Stone Guardians

Last page from Ferrol from me today, and what will be one of the last pages in the album (though there are plenty more to come since I'm not working in chronological order).

Ferrol has been a naval port for centuries and, as such, the Spanish built several forts to protect the harbour entrance. We'd arrived before dawn so couldn't see them then but we had good views when we left. We even had 'soldiers' in period costume firing at us as we passed.

I printed three 4x6 photos of the forts and one smaller picture of the soldiers. I tried hard not to stack the three photos in a column as it's an arrangement I've used lots of times already in this album, but ultimately it was the best thing to do. 

These photos were perfect for another of the Alpha Relay Challenges over at For the Love of Pretty Paper; last week it was 'L is for Landscape'.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pants Life is Beautiful, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide, Simple Stories Sn@p Basics
Letters - Simple Stories, Basic Grey
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle, Freckled Fawn
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo
Die-Cut - My Mind's Eye
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Enamel Shapes - Pretty My Page, Stampin' Up!
Rub On - Studio Calico
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Walkabout

Back to my cruise album at last, and to the town of Ferrol. We weren't expecting much from it (our guide book just mentions it as 'best avoided') but we picked up a map from tourist information and set forth to tick off the sights it recommended. Nothing very exciting, but enough to fill the front and back of a divided page protector.

Supplies
Paper - OneCanoeTwo Twilight, OneCanoe Two Creekside, American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Stay Colorful, Studio Calico, Simple Stories Sn@p Basics 
Letters - Basic Grey, American Crafts
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts, Pinkfresh Studio, OneCanoeTwo
Die-Cuts - Pink Paislee, OneCanoeTwo
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo, Studio Calico
Enamel Shapes - American Crafts/Shimelle, My Mind's Eye
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Gems - Mark Richards
Ink - Memento

Tools
Big Shot, Little B Arrows Die, Dovecraft Label Die & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Black Tor

It was another challenge from the Stashbusting Facebook group that got me to make this page; one of the choices was a tic-tac-toe grid with 'outdoors theme' in the corner and this drew me towards recent photos from Dartmoor. Most of my outdoors-y paper collections have brown in them so I decided to add stars and complete the right-hand column of the grid.


I initially picked three photos, but then cropped the group picture and added a fourth. Looking for a layout to suit them, I hit upon the monthly challenge from UKScrappers, which was a sketch for two 4x6 photos that looked adaptable if I went a bit smaller with mine.

I used an old but well-loved set of Thickers for my title, surprised to find that I still had an 'a' left but not so lucky with the other letters; I had to cut down a 'b' and an 'm' to make 'or'.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Authentique Natural, We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit, Kit 'n' Kraft
Pocket Cards - We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer
Letters - American Crafts
Flowers - KaiserCraft
Die-Cut - atd
Sticker - OneCanoeTwo
Washi Tape - Stampin' Up!
Enamel Shapes - American Crafts/Shimelle, Simple Stories
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Studio Calico, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Star Die

Junk Bunny

I'm back with my cruise album today, but I'm hopping completely out of order for a random page of a rabbit artwork that we stumbled across in Vila Nova de Gaia (Portugal). 

Page by cmbell

I recently took part in a cybercrop in the Stashbusting group on Facebook, and one of the options for the first challenge was a scraplift of this birthday page found on Pinterest/Instagram.

I considered replacing the candles with multiple strips of paper on my page, but in the end I chose a single calmer print to sit behind my title. I had long reserved the rabbit die-cut from Pink Paislee to go with this photo and used it for my journalling.

Last week I shared my 'Z is for Zig-Zag' page for the Alpha Relay challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and from that I was chosen (by random number generator) to set the next challenge. We're on week 22 so don't have many letters left now, but I picked 'O is for Ombre'. I had a pretty coral paper in mind to fulfil this one but it didn't really work for this page so I was very happy to find this spotty ombre background to use instead.

Supplies
Paper - American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Happy Place & Stay Colorful, Bo Bunny Early Bird, Heidi Swapp No Limits, 
    Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes Open Book, My Mind's Eye Necessities, Simple Stories Sunshine & Happiness
Letters - American Crafts
Die Cuts - Pink  Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page
Washi Tape - Little B
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo, Studio Calico
Enamel Shapes - American Crafts/Shimelle, Pretty My Page, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento
Mist - Heidi Swapp

Tools
American Crafts/Shimelle Word Stamp

On Christmas Day in the Morning

This page is a bit different from my norm; it came from this month's sketch challenge over at For the Love of Pretty Paper which I used more as a starting point than producing a faithful copy on this occasion.

I picked a 6x6 pad and cut 3x3 squares from seven complementary patterns which I arranged around my page. My photos are a larger size than those in the sketch and this plus their mix of orientations made me move one to the area at the bottom of the page.   

I generally ink the edges of my papers, but I decided to draw lines around them instead for a change. My title fitted comfortably between the two areas of papers and photos, using a mixture of Thickers and tile stickers (though I had to doctor a 1 with white gel pen to make an I), and I embellished with an assortment of stickers and wood veneers scattered about the page.

Supplies
Paper - Echo Park Note to Self, Fancy Pants Merry Little Christmas
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - American Crafts, Echo Park, Ebay
Wood Veneer - Creative Embellishments, Advent Calendar
Enamel Shapes - Stampin' Up!
Paint - Golden
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punches

A Bit of a Do

The "Do" of my title is a Christmas party in the Lake District that we've attended every year since its inception, the photos were published on Facebook by the party organiser in an album she called "A Bit of a Do", and the name stuck with me as the title for my page.

My favourite scrappy Facebook group For the Love of Pretty Paper recently celebrated its fourth birthday with a 'Grab 5' challenge - to use sparkles, bunting, 4 patterned papers, alpha stickers and triangles - plus to include the word happy somewhere on the page. I also ticked off 'Z is for Zig-Zag' in the Alpha Relay challenges with my chevron background paper.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, DCWV
Paper - Simple Stories December Documented, Simple Stories DIY Christmas, Pebbles Welcome Christmas, Echo Park Reflections Christmas
Letters - Simply Creative
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Word Stickers - American Crafts
Puffy Hearts - American Crafts
Enamel Dots - Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger, Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
American Crafts Scalloped Border Punch
Pretty My Page Arrows Mask
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Parkrun - December

Just as we thought the admin team at For the Love of Pretty Paper had issued all the challenges of the Winter Olympics, they threw one final surprise into the mix - to use just white and gold on a page. I'll admit that it didn't immediately inspire me to get creating and I couldn't think of any photos that I wanted to scrap in that way so I was going to skip over this one. However, as the deadline for all the challenges approached I started to think it over again and decided that I could make the colour combo work for the final page of my 2018 parkrun album.

December wasn't a good month for parkrun; we were away from home for three of the five weekends and nowhere near alternative courses, so I only did two runs. However, this brings my total to 46 out of 51 for the year (with one being cancelled by the Beast from the East back in March) which I reckon is pretty good going. 

I started my page by smooshing gold paint through a stencil for my background, and then added washi tape and glitter tape to the right hand edge. I then arranged my photos, two larger ones from parkruns and three smaller ones from the other Saturdays to explain where we were on those days, with more tape to the left of each set. This album doesn't generally have a lot of embellishment, which is a good thing as I discovered how little gold stash I have. I punched the stars from more glitter tape, and added a word sticker at the top of the page. That one reads '#FOREVER' and is how I feel about parkrun. My album stops here, with the completion of the year, but I intend to continue with parkrun for as long as I am able.

Start as You Mean to Go On

As we reached the end of last year, I'd been thinking about my annual album for 2018, about what pages are missing and how the individual pages will come together to form the whole album. One thing that kept bugging me is that the first page that I made for year was a double and I didn't have an event before that to be the single page at the front of the album. I could have made a title page, but none of my other annual albums have title pages so I wouldn't have liked the inconsistency.

Eventually it dawned on me that I did my first parkrun at the beginning of January and that it would fill the gap perfectly. I think I'd ignored it previously as parkrun has its own 8x8 album cum journal, but that's no reason not to include it in the annual album from time to time. 

So... here's what will be the first page in my 2018 album:

Obviously, it also fulfils another of the Winter Olympics challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper; this is for Ski Jumping where we were challenged to use a long title. Mine's not the longest that's been produced, but it's long for me. 

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Collectable, My Mind's Eye Fine & Dandy, Bo Bunny Olivia, October Afternoon Witch Hazel
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Stickers - Jillibean Soup, Bella Boulevard, October Afternoon
Gems - Papermania
Washi Tape - The Works
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Weihnachtmarkt

A German title, so we're in Germany for this page. To be precise we were at the Christmas markets in Hamburg on our recent mini-cruise.

My colour choices were largely driven by the two pages that I've already made from this trip, and I used a older sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap which has been republished for the January crop on Facebook, but with the twist of using buttons (which I didn't realise until I went back to link up).

I printed my photos before I found the sketch and had intended to use a less rigid layout for them but once I realised that cropping the tree would give me a good collage I went with that option instead, and a one-photo sketch works fine with them.

You'll be glad to hear that I'm almost at the end of the Winter Olympics challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper; this one's for the Nordic Combined event which takes place on the snow, so we were asked to scrap winter photos with a snow theme. I've no snowy photos left to scrap, but could do winter, and I included snowflake paper on the page.

Finally, I'm fulfilling a Friday Five challenge from UKScrappers; there's one each week and we are asked to use three of five items. This time the five were 5 gold rings, red and green, glitter, 2 or more photos, and a Christmas-theme. I don't have the gold rings, but did include the other four.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV, Craft Sensations
Paper - S.E.I Chalet, Design Objective, Various Scraps
Letters - Tim Holtz
Brad & Stars - Advent Calendar Swap
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Puffy Hearts - American Crafts/Shimelle
Enamel Shapes - Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

It's Christmas Time

I have another page from our mini-cruise to share with you today. The trip was too short to warrant its own album so the pages will be going in the annual album for 2018. I want it to be obvious that they belong together so I've chosen a similar colour background for this page as I used on the last one. I've also repeated the circular photos from the last page, though these will be the first and last pages from the cruise and I certainly don't plan to cut all my photos into circles on the pages in between.

I'm into the last few challenges from the Winter Olympics series at For the Love of Pretty Paper now; this one was inspired by Speed Skating, and they asked us to 'go the distance' by using a time-consuming technique. I chose to hand-stitch a couple of circles on my page, but really it was filling in all the gaps that took the longest time.

The photos were all taken on the ship, none of them are great quality but the decor is part of my memories of the cruise, and I had to include a photo of us by the tree on formal night.

Supplies
Paper - Melissa Frances, Simple Stories
Letters - Basic Grey
Wood Veneer - Various Unknown, Studio Calico
Brads - Simple Stories DIY Christmas
Puffy Stickers - Bella Boulevard, American Crafts, Studio Calico
Epoxy Stickers - Ebay
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Doodlebug, Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Gems - Papermania, Basic Grey, Various Unknown
Thread - DMC
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Kreaxions Circle Cutter
X-Cut Circle Punch
Woodware Star Punch

Columbus

I'm still working my way through the Winter Olympics Challenges over at For the Love of Pretty Paper; this one was based on the target area in Curling, and we were asked to use concentric circles on a page. 

I couldn't fit this to my summer cruise album, but we also took a short Christmas markets trip last month in order to try out a different cruise line, and that trip provided a few photos that I could happily cut into circles. Only one of them is actually mine, the others were posted online from the ports we visited. 

I cut a series of concentric circles on my Silhouette and arranged them on my page, using four to surround the photos and running some of them off the edge of the page. I journalled round some of the circles too, though it's hard to see the writing in the picture above. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Authentique Abroad, OneCanoeTwo Creekside
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Word Stickers - Simple Stories Travel Notes
Enamel Shapes - Marianne Design, Stampin' Up!
Gems - Papermania
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Silhouette Portrait
X-Cut Circle Punch

Be a Pilgrim

I'm continuing with pages from Ferrol for my cruise album; there wasn't much to see or do in the town, but it is the start point for the Camino Inglés de Santiago, a medieval pilgrimage route to Santiago de Compostela. I gathered together a few photos of the start point, some street signs and a statue of a penitent for my page. I had no real plan, and just started by layering up a few offcuts and 6x6 papers, arranging and rearranging them with the photos until I had something pleasing.

The arrangement that I settled on gave me an open corner for my journalling, and three spots for an assortment of embellishments; these include scallop shells as medieval pilgrims used to collect one as a sign that they had completed the pilgrimage and modern pilgrims tend to carry one on their journey.

Obviously I also had to tick off another Winter Olympic Games challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper. This was actually the last one posted, but I still have three more to do. We're looking at Short Track Speed Skating, and the objective was a simple one - to declare the time taken to make our page; mine was 1h 34m, though I know it could have been shorter if I hadn't kept rearranging the papers as much as I did.

Supplies
Paper - OneCanoeTwo Creekside, Simple Stories Posh, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Better Together, 
       American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Stay Colorful
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo, Tim Holtz, American Crafts
Enamel Shapes - Doodlebug, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento

Tools
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template