Fun at the Fair

Back at the beginning of May, the admin team at For the Love of Pretty Paper started setting us a 'Prompt a Day for the Month of May', leading up to their 'Scrap in Colour' event in the final weekend. There were no prompts during the event, but we ended the month with a list 27 different items that could be included on a page. Right at the beginning I wondered if it would be possible to combine them all in just one page, but I knew that would depend on what prompts came up e.g. monochromatic and rainbow would be impossible, as would one-photo and two-photo.

By the end of the month, only two prompts clashed - 'flowers' and 'no flowers' - so I decided to give it a go. It took me a while to get round to making the page, and then another while to share it here as I had a backlog of 'Scrap in Colour' pages to get through first.

My choice of photos was entirely prompt-driven, starting off with 'two photos', 'landscape photo' and 'portrait photo', while bearing in mind 'happy' and 'sunshine' which pushed me towards summer days out and holidays. I've been scrapping a lot of childhood photos recently, and ended up picking two pictures of my siblings at a funfair. 

The full list of daily prompts was: rainbow, animals, stars, (no flowers), primary colours, stencils, envelope, flowers, two photos, ombre, landscape photo, food, journal, hearts, portrait photo, tags & labels, multi-font title, sparkle, clouds, sewing, triangles, messy, leaves, happy, hand-cut letters, sunshine and scraps.

Can you spot them all?

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - All Scraps
Letters - October Afternoon
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle
Brad - Quirky Kits
Thread - DMC
Gems - Poundland
Ink - Hobbycraft, Docrafts
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot
Poppystamps Leaf Die
Dovercraft Tag & Label Dies
Craft Creative Flower Punch
Heidi Swapp Star Confetti Mask
Fiskars Circles Template

Harlequin Birthday Card

I have another card for you today, it's based on another Sketch-n-Scrap sketch, but this time it's from their Facebook group rather than their blog. 

I picked a scrap of harlequin paper for the background of this card, stamped my sentiment on the 'ribbon' of the sketch, and added a few punched and die-cut stars to finish off.

"Happy Birthday" Card

I have a quick and simple birthday card for you today, one that's loosely based on Card Sketch #147 over at Sketch-n-Scrap. 

That ring of flowers prompted me to use my circular 'Happy Birthday' die again, and I backed it with a scrap of mulberry paper. I chose a card blank with a pre-printed sentiment in approximately the same position as the sketch and layered my circle on a map-print background, lifting it up on foam squares.

Walking with Friends

I'm sharing my last page from For the Love of Pretty Paper's Scrap in Colour event today. This one was made for the final challenge, which was to use up all the scraps, off-cuts and rejects from our other pages and to include the colour indigo.

I've been making all my recent pages with papers from my scraps box so didn't have many pieces left over. However I did choose scraps again for this one, the remnants of a Crate Paper collection which worked with an indigo blue background. I'd previously cut and abandoned some of the die-cut pieces and the gem strips were rejected from another page.

I've gone back to our Cornish holiday earlier this year, and a walk along a section of the South West Coast Path. This holiday is always a group affair with some friends from our university days, and we were joined for the day by another friend who lives in Devon, which lead to my title.

All my Cornish pages have a large central square on a patterned background, so I kept that for consistency. I'm fairly sure that I used a sketch for this page, but I can't find it again now.

Supplies
Paper - Lily Bee Double Dutch, Crate Paper Random, My Mind's Eye
Letters - October Afternoon, Jillibean Soup
Gems - Mark Richards
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot
X-Cut Travel Dies
Little B Arrow Die
Dovecraft Star and Heart Dies

Eat, Sleep, Scrap, Repeat

I have something a bit different for you today; the 'All About the Scrap' challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper was to create a page about our love of scrapbooking. However, that's not the sort of page that I normally make, and not something that I want in our family scrapbooks, so I decided to make a wall decoration using a cut-file from Paige Taylor Evans instead.

I chose the background first, a sheet from Basic Grey which depicts sewing rather than scrapbooking, but it has a suitably crafty feel. It's mostly pink so I stuck with that colour for the cut-file as it would provide more contrast than using white, and I backed the letters with papers from a 6x6 pad. I finished off with punched hearts, phrase stickers and a scattering of tiny gems.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Basic Grey Typeset, My Mind'e Eye Now and Then
Phrase Stickers - Cosmo Cricket
Gems - Love to Craft

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Hobbycraft Heart Punch

Tickets Please

Another of the 'Scrap in Colour' challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper was a simple Pick 'n' Mix, to use something old and something new together. I combined this one with an ABC challenge from UKScrappers where I picked up T for Trains. 

My trains are just the engines really, a trio of steam engines on the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch Railway in Kent, a favourite place to visit from my childhood, but I haven't been back since my own children were small.

My 'something old' is the papers, labelled 2006 though I can't have had them that long, and my 'something new' is the gold letters, bought earlier this year. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Stampin' Up!
Paper - Bo Bunny Shabby Princess
Journalling Card - Project Life/Crate Paper Bundled Up
Letters - American Crafts
Tickets - from a Stash Swap
Stickers - Simple Stories
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, My Mind's Eye
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Silhouette Portrait

Animal Antics

Back to the scrapbooking now, and another page for a 'Scrap in Colour' challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper. This time it was a sketch, to be combined with the colour yellow.

Initially I thought mixed media for the stars, but I really didn't know where I would go with the page after that. Eventually I looked past the stars and went for a less-literal interpretation of the sketch, using die-cut and stamped hexagons instead with photos from Colchester Zoo.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Crate Paper, Simple Stories, Basic Grey, KaiserCraft
Letters - Basic Grey
Sticker - The Paper Studio
Washi Tape - Efco
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die
Studio Calico Hexagon Stamp

Father's Day Card

Card Sketch #146

Happy Father's Day if you are celebrating today. When I started this card for my dad, I wanted to base it around the Happy Father's Day sentiment that is a cut-apart piece from Simple Stories' Hey Pop collection. 

I'm hopeless at making cards without a sketch to follow to I dug around the Sketch-n-Scrap blog for something suitable, turning up one of their May sketches. I used both sides of another Hey Pop paper for my background and die-cut a tag from a cardstock scrap to layer behind my sentiment panel (which I raised up foam adhesive).

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt - Bridges

It's time for the first link-up in this year's Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt which is organised by Mary-Lou at Patio Postcards. I've decided to concentrate on Prompt 9: A Bridge and share photos of the different bridges over the River Thames in London. I was in Westminster for a conference earlier this week, and afterwards walked from there along the Thames back to my railway station rather than using the Tube.

Lambeth Bridge (1932) - Road - Grade II Listed
Replaced a bridge from 1862, which replaced a ferry running since at least 1513.

Westminster Bridge (1862) - Road - Grade II* Listed

Replaced a bridge from 1750 which had been the second to be built in London. The current structure is the oldest road bridge in London.

Hungerford Bridge (1864) - Rail & Golden Jubilee Bridges (2002) - Pedestrian
The pedestrian bridges were built (one each side) using the same foundation piers as the railway bridge.

Waterloo Bridge (1945) - Road - Grade II* Listed
Replaced a bridge from 1817 which had originally been called the Strand Bridge.

Blackfriars Bridge (1869) - Road
Replaced a bridge from 1769 which had been the third to be built in London.

Blackfriars Railway Bridge (1864)
Just the piers remain of the original bridge, closed to traffic in 1971 and removed in 1985.

Blackfriars Railway Bridge (1886) - Rail
Originally called St Paul's Railway Bridge, it was renamed in 1937 when St Paul's Station changed its name to Blackfriars.

Millennium Bridge (2000/2002) - Pedestrian
The 'wobbly bridge' had to close for modifications after two days, and took two years to re-open. 

Southwark Bridge (1921) - Road - Grade II Listed
Replaced a bridge from 1819, which was originally known as Queen Street Bridge.

Cannon Street Railway Bridge (1866) - Rail
Between 1872 and 1877, pedestrians could cross the bridge by paying a toll of ½d.

London Bridge (1973) - Road
Replaced New London Bridge (1831) which had replaced Old London Bridge (1209), though there had been various timber bridges hereabouts since Roman times.

Tower Bridge (1886-1894) - Road - Grade I Listed
The easternmost bridge in London, and the most impressive. River traffic has priority over road and the bridge opens to allow ships to pass under about 1000 times per year.

Tower Bridge is my absolute favourite, the one that I was originally intending to photograph for the Hunt as soon as I read the list. I do have a few other Hunt photos to share but I'll save them for the next link-up.

Just Chill

Another post, another challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper. The next one that I tackled from the Scrap in Colour cybercrop was 'What's in Your Pocket?' which asked us to use Project Life cards (or papers cut to their sizes) and also the colour blue on a page.

I shuffled my branded PL cards for a while before switching to an equivalent product from Simple Stories, their Insta-Squares. Mine are from a 2014 summer/beach collection, and have been kicking around for far too long, so I decided to kill the pack with this page if I could. I picked old beach photos of my brother when we were children and layered them on some whole cards. I used pieces of cards to form borders at the top of bottom of the page and then tucked lots of the off-cuts back in to the layers behind the photos. It ended up being quite a busy page, but I have no cards left now.

Supplies
Paper - Crafts House
Letters - Basic Grey
Cards - Simple Stories Good Day Sunshine
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico Stars , Camera/Ball from a Stash Swap
Ink/Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Captured

One of the early challenges in the recent 'Scrap in Colour' event over at For the Love of Pretty Paper was a simple one to use a single-coloured background. I took the opportunity to use up one of my 'starting point' pages, pairing it with old photos of my cousins. I'd previously made most of this page to kill off a collection so just needed to add photos, title, journalling and embellishment to finish it off.

Supplies
Paper - Teresa Collins Daily Stories. American Crafts Shimelle, First Edition, My Mind's Eye
Vellum - Docrafts
Letters - Hobbycraft
Puffy Sticker - American Crafts/Shimelle
Enamel Dots - Pretty My Page, Eyelet Outlet, My Mind's Eye
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Perfect Reflection

Kerry's Page

Another of the 'Scrap in Colour' Challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper was to pick one of Kerry Bruce's pages from Instagram and scraplift it. I like her style and was a follower of her blog for some years so the only problem was choosing which page to lift. I was guided by the photos that I have printed and eventually picked her 'Asking for Trouble' page, with a landscape photo layered on paper scraps and a hand-cut title.

My photo is of Elvet Bridge in Durham, perfectly reflected in the River Wear; I picked out yellow, blue and green scraps to complement it and layered them underneath. I cut my title on the Silhouette from a variety of patterned papers, and outlined them as Kerry had done.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pants Blissful Blizzard, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu, PhotoPlay Paper, Basic Grey, 4Heures37
Letters - American Crafts
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Network Gathering

I'm trying to keep my 2019 album up-to-date as we go along, and that means tackling doubles as they come up rather than putting them off for later. Our daughter is part of Scout Network (the division for 18-25 year-olds) and her group attended the Network Gathering in the Lake District over the Easter weekend. 

I used an old sketch from Sketch Support; it's one I've used before but changing the number and placement of the smaller photos and the papers helps the pages to look different each time.

I'd started this page intending it for a challenge to mix old and new stash, but once I added the acetate hexagon I switched to a challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper to include acetate and orange on a page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - Fancy Pants Swagger, Simple Stories Awesome Boy
Stickers - Fancy Pants, OneCanoeTwo, Simple Stories
Acetate - from a Swap
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Doodlebug, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Docrafts, Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die
Hexagon Stamp

The Giant's Hedge

I came across The Giant's Hedge on a wander round Kilminorth Woods near Looe in Cornwall. According to a local rhyme, "Jack the Giant, having nothing to do, built a hedge from Lerryn to Looe." It's really a 6th century earthwork which has somehow survived to the present day, and was probably the work of a local chieftain.

The photos are very green and brown, and I had the perfect leaf print paper to go with them, but I needed some brighter colours too. Most of the challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper's 'Scrap in Colour' cybercrop have been colour-based including one which linked certain personality traits with different colours and asked us to pick the one which best matched us. Mine was yellow, and I paired it with red as looking good with the yellow and brown.

My page design is a scraplift of one of Shimelle Laine's pages in her A Most Magical Scrapbook class, which originally ran in 2017 but I am still putting it to good use.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit, Prima Marketing Zella Teal, Jillibean Soup Apple Cheddar Soup, 
      Basic Grey Mon Ami, Basic Grey Spice Market
Stickers - Crate Paper, Simple Stories 
Flair - Imagine That
Enamel Dots - Stampin' Up!
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die

Looking Good

It's been a long while since I made a couple of 'Starting Point' pages with the leftovers from some holiday scrapping. These are base pages that I start without a photo in mind and then store until something comes up that suits the started page.

I was flicking though them recently and realised that the pinks and blue-greens on this one would suit the 'Opposites Attract' challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper, where we were asked to use opposite colours on the colour wheel.

I had an assortment of photos from this year printed before the cybercrop started, including this one of my daughter and her boyfriend at a formal dinner. With all the paper layers already on place, it didn't take long to add photo, title and a few embellishments.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Crush, Basic Grey What's Up
Letters - atd
Flowers - Poundland
Heart - from a Stash Swap

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

We Want Moor

The 'Moor' of my title isn't a typo; it's Bodmin Moor in Cornwall. I'm trying to keep my 2019 album up-to-date as we go along so I printed these photos from our Easter holiday a few weeks ago, but they've been waiting for the right challenge; that one came along last weekend as part of For the Love of Pretty Paper's 'Scrap in Colour' cybercrop when we were asked to be inspired by nature and to use the colour green. 

I've done three pages from Cornwall so far (Pink Flamingo, Run Lanhydrock and Postcards from Looe) and, quite by chance, I made each of them with a large square in the centre of the page so I've decided to repeat that for the rest of my Cornish pages.

Three Cornish Pages so Far

My Looe page has an inky background so I wanted to repeat that too, and chose to do so here. I used blue and green inks watered down and smooshed onto my background, and then covered most of it with my photos.

I kept the embellishment fairly minimal, several strips of washi tape topped with die-cut arrows plus a few enamel dots as a finishing touch.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range, Craft Sensations
Paper - Lily Bee Design Double Dutch
Washi Tape - The Works, Pink Paislee, Ebay
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch