Sculpture by the Lakes

One of the reasons for our trip to Dorset was that I wanted to visit Sculpture by the Lakes, 26 acres of gardens populated with sculptures mostly by Simon Gudgeon.

Obviously, I took loads of photos and this has lead to a quadruple page in my album, a double plus a divided page that will sit between the two halves. I actually made the divided pages quite early on, using a page protector with a mix of vertical and horizontal 4x6 pockets. I filled all 10 with photos and used the 2x10 pocket at the side of the front for a title.

This page protector then sat on my shelf for three months, waiting for the double that would complete the quartet. I toyed with a few ideas over that time and pulled out the photos more than once but I couldn't really work out what I wanted to do with them.

Eventually I had scrapped everything else from this trip and there was no putting this page off any longer. Firstly I tried to emulate the divided page look with a mosaic of photos and patterned paper panels on plain cardstock, but the contrast between the mostly green photos and the bright colours of the patterned paper was too jarring. I switched to another project and came back again a few days later, to try a similar mosaic but with each photo matted on one of the patterned papers, which made me much happier. The 'double' will never be viewed together as the divided page will sit between the two halves in my album so I ended up working on them separately.

The left side has five photos arranged around a 'Create' die-cut that I had been saving all along,

and the right side has eight mostly smaller photos.

I journalled on both pages, using the lines between the pattern on the orange scallops paper as I have done so many times before. I embellished two of the paper panels on the left page but by the time I got to the right side I just wanted it to be done. I tried embellishments in a few spots but nothing looked right so this side stayed plainer.

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - Anita's Glitterations

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

Flower - Kaisercraft

Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Butterflies - Prima*

Washi Tape - Little B

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Echo Park, Eyelet Outlet

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Dovecraft Label Die

X-Cut Pennant Die

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

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

Worbarrow Bay

I'm back in Dorset today, and this page follows on from the last one; we walked from Tyneham Farm down to the coast at Worbarrow Bay and I used two photos, one taken from each end.

When I make a series of pages from an event or holiday, I normally work on repeating design elements as well as using the same papers. However, my Stonehenge page was the only one to feature a large part-circle so far and I've put that right now.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - Anita's Glitterations

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Carta Bella

Dots - Nuvo Crystal Drops

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

*Disclosure - I received these products free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Winter Ball

I'm back on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today, with a double page made using Vicki Boutin's Storyteller collection. This page will go in my daughter's university album, and records their Winter Ball from 2019.

Please do hop over there for more details and close-up photos.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Letters - Pink Paislee 5th & Monaco*

Stickers - Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Washi Tape - Ebay

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Trimcraft

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

*Disclosure - I received the papers, stickers and letters free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Forever 1943

My Original Page

Back before Christmas, I shared a double page from Tyneham, the ghost village in Dorset that was evacuated during WW2 as part of the war effort and has fallen into ruin. This one follows on, and features the nearby farm, which is slowly being restored to its 1940s state.

I printed three photos, one large and two small, which is a combination I've used a few times on my Dorset pages, normally with the smaller ones side by side, so I looked for a different layout and scraplifted a page from my 2019 album. 

I moved the title compared with the original, and journalled on the lines between the scallops as I have done a few times before. I fussy-cut the top floral from one of the 12x12 papers and used the lower parts further down the page with my one remaining flower from the die-cut pack.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Washi Tape - Little B

Enamel Dots - Prima*, Echo Park, Eyelet Outlet

Ink - Ranger

*Disclosure - I received these products free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

The Giant

I've come to the last of the 'Be Colourful' challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper, and this was a mammoth one, to use all nine of the colours from previous weeks - sapphire, fuchsia, yellow, white, tangerine, purple, green, teal and scarlet.

Luckily, the Late Afternoon collection that I am using for my Dorset photos has most of the colours I needed, and I just had to add teal via another paper. I decided that the best way to use so many colours and patterns was via an orderly series of 1" paper strips. 

I split my page in two, with the strips in the bottom half and my photo in the top half with just one pattern behind it. I tried my title in a few places before settling on running it vertically on one of the plainer patterns. 

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Letters - American Crafts*, Studio Calico

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Enamel Shapes - Carta Bella, Prima*

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Little B Arrow Die

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

Water Baby

I've finished all of For the Love of Pretty Paper's birthday challenges now, so I'm returning to an earlier series, but one with a later closing date. The 'Be Colourful' winter challenges close this evening, so today I am scrapping with Teal. 

I picked two photos of my son as a baby as suiting the colour and this month's sketch from Let's Get Sketchy, which I rotated for landscape photos. I ended up using all hexagons rather than the mixed shapes of the sketch, but I think the origins of my page are still clear.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Bo Bunny Shabby Princess

Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey

Word Stickers - Authentique

Enamel Shapes - My Mind's Eye, Marianne Designs

Washi Tape - Pretty My Page

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die

Hexagon Mask

Back on Track

I'm making a start on my 2021 album now, hoping to keep on top of it as we go through the year.

Parkrun was suspended in March last year, and we've not done much running since, but I resolved to run our local course each week from the start of the year. My husband came too the first week and took a selfie; it's a terrible photo, but I think that recording my intentions will help me to stick with it until parkrun can start again.

I'm taking on another of the cake-themed challenges which celebrated For the Love of Pretty Paper's birthday, with 'Carrot Cake' which was to use triangles; the trees on my patterned paper are triangular and I added a strip of a paper with proper triangles and some black chipboard pieces too. 

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Shine On

Letters - Simply Creative

Chipboard - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine

Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn, Doodlebug

Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Double Denim

Cybercrops always have me scrapping old photos so I have another page featuring my son and nephew as babies for one of the Cake Challenges to celebrate For the Love of Pretty Paper's fifth birthday. This one was Victoria Sponge, to use two circles, and I combined it with a scraplift from Scrap Our Stash as the combination of large and small circle jumped out at me from Lori's page (though I ignored the additional criterion to use mixed alphas).

I picked a 6x6 pad for all the layers and found a 12x12 to match for the background. I liked both sides and had nothing else similar so I cut out an 8" circle, turned it over and slotted it back into its own hole.

Supplies

Paper - My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market, Authentique Nestled

Letters - Basic Grey

Washi Tape - Unknown

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs, Simple Stories, Echo Park

Ink - Ranger

Paint - Golden

Tools

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Dovecraft Tag Die

Hobbycraft Star Punch

Ball Boys

I'm continuing to tick off the cake-themed birthday challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper; the fifth one was 'Chocolate Fudge Cake', or 'More is More'. I've gone for an unconventional interpretation with five photos on a double page.

Those photos are old ones of my (now-adult) son and nephew in a ball pit when they were small, and I used an old page layout too, the May class from Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class way back in 2011.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Swiss Dot

Paper - Pink Paislee Atlas, PhotoPlay Boarding Pass

Tickets - Unknown

Word Stickers - Bazzill

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs, Doodlebug, Eyelet Outlet, Echo Park

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

X-Cut Circle Punch

Big Shot & M&C Fancy Circle Die

Roar!

I'm continuing with the cake-themed birthday challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper today. There are eight in total and this is lemon drizzle, to use mixed media to represent the drizzle effect. I decided to combine this with a "Be Colourful" challenge from the same group to use purple.

I started from a sheet of paper with a purple water-colour effect printed on it, added layers of ink, mist and stamping in the area behind my photo (of an animatronic dinosaur) and topped them off with a fishing-net cutfile.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV, Bazzill

Paper - DCWV Romantic Life

Letters - American Crafts

Washi Tape - Tesco

Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs

Ink - Ranger, Memento

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Family of Four

We're celebrating the 6th birthday of For the Love of Pretty Paper over on Facebook with a series of cake-themed challenges. I'm not doing them in order and this page is for the last one - Cupcakes - which was to use a small photo.

I don't tend to print my photos particularly small when I only have one, but I found an older one that my cousin included in a Christmas card some years back. A small photo obviously doesn't take much space on a 12x12 layout so I decided to fill the page with a Christmas tree of stars, a free cut-file designed by Paige Taylor Evans for Scrapbook and Cards Today.

I chose pale green cardstock for my cut-file and backed all the stars (except the one at the top) with pieces from a single 6x6 sheet. This wasn't as hard as it might have been as I have two star punches and a star die which match the three sizes in the tree. I did hand-cut the yellow one and topped it with a puffy sticker.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Basic Grey Dear Heart, Pebbles Season's Greetings, Unknown 6x6

Letters - Heidi Swapp

Puffy Star - Elle's Studio

Glitter Tape - The Works

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Star Tree Cut-File

Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die

Hobbycraft Star Punches

Wells Cathedral

The For the Love of Pretty Paper group on Facebook is my favourite place on the internet to hang out and it's just celebrated it's sixth birthday with a series of cake-themed challenges. The first one was 'Battenberg' which was to use a 2x2 grid to reflect the distinctive pattern in the cake.

My printer's seized up so I'm reliant on pre-printed photos at the moment. I have more pages to make from Dorset but no photos that I thought would suit the challenge, and I ended up picking an old one of Wells Cathedral for my page.

I decided to place my photo in one space of the grid, title in another and use two for embellishments. I might have journalled in one if I had anything to say but, in truth, the photo's from 1994 and I have no recollection of the day, so any journalling would just have been internet facts about the cathedral and I decided not to bother.

Supplies

Paper - KaiserCraft Take Note, Moda Scrap Viaggi Vintage

Stickers, Die-Cuts, Washi & Flowers - Unknown

Enamel Dots - Echo Park

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot

M&C Scalloped Circle Die

Little B Arrow Die

 

Club Revenge

I'm up on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today with this page using Vicki Boutin's Storyteller collection. It's my first time working with her designs and I'm loving the rich colours and bold patterns. 

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Letters - Pink Paislee 5th & Monaco*

Stickers - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

* Disclosure - I received the papers, stickers and Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my design team role.

Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt - First Finds

We're a month in to the Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt organised by Eileen at A Bracelet of Days, but (as usual) I've barely got going yet.

There are 20 items and three alternatives to find; I have two photos but in both cases they fit two different items on the list:

8. A Sign of the Times / 19. Something Yellow
These yellow signs appear on all the lampposts around our shopping parades and near the railway station.

10. Work in Progress / Alt A. In Pieces
The jigsaw that I chose to tackle over the Christmas period.

The full list can be found on Eileen's original post, and the hunt runs until 31st March so you still have almost three months left if you want to join us. In the meantime Eileen's hosting a link-up where you can see what others have found so far.

Happy New Year

 

Crafting fell by the wayside towards the end of last year, but I'll be back soon with some new things to show you. Until then, I wish you all a very Happy New Year.