My Austrian Albums

We've visited Austria twice, in the summers of 2014 and 2016, and both holidays now have albums. I finished the pages from 2016 last summer, but they've languished in a pizza box ever since. 2014 took much longer to scrap and I finished the final couple of pages last week. I decided to buy two identical albums, found some by First Editions that I liked, and happily they were in an unadvertised multi-buy deal which saved me a few pounds.

The new albums are snap-load albums, which I love. They look like post-bound albums, but the pages are much easier to add to the album and there's no fiddling about trying to attach screws and posts while keeping all the pages from escaping. On the down side, the covers seem to be paper so I hope they'll stand up to some handling without getting scuffed or torn. 

My final task for each album was to make a title piece for the window in the front cover. I did 2016 first as I had originally used one paper collection (Atlas from Pink Paislee) for that album so just chose those scraps to make the title block.

I went with similar placements of the elements on the 2014 title, using papers and embellishments that were mostly leftovers from the divided pages that I made last for this album.

Finally, as I put all the pages in the albums, I checked them over looking for loose pieces or for any pages that needed something extra. All of 2016 was fine, and I think that was because I'd created them over a relatively short period of time (10 months) with a consistent kit of papers and embellishments.

By contrast, I took three and a half years to make the pages from 2014, and used a variety of papers along the way, picking whatever took my fancy at the time. Trends and products have changed over that period and so have my tastes and scrapbooking style. As I've put these pages in the album, I have also added a few pieces (mostly enamel dots, wood veneers and puffy stickers) to try to make the older pages fit in with the newer pages a bit better.

NSD with FTLOPP

National Scrapbooking Day is coming soon. In case you don't know, it's on Saturday 5th May, but a day just isn't enough and some groups are kicking off the fun on Friday.

I'll mostly be hanging out on Facebook, and my favourite group there is For the Love of Pretty Paper. The admin team have loads of challenges planned, and have set up an extravaganza of an event this year.

Please do come over and join in the fun. The first challenge will be posted at 3pm BST on Friday, but the group is open now. Hope to see you there.

Salzburg / Fuschl am See

These are the last two pages for Austria 2014, a pair of divided pages that will go last in the album. The front has a few photos from Salzburg that didn't make it onto 12x12 pages and a card from the cathedral.

The back starts with a few random photos from Fuschl am see, the village where we were staying. The last two pictures are the storm-lashed airport (where our flight home was delayed) and a last picture of the mountains as we flew away.

We knew then that we would be back and we returned in 2016, staying in the neighbouring village of St Gilgen. Click on the 'Austria' label of this blog to see more from both holidays.

Austria 2014 / Bad Ischl

I'm going back to 2014 now, specifically the album for our summer holiday in Austria. I've done all the 12x12 pages, but I have some divided ones to do too. These came about because I was intending to include Austria in my annual 2014 albums, and those albums are a mix of 12x12 and pocket pages. I've split the pages out into their own album now, but there are pictures and stories that I had deliberately left for the divided pages so they are still happening.

This page will be first in the album, so had to have a title card. I'd bought a postcard with a relief map of the region while we were in Austria and that's in the second pocket. The rest of the page is about our journey, ending with a rainbow at Salzburg airport after we had landed.

The back has a selection of photos from the town of Bad Ischl and also our tickets for the Kaiservilla which has a separate page in the album. This was a set of photos that might have had a 12x12 page if I hadn't been fixed on the idea of having divided pages in the album too.

I've used an assortment of scraps and 6x6 pads from My Mind's Eye for these pages. Most of the stickers and two of the ephemera pieces are from OneCanoeTwo. The Saturday and Monday stickers are from the Echo Park This and That collection pack that I almost killed off last week and I probably wouldn't have thought to use them here if I hadn't done that first.

Numbers Birthday Card

Summer's on its way and I know that I have a lot of birthdays coming up (including five in five days in June) so I'm trying to get a head start on my card-making.

Sketch-n-Scrap is a great source for card sketches, and this one's based on their sketch #120 from Friday. I didn't actually have the sketch in front of me while I was creating and made the panel larger than indicated, but it still works.

I picked the number paper out of my scraps box first,  matched it to the stars print and then found a bright yellow to mount them on. 

Starting Point Pages

I still have a few pages left to make from 2014 but they're feeling like a chore, so I've diverted into playing with pretty paper in a different way.

I don't often buy a whole collection but when I buy a few sheets from one I keep them together for as long as possible, in a ziplock bag on the shelf. Some of these bags are down to scraps now so I've decided to clear them out by making a few 'starting point' pages, pages where I just cut those scraps into boxes (or circles) and layer them up in a pleasing manner ready to add the photos later. 

The first page I made used Dear Lizzy Neapolitan by American Crafts from 2012. I had no whole sheets left so added a pink heart print that I think is from a Pebbles baby collection. I had decent size pieces of the floral and cream papers so started from a broad L-shape then layered the smaller pieces and some branding strips over them. When I finish off this page I'll make sure that my photos cover the gap between the jar and the pink lined paper. I still have a piece of jar print paper left but I've cut it into individual jars and added them to the drawers where I keep my embellishments sorted by colour.

Next up is Little Sport by Fancy Pants, also from 2012. My largest piece was a zig-zag print, still 12x12 but with a couple of pieces cut from the edges, so I cut down a plain paper to go over it leaving the zig-zag as a border on two sides. The only other piece of significant size was the stripe so I used that as a potential photo mat and layered most of the other pieces behind it. The blue was already two pieces (which I trimmed to be the same width) and I cut and stretched the zig-zag and spot papers to go above and below the stripe. I then took some of the smaller scraps and made a small cluster on the left where the plain paper meets the zig-zag background.

My third page uses This & That Charming by Echo Park; it was another 2012 release and this time I did buy the collection pack. The largest piece I had left was about 11x12 as I had previously cut a strip from it. I backed the gap with a 12" long scrap and filled it in with a border sticker and some strips cut from a yellow paper. Then it was a case of cutting pieces into rectangles and layering them up; the book print is two pieces so I made sure to place a strip over the join. I'd previously punched a number of circles so I pulled them in here, but only the ones at the top with the green tab are actually stuck down. Once I've chosen some photos I'll stick the journalling card and the other circles under and around them. I still have a number of stickers left so I'll be able to add some of those later too.

Echo Park's Dots & Stripes Christmas (2011) has had a different treatment; it's never really worked for me as a collection in itself because most of the papers are single colours. I've added the red and brown full sheets to the organiser where I store single papers by colour, and added the snowflake patterned ones and the scraps to my bag of mixed winter-themed papers. I've also cut up the sticker sheet and added the pieces to my embellishment drawers.

The last starter page for today is based on Daily Stories by Teresa Collins (2014) but I only ever had about four papers. There weren't enough pieces left for a page so I added a background from the original Shimelle collection and some other papers from my scraps box. The butterflies and meshed circles prints are TC, I've binned some tiny pieces of a floral print and I just have some of a cut-apart sheet left now. I'll use some of the cut-apart when I finish the page and then turn the rest into embellishment pieces.

I've really enjoyed making pages in this way for a change and I intend to go through my scraps box soon to make a few more. I have some really lovely papers in that box that deserve to be part of a page instead.

I'll try to place links to my finished pages here once they are done.

EDIT - Links to finished pages:
Dear Lizzy - Beatrix's Christening

Fancy Pants - Stonehenge
Echo Park - Great Little Engines
Teresa Collins - Captured

Zwölferhorn

I'm going back to August now in my 2014 album, for a double page from Austria that I passed over previously. This was our trip up the Zwölferhorn by cable car on our last full day there and should have been the last 12x12 pages that I make for this holiday. However, I have too many 2014 pages for two albums, and if there are going to be three then I shall split up the pages so that I have two albums for 2014 generally and a third one for Austria. I did the same thing for our 2016 holiday to Austria and I have managed to get two albums in the same pattern for these two holidays.

This means that I now need an extra summary page for Austria to go into one of the general 2014 albums, so look out for that coming up soon.

Anyway, back to the current page - I picked out nine photos and sketched a few ideas for placement before I printed them in a mix of sizes. I was aware that I have all larger photos on the left which makes the double page a bit lopsided so I tried other arrangements once I had the printed photos. One option would have fitted the photos nicely within the inner section of patterned paper, but it lost the spaces for title and journalling that this layout has, so I stayed with this version.

Supplies
Paper - Scrappin' Sports & More!, Basic Grey Granola, HOTP In the Kitchen
Letters - Simply Creative
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo, American Crafts/Shimelle, The Works, Simple Stories
Washi Tape - Docrafts, Little B
Enamel Dots/Shapes - Marianne Designs, Doodlebug, Fancy Pants
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Twitterati Party

They say you should never meet up with people from the internet, but we did just that back in 2014 when we attended a Christmas Ball for a group of walkers who had 'met' on Twitter. All went well, we've done four of these now, and no-one has been axe-murdered (so far as we know).

I chose Christmas papers from Simple Stories for my page, mixing several collections together. I do like the fact that Simple Stories keep to the same colour palette for their Christmas collections each year so you can just buy a few new sheets and know that they will work with the leftovers from previous years.

There were two pictures that I wanted to scrap, but one is a formal photo and the other is a selfie so I wanted to separate them on the page, finding a bingo card that does that job. I matted the photos and card on a green spotty paper, and then layered a selection of scraps behind them.

Supplies
Paper - Simple Stories Claus & Co, Simple Stories DIY Christmas, Simple Stories December Documented, Echo Park Christmas Dots & Stripes
Letters - KaiserCraft, Hobbycraft
Word Sticker - American Crafts/Shimelle Christmas Magic
Wood Veneer - Heidi Swapp
Brad - Simple Stories DIY Christmas
Ink - Hobbycraft, Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Grasmere

Back to 2014 now, and I'm moving on to December (though I've skipped a few pages and will need to go back to them). We made a brief trip to the Lake District that month and this page has a couple of photos of Grasmere.

There isn't a lot of colour in the photos and I tried a variety of papers with them before settling on a silver and white snowflake and circles print. However, keeping that colour scheme for the whole page would have been very bland, and the photos would have merged with the rest of the page, so I went for much darker colours behind the initial paper layer. 

Supplies
Paper - Simple Stories Cozy Christmas, Simple Stories DIY Christmas, Echo Park Dots & Stripes, 
      One Canoe Two Creekside, Pink Paislee Memorandum
Letters - Hobbycraft
Border Sticker - Echo Park Dots & Stripes
Puffy Stickers - Fancy Pants
Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs, Echo Park
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

parkrun - Workington

Up until the end of March, I'd done all my parkruns at my home course in Thurrock. However we spent Easter week in Cumbria, an annual reunion holiday with friends from university. One of those friends is also a parkrunner so we decided to join in with the event in Workington last Saturday before we returned home.

I'm scrapping my parkruns in an 8x8 album this year. Most of them have been two to a page, but I decided to give a whole page to this run. The album is simpler than my regular 12x12 pages, with few paper layers and little embellishment, but I spotted a sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap that would fit with this style.

I'm trying to use up my scraps in this album, and I pieced two of them together for my background, adding washi tape for the stripe from the sketch. I deviated from the sketch by using two photos on the left and a big block of journalling on vellum to the right, but I hope you can still see the sketch in my page.

My 'home' parkrun has a volunteer photographer in attendance every week, but Workington doesn't so my photos are a dodgy selfie and a shot of the start/finish line by the River Derwent. The butterfly sticker was a direct lift from the sketch as I needed something unobtrusive in the space between the title and the ticket.

Supplies
Paper - Scraps
Letters - Basic Grey
Numbers - Fancy Pants
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo
Washi Tape - Tesco, Trimcraft
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Tickets Cut File
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Imagine That 'Return Ticket' Stamp Set

parkrun - March

I'm pleased to report that I've continued with parkrun throughout March and that I've clocked up 13 official 5km runs (or walks) so far this year. I didn't even let a holiday stop me, running at my home event before we went to Cumbria and then as a visitor at Workington parkrun before we came back.

I've continued with my parkrun album too, a simple affair in 8x8. I'm putting two runs to a page at this time, so have two pages to share today. They're mostly made from scrap papers and washi tape with minimal layers and embellishments to keep the pages flat.

I split this page horizontally; the top part is a 'normal' run but the following week the 'Mini Beast from the East' dumped a pile of snow on us, starting to fall an hour after the run director had decided that the event would be going ahead. Just over 40 of us still turned out to run in the snow (down from 75ish most weeks).

These two pages lie back-to-back in the album so I have a change of colour scheme for the second one. The left side is another 'normal' run, but I volunteered to be the Tail Walker (a marshal at the back of the field) the following week. Parkrun just wouldn't be parkrun without the team of volunteers who turn out every week in all weathers, and I feel that all the regular runners should also take a turn at volunteering in order to keep the event running smoothly each week. It's all about give and take and you shouldn't just take (run) without giving something back. 

I've used tickets on my pages for the key statistics each week, and added 'PB' to my personal best times as appropriate, but now I've introduced a 'V' label for the weeks that I volunteer too.

Lyme Regis

This is the last page from our camping trip back in 2014, one for an afternoon that we spent wandering round Lyme Regis. I took quite a few photos and, when it came to picking which ones to scrap, I realised that I 'needed' most of them, a mix of wider views and close-ups of the details. I got them down to seven and decided that a grid would be the best way to scrap so many different photos while keeping the feeling that they all belong together.

I decided to use a nautical paper for the background, but then covered most of it with an arrows print and my block of photos. The letters for my title are a new-ish product from Hobbycraft; their 'chunky stickers' are similar to American Crafts' Thickers, but not as thick. I bought a couple of packs recently and so far I've been pleased with them. There's no journalling on this page as there's no real story and I've already written a little on the divided page that will go opposite this one in the album.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations
Paper - Webster's Pages Feeling Nautical, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Rise & Shine, OneCanoeTwo Creekside
Letters - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stickers - Fancy Pants
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo #Stickerbook
Washi Tape - The Works
Ink - Hobbycraft

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

Camp

Last post I mentioned how my divided pages in my 2014 album weren't sitting well between the 12x12 pages, and this lead me to use a 6x12 divided page protector for August instead. I'm repeating this now for the camping trip that we took at the beginning of September, for some of the smaller moments that didn't make it onto 12x12 pages but I'd like to include in the album.

I chose a Recollections pad called Awesome Boy for my cards; I've already used this pad for a couple of other pages from the trip, and it has lots of cut-apart pieces that made the job really easy.

On the front I have a title card, family fun at a local farm and trying out our new portable barbecue (a success). On the back I have the eternal 'jam first or cream first' debate, part of the South West Coast Path and our daughter in the park. I decorated the cards with word stickers from Simple Stories Take a Hike collection, stars and hearts from OneCanoeTwo and pieces cut from the Recollections pad.

August 2014

I've been including 12x12 divided pages with 4x6 cards in my 2014 album, but they have given me trouble with where to position them in the album when they cover a couple of months. For August/September I found that I wanted August to be near my pages from Chatham Historic Dockyard but I wanted September to be near a camping holiday we took that month. I decided to break with the 12x12 divided pages and use 6x12 divided page protectors instead.

For August I only had photos from two days, as most of our activities that month merited full 12x12 pages rather than the cards. I worked with pieces from my scraps box only, choosing yellow for the front and blue for the back.

The front has a title card for the month and two photos from Richmond Park, one from a Nordic walking session and one of the deer in the park. 

The photos on the back are all from Chatham Historic Dockyard and will sit directly opposite my page for HMS Gannet. I used acetate in the top pocket so that I could slot our tickets in behind the photo (my daughter 'clocking in' to one of the museum exhibits) and the journalling sticker with the dockyard logo on view. The other two pockets have photos of HMS Cavalier (which we visited in 2013 and I have yet to scrap) and the Ropery, where rope has been made since Napoleonic times. I decorated all the cards with nautical map stars from Studio Calico.

Ocelot

I have one more page to make from Austria, but it's a double and I'm not in the mood to tackle another double so soon, so I'm moving on to the next 'missing' page from my 2014 album.

We had visited Chatham Historic Dockyard back in 2013, and our tickets were valid for a year so we made a return trip in the summer of 2014. I made a page for the Victorian sloop HMS Gannet shortly afterwards, and needed to do one for the submarine HMS Ocelot too. I referred back to the old page in order to choose a similar colour scheme, starting with the background. I store my loose papers by colour so went to the yellow ones and found the perfect print, one with engineering drawings. It had come from a pad that I used for my Canadian cruise album so I pulled out the scraps from that pad for the rest of the page. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits
Washi Tape - The Works
Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs, Papermania, My Mind's Eye
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
Big Shot & Provocraft Alphabet Dies
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch