Annual Photos

The end of the month is fast approaching, and I have more challenges that I want to do than I have time to do them. 

Lots of sketches this month featured hearts, including this one from Brenda Ragsdale, but I swapped them out to use circles with two photos of my cousin's children that she sent me. (The sketch is part of a four-way set of challenges but I haven't combined any other parts this month.)

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go 6x6, Basic Grey True Love 6x6
Letters - Fancy Pants Wavesearcher
Stars - Studio Calico
Embroidery Thread - DMC
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Circle Templates
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Year 5

This is the first time I've made a page from a Sketch at Scrap 365 but this one caught my eye and I added it to my challenge list.

I modified the sketch to scrap a row of identical photos of my daughter which came from the school photographer a few years ago. They originally had extra printing below them and the sheet was intended to be cut apart as bookmarks, but we never used them for that purpose. 

I normally scrap school photos with letter or number paper so I picked an alphabet print from Graphic 45 and then papers from Crate Paper to complement it. I really wanted to use some red letter stickers from Basic Grey, but I had used too many already, so I cut around the outside edges on the backing sheet to give me white letters with red edges. 

Part way through making this page I realised that I could incorporate this week's team challenge at UKScrappers. This was set by 'crafty72' and she gave us five requirements - use a black and white photo, frame the photo, use bling, use ink or mists and use no more than two flowers. Obviously I failed with the black and white photo, but I have the other items and will still score some points for my team this week.

Supplies
Paper - Graphic 45, Crate Paper DIY Shop
Letters - Basic Grey Blitzen ('Negatives'), Basic Grey Curio
Tab Sticker - Crate Paper DIY Shop
Gems - Prima
Ink - Distress Ink
(Background & Grid Washi - Unknown/Unlabelled)

Tools
Woodware Label Punch
Woodware Flower Punch

Family Dinner

I've been slow with this week's challenge from UK Scrappers. The January Week 4 challenge was set by the Bijoux Belles again. They asked for a travel theme, something food related, to use red or bling (or both) and to include a fair amount of journalling (which may be hidden).

Travel and food was a tad difficult, but I followed the example of other scrappers and picked a photo of the family in a restaurant on holiday. In our case, this was a meal in Malaysia, the night before my brother-in-law's wedding. The Bijoux Belles didn't give us any restrictions on the layout, so I used the January sketch from Sarah's Cards for my page. I used plenty of red, including red bling, but my papers were too heavily patterned to write on so I ended up making a tag for the journalling and tucking it into the layers.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV 8x8 Neutral Stack
Paper - First Edition J'Adore
Letters - MME Lush, Pebbles Mini ABC
Bling - Pebbles Welcome Christmas
String - Recycled from Clothing Label
Ink - Dovecraft

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
'Ordinary' Hole Punch

Changi

Another class from the Cybercrop; this is Mapping It Out from sutty. Her page had airport photos and bits of map, which inspired me to finally make a missing page from the beginning of my Far East album. I adapted lots of things: her gesso became plain white paint, her glassine bag became a home-made vellum envelope and her hexagons metamorphosed into circles on my page.

Supplies
Paper - Karen Foster World Travel, Crate Paper Static, K&Co Sea Glass
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Journalling Tag - Making Memories
Vellum & Word Sticker - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Kek Lok Si

As you might guess from the title, I'm back in the Far East for this page. We've just booked another cruise for next summer, which means I want to do last year's cruise scrapbook, which means that I really want to finish the book for our trip to Singapore and Malaysia in 2009.

The pictures are from a Buddhist temple, the Temple of Supreme Bliss, spread out over the hillside near Ayer Itam. The highlights were a 30m bronze statue of the goddess Kuan Yin and the seven storey Pagoda of 10,000 Buddhas, but the whole temple was intricately decorated with lots to see.

Supplies
Paper - Dovecraft Eastern Promise Paper Pack, Best of K&Company Too Stack plus scraps
Metal Coins/Tokens - bought at Kek Lok Si
Ink - Versa Color
Tools
Big Shot & Alphabet Dies
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Unkown/Borrowed Stamp Set

Shophouses

Another Malaysian page, the traditional Chinese shophouses in George Town. I scraplifted myself for this one, but the original isn't posted anywhere online.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV Far East Stack, K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad

Paper - Unknown

Ribbon - DCWV Far East Ribbon

Letters - Scenic Route

Tools

Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch

EK Success Corner Punch

Hainan Temple

The technique challenge at Scrap Whispers this month is to include at least a paragraph of journalling on the page. This wasn't difficult for me, as all my Malaysian pages have writing on them.

This one, about the Hainan Temple in George Town, is a bit different from recent pages as I used one piece of cardstock and just a couple of scraps of paper. The Chinese name for the temple is Thean Hock Keong, and is for the same deity as the Thian Hock Keng that we saw in Singapore. I scrapped the Singaporean temple on the same cardstock, but I made that page a long time ago and my style has evolved in that time. I hope that by reverting to a plainer page I can link the two temples and also link the start and end of the album.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Far East Stack
Letter Stickers - All My Memories
Brads - Papermania
Paper, Vellum & Peel-Offs - from Stash

Fort Cornwallis

This week's Glitter Girl video at Two Peas in a Bucket is all about using up our scraps, and one of the pages she makes uses 12 1" strips of paper to make a panel across the page. I took this idea a bit further with a multitude of 1cm strips all the way across a double page:

It's another page from Malaysia, and most of the strips of paper are offcuts from other pages that I have made recently. How many do you recognise?

I made a couple of pockets behind the strips for our tickets and a leaflet about the fort. The bottom of the leaflet pocket is covered by one of the photos.

I didn't feel that the page needed any extra embellishments which would just compete with all the paper patterns.

Supplies
Paper - atd plus scraps 
Vellum - Anita's

KOMTAR

KOMTAR is the Kompleks Tun Abdul Razak, a skyscraper in George Town named after Malaysia's second Prime Minister. There is a viewing platform near the top, but once we had walked there we found that is was closed for refurbishment.

I recently saw a layout by EmilynW at Two Peas in a Bucket and I liked her treatment of one landscape and one portrait photo on a page. I've flipped her page and moved the title and journalling but the basic idea was hers. (I would have linked to her page, but it was in a thread not in the gallery.)

Supplies
Card - Chartwell Studio
Paper, Journalling Spots and Flower - HOTP Soft Nostalgia Card Kit (free with Simply Cards & Papercraft)
Letter Stickers - Docrafts

Tools
EK Success Corner Punch

Kuan Yin Teng

Back to Malaysia and I've used the first of my pins, the one with the green beads. My page is based on another of Shimelle's Scrapbook Starting Points, but I moved the labels further down the page below a block with my title.

The photos are of the Temple of the Goddess of Mercy in George Town - the local name used up far fewer letters.

Supplies
Card - Echo Park Yours Truly
Paper, Tags, Die Cuts & Border - K & Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Letters - Basic Grey Nordic Holiday

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
EK Success Corner Punch

Kapitan Keling Mosque

Another page from our holiday to Malaysia. I started with one landscape and one portrait photo which is always awkward, so I initially picked an old layout to scraplift.

My photos have a really intense blue sky, which made picking a colour scheme tricky. Following hints from the recent Glitter Girl video at Two Peas, I focused on the terracotta colour of the roof tiles, pulled one piece of paper, and built my colours around that.

I moved my page elements around compared to the original page and I am happy with the end result, which has no blue at all, and uses a green which wasn't obvious from the photos:

Supplies
Card - Core'dinations Nightfall
Paper - K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad, MME Wild Asparagus
Tag - K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Ric-Rac - Papermania
Ink Pad - Ink It Up!
Thread - DMC

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Colonial George Town

Still in Malaysia, I skipped over this set of photos previously as I couldn't decide how to lay out 5 photos on a single page. I have recently signed up for Shimelle Laine's new class at Two Peas in a Bucket - the Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapbooking - and took one of her Starting Points (6 vertical strips of paper with borders above and below) to make the page:

Supplies

Card - Bazzill (probably)

Paper - docrafts V&A collection, Kit 'n' Kraft

Letters - Bo Bunny Et Cetera, Basic Grey Nordic Holiday

Border Sticker - Bo Bunny Et Cetera

Little India

Hurray, Shimelle has brought back the Scrapbook Starting Points on her blog, though they have moved from Saturday to Monday. This one, with its "four squares and three lines" is reminiscent of one from last September, but I took it in a very different direction this time.

I chose photos from Little India in George Town, Malaysia and picked out my paper. Then, I added my "three lines" (paper, ribbon and border sticker) in three places, before layering up my photos and a small cluster for my title and journalling. I cut out the flower circle and the doily in that cluster from two of the papers and inked the edges for some contrast with the paper behind them.

Supplies
Card - DCWV
Paper - Fancy Pants Summer's End
Lace Border Sticker - Crate Paper Random Collection
Peel-Off Letters - Gold Label
Ink - Papermania
Ribbon - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template and Shape Cutter
EK Success Corner Punch

Eastern & Oriental Hotel

When I saw that both ScrapFIT and My Sketch World have a challenge to create a layout on white cardstock, I though that it would be really easy. I wasn't going to create anything specifically for it, just enter the next layout that I made on white. This has taken a surprisingly long time as white just hasn't been the right colour choice for the last few layouts. Today it was, and I combined this with a sketch also from My Sketch World and a techniques challenge at My Scrapbook Nook.

The techniques challenge is the last one from the Nook's New Year Crop and kept up the theme of top tens. Gina listed her top ten techniques and challenged us to use at least four of them on a layout.

Keeping with my Far East album, I decided to scrap some pictures and memorabilia from our hotel in Malaysia. My title circle is actually a coaster that I saved and the water colour picture at the bottom of the layout is one that I bought in the hotel gift shop.

My circle was much larger then in the sketch, and couldn't really be trimmed,  so I had to shuffle things about a bit to make them fit. Techniques-wise, I inked the edges of my card stock to provide a border and punched the edges of my central panel. I also stamped and cut out two flowers for the ends of my paper strips and stitched crosses at the opposite ends of the strips.

Supplies
Cardstock  - Papermania
Paper - Dovecraft Eastern Promise paper pack
Ink - VersaColor

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Pebbles Flower Stamps 

Fort Canning Park

I've had this double layout in mind for a while but I kept putting it to one side in favour of completing challenges. It is based on Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class from May last year and uses 5 photos of Fort Canning Park in Singapore.

I'm really pleased to have filled in this gap and also finished the Singapore section of my album. Roll on Malaysia.

Supplies
Card - DCWV Neutral Stack, DCWV Far East Stack
Paper - Crate Paper Little Sprout, Dovecraft Eastern Promise Paper Pack, HOTP Asian Writing
Word Embellishments - from Stash
Ink - Papermania

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Big Shot & Provo Craft Cuttlekids Tadpole Alphabet Dies
Pebbles Bracket Stamps

All Lit Up

Challenge 7 of the New Year Crop at My Scrapbook Nook was set by Pam and it was all about colour. She listed 10 ways to use colour on a layout and challenged us to use two of them to create two layouts.

The first method that I used was to pair a colour with a neutral. I paired yellow and grey for a page about Singapore at night:

Unfortunately, the camera has bleached out the yellow in the photo above. The letters, borders and journalling cluster are all yellow really. 

Supplies
Paper - Teresa Collins Timeless, plus grey and yellow from stash
Letters - Cut on a Big Shot with Sissix dies

Raffles Hotel

This week's challenge at Scrap Whispers is a sketch, which uses one landscape photo. I am trying to concentrate on my album of Singapore and Malaysia, so I rotated and adapted it to use with two landscape photos of Raffles Hotel in Singapore. 

We visited in December so the hotel was festooned in Christmas garlands, which prompted my colour choice of red and green. I mixed and matched paper from three manufacturers' Christmas ranges, but I chose the plainer papers or reverse sides.

I was originally going to put my title and journalling on the green paper, but my layout was beginning to look a bit 'blocky' so I had a re-think. Once I had moved the title and added the swirl, I didn't have much space left for journalling so I ended up splitting it over three stamped tags, something I haven't done before, and I quite like the effect. 

Supplies

Paper - Echo Park Christmas Dots & Stripes, We R Memory Keepers Peppermint Twist, Pebbles Welcome Christmas

Paper Embellishments - We R Memory Keepers Peppermint Twist

Element Sticker (behind title) - Echo Park Christmas Dots & Stripes

Letter Stickers - Anita's Glitterations

Chipboard Swirl - Papermania

Tag Stamps - KaiserCraft

Ink - Papermania

Gems - Dovecraft 

Remember the Details

Well, I veered off course for a couple of layouts, but I'm back in Singapore today. This layout will be the last for Singapore (but I'm scrapping out of order so I still have three to do (if that makes sense)). I wanted to scrap a couple of photos that don't really fit in anywhere; they aren't of events or landmarks, just a couple of things that caught my eye.

I used Sketch #16 from Get Picky for this one. I usually stay pretty close to a sketch, but this time I did change it up a bit. The photos I wanted to scrap were landscape so I rotated the sketch and, since there were two photos I made them a bit larger. This meant that they didn't fit a circle very well so the circle became a bracket shaped square, running off the edge of the page. Nevertheless I believe that the original sketch is still visible in my layout.

Supplies
Card - DCWV Natural Stack
Paper - Dovecraft Eastern Promise, Trimcraft Laura Ashley Love Song, Basic Grey Perhaps, White & Green from Stash
Stamps - KaiserCraft, Pebbles
Ink - Papermania Serengeti
Letter Stickers - My Little Shoebox
Die Cut - atd

Pit Lane Antics

The recent challenges that I've done have all been single photo layouts, which normally takes me back to pre-digital photography. Much as I've enjoyed scrapping some older pictures, I feel that I must get back on task. One aim for 2012 (I'm not making resolutions) is to complete the album for our trip to Singapore and Malaysia in 2009.

The latest challenge from Scrap Whispers was a scraplift with three photos so I seized the opportunity to scrap some pictures taken on the Pit Straight of the Marina Bay Street Circuit in Singapore. This was Rosey's original layout:

And this is my version:

I kept the bracket shape, but used stripes rather than spots for the background paper. This was because I decided to use the back of the preceding layout in the album, and this sheet gave me a colour scheme when there isn't a lot of colour in the photos. I cut the blue bracket paper from a template and (after trying dozens of different colours) used textured grey card in the middle. My three pictures were slightly different shapes and sizes, and I matted all of them to provide some colour and separate the grey tarmac from the grey background, but I kept their general positions. I used a border punch similar to Rosey's on one edge of each photo mat and on a mat for the journalling. I dropped a lot of the embellishments as I didn't have much that would suit my peculiar colour scheme, just adding yellow dew drops to two corners. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - Scenic Route, Junkitz Winter Collection

Letter Stickers - Anita's Glitterations

Dew Drops - Papermania

Old & New

I am so grateful to Shimelle for helping me get so many layouts done this week. This one was done for her Starting Point challenge - "Create a layout that starts from this design.You can use any papers or colours you like, but before you add any pictures, start with that large box of paper in the background, a wide vertical strip plus a narrow stripe and a horizontal block. Then complete a layout."

Although we could choose any papers, I decided to go for bright ones like she used; bright papers made me turn to my photos from Malaysia in 2009 as the colours there seemed so much brighter than at home. My only deviation from the Starting Point was to use ribbon instead of the narrow strip of paper.

I used the group of three flowers to cover up a join in two pieces of the blue spotty paper so I decided that this layout would also satisfy the 3 is a Magic Number challenge (create a project that includes a group of three in the embellishment). Further '3s' in the layout are the use of three colours of paper (I usually only use one or two colours) and the title being in three parts, though I didn't particularly plan these and only realised afterwards.

The photos are of a traditional fishing jetty and the modern bridge to the mainland and were taken from the same spot. What a contrast!

Supplies
Card - DCWV Natural Stack
Paper - Scrapbook Magazine 'In the Sunshine' and 'Sunny Bay' Collections
Alphabet - Doodlebug Design
Ribbon - GCS
Flowers & Dew Drops - Papermania