Happy Birthday Card

The end of February is the beginning of birthday season in our family. A couple now, a smattering in the next few months, a deluge in June and then we wind down towards the end of the year. As such, I've been making cards this week; this one was for my adult nephew, using a sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap and a colour scheme from the GoGoGetaway cybercrop.

I have a newish 'Happy Birthday' die which I've used for the first time in place of the heart circle and I used papers from a 6x6 paper pad behind it with a strip of glitter tape torn in half lengthways.

City Hall

I have another page from Porto for you today, though this one will come earlier in the album than the ones I've shared recently. I've been looking through the pages I've made from Porto so far, putting them in order in the album and working out which other photos I still want to scrap.

One of the missing pictures is of City Hall, the Câmara Municipal; it was the first landmark building we saw in Porto, and this was the best image, with its reflection in a pool in the square outside. 

I picked a single photo sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap, and rotated it to suit my portrait photo. I made up the paper layers on the left of the page with scraps and offcuts from the rest of this album, so they're not identical to those in the sketch but I followed the basic idea.

I've doubled up with a cybercrop challenge from GoGoGetaway where we were asked to layer up our paper scraps behind a photo.

Supplies
Paper - DCWV Romantic Life, OneCanoeTwo Twilight, American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Serendipity, Crate Paper Snow and Cocoa, 
        Simple Stories Posh, Photo Play Paper Fun with Friends
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo, Studio Calico
Washi Tape - The Works
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, My Mind's Eye
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Die

Up Above the Streets and Houses

This page follows on from the last one I did; Porto's cathedral faces onto a large terrace with great views over the city. The land here is higher than the streets nearby so we could literally look down on the nearest buildings, and also out over the rooftops of the wider city. 

I printed two 4x6 photos, but the angles and the zoom used meant that they didn't look good in a block. I dug through some older classes and scraplifted a page from Shimelle's class The 20 Project. Having the title between the two photos as part of a slightly wonky stack means that the different perspectives just aren't an issue.

I took this opportunity to use up a house die-cut but I had to cover up the wording printed on it (Happy home, Happy heart) as it wasn't relevant to this page. The camera was a good size for that and I matted it to provide some contrast between house and camera.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Echo Park Just Married, OneCanoeTwo Midnight & Creekside
Letters - Basic Grey
Journal Card - Project Life
Stickers - American Crafts, OneCanoeTwo, Simple Stories
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans, Hobbycraft
Enamel Geotag - Marianne Design
Gems - Papermania
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Sé do Porto

From the churches of Porto, I'm moving to the Cathedral (or Sé) and the Archbishop's Palace for this page. 

I've used a sketch from Rochelle Spears which suited two photos with mixed orientations, though I had to play with the proportions of the paper layers to accommodate the combined width of my pictures.

I cut a circle from a Project Life card for my journalling to echo the large circle in the background and ended up layering lots of little pieces around it.

The star at the top right looks a little lonely here, and the white glittery ones that I've used elsewhere on the page didn't show up there so I left it alone, but I went back a few days later and punched some from the glitter tape to add to that one and to the tiny one by my journalling.
Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Star Gazer, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide, Bo Bunny Early Bird,
     American Crafts/Shimelle, Simple Stories Posh 
Letters - American Crafts
Die Cuts - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans
Mistable Shapes - Studio Calico
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Ink - Memento, Versamagic
Mist - Heidi Swapp

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

Torre dos Clérigos

My last post shared photos of some of Porto's churches, including the Igreja dos Clérigos, which is famous for its tower rising above the city skyline. You'll see it again on other pages, but this one's dedicated to the best single photograph I had of the tower itself.

It's based on a sketch challenge from GoGoGetaway which was posted in their Facebook group. I changed it up a bit, swapping the messy paint of the sketch to a block of stamping on my page and dropping one of the photos.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, DCWV

Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, KaiserCraft Finders Keepers, American Crafts Shimelle

Vellum - My Mind's Eye

Letters - OneCanoeTwo, KaiserCraft

Stickers - JoAnn, OneCanoeTwo

Gems - from Stash

Ink - Memento

Mist - Cosmic Shimmer, Heidi Swapp

Tools

Creative Embellishments Fishnet Stamp

Docrafts All Aboard Postmark Stamp

Dovecraft Photo Strip Stamp

Studio Calico Stars Stamp

The Works Stamp Set

Imaginisce Tree Stamp

Studio G Stamp Set

Heidi Swapp Stamp Set

City of Churches

We travelled to Porto by metro from the port of Leixões, the subject of my last blog post. We had a list of places to see and things to do, and several of those places were churches, though we only had time for the outsides on this occasion. We also saw quite a lot more that weren't on the list; it really did seem that Porto was a city of churches.

My page design comes from Shimelle's class A Most Magical Scrapbook and is one I've used previously, though not in this album.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, OneCanoeTwo Twilight, My Mind's Eye On Trend
Letters - October Afternoon, Creative Devotion
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans, Hobbycraft, Stampin' Up!
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo, Freckled Fawn, Jo-Anne's
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punch

Leixões

I'm sticking with my cruise album for a while, but jumping to a different port of call today. Leixões is the name of the port in the town of Matosinhos which is a few miles from Porto, Portugal's second city. It has a new cruise terminal, an interesting looking spiral building.

I used an old Page Maps sketch (as recently shared by Lottie Loves Paper) for my page, and completed a Friday Five from UKScrappers. These are made up of five items and you have to use at least three of them. Our list was 5 circles, any sketch, sequins or enamel dots, a large/long title and the theme of New. I have the first three, and Portugal was a new country for us.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Works
Paper - Bo Bunny Early Bird, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine, OneCanoeTwo Twilight
Vellum - My Mind's Eye
Letters - Simply Creative, Teresa Collins
Stickers - Teresa Collins, Studio Calico, OneCanoeTwo
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Washi Tape - Little B
Enamel Dots - Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento, Versamagic
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Templates
X-Cut Circle Punches

Vigo

Back to my cruise album and the title page for our visit to Vigo in Spain, just north of the border with Portugal. I have one large photo of the town, taken as our ship was leaving as the light was better then than when we arrived, and I used this month's sketch from Let's Get Sketchy.

I moved the papers on the left in from the edge to mirror the space on the right, and used fewer layers there as the paper I chose was one that I didn't want to cover up. Careful gutting has meant that I have been able to spread this one over several pages already which helps with continuity in my album.

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Memorandum, OneCanoeTwo TwilightCrate Paper/Maggie Holmes Open Book, American Crafts/Shimelle, Simple Stories The Reset Girl, Simple Stories I AM
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - Studio Calico, Pebbles/Jen Hadfield
Glitter/Washi Tape - Hobbycraft, Unknown
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
X-Cut Circle Punch

Great Little Engines

I'm sharing another page today that I created by pairing up a 'starting point' with some old photos. I started off this page some time ago in order to kill off an Echo Park collection pack, and then left it for the right photos.

The ones I picked are from the Bluebell Railway in East Sussex, which I visited very many times as a child. I had two photos of the engines from this visit, so matted them together and then tucked in a punched strip next to the photo block. I hadn't stuck down the journalling card or all the circles previously so I rearranged those and fussy cut a camera from one of the scraps I'd kept from the collection.

My title gave me a lot of trouble as I couldn't find the right size, colour and font for the space available. I ended up using some small tiles above the journalling card, as being the best fit, but I'm still not entirely happy with it.

Supplies
Cardstock - Unknown
Paper - Echo Park This & That Charming
Letters - KaiserCraft
Stickers - Echo Park, CLaoud 9 Design
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Circle Punches

Stonehenge

I'm waiting on order of new photographs before I can continue with my cruise album, so I've decided to try and use up some of the 'starting point' pages that I've made previously. I do these to finish off collections or try out ideas, and then put them aside until I have suitable photos, and I have a few now piled up. I spread them all out on my desk and flipped through an older photo album to see if any would match up.

On this occasion, I paired a couple of photos from Stonehenge with a page I started to use up Fancy Pants' Little Sport collection. The photos were only 5" x 4" but were still a little large for the paper panels I'd stuck down; however they had a lot of grey sky so I cropped them down and matted them on a scrap of cardstock.

Once the photos were in place, it didn't take long to add a title, journalling, a sprinkling of mist and some stars and enamel dots as embellishments. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bo Bunny
Paper - Fancy Pants Little Sport, Colorset
Letters - Basic Grey
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, We R Memory Keepers
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Hobbycraft Star Punch

In Class

Kerry's Page

I have a bit of an odd page for you today. It's not for my cruise album, it's not for a recent annual album, but once I get to scrapping 1988 I'll have a page ready to go in that one; it's a page I made purely for the fun of playing with paper and inks, because I wanted to take part in the recent 'I is for Ink' week of the Alpha Relay Challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and because I wanted to scraplift the sample page provided by Kerry. 

My photo was almost irrelevant so I flipped through old albums looking for something that would suit this page design, and picking one of my physics class on the first Red Nose Day. A school photo took me to Basic Grey's recess collection and, although I only used one paper and one die-cut from it, that set the colour scheme for my page.

Having picked such an old photo for this page, I was also able to complete one of the Weekly Challenges at UKScrappers. These are always in three parts and eClaire asked us to scrap a heritage photo (30+ years), use a hollow frame and use inks. All done, but I have to say that it's odd to think of a picture from my school days as now being classed as a heritage photo.

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Kioshi, Basic Grey Recess, Bo Bunny Shabby Princess, My Mind's Eye Now and Then
Letters - October Afternoon
Die-Cut - Basic Grey
Stickers - Basic Grey, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard
Ink - Memento, Ranger, Versacolor
Mist - Docrafts, Mister Huey's

Tools
Creative Embellishments Stars Mask
That Special Touch Grid Mask
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

50th parkrun

If you're a regular here then you will know that I started parkrun last year, and I documented my progress during my first year via an 8x8 album cum journal. I haven't continued with that album this year, but I recently did my 50th parkrun, and that's getting a 12x12 page in my 2019 annual album.

I've had an idea in my head for this page for a while - a large number 50 filled with a collage of photos from my runs so far. Every person who completes 50 parkruns can claim a free milestone t-shirt, and so I decided to pinch the logo for my page and cut it on my Silhouette.

I was less sure of a background paper and flicked through my green and blue papers for something outdoors-y, coming across an old pair of papers that form a double with a tree in the middle. I picked the right side and cropped the flimsy paper down to mat it on white cardstock to match my cut file. I sized the cutfile to fit on the tree, and added a photo of me from that 50th run next to it.

Rather than normal journalling, I used small letter stickers to add a few statistics below the '50' and added a few puffy stars and word stickers to finish off.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - Sandylion, Making Memories
Letters - Pebbles, Lily Bee
Stickers - Bella Boulevard

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt - Foreign Finds

I normally have some 'foreign finds' on my Summer Photography Scavenger Hunts, but it's unusual for the winter hunts. However, we took a short cruise to Amsterdam and Hamburg last month and that yielded a few opportunities.

The Winter Hunt is run by Eileen at A Bracelet of Days who has set us a list of twenty items to find plus two alternatives in case any of the twenty prove to be impossible. I'd found six items on a trip to the Lake District at the beginning of December, including plenty of natural features, but there were going to be less of those in the cities we visited this time.

We left the London International Cruise Terminal towards the end of the day, with the tug that was assisting us casting a Pool of Light (no. 2) on the water

and headed for Amsterdam. Once there we took a boat trip on the canals and then walked round the city, using the various Crossing Places (no. 14) aka bridges to get about.

Moving on to Hamburg the next day, the main attraction was the Christmas markets there, but we decided to explore the city a little first. 

Almost immediately, we saw this marching band, A Group Activity (no.5),  in one of the main shopping streets.

Wandering between the landmarks on our map, we found A Carved Object (no. 19),

a replica of the Maoi statues found on Easter Island, which was carved from a piece of volcanic stone from there.

In St Nicholas' Christmas Market, we saw a very Orange (no. 17) stall, selling thousands of the fruit.

It was freezing cold in Hamburg and although we were Dressed for the Season (no. 11) we needed to warm up with some mulled wine in the Weihnachtsmarkt.

Back on board our ship, there were a few Instructions (no. 13) around our cabin and bathroom, including this one above the toilet (which uses a vacuum system to flush):

I've duplicated a few of these from December, but I have now bagged nine of Eileen's list (plus a few still in the camera which I'll blog next month). We're only halfway through, so plenty of time for you to join in too.