Hi Foxy

I'm back up on The Mad Scrapper blog today with a page featuring an autumnal leaf wreath cut-file from Paige Taylor Evans (which was a freebie in her Facebook group) backed with papers from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection and layered over a ring of bronze modelling paste confetti circles.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, Stampin' Up!

Papers - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon

Modelling Cream - Viva Decor

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Heidi Swapp

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Heidi Swapp Confetti Stencil

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad and modelling cream free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role. 

Plan B

This page documents our day in Olden on our 2013 cruise to Norway. We'd planned to use the local bus to visit a nearby glacier, but it was already full when it reached us so we had to rapidly find a Plan B.

We collected a map from tourist information and spotted a waterfall and a lake up the valley, so decided to explore. I lined up three landscape photos (river, waterfall and lake) in a column on my page and added a smaller one of the church.

This was our last port of call and it's the last page I'm making so I put all my scraps to good use in a column next to the photos, repeating papers from the previous seven pages I've made.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Basics
Paper - K&Company Hannah, Simple Stories Awesome, Bo Bunny, My Mind's Eye, 
Letters - Hobbycraft, Doodlebug
Enamel Stars - Freckled Fawn
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot
Dovecraft Label Die
Little B Arrow Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Island Hopping

The penultimate port of our 2013 cruise to Norway was Kristiansund, a town spread across several islands linked by a harbour ferry (as well as by road these days). I downloaded a walking trail through the area which we followed round; the best parts were the old watch tower and the views from one of the smaller islands. These are the two larger photos on my page, with smaller ones of the ferry we used and out children in one of the parks.

I used the same papers and techniques on this page as I have on the last few. These pages are all going in my main 2013 album so I want it to be clear that they belong together and form a distinct subsection.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - K&Co Hannah, Simple Stories Awesome, My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus, Pebbles Warm & Cozy

Letters - Fancy Pants, Jillibean Soup, KaiserCraft

Wood Veneer - Studio Calico

Pearls - Scrapberry's

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Little B Arrows Dies

Spellbinders Circle Die

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

A Day of Two Halves

We're in Longyearbyen today, the largest settlement on the island of Spitzbergen, one where the danger from polar bears is real so we could only tour the island on an organised excursion with armed guards!

It was a day of two halves as we split up for our excursions. In the morning my son and husband went for a hike on the Longyear glacier and in the afternoon my daughter and I visited the Advent Valley. Both pairs also toured the town in the other half of their day. 

I used Shimelle Laine's 'Kicked Up Quadrants' sketch from her Start with a Sketch class for my page with photos from the town, glacier and valley in three quadrants plus title and journalling in the fourth.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Basics
Paper - K&Company Hannah, Simple Stories Awesome, My Mind's Eye
Stickers - Simple Stories Take a Hike
Letters - American Crafts, KaiserCraft
Enamel Stars - Freckled Fawn
Washi Tape - Unknown
Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot
Dovecraft Label Die
Dovecraft Star Die
Spellbinders Circle Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Woodware Small Star Punch
American Crafts/Shimelle Stamps

Modern Architecture

I'm continuing with an octet of pages from our 2013 cruise to Norway today, composed of one for an introduction/overview and one for each of our seven ports of call. I'd previously made a page for our first stop which was Ålesund, so I'm going on to the next one, Tromsø. We visited two major attractions there, both of which are housed in striking modern buildings which feature on my page.

The top photo is Polaria, a museum of the arctic, which is supposed to look like ice floes being pressed up against the land; the bottom photo is Tromsdalen Church (aka the Arctic Cathedral) which is reminiscent of icebergs.

These pages will go in my main 2013 album, so I'm making them all from a limited selection of supplies; my intention is that they will clearly belong together in the album and create a distinctive subsection.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts, Bazzill
Paper - K&Company Hannah, Simple Stories Awesome, Bo Buuny Camp-a-Lot
Letters - Jilliben Soup, October Afternoon, Fancy Pants
Washi Tape - Unknown
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink - Ranger


Tools
Sewing Machine
Big Shot & Little B Arrows Die
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

Cruise Norway 2013

We cruised to Norway back in 2013 and although I've made the holiday album for that trip I will also include some pages in my main annual album. The plan was for one for each port of call; I made two of them in 2014, then another the following year and the leftover paper scraps have sat on my shelf ever since.

My Existing Three Pages

Rather than tidying round the papers any more, I've decided to get the pages done. We visited seven ports and I'm adding a introductory page to make eight for the trip. For more recent cruises, I've just made a single or double summary page for the annual album, but with three already done here I will stick with the original plan. I didn't assemble a kit for these in advance, and certainly don't have enough paper in my scraps for five new pages, but there are certain elements that I can and will repeat:

• Kraft backgrounds
• Map print paper (as on two pages above; I may add some to the third)
• A specific red K&Co patterned paper (on all pages above)
• Multi-coloured stripes from Simple Stories (all pages above)
• Machine-stitching (as on two pages; I can add some to the third)
• Port names as sub-titles in small letter stickers
• Repeated date stamps
• Punched shapes (scalloped circles and postage stamps in particular)

I started at the beginning, with my introductory page, and used the June sketch from Scrap-Circle on Facebook. 

The larger photo is a copy of one that we bought on board, with the cruise name, itinerary and ship; the smaller ones are scenery photos that won't make it into the pages in this album, though they do appear in the trip album.

I repeated many of the elements listed above, and pulled in a plaid paper for the main circle. There's plenty left so I can repeat it too on some of the remaining pages.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - My Mind's Eye, K&Company Hannah, Simple Stories Awesome
Letters - Basic Grey, Lily Bee Design
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts, Mister Huey's

Tools
Sewing Machine
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Kreaxions Circle Cutter
Big Shot
Little B Arrows Die
Dovecraft Star Die
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Cafe Time

Another of the NSD challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper was to be inspired by this cut file. I have a Silhouette Portrait which is 8" wide so I can't easily cut a full 12x12 background on it. I tried a couple of versions of the file, in 8x8 and oval 8x12 but I wasn't happy with them. In the end, I cut the file in two sections and used all the middles rather than the frames for my page.

A background like this can only take one photo, and I had no more single photos printed so I delved into the archives to find one of a group of us celebrating a birthday with breakfast at Cafe Rouge.

Supplies
Paper - Pebbles/Jen Hadfield Heart of Home, Pink Paislee/Paige Evans, Crate Paper Random
Letters - American Crafts
Puffy Sticker - MAMBI?
Enamel Dots - Marianne Designs, Echo Park
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Mr Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait 

In the Dockyard

The dockyard in question here is Chatham Historic Dockyard in Kent. It lies on the River Medway and was a Royal Dockyard from the reign of Queen Elizabeth I to 1984. When the working dockyard closed, part of it was turned into a visitor attraction, with its many Georgian buildings including the Ropewalk and three historic warships - HMS Gannet, HMS Cavalier and HMS Ocelot.

Our tickets were valid for a year and we visited twice in order to see everything; I've previously made pages from HMS Gannet and the Ropewalk.

I used the June Week 1 sketch from Let's Get Sketchy for my page; the sketch has two photos but it was easy to squeeze in a couple more. I decided on a red, white and blue colour scheme, using an ancient stripey paper and lots of nautical embellishments in two clusters.

I started from plain white cardstock, stamping a blue pattern randomly across the page and brown postmarks where my embellishments would go. I machine-stitched around the page, using straight stitches for most of it, and zig-zag stitches adjacent to the brown stamping. Then the two embellishment areas - trying to match pieces in the large one to the small one. The anchor wood veneer is a dark wood so I inked a star to match it on the left. I had planned to use small red letter stickers for my title, but I'm out of Ds so I cut this one on my Big Shot; the letters are a bit bigger than the stickers so I'm happy that it does just fit as I wasn't sure that it was going to.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Coconut Swirl
Paper - Reminisce Bon Voyage, My Mind's Eye
Stickers - Anita's Glitterations, Reminisce
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug
Pearls - Craft for Occasions
Brad - Dovecraft
Buttons, Sequins & Ship's Wheel - from Stash
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Sewing Machine
Big Shot, Sizzix Wallflower Alphabet Dies & Circle Die
Woodward Scalloped Circle Punch
Papermania Postmark Stamp
Lakeland Background Stamp
Amy Tangerine Roller Date Stamp

71° 10' 21''

Sketch-n-Scrap have been celebrating their third birthday with a month of challenges. I did a few of the cards last weekend, and I've finally managed to tackle one of the layout challenges. I hope to do a few more, and luckily the later challenges are open past the end of the month.

I chose to start with Kerry's challenge, which is all about the number three. She asked us to use triangles, and three of anything else we used (three photos, three paper, three buttons etc). She gave us a sketch too, but that was optional, and in the end I used the 1 May sketch from Stuck?! Sketches instead.

I've been trying to bring my 2015 album up-to-date and also to finish off my 2014 album, but I didn't have any trios of photos left for those, and went back to 2013 (another unfinished album) and our cruise to Norway. I'm doing a full album for the trip, but I also want one page from each port of call for my main 2013 album. These photos are from the North Cape, which lies at 71° 10' 21'' North, and claims to be the most northerly point in mainland Europe. Thanks to Daphne at Scrapbooking Insanity for the title idea; she used the coordinates of a lighthouse on a page a few weeks ago.

I've already made two pages for this section of my album (On Top of the World and Island Escape) so I referred to them for consistency as I want all these pages to be on kraft cardstock and to have similar colour schemes.

The sets of three that I used for Kerry's challenge are: three photos, three patterned papers, three circles of stitching, three numbers in my title, three strips of washi tape, three punched circles, three pieces of border sticker, three flowers, date stamped three times, three columns of journalling, and three sets of three rows of triangles.

I don't have a triangles stencil, but I do have a pair of dies that cut a little row of linked triangles, and I decided to use the inner part to cut my own. This was more successful than I ever imagined, and I will use it again.

Top - Dies; Bottom - Die Cut

Stencil with three Cuts

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - K&Company Hannah, Simple Stories Awesome, Simple Stories Take a Hike
Numbers - American Crafts
Letters - Basic Grey
Stickers - Bo Bunny, Echo Park
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Flowers - Great Expressions
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Little B Arrows Dies
Sewing Machine
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Summer Fun

Before I made the last page, I had two similar three photo sketches in mind, and I wanted to use both of them. I've dropped back to last year for a set of photos from our day at Adventure Island, a small theme park in Southend-on-Sea and I'm using the mid-month sketch from Stuck!? Sketches.

This page will sit opposite another from the same day (Rage) which has a yellow background, so I chose yellow again. The polka dot paper is from My Mind's Eye so I pulled out all my MME scraps, mixing papers from three Miss Caroline collections. 

I stitched the circles on the sketch with my sewing machine. They looked terribly wonky at first, but now they are half-covered with paper I am happy with the way they look.

Supplies
Paper - MME Quite Contrary, MME Miss Caroline
Letters - American Crafts
Tickets - MME Miss Caroline
Word Sticker - MME The Sweetest Thing
Butterflies - Prima
Enamel Dots - Studio Calico
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Sewing Machine
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Island Escape

This is another page from Norway, scrapped with the May Week 1 sketch from Let's Get Sketchy, but with the papers behind the photo straightened up. I did start with them at an angle but they bugged me so I straightened them up on my page.

The photos are from our first port of call on a cruise last summer - Ålesund - but it was a town that we'd visited before so we looked further afield for something to see or do, eventually deciding to catch a bus to the adjoining island of Hessa (top photo) to walk/climb to its highest point, Sukkertoppen. 

I've decided to do all the Norwegian pages in my 2013 album on kraft cardstock as it's easy to repeat and will add some uniformity/continuity to that section. I've repeated a few of the papers from the last page too, including narrow strips from the map print paper.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - K&Co Hannah, Unknown Map Paper, Simple Stories Awesome, Basic Grey Sultry
Letters - Basic Grey, All My Memories
Sticker - Simple Stories Take a Hike
Washi Tape - Trimcraft
Flowers - Great Expressions
Ink - dovecraft, Ranger Distress Ink

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

On Top of the World

I'm combining two challenges today. First up is Challenge #172 from Scrap Whispers called 'You Choose'; we were asked to take three features from an inspiration layout from Christina and use them on our own pages. Her page was very different from the ones I make, but there were plenty of details to choose from. I picked machine stitching, date stamps and book paper.

I based my page on Sketch #56 from Sketch-n-Scrap, though I used four photos and more paper layers and moved the title and journalling.

The photos are from Ny Ålesund in Svalbard, the most northerly permanent settlement in the world. We visited there on a cruise of Norway and Svalbard last summer. I am doing an album for the holiday of course, but I'm also making a page for each port of call for my main 2013 album.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Unknown Map Paper, K&Co Hannah, Glitz Designs Beautiful Dreamer, Simple Stories Awesome
Letters - October Afternoon, Basic Grey
Frames/Stickers - Authentique Natural
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Compass Die-Cut - atd
Anchor Button - from Stash
Ink - docrafts, Ranger

Tools
Sewing Machine
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

Bundle

I'm still plodding my way through the Birthday Stash-a-Thon challenges from Scrap Our Stash, and wondering if I can complete them all by next Friday's deadline. This page was made for Challenge #8 which was to use gesso or textured paste on a page. I've seen some beautiful pages online where other people have achieved stunning effects with gesso, but whenever I try it I find that the page warps too much and I never like the results. With that in mind, I used a simple polka dot stencil to create an all-over pattern on cardstock as a basis for my page.

Once I had my textured background, there were no other requirements for the page so I turned to my list of sketches and picked 'Inspired By' Challenge #3 from Sketch-n-Scrap. In these challenges, a DT Member's page is interpreted to create a sketch. I just used the sketch and the page it came from as inspiration rather than sticking to it faithfully as is the case sometimes.  

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets, Studio Calico Sundrifter, Studio Calico Atlantic, Dear Lizzy Neapolitan
Vellum - from Stash
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Texture Paste - Farrell & Gold
Tag - American Crafts
Sticker - Studio Calico Snippets
Butterflies - Prima
Gems - Papermania

Tools
Dreamweaver Stencil - Background Dots
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Zip It

The photos for this page came from the same day as my previous two pages, but they document different things so I haven't used the same papers, though I do have greens, yellows and teal blues on each.

This time I have a set of fun photos of us on the zip wire in the park near the fort, and I adapted a four photo sketch from Sketch-n-Scrap to accommodate six photos.

The sketch features large banners behind the photos, making it perfect for Birthday Stash-a-Thon Challenge #5 at Scrap Our Stash.

This was another page where I shuffled papers for a while. I found a couple of combinations that I liked but the photos got lost against them. Finally I realised that I needed clean patterns (not distressed) on white paper, and Studio Calico's Snippets collection provided all the patterns I needed. I just added a bit of mist to the background, inked my edges for definition and stitched a few crosses on the paper edges.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Snippets
Letters - American Craft Thickers, Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Wood Veneer Pieces - Studio Calico, Creative Embellishments
Mist Cosmic Shimmer Mist
Ink - Ink It Up!
Thread - DMC

Coalhouse Fort

The current round of challenges at Scrap Whispers close tomorrow afternoon, so this will be the last page that I enter. It's for Challenge #169 which was 'All About the Favourites'. It's an easy one - to think about your favourite page size, style, technique, subject, embellishments and so on and to use them all to create a layout with plenty of journalling (whether we like journalling or not).

• My favourite size is 12x12. It means there's plenty of space for photos, writing and pretty papers. I do make smaller pages but I find myself longing for more space when I do. 
• My style is generally clean and simple; I do love a bit of mist but I'm not one for lots of paints or random stamping. 
• One of my favourite techniques is hand-stitching, often a circle around the photos. Given a sketch with a circle on it, I'll generally hand-stitch that circle.
• The main subject of my photos is the places we go, at home or abroad.
• I don't have a favourite embellishment and don't use a lot of them on my pages. I generally embellish with a few punched shapes and maybe a word sticker or some gems.
• I use sketches a lot of the time for my pages (as any reader of my blog will know!); sometimes I follow them exactly, and sometimes they are a starting point for something that looks a little different by the time I've finished.

The sketch for this page comes from Brenda Ragsdale at GrandDiva's Creative Corner and is one of the Scrappy Friends challenges for March. I had a pair of 4x6 photos that I wanted to scrap and this sketch seemed to be adaptable enough to do that. I made the paper panels at the top a little larger, and removed the pieces at the bottom of the sketch. True to my favourite technique, I hand-stitched the larger circle part-way around my photos. Finally I rotated the title to run it along the edge of my photos.

Supplies
Paper - MME The Sweetest Thing, Lasting Impressions, plus Scraps
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Border Sticker - Bo Bunny Mama-Razzi
Washi Tape - We R Memory Keepers
Thread - DMC
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Circle Template
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Ben - Aged 6

Time is running out on the current batch of challenges at Scrap Whispers. Their challenge #167 is to scrap a large square photo. Mine isn't as large as the photos in the samples, but at just less than 6"x6" it's larger than I normally scrap.

The 15th March sketch with a twist at Paper Secrets featured a single square photo so I've used that sketch as the basis for my page. This time the twist is to use items that start with each of the letters of the word LUCKY. That letter U gave me some trouble but I got there in the end. My items are: Letter stickers from Lily Bee; Union flag (on Ben's t-shirt); paper from Crate Paper; Kraft cardstock and tags; Yellow patterned paper.

I swapped various papers in and out of this page as I worked, and I changed my mind about the background several times. Eventually I put the paper layers together first and then tried them against a variety of backgrounds. The kraft worked fairly well but was just a bit plain and flat until I spritzed it with plenty of white mist and a small amount of teal mist. The mist means that I am also linking up with Scrap Our Stash's Birthday Challenge #6 which is to add mist to a page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - MME Wild Asparagus, K&Co Daydreams, Papermania, Crate Paper Random, Crate Paper The Pier
Letters - Lily Bee
Tags - Maya Road
Border Sticker - Bo Bunny
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Mist - Mister Huey's, Cosmic Shimmer
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Big Shot & Alphabet Dies

Joust

This is my final page for the second Sketch-a-Thon Blog Hop at Let's Get Sketchy. This time I've picked Tone's challenge, which is a four-photo sketch and the twist of using string or twine on the page.

I picked my best four photos from a jousting tournament at Hever Castle last year, and stitched between them with dark brown twine.

I'm also linking up with UKScrappers' March Week 2 challenge. The Glitterbugs gave us a choice of themes, and I chose Sport. They also asked us to use: doodling; ribbon, lace or washi tape; brads, eyelets or buttons; altered flowers. I have doodling, washi tape and brads, but not the flowers so I won't score full points for my team this week, but 25 points is better than nothing. 

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Random, Pixie Press Fall Stripes, Unlabelled Chequers
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Washi Tape - American Crafts
Brads - Papermania
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Corner Rounder Punch

Sandra & Frank

Another page for the Let's Get Sketchy Sketch-a-Thon blog hop; this one is for Connie's challenge - to use this sketch and some leaves.

I'm combining it with Stash-A-Thon Challenge #4 from Scrap Our Stash. They are celebrating their birthday with lots of celebration-themed stash challenges and this one is to use one or more bows on the page.

The sketch has three photos, but I decided to use two in different sizes from my colleague's wedding last year. I used pressed leaves in my embellishments and added a bow to our invitation, which I then slipped behind the patterned paper at the top where it can easily be pulled out and read.

Supplies
Paper - Heidi Grace Designs, plus various unlabelled and scraps
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Doilies - Dovecraft
Leaves - Colorbok
Flowers - Dovecraft
Brads - Laura Ashley
Ribbon - from Stash

Hardwick Hall

A couple of years ago, Shimelle Laine ran a class called The Perfect Collection, where she set out to make as many pages as possible from a single scrapbook collection. She's revisiting the collection pack this month with a new class called Return to the Collection but the focus is slightly different. Rather than making as many pages as possible she is making six pages using papers from a single kit, plus other supplies as required and there is a video for each of the six pages. So far I've watched the first two videos, and made a page from the first one.

I didn't actually use a collection pack as such, but I tried to pull a kit together from my stash. I started from that multi-coloured doily paper, that I love but have never managed to use, and added in some single-colour prints and some neutrals. Despite my willingness to mix collections and manufacturers, the majority of my 'kit' comes from Crate Paper.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Restoration, Crate Paper Random, MME The Sweetest Thing, KaiserCraft Secret Bird Society
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration

Tools
X-Cut Corner Punch
Woodware Tag Punch

Windows 1.2.3

The Scrap Apples set this week's challenge at UKScrappers, and they asked us to use three elements from a list of 10. I decided to use my favourite photo from 2013, to frame the photo and to use some new stash. This left lots of freedom in terms of page design, so I'm combining this challenge with the January 15th Sketch at Stuck?! Sketches.

To be completely honest, this is one of my favourite photos from 2013 that I haven't scrapped yet but I think it will suffice for the challenge. It shows our children and our friends' child looking through the windows in the ruins of Hardwick Old Hall and I framed it with new 6x6 paper that I won from SJ Crafts  in a Facebook giveaway at Christmas. I kept fairly close to the sketch, apart from those extra layers behind the photo.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Story Teller, Basic Grey Mint Julep, Crate Paper DIY Shop
Letters - Basic Grey Curio
Tag - Crate Paper DIY Shop
Washi Paper - Crate Paper DIY Shop
Stars - Creative Embellishments, Studio Calico
Ink - docrafts
Thread - DMC

Tools
Fiskars Circle Templates
Bazzill Paper Piercer