Dad's Birthday Card

It's my Dad's birthday today, and I made his card using sketch #213 from Sketch-n-Scrap. 

I often use scraps for card and started this one from the floral paper which was perfect for a spring birthday. I added the banner from the sketch but then went rogue, swapping the large flower on the sketch for a scalloped circle with a much smaller flower. I dropped one of the paper layers too and moved the sentiment, but I hope you can see that the starting point was this sketch.

Supplies
Card - The Works

Paper - Bo Bunny, My Mind's Eye, Kaisercraft

Sentiment - Craft Creations

Puffy Dot - Pebbles/Jen Hadfield

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

The Works Scalloped Circle Die

Cut & Make Leaf Dies

Woodware Flower Punches

Personal Impressions Cherry Blossom Stamp

Mother's Day Card

Happy Mother's Day if you are celebrating it today (I know it's in May elsewhere). I made this card for my mother using card sketch #214 from Sketch-n-Scrap.

I've recently switched from making 4x6 cards to the larger 5x7 size, but that means that my 6x6 papers are less useful. I only have a couple of 6x8 pads but they include the pretty florals of Paige Evans' Bungalow Lane. I chose a pink one for the middle panel on the card and edged it with two scalloped strips punched from pink cardstock.

I dropped the flower from the sketch as I couldn't match those on the paper, and swapped the circle for a stitched label to hold my sentiment.

Supplies

Card - The Works

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - American Crafts/Paige Evans Bungalow Lane

Ink - Memento

Tools

American Crafts Scalloped Border Punch

Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Cruise Scotland

I finished my Scottish cruise album recently, but there's one more page that I need to make, a summary page of the holiday which will go in my 2021 album. I've taken the same approach as I have on a couple of previous occasions, creating a cut-file using the country's name and filling each letter with a photo. 

I normally use the same paper collection for these pages as I used for the main album, but this time I had no 12x12 papers left. I was using 49 and Market's Vintage Artistry Anywhere collection so I pulled in a pink map print from Beached that was a suitable match in colour and style. I broadly copied the Norway page above but flipped it vertically as I didn't want to cover up the map details on the left of the background paper and I moved the journalling card to the top where there was more space due to the shape of my cut-file.

The ephemera pieces were all left-overs from the main album, and I added the last three glitter hearts from a pack of shapes that I want to clear out.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Beached, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry  Anywhere

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Washi Tape - Ebay

Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs

ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Christmas Parkrun

I'm adding to my 2021 album today, with a page from parkrun on Christmas Day. There's nothing very Christmassy in the photos so I chose to emphasise the theme via my papers and the Hanging Baubles Strip from Jenny Wren Cut-Files for Twilight Crafts.

I cut the baubles strip from white cardstock, coloured it with a gold pen and backed it with red and green patterned papers, then cut it into three pieces. Two of them span the page either side of my photos and the third is a single bauble next to my title.

That title was made with letters from one of the first packs I ever bought, and I had to cut down a few letters; the r's used to be m's and the n was an h. I added a few snowflake stickers among the baubles and banner stickers below the photos.

Supplies
Paper - Carta Bella Hello Christmas

Letters - Papermania

Stickers - Carta Bella, MAMBI

Star Gems - Hobbycraft
Pearls - Kanban

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

Cruise Scotland - The Album

I've finished making the pages for the album of our cruise round Scotland last summer, but I have two remaining tasks - to make a title card for the front cover and then to go through all the pages again to add any extra pieces they need, starting with pages that feel plainer than average and then trying to use up my remaining ephemera.

I've used a mixture of 49 and Market Vintage Artistry papers for this album, buying Anywhere for its travel theme and combining it with the Collectors Edition Volume 1 which I already owned. I cut one of my 6x8 papers down to 5x5 for the title card and added strips of paper and glitter tape to the left edge. Pleasingly I had just the right amount of glitter tape left on the roll for this so that's one thing that won't be returning to my stash. 

The album itself is a silver-grey one from First Edition that we were given for our silver wedding anniversary four years ago. Ideally it would have housed that year's cruise but I made enough pages for two albums and couldn't get another the same. I'm glad to have used it now and the grey is a better match to the papers I used this time than to the ones I used for 2018.

Supplies
Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere
Letters - American Crafts/Shimelle
Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz

Puffy Stars - Unknown
Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Scrapberry's Compass Stamp

Ullapool

Our Scottish cruise last summer lasted five days and the resulting album has only 16 pages, so I'm at a loss to see why it's taken me so long, but I've now made the final page. This one's for Ullapool, the village beside Loch Broom where we paused and then turned around.

I took a landscape photo and printed it in two 4x6 pieces which I then cropped slightly and overlapped across the middle of my page. I'm low on papers (which is just as well at this stage) so I've cut and stretched several pieces and also made use of the branding strips.

I used the same font with my Silhouette for the title as on all the previous pages, and I'll be glad to have finished with that now. It's been useful for continuity and it has meant I couldn't run out of any letters but that curly font has been a pain at times and I'll choose something else for my next project.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Sage, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Glitter Tape - The Works

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Dies

Spread the Parkrun Love

Well, I applied for the new DT at Let's Get Sketchy but I wasn't successful. However the sketch to use for DT submissions was also the first sketch of the new era, so I had a page ready and waiting for that when it was published at the start of the month.

We are in March now but we haven't done much yet this year and that makes keeping on top of the 2022 album quite straightforward. I have a single photo of a friend and me at parkrun taken by the photographer volunteer last month which I thought would suit the sketch well.

I picked Simple Stories Safe Travels papers from the colours in the photo and layered them in a similar way to the sketch. That big flower became my tree and I inked an old piece of filmstrip chipboard to run behind the photo (which I popped up on a piece of foam to give enough depth for the chipboard piece to sit neatly).

There's no place marked for journalling on the sketch so I popped mine on a card below the photo and moved the title across. I included the word 'love' for a challenge from Hey Little Magpie, but I would probably have used this wording anyway. My friend is a relative newcomer to parkrun and now loves it almost as much as we do.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Fancy Pants Off to School, Simple Stories Safe Travels

Letters - American Crafts

Chipboard - Creative Expressions

Tree Die-Cut - Quirky Kits

Phrase Sticker - Pretty Little Studio

Enamel Dots - Papermania, Simple Stories

Tools

X-Cut Circle Punch

The Book of John

We saw Rhod Gilbert live last November, in his stand-up show called The Book of John, and I made this page for a couple of recent cyber-crop challenges.

Peartree Cut-Files asked us to make a page starting from a cut-file we love, and I'd already earmarked 'A New Chapter' as being the one to use with these photos (if I could successfully remove or cover the wording).

A week later, GoGoGetaway asked us to be inspired by alphas. I have loads of part-used packs and I do want to use up some of the older ones where I don't have enough letters left for any good words, but have too many left just to throw them away. I decided to use my tiny rub-ons here, having them fly out of the book.

I cut the book from black cardstock to match the dark backgrounds of the photos and backed it with a single piece of ombre paper. I chose a star print background paper that has some interest but is subtle enough to take all the lettering, and pulled the colours for my embellishment clusters from the printed stars.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft Sensations

Paper - Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Heidi Swapp No Limits, DCWV Romantic Life

Letters - Doodlebug

Washi Tape & Ticket - Unknown

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Enamel Dots - Altenew

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Push Me!

Last month I made a page for Twilights Crafts using the Hexagon Background cut-file from Jenny Wren Cut-Files. I shrank the file and welded several together to give me more, smaller hexagons and once I'd cut it I decided that I had to do something with my stack of cardstock hexagons. I chose a neutral background and used the cut-file outline to help with spacing them correctly but in a more haphazard pattern than the original grid.

I've come back to that background now, and picked an old single photo to go with it as I didn't want to cover up too many of the hexagons. I splodged distress oxide ink over the page, concentrating it in the middle, and matted the photo on several patterned papers. 

I would normally keep my embellishments much closer to the photo, but I felt the need to spread them out here for once. They are really very simple with just  strips of washi tape, cardstock hearts left over from another page and a few enamel dots.

Supplies

Paper - Crate Paper Random, Crate Paper DIY Shop

Letters - Pinkfresh Studio

Washi Tape - Crate Paper, Ebay

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Ebay

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Hexagon Background Cut-File

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge and the distress oxide ink at a discounted price from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.