Graduation

This page has been a long time coming. It's a double that will finish my 2023 album and I first saw the sketch back in July but it's taken me until now to decide on papers and actually make the page.

The sketch comes from a Facebook group called 1 Sketch: 3 Ways where each month three ladies each make and share a page with a process video, all based on the same sketch. The sketch they chose for July originally came from Page Maps and I thought it would work well for the photos of our daughter's graduation from the University of Sussex.

I've had the mortar board print paper for years, having originally bought it for my own graduation (which I haven't scrapped yet). I chose to use it in place of the spotty paper in the sketch but struggled to find other papers to go with it, until I bought some papers and a sticker sheet from Echo Park Graduation in the January sale and picked out red from our daughter's hood as an accent colour.

Supplies: Paper - Echo Park Graduation, Sandylion Graduation Caps, Shimelle Head in the Clouds, Paige Evans Whimsical; Stickers - Echo Park, Tim Holtz

Pages from Mahón

I'm going back to my cruise album now, tackling one place at a time and moving to our sixth port of call which was Mahón, the capital of Menorca.

14. Mahón

The first page is, as always, a sub-title page that divides the album into sections. I printed two 4x6 photos and separated them with my title. The strip on the left was driven by the numbering on the paper, which looked like it needed something more on that side.

15. Trepucó

The first thing we did was walk out of town to see the remains of a Talaiotic settlement from the period 1200BC to 200BC, which was characterised by stone buildings known as talaiots and T-shaped stone megaliths called taulas. 

16. Església el Carme

At this point, I had to decide whether to put my titles in English, Spanish or Catalan for the next few pages. I decided on Catalan, because that's the version on a sign on my next page, even though it meant more pesky accents. I printed three 4x6 photos of the church (built for an order of Carmelite nuns) and arranged them with a journalling card on uneven quadrants of paper, making use of offcuts from other pages.

17. Mercat Claustre del Carme

The cloisters of the last church now house a market and I printed three photos, one large and two small. The scale of the building in each one meant that I didn't want to put them in a block so I found an older page and scraplifted myself.

18. Església de Santa Maria

Another church, and I had a trio of photos which were very similar to the set from Església el Carme, and very close to them in the album, so I had to find a different layout for them. I ended up with another scraplift which does use four quadrants of paper again but the photos overlap them and the page looks different enough for me.

19. Parc des Freginal

Finally, a few photos from a park that's hidden away and took some finding, with  with the entrance being a passageway through a building. This was where I saw my first hoopoe. I printed six photos, but dropped down to four for the page, arranging them in a square block with my title down the side and washi tape at the top and bottom of the page.

Supplies: Cardstock - My Mind's Eye Necessities; Paper - Heidi Swapp Set Sail, Photoplay Travelogue, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Heart & Home, Craft Sensations Dreamy Pastels, Pinkfresh Studio Simply the Best, My Mind's Eye Now and Then; Letters - American Crafts, Creative Memories, Basic Grey; Stickers - Heidi Swapp, Photoplay, Studio Calico; Filmstrips - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Little B, Vicki Boutin, Stampin' Up!; Glitter Tape - The Works; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, Hey Little Magpie, Twilight Crafts, Maggie Holmes, Altenew, Cocoa Vanilla Studio

Starting Point Pages

Starting Points are a term I pinched from Shimelle Laine, pages that I start without any photos in mind and come back to finish them off later. I generally make them either to kill off collections or to thin out my scraps box a bit. This time, they've all come from my scraps box:

Alphabetical
This one started from two ancient pieces of letter-printed paper, one black and one white. They are bright and bold, and unlikely to be pulled out to match anything else. The white one was about 6x12 so I used it as half my background, paired with a red stripe, and layered the black one on top. I then pulled out as many quiet patterns as I could in matching colours, cut them into boxes and layered them up, tucking the green piece in between my two alphabet prints to separate them.

Papers - The Paper Loft Flip Flops, Studio Calico Snippets, Paige Evans Truly Grateful, Echo Park We Are Family

Geometrics

This page started from an 8x12 scrap which I thought was Basic Grey, but it has its branding strip which says it's from a French company called 4heures37; this dates it to the era when I had a kit subscription, probably 10 years ago. I placed this piece in the top two-thirds of my page and filled the bottom third with strips from coordinating scraps.

Papers - 4heures37 Eiffel Avenue, Bo Bunny Early Bird, Photoplay Paper #thinktoremember, Basic Grey Spice Market

Pink and Brown

My 'starter scrap' this time is from Basic Grey, brown with pink swirls, and with a 2008 date printed on it. I pulled the three pink papers (floral, cameras and polka dot) to go with it, then tracked down a suitable dark brown paper to fill the rest of the 12x12 space. The polka dot paper isn't stuck down yet as I'll decide how to use it when I finish the page. I can also pull in more of the second brown paper if I need to.

Papers - Basic Grey Bittersweet, Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams, We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit, KaiserCraft Full Bloom, Carta Bella Baby Mine

Blue and Yellow

All the previous pages have started from scraps that were 12" long, which I used as part of the backgrounds. This time I had an 11" square of blue swirly paper which I placed in the middle of a failed mixed media piece, covering up almost all that I had done before. I added more blues and some soft yellow, but I'm not sure I like the results. 

Papers - Craft Creations, and others unknown

Bo Bunny Shabby Princess

I'd started this process with the largest scraps, but struggled with the blue and yellow page because the blue was all I had to start it off. So I changed tack for the next one and started with a multi-coloured print. I had a stripy scrap from Bo Bunny Shabby Princess, found two more from the same collection and built from there. I haven't stuck down the central pieces so I can rotate the photo mat if I need to later on.

Papers - My Mind's Eye Stella and Rose, Bo Bunny Shabby Princess, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio, Crate Paper Mia, Echo Park 

Will I finish them? Past experience says that I will, but it may take some years for the right photos to come along. If I don't, I haven't really lost anything as these scraps were being wasted before anyway. I'll add links here later when I have finished pages.

Pages for Annual Albums

I'm leaving the cruise pages for this post, and turning my attention to my annual albums. Of course, I've made my usual resolution to keep on top of my 2025 pages as we go along (let's see how long I can keep that up!) but I still have a few gaps from last year to fill in (where I didn't quite keep last year's resolution).

I've also ticked off the last two of the 10th Birthday Challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper and I'm rather pleased with myself that I got them all done.

(The numbers are my page count for the year.)

11. Hadleigh 10 Miles (2024)

One from last year, and the design was completely inspired by the FTLOPP challenge 'Splatter' - I cut a large star on my Silhouette and used it as a mask while I splattered the page with mists. The droplets weren't really dense enough to show the star shape so I went round the edge afterwards with distress ink. 

Supplies: Paper - Carta Bella All Aboard, DCWV Romantic Life, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio; Letters - Doodlebug; Acrylic Star - Sheenanigans; Washi Tape - Tesco; Gems - Papermania

12. Victoria Park Half Marathon (2025)

My husband's first running event of this year, as he builds up to a full marathon in April. The weather was awful, so I started with the raindrop paper from Cocoa Vanilla Studio to make a half-and-half background then added all my stray CVS branding strips (from three collections) and a cardstock circle that I cut for another project and didn't use.

Supplies: Cardstock - DCWV, Stampin' Up!; Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studio Daydream, CVS These Days, CVS Heart and Home; Letters - Violet Studio; Enamel Stars - Altenew

13. Let's Do the Time Warp (2025)

This one was for the FTLOPP 'Stencil' challenge. I cut a square and a rectangle from scrap paper and used them as masks to make four zones on the page to hold my photos and title (from a theatre visit to see The Rocky Horror Show). I also used a Heidi Swapp stencil for all the stars.

Supplies: Paper - 49 & Market Spectrum Gardenia; Letters - American Crafts, Maggie Holmes; Ephemera - 49 & Market; Phrase Stickers - Tim Holtz; Stars - Paperchase