Starting Out with parkrun

For the last couple of years, I've made plans to exercise more via the various long distance paths in and around London, but those plans haven't worked out too well. I've started each year with regular walks, but they got further and further apart as the months went by and fizzled out entirely by the summer. I have still to finish the Capital Ring, and it's on my 'to do' list for 2018, but I have another plan for regular exercise.parkrun organises timed 5km events every week in parks across the UK and in some other countries too. They are free, open to everyone regardless of ability and you don't even have to run. My sister and brother-in-law have been taking part for a year or so, enjoy them and are fitter now than they have been for some years.

I looked up my local parkrun (Thurrock in Essex) and decided to sign up at the start of the year. Since these events are run at a set time each Saturday, I'm hoping that they will become part of my routine each weekend, a habit that I will have no reason to break. It'll be impossible to postpone them because of work or bad weather which was all too easy with my previous un-timetabled walking. 

I'm pleased to report that I've done all four runs in January, though the first two were entirely walks and I didn't run very much of the next two either. However, that's 20km under my belt so far and I am actually enjoying the exercise.

Being a scrapbooker, there's no way that this is going undocumented and I've started a new album dedicated to parkrun so that I can record my progress. I'm keeping this one clean and simple, with photos and journalling obviously, but little embellishment and nothing bulky. I've chosen 8x8, partly because I had a spare album in that size, but also because it feels 'right'. The pages are small enough for one run per page when I have lots to write, which was the case initially, but also large enough for several photos/runs per page without feeling cramped once I get in the swing of things and have less journalling.

I started the album with a title page, cutting the parkrun logo on my Silhouette backing it with white cardstock, and adding stickers for the year. I found a paper strip with the words 'the beginning of every journey starts with a single step' which I thought was appropriate and stuck it below the logo, then added torn washi at the top and bottom of the page to give me three horizontal lines on the page.

My first 'proper' page is an introduction with journalling about parkrun and why I'm doing it, similar to what I've written here. I also filled a Project Life card with parkrun-related words and phrases using various letter stickers.

Page three is dedicated to my first parkrun, and has loads of journalling again. My husband ran too, so there's one photo of him at the finish and one of me with some other runners. I've decided to use tickets to record the key details of each run (date, temperature, weather and time taken). I have a ticket stamp and I've sized a Silhouette cut-file to match it so I can make as many of these as I want with no fear of running out later in the year.

The next page records my second parkrun (which my husband didn't attend as he was elsewhere), with photos from the start and finish. There's normally a volunteer photographer at each event, which is great for a scrapbooker, but the quality and composition are variable. I set a PB this time, and have decided that I will mark each one in the album with an extra shape and the letters PB next to the ticket. 

My husband was back the following week and my sister joined us so I have three photos, one for each of us, and a fair amount of journalling once again. I actually ran a short stretch this week, which contributed to another PB.

Last Saturday was week four, and I was on my own again. Just one photo, taken as we set off (it's the only one I'm in) and I only used half a page; I was expecting/planning for this to happen and later in the year, as the runs become routine, I can even see me fitting four to a page, with just photos and tickets.

I plan to continue with parkrun, to add to the album each week and to share the pages with you at the end of each month. Please start badgering me if I fail to keep this up.

Town Park

Another page from Ålesund, this one's from the Town Park (which has no better name), I had four photos that I wanted to include - the steps down the hillside from viewpoint to park, a statue, a memorial and a sculpture. My first instinct was to print them all at 3x4, but then I would have lost some of the detail in the steps photo so I printed that one at 4x6 instead. I didn't have a layout plan in mind, and just moved the pictures around the page until I hit on a pleasing arrangement. 

With my photos in three columns, I decided to fill in the gaps to turn this into a grid. I haven't done a page like this in a while, and none in this album, so I will have to repeat the idea before I finish. However there are some photos from Reykjavik that I've been wondering how to tackle, and I think another grid may be the answer.

At UKScrappers, we have an ABC Challenge running all year, with each person in turn accepting a challenge and setting one for the next person as we go through the alphabet. We're on our second run already and I recently accepted 'A is for Arrows' and set 'B is for Buttons' for the next person. I have arrows as a repeating motif throughout this album so it was an easy one to do; my page has two die-cut arrows and arrows washi tape.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass, My Mind's Eye Hello World, Echo Park Winter Park, Basic Grey Serenade
Letters - Basic Grey
Washi Tape - Tesco, Little B
Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle. The Works
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot
Little B Arrows Dies
Spellbinders Circle Dies
American Crafts/Shimelle Globe Stamp

Rundskue

I do like to repeat designs and motifs when I'm making an album for a holiday or other event, and one of the things that I need to repeat in my cruise album is a page based on a triangle/diagonal design. I did one a while back (Harpa) and added a second (Briksdalbreen) when a good sketch came up earlier this month, but I'd like at least one more, preferably more, and to have them spread throughout the album rather than being clumped together.

The two 'triangle' pages that I've done so far were from Reykjavik and Olden, and I'm currently working my way through photos from Ålesund so this seemed to be a good time for another. I chose a stripe for my triangle and overlapped two 4x6 photos to fit on an 8x8 cardstock mat which I offset on another patterned paper. I ran my title vertically again (one thing that I definitely keep repeating), filled the space below it with a large embellishment cluster and built something similar in the opposite corner.

Rundskue means something like 'round sight' and is the name of either the highest point on the hilly ridge above Ålesund or of the viewing tower in the top photo, possibly both. We climbed the tower for views out over the surrounding islands, and the bottom photo is a selfie that we took up there.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, DCWV
Paper - Photo Play Fun with Friends, Photo Play Boarding Pass
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - Photo Play Boarding Pass, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes, American Crafts/Shimelle
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Tesco
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Big Shot
X-Cut Camera Die
X-Cut Star Die
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Little B Arrows Die
Spellbinders Circle Die
Sizzix Tab Die
Woodware Tiny Star Punch

Make It Snappy

I've done a lot of pages with two 4x6 photos for my cruise album, mostly with those photos in a block, and I'm craving more variety. Shimelle mentioned exactly this feeling towards the end of her A Most Magical Scrapbook class and I'm scraplifting this page from her. 

My page actually has four 4x3 photos, but they belong in two pairs and occupy the same space as two 4x6s would. When we were walking on the hillside above Ålesund we found a couple of fallen trees which someone had carved into crocodile heads.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill
Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass, Echo Park Winter Park, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Letters - Fancy Pants
Stickers - Photo Play, Tim Holtz
Washi Tape - Tesco, Unknown
Enamel Shapes - Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Big Shot
X-Cut Travel Dies
Spellbinders Circle Dies
American Crafts/Shimelle Starshine Stamp Set

Let's Go

This page is from the start of our walk in Ålesund last summer, with a photo of the view as we ascended the hill. It's based on the first sketch challenge of the year over at UKScrappers; I can't copy it here (though it's on the link) but it's a sketch with a variety of angled paper strips behind a single landscape photo. I rotated it for a portrait photo and straightened out the paper strips for my page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, DCWV
Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass, We R Memory Keepers Quoted
Letters - American Crafts
Die Cut - Photo Play Boarding Pass
Mistable Shapes - Studio Calico
Chipboard - Pink Paislee
Puffy Hearts - American Crafts
Enamel Dots - Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrows Die

Déjà Vu

Sketch-n-Scrap have another crop on Facebook this month. The first sketch in their New Beginnings Crop was one that I've used before, but that's no reason not to do so again. 

My photos are from Ålesund in Norway; we've been there three times now, hence the title of Déjà Vu, but it's impossible not to take photos of the reflections in the inner harbour there every time. The two bronze sculptures caught our attention, and a bit of googling when we got home revealed that they were made by the same artist.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, DCWV
Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass
Letters - Basic Grey
Puffy Stickers - Jillibean Soup, Bella Boulevard
Cork Stars - The Works
Enamel Dots - Trimcraft, Doodlebug
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrows Die

Kleivafossen

I appear to be working backwards through our trip to Briksdal; we passed the waterfall Kleivafossen en route to Briksdalbreen and this page will immediately precede the last one that I made.

There were three photos that I wanted to include - a distance shot, one from below and one across the waterfall - and I printed them all at 4x6, lining them up across the page. This is a layout that I've used many times, with paper strips above and below the photos, but I changed things a bit by cutting the stripe paper on the diagonal.

I'd previously cut and not used the camera die-cut, but it found a home on this page, and I balanced it with a ticket cluster diagonally opposite.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass, Pink Paislee Memorandum, Basic Grey Dasher
Letters - Pebbles
Washi Tape - Tesco, Unknown
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot
X-Cut Camera Die
X-Cut Travel Dies
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Little B Arrows Die
X-Cut Circle Punch

Briksdalbreen

I think I've finished with Greenlandic pages now, so I'm moving back to the Norwegian part of our cruise. We visited the Briksdal glacier from Olden, and I've done a couple of pages so far (Now & Then and In Retreat), but I still have more to make from that trip. 

I was pleased to see a sketch with triangular elements from Let's Get Sketchy this month as I've only done one page with a large triangle for this album, so I need to repeat them. I started this page with a single 4x6 photo replacing the smaller pair on the sketch, but then decided to include a second one.

There wasn't space for both title and journalling below my photos so I moved the title to the side. My Thickers are almost the same colour as my background but their dimension keeps them easy to read.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - Simply Creative, Photo Play Boarding Pass, Teresa Collins Christmas Cottage, Crate Paper Farmhouse, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Camera Sticker - Photo Play Boarding Pass
Globe Diecut - atd
Washi Tape - The Works
Cork Hearts - Freckled Fawn
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz
Enamel Dots - American Crafts/Shimelle, Marianne Designs
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Dies

Flowers of the Valley

Last page from Tasiilaq, and this one has some of the flowers from the Flower Valley. The valley is named for the abundance of flowers there, but this is only an abundance when compared to the rest of Greenland. The plants are mostly small, low-lying clumps but they are perfectly suited to the short summers and long frozen winters there.

I printed four photos of the different flowers and picked the first of this month's sketches from Sketch-n-Scrap. The original has three photos in two sizes, but the switch was an easy one to make. 

All the pages in this album are on plain kraft cardstock so I added an extra layer of patterned paper behind the photos for interest. I wanted that layer to be a soft print that would work with the bold stripe, and I didn't have one in my kit so I dug out through my stash finding an old Christmas paper from Basic Grey which has the right colours. I'll keep the offcuts with my kit and spread the new pattern in small pieces throughout the album.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill
Paper - Teresa Collins Christmas Cottage, Basic Grey Dasher, My Mind's Eye Hello World, Crate Paper The Pier
Letters - Basic Grey
Die-Cut - atd
Puffy Sticker - American Crafts/Shimelle Little by Little
Enamel Shape - Marianne Designs
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's. Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Square Punch

The Flower Valley

I've almost finished the Tasiilaq section of my cruise album (for Iceland, Greenland and Norway), just two pages to go now. This one's a double for the walk we took into the Flower Valley, along the river there to a waterfall.

I picked out the five photos that best illustrate the walk, and started with a page design from Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class, though my version has fewer paper layers.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill
Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass, Basic Grey Boxer
Letters - Simply Creative
Die-Cuts - Photo Play Boarding Pass
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle Go Now Go
Wood Veneer - Creative Embellishments, Freckled Fawn
Washi Tape - Little B
Enamel Dots/Stars - Marianne Designs
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot
Quickutz Tab Die
Spellbinders Circle Die
X-Cut Travel Mini Dies
X-Cut Circle Punch

Huskies

After completing a series of random pages recently, I was beginning to feel the appeal of my cruise photos again. I've gone back to a page I started before Christmas for some of the huskies in Greenland. 

I used the sketch that Let's Get Sketchy published for a Design Team call, rotated for three landscape photos. I mostly used scraps for this page so I played around with the paper layers to suit the pieces that I had.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill

Paper - Photo Play Boarding Pass, My Mind's Eye Hello World

Vellum - American Crafts

Letters - Pretty Little Studio

Tag - Amy Tangerine

Stickers - Photo Play Boarding Pass, American Crafts/Shimelle Go Now Go

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & Little B Arrows Die

Advent Joy

I've already completed all four of the Advent Calendar challenges in For the Love of Pretty Paper (five stash items and a technique each time) but Natalie sprung an additional challenge on us at the end - to use our choice of 10 of the 24 things together on a page. To be honest, I'm beginning to know how Natalie's mind works so this one wasn't much of a surprise to me but I'd been expecting a higher number than the ten that she set, so I set out to use as many items from our list as possible. We had sparkly washi tape, flair (or similar), 6x6 papers, black alphabet stickers, mist, hand-sewing, tiny word stickers, puffy stickers, Project Life cards (or paper cut to PL card sizes), sequins, gold alphabet stickers, stamping, gold washi tape, wood veneer, small tile alpha stickers, a roller date or phrase stamp, a 'cut-apart' paper, watercolour background, ephemera, mixed media, chipboard, a large word, hearts and DIY embellishments.

I printed a collage of photos from the Advent Calendar Swap that I organised last autumn and cut the Brown Paper Packages Background file from Just Nick on my Silhouette. I chose green for my watercolour background, added acrylic paint through a stencil, stamped the star pattern and used mist for both painting and spattering. I backed the cut file with pieces from 6x6 papers, matted the photo on a PL card and a cut-apart square, and stitched a circle on my page. Having included all the paper and techniques, it was time to add as many of the other items as I could while keeping the page harmonious.

I placed most things in threes, making a series of triangles around the photos, including a one made up of my black Thickers and two black brads (rather than flair). It was surprisingly easy to keep adding bits and in the end I used all 24 items from the list (if you accept JOY as a large word (which the ladies of FTLOPP did)).

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazill
Paper - Fancy Pants Merry Little Christmas, American Crafts Deck the Halls
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - Hobbycraft, Tesco
Brads - Simple Stories Classic Christmas
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz
Number Sticker - American Crafts/Shimelle Christmas Magic
Heart Stickers - American Crafts
Chipboard & Wood Veneer Stars - Studio Calico
Ephemera, Sequins & Gingerbread Man Sticker - from the Advent Calendar Swap
Watercolours - Dr Ph. Martin's
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts
Thread - DMC

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Just Nick Brown Paper Packages Background Cutfile
Big Shot & Doily Die
American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Date/Phrase Stamp

Lea Valley Walk

This page has been a long time in the making; I've pulled out the photos and papers and then put them away again more than once. It's a page-and-a-half from a walk I took along the Lea Valley almost two years ago, and which I blogged at the time (Part 1 & Part 2). Part of the problem was the sheer number of photos that I took; I had culled them down to 20 previously but this time I ditched a few more to give me a 15-photo page. I kept the photos (with captions) on the 12x12 part of the page and put a map and my journalling on the 6x12 part to the right. The walk is way-marked with swan symbols, which I photographed at the time and then used in my embellishment clusters.

Supplies
Cardstock - Dovecraft, Bazzill
Paper - Pinkfresh Studios Felicity, Echo Park Everyday Memories, Basic Grey Serenade
Ephemera - Simple Stories Carpe Diem
Washi Tape - Ebay
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle
Enamel Dots - Docrafts, Eyelet Outlet
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Provo Craft Alphabet Dies
X-Cut Circle Punch

Splish Splash

I made this page for the fourth Advent Challenge in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group. Each of these challenges has involved five stash items and a technique and for this round they were ephemera, mixed media, chipboard, a large word, hearts and DIY embellishments. 

To me, a mixed media background means using a single photo so that the background can be seen, and I chose an old one of my son and nephew in the bath. I picked an assortment of inks, mists, stamps and stencils and started playing, layering the patterns and colours over each other. 

I've had these chipboard letters for years, and they usually get rejected for being too large or the wrong colour for my page; however they've found a home here at last and I ran the title vertically so that the photo could nestle in between the descenders of the letters P and H. 

I made my DIY embellishment by layering up a sticker, some washi tape, punched and die-cut shapes and a heart puffy sticker.

Supplies
Cardstock - Stampin' Up!
Paper - Making Memories
Letters - Making Memories, Doodlebug
Border Sticker - Crate Paper
Ephemera - Simple Stories
Label Sticker - October Afternoon
Puffy Sticker - American Crafts/Shimelle
Chipboard - Studio Calico
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer, Docrafts, Mr Huey's

Tools
Creative Expressions Grid Mask
Studio Calico Hexagon Stamp
Dovecraft Filmstrip Stamp
Studio Calico Stars Stamp
Elle's Studio Heart Stamp
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Big Shot & X-Cut Labels Die