Advent Valley

I'm sharing another cruise page today; it's slow progress but I'm determined to get this album done before we cruise again this summer (hopefully long before then, but we'll see how it goes). We're still in Longyearbyen and it was the turn of my daughter and me for a trip; ours was a more gentle affair than the boys' glacier hike and we headed into the Advent Valley for a nature walk.

I've used the most common page protector for this page as I have a run of horizontal photos coming up. I almost always have the title in the top left pocket, and this time it holds the majority of my journalling too. I filled the other three 4x6 pocket with photos - a view of the valley, my daughter and me, and a reindeer.

The middle row has two smaller photos and more journalling specifically about them. On the left is our guard; I'm not joking about polar bear danger on Spitsbergen and you can't leave the town without a rifle. On the right is some arctic cotton, a species that thrives here despite the long arctic winter and the very short growing season in summer.

Supplies

Paper - My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu

Letters - Anita's Glitterations

Die Cut - Pink Paislee Portfolio

Wood Veneer - Heidi Swapp

Washi Tape - Trimcraft, Tesco

Gems - Papermania

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Hike - Longyear Glacier

I have another page from our Norwegian cruise album today, an album with divided page protectors and a blue/yellow/grey colour scheme. We went as far north as cruise ships go, to Spitsbergen, and my husband's main ambition for the trip was to walk on a glacier. He and our son took a ship's tour from Longyearbyen to the Longyear Glacier and his wish was granted. We don't normally use ship's tours, preferring to explore on our own, but there is a very real danger from polar bears here so there was no alternative.

I was working on the back of the previous page protector for this page, but I'd chosen this design to accommodate the vertical photo of our son on the glacier and that went in the large 6x8 pocket along with the title.

The top and middle photos on the right show the terrain that they were crossing, bottom left has a closer shot of the glacier and bottom right a fossil that one of the guides found.

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Portfolio, My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, MME Lost & Found
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Washi Tape - Efco
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Enamel Dot - Teresa Collins


Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Longyearbyen

I'm continuing with the album from our 2013 Norwegian cruise today, with two pages from Longyearbyen in Svalbard. This album ought to be coming together quite quickly as I'm working with divided page protectors and 6x6 pads, but it's really tricky deciding which page protectors to use where and what size to print each photo. 

The first page is on the back of my last one so that was one decision made; I have to work with the pockets I have. I think this may be my favourite combination of pockets, a mix of portrait and landscape slots, but I only have a few of this design. 

Obviously my title needed to go in that long 2x12 pocket and next I filled the top-left pocket with a watercolour map of Spitsbergen (from stamen.com; I have used these maps for each port we visited) plus a bit of information about the town. Next to that we have a small photo and some journalling for our foggy arrival. Below that, the large photo is the view from ship to town along the coast later in the day and the small one at the bottom is a close-up of a disused aeriel tramway on the hillside. The bottom left pocket has two road signs from the town; the polar bear danger is real here.

For the next page, I had a batch of landscape photos, but I knew that I had a portrait photo to go on the back so I chose a page protector with four 4x6 horizontal landscape pockets and one 6x8 vertical pocket. This meant that all the journalling on this side had to go in one large block. The photos are: my daughter with a polar bear sculpture; a row of wooden house; huskies in a compound on the edge of town; arctic terns. 

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Portfolio, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu, My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, My Mind's Eye The Sweetest Thing
Letters - Basic Grey
Die-Cuts - Pink Paislee Portfolio
Label Sticker - 7Gypsies
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Chipboard - My Mind's Eye Lost & Found
Gems - Papermania, Dovecraft
Enamel Dots - Teresa Collins, Papermania
Washi - October Afternoon, Trimcraft, Tesco

Tools
Big Shot, Alphabet Dies & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Heading North

One project that's been on my mind recently is the album that I started for our cruise to Norway in 2013. We're cruising again later this year and it would be nice to finish that one before we go. Looking back at my blog I did the last page for this album in September 2014, more than two years ago, so it's high time I picked it up again.

I'm working with divided pages for this album, and a yellow, blue and grey colour scheme using four different 6x6 pads plus a few coordinating 12x12 papers. I've kept the supplies in a separate box all this time, so they were easy enough to pull out. I was stuck previously on a page as we left Nordkapp, so I'm leaving that one alone for now, and moving to the next day. 

As the title says, we were "Heading North" from the top of Norway to the Svalbard archipelago deep inside the Arctic circle. This was a day at sea so I don't have many photos; the two I wanted to feature were one landscape and one portrait so this dictated the page protector that I used.

Those main photos were one of Bear Island, which marked the approximate half-way point, and one of our children that evening when we had our second formal night. My title went in the 2x12 pocket and the map is cut from a sheet of Webster's Pages vellum. The middle pocket has some information about Bear Island, and the bottom one is a summary of our day, with pictures from Wii bowling (which can be tricky on a moving ship).

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Portfolio, My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart
Vellum - Webster's Pages Hello World
Letters - K & Company
Frames - Echo Park This & That
Button - My Mind's Eye Lost & Found
Washi - October Afternoon, Trimcraft, Efco
Gems - Dovecraft, Paperchase

Tools
Big Shot & Alphabet Dies

Farewell

We've had the same car for the past 13 years; we bought her new and she's been a good runner, but the time had come to retire her recently, and she's been scrapped (both literally and figuratively).

I used the latest sketch from Stuck?! Sketches, adapting for one photo and a journalling block rather than the three photos depicted. 

I also swapped the star for a circle cut file (from Laura Whitaker) which I backed with scraps from a 6x6 pad.

Supplies
Paper - KaiserCraft Seaside, My Mind's Eye Quilting Bee, Jillibean Soup
Letters - Hobbycraft, American Crafts Dear Lizzy
Chipboard - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Docrafts, Mister Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & String Art Cut File
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch
X-Cut Circle Punch

Say Yes to NCS

I posted a page recently about my daughter and her team-mates graduating from NCS (National Citizen Service) and this page comes a couple of months earlier in the album, as she started the experience with a residential trip to Norfolk where they were originally put together.

She came home from this trip and told me she had photos for me to scrapbook, having asked her friend to take some of her on the abseiling wall and taking the 'leap of faith'. I picked two pairs of photos, printed them at 4x6 and ran them across a double page; alumni of Shimelle's Design Decisions class may recognise the design of the page from a double in her final set of videos.

Supplies
Paper - Simple Stories A Charmed Life, Pink Paislee Paige Evans, Studio Calico Snippets
Letters - Trimcraft
Stickers - Studio Calico Snippets, American Crafts Shimelle, Teresa Collins
Chipboard - Studio Calico
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch