Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Jocandy22's Page

This page was completely inspired by a Scrap Squad scraplift to celebrate their 500th member last autumn, but it took me a long while to actually make it. The original page was made by Jocandy22 and is in the gallery at Studio Calico. The colourful, mixed-alpha title is not my thing at all, but I made a more restrained version to mark our daughter's first day at university.

I had two photos, so expanded the bottom section of the page to hold them neatly, with a few more layers than the original.

I haven't done the journalling yet as I'm still working out what will go where, and whether there will be other pages for either our initial visit to the university or her accommodation there. I only stuck three sides of the ledger paper to the background, so this page is essentially a large pocket which can hold the 'story' of her university applications and offers if this is the only one I make.

Supplies
Cardstock - Readicut Crafts
Paper - American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm, Pebbles Season's Greetings, PhotoPlay Like a Girl, American Crafts/Shimelle Head in the Clouds
Letters - American Crafts
Phrase Stickers - Tim Holtz
Glitter Tape - Advent Calendar Swap
Paperclip - Doodlebug
Enamel Dots - Carta Bella
Star Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Memento

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
X-Cut Circle Punch
KaiserCraft Bubble Wrap Stamp

Twelve Days of Snowmen

Just before Christmas, I found out about a new sculpture trail in London which combined the Twelve Days of Christmas song with Raymond Briggs' The Snowman. There were twelve Snowman sculptures laid out on a trail between London Bridge and Tower Bridge, each one decorated with design from one of the Twelve Days. Something like this always draws my attention and so my daughter and I headed out to complete the trail on one of the quiet days between Christmas and New Year.

Even before we went, I know I would have 12 photos to scrapbook, all the same size and all portrait in orientation, so I was mentally planning this page even before I had the photos. I decided to try and cut The Snowman on my Silhouette and back him in the original colours from the story, to stand tall beside all the photos of him in different incarnations. I found a colouring book image online and was able to convert this to a cut-file which I backed with white mulberry paper to mimic the texture of the snow, and I'm so pleased with the way he turned out.

Twelve photos and my snowman needed a double page; I normally use two papers the same for the backgrounds of my doubles but my snowman looked so good against the spotted paper that I had to use it and find an alternative for the other side.

I'm trying to use my scraps rather than new sheets so my colour scheme came from one of those; the squared paper on the two sides was a good match for the grey of my spotty background and it also contains soft orange and purply-pink which guided the rest of my choices. Finding the stripe was serendipitous as it includes both of those colours and the green of the snowman's hat and scarf.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania, Craft Sensations
Paper - Pink Paislee Citrus Bliss, Pebbles/Jen Hadfield Warm & Cozy, Lawn Fawn Sweater Weather, Paper Adventures
Die-Cuts - Advent Calendar Swap
Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle
Washi Tape - Ebay
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Memento

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot
Sizzix Film Strip Die
Sizzix Star Die
Woodware Tag Die
Hoobycraft Tiny Star Punch

3 amigos

I'm still working my way through December photos, and this rather poor selfie is the only one I have from a walk in the Lake District that month, a walk that I should have skipped as the weather was atrocious (hence the lack of photos; we couldn't see the views through the mist).

Original Page

My page is a scraplift, one set as a New Year's Day Challenge by Scrap Squad on Facebook, which I think was originally made by one of the Studio Calico design team though I got lost in a maze on Pinterest trying to confirm this and credit the creator.

I recently came across this cloud print by Basic Grey in my stash, and put it to one side ready for this page; everything else came from my scraps box, mostly keeping to the colours in that paper apart from a tiny splash of pink to match our coats.

I altered the page design to use a larger oblong photo and moved it further into the page, but I mimicked the circular photo of the original with circles behind mine. My photo mat doubles as a pocket which holds my journalling.

I'm also linking up with the January challenge from Hey Little Magpie, which was to create a clean and simple layout with one photo and lots of 'white space'.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - Basic Grey Mon Ami, Glitz Design Uncharted Waters, Bazzill Basics, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Plus One, OneCanoeTwo Creekside
Number - American Crafts
Letters - Fancy Pants
Stickers - Studio Calico
Washi Tape - Ebay
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

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

Xmas Run Basildon

Gill's Page

Being a parkrunner leads to crazy things, like running a 5k on Christmas morning. Our nearest Christmas event was in Basildon, where we also made use of their selfie frame.

My page is a scraplift of one by Gill Birch in the Scrap Squad group on Facebook, which was itself a scraplift of a page by EllenT at scrapbook.com, a challenge set to celebrate Gill's birthday. 

I preferred Gill's version to the original, and flipped it sideways to start my page. I used a mask to ink some squares on the background to echo the original doodled grid, and cut a stack of hexagons from some Christmas papers to layer up around my photo. My title is an example of stretching your alphas as far as possible as 'run' started out as 'uuu'. The santa hat was a lucky find and fitted in perfectly above the title. I kept the rest of the embellishment quite simple, with the last of a pack of puffy stars and some red gems. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Paper - Advent Calendar Swap
Letters - My Mind's Eye, Basic Grey
Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Paper Clip - Doodlebug
Gems - Advent Calendar Swap
Ink - Memento

Tools
That Special Touch Grid Mask
Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die

Christmas 2019

No-one here likes me taking photos of them in Christmas Day, so last year we compromised on one posed family photo for the scrapbook. Sadly, none of the pictures we took were very good, so I decided to add some interest by cropping each of us separately from the best photo, matting them, and then overlapping the pieces to put the picture together again.

Laura's Sketch

The rest of the design was inspired by a sketch from Laura Rumble for For the Love of Pretty Paper, with the large word across the page.

I wanted a lighter paper behind the photos as they are quite dark, and then a large pattern for the background as so much of it would be on show. These two patterns are actually both sides of the same paper; I carefully cut out an oblong, matted it on red cardstock and then stuck it back over the hole. There is also a piece of scrap paper on the back for stability.

Supplies
Cardstock - Stampin' Up!
Paper - Carta Bella Christmas Market
Numbers - Dovecraft
Die-Cuts - Advent Calendar Swap
Phrase Sticker - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Run Fell Foot

FTLOPP Mood Board

I'm not normally a fan of mood boards, but For the Love of Pretty Paper published one as part of their winter series of challenges and for once it actually inspired a page from me. This was a two part challenge, to scrap an everyday photo of ourselves and to use the moodboard.

My photo is us at Fell Foot parkrun in Cumbria last month, and I picked out aqua, brown and leaves from the moodboard to get started, then added woodgrain and bookprint patterns, a few touches of gold and a puffy camera. Looking at the board again, I added a wood veneer bird, similar to the one in the parkrun logo, swapped the puffy camera for a wooden one, and squeezed a wooden ampersand into the cluster on the right.

Supplies
Paper - Carta Bella Fall Blessings, Authentique Durable, OneCanoeTwo Creekside, KaiserCraft Secret Bird Society, Little Yellow Bicycle Acorn Hollow
Letters - October Afternoon, Prima?
Die-Cut - KaiserCraft
Border Sticker - Basic Grey?
Word Sticker - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Washi Tape - Efco
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico, Freckled Fawn
Enamel Shapes - Marianne Designs, Doodlebug
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

TGO3

I'm filling in a gap in my 2019 album today, going back to May when my husband did The Great Outdoors Challenge for the third time, walking across Scotland from west coast to east coast. It merits a double page, and I asked him to choose the best 4-6 photos to illustrate the walk. He obliged with six, including his boots in the sea at the end, so I added his feet in the sea at the start and also a map with the track of the walk.

I scraplifted myself for this one, copying a summary page that I made for our holiday in Austria a few years ago. This time I printed the four view photos at a larger size to go in the middle with the sea pictures and a group photo of some of the walkers at the edges.


Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - DCWV Romantic Life, Prima Zella Teal, My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market, 7Gypsies Avignon, Fancy Pants Swagger
Letters - American Crafts, Prima
Border Sticker - Fancy Pants

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Templates
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
X-Cut Circle Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punches

Workplace Shenanigans

Our grown-up son has almost disappeared from my scrapbooks, so when he showed me a series of photos that he took at work, I was keen to get copies and scrapbook them. He was originally trying to take a new photo for his security pass when one of his colleagues photobombed him and silliness ensued. 

I printed six photos and used Sketch #192 from Sketch-n-Scrap for my page. This one has four portrait photos, but it wasn't too much bother to adapt it for six landscape photos instead, although it meant moving my title down below the photos.

I started out from the 'One of a Kind' paper on the left, a scrap that I've been wanting to use up, and based the rest of my paper choices around it. Most of them are fairly old, and hard to match with more modern embellishments, so I went with simple punched shapes and gold glitter tape. I also added staples and brads for the 'Pin the Tail on the Donkey' challenge from our birthday cybercrop over at For the Love of Pretty Paper, a challenge to use embellishments that fix things together (though I've swapped the tiny blue brads for larger brown ones since taking this photo).

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - Sandylion One of a Kind, K&Company, Jillibean Soup, My Mind's Eye
Letters - Basic Grey
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Brads - Papermania
Staples - American Crafts
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
American Crafts Stapler
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Cruise Norway

I finished my Norwegain Cruise album a couple of weeks ago, but there was one more page needed, a summary page that will go in my 2019 album and point out the existence of the holiday album. I took a similar approach to the one that I made for our holiday to Austria in 2014, creating a cutfile from the country's name and backing each letter with a photo from the trip. 

I was part way through making this page when our birthday party cybercrop started over at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and I put it to one side until I realised that I could finish it for one of the challenges. 'Guests' asked us to use lots of the same type of embellishment on a page; I was already planning to use up some of my leftover puffy stickers from the main album on this page, but the challenge made me add more and just using the red ones gave me ten in total without looking excessive.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide
Letter Stickers - Echo Park
Puffy Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, Elle's Studio, American Crafts/Shimelle
Ink - Memento

Tools
Silhouette Portrait 

Celebrate

We had eighteen challenges in the recent birthday cybercrop at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and the very last one, 'Midnight Madness', was to combine any five of the others on one page.

I chose to do these with a group photo from my friend's 50th birthday party. Coincidentally, all the guests in this picture wore black sparkly outfits while the birthday girl (centre) was in dark cerise pink so I used that as the main colour in my page. I had pinched some of the table confetti from the evening to use on the page if I could, and it worked out quite well.

I didn't choose my five challenges in advance, but kept a list beside me and worked out which ones could be included as I went along. I ended up with something sparkly or glittery, circles, lots of layers, new stash (silver glitter tape) and lots of the same embellishment (gems).

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Collectable, Hot Off the Press Garnet Sarabook
Vellum - My Mind's Eye
Letters - American Crafts
Frame & Glitter Tape - from Advent Swap
Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs
Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
Big Shot & Doily Die

Going, Going, Gone

Last month, the chimney of a retired power station near us was blown up. We knew in advance and quite a crowd turned up to watch, safe on the opposite bank of the river. I took a series of time-lapse photos and printed three of them to run across the page in a horizontal line.

I've adapted this month's single page sketch from Stick It Down by extending the row of photos. I matted them first on black cardstock then looked for a patterned paper with black in it, pulling out a stripey one from Junkitz with a 2005 date. The problem with paper that old was finding anything else to match the colours in it, and I ended up using plain cardstock for the rest of my layers and I couldn't find a second paper to make the split background.

My page also fits another of the birthday party challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper where 'Sleeping Lions' asked us to create a page with a horizontal design.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Paper - KaiserCraft PS I Love You, Echo Park Winter Park, Junkitz Winter
Washi Tape - Ebay
Enamel Dots - Echo Park
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Corner Punch

School Days are Over

Another of For the Love of Pretty Paper's cybercrop challenges gave me another opportunity to finish off a 'starting point' page. This time we were asked to use triangles on a page for the 'Sandwiches' challenge, and I had a page background ready that I'd made when I was experimenting with my Silhouette Portrait a while back. 

I went to some theme park photos which match the colours of my papers, but they were quite old and really didn't work with the stark white background. 

Flipping through the same album, I picked a couple of photos from my last day at school, more than 30 years ago. They were originally about 4"x5" and I moved them round the page A LOT, before deciding to add a larger triangle to the page (even though it would cover some of my existing smaller triangles). Following that the rest of the page fell into place - crop and mat the photos, title along the side of the triangle, extra strip of paper on the left edge, journalling on strips alongside the top photo and embellishments in opposite corners.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Sundrifter, Studio Calico Snippets, Studio Calico Heyday
Die-Cuts - Jillibean Soup
Sticker - Studio Calico
Enamel Shapes - Marianne Designs

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Castle Builder

Another of the challenges in For the Love of Pretty Paper's birthday party cybercrop was 'Musical Chairs' which asked us to create a repeating pattern. 

Some time ago, I made a 'starting point' page with a mosaic of hexagons cut from the scraps of a 6x6 pad, and that was still sitting around my craft space so I decided to finish it off for this challenge.

The blue and yellow feel 'beachy' to me and I had always intended this to be a single photo page with the photo covering the empty space in the mosaic, so I searched my old photo albums and found one of my brother that would work for this.

I matted the photo on a scrap of denim paper that was wider than the photo, and filled the gap with a few pieces from the same paper pad. I'd originally added a couple of yellow enamel dots to the page (the end of a pack, I'm sure) but I preferred to have three and managed to find another that matched before adding some blue ones too.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart
Letters - American Crafts/Shimelle, Papermania
Washi Tape - Ebay
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Simple Stories, Pretty My Page
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Mister Huey's, Cosmic Shimmer, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die

Christmas Starts Here

We ended the year over at For the Love of Pretty Paper with a cybercrop to celebrate the group's fifth birthday. The admin team organised 18 challenges across New Year's Eve which is far too many for me to do them all, but gives me a wide variety to choose from.

I started with 'Musical Statues' which asked us to use a vertical design or vertical stripes, and picked December's single page sketch from Stick It Down to go with two photos from a Christmas party that we attend every year.

I like to use a traditional colour palette of red, green and gold for Christmas photos; for this page I mixed a variety of old and new papers from several different manufacturers.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV, Stampin' Up!

Paper - American Crafts Be Merry, Carta Bella Christmas Market, Simple Stories DIY Christmas

Letters - We R Memory Keepers
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft?

Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & X-Cut Star Die

Woodware Tiny Star Punch

Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt - December

We're a month into the Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt now; time to check in and see what everyone's found so far. Mine has been a quiet start as December is always a busy month at work. I have a few local photos planned but just haven't found the time to take them yet. However I do have a few finds to share:

4. Colours
A 'Twelve Days of Christmas' themed Snowman, part of a trail near London Bridge.

6. Vintage
This is a complete copy from Eileen's post. My favourite childhood cuddly toy, my panda, which was 48 years old on Christmas Day.

7. I Stood Here
Braving the scales after Christmas excesses - I need to lose a few pounds to get back to my target weight at Slimming World.

11. Industrial
We watched them blowing up the Chimney of Littlebrook Power Station.

14. Flavour of the Month
For December, it has to be mincemeat, something that we don't eat for the rest of the year. We make a version of Mary Berry's Mincemeat Streusel rather than mince pies.

There are twenty items to find, plus two alternatives if any of the 20 prove to be impossible for you. The hunt runs to 31st March, so you have plenty of time to join us.