
Big Shot, Little B Arrows Dies & Quickutz Tabs Die

Dream Jars

Creative Scrappers and The Cut Shoppe have teamed up this month for a challenge combining a sketch with a cut file, and I really wanted to take part but I didn't have a suitable photo at the time. 

Roll forward a few weeks, and I spent a sunny Sunday tracking down Dream Jars in London. There are about 50 of them on display this summer to tie in with the release of the film The BFG and each one contains a celebrity's dream. Being glass (or probably some sort of reinforced plastic) they were hard to photograph without reflections so my pictures aren't great. I picked the six best, printed them quite small and returned to this challenge, choosing the Counting Stars cut file as matching the page theme best.

One of the prompts in The 20 Project was about using kits rather than hoarding them; I bought the June scrapbook kit from Studio Calico as a one-off but hadn't used it yet and have been feeling a bit guilty about that. The camellia print paper and the star acetate are from the kit, the cut file from cream cardstock, and almost everything else on the page came from scraps or ancient supplies. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - Studio Calico, Amy Tangerine

Vellum - Anita's Crafts

Letters - American Crafts

Acetate - Studio Calico

Tags - Lakeland

Word Stickers - Cosmo Cricket

Washi Tape - Trimcraft

Hearts - Pretty Little Studio

Butterfly - Recycled from a Card

Gems - The Range

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Counting Stars Cut File 

Every Day is a New Adventure

One of the prompts from The 20 Project was to change your title techniques, to think about what you use for your page titles and then to do something different. This made me think about a pre-cut title piece that I received in a Quirky Kit last spring; 'Every Day is a New Adventure' is perfect for a cruise, when you are visiting a new place every day, but I made the whole album for our last cruise without using it. However I also need to document that cruise for my 2015 annual album.

We visited seven towns and cities on that cruise, so I picked one photo from each port and got them printed as squares ready for a double page using quadrants with photos in seven and the title in the eighth. Once I started, I rejected that idea as it wasn't working for me, and I considered scraplifting my Books About Town page instead. My final page was actually a hybrid of the two with rows of photos in distinct blocks.

I mostly used leftover papers from my cruise album for my page, but the filmstrip washi is a brand new purchase. I used silver-grey mist in the album but switched to gold here to match the title piece.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Coredinations, Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits
Title - Quirky Kits
Letters - October Afternoon
Die Cuts - atd
Washi Tape - Ebay
Puffy Stickers - Paperchase
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Echo Park
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Scrapberry's 'Around the World' Compass Stamp

Jamboree

With a title like Jamboree, this has to be a scouting page; my daughter has recently returned from the Essex International Jamboree, and one of the leaders remembered to take a group photo.

I'm currently working through The 20 Project, an online class from Shimelle Laine, and one of the prompts was about finding inspiration on Pinterest and then using it. I don't 'do' Pinterest as such, but I do keep an ideas folder on my computer where I save pages for future reference. One of those inspiration pieces was a 'Starting Point' challenge from Sarah in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group which I flipped vertically for this page.

My photo doesn't have much colour, but I wanted a fun feel to the page so I picked bright colours from a couple of Dear Lizzy collections.

Supplies
Paper - American Crafts Dear Lizzy Happy Place & Lucky Charm
Letters - Fancy Pants
Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico
Arrow Clip - Freckled Fawn
Sticker - My Mind's Eye
Gems - ZVA Creative, Mark Richards, Unknown Stars
Washi Tape - Unknown
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punch

Raglan Castle

Gosh, I'm a slow scrapper - I started this page last weekend and I finished it last night. It's a double from Raglan Castle, which we visited at Easter. I found a sketch on Google that I think originally came from Page Maps, but I flipped the left side vertically so that my title and main photo would be at the top of the page.


I quickly picked the neutral brown and cream papers as being perfect for the castle's colours and pulled in the stripe for a bit of colour. When it came to embellishing, I didn't have much in that jade green, and using more brown would have made for a very dull page. Fortunately Shimelle posted a new prompt in The 20 Project about using a colour wheel to pick new colour combinations. Jade is opposite pink on the wheel, so I pulled in pink as an accent colour and I'm very happy with the look that gives to the page.

Supplies
Paper - K&Company, Melissa Frances, KaiserCraft Madame Boutique, KaiserCraft Secret Bird Society, Basic Grey
Letters - Pink Paislee
Word Sticker - Crate Paper
Pearls - Scrapberry's, Hobby House
Epoxy Circles - Ebay
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Woodware Daisy Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

Local Loop

The 'Loop' of my title is the London Outer Orbital Path; the 'local' is the stretch from Rainham to Purfleet which I walked back in April (and blogged here). I've tried to scrap it previously but I took so many photos that I was overwhelmed by the task of picking which ones to feature. This time, I thought about the walk without looking at the photos and mentally picked out the highlights, the things I would talk about most if I was describing the route to someone else. I came up with just four, and then scrolled through my photos and added a fifth.

I used Miniowner's August sketch for my page, but I stretched out the paper layers in order to use my five photos in place of just one on the sketch. I've also moved the circle across in order to frame my photos better.

The third prompt of The 20 Project (Shimelle's latest online class) was about making more use of our inks. I rarely do much other than inking the edges of my papers, but here I've inked the background circle and the lines of triangles (using homemade masks).

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Crush, Echo Park Paradise Beach, We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit
Letters - American Crafts, Doodlebug
Flowers - Kaisercraft
Gems - Scrapberry's, TPC Studio
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Poppystamps Small Leafy Sprig Die
Fiskars Postage STamp Border Punch
Homemade Circle Mask (using Kreaxions Circle Cutter)
Homemade Triangles Mask (using Little B Arrows Die)

Just Add Water

I'm continuing with my 2016 album, but I'm not working in any particular order. These photos are from June, when my daughter went kayaking with her Explorer Scout Unit. Their leader posted some photos on Facebook, so of course I nabbed them for a page.

I chose a summery yellow sunburst paper as the basis of my page, and picked turquoise from the photos as an accent colour. The turquoise was so strong that I confined it to a border, and switched to a softer aqua colour in my embellishment.

I'm linking up to Rochelle Spears' August This or That Challenge, where she has asked us to use washi tape or border stickers (but not both) on a page. I picked washi tape, using two colours to anchor my embellishment.

I'm currently following Shimelle Laine's latest class, The 20 Project, and this page also fits her first prompt (although I started the page before class started). Three days in and I've made one page; hopefully I can catch up at the weekend.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Simple Stories Sn@p Basics, Elle's Studio Shine, Dear Lizzy Serendipity
Letters - Collage Press
Cut-Apart & Label - Elle's Studio Shine
Butterflies - Prima
Circle Stickers - Anita's Glitterations
Washi Tape - Tesco (Aqua), Unknown (Yellow)
Enamel Dots - Teresa Collins
Mist - Mr Huey's, Docrafts