Wednesday 28 November 2018

Sailing Into the Sunset

I've been making and sharing my pages from Cádiz in chronological order, but I'm jumping now to the end of the day as there's a challenge that I want to enter before the end of the month. 

All four Fred. Olsen ships were in Cádiz that day and they left port together but during the evening Boudicca turned away from the fleet leaving three of us to sail into the sunset together. My photos are the sunset from our ship, reflected in the windows, and our two companions.

The paper layers of my page are based on Sketch #164 from Sketch-n-Scrap, though my photos are different in number and size from those on the sketch and I moved my title down the page.

I've also ticked off the fifth challenge of the Winter Olympics Games series at For the Love of Pretty Paper; this one was based on the bobsleigh and we were asked to scrap a page with a travel theme. An easy one when you are making a cruise album.




Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Bo Bunny Early Bird, OneCanoeTwo Twilight, OneCanoeTwo Creekside, Crate Paper Snow & Cocoa, KaiserCraft Touch of Gold
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, Pretty My Page, Hobbycraft, Stampin' Up!
Puffy Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio
Star Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Scrapberry's Around the World Compass Stamp

Sunday 25 November 2018

Viva España

The next place we visited in Cádiz was the Plaza de España with its Monumento de las Cortes de Cádiz. This huge monument commemorates the first written Spanish constitution, which was drawn up in this city in 1812 during the Peninsular War; prior to this time Spain had been an absolute monarchy, and it became one again when Ferdinand VII was restored in 1814.

There is a huge amount of detail in the sculptures of the monument so I printed my main photo at 6x8 and added a couple of 3x4 close-ups. 

My page is based on Sketch 23 of Shimelle's Sketch to Scrapbook Page series though I obviously used larger photos than in her original. I also moved the embellishment clusters from the edges where I had very little space to the area above the large photo and below the small photos. The second of those clusters also fills a potentially awkward space next to the title.




I only have a few sets of alphabet stickers with the tilde that I needed for 'España' and none of those sets had sufficient 'a's for my title, so I cut these on the Silhouette again.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, OneCanoeTwo Creekside, Pink Paislee Posh
Mistable Stars - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Hobbycraft
Enamel Dots - Echo Park
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Little B Arrows Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Thursday 22 November 2018

Castillo de Santa Catalina

We're still in Cádiz for this page, and it comes from the same walk along the coast as the last one I shared. This time we are at the Castillo de Santa Catalina, one of a series of fortifications built to protect this coastal town from alien invaders.


I had printed five photos ready to scrap them as a single block, and I chose to work with this month's sketch from Let's Get Sketchy. The original sketch has just one row of photos, but it was quite adaptable to a larger block with the various paper strips running behind it.

The stencilled background was my response to another challenge in the Winter Olympic Games series at For the Love of Pretty Paper. This one was based on the freestyle nature of snowboarding, and we had to go 'freestyle' with our pages by using mixed media.


I've tried to avoid the 'obvious' titles in this album (apart from the divider pages with each city's name) but found that difficult here and ended up using the name of the fort. I wanted the word 'Castillo' to be in a cursive script with the rest in tiles below but I exhausted my entire collection of alpha stickers without finding a set in a suitable size and colour. I ended up cutting this on the Silhouette, and I do kick myself for turning to this machine as a last resort rather than my first option when I know exactly what I want for my page.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - OneCanoeTwo Twilight, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine, American Crafts/Shimelle, Pinkfresh Studio, Kaisercraft
Letters - October Afternoon
Mistable Stars - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Pretty My Page
Star Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Memento, Versa Magic
Mist - Heidi Swapp

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
The Works Roller Stamp

Monday 19 November 2018

Explore the Coast

I'm getting most of my holiday photos professionally printed, which means deciding on their sizes and the potential layouts in advance. I decided to scraplift myself for this page, picking on Take a Hike that I made in the summer from Shimelle's Layer on Layer on Layer class.

I changed things slightly for the new page, which has pictures from a walk round the coast in Cádiz. Firstly, I moved the title panel up to the top, as I generally prefer my journalling to be lower on the page than my title; secondly, I moved the embellishments around to form a triangle around the page rather than having the three repeating clusters by the photos.

I'm really pleased to have used the acrylic word 'explore' as it sat in my album kit for the whole of my last cruise album and never got used. Finally it has a place here.



Despite deciding on page design in advance, I still managed to complete a challenge with this page. It was another from the Stashbusting Facebook group's Harry Potter-themed crop, this time based on the Room of Requirement. We were asked to use one or more of: the tic-tac-toe board; seven of something (because the room is on the seventh floor); three photo mats (because you have to walk past the room three times to have it appear). I chose the first column of the tic-tac-toe (white cardstock, washi tape and blue) and also used seven small star gems.


Supplies
Cardstock - The Works
Paper - Simple Stories Posh, Studio Calico, Pebbles/Jen Hadfield, KaiserCraft Touch of Gold
Acrylic Word - Freckled Fawn
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans, Unknown Others
Die Cuts - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page
Mistable Stars - Studio Calico
Star Gems - Simply Creative
Enamel Dots - Pretty My Page
Ink - Memento
Mist - Heidi Swapp

Tools
Big Shot, X-Cut Anchor Die & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
American Crafts/Shimelle Word Stamps


Friday 16 November 2018

A Quick Wander

I'll try to stick with Cádiz for a few posts at least, and also to share my pages in the order that they will come in the album (which isn't necessarily the same order as I made them). All four Fred. Olsen ships were in Cádiz that day, and the festivities kicked off at 10 o'clock but we had time for a quick wander round first, including the town hall and the cathedral.



I've combined a couple of challenges in this page. Firstly, the third Winter Olympics challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper was to make a page without using any tools. I used a 6x6 pad for my page and overlapped the papers so that I wouldn't need to cut them. The exception was the floral on the right which I tore and stretched to give the appearance of a longer panel. I normally use punches and dies for my embellishments so this challenge was really tricky.

Secondly, I took on a Harry Potter themed challenge in the Stashbusting Facebook group. This was based on the Sorting Hat and asked us to do one or more of using torn edges (because the hat is so old), using song lyrics (because it has been known to sing warnings of danger) and using four clusters (to represent the four Hogwarts houses). I chose the tearing (of paper and the gold tape) and the four clusters.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Swiss Dot
Paper - My Mind's Eye Now and Then
Letters - KaiserCraft
Tag - Lakeland
Tape - Hobbycraft
Stickers - Pretty Little Studio, OneCanoeTwo, My Mind's Eye
Flowers - Unknown
Enamel Stars - Stampin' Up!
Gems - TPC Studio
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tuesday 13 November 2018

Cádiz

I have another 'divider' page from my cruise album for you today. I'm making one for each city we visited and they will divide the album into 'chapters'. 

This page is for Cádiz and has two photos taken from the ship while we were docked right in the middle of the city. The layout comes from Sketch 11 in Shimelle Laine's Sketch to Scrapbook Page series. They may be five years old now, but the series is still really useful to refer back to and some of the sketches are a bit different from the norm.




Over at For the Love of Pretty Paper, we are having a series of challenges based on the 15 main sports that make up the Winter Olympic Games. The second one was based on the shooting target from the biathlon and they asked us to use five circles in a row on our page. My circles are a very simple row of five gems.


Supplies
Paper - Simple Stories Carpe Diam, Pebbles/Jen Hadfield Heart of Home, OneCanoeTwo Twilight, KaiserCraft Touch of Gold, My Mind's Eye, Pinkfresh Studio 
Letters - Tim Holtz
Journalling Cards - Project Life, Quirky Kits
Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, OneCanoeTwo, American Crafts, Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Little B
Gems - Mark Richards
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot, Spellbinders Circle Die & Dovecraft Tag Die
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Saturday 10 November 2018

Málaga

Back to my cruise album now, where I'll be making 'divider' pages for each city we visited. I've already done Casablanca  and now it's the turn of  Málaga. I plan to use either two 4x6 photos or one 6x8 photo on each one but this is a very common photo selection for me and I don't want my pages to get too same-y. Seeking inspiration, I went back to Shimelle's A Most Magical Scrapbook class and scraplifted one of her pages. The line of circles is something that hasn't appeared before in the album, but it will be easy to repeat them on another page. 

I'd like the photos on these pages to be general views of the cities, preferably taken from the ship as we arrived or departed, and that's what I have here. This was our only rainy day, so I added some clouds to the circles. 


Shimelle's page design was perfect for this month's challenge from Hey Little Magpie, which was just to use a circle somewhere on the page.

I also linked up at Lottie Loves Paper where Sarah set a weekend of challenges recently. I couldn't do many of them but did manage the first one on the Friday evening - three hours to make a page with a patterned paper background, one photo, enamel dots, something blue and at least three stickers.

Supplies
Paper - American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Stargazer, Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Stickers - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Die
X-Cut Circle Punches

Wednesday 7 November 2018

Parkrun - October

Another month over, and I did all four parkruns in October, ready for another page of my album/journal. For the first time though, I did a run that doesn't have a photo as the usual photographer was away and the stand-in didn't take photos of us all at the finish. Never mind, I used the parkrun logo instead, and added the usual tickets to each pic with the stats from the day's run.


I have just one short section of journalling this time, which covers the whole month. There's much less to write about now that I have achieved my objective of running the whole 5km each week. However I will continue with these pages until the end of the year. Just two more to go now.


Monday 5 November 2018

Celebrate

This is a companion page to the last one I blogged, and both are from our silver wedding anniversary party. There were actually two weeks between me making the two pages, partly due to my photo-printing service loses my photos at first, but that delay meant that I could make the page fit three different challenges from the month. 

The first was the October challenge from Lottie Loves Paper, which was to use one of the words Birthday, Party, Celebrate or Cake in a page title. With the photos being from a party, I had mentally titled the page 'Celebrate' even before the challenge popped up. The second was a new challenge from UK Scrappers; the 'Friday Five' from 12 October was to use photos with five or more people, washi tape, a vertical title, some glitter and the theme of a get-together. Finally Gemma Steele hosted a cyber-crop in her Stashbusting Facebook group recently and her first challenge was to use something metal or metallic and/or her sketch. I used her sketch, but it morphed a bit, and have silver letters and mist for my metallic items.

Before our party, I was browsing our original wedding photos, and I was struck by one particular group photo where everyone was throwing confetti over us. It was a more natural photo than most of the others, and one that I decided to replicate at the party with party poppers rather than confetti this time.



As this was a companion page to the last one, I used similar supplies. I took the same hearts cut file but shrank it down and replicated it to make a column of hearts this time. I'd backed it with a 6x6 floral print previously, and now I used the same print in 12x12 for my background. I also used the same letter stickers, doily, puffy hearts and gems as before.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Dovecraft Eastern Promise, K & Company, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio, Pink Paislee Moonstruck
Letters - American Crafts
Doily - Advent Calendar Swap
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz
Puffy Hearts - Studio Calico
Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Memento
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & SCT Hearts Cutfile
Big Shot, Quickutz Tab Die & Spellbinders Circle Die
American Crafts Scallop Border Punch

Saturday 3 November 2018

25 Years

I'm interrupting my cruise scrapping to share a couple of other pages that I made last month. One of the Alpha Relay challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper was "Y is for Younger You" and it was one that I couldn't possibly twist to this year's holiday, but I did actually have a good pair of photos just waiting to be scrapped. 

We celebrated 25 years of marriage this year and I wanted to scrap a photo of us cutting the cake at our anniversary party alongside one from our wedding day. I've been meaning to make this page ever since I picked up "A is for Anniversary" in the ABC challenges at UKScrappers but now it can satisfy both prompts.

The colour scheme for my page started from a pack of anniversary-themed flair in pink and grey. I cut the hearts in grey cardstock and backed them with a soft green and pink floral. The background paper looks plain white here, but is actually a book print. I'll journal on the pink paper below the main photo once I've made the companion page to this one and decided what I want to write on each one.




Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Echo Park We Are Family, Dovecraft Eastern Promise, Pink Paislee Moonstruck
Letters - American Crafts
Doily - Advent Calendar Swap
Flair - Imagine That
Puffy Stickers - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn
Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Memento
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & SCT Hearts Cutfile
Hobbycraft Heart Punch
American Crafts Scallop Border Punch

Thursday 1 November 2018

Warhol-ish

I am trying to scrapbook one city at a time from our cruise, but sometimes a challenge comes along that interrupts that plan. The latest was the October sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper, which has a very messy look. 

I thought that it would work well for a photo of the two of us from the Andy Warhol exhibition at Málaga's Picasso Museum. That photo has only four colours and I followed them for my page, but it's a very different colour scheme from the rest of my cruise album so I'm now thinking of moving this page to my annual 2018 album instead.

I started off by holding my page vertically, spraying it with mist and allowing it to run down the page. Once dry, I added my photo, some torn washi tape and the title. I wasn't sure how to embellish the page as I didn't want to distract from the paint, but I went with tone-on-tone enamel hearts and stars in the end. My last decision was to cut the page down a bit and back it with a turquoise spotty paper.



Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste, Pink Paislee Moonstruck
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - Tesco
Enamel Shapes - American Crafts/Shimelle, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento
Mist - Maya Road, Mister Huey's, Studio Calico, Tattered Angels