Side by Side

Finally, after eleven and a half months, I've finished my cruise album from last year. This page has four professional photos of me and my husband which were taken onboard to celebrate our silver wedding anniversary.

I've used an assortment of scraps from the rest of the album for this page and pieced them together across the width of the double page, using a border punch along one side of most of the papers. 

I wanted a title that would be meaningful without being too slushy and found a couple of quotes online that mentioned being side by side through life.

Using the border punch means that I have finally ticked off 'E is for Edges' in the ABC Challenges over at UKScrappers.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - My Mind's Eye, American Crafts, Echo Park, Fancy Pants, Photo Play
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Pocket Cards - Unknown
Puffy Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, American Crafts
Ink - Memento

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Fortress & Palace

These pages accompany the previous one of the Alcazaba in Málaga. We took loads of photos there, far too many for a single or even a double page, so I added a divided page protector to the album at this point and filled both the front and the back.

I concentrated on the outer fortifications on the front, entitled Fortress, the walls, gates and towers that protected the Lower Precinct. My journalling is a commentary of our visit, describing our route through the defences towards the palace within.

The back of my page protector starts with the old Plaza de Armas, now a garden, and the entrance to the Upper Precinct which contains the palace. A large part was closed for restoration but we could still wander round several pretty courtyards and the surrounding rooms.

One more double page to go now, and this album will be finished. I've kept the pages in a three-ring binder while it's been a work-in-progress and that's overflowing so it's definitely going to be two albums now.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - Basic Grey B-Side, KaiserCraft Full Bloom, OneCanoeTwo Creekside
Stickers - OneCanoeTwo
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Washi Tape - The Works
Enamel Shapes - Stampin' Up!

Tools
Big Shot & Provocraft Alphabet Dies
Dovecraft Label Die
Dovecraft Star Die
Woodware Star Punch

Alcazaba

Another cruise album page today, just two more to go now, though looking at the number of pages that I've made I think that they will have to become two albums. 

This page and the next are from the Alcazaba in Málaga, an 11th century fortress built by the Moors when they ruled this part of Spain. I've chosen three photos in a mix of orientations and scraplifted my own page from Bamburgh Castle. 

Despite concentrating on finishing the album rather than on challenges at the moment I've managed to fit this page to Week One of the Summer Fiesta at For the Love of Pretty Paper by including leaves, circles and stickers. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - OneCanoeTwo Twilight, KaiserCraft Full Bloom, American Crafts Shimelle
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Mistable Stars - Studio Calico
Enamel Shapes - My Mind's Eye, Stampin' Up!
Washi Tape - Little B
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

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

Just Us

Moving on a little in my cruise album, I have a page with the professional photo taken on our first formal night. The original was 8x10 which was larger than I wanted so I scanned and reprinted it.

I used a recent sketch from Hey Little Magpie for my page, but had to play with the paper layers as I have mostly scraps left at this stage in the album. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - DCWV Romantic Bliss, Simple Stories Posh, OneCanoeTwo Creekside
Letters - American Crafts
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Marianne Designs
Ink - Memento, Versamagic
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Creative Embellishments Star Mask
Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Cruise Iberian Cities

My 2019 album is up-to-date now in terms of printed photos (though there are two more pages that I need to print pictures for) so I'm going back to my cruise album for last year. I'm determined to stick with it until it's done as I'm only a few pages away from finishing it now. All the photos are printed so there are no excuses, and I want it done and dusted before we go away again.

I'm starting at the beginning of the album, as I hadn't made a title page yet. I rarely make these until nearer the end of the process so that I can use scraps from across the album and photos that I like but which haven't made it onto a page yet. Sometimes, I just have to wait for the right sketch or challenge to come along, and in this case it was a scraplift challenge from Scrap Squad that gave me the inspiration for this page.

Scrap Squad choose a page to scraplift each week, and Week 11 was this one from Jen Schow for Hip Kit Club. 

I adapted it for six landscape photos, changing the original tags and pennants to elongated chevron frames. With wider photos, I rotated the background, keeping the torn paper edges from Jen's page and adding strips of torn glitter tape into the layers.

I cut the title on my Silhouette to run across the width of the page, and used letter stickers to add the countries we visited below the photos.

I'm ticking off the holiday, adventure, water and sunshine prompts from Lottie Loves Paper's Scrap Your Summer event with this page; also numbers and fussy-cutting for week two of For the Love of Pretty Paper's Summer Fiesta .

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Auburn Lane, KaiserCraft Finders Keepers
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Numbers - Pebbles
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft?
Ink - Memento

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Tea for Two

We celebrated our silver wedding anniversary last year, and one of our presents was a voucher for afternoon tea at a local hotel. It took us almost a year to redeem it, but we had our tea a few weeks ago so this is another page for my 2019 album.

I printed four photos in a variety of sizes, but then shuffled them round the page a few times without hitting on a decent layout. But then I acquired a copy of Becky Fleck's Page Maps book, and this is a scraplift of one of its pages. The original was a double page in 8.5 x 11 but I used about two-thirds of the layout for a 12x12 instead.

I've used yellow, stickers and spots for Week 1 of the Summer Fiesta at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and also yellow and food for the Scrap your Summer event at Lottie Loves Paper.

Supplies
Paper - Bo Bunny Early Bird, Kit 'n Kraft
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Puffy Hearts - American Crafts
Ink - Memento

Tools
Big Shot & Doily Die
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch

Laura & Matt

I'm sticking with my 2019 album today, with a series of pages from a wedding we attended in June. I didn't take many photos, but I couldn't resist pinching some from Facebook when the bride shared them so I ended up with enough for a 12x12 page plus two pocket pages.

I chose papers to match the bridesmaids' dresses, going almost monochromatic in the process. I won these last year; they're not my normal taste, a bit fancy and floral, but perfect for wedding pages.

My single page is based on Sketch #178 from Sketch-n-Scrap, published back in June, and has photos of the bride and groom inside the church and the whole congregation outside afterwards.

One of my papers had cut-apart pieces on one side which was really useful for making matching embellishments. The butterfly came from the place settings at the reception and I backed the patterned wing with matching cardstock.

The majority of the photos were taken at the reception venue and I filled the front and back of a divided page protector with them, choosing one with a mix of landscape and portrait photos.

I filled half the pockets with 4x6 photos and chose the same papers as before to fill the rest. Most of them have smaller photos, but one just has a floral cut-apart piece. I'd originally kept a pocket back for journalling but in the end that all went on the 12x12 page.

For the Love of Pretty Paper is running a Summer Fiesta again this year, with six weekly sets of prompts. Each set is made up of seven ideas (one per day) which you can combine if you wish. These pages are for Week 3 where I chose to use florals, punches and bunting.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Prima Zella Teal, KaiserCraft Sage & Grace, KaiserCraft My Year My Story
Letters - American Crafts
Labels - Pretty Little Studio
Stickers - Tim Holtz
Enamel Shapes - Marianne Designs

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Bunting Die
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Hobbycraft Heart Punch

Captains in Cadiz Mini-Book

I'm sharing something a bit different today, a mini-book which I made following a tutorial from Cal Summers in her Paper, Scissors, Story Facebook group. It's a newish group and she plans to run regular tutorials so do seek it out if you like to make mini-books.

I used some old cruise-themed paper for my book, with photos from the "Captains in Cadiz" event last summer when all four Fred. Olsen cruise ships were in the same port on the same day. 

I bought the main paper before our first cruise back in 2008, before realising that I didn't need themed paper as I was mostly scrapbooking photos of the places we visited rather than the fact that we reached them by ship. However it's been very useful for this little book, with the stripes and word print being the two sides of the same paper.

Front

Back

The book opens up to a photo of the first ship and a pocket with a couple of extra cards,

then two flaps open to reveal photos of the other ships

and the cards in the pocket have a few more photos - the captains, a map of Cadiz harbour and all four ships together.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Reminisce Bon Voyage, Photo Play Boarding Pass
Letters - Pebbles, American Crafts
Stickers - Pebbles/Jen Hadfield, Tim Holtz Idea-Ology, American Crafts
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Provocraft Alphabet Dies
X-Cut Corner Punch

Just Potter*ing

I have another 2019 page for you today, one that was loosely inspired by the June sketch at Stick It Down.

I slanted the diagonal stripes on my page much more gently, with them covering the full 24" width of my double page, and used many more photos, eleven of them, but placed them in columns to match the portrait photos of the sketch.

Those photos were from a day out in London, where my daughter and I explored a few places linked to Harry Potter. The highlight was the House of MinaLima, the studio which belongs to the graphic artists who designed all the paper props for the films, and have some of them on display here.

My diagonal stripes were just black, cream and gold, so I brought in some colour via my photo mats and some stamping in the open spaces.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - October Afternoon, Graphic 45 Artisan Style
Letters - October Afternoon, Hobbycraft
Washi Tape - Tesco
Enamel Stars - Freckled Fawn
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Studio Calico Stamp Sets
Banana Frog Stamp Set
The Works Clear Stamp Set
Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp

Muse - Simulation Theory Tour

I'm supposed to be finishing my cruise album, but I also want to keep on top of my 2019 album and those are the photos that are inspiring me more at the moment, so those are the ones I'm going to scrap.

We saw Muse at the London Stadium at the beginning of June and, of course, I took my 'proper' camera to record the event, but I forgot to put a memory card in it. This limited me to the camera's internal storage of eight photos so, rather than snapping away randomly, I was much more selective about the shots I took and I deleted the duds as I went along. (I did have my phone too, but it really wasn't up to the job.)

I picked three photos for this page, printed them at 4x6 and positioned them in a large block with the MUSE logo in the fourth quarter and music print washi tape above and below. 

Unusually, there's absolutely no patterned paper on this page. The photos take up a lot of space on the page, and I picked cardstock for both the background and for the logo.

We're focusing on using our tools this month over at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and I've used my Silhouette (for the logo), my Big Shot (for the smaller stars) and a punch (for the larger stars) on this page. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Letters - Unkown
Washi Tape - The Works
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft?
Sticker - OneCanoeTwo
Gems - Love to Craft
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt

July is over, another month gone, and it's time for the second check-in to the Summertime Photography Scavenger Hunt organised by Mary-Lou over at Patio Postcards.

Last time I brought you a smorgasbord of Thames Bridges for Prompt 9, but this time I have a more varied selection of photos to share:

1. An Outdoor Clock
Well, two clocks actually. These are on Kings Cross and St Pancras railway stations in London.

3. Repetition

Harry Potter's Hogwarts letters at the House of Minalima in London. 

4. Blurred Vision

Muse at the London Stadium, slightly fuzzy but I still like this photo.

10. Something Made of Stone

The South Bank Lion, near Westminster Bridge in London.

14. A Handwritten Sign

Seen by the coffee kiosk at our local railway station. It changes every so often, so I may have a new version by the next check-in.

I'm still to get going with the hunt really. I'm not carrying the list with me like I normally would, and I'm sure I've missed a few items as a result. Still, there's two months left to go and we've yet to take our holiday (vacation), which is when I normally capture a good number of items. 

The next official link-up is at the end of the hunt on 30th September, but I'm planning an end-of-August post, if only to spur me on to finding a few more items before then rather than leaving them to the last minute.

There's plenty of time left, so why not join in with us? Mary-Lou's original post with the full list of hunt items is here.