Dartmoor Posse

I have another challenge page today; there's nothing like a cyber-crop to have me scrapping random photos, and this one is from 2014 when my husband spent a few days on Dartmoor with his walking friends. It's based on a sketch from the Quirky Kit subscribers' Spring Forward Crop, though I changed it up a bit.

I also entered it into the 'Stick It To Me' challenge in the Paper Issues Spring Crop, which was to use as many stickers as possible. 

Supplies

Paper - 3 Bugs in a Rug, Simple Stories Awesome

Letter Stickers - American Crafts

Word Stickers - The Paper Studio, Simple Stories, Tim Holtz

Journalling Sticker - Crate Paper

Enamel Dots - Trimcraft

Ink - Docrafts

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Die

Sesame & Cumin

More cyber-crop madness last weekend as the end of the Paper Issues crop overlapped with one for Quirky Kit subscribers. I made this page for the first class from Leo at Quirky Kits, called 4 Squared; she designed it to use up those paper scraps, but I used an old 6x6 pad instead.

My daughter bought a pair of gerbils recently but we forgot to ask if they are males or females. She's assuming that they are girls, but they had to have gender-neutral names just in case, and after trying a few out she settled on Sesame and Cumin.

Most of the papers are from Studio Calico, but I used embellishments from a long list of companies and entered this page into Paper Issues' Spring Salad challenge - mix at least three manufacturers on your page.

Supplies
Paper - Melissa Frances, Studio Calico Sundrifter, First Edition, My Mind's Eye
Letters - Doodlebug
Die-Cuts - Simple Stories
Stickers - Crate Paper, Bo Bunny, Echo Park, Fancy Pants
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
American Crafts Mini Stapler

Cheers!

I'm sharing another 12x12 page today; this one is from the CyberCrop that Paper Issues held in their Facebook group last weekend. They posted more than 20 challenges, but I only did a handful including this sketch. Entries close tomorrow morning (BST) so you still have time to play along.

One of my friends reached a milestone birthday last year, and we had a whole day of celebrations. These will run to four pages in my album and I've been on the lookout for a suitable collection of papers to scrap them as a set. I finally picked Heyday from Studio Calico; I have the 12x12 collection pack, the 6x6 pad and the ephemera set. It seems to be a childhood-themed collection but most of the prints are neutral and the balloon-patterned papers are good for a birthday while still being fairly subtle.

I toyed with the title for a long time. This is the first page from the day, and we're drinking Prosecco on the train to London (at 10am). I considered 'Start As You Mean to Go On' and 'Let's Get This Party Started' but both felt too long; 'Celebrate' was a possibility for a while but it would leave me short of both Es and As for the other pages. I did the rest of the page, including the journalling, before I finally settled on a title, and it was the journalling that gave it to me; the last word I wrote was Cheers! and so I duplicated that as the title, tying the two in together.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Heyday, Simple Stories So Fancy
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - My Mind's Eye, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes, American Crafts/Shimelle, Paperchase
Die Cuts - Studio Calico Heyday, OneCanoeTwo Hazelwood
Gems - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Upstart Crow

British readers may recognise that Upstart Crow is a sitcom about William Shakespeare, written by Ben Elton. The second series has recently been filmed and my son and I were able to go to a recording last month. It was a fascinating evening, both listening to Ben Elton between takes and seeing how a TV programme is filmed. There was no photography allowed in the studios so I pinched this picture of the cast from the Radio Times website.

I subscribe to Quirky Kits, and we recently had a cyber-crop in the subscriber Facebook group. One of the challenges was a sketch, and I based this page on it, though I veered off course a little, as I often do. I saw the circles on the sketch as flowers, but I only used two of them, and the polaroid-style frames on the sketch morphed into chipboard filmstrip pieces on my page. 

Glitter Girl's Adventure 150 was about making stamps more of a feature on a page. I use stamps so very rarely, and almost always in the background, so I took on her challenge here by stamping and fussy-cutting the flowers for this page.

The dark colours and historical nature of the photo took me to a collection of 8x8 papers from the V&A Museum, but they were too busy to use more than one pattern. I teamed their floral with papers in similar colours from two 6x6 pads. I've had the chipboard for far too long; it was one long piece originally and has never worked on a page, but I feel that cutting it up and layering it with the stamped flowers has worked really well. 

Supplies
Paper - Creative Imaginations, Docrafts/V&A, 7Gypsies Avignon, Authentique Nestled, Echo Park Paradise Beach
Letters - S.E.I.
Chipboard - Creative Embellishments
Wood Veneer - Quirky Kits
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Docrafts/V&A Quilts Floral Stamp

Look Around

I have another page for my Norwegian cruise album for you today. I'm doing this album with divided page protectors and an aqua, yellow and grey colour scheme.

This is the last page from our day in Kristiansund; please scroll back if you are interested in the four that precede it. I've covered the 'story' of the day in the previous pages, but I still had a number of pictures that I wanted to include in the album. Most of them need a little explanation, so I've started the journalling for each one with the word 'look'.

We are looking up to Bautaen, across to Innlandet, down at the manhole cover and out to the sunset. I don't know if you can see it, but the final photo has another ship, Cunard's Queen Victoria, on the horizon.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart
Tag - Pink Paislee Portfolio
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - Ebay
Gems - Papermania

Bautaen

Another Norwegian title for you today; Bautaen is the Memorial Stone, and this one is on the highest point of the island of Innlandet in Kristiansund. We'd caught the ferry from the main island and walked up to this point overlooking the harbour.

The memorial in question is to a battle in 1808 when two English warships attacked the harbour and were repulsed by the town's defences. The stone is flanked by working cannons which are used to fire salutes on high days and holidays.

The two photos in the bottom row are views of Kirkelandet, a wide-angle view and also a close-up of the area we had visited earlier in the day.

Supplies
Paper - MME Lost & Found, MME Chalk Studio, Pink Paislee Portfolio, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu, 4Heures37 Eiffel Avenue
Vellum - Docrafts
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Gems - Papermania

Tools
Big Shot & Provocraft Alphabet Dies
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Varden

I'm sharing another page from Kristiansund today; Varden is a watch tower, on the highest point of the island. I'm using a divided page protector with a 6x8 pocket that I picked for my vertical photo, and I added title and journalling to the same pocket. The two view photos were taken from the top of the tower.

We were following a guided walk around the town and that walk took us from the tower back to the waterfront. The bottom photos are a shipyard and the inner harbour.

This page is rather photo heavy, and I had to crop two of my pictures to 4x4 in order to squeeze in the journalling here.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Pink Paislee Portfolio, MME Lost & Found
Labels - 7Gypsies
Washi Tape - October Afternoon, Ebay
Enamel Dots - Echo Park

Tools
Big Shot & Provocraft Alphabet Dies

Kristiansund

I've made five pages from Kristiansund, the next port of call in our Norwegian cruise, but I'm splitting them across several posts to cover different areas of our visit. Kristiansund is spread across four areas on three islands, and I'm starting with two pages from Kirkelandet.

I'm working with divided pages for this album and picked one with three 4x6 and six 4x3 pockets. The front starts in the same way that I've started each port, with a title card, a map and some journalling about the town. The main photos are from our arrival, a shot under one of the bridges into the harbour and a view of Kirkelandet where we berthed. The three smaller photos are statues and the war memorial, all from the same area on the quay.

The four areas of Kristiansund are linked by the harbour ferry, which we used to get around, and the top row of the next page is about that; a photo, some journalling and our ferry tickets. I'd downloaded a walking tour of the town, and the rest of the photos are from that. The building is a church (!) and the remaining pictures were taken in Vanndamman, a park with ponds that used to be drinking water reservoirs for the town.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Pink Paislee Memorandum, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu, MME Now & Then
Letters - Freckled Fawn, KaiserCraft
Labels - 7Gypsies
Washi - October Afternoon, American Crafts
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - American Crafts Shimelle
Pearls - Dovecraft
Gems - Papermania

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Heading South

This page from our cruise album is something of a filler, and uses a different size of page protector - 6x12. Up until now I've used a variety of 12x12 divided page protectors and having each protector suit the photos on both the front and back has been an exercise in forward planning; looking ahead at upcoming photos that I want to include, and planning several related pages at the same time has been the hardest thing about this project. 

We had two days at sea between Ny-Ålesund and our next port of call Kristiansund and although I have enough photos for a 12x12 page, I realised that this would cause problems for my portrait-oriented photos in a few pages time. So... I've gone for 6x12 here so that I can get my portrait photos back-to-back in a pocket later on. 

The front of this page actually has three photos from the end of our day in Ny-Ålesund - a final view of the fjord, a pod of dolphins who turned up mid-dinner and a still from the evening show. The title, Heading South, matches up with the Heading North page that I made for our outward voyage.

The back of this page covers two whole days; by this time our sea day activities were a familiar routine and I didn't take many photos but if I had they would just have been repeats from earlier in the album anyway. The top one is the 'view' from on deck as we had bad weather for these days, the outside doors were closed on one of them so we couldn't go outside at all. Still, I'd rather have rain on sea days than port days and we were very lucky with the weather on this trip.

The second pocket has a couple of photos from a fun session of Can't Cook, Won't Cook and the third is from the British-themed night, with a flag-waving sing-along and my son in his Union flag onesie. I originally was going to use 'All at Sea' as the title for the whole page, but the empty spaces on the other cards were just begging for titles too.

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Portfolio, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu
Letters - Basic Grey
Frames - Echo Park
Washi Tape - October Afternoon, The Works, American Crafts, Tesco
Chipboard - Pink Paislee
Gems - Scrapberry's, Papermania
Enamel Cloud - Teresa Collins

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Kongsfjord

Just one page for you today, and although it's from Ny-Ålesund, it's about the fjord and glacier there, Kongsfjord and Kongsbreen, the King's Fjord and the King's Glacier. The glacier meets the water at two points at the head of the fjord, and these photos were taken from the ship where we were moored.

The first photo is an overview showing both arms of the glacier, second is a close-up of the left end, the part nearest our ship. The third large photo is an even closer shot of the left end, and the final picture is the part of the glacier on the right of the first photo, furthest from our ship.

The middle row has an even closer close-up of the glacier, my journalling and two iceberg pictures.


Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Portfolio, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu, My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Stickers - Studio Calico, Ebay
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, Tesco, American Crafts
Wood Veneer - Studiop Calico
Enamel Dots - American Crafts Shimelle

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch

Ny-Ålesund

I'm sharing three cruise pages today, all from Ny-Ålesund in Svalbard. They all share the same main title card, but I do have sub-titles for some sections.

The first page follows the pattern I've adopted for each of our ports of call, with pockets for the name, a map, photos of our arrival and some journalling. Ny-Ålesund used to be a coal-mining settlement but these days it is a centre for arctic research and the most northerly permanent settlement in the world. It lies on Kongsfjord and I have a photo of the fjord in the top right pocket. The bottom photos are the settlement and a short loop of road that we could walk around just outside.

The second page is the back of the first, and concentrates on how far north we were, 770 miles from the North Pole. Ny-Ålesund has the most northerly hotel, restaurant, post office, museum, shop, camp site, sewage farm, locomotive and statue so I have photos of some of those. The locomotive is a relic of the mining era and was abandoned in 1970, though I have read online that it is currently being restored in Sweden.

My third page will lie opposite this one, and I used the same design of page protector. Top left is a shot of the tundra landscape and top right is my son and a sign which reads "POLAR BEAR DANGER - Do not walk beyond this sign without a weapon." Also, none of the buildings in the settlement are allowed to be locked, just in case someone needs to take shelter from a marauding polar bear. 

Three pockets in the middle row are devoted to Roald Amundsen, who launched several polar expeditions from here, and the row finishes with an arctic tern. I completed the page with a family photo and one of the ship.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, Pink Paislee Portfolio, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu
Vellum - Webster's Pages
Letters - American Crafts, Docrafts, Basic Grey, KaiserCraft
Labels - 7Gypsies
Stickers - Studio Calico, Ebay
Die Cuts - Pink Paislee Portfolio, atd Travel
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - October Afternoon, We R Memory Keepers, Trimcraft, American Crafts
Gems - Papermania, Dovecraft, Scrapberry's
Enamel Dots - American Crafts Shimelle, Doodlebug

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

PM

I struggled with a title for this page; there's no story, very little journalling. It's really just a collection of photos from the afternoon and evening of our day in Longyearbyen. If I'd been making a more conventional album then they would never have all appeared on the same page, but one of the reasons that I originally decided to use divided page protectors for this album was so that I could get more pictures on each page. I eventually came up with 'PM' as a pseudo-title and added the times to some of the photos using tiny alpha stickers from KaiserCraft.

The top two are actually in the wrong order chronologically, but the sky of the ship photo was the perfect place for my title box and I didn't like having it at the top right of the page; I do like it to be in the first pocket if possible, so I swapped them over. So, we have the ship first, then a view of Longyearbyen once the fog from earlier in the day had lifted, and to contrast with our arrival photo a few pages back. The middle row all belongs together so I used the same background paper across the page; the four pockets hold three photos from an ice carving demonstration plus a bit of journalling. The page ends with a couple of photos of the scenery as we cruised down the Isfjord en route to our next port of call.

Supplies
Paper - Daisy D's, My Mind's Eye Lost & Found, MME Follow Your Heart, Pink Paislee Portfolio
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey, Kaisercraft
Wood Veneer - Heidi Swapp
Enamel Dots - American Crafts Shimelle, My Mind's Eye
Gems - Papermania 
Washi Tape - Trimcraft

Tools
Big Shot, X-Cut Tags Die & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch