Cousins

I was on holiday in Cornwall last week and coming home again has left me in scrapping limbo. I'm determined to keep my 2019 album up to date at all times this year, I've ordered all the photos I want to scrapbook from Cornwall and they should arrive in time for the madness that is National Scrapbooking Day (or Weekend or however long it lasts this year) but what to do before then?

I've fallen out of love with my cruise album; despite being part way through a page when I went away, I can't be bothered with finishing it right now so I'm turning to other things.

When I'm no longer finding that my photos inspire me, I tackle my pages from the other side, finding a sketch or scraplift to get me started again, and then picking photos from the archives that will suit it. On this occasion it was the April sketch from the lovely Laura Rumble for For the Love of Pretty Paper that caught my eye.

I picked a truly old photo, the very first one that I took with my own camera, and chose suitably vintage papers to go with it, adding washi and glitter tape to the strips of paper.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Open Book, Bo Bunny Shabby Princess
Cardstock - DCWV, Bazzill
Letters - Docrafts
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz
Washi Tape - Dovecraft, Pretty My Page
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft?
Enamel Hearts - We R Memory Keepers
Thread - DMC
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Camera Die

Butterfly Birthday Card

As April draws to a close, I'm sharing a card made from one of Sketch-n-Scrap's sketches before their linkup closes. 

I used Card Sketch #143 for a card for my sister, which I based around a butterfly die-cut from OneCanoeTwo. The green colour steered me towards a 6x6 pad from We R Memory Keepers for coordinating papers, but I veered away from the sketch a bit when I was layering them up, opting to keep everything within the area of the largest paper panel.

Alfama

I'm still in Lisbon for today's page and they are following in order at the moment (though I've skipped a couple of doubles that I need to go back to). After riding the funiculars on the last page we headed towards the Alfama district, the oldest part of the city. 

I've collected together three slightly random photos for my page, but they are all linked by location - the cathedral, a street view and a tram. The mix of orientations took me to an old favourite in terms of page layout, three photos on a large circle. I'd previously inked and abandoned the background cardstock but pulled it out again here.

My embellishment clusters are my normal thing, but perfectly suited to a recent cybercrop challenge from Lottie Loves Paper which was to make a page with a trio of clusters, each containing at least five elements.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Better Together, DCWV Romantic Life
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Washi Tape - Tesco
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stars - MRI
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
That Special Touch Grid Mask
Big Shot
Dovecraft Label Die
Dovecraft Star Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Gloria & Lavra

The Elevador da Gloria and the Elevador do Lavra are two of Lisbon's nineteenth century funicular railways, part of their public transport system and great fun to ride. I've already made a page for the third funicular, the Ascensor da Bica (Ups & Downs) and I wanted to include both of these too, but without them taking over, so I combined them on one page rather than give them one each.

My Inspiration

I printed four photos at 3x4 and looked for a design that wouldn't put them all in a block. With no current sketches jumping out at me, I decided to scraplift one of my own pages, but to add a circle of stitching in order to echo that on the Meet the Fleet page earlier in my album. I haven't stitched much since making that page, and I really need to repeat it a few times so that page doesn't stand out as an oddity.

The stitching also ties in with a recent cybercrop challenge at Lottie Loves Paper.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Take Me Away, My Mind's Eye Hello World
Letters - Tim Holtz
Frames & Stars - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Doodlebug, Eyelet Outlet
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Heidi Swapp Stencil
American Crafts/Shimelle Word Stamp
Big Shot
Little B Arrow Die
X-Cut Camera Die
Dovecraft Star Die
X-Cut Tag Die

Lift Me Up

Lisbon again today, and a double page from the Elevador de Santa Justa, a street lift which connects the Baixa (lower town) to the Bairro Alto (upper town) without the need to walk up the hill. It's an impressive piece of engineering, built by a student of Gustav Eiffel, and forms part of the public transport system so we rode it with our one day travelcard.

The left side of my page has two photos of the lift, one taken at the top and one at the bottom; the right side has three photos of the views from the top.

I had this page planned anyway, but I made it for a Grab Five challenge in a cybercrop at Lottie Loves Paper. Our five items were quite straightforward - two or more photos, two or more patterned papers, two or more alphas, enamel shapes and florals.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Papers - Pinkfresh Studios, Bo Bunny Early Bird, My Mind's Eye Hello World
Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, The Works
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stickers - MAMBI
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, We R Memory Keepers. My Mind's Eye
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Praça do Comércio

Glitter Girl's Page

Back to the cruise album now, and more pages from Lisbon. We cruised up the River Tagus past the Praça do Comercio, a large square open to the riverfront, as we arrived and then visited it on foot later on. I picked a photo from each time but didn't want to line them up together because of the different perspectives. 

I scouted around for an alternative page layout using two 4x6 photos and hit on Glitter Girl Adventure 59, which I decided to flip horizontally so that the earlier photograph would clearly be before the later one as your eyes run across the page from top left to bottom right.

Supplies
Paper - Jillibean Soup Soup Staples, OneCanoeTwo Twilight & Creekside, Teresa Collins, American Crafts/Shimelle
Letters - American Crafts
Cards - Project Life, Quirky Kits
Stickers - Freckled Fawn
Washi Tape - Stampin' Up!
Star Gems - Papermania
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Label Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

At the Zoo

Another Lottie Loves Paper cybercrop page today, so another old photo page too. Laura's challenge was a sketch for two photos, but I adapted it for three that I cropped to be slightly smaller. They came from Chessington Zoo (back when it was just a zoo) and are slightly dull in colour so I stuck with earthy tones for my papers. 

I flipped the sketch horizontally so that the animals were looking into the page and worked on layering up the banner pieces first. I originally thought that a light background would brighten things up but when I tried the banners against a few possible choices a dark background actually worked much better and helped the photos pop.

Supplies

Paper - Echo Park, Kit 'n' Craft, Crate Paper, Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye

Letters - American Crafts

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Eyelet Stickers - Cloud 9 Design

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Easter Lamb

This page came from another challenge of the recent cybercrop at Lottie Loves Paper. Di set a scraplift challenge, with the source being a page that Jana Eubank made for Simple Stories.

This was another page design that led to me using a 6x6 pad with its variety of coordinating patterns. However I found that most of my recent pads have been single-sided which was quite disappointing. 

I found one from Authentique which was double-sided and vaguely outdoor-themed, and managed to match the colours to a farm photo taken on Easter Sunday 25 years ago.

I layered the photo on coordinating papers from my scraps box and popped it up on foam adhesive to keep it above the folded paper circles. With so many patterns already on the page, I kept my embellishment quite simple, with a few punched shapes in a dark woodgrain. I added my title to an acetate piece that you can still see the papers behind it; the pearls are behind the acetate too.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Authentique Nestled, Scraps
Letters - Basic Grey
Acetate - Studio Calico
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft?
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Hobbycraft Heart Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch
X-Cut Scalloped Border Punch
Silhouette Portrait & Perforated Circles Cutfile

Happiness

Natalie's Page

Cybercrops have been coming thick and fast recently and the latest one that I've played along with came from Lottie Loves Paper over on Facebook. I often find it easier to work with older photos for cybercrops so I've dug into the 1980s archives for the next few pages that I plan to share with you.

Each challenge was set by a different member of the DT or by a guest designer, and Natalie's challenge was to use tags and/or tabs. I loved her sample page so much that I decided to scraplift it. I picked the remains of an older 6x6 pad to die-cut my tags, and paired them with old beach photos of my siblings.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper The Pier
Die-Cuts - KaiserCraft Island Escape
Stickers - MAMBI, OneCanoeTwo
Washi Tape - Stampin' Up!
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye
Chalk - Readicut Crafts
Mist - Mister Huey's, Heidi Swapp, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Tag Die

El Sireno

Last page from Vigo today, and it features a half-man, half-fish sculpture which has become a symbol of the town.

Unusually, I didn't follow a sketch or complete a challenge with this page and this lead to a bit of faffing and paper shuffling before I got to a layout that I was happy with. 

I've cut into a couple of new papers for this page, but I've gutted the background and the spots so I have more to spread around. I still have pages to make from both Málaga and Lisbon so the papers will be appearing throughout the album.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - KaiserCraft Full Bloom, Teresa Collins Life Emporium, OneCanoeTwo Twilight, My Mind's Eye, Bo Bunny Early Bird
Letters - Making Memories
Stickers - Studio Calico, Freckled Fawn
Cork Geotag - Studio Calico
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Enamel Shapes - My Mind's Eye, American Crafts/Shimelle
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Parque do Castro

I'm in Vigo again today, and this page comes directly after the last one I shared. We spent most of our afternoon in Vigo in the Parque do Castro which covers Castro Hill. The monument on the last page was part way up the hill, and this old fort covers the summit area. Apart from the walls themselves, there's little left of the fort and the inside has been landscaped as a continuation of the park, but it was good to explore and had great views over the city.

My page design is loosely based on an old sketch from Stick It Down which I have used before. I've few new sheets or large scraps of paper left in my album kit now so this was a good design for stretching lots of strips across the two pages. I just wish I'd swapped them round so the the black and white paper was behind the photos with the coral ones at the top and bottom as the page is rather plain as they are. I'm pondering adding washi to the top and bottom to add some more colour.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - OneCanoeTwo Twilight, Pebbles Floral Lane, October Afternoon Reset Girl
Letters - Basic Grey
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Washi Tape - Pretty My Page
Puffy Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, American Crafts
Word Stickers - OneCanoeTwo
Gems - Papermania
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Studio Calico Stars Stamp
American Crafts/Shimelle Word Stamp
Stampendous Arrow Stamp

Las Anclas

I'm finally back to sharing holiday pages and plan to stick with Vigo in Spain for the next few posts. I actually made this page a while back but I saved it to keep the rest of my Vigo pages together on the blog. 

You may have already seen this page if you are in Hey Little Magpie's Facebook group as it's the page I made for their February challenge. That was a recipe challenge where we were asked to use precisely five items from a list of: 5 patterned papers; no cardstock background; stamping; wood veneer pieces; a die cut pack; coloured cardstock; hand/machine stitching; Thickers; journalling card; tags.

I based my page on a sketch from The Scrap Room which I rotated to suit my landscape photos of Las Anclas in Vigo. This is a monument to the sailors lost in the Battle of the Rande in 1702 with the anchors and guns being recovered from the sunken ships. 

The five recipe items that I chose were five patterned papers, a no cardstock background, wood veneer pieces, Thickers and tags.

Supplies
Paper - One CanoeTwo Twilight, Bo Bunny Early Bird, Pinkfresh Studios 
Letters - American Crafts
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico, Creative Embellishments
Washi Tape - Unknown
Gems - Papermania
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template
Big Shot & X-Cut Tag Die

Off the Grid

Old photos again today as I wanted to tackle a Grab 5 challenge over at For the Love of Pretty Paper but I couldn't fit it to a cruise page. Our five items were chipboard, journalling, Project Life style cards, ephemera or die-cuts and twine/thread.

The photos are my husband and two friends taking a break on one of Dartmoor's tors a few years back. The title card is from Simple Stories Travel Notes as is the paper across the middle, a 6x8 which I cut and stretched. I raided my scraps box for the layers to the left of the photos and embellished with die-cuts and chipboard stars. The finishing touch was a few lines of stitching to satisfy the thread part of the Grab 5 challenge.

Supplies

Paper - Simple Stories Hey Pop!, Simple Stories Travel Notes, Simple Stories Awesome, Teresa Collins
Card - Simple Stories Travel Notes
Die-Cuts - atd World Travel
Chipboard Stars - American Crafts
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye
Thread - DMC
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Scrapberry's Compass Stamp

American Family

Another old-photo page today, but the picture is not as old as on the last one, being from 2000 rather than 1984. I cut and backed this cut-file some months ago and picked out the background to go with it but the file got lost against the background, I couldn't find a suitable photo and I abandoned the page.

It was a scraplift challenge in a group on Facebook that made me dig the page out again, although when I looked at it afresh the file actually wasn't very much like the page that we were asked to scraplift. Having picked it up though, I decided to use it rather than put it away again. I had the camera print paper in my scraps box, and that strong colour added the contrast that I needed between file and background.

I looked for a small photo that would fit against the file and unearthed one of my cousin and her family that was the right size and luckily matched the papers I'd used. I'd killed off a 6x6 pad when I backed the file, so I had to search deep in the scraps box for some complementary papers to layer behind the photo.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Sandylion Dots, American Crafts Amy Tangerine, My Mind's Eye
Letters - Creative Devotion
Enamel Stars - Marianne Designs
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Whatever Takes Your Fancy

I'm sharing a page with older photos today, made as part of February's GoGoGetaway cybercrop. The challenge was to scrapbook with something quirky and one of the suggestions was to use photos of quirkily dressed subjects. I found a trio of family pictures from a fancy dress barbecue tucked away in an old photo album and went from there.

I used half a sketch from February's Pick Your Side Sketch Challenge at Scrap Our Stash, the left side of their double page, and teamed it with red and green papers from my scraps box.

I auditioned various phrases incorporating the word 'fancy' for my title while I worked on this page before settling on this one. However the barbecue was an annual event so one of my rejected titles may still make an appearance later on.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Heidi Swapp Vintage Chic, Hot off the Press, Teresa Collins, Chatterbox

Letters - Jillibean Soup

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Enamel Shapes - Marianne Designs

Pearls - Scrapberry's

Flower, Chipboard - Unknown

Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Dies

X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Quickutz Label Die

Craft Creative Flower Punch

X-Cut Scalloped Border Punch