Motor Racing Birthday Card

Back in December I made a birthday card for my sister-in-law using a Stick It Down sketch, and as a result they invited me to guest design for this month.

We have two February family birthdays, my mum and my nephew, and I decided to use the sketch with Papermania's Mr Mister papers for my nephew's card.

I kept the background subtle and added brighter banners to the centre of my card, shortening the middle stripe to turn that into a banner piece. I substituted the heart of the sketch for a punched circle and popped that and the sentiment up on foam squares. 

I'd like to thank Ashley and the team for this chance to guest for them again. Stick It Down have three sketches each month, for single and double scrapbook pages as well as the card sketch, so there should be something for everyone. Why not pop over, take a look and link up your creations too?

Winter Madness Is ...

I'm back on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today with a new page using papers from Echo Park's Winter Magic collection. This one's very blue and very snowflake-y, perfect for the cold weather that hit so many of us earlier this month. 

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

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Echo Park Winter Magic*

Letters - American Crafts*

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Echo Park*

Ink - KaiserCraft*

Wood Veneer Snowflakes

Snowflake Confetti

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

*Disclosure - I received the papers, letter sticker and enamel dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Devilishly Good

Having finished my 2020 album recently I'm going back to 2018 which is far from complete. I kept the pages in order as I made them, but it's been nearly a year since I added any new ones to the pile. I've written a list of about 20 pages and printed the photos for around half of them, so let's see how far I get before I get sidetracked!

I'm starting in October (why not?) when the Red Devils Army Parachute Display Team did a water jump near us. I'd printed three square photos but I really wanted to scrap them with a sense of movement rather than in a static row or column. Stick It Down had the perfect sketch this month where I could place my 'sky' photo at the top and my two 'landing' photos at the bottom.

I started with a plain white cardstock background which I coloured with stormy sky distress ink and silver acrylic paint. I replaced the diamond shapes from the sketch with pieces from an arrows cut-file which I cut on my Silhouette using a blue cloud print paper with small aeroplanes.

I matted all my photos on black cardstock and then added red cardstock and a chequered paper on two sides of each one. I cut the title from red and black on my Silhouette, and added puffy stars in the same colours to opposite corners. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Crafts UK, Bazzill

Paper - Simply Made Travel Keepsakes, My Mind's Eye Quilting Bee

Letters - Creative Devotion

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Ink - Ranger

Paint - Adirondack

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait and The Cut Shoppe 'This Way' Cut-File

Autumn Vibes

Final page for 2020 now, and that means that I managed to keep on top of my annual albums as we went along for the second year running. It looks like being possible for 2021 too as I can't see us going far this year.

I certainly didn't go far for this page, with photos of the autumn colours in our local area, all taken during the November lockdown. I printed three as squares in two sizes and lined them up above a free 'autumn' cut-file from Scrapbook and Cards Today.

All my papers here are scraps, and I'm happy to have the last of that tree print paper on show in an album now rather than languishing in my scraps box. 

I backed the cut-file with cream cardstock which I'd stamped with the swirly branches of a tree stamp from Imaginesce, and layered puffy letter stickers over it to finish my title.  

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania

Paper - Glitz Design Sunshine in my Soul, Carta Bella Fall Blessings, Serif

Letters - Crate Paper

Sticker - Glitz Design

Washi Tape - Dovecraft

Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Imaginesce Tree Stamp

Big Shot 

Little B Arrow Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Hello Mr Benn

We live near the River Thames, where one particular stretch of the flood defences is covered in an ever-changing array of either graffiti or street art (depending on the quality). I often take photos of the art but they rarely make it further than this blog or Facebook. However one day last summer I saw a few paintings of Mr Benn and the Shopkeeper, a throwback to a TV programme from my childhood, and they were too good not to scrapbook (mostly for the nostalgia).

I went for a distressed chalkboard background and cut a brick wall outline on my Silhouette to start off. I placed that vertically and ran my photos horizontally across the page, layered over papers from my scraps box.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Craft Sensations Chalkboard, American Crafts/Shimelle Head in the Clouds, Cherry Arte

Letters - American Crafts

Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle, Simple Stories, Pretty Little Studio

Washi Tape - American Crafts/Shimelle, Ebay

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Explore Close to Home

I have another pandemic-related page to share today. This one's from last spring and celebrates our local area which we explored during our permitted daily walks, visiting places that we hadn't been to for years and exploring footpaths that we hadn't followed before.

I've had the page in my head for a while, but I didn't have the right supplies until I ordered the Vintage Artistry in Color Collectors Edition by 49 and Market from The Mad Scrapper. This beautiful collection pack contains a mix of old and new papers, three sheets of washi strips and two sheets of laser-cut pieces all in a mix of greens, blues and pinks.

And once I had the papers, Lottie Loves Paper published a sketch that was very similar to the page in my head so I ran with that version. I designed a simple climbing plant cut-file and cut it twice to go the left of my page with some die-cut butterflies and epoxy dots. 

On the right, I switched the circles of the sketch for stamped butterflies and added epoxy stickers instead of stars. 

Supplies

Paper - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*, My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus

Letters - American Crafts*

Die-Cuts - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*

Word Stickers - Pretty Little Studio

Washi Tape - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*

Epoxy Dots - 49 and Market Wishing Bubbles*

Ink - Memento

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Butterfly Stamp

*Disclosure - I received the 49 and Market products and the letter stickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Christmas at Home

I'm back on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today with my Christmas 2020 page which I made with Carta Bella's Hello Christmas collection. I picked that one as I do like traditional red and green collections for Christmas photos. 

Please do hop over there for a more detailed description and more photos.

Supplies
Paper - Carta Bella Hello Christmas*

Letters/Numbers - Echo Park?

Puffy Stickers - Crate Paper*

Washi - Unknown

Enamel Dots - Carta Bella, Eyelet Outlet*

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

X-Cut Scalloped Border Punch

*Disclosure - I received the papers, puffy stickers and enamel dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Lockdown 2

I made a page for the March lockdown last year, little realising at the time that we would be plunged into a second and then a third in the months to come. I'm documenting the second (November) lockdown today, using a similar photo of our house, the same supplies and the same title cut-file in order to emphasise the repetition of restrictions.

My Original Page

I made my original page with two pockets, one for a printed timeline of events and one for handwritten notes about our personal experiences, and I repeated that here; the coronavirus paper and the photo mat both form pockets on the new page.

There will of course be a third page for the current lockdown in due course, and I intend to use the same supplies and cut-file once again.

Supplies 

Cardstock - Bazzill, Stampin' Up!

Paper - PhotoPlay Living the Quarantine Life

Letters - October Afternoon

Label - Quirky Kits

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz

Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Simple Stories

Washi Tape - Hobbycraft

Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools

Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

New Beginnings

I mostly kept on top of my 2020 album as we went along last year; it's taken me a while to scrap our October break in Dorset, but I'm about five pages away from finishing the album now. 

I'm going back to August for this page, when my daughter and her friends moved into a student house in Brighton ready for the new term. I've already scrapped two of these photos for her university album, but they're going in our family album too.

Adam's Page

My page design was inspired by Scrappy Adam; scraplifting his Epic Epcot Topiaries page was the January challenge from Dotty About Flair.

Mine's not a perfect scraplift as my three photos take up a wide band in the middle of the page, but I've certainly copied his mix of gridlines and punched squares, some of which I topped with puffy stickers. I added my journalling around the edge of the page after taking the photo for security reasons as it includes their address.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go, Kit 'n' Craft

Letters - American Crafts

Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Journal Studio

Phrase Stickers - Tim Holtz

Gold Pen - Faber Castell

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Woodware Square Punch