Au Revoir

This is the post I wrote at the start of the year:

"Things have been a bit quiet around here recently, with tumbleweed blowing across the blog. I lost my crafting mojo for a while and even when I did make anything I really couldn't be bothered with photographing it and blogging it. I even considered giving up entirely. However, new year and new focus. I have been scrapbooking and I feel  that if I stop blogging I might regret it later, but I am unlikely to regret carrying on, at least for the time being. 

I'm not promising regular posts again, but I do have a few ready and lined up from what I have made and not shared in the last month or so. I am also still creating for Twilight Crafts so you will see projects for them too.

Away from crafting, I want to continue with my local project of walking in all the grid squares in Thurrock (I have a walk blog post coming up) and further afield I need to complete the Capital Ring. I'd reached Wembley in March 2020, just before the world closed down, and I'm ready to go back. To be honest, I just want that walk over and done with as it's been underwhelming and I have another long distance walk planned for afterwards."

And now, at the end of the year:

The blog has gone quiet again, with long periods this year when I didn't post at all. I've always said that I blog for myself as a record of what I've done, and it's a bonus if anyone else reads it. If I'm finding it a chore, then why continue? I might regret stopping, but right now I prefer to put what free time I have towards scrapbooking and memory-keeping rather then blogging, so I'm pressing pause on the blog. It remains to be seen whether or not I press play again at some point in the future.

I'm still on the design team for Twilight Crafts so you may see those projects pop up on their Instagram or blog, or in scrapbooking groups on Facebook.

Away from crafting, I did finish the Capital Ring this year with three (unblogged) walks. There's a chance I will blog these just for my own records, so I have notes if I decide to make a scrapbook or mini-book for it later on. Locally, I haven't done any more grid squares and that may be my focus this year as I should be able to fit short local walks in around work (where we are still chronically understaffed which is having an effect on the rest of my life).

So, for now, it's au revoir! I may be back, but no promises.

Around Town

The town here is Skagen, the most northerly town in Denmark and the second stop on our Scandinavian cruise last summer. I made the sub-title page for Skagen a while back and there will be five more coming up, all 12x12 rather than using any of the divided page protectors that I used for some of the Oslo pages.

Our objective for the day was a walk to the sand spit at the tip of Denmark where the Kattegat and Skaggerak Seas meet, but we walked through the town on the way out and back so I'm starting there.

I printed four pictures for the page - two 3x4 photos of the church and water tower and two 2x3 photos of the houses - and arranged them on a large paper circle.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Shimelle Never Grow Up

Letters - Doodlebug

Filmstrip - 49 & Market

Glitter Tape  The Works

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio, My Mind's Eye

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Die

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Acting Our Shoe Size

I'm sharing another Twilight Crafts DT page today in the catch-up of recent pages. I used the Numbers Background cut-file with photos of me and my mum on the swings earlier this year. 

I cut the numbers background from kraft cardstock and backed the open parts with patterned papers. I also added strips of the same papers to the top and bottom of the page and ticked in a couple of label stickers wthe the date and location. My title is inspired by the old saying 'Act your age not your shoe size' which I twisted round as we are definitely acting our shoe size here.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, The Craft Place
Paper - Heidi Swapp Hello Today
Labels - Jen Hadfield
Flower Die-Cuts - Rosie's Studio
Enamel Dots - American Crafts/Obed Marshall
Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Numbers Background Cut-File

Fiskars Bracket Edge Border Punch

Capture the Moments

I've sat on this page for a little while as I wanted to finish sharing all my Oslo pages first. This one is for my 2023 album and is a DT page that I made for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files.

I used their Circle of Circles cut in kraft cardstock with two photos of my daughter and papers from both Simple Stories and Vicki Boutin. The photos were taken on a walk we took together at the end of August, probably the last time we will do something like this for some time as she left home in September. The ephemera piece that says 'Capture the moments' made a good title.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Craft Place

Paper - Simple Stories Simple Vintage Lakeside, Vicki Boutin Fernwood

Ephemera - Vicki Boutin

Puffy Stickers - Vicki Boutin

Enamel Dots - Pretty My Page, Simple Stories

Ink - Ranger

Paint - Golden

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Circle of Circles Cut-File

Hobbycraft Small Star Punch

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

Akershus Fortress

Last page from Oslo now. We walked back from the town hall and harbour to our ship via Akershus Fortress, a collection of military buildings of all ages surrounding the 14th century fortress.

My page is the back of a divided page with six 4x6 landscape pockets. I filled four of them with photos, two at the top and two at the bottom, with title and journalling in between.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Echo Park Capture Life, Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Out & About

Stickers - 49 & Market

Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Pinkfresh Studio

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template

X-Cut Circle Punch

Radhus & Around

Things have been pretty hectic here recently. I've still been scrapping, but only slowly, and I haven't had the time, energy or inclination to blog anything. Now things have eased, I'm back to share those pages here.

Last post I was in Oslo, the first port of call on our summer cruise to Scandinavia. I have two more pages to go from that day, two pocket pages that will sit back-to-back in the album.

I used a pocket page with six 4x6 landscape pockets. The front is focused on the Rådhus (Town Hall) and the surrounding area. I used two 4x6 photos, smaller photos in two pockets, and used one pocket each for title and journalling.

Supplies

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Out & About, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Shimelle Never Grow Up

Letters - Basic Grey. Doodlebug

Stickers - Teresa Collins, Pinkfresh Studio

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

X-Cut Circle Punch

The Monolith

This is the fourth and final page that I am making from Vigelandsparken, a huge sculpture park in Oslo which was all designed by one man - Gustav Vigeland. We're at the highest point in the park now, with The Monolith which is 14m tall and made up of 121 intertwined human figures.

This page follows the same plan as the last two - a grey 12x12 cardstock base with a slightly smaller yellow-stencilled white cardstock square in the middle and a band of blue arrows paper across the page.

I used two large photos this time, both 4x6 but in opposite orientations, which led to me putting them in a large block with my title and journalling in the open space. Below them are photos of four of the 36 smaller sculptures, each at around 3" square.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, The Craft Place, Bazzill

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Shimelle Never Grow Up

Letters - Creativity Inspired

Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, 49 & Market

Acetate Filmstrip - 49 & Market

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio, My Mind's Eye

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Vicki Boutin Fernwood Stencil
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

X-Cut Circle Punch

The Fountain

This is page three of a series of four from Vigelandsparken in Oslo (scroll back for the first two) and shares a similar design to the last one so that it's clear they all belong together. That design starts with a 12x12 sheet of grey cardstock with a  slightly smaller square of yellow-stencilled white cardstock in the middle and a band of blue arrows paper with my supporting photos. This time I just have two 3x4 supporting photos so I've run the blue band vertically and double-matted the photos.

My main photos are a 4x6 of the whole fountain area and a 4x4.5 close-up of the fountain itself. I matted them in a large block with my title in the space beside the smaller photo. The smaller photos are two of the twenty tree groups which surround The Fountain depicting all the various stages of life.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill, Stampin' Up!
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Shimelle Never Grow Up

Letters - October Afternoon

Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Vicki Boutin Fernwood Stencil

Big Shot & Dovecraft Tag Die

The Bridge

This is the second page of four from the Vigelandsparken sculture installation in Oslo. The first was an overview, and this one is for the first main area - The Bridge - which has 58 bronze sculptures arrange around a bridge across the lake.

All these pages are going to be photo-heavy and I'll be using similar designs to reinforce the notion that they are parts of one whole. Each one starts with 12x12 grey cardstock, with a large square of yellow-stencilled white card in the centre and a wide band of blue arrows paper with the supporting photos. Those photos are all portrait-oriented on this page; they were originally 3"x4" in size before I trimmed them a bit, matted them on orange cardstock and overlapped them to fit the 12" width of the page.

Above those, I have my main photos, a 4x6 of one side of The Bridge and a smaller one of a sculpture known as Sinnataggen (The Angry Boy). I used the negative part of an acetate frame cut in two at each side of the block and filled the right side with punched shapes and stickers.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill, Stampin' Up!

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About

Letters - Doodlebug

Acetate - 49 & Market

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Vicki Boutin Fernwood Stencil

Big Shot

Dovecraft Label Die

Little B Arrow Die

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

X-Cut Circle Die

Vigelandsparken

With Oslo being the capital of Norway, we ticked off all the standard capital city buildings on the sight-seeing list - parliament, cathedral and royal palace - and they are all in pocket pages in my album. The main focus of our day was the Vigelandsparken installation in Frogner Park, 80 acres of park with 212 sculptures by Gustav Vigeland. I've switched to 12x12 pages to document this, and there were so many sculptures that I'll be making four pages in all.

The park splits into three main areas - the bridge, the fountain and the monolith - and they will get a page each, with this one being an overview. I used an A4 photo to show as much as possible of the park, and you can see each area in line if you know what you are looking for.

I'm using Pinkfresh Studio's Tourist Mode collection for this album but I've found that a lot of the papers are too bold to use as backgrounds and I would soon run out of the quieter ones. Therefore I've used white cardstcok with mixed media for a lot of my pages. My photo covers most of this one, so I used a stencil on the top and bottom portions of the page, put my title on the photo itself and added embellishment clusters on opposite corners. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, Craft UK

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now

Letters - Creativity Inspired

Glitter Tape - The Works

Puffy Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, MAMBI

Stickers - Tim Holtz

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Big Shot

Dovecraft Tag & Label Dies

X-Cut Scallop Border Punch

Vicki Boutin Fernwood Stencil

In a Creative Bubble 'You Are Here' Stamp Set

Oscarsborg Fortress

After a run of pocket pages, I'm returning to 12x12 today. This page will slot in after my Oslo sub-title page and before the four pocket pages which document the city centre buildings.

We sailed past Oscarsborg Fortress in Oslofjord on our way into Oslo; it gets the 12x12 treatment due to chronology rather than being a special place we visited. I printed a couple of 4x6 photos and scraplifted my own past page (Worbarrow Bay).

I'm making this album mostly with papers from Pinkfresh Studio's Tourist Mode collection which I have found to be predominantly shades of blue and yellow so far. However there are a few multi-coloured patterned papers in the collection and I've used two here. Hopefully the coral and orange won't look too peculiar now when they appear on other pages later on.

I included a large circle in the design too, just to shake things up a bit; that gives me a shape to repeat in the album and breaks up the monotony of rectangles.

There's a little bit of journalling on the page background, but I also turned the top photo into a pocket to hold more information about the history of the fort, including it sinking a German heavy cruiser in 1940, thereby delaying the invasion of Norway.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, The Craft Place, Bazzill
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Brighter Days, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About

Letters - Elle's Studio

Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, 49 & Market

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter and Circle Template

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Storting / Det Kongelige Slott

I've used Norwegian title on this page from Oslo; Storting and Det Kongelige Slott are Parliament and The Royal Palace. I used a pocket page, the back of the last one, with the top two for parliament and the bottom four for the palace. 

I started off using graduated teal to aqua colours in the first two pockets, and moved to soft blue and yellow for the last four. My aim was for the page as a whole to be harmonious but for there to be a subtle difference making it clear that the page has two different subjects.

Supplies
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now
Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, Teresa Collins
Glitter Tape - The Works
Enamel Shapes - 49 & Market, Altenew, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

X-Cut Circle Punches

Munch in the Aula

Sharing another pocket page today, with a change of design. This one has six 4x6 landscape pockets which I used for the Aula (ceremonial hall) at Oslo University which has 14 paintings by Edvard Munch. 

I put an overview photo in one pocket and close-ups of the largest paintings in three other pockets. My page doubles up as my latest DT project for Twilight Crafts as I used their Paint Brushstrokes cut-file to hold my title and journalling in the last two pockets.

I chose this cut-file to fit with the theme of painting, cut it in white cardstock and inked the pieces. I used a grey bokeh print paper as my backgrounds and smooshed blue ink over it.

Supplies

Paper - Echo Park Capture Life, Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode

Letters - Freckled Fawn, Basic Grey

Stickers - 49 & Market

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Shapes - Marianne Designs, Stampin' Up!

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

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

Domkirke

Pocket pages need to be planned in pairs, the front and back of each one, and its actually the photos on this page that determined the layout that I used for the last.

This side is all about the Domkirke, or Cathedral, in Oslo. It's quite simple with 4x6 photos filling three pockets, title and journalling in another and more journaliing with a smaller photo in the last, plus patterned paper in the 2x12 pocket on the side.

Supplies

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About

Letters - Pinkfresh Studio

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots/Shapes - Doodlebug, Altenew

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die

Opera House / Munch Museum

I've shared five sub-title pages for the ports we visited on our Scandinavian cruise so far and, although I have one more to go, I am moving on now to other pages. I will be mixing 12x12pages in with divided page protectors for this album and today is the first of those divided pages.

When I make an album just with 12x12 pages I can jump around as I like and put them in order later on with the only restriction being the position of any double pages. With divided pages I have to make a rough plan in advance so that the backs and fronts fit together. I have a few different layouts - with all landscape pockets, all portrait or a mixture of the two.

My first divided page is from the Norwegian capital Oslo and features a couple of buildings that we could see from the ship - the opera house and the Munch museum. I have three landscape pockets for those; I filled two with photos and added a journalling card in between. Once we disembarked we walked up and over the opera house, and saw a couple of sculptures which I put in the portrait pockets with a bit of journalling about each one.

I used teal blue as an accent colour on the page, inspired by the banner piece which I found leftover from a previous travel album. I followed it up by matting the sculptures on the same colour and stamping my title letters with it.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Shimelle Glitter Girl

Journalling Cards - Studio Calico?

Letters - Jillibean Soup

Glitter Tape - Unknown

Enamel Shapes - Shimelle, Maggie Holmes, Altenew

Ink - Ranger, Let's Color

Tools

Big Shot & X-Cut Banner Die

Elle's Studio Medium Tile Alphabet Stamps

Helsinki

Another day, another sub-title page for my Scandinavian album. This time it's for Helsinki so I based my page around a large letter H which I cut on my Silhouette and backed with a photo of Senate Square.

I've used white cardstock again, which I smooshed with blue ink and stamped with grey stars and yellow arrows. I've mostly used squares and rectangles of patterned paper up to now, so I'm changing that up with triangles today, cutting a 6x6 paper in half and placing it in opposite corners, inspired by an old sketch from Shimelle.

The filmstrip is a smaller version of the piece I used on my Stockholm title page and the cameras are a motif I plan to repeat throughout the album (or as far as I can stretch half a 12x12 sheet anyway). I cut the title letters using my Big Shot and the phrases are snippets from a 12x12 paper.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, The Card Place

Paper - Pinkfresh Studios Tourist Mode, Shimelle Glitter Girl

Filmstrip - 49 & Market

Stickers - 49 & Market

Washi Tape - October Afternoon

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio, Hey Little Magpie

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp

Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Skagen

I'm sharing another sub-title page for my Scandinavian cruise album today. I'm making one of these for each port of call, all based around an 8" letter cut on my Silhouette and backed with a general view photo.

This was our second stop - Skagen in Denmark - and I based the page on a sketch from Scrap a Sketch. I used lots of 6x6 papers for the grid and smudged yellow ink on white cardstock for the background. I then backed my S on a larger paper and added a bit of stamping to peek out around the edges.

The frame around my title is the middle of an acetate filmstrip piece; I think it's supposed to be waste but it was far too pretty and useful to throw away. 

I added extra stickers and paper pieces over my squares, picking up on the travel icons from a mood board challenge from GoGoGetaway last weekend.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, The Craft Place

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now, Shimelle Glitter Girl

Letters - Daler-Rowney

Acetate Frame - 49 & Market

Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, 49 & Market

Washi Tape - October Afternoon

Enamel Dots - Altenew, My Mind's Eye

Ink - Hobbycraft, Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Studio Light Chevron Stamp

Oslo

I'm back now with the third of my sub-title pages which will divide my cruise album into sections for each port. This was our first stop - Oslo - and I based my page design on this month's sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

I chose a paper with a frame printed on it to match the sketch, and used a stencil to add some colour to the middle. I swapped over the main elements in the sketch, using a larger photo and a smaller title, and straightened them up. 

I'm cutting a large initial letter for each port name and backing them with a general view photo each time. I took this picture of the city from the roof of the opera house.

I turned the smaller photo sideways and used an acetate filmstrip piece as a frame for my title. The paper behind it is from a 6x6 pad and I chose it as the pattern is a lot like a repeating O (for Oslo). I stamped some arrows on the background, tucked in some tags and finished with a few stickers, all required elements for a tic-tac-toe challenge from GoGoGetaway last weekend.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Craft Place
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now

Letters - American Crafts

Filmstrip Frame - 49 & Market

Glitter Tape - Unknown
Washi Sticker - 49 & Market

Washi Tape - October Afternoon

Enamel Dots - Altenew, Pretty My Page

Ink - Ranger, Let's Color
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools
Big Shot & Dovecraft Tag Die

Vicki Boutin Fernwood Stencil
Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp

30 Years

I have another page for my new cruise album today, but it's a bit different from the sub-title pages that I've made so far. We celebrated our pearl wedding anniversary the week before the cruise and were given this photo by the cruise line to mark the occasion. 

I've used the Photoframe Starburst cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files for my page, flipping it round to sit in the bottom left corner of my page and backing it with silver-spotted vellum.

I flipped through all the papers in Pinkfresh Studio's Tourist Mode collection (which forms the core of my album kit), and this two-tone blue paper was the best match for the limited colours in my photo. I didn't originally intend it to be a monochrome page but it was hard to introduce anything stronger than white and silver.

Supplies

Cardstock - The Range

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Route, American Crafts, Shimelle

Vellum - My Mind's Eye

Letters - KaiserCraft

Tab Die-Cut - 49 & Market

Heart Sticker/Heart Gems/Silver Glitter Tape - Unknown

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Photoframe Starburst Cut-File

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

Stockholm

I'm sharing another sub-title page today for my new Scandinavian Cruise album. I'm making one of these for each place we visited, in order to split the album into 'chapters'. They are all based around the ports' initial letters, cut on my Silhouette and backed with a single photo. 

Stockholm was our fifth stop; we anchored near the old town and this photo was taken from the ship.

In the past I've made all the sub-title pages for a cruise to the same design, but this time I'm mixing it up a bit, apart from the initial letter. For this page, I stencilled a circles pattern across the page and layered the letter S over some vertical strips of paper. I tucked in an acetate filmstrip and added a strip of glitter tape. Then I used a piece from the 6x6 pad to hold my title and a line of embellishments, a mix of stamped and fussy-cut pieces with a few enamel dots.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, The Craft Place
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Out and About
Letters - Doodlebug

Filmstrip - 49 & Market

Glitter Tape - Unknown
Washi Sticker - 49 & Market

Washi Tape - October Afternoon

Puffy Stars - Pinkfresh Studio
Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio, Pretty My Page, Twilight Crafts, 49 & Market

Ink - Ranger, Let's Color
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Dies
Studio Calico 'You Are Here' Stamp Set

X-Cut Circle Punches

Copenhagen

We've just come to the end of a week long cyber crop over in the Twilight Crop and Craft Facebook group, where I set a travel-themed challenge.

This is my sample page, using travel icons on my patterned paper and in my background stamping. It is the first page I've made for the new Scandinavia album, and the sub-title page for the Copenhagen section of that album. I will be making one of these for each of our six ports of call, all based around the initial letter of the port. I plan to cut all the letters on my Silhouette at 8" high and fill them with a photo from each port. 

I made an inky background, spreading yellow evenly across the centre of the page and adding blue via the packaging technique, before stamping arrows, chevrons, travel images and stars over the top.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, The Craft Place

Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pinkfresh Studio Life Right Now

Sticker - Pinkfresh Studio

Glitter Tape - Unknown

Washi Tape - October Afternoon

Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio, My Mind's Eye

Ink - Hobbycraft, Ranger, Versa Color

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

Studio Calico 'You Are Here' Stamp Set

Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp

Studio Light Chevron Stamp

Various Star Stamps

A New Project - Scandinavia 2023

I know I haven't finished the album for our Canary Islands cruise in 2021 yet, but my slow progress is at least in part because I'm bored of working on it.

So I've decided to put it to one side and start a new album for our latest cruise, Scandinavian Capitals, which we returned from just recently. I've chosen a new collection as the basis for this album, Tourist Mode from Pinkfresh Studio, and have built a larger kit with this collection at the core.

I've bought the 12x12 paper pack, the 6x6 paper pad, puffy stickers, cardstock stickers and enamel dots from Tourist Mode:

I made a previous album, Norway 2019, with the Out and About collection from Pinkfresh Studio; some of the colours and icons from this one are very similar to those in Tourist Mode so I've added my leftovers to the kit. I don't have much (my largest scrap is around 6x12) but they will be useful for die-cutting and tucking in to the layers.

In terms of other collections, I couldn't resist a few pieces from 49 & Market's Vintage Artistry Everywhere. The papers are a completely different style from Pinkfresh Studio, but I think I can mix in the acetate filmstrips, the washi stickers and the enamel shapes. I also bought some simple puffy letter stickers and shape sprinkles from Doodlebug.

One of the reasons that I'm bored of the Canary Islands album is that it's too restrictive. This far through, I haven't done any stitching or used cut-files, and there is minimal mixed media. Therefore, this new album is going to be 'anything goes', a mix of techniques that I hope will form a cohesive whole so long as I repeat each one a few times. 

I have a couple more things that will help with that continuity - a half-sheet of camera print paper (Shimelle Glitter Girl) which I intend to cut up, and a set of Studio Calico stamps which were designed by In a Creative Bubble; these are the same designers that were behind Tourist Mode, and they are a really good match to that collection.

I'll be using other stamp sets too, along with various inks and mists. I'll also be drawing on my scraps and other papers, and once I use something once I'll add it to the kit to repeat it again. I have pulled out far too many washi tapes, but I should be able to narrow those down once I've actually made a few pages. 

21st Birthday Card

It was my niece's 21st birthday earlier this month, and I made her a card based on sketch #244 from Sketch-n-Scrap.

The cocktail print paper is an ancient one, which I teamed with an off-cut from a winter paper and strips of washi tape for the sentiment. I found a couple of puffy stickers of drinks, and added some stars to them.

Travel Notebook

Before

Whenever we cruise, I use a small notebook to gather together relevant information about each port of call all in one place, e.g. arrival and departure times, currency exchange rates, notes on public transport, entry times and price for museums, etc. I have a few travel-themed notebooks, but this time I have decorated an old one that was past its best.

My original notebook had a geometric print with glitter details, but the glitter was flaking off so I decided to rub it all off and recover it. I started by covering the spine in washi rape, and then cut a 6x6 paper down to cover the front. The paper had a few stamps and tickets printed at the bottom, to which I added some stamping and a few clear stickers.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Hello World
Washi Tape - Unknown
Stickers - Maggie Holmes
Ink - Ranger, Memento

Tools
Scrapberry's Compass Stamp
Studio Calico Word Stamps