Saturday 30 September 2017

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt - The Finale

Well, we've reached the end of September, the nights are drawing in and the Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt is coming to an end. It's been run by Mary-Lou at Patio Postcards this year, and she provided us with a list of 25 items to find between 1 June and 30 September.

I'd shared 18 finds up to the end of August, with a couple more bagged but not shared at that time, leaving five to find. I realised subsequently that I had three more, and then had to scramble through the last two today as the end of the month and the end of the hunt was nigh. 

I've shared most of these previously (London Finds, Local Finds and Foreign Finds) with some duplicates along the way, but I've pulled together my final selection in one post today.

1. Something Fuzzy
Cheating a bit here maybe, but I love this fuzzy photo of our cruise ship at night.



2. Bubbles
Boiling mud pools in Iceland


3. A Web
* NEW * An obliging spider spun this by our front door.



4. A Zig Zag
The 'keep clear' markings by our local school.



5. A Seasonal Relaxing Space
The pool area on our ship.




6. A Pipe
In Norway.




7. The Inside of Something
The inside of a traditional turf house in Greenland, a winter home for up to four families.



8. Rust or Something Derelict
Found in Reykjavik, Iceland.



9. A Kite or Balloon
* NEW * A last minute photo, having failed to find anything more interesting all summer.



10. Something Yellow
One of the buildings in Ă…lesund, Norway.



11. A Toy Only Found Out During June to September
* NEW * The pool in my brother's garden.



12. A Wedding
* NEW * Just the bride and groom, who we saw in the street having a photo shoot in Durham, England.



13. A Dome
This just had to be St Paul's Cathedral, London.



14. Someone Fishing
On the harbour wall in Reykjavik, Iceland.



15. Something Crafted from Wood
In a Sculpture Garden on Reykjavik, Iceland.



16. A Baby (Human or Animal)
Husky puppies in Tasiilaq, Greenland.



17. Circles or Crosses in Architecture
Crosses as part of the structure of one of the buildings in Cannon Street, London.



18. A Fan
A souvenir from Malaysia.



19. Feet of Man or Beast
* NEW * My own feet, another last minute photo.



20. Something Found Underground
* NEW * The roots of a plant I dug up and relocated.



21. A Plaque
I found all of these on the buildings of Bedford Square in London.




22. A Dial
* NEW * The Jubilee Clock in South Queensferry, Scotland.



23. Something Powered by Wind
A yacht near Reykjavik, Iceland.



24. Seasonal Food or Drink
* NEW * Part of the gala buffet on our cruise. (I'm saying this is seasonal since it was part of our summer holiday.)



25. A Hat 
As worn by our son, who has a thing about hats.



So, all done for another year. I hope that Mary-Lou will set as interesting a list for 2018 when it comes round.



Wednesday 27 September 2017

Akureyri

This is the third of my 'chapter divider' pages for our cruise, one for Akureyri in Iceland. They're all based on the same page design, and this time I flipped my original page (for Reykjavik) horizontally as the empty space in my photos at the bottom right was the best area for my journalling card to overlap.

I'm changing the papers for each page, picking them from the kit I put together before I started, but all of the page elements repeat and I'm cutting all the titles on my Silhouette in the same font.


Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill
Paper - Photo Play Paper Boarding Pass, Pink Paislee Memorandum, (Blue isn't Labelled)
Journal Card - Project Life Summer
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Puffy Stickers - Bella Boulevard
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Simple Stories
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Daisy Brush Script Letter Set
Big Shot
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Little B Arrows Dies
Spellbinders Circle Die
X-Cut Travel Dies
Quickutz Tab Die
American Crafts/Shimelle 'Starshine' Globe Stamp
Scrapberry's 'Around the World' Compass Stamp
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
X-Cut Corner Punch

Sunday 24 September 2017

Tasiilaq

I'm putting the bones into my new scrapbook for our cruise to Iceland, Greenland and Norway with five 'chapter dividers', one for each port of call, all based on the same layout. 

I shared the page for Reykjavik (right) a few days ago, and now it's the turn of Tasiilaq in Greenland. The photo I chose has a lot of empty space at the top, so I flipped the page design vertically at first, and then horizontally too. All the page elements repeat, but I moved the file tab cluster to the side of the photo so the embellishments are now in opposite corners rather than top and bottom.



Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill, DCWV
Paper - American Crafts/Shimelle Go Now Go, Jillibean Soup Staples, Photo Play Paper Boarding Pass, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Journal Card - My Mind's Eye Hello World
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Enamel Dots/Stars - Echo Park, Marianne Designs, My Mind's Eye, Eyelet Outlet
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Daisy Brush Script Letter Set
Big Shot
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Little B Arrows Dies
Spellbinders Circle Die
X-Cut Travel Dies
Quickutz Tab Die
American Crafts/Shimelle 'Starshine' Globe Stamp
Scrapberry's 'Around the World' Compass Stamp
X-Cut Corner Punch

Thursday 21 September 2017

Reykjavik

The problem with starting a new album without much of a plan, is that you don't have much of a plan. Having made my first couple of pages, I was left scrolling through photos and flicking through sketches, waiting for inspiration that didn't strike.

I'm currently taking part in Shimelle Laine's new class A Most Magical Scrapbook and one of her prompts is about making 'chapter dividers' to split an album into sections. This is something that I did for my Canadian Cruise album so it really should have occurred to me sooner. We had five ports of call on our cruise, so I'm going to start with 'title pages' for them; I've printed a 6x8 overview photo of each one and I shall be making five very similar pages.

My page design is loosely based on one from the class, where Shimelle used two 4x6 photos and a 4" strip of paper on a patterned background. My pages will all be on kraft cardstock rather than a pattern, so I've made the top strip wider and added an extra panel down the left. My journalling is in two parts - a few facts under the title and part of the story of the day on the journalling card. Of course that story will continue over a whole series of pages from the day.



I intend to repeat this basic page design four more times, so I cut the title letters on my Silhouette and embellished with stamped and die-cut pieces rather than unique items. This page took a bit of time and fussing to get it right, but now that it's done I have a clear template for the rest. I'll repeat the camera paper strip across the page each time, but I'll change the rest of the colours and patterns to suit each photo.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill
Paper - Photo Play Paper Boarding Pass, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Journal Card - My Mind's Eye Hello World
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Enamel Dots/Stars - Echo Park, Marianne Designs
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Daisy Brush Script Letter Set
Big Shot
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Little B Arrows Dies
Spellbinders Circle Die
X-Cut Travel Dies
Quickutz Tab Die
American Crafts/Shimelle 'Starshine' Globe Stamp
Scrapberry's 'Around the World' Compass Stamp
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
X-Cut Corner Punch

Monday 18 September 2017

Last Chance Sunset

Our main family holiday this year was a cruise to Iceland, Greenland and Norway and I have all the supplies picked out for a new album. I'm working with a large kit of papers, making mostly traditional 12x12 pages, not in chronological order and using as many sketch challenges as I can fit to the photos, but beyond that I don't have much of a plan.

The first sketch that caught my attention came from Sketch-n-Scrap at the beginning of the month, and suited a couple of photos from our last night onboard. This was the only evening that we had a decent sunset, and I paired up a larger sunset picture with a smaller picture of my husband and me.

The oranges in my sunset looked terrible against the kraft cardstock that I'm using for all my backgrounds, so I adjusted the paper layers in the sketch to use a large panel of aqua map paper across the page behind the photos.



I'm not normally a fan of banners, but the Boarding Pass sticker sheet has one so this seemed like a good time to use it. Now I know it won't be left over at the end.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - Photo Play Paper Boarding Pass, Creative Imaginations
Vellum - Crate Paper Boys Rule
Letters - Fancy Pants, October Afternoon
Chipboard - Studio Calico Mistables
Washi Tape - Little B
Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Enamel Dots - Echo Park
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot, X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die & Spellbinders Circle Die


Saturday 16 September 2017

Iceland, Greenland and Norway - A New Project

It is very rare for me to get excited about a new scrapbooking range, or to buy most of it as soon as it is released, but I did exactly that earlier this year. The collection in question was Boarding Pass from Photo Play Paper, which I thought would be perfect for a scrapbook from our cruise this summer. 



I bought the 12x12 collection pack, the 6x6 pad and the ephemera back in April and since then I have been putting together a collection of complementary papers ready for a new album. These are mostly from Echo Park, with a few from American Crafts, We R Memory Keepers and Pink Paislee.



I'll be making all the pages on kraft cardstock, and I have gathered an assortment of cardstock and plainer papers to go with the patterns.



I have a few map print papers too, though I'm not sure if I will use them or not. For smaller papers, I have some 6x6 sheets and cards from My Mind's Eye's Hello World, journalling cards from an older kit and some decoupage papers for layering.



I have Mistable stickers in four different shapes, some map stars that were left over from my last cruise album and new puffy stickers from Bella Boulevard and American Crafts/Shimelle. I've also pulled out both enamel dots and pearls in coordinating colours.


More embellishments include stickers and die-cuts from October Afternoon, tags from American Crafts/Amy Tangerine and Ormulu, an old set of die-cuts from atd and some acrylic words. I also have several washi tapes picked out, including two cream and gold tapes with stars and arrows.



Finally, I have stencils, stamps and dies that I can repeat throughout the album without fear of running out. The stars dies will work well to repeat with the star puffy stickers, and I have a circle die the right size to fit the globe in the Shimelle stamp set.



It feels like I have a lot of 'stuff' and I will undoubtedly add still more as I go along. I'm hoping that I have sufficient variety that I won't get bored of working with them. I don't have any letter stickers here yet as I will pick those for each page as I go; I'm actually hoping to cut a lot of them with either my Big Shot or my Silhouette.

Most of the page for this album will be traditional 12x12 pages, but I still haven't decided whether I will combine them with divided pages. I'm not going to work chronologically either; I'm hoping to use as many sketch challenges as possible for the album so I'll be picking out photos as and when I see a sketch that inspires me.



Thursday 14 September 2017

Snips & Snails

Time for one final throwback page, the last one that I made for National Scrapbooking Day back in May; I can't remember the challenge details, but it definitely included the use of circles. 

I chose a circle cut file for the background of my page, cutting it in a paper I liked and layering it over a plainer grid paper. Too late, I realised that I had the papers the wrong way round as I had too much of the background on show and very little of the patterned paper that had I wanted to see. I rescued the page by selecting some of the circles that had been cut away and placing them inside larger circles on the page.

I wanted the cut file to almost fill the 12x12 page, but I have Silhouette Portrait which has an 8" cutting width, so I designed my page with a full length column of photos so that I could remove the central part of the design and just cut the two sides of the file on the Portrait. 


My photos are old ones of my son and nephew, I picked an appropriate Project Life card to act as a title and added three clusters of embellishments to complete the page.

Supplies
Cardstick - Bazzill
Paper - Heidi Swapp, Cloud 9/Fiskars, My Mind's Eye
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts
Enamel Dots - Studio Calico, My Mind's Eye
Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Tuesday 12 September 2017

Festung Hohensalzburg

Last page from Austria last year, and it's another double. This one comes from our second day when we visited Salzburg and its fortress. I kept putting it off I had a load of photos of both the outside of the buildings and the inside of the state apartments. Once I was committed to tackling this page I made a 'shortlist' of pictures and realised that the double page I'd intended might not be enough. Shimelle to the rescue, as I used another class from her 4x6 Photo Love series; the November class was designed for eleven 4x6 photos on a double page with a 12x6 divided page protector in between, though I adapted it for eight 4x6s and four 4x3 photos.

The left page and front of the divided page protector have photos of the outside of the fortress and the first part of my journalling:


The back of the divided page protector has photos of the chapel, more journalling (with one of our tickets tucked behind) and the view from one of the windows; the right page has photos of the state rooms, also known as the Regency Rooms.





I still have quite a few papers left from the kit I'm using, but I tried to use scraps for the page rather then cutting into any new sheets.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - Pink Paislee Atlas, American Crafts Dear Lizzy
Letters - Jillibean Soup, Jenni Bowlin Studio
Washi Tape - Ebay, Little B
Enamel Dots/Shapes - Pink Paislee
Puffy Stickers - Fancy Pants
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Sunday 10 September 2017

Mozartblick

This is the penultimate page from Austria last year. I haven't worked in chronological order, but it's actually the last but one that I will make, and will also be last but one in the album. 

We walked up to a viewpoint above the lake on our last morning, and I wanted to include both a large photo of the view and some smaller ones from the walk on my page. I took a class from Shimelle Laine called The 20 Project last year, and this double page design came from one of her prompts. She had used 10 small photos on the left and a 4x6 print on the right, but her design was very adaptable to different numbers and sizes of photos.



I've been working with Pink Paislee's Atlas collection for this section of my album, but I didn't have two papers the same left for my background. I've used dotted Swiss cardstock for some of my double page backgrounds, but I wanted a pattern here as so much of the background is on show. I thought a soft yellow would be best with this set of photos and found two pieces from Dream Street Papers (which are undated, but so old that they are single-sided).

I had planned two areas of embellishment, one on each side, but once I added my title it seemed obvious to fill the space next to it with a third, smaller cluster.

Supplies
Paper - Dream Street Papers, Pink Paislee Atlas, We R Memory Keepers, My Mind's Eye
Vellum - My Mind's Eye
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Transparency - Pink Paislee Atlas
Tag - Pink Paislee Atlas
Washi Tape - Ebay, Little B
Puffy Stickers - Fancy Pants, Jillibean Soup
Enamel Shapes - Freckled Fawn, Pink Paislee
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
X-Cut Corner Punch

Friday 8 September 2017

On the Pilgrim's Way

Today I'm sharing another page from our holiday in Austria last year. We were staying on the edge of Wolfgangsee, and my husband decided to spend a day walking the 27km path around the edge of the lake. Many of his photos were similar to those we took when we visited the lakeside villages earlier in the week, so my page concentrates on a section of path known as the Pilgrim's Way. The way is marked by a series of stone crosses and passes a small church on the mountainside on the site where St Wolfgang lived in the 10th century.

My page is a scraplift of another 2016 page, which breaks my 'rule' about repeating page designs within an album, but I don't expect anyone to notice.



Supplies
Paper - My Minds Eye, Pink Paislee Atlas, Simple Stories Good Day Sunshine
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Washi Tape - Ebay
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Pink Paislee
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrows Die
X-Cut Circle Punch

Wednesday 6 September 2017

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt - Foreign Finds

We're three-quarters of the way through this year's Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt which has been put together by Mary-Lou at Patio Postcards; there's no link-up for August, but I'm sharing my recent finds anyway.

I do like to find as many items as possible while we're on holiday each year, and we've just come back from a cruise to Iceland, Greenland and Norway. I had found seven items at the end of July, but I always wipe the list clean and start again while we are abroad.

Some of these will make the final cut come the end of the month, but there are others where I have better versions already, and some where I'm not happy with what I have taken so will carry on hunting.


My foreign finds are:

1. Something Fuzzy
Akureyri (Iceland) - This was our cruise ship, the photo taken at night, from a mile away, on maximum zoom, so I'm not surprised at the fuzziness; however I love the way it came out like an impressionist painting.


2. Bubbles
NĂ¡mafjall (Iceland) - The boiling mud pots of the geothermal landscape.


5. A Seasonal Relaxing Space/Item
MS Black Watch - The pool area at the back of the ship. More relaxing in warmer climes; this photo was taken in Scotland.


6. A Pipe
Briksdalen (Norway) - No idea what this pipe is for.


7. The Inside of Something
Tasiilaq (Greenland) - The inside of a traditional turf house, dug into the hillside, the winter home of up to four families.



8. Rust or Something Derelict
Reykjavik (Iceland) - We walked past a property with a garden full of 'sculptures' made from repurposed/recycled items. 


10. Something Yellow
Ă…lesund (Norway) - The building of a ship's chandler.


14. Someone Fishing
Reykjavik (Iceland) - On the harbour wall as we were leaving.


15. Something Crafted from Wood
Raykjavik (Iceland) - A piece in the Sculpture Garden.


16. A Baby (Human or Animal)
Tasiilaq (Greenland) - Animal babies for me, three adorable husky puppies.


21. A Plaque
Ă…lesund (Norway) - A plaque on a tower above the town, which I think says the tower was a present from Vancouver on the 100th anniversary of Ă…lesund's founding.


22. A Dial
Akureyri (Iceland) - The clock on Akureyri's church.


23. Something Powered by Wind
Reykjavik (Iceland) - A yacht just offshore.


25. A Hat
Ă…lesund (Norway) - My son has an obsession with hats (but no idea that I have taken this picture).


I'd found a paltry seven items for the hunt during June and July, but I'm now on a much more respectable eighteen (as some of these are duplicates of previous finds). I do actually have two more bagged but not shared here as they were not taken on holiday, so just five left now.

Rather annoyingly, I've had the chance for the summer toy and the seasonal food or drink, but didn't think about photographing them at the time. Feet and something underground shouldn't be too hard to achieve, but the kite or balloon has proved elusive so far.

The hunt ends on 30th September this year, so just a few weeks to go now.