Collect Moments

Lottie Loves Paper is running a Summer Sketch Challenge, with nine sketches during July and August. I did the first two as they were released but then slipped behind, and this is my page for week 4. It was a collaboration and we had the option of using the 'Collect Moments' cutfile from new venture Peartree Cutfiles. 

I scaled the cutfile to be as large as I could because I was working with old, pre-printed 4x6 photos. This made it difficult to include the paper strips behind it; I tried various combinations but there was so little showing at the edges that I wasn't happy and decided to drop them entirely and just use a few labels instead. That left me with a new problem - having just the white cutfile against the background was too plain, so I created an offset and cut that in green to match my son's shirt. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Yes Please, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Stay Sweet, Studio Calico Heyday
Washi Tape - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio
Rain Dots - Cloud 9 Design
Mist - Docrafts. Mister Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Peartree Cutfiles 'Collect Moments' Cutfile
Sewing Machine
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

I Want to Ride my Bicycle

I made this page for a challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper to include texture on a page. I went with the obvious, using texture paste through a star stencil, but first I laid down some ink through a mask for colour and pattern on my plain white cardstock.

I used a photo of my son on his tricycle, taken shortly after his second birthday, and layered up on an assortment of predominantly turquoise papers which included a bicycle print.

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts, Papermania

Paper - Echo Park, My Mind's Eye

Letters - Hobbycraft, American Crafts/Shimelle

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Puffy Stickers - Jullibean Soup, MRI

Enamel Stars - Label Shop

Structure Paste - Flying Tiger

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Tando Creative Harlequin Mask

Creative Embellishments Star Mask

Heidi Swapp Spray Mask

Splish Splash

I made this page for the fourth Advent Challenge in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group. Each of these challenges has involved five stash items and a technique and for this round they were ephemera, mixed media, chipboard, a large word, hearts and DIY embellishments. 

To me, a mixed media background means using a single photo so that the background can be seen, and I chose an old one of my son and nephew in the bath. I picked an assortment of inks, mists, stamps and stencils and started playing, layering the patterns and colours over each other. 

I've had these chipboard letters for years, and they usually get rejected for being too large or the wrong colour for my page; however they've found a home here at last and I ran the title vertically so that the photo could nestle in between the descenders of the letters P and H. 

I made my DIY embellishment by layering up a sticker, some washi tape, punched and die-cut shapes and a heart puffy sticker.

Supplies
Cardstock - Stampin' Up!
Paper - Making Memories
Letters - Making Memories, Doodlebug
Border Sticker - Crate Paper
Ephemera - Simple Stories
Label Sticker - October Afternoon
Puffy Sticker - American Crafts/Shimelle
Chipboard - Studio Calico
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer, Docrafts, Mr Huey's

Tools
Creative Expressions Grid Mask
Studio Calico Hexagon Stamp
Dovecraft Filmstrip Stamp
Studio Calico Stars Stamp
Elle's Studio Heart Stamp
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Big Shot & X-Cut Labels Die

2 today

This page is one that I made for National Scrapbook Day, for one of the challenges in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group where Natalie asked us to scrap a birthday. I've scrapbooked all the recent birthdays, and a fair few not so recent birthdays, so I had a choice of my daughter's first birthday or my son's second for this challenge. I counted photos, eleven versus four, and decided on the latter. 

Those four photos were all 4x6 landscape and only slightly crop-able, so I decided on a double page. I was sure that Shimelle had done a double page with a long row of photos at some point and I tracked it down to her Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapping class; it's a double with a shaped paper positioned to cross between the two halves. I only ever bought one piece of shaped paper, but it was perfect for a small boy's birthday, and I pulled co-ordinating papers from various manufacturers to run in strips across the two pages. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Unknown
Paper - Best Creation, Sandylion, DCWV, Cherry Arte
Letters - American Crafts, Prima
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Snug as Two Bugs

National Scrapbook Day and other online crops are always a trigger for me to abandon whatever I'm working on and scrap random photos that I can fit to the challenges. While part of me is feeling the urge to return to my Canadian Cruise album, another part is quite happy with scrapping older photos and taking on challenges that I can't fit to pages in that cruise album.

For this page, I've paired an old photo of my son and my nephew with this month's single page sketch from Stick It Down. 

Just looking at the range of pages that the DT produced, it's clear that this sketch is open to a certain degree of interpretation, but I did make sure to include the three main elements - a background shape, a strong vertical line and a horizontal title. That title came from the old saying 'snug as a bug in a rug' which I re-wrote for my two bugs here.

Since it's a post-bath photo I wanted to hint at the bubbles from their bath in the page design. I've had this piece of chipboard for a few years and used it as a mask on several pages but it's getting a bit battered now and needed to find a permanent home on a page. I layered it behind the photo along with a bubbly paper and a 4x6 Project Life card. I cut a pie chart from the same collection as the bubble paper, added a brad and rummaged for other teal and white embellishments that would fit my circles theme.

Supplies
Paper - Unknown Background, My Mind's Eye Just Splendid
Letters & Border Sticker - KaiserCraft
PL Card - Boys Rule
Chipboard - Creative Embellishments
Circle Stickers - Anita's Glitterations
Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye Now & Then
Pearls - The Hobby House
Brad - Fancy Pants
Mist - Maya Road, Docrafts, Mr Huey's
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Heidi Swapp Circle Mega Mask
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

What's Cooking

Shimelle published ten different challenges during her Online Scrapbooking Weekend, and I'd like to do all ten even if I have to combine a few to get through them.

Her third challenge was to make a page with colour blocking, and was illustrated with an example from Cheryl at Scrapstorian as well as one from Shimelle. I took my inspiration directly from Cheryl's page, and copied her template of blocks. I used a grid paper to plan my squares and rectangles before cutting each one out and backing the holes with paper from a 6x6 pad. 

I doodled an outline around each box to soften all the straight lines, and to distract from a couple of places where my cutting went slightly wrong. I journalled and embellished on the largest rectangle, and used Thickers for my title so that it would stand out from the busy background.

The photo is from 1999, so it's an old one, which qualifies this page for Shimelle's next challenge too - scrapbook an older photo. There's a tiny piece from Shimelle's first American Crafts collection on there too, but I have another page coming up for that challenge.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Random, My Mind's Eye Now & Then
Letters - American Crafts
Sticker - My Mind's Eye Now & Then
Rub-On - American Crafts Shimelle
Enamel Dot - Doodlebug
Sequins - My Little Studio
Washi Tape - Unknown

My Boy

I've been a follower of Mercy Tiara (Tracy Banks) on YouTube for some years, and she's announced her plans for a series of 27 Day Challenges this year. Each one will be posted on the first of the month, and we have 27 days to play along. Her first challenge is to use up an older collection or kit, and this lead me back to Basic Grey Archaic, which I tried and failed to kill off a few weeks ago (with a page called Play Hard). 

I pulled out the remaining pieces once again; lots of my paper scraps were 6" wide so I started by lining them up in a column, then layered a 6x6 piece and a 4x6 piece on top, followed by a few small strips, before I decided on my photo. I picked an old one of my son, which I'd previously cropped to about 4x4, and added a couple of stickers and a circle of the dinosaur print.

And guess what? I still haven't killed off this collection, and I only used two of those pesky stickers.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Basic Grey Archaic
Letters - American Crafts
Brads - Bazzill
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Mister Huey's

Little Artists

I recently won a gift voucher for The Cut Shoppe and I've been playing with my new cut files. One of my favourites is the Little Letters background file, and I did a trial cut on plain white card while playing with the settings on my Silhouette portrait. Once I'd cut it though, I decided to go ahead and use it on a page. The alphabet theme made me think of a school page, but then I remembered an old photo of my son and my nephew colouring, which I thought would work well with it.

I'd done most of the page before last Wednesday, and was pondering the embellishment when Glitter Girl posted her latest adventure - No. 125: Sticker Surplus. I was thinking about one small cluster, just overlapping the top right of the photo, but it was making the page unbalanced. Having watched Glitter Girl, I tried to follow her guidelines and decided to place two clusters in opposite corners. There's a diagonal line from one through the title to the other and they 'enclose' both the photo and the alphabet cut, which had begun to look a little separate from the rest of the page.

Supplies
Paper - Authentique Natural, My Mind's Eye Now & Then (6x6)
Letters - American Crafts, My Mind's Eye
Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye
Labels - Printable from Sarah's Cards Ltd
Pearls - Mark Richards
Washi Tape - Unknown
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Other
Little Letters Cut File from The Cut Shoppe

Stick It Down - Tattershall Castle

I'm back with another page from a Stick It Down sketch today, a double, but it's not from the current sketch. This is July's, but I decided to stitch the circles, plus extra smaller ones; it took a while and I didn't finish it before the end of the month. I added translucent yellow circles to the stitching, they aren't really as obvious as appear to be in the photo.

My photos are more old ones - Tattershall Castle is in Lincolnshire where we holidayed in 1999. That title needed lots of As, Ts and Ss so I cut it on my Big Shot rather than depleting a set of letter stickers. I balanced it with the row of asterisks, which were suggested to me by the stars on the sketch, although they are in a different place.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts
Paper - Basic Grey Aged&Confused, My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm
Washi Tape - Efco
Thread - DMC
Circles - KaiserCraft Droplets
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Big Shot & Sizzix Alphabet Dies
Fiskars Circles Template

Weekly Routine

This is a page with a difference - absolutely no photos. It's for another NSD challenge from our Facebook group. Alexa asked us to scrap our work life, and this really was a challenge. I have made one page about my current job, but I really didn't fancy doing another one at the present time. 

I decided to look at my 'working week' when I was a stay-at-home mum. When my son was about two, we had a set routine of going to the gym (or crèche), attending various parent and toddler groups and weekly trips to my parents. I've told him about those days, but never scrapped it, and probably wouldn't have done so without Alexa's prompt because I don't have photos from most of these activities. So... a photoless page:

I divided my page into five columns, one per day, and took the opportunity to use up some 2x12 papers and some days of the week rub-ons, both of which I've had for years.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Bloom & Grow
Letters - American Crafts
Word Stickers - Authentique
Rub-Ons - Rusty Pickle
Gems - Mark Richards
Washi Tape - from Stash

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Thomas and Friends

This is another challenge from our Facebook group for National Scrapbooking Day; our second one was set by Jennifer Grace and she gave us a sketch with a mixture of photo orientations.

I deliberately try to avoid this clash of orientations when I'm taking photos, and I had to go back to 1999 to find a pair that would fit the sketch. They're from a 'Thomas the Tank Engine' day at the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway. We took my son and my nephew there when they were toddlers. Unfortunately the two photos that I do have are of the engines, not the boys.

While I have been concentrating on the Facebook NSD challenges, I have borne others in mind while I worked, and I've managed to incorporate the criteria for Stash Challenge #26 at Scrap Our Stash. This month we need to create a page with stash items for each letter of the word EMBOSS. My items are: Enamel dots, paper from My Mind's Eye (yellow stripes), Blue background, Orange (punched circle), Stitching and the word Smile.

Supplies

Paper - My Mind's Eye Lost & Found 3, MME Now & Then, Chickaniddy Crafts Scrumptious, plus Scraps

Enamel Dots - Teresa Collins, Doodlebug

Thread - DMC

Ink - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & Sizzix Wallflower Alphabet Dies

Fiskars Circle Template

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Woodware Tag Punch

Stick It Down - David and Friends

February started with three new sketches at Stick It Down - a single page sketch, a double page sketch and a card sketch. We've already shared one example for each sketch and today is the turn of the single page team (including me) to show you what we made of it.

I'll admit that this months' sketch isn't really my thing but I still used it as a starting point for my own page. My printer's out of ink at the moment, so I've had to rely on older printed photos; I went way back to 1999 looking for a single landscape photo and unearthed one of my son and a pile of his soft toys. I keep my 'toddler papers' together and soon picked out the yellow teddy bear print paper which matches both the theme and the colours of my photo. I wanted a denim background paper but I couldn't find one; I think I must have used them all. However I did find a red and blue print that worked really well, matching both colours in the teddy bears.

So, I had the single landscape photo for the sketch, and the flowers on the right became a panel of the teddy bear patterned paper. Then I dug through my scraps for other coordinating papers and layered them together behind the photo. The layering doesn't match the sketch exactly, but that doesn't bother me. It was a few days before I could photograph the page, and at that point I decided that it needed to be matted on red cardstock.

There's a lot of really old stash on this page, including a few things (the brads and mulberry paper) that I have been tempted to dispose of. I'm rather glad that I didn't, and very happy that they are now on a page.

Supplies
Paper - Anna Griffin, Paper Adventures, Simple Stories plus various old scraps
Letters - Basic Grey Curio
Chipboard - Maya Road
Ink - Papermania
Brads - Laura Ashley

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Hello Christmas

Shimelle is hosting a weekend of online scrapbooking over on her blog. I made this page for her first challenge, and by the time I finished it there were two more. There will be posts all weekend, and you have until next Monday to link up your pages.

This page came quickly and easily, directly from the first challenge which was a sketch. First I tracked down a single photo of the right size; this one is of my cousin and her family one Christmas. Being a Christmas photo I pulled out Glitz Designs' Hello December collection pack which happily matches the photo colours well. Everything except the washi tape, a scrap of cardstock and an ink pad came from that collection. I was initially stuck for a title, but that 'Hello Christmas' sticker helped me out there.

Supplies

Paper & Stickers - Glitz Designs Hello December

Cardstock - Papermania

Washi Tape - American Crafts DIY

Ink - docrafts

Road & Rail

My scrapping break means that I have a whole stack of challenges lined up to do. The first one I picked was the April sketch from Susan at Me & Mine. The obvious thing to use for all her stripes is washi tape so I pulled out a selection. The variety of colours and patterns had a playful, child-like feel so I picked a photo of my son as a toddler to go with them.

This is actually my second draft of the page. I picked a blue patterned background and a limited colour palette for the first attempt, but they just looked wrong together. I switched to a plain white background to have another go with more colours and I am much happier with this version.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, Efco, We R Memory Keepers, The Range, Waterstones
Letters - American Crafts
Buttons - Fancy Pants Wavesearcher

Tools
American Crafts Notebook Border Punch

A Kozak Christmas

This will be my last post from the Let's Get Sketchy blog hop as the deadline is looming. This time I've chosen Melinda's challenge which was a sketch and the requirement to stitch on the page.

Once again I'm combining this with a challenge from Scrap Our Stash. Their Stash-A-Thon Challenge #3 is inspired by the candles on a birthday cake, and we were asked to use any sort of bling on the page.

The small photos in the sketch made me look at the photos that my cousin sends me most years, which seemed to be a good size. The ones I picked are from a Christmas photoshoot so I pulled out my Christmas papers and used traditional red and green. I machine stitched all my papers to the page, added gems to my tiny Christmas tree and used a glittery banner under the photos. (If you are wondering about that title, Kozak is my cousin's married surname.)

Supplies

Paper - Bo Bunny Shabby Princess, Craft Creations Christmas Words, Pebbles Seasons Greetings

Letters - Jillibean Soup

Banner - Teresa Collins

Tree - Jolee's

Gems - from Stash

Present Sticker - WHSmith

Tools

Sewing Machine

American Crafts Scalloped Border Punch

David

This is the page that I made from the third video in Shimelle's latest class - Return to the Collection. The class is about using one collection pack for six pages, but I've pulled in other papers to suit this particular photo.

One thing that Shimelle talked about in her video was the idea of building up an embellishment cluster from the pieces that are in the collection pack. I've had the owl sticker for ages and it's from the sticker pack that matches the doily print paper so I tried hard to use it here. There's some wording on it too, which I've covered up with the frame and the star.

Supplies
Paper - Paper Adventures Vintage Workshop, Crate Paper Restoration, Crate Paper Random, Graphic 45 Kraft Reflections
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Word Stickers - MME The Sweetest Thing
Owl Sticker - Crate Paper Restoration
Washi Tape - The Range
Frame - from Stash
Gems - Papermania / from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch

592

An odd title, but this is the number of the engine in this set of photos - sadly it doesn't have a name. It's the engine that the boys were watching in my last page (Trainspotting) and this will lie opposite it in my album so I used the same supplies and a simple 'stack up three photos against a border' layout that I have used a couple of times before. It came together really easily as all the decisions had already been made.

Supplies 
Paper - Simple Stories Awesome, Crate Paper Random
Journalling Card - Elle's Studio
Numbers - Jillibean Soup
Word Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, The Range
Ink - Ranger Distress Ink, StampCraft

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Studio Calico Doilies Stamp Set
Papermania All Aboard Postmark Stamp
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Trainspotting

I'm returning to Shimelle's latest class now; Return to the Collection has six videos for six pages from a single collection pack. I have watched all six videos now, but this is only my second page from the class. It features a pair of offset photos, and some stamping on the background which runs under the photo block.

I had gutted the background paper of my first page (Hardwick Hall) when I made it so I started with that piece as my photo mat and pulled in some red cardstock as a second mat.

I do have photos of the trains as well, and my next page will be a companion page for this one.


Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Simple Stories Awesome, Crate Paper Random
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Word Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, The Range
Ink - Ranger Distress Ink, Papermania, StampCraft

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Studio Calico Doilies Stamp Set
Papermania All Aboard Postmark Stamp
Craft Creatives Alphabet Stamps
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch

Just Like Grandad

This was my page for the team scraplifting game at Scrap Whispers at the end of last year. Three teams of scrappers start from the same page and each scraplift the person before them in turn, which can lead to three very different pages by the end of the chain. All three chains of pages have been revealed now on the Scrap Whispers blog: Team Rosey; Team Nilsa; Team Georgina.

My Page

Kelly's Page

I was scraplifting Kelly's page (right). I'd have liked to continue the Christmas theme, but I didn't have a single Christmas photo to scrap, so I picked an old single photo to work with and copied the other elements on her page as best I could. I stamped the background paper with stars, and layered my photo with two papers, though at a smaller angle than Kelly's. My larger title meant that I dropped the embellishment at the bottom left of the photo, but Kelly's presents became another star at the bottom right, where I stitched the outline and filled it with punched stars. I kept the little cluster at the top of the page too (though the player before Kelly has confessed that it was only there because she tore her page and needed to cover the tear).

The photo is of my son and my nephew who were refusing to wear their t-shirts because my dad (their grandad) had taken off his shirt while he was gardening.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Linen Closet Stack
Paper - DCWV Garden Party Mat Stack
Letters - American Crafts Thickers, Pebbles Mini ABC Stickers
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Ink - Dovecraft
Thread - DMC

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Mum & the Boys

A belated posting of my page for last week's Team Challenge at UKScrappers. The December Week 1 challenge was set by Sue (aka MiniOwner) - she gave us a sketch and asked us to scrap about a mother and to use numbers. She's set the same sketch as the challenge on her blog Me & Mine this month so that kills two birds with one stone. Very useful at this busy time of year.

I had been working my way through 2003 photos recently, but I didn't have any of my Mum unscrapped for that year so I went 'random' and picked a really old photo of her with her grandsons. These cute toddlers are now 16 and 17 years old! It was easy enough to tweak the dimensions of the sketch for a single 4x6 photo rather than two smaller ones.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Linen Closet Stack
Paper - MME Lime Twist, MME Miss Caroline, Paper Cellar
Letters - American Crafts Thickers, Bo Bunny Et Cetera
Eyelet Brads - Pebbles
Gems - Dovecraft
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch