On the Misty Mountains

Another page from Austria today, a double from a walk that my husband took up the mountains of Frauenkopf and Schober. 

I've used the same sketch from Sketch Support as I used for my Goðafoss page a few weeks ago, but the pages don't look particularly similar and they will obviously be in different albums.

I used several more photos this time, and moved the title up above them. I had an awkward gap under the word 'On' where the first part of my title was wider than the second, but I think I solved it with the aid of a mountain stencil, which I then repeated on the opposite side.

Supplies
Paper - K&Co, My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm, We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit
Letters - Pink Paislee, Jillibean Soup
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Little B Arrows Die
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Circle Punch
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Happy Scatter Mountains Mini Stencil

Inside Salzburg Cathedral

The next 'missing' page for my 2014 albums comes from our holiday to Austria that year. I had left a blank page at the right point, but I had to go back to my photos to work out what I'd intended to put there. It was a set of photos from Salzburg Cathedral, which I narrowed down to four for this page - the altar, an organ, the inside of the dome and the font - printing three larger and one smaller.

I've already scrapped the rest of my photos from Salzburg using a paper pad from My Mind's Eye, so I turned to those papers again. I picked a couple of pinks, using the polka dot paper to cover an unloved banner on the plain one. I used a favourite layout for three photos in a mix of orientations, and adapted it a bit to take the fourth. I had more journalling than would fit where I'd originally planned on the left, so I continued within the stitched circle. I repeated the circle with my embellishments, and cut up a musical notes border strip to use in my clusters.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm
Letters - American Crafts/Dear Lizzy, Collage Press
Border Sticker - Bo Bunny
Chipboard - Pink Paislee London Market
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Echo Park, Eyelet Outlet
Embroidery Thread - DMC
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Montacute House

I've been working my way through my 2014 albums recently, filling in the gaps in chronological order and sharing them here in the same order. However, I'm going to skip forward to September now in order to share a page made from a Let's Get Sketchy sketch before the challenge closes at the end of this month. 

Montacute House is a stately home in Somerset, previously owned by the Phelips family, generations of whom stood as the local MP, and now in the care of the National Trust. 

The sketch shows three or four portrait photos, but mine are landscape so I switched it up to fit six in a similar space. I chose K & Co's Hannah collection for my page as the colours and patterns remind me of the faded grandeur of our stately homes. Having used extra photos instead of the journalling card indicated on the sketch, I journalled on paper strips below the photos and moved the title (cut on my Silhouette) to the side.

Supplies
Paper - K&Co Hannah
Die-Cuts - K&Co Hannah
Word Sticker - K&Co Hannah
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

June/July 2014

My 2014 album is a mix of mostly 12x12 pages and some divided pages where I tried to include the more everyday happenings. Those divided pages weren't a huge success and I didn't carry them on into 2015, but having started the year with them I feel that I need to carry them on. I'd already done January to April plus our May holiday, and I'm going through this album chronologically to fill in the gaps, so now I've reached June and July. I haven't been sticking to six cards per month but that seemed like the best approach for these two.

I'd already made my June title card and also one for the summer photography scavenger hunt, so I picked up the same colour scheme for four more cards to complete one side of the page protector - my husband's camping trip to Lake District, a birds' nest I found in our shed, and two from a local camp my husband and son did.

I moved on to July and picked a green and pink colour scheme for the month. I didn't have many photos saved, but managed to find enough on blogs and Facebook for a decent showing - watercolour painting, another camping trip (to Wales) and a couple of local walks.

Taming the Triffid

The triffid of my title is a fast-growing rose bush in our garden that needs to be cut back regularly in order to stop it taking over. It's normally my job, but on this occasion I persuaded the children to help with it. I had three photos which I cropped to squares, originally intending to run them in a row across the page, but then I switched to a column instead. 

I chose my background paper first and then rummaged through my scraps box for strips of coordinating papers to layer up next to and behind my column of photos. I planned to place my title and journalling on the opposite side and hunted high and low for flowers to embellish the page without much luck. However I did turn up an old leafy die-cut that had exactly the same colour background as my page and could nestle against my journalling. From there I kept it simple with a few puffy hearts and phrase stickers.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pants Winterland, Authentique, Basic Grey, Hot Off the Press, My Mind's Eye
Letters - Pebbles, Glitz Design
Die Cut - My Mind's Eye
Puffy Stickers - Studio Calico
Phrase Stickers - Cosmo Cricket
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Personalised Graffiti

I've had computer issues recently which have separated me from my cruise photos, so I'm turning to older pictures instead. (N.B. my cruise photos are backed up, so they're not lost, but the backup is unsorted; the photos on my PC are sorted by destination and into sets planned for different pages so I'd rather wait than repeat that work.)

I have more unfinished scrapbooks in my study than finished scrapbooks in the lounge where people might actually look at them, so I'm going to concentrate on finishing off 2014, as I don't think that will take too long. 2014 was an oddity in that I tried to include more everyday happenings within the albums via 4x6 cards in divided page protectors. I started out well enough, but the photo-taking dropped off after a few months and I got frustrated with making the divided pages sit in the right places in the albums for a coherent story.

I've gone back to the albums now, nearly three years since I did much 2014 scrapping, and tried to get them organised. I've ditched some of the really mundane 4x6 cards and rearranged others so they fit the space better. There was one card that I really wished I had scrapped as 12x12 so I've taken the photo off it, printed two more that add to the story and made this page:

The photos come from a walk beside the River Thames where I'd gone to look at the street art painted on the river wall; I was somewhat surprised to find my own name emblazoned on it. The main colours in the photo are really bright with a mix of orange, yellow, blue and green - not colours I normally use together - but they reminded me of an old paper that was languishing in my 'rejects' box awaiting disposal. The colours in this old paper were perfect, but the pattern was very bold, almost too bold. However I followed some of the principles from Shimelle Laine's 'Clear the Desk' class to pick coordinating single-colour papers to break up and tone down all that colour and pattern.

Supplies
Paper - Paper Adventures Françoise, Junkitz Winter, Craft Creations, Heidi Swapp 
Letters - American Crafts
Vellum - from Stash
Tag - Papermania
Word Stickers - Crate Paper, American Crafts
Puffy Stickers - Fancy Pants, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Circle Punch

Tools Birthday Card

It's my dad's birthday later this month and I'm getting his card done early this year (rather than the night before it needs to go in the post). I've used one of this month's card sketches from Sketch-n-Scrap and my go-to paper collection for male cards - Mr Mister from Papermania.

I picked a couple of papers for the card, but I didn't want to obscure the tool pattern, so I dropped the paper strips from the sketch and used a smaller sentiment in their place.

Pseudocraters

I have another page from our tour of Iceland for you today. Pseudocraters form when hot lava flows over wet ground causing the water to turn into steam and explode up through the lava. These ones were formed around 2300 years ago, and they were the final thing we visited on the tour. I picked just two photos for this page, a general view and a close-up of one of the craters.

I started the page using a background that I had previously stuck the spotty vellum to and them abandoned. Several of Shimelle's sample pages from A Most Magical Scrapbook started out with a similar split background and I mostly scraplifted one of them for the rest of my page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill, DCWV
Paper - Echo Park Travel Dots & Stripes, Photo Play Boarding Pass, Basic Grey, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Vellum - My Mind's Eye
Letters - Elle's Studio
Stickers - Photo Play Boarding Pass, Tim Holtz
Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard
Washi Tape - Dovecraft
Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs, Echo Park
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Filmstrip Cutfile
Big Shot
Little B Arrows Die
Quickutz Tabs Die
Spellbinders Circle Dies
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Goðafoss

I'm moving across to Akureyri in my cruise album now; we did a coach trip from there to see the interior of the island, and our first stop was at Goðafoss, the Waterfall of the Gods.


I needed this to be a double page and, with no recent sketches catching my eye, I turned to an old favourite from Sketch Support. I've used it several times before but I'm sure no-one will notice that as they look through my albums.

I also played along with the February Week 3 challenge at UKScrappers (yes, my blogging is well behind my crafting) where Sarah gave us a list of items to choose from and asked us to use at least three of three of the options. I chose photos (7), patterned papers (6) and brads (3).

I flipped the sketch, as that puts the photos into more-or-less chronological order across the page. The three on the left are of the river as we walked up to the falls. The large one on the right is a view from the top, and the three below were taken by the water at the bottom. 


Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - We R Memory Keepers Quoted, Photo Play Boarding Pass, Simple Stories Awesome, Echo Park Winter Park, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon
Sticker - Photo Play Boarding Pass
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Brads - My Mind's Eye
Enamel Dots/Stars - Stampin' Up!
Washi Tape - Little B, Unknown
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Dies

On High

It seems like ages since I've shared a page from my latest cruise album (Iceland, Greenland and Norway in 2017). I was reviewing the pages that I've made so far when I realised that there's one missing from Tasiilaq. We climbed up to the highest point in the town where the locals built a cairn to commemorate the town's 50th anniversary. We should have had stunning views from there but the weather was against us.

My page design is a mish-mash of elements from other pages in this album; I've repeated the triangles in the corners, the row of three photos and the journalling card next to the title from other pages, which should hopefully lead to a cohesive album rather than a collection of pages.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - Teresa Collins Christmas Cottage, Echo Park We Are Family, Photo Play Boarding Pass
Letters - American Crafts
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Little B, Unknown
Enamel Dots - Studio Calico
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot
Little B Arrows Die
X-Cut Travel Mini Dies

Mother's Day Card

Happy Mother's Day to you if you are in the UK or anywhere else where you are celebrating today. I made this card for my mum with the aid of this month's sketch from Stick It Down.

The squares on the card reminded me of my four aperture cards so that's what I used. I backed each opening with patterned paper and used Thickers for the word MUM and a heart. I chose this font from Amy Tangerine as I knew it had hearts in it so I could use one in the fourth window of my card. 

Now I've Seen It

Last month I blogged a trip to London which I took in order to see Tower Bridge opening. I combined it with some scavenger hunting, but it really was mostly a trip to see the bridge and I didn't wait long to scrapbook it.

I considered a two photo page since I'd seen the bridge open twice, but the difference in viewpoint was awkward to manage, so I went for my favourite single photo. There's very little colour in it, with blue-greys in the water, the sky and the bridge itself, so I decided on a monochromatic page. 

I knew I wanted to use stamps somewhere on the page as that was the last of the stash-busting challenges from Lottie Loves Paper for February so I considered stamping and painting a white cardstock background. However I also felt that I needed something a little more substantial between the photo and any stamping or painting. A little search among sketch challenges turned up this one from Let's Get Sketchy with one main strip of paper and hints of mixed media on the background.

I used one colour of distress ink (Stormy Sky) for all of this page, using it to edge my paper, to stamp tiny icons across the page and mixed with water to paint in random stripes.

I stamped the open chevron for the triangles in the sketch (though I really wish I'd managed to keep them straight) and then added a mixture of stars, hearts, geotags, cameras, cogs and anchors. I kept the title subtle with small grey letter stickers and journalled in grey pen.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - Studio Calico Take Note
Letters - Basic Grey
Ink - Ranger 
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Wooden Stamp Set
Studio Calico Stamp Set

Skiing

Back to the stash-busting challenges from Lottie Loves Paper now; they closed at the end of February and I've posted all my pages in their Facebook group, but I still have a couple to share here. One of the challenges was to use three or more washi tapes on a page, and I spotted the perfect sketch for this, shared in another Facebook group, and traced it back to the Sketch Savvy blog. 

I had a random 4x6 photo on my desk, one that my cousin had sent me from their skiing holiday, and I decided to use it and give it a home in my album before it got lost or damaged. I picked a snowflake patterned paper for my background and looked through my washi tape collection to pick out a few. I clearly favour aqua over any other colour and so pulled out ten different patterns to use.

I mixed labels in with the washi strips in the column on the left and layered my photo on a few 6x6 papers. With so many patterns already on the page, I kept the embellishment simple - snowflake brads, blue pearls and word stickers.

Supplies
Paper - Carta Bella Warm & Cozy, My Mind's Eye
Letters - American Crafts
Labels - Elle's Studio
Stickers - Authentique, Anita's Glitterations
Brads - Unknown
Washi Tapes - Various including Dovecraft, Primark, Trimcraft, The Range
Pearls - Craft for Occasions
Ink - Ranger

parkrun - February

At the end of January, I shared the first few pages of my parkrun album with you, and I plan to do the same each month. parkrun organise a network of 5km events in local parks across the country every week, open to all whatever your level of fitness. I joined up at the start of the year as a means to get some regular exercise into my mostly sedentary life, and did all four runs that month.

During February, I've carried on doing parkrun each week, and have moved from walking it all to a mixture of walking and running, knocking five minutes off my time. I'm scrapbooking it all too, in a simple 8x8 album cum journal:

I'd already started this page with the last run of January on the left; the first run of February sits comfortably alongside.

I scrapped the next two runs as a pair, but separated the journalling into two distinct sections with washi tape. 

My final page has something a bit different; it's a normal parkrun (24 Feb) on the left, but the event was cancelled last Saturday due to the extreme weather conditions. By Sunday however, the snow and ice had mostly thawed and I decided to do my own 5km route to replace it. I don't think that I will record every extra run that I do (assuming that there are any others) but this was a direct replacement for Saturday's run and a chance to explain why it was missing. The photo is of the only bit of my route that was still snowy, a shady path in one of our gorges.

That takes me to yesterday, I've done a walk/run every weekend and I am completely up to date with the album. See you again next month with my March pages.

Motor Racing Birthday Card

It's been a while since I shared a card with you, but we had a run of family birthdays recently. I already had two cards made, but needed one more for my nephew who was to turn 22. Sketch-n-Scrap publish more card sketches than I have time to play with so I went straight to their 'Queen of Hearts' crop on Facebook and picked this one out.

My default paper collection for male cards is Mr Mister from Papermania and I pulled out a paper with motor racing icons to form the base of the card. I switched the hearts on the sketch for stars and used a scrap from my desk for them, so I picked a grey and red chevron paper from the collection to tie the two together. 

Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt - London

My scavenger-hunting was non-existent in January but I returned to it recently on a trip to London. I've long wanted to see Tower Bridge open and I've kept an intermittent watch on the published list of lift dates and times, but not found anything convenient until now. Last Saturday lunchtime it was opened twice for the passage of sailing vessel Noah and I decided to go up and see it, and to combine that with some scavenger-hunting.

The list for the hunt was set by Eileen at A Bracelet of Days, and is always a mixture of collecting photos of things that I know about and coming across ones that I don't. I started my walk from my 'home' station of London Fenchurch Street towards the Tower of London for a couple of hunt items that I knew about, and found a few that I didn't.

First was the Tower Hill Memorial, which remembers the Many (no. 17 on the list) merchant seaman who perished in World War One and have no known grave. 

More than 12,000 names are listed, ship by ship, on the memorial. 

Behind it, the Port of London Authority Building, with its Pair (no. 19) of flags (UK and Canada for some reason) was looking resplendent in the sunshine.

Across the road is a statue that I had in mind for Men at Work (no. 1); it's called The Builder and commemorates the thousands of construction workers who have lost their lives at work. In my mind, there was more than one builder, so this is just Man at Work.

I also took a photo of the nearby Signpost (no.18), the first of many but ultimately my favourite of the day.

Close by, I spotted this nut seller with Steam (no. 24) steadily rising from his wares. I'm sure they used to sell roasted chestnuts, but now it seems that caramelised peanuts and almonds are in vogue. 

I then headed down to the river for the first bridge lift, joining a good crowd along the waterfront.

The second lift was due in 30 minutes, and I wanted to watch that from London Bridge so I headed up river, passing A Line Of black cabs (no. 13) in Lower Thames Street

before returning to the riverside walk near HMS Belfast, a light cruiser which saw service in World War Two so has a certain Sense of History (no. 16).

I reached London Bridge in good time, and captured as many boats as I could On the Water (no.7)

while I waited for Tower Bridge to open again.

Mission accomplished, it was back to the scavenger-hunting and another item that I knew where to find - the church of St Mary-le-Bow (no.15) on Cheapside,

and, seeing that the door was ajar, I took an unplanned Peek Inside (no. 25) 

finding a more ornate interior than I would have imagined. 

I decided to head for home then, but checked the list and kept my eyes open for anything interesting that I might find. It wasn't long before I passed a Bookshop (no.11) 

and then next door, the decorative Detail (no. 20) above the entrance to Crown Court,

I was on the lookout for an interesting Handle (no. 21) too, but this was the best I could manage

before being distracted by more Detail in the friezes on the front of No 1 Poultry.

I passed several Silversmiths (no. 8) near the Royal Exchange but sadly they were all closed so had no silvery goods on display for me.

Similarly the windows of Louis Vuitton were bereft of Luggage (no. 2) (and didn't even merit a photo), though the Pair of (no. 19) telephone boxes outside certainly did.

Glancing along side-streets as I crossed them, I was struck by the Symmetry (no. 22) of this building (HSBC in Bishopsgate).

Ever since my Men at Work statue had turned into a single man, I'd been looking out for workmen, but they are a rare commodity at Saturday lunchtime in the City of London. The few I'd seen had been standing around rather than working, but as I got close to my station I finally struck it lucky with these three, at least one of whom appears to be working.

So, after a 10 week drought, I managed to pick off 14 items (I'm not counting 'silver' as it's far too tenuous) in about 90 minutes. I'd previously found 12 in the Lake District in December, but many of these are duplicates. As things stand, I have seven items to find and 20 days to go.

There's still time to join in if you wish, and you can find the full list of 25 items over on Eileen's blog, A Bracelet of Days.