The Ancestor

This is my second page from our journey down to Dorset last month, when we stopped near Amesbury to visit The Ancestor, a sculpture which was mentioned on a documentary I watched about the A303.

I took a few photos in both landscape and portrait but cropping them to square seemed best and I ordered one at 4x4. When it arrived, the sculpture was only a couple of inches tall within the picture and you couldn't see his features so I re-printed at 8x8 which also matched a challenge from UK Scrap Addicts to use a larger photo than normal. 

I matted the photo on a purple paper which picked up some of the tones in the metalwork. It was one I hadn't used on any of my Dorset pages yet, but it opened up the use of one of the florals from the cut-apart sheet which was printed on the same colour background.

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz

Washi Tape - Little B

Enamel Shapes - Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots*

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

* Disclosure - I received the paper pad and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Chesil Beach

A Bit of a Do

I have a lot of Dorset pages to make with two 4x6 photos apiece, and it can get difficult to come up with new ways to arrange two photos on a 12x12 page.

When I was looking through some old Christmas pages recently, I was drawn to the angles on 'A Bit of a Do' so I decided to scraplift it for a page from Chesil Beach. I kept the basis of the page the same with a strongly patterned background layered with white cardstock to provide a 'breathing space' around the photos.

I'm working with Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection for these pages and chose orange scallops for my background to satisfy a 'Be Colourful' challenge at For the Love of Pretty Paper.

There's no green in my papers this time, but I still used the green letters from the collection as I feel there's enough green in the photos for them to work. 

I moved my main embellishment cluster up compared to the original page, filling the empty space below the title and basing it around the yellow flower and green leaf from the die-cut pack with a punched orange flower. The other two clusters kept the same positions as before, but the journalling moved from the bottom to the top, where I wrote in the spaces between the scallops as I have done on a couple of previous pages.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Washi Tape - Little B, Efco

Enamel Dots - Eyelet Outlet, Carta Bella, Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots*

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template

Big Shot & Spellbinder Circle Dies

Woodware Flower Punch

Poppystamps Leafy Sprig Die

* Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers, die-cuts and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Shine a Light

Laura's Sketch

I'm still on the Isle of Portland for this page, but now at the southern end, known as Portland Bill, with photos of the lighthouses there. 

I used an old sketch from Laura Whitaker which I rotated to suit my portrait photos. I worked from the top down, layering the different patterned papers without committing to a background; I had a few choices in mind from the Late Afternoon paper pad, but ultimately none of them quite worked, I felt that I needed a blue to pick up on the sky in the photos and I found something suitable from Elle's Studio.

Supplies

Paper - Elle's Studio Thankful, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*

Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz

Butterflies - Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots*

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Big Shot

Dovecraft Label Die

Dovecraft Tag Die

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Portland

I'm not scrapping our Dorset break in order, and I'm jumping to the end of Saturday now and a brief excursion to the Isle of Portland. I'm starting at the north end of the island with a trio of photos from the viewpoint area there.

I'm using Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon paper pad for my holiday pages; I love the range of colours in the stripy paper but so far I've only used small strips in among the other patterns. This time, I decided to make it my background but it's really bold so I layered a rectangle of the black and white diagonal stripe over it to give a more neutral area behind the photos. (I gutted the middle part though as it's too good to hide.)

I've also been hoarding the floral die-cuts but I'm in danger of holding on to them for so long that I don't use them at all, so I used two on this page along with two halves of a ticket die-cut which I chose in order to spread the green colour from my letter stickers around the page.

Supplies
Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*
Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*
Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Flair - Dotty About Flair
Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Washi Tape - Little B
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Carta Bella
Ink - Ranger

* Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers and die-cuts free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Abbotsbury

We stayed in the village of Abbotsbury for our short break last month, and I took plenty of photos of the buildings there, including the remains of the Abbey. 

I had planned to make another version of my Talk to the Animals page from a few years ago, but I didn't check my previous photo sizes before I sent these for printing and that backfired.

This time I had six 3x4 photos which were going to take up about half of a 12x12 page so I had to adjust my original design. I cut one photo down to a square and arranged them in a rough overlapping grid. My strips of patterned paper are in similar places to those on the original page but with larger photos everything got pushed down the page, including my title. I considered squeezing my journalling in at the bottom, but then I was inspired to add it to the top paper instead, writing on the lines between the scallops as I did on my castles page a couple of days ago.

I based my embellishments around yellow circles for a 'Be Colourful' challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper, stamped with a leaf pattern.

Supplies

Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon

Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Washi Tape - Little B

Enamel Dots - Trimcraft, Stampin' Up!

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Dovecraft Label Die

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad and Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

I Do Love a Castle

Back to my Dorset pages now, and a couple of semi-random photos from Sunday afternoon. We saw both Lulworth Castle and Corfe Castle from a distance, but didn't properly visit either of them. However, as the title says, I do love a castle so I wanted them in the scrapbook, and decided to include them both on the same page.

I went with a quadrants design in order to show off the papers from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection, and distressed the outer edges of each square. I matted the photos together and tucked a few paper strips into their left edge along with a label, a die-cut leaf and an enamel heart. To the right of the photos, I punched a strip of woodgrain paper and layered it over the join between my papers to anchor a larger cluster of embellishments which includes a large floral motif cut from a 12x12 sheet. 

I nestled my title in close against the line of embellishments, and it leads directly into my journalling on the lines between the scallops of the paper below. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Stampin' Up!

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Stickers - American Crafts/Paige Evans, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Enamel Hearts - Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

American Crafts Scallop Border Punch

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers, die-cuts and enamel hearts free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my design team role.

Hi Foxy

I'm back up on The Mad Scrapper blog today with a page featuring an autumnal leaf wreath cut-file from Paige Taylor Evans (which was a freebie in her Facebook group) backed with papers from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection and layered over a ring of bronze modelling paste confetti circles.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, Stampin' Up!

Papers - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon

Modelling Cream - Viva Decor

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Heidi Swapp

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Heidi Swapp Confetti Stencil

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad and modelling cream free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role. 

My Baby Sister

I'm interrupting my holiday scrapping to share a page which I started for the GoGoGetaway Cybercrop at the end of October but completed a week later. One of the challenges was to include moon, stars and clouds on a page, and Marie at Peartree Cutfiles gave us the perfect cut-file for the occasion. 

The cut-file shouted 'sleeping baby' to me (and several other people) and I went all the way back to 1973 for this photo of my sister as a baby (though she's not sleeping).

I backed the moon with yellow glitter paper, the clouds with pink patterns and the stars with cream cardstock. I trimmed away a few of the stars so that I could nestle my photo in among the remainder.

I fussed around with my background for ages, as I was trying to include pink floral paper for a Be Colourful challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper. I was originally planning to use it as a background, but the colour was overwhelming so I switched to torn strips at the top and bottom of a sheet of white cardstock. The cut-file got a bit lost against the white though, so I added distress inks to the area behind it for a little contrast.

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts, Bazzill

Paper -Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Docrafts Spring Chic

Letters - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Puffy Stars - Pinkfresh Studio

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Peartree Cutfiles 'Moon in the Clouds' Cutfile

St Catherine's Chapel

I'm combining challenges again today, using a sketch from Scrap Academy with the colour yellow for 'Be Colourful' at For the Love of Pretty Paper. 

The photos on the sketch looked more like 3x4 to me than the 3x2 indicated and I thought that I has a set printed at that size. It turned out that mine are even larger but I managed to make them work.

I overlapped my photos, popping the middle one up on a piece of foam. They are three views of the same place, St Catherine's Chapel in Dorset, an outpost of Abbotsbury Abbey.

I used a flair badge for the camera on the sketch, with a patterned paper circle behind it to add some weight. My title gave me some difficulty - it was too long to run horizontally and the uneven photo stack wasn't suited to running it vertically. I was rather pleased with myself when it occurred to me to run it round the camera circle. This left a spot at the end of the words where the blue flower die-cut slotted perfectly, as if made for the space.

Supplies

Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - Anita's Glitterations

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Butterflies - Prima Sugar Dots*

Washi Tape - LittLe B

Dots - Nuvo Grops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad, die-cut pack and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

The Hardy Monument

Jenny's Page

I'm scraplifting along with the Scrap Squad over on Facebook again today. This time their lift #41 was a Hallowe'en page from Jenny Evans.

I'm scrapping another landmark from our Dorset holiday, the Hardy Monument atop Black Down. The Hardy in question is Vice-Admiral Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy who had been Nelson's flag captain at the Battle of Trafalgar.

I'm mostly using Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection for my Dorset pages, but I pulled in an old Crate Paper sheet for my background as I thought the other papers needed a dark background. The wreath at the bottom of the page comes from the die-cut pack, but I cut the sentiment in the middle away and added the word explore instead.

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*, Crate Paper Cottage

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon, Creative Expression

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Flowers - Kaisercraft

Washi Tape - Unknown

Enamel Shapes - Prima Sugar Dots*

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

X-Cut Pennant Die

X-Cut Explore Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad, die-cut pack, Thickers and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Hello Stonehenge

I'm continuing with my "holiday" pages today, from a long weekend in Dorset which will be the only break we get this year. We passed by Stonehenge on the way, and I snapped a quick picture from the car.

I spotted this sketch when someone used it on Facebook, and traced it back to a July 2013 post from Liz Chidester at The Scrappiest Blogspot. She doesn't appear to be blogging any more but there are a few other sketches that I might go back to.

I'm using the paper pad from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection for my pages. One of the sheets is a cut-apart, and I used a section of it for the 'Hello' circle which starts my title. I couldn't bring myself to use three Es from my Thickers in one go, so I cut the rest on my Silhouette.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-ology

Stars - Studio Calico

Washi Tape - Little B, Efco

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Doodlebug, Carta Bella

Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot

X-Cut Camera Die

Little B Arrow Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template

X-Cut Circle Punch

*Disclosure - I received the Amy Tangerine paper pad and die-cut pack free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Get Away From It All

Well, 2020 hasn't turned out how any of us would have expected; all of our planned holidays were cancelled, to be replaced by a long weekend in Dorset last month. I'll be scrapping the photos with the aid of Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon 12x12 paper pad and ephemera, my latest DT choice from The Mad Scrapper. There are 48 papers in the pad, 2 each of 24 patterns, and I filmed a flip-through a few weeks ago. 

I made my first page as an introduction to the trip, with a wide view photo of the village and a smaller one of the pub where we stayed. I used two separate area of the page for the two photos, filled the space between them with my title and journalling, and added three clusters of die-cut and punched leaves and flowers around the page. The tag at the top is from the ephemera pack, and I added puffy stars to it and my title.

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*, 

Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*, October Afternoon

Die-Cut - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Puffy Stickers - Elle's Studio

Brad - 7Gypsies

Gems - Love to Craft 

Washi Tape - Little B

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Dovecraft Label Die

Poppy Stamps Small Leafy Sprig Die

Woodware Flower Punch

Craft Creatives Small Flower Punch

*Disclosure - I received the Amy Tangerine paper pad, Thickers and ephemera free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

The Squad at 95

The ladies at GoGoGetaway ran another cybercrop last weekend, and I made this page from Kirei's sketch.

I used a couple of photos from when my daughter and her friends moved into their student house in August, back together again for the first time since March.

I made the strip of arrows paper wider to accommodate my taller photo, added washi tape above and below it and turned the title sideways compared to the original sketch. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits

Letters - American Crafts

Acetate Stars - Heidi Swapp

Washi Tape - American Crafts/Shimelle

Sticker - Maggie Holmes/Crate Paper

Die-Cut - Advent Swap

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Heidi Swapp, Docrafts

We Did It!

Scraplift #41

I'm combining challenges today, with another scraplift from Scrap Squad, and one to use fuchsia from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

Fuchsia took me to a Heidi Swapp paper pad that I had barely used and I pulled four coordinating papers to make the page. I don't have any embellishments from the collection, if there were any, so picked things from my embellishment drawers (where I store random pieces by colour) to create two clusters by my photo.

The photo is another that my daughter gave me and the page will go in her University Years album.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - Unknown

Die-Cuts - Unknown

Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Echo Park

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Sewing Machine

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch