Just 3 of Us

That's it! I've done it! I've finished my 2015 album!

I've filled in the final gap with a formal photo from our cruise last summer. We've cruised a few times over the years (and cruising got me into scrapbooking) but this was the first time without our son, which gave me the page title.

I've based the page on a sketch from The Studio Challenges blog, though I flipped it and used a larger photo. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Docrafts
Paper - Fancy Pants Life is Beautiful, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes Bloom, My Mind's Eye Now & Then
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Peel-Off Stickers - 
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Scribbled Circle Cut File
American Crafts Open Scallop Border Punch
Woodware Label Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

SWCP 8

SWCP is the South West Coast Path and this was the eighth year that my husband and father-in-law walked a section. They started out from Poole in 2008 and hope to arrive in Minehead in 2018 or 2019 depending how the last few sections go.

These pages are for my 2015 album, which I am close to completing now. They were always going to be photo-heavy and I thought that this would be a double page. However, since I have almost completed the album, I know exactly how the pages are fitting together and I don't have the right space for a double. A single page just wouldn't be big enough so I pondered making three pages, and remembered Shimelle's 4x6 Photo Love class for eight photos which consisted of a shorter page sitting in front of a standard 12x12 page so that it opens up to reveal extra pictures 'inside'.

I have sixteen smaller photos on my triple page, which fits with the first of Shimelle's challenges in an impromptu scrapbooking weekend which started on Friday evening.

This is the initial view of the page:

which then opens up:

I bought loads of the blue paper a few years ago so that the coast path pages in each annual album are on the same backgrounds. I printed all my photos at the same height for a simple design, and filled in the gaps at the ends of the lines with patterned paper, journalling and embellishments. I also wrote photo captions between the two rows of pictures.

Supplies
Paper - Craft Creations, Carta Bella Ahoy There, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio
Letters - October Afternoon
Stickers - Jillibean Soup, Cosmo Cricket
Enamel Dots/Shapes - Doodlebug
Pearls - Craft for Occasions
Washi Tape - Papermania (Yellow Unknown)
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Christmas Presents

I've almost finished my 2015 album now. The final few pages are planned out in my head at least, and will be down on paper soon. It's a lovely feeling, and this will be the first annual album that I've finished in ages; 2010 and 2011 just need a few pages and 2012 to 2014 are all still works in progress. (Of course, an album is never completely finished, I can always add more stories and photos, but I mean finished in the sense that I have made all the pages that I currently want to make for that album.)

This page will sit opposite the last one I made and, since they cover Christmas Day and Boxing Day, I've used the same background and the leftover paper pieces, as well as many of the same embellishments.

I chose to work with Sketch #299 from Creative Scrappers, though with one less photo. Half way through making the page, I flipped the paper layers from left to right, not for some clever design reason, but because I gutted the silver baubles paper and I cut away a piece from the wrong side! 

I've managed to use some older stash on this page - the red paper is from 2006 (though I haven't had it quite that long) and, since I don't scrap with silver very often, I decided to use up the remainder of a pack of eyelet brads here (9 from the original 20).

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Knee Highs, Echo Park Reflections Christmas, Echo Park This and That Christmas, 
      American Crafts HollyDay, My Mind's Eye Bohemia
Letters - Freckled Fawn, DCWV
Doily - Papermania
Washi Tape - Tesco
Stickers - Echo Park, Ebay
Stars - Paperchase
Eyelet Brads - Pebbles
Gems - Doodlebug, The Range 
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp
Shimelle Christmas 2015 Stamps

"Who Am I?"

Back to my 2015 album today, and another page from December of that year. This one's from Boxing Day with photos of my dad and my children during an after-dinner game of Who Am I?

I'm playing along with the October 'Stash+Three' challenge at Scrap Our Stash, which is a sketch plus three stash elements from the lists; I used both die-cuts and Doodlebug gems for D, with the colours English Green and French Wine.

I'm also linking to Rochelle Spears' 'This or That' challenge where she has asked us to use Tags OR Tickets, not both; I chose tags

I had real trouble embellishing this page. I have a few remnants of Christmas collections plus individual sheets of paper, but hardly any Christmas embellishments. I had a dig through my colour drawers and pulled a few pieces together, but I can feel the need to shop before tackling Christmas 2016.

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Knee Highs, Echo Park Reflections Christmas, Echo Park This & That Christmas
Letters - American Crafts
Doily - Papermania
Die-Cuts - My Mind's Eye, K & Company
Sticker - Crate Paper DIY Shop
Labels - Pretty Little Studio
Stars - Paperchase
Gems - Doodlebug
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I'm still on my 2015 album, and specifically December when I have four pages on my 'to do' list. This one comes from a weekend we spent in the Lake District when we saw the only real snow of last winter (we live in the south of England and had none at home). It came down thick and fast on Saturday morning but we stuck with our plan for lunch and a walk in Skelwith Bridge. 

I picked three photos of the snow, river and mountains and paired them with Susan's October sketch at Me & Mine, which I rotated for landscape photos and moved the pictures to one side.

I chose papers from an older winter collection, and spent ages looking for the co-ordinating sticker sheet before realising that I'd cut it up and added the pieces to my colour-themed drawers. Having dredged up all the pieces, only one of them actually made it on to the layout.

I used one of the horizontal papers for my title, a mixture of letter stickers, die-cut letters and a word cut on my Silhouette, and journalled on the other one.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Fancy Pants Winterland, Authentique Nestled
Letters - Basic Grey
Snowflakes - Quirky Kits
Frame - Unknown
Sticker - Fancy Pants Winterland
Gems - ZVA Creative

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & X-Cut Headliner Alphabet Die
X-Cut Corner Punch

Runnymede

I'm filling in another gap in my 2015 album today with a double page from Runnymede (the home of Magna Carta) which I visited in June that year. I made two other pages from the day earlier this year (J.F.K. Memorial and We Will Remember Them) but, although I printed my photos and sketched out my page at that time, I didn't get around to making this one until now.

I chose the same cream cardstock and the same paper collection for these pages as the earlier ones to tie them together as belonging to the same day. I also used more of the same paper flowers and fussy-cut some leaves from one of the papers to go with them.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm
Letters - American Crafts
Flowers - Papermania
Gems - TPC Studio
Ink - Ranger, Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Amy Tangerine Date Stamp

On Kinder Scout

I'm waiting for a delivery of scrapbooking supplies to arrive before I scrap our Austrian holiday, so I'm going back to my 2015 albums for now. We spent a weekend camping in the Peak District in July that year, and I've scrapped most of it, but I had one page missing from the album - the walk that my husband did with some friends on Kinder Scout.

I picked three photos and scraplifted myself (The Queen's Battery), though the two pages are far from identical, and will be in different albums.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market, Basic Grey Hipster, Authentique Nestled
Vellum - Doodlebug
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Tag - Quirky Kits
Stickers - Crate Paper
Washi - Unknown
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Teresa Collins
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mr Huey's, Docrafts

Every Day is a New Adventure

One of the prompts from The 20 Project was to change your title techniques, to think about what you use for your page titles and then to do something different. This made me think about a pre-cut title piece that I received in a Quirky Kit last spring; 'Every Day is a New Adventure' is perfect for a cruise, when you are visiting a new place every day, but I made the whole album for our last cruise without using it. However I also need to document that cruise for my 2015 annual album.

We visited seven towns and cities on that cruise, so I picked one photo from each port and got them printed as squares ready for a double page using quadrants with photos in seven and the title in the eighth. Once I started, I rejected that idea as it wasn't working for me, and I considered scraplifting my Books About Town page instead. My final page was actually a hybrid of the two with rows of photos in distinct blocks.

I mostly used leftover papers from my cruise album for my page, but the filmstrip washi is a brand new purchase. I used silver-grey mist in the album but switched to gold here to match the title piece.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Coredinations, Colorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits
Title - Quirky Kits
Letters - October Afternoon
Die Cuts - atd
Washi Tape - Ebay
Puffy Stickers - Paperchase
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Echo Park
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Scrapberry's 'Around the World' Compass Stamp

We Will Remember Them

This page will sit opposite the last one in my 2015 album; both are from a day in and around Runnymede last summer. The Air Forces Memorial is on top of Cooper's Hill, overlooking Runnymede, and is dedicated to 20,456 men and women from British Empire air forces who have no known grave. The long lines of names were a powerful reminder of the sacrifice that they made for us.

I used the May Week 1 sketch from Let's Get Sketchy, but with larger photographs and I straightened up the photo block.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm
Letters - Basic Grey
Wood Veneer - Maya Road
Sequins - Pretty Little Studio
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

J.F.K. Memorial

Last summer I spent a day in and around Runnymede, the water meadow where Magna Carta was signed in 1215; you can see a plethora of photos from the day here. I'd always thought that they would make a double page, but when I sorted through my pictures for printing recently I realised that the photos really fell into three groups and that I would need a double page plus two singles.

I've started with one of the single pages, for the memorial to President John F Kennedy that is on the hillside above the meadow. It was designed to be part of the landscape and consists of a flight of 50 steps (one per state), the memorial stone itself and some seats for peaceful contemplation.

I used a sketch that Laura Whitaker designed for Imaginisce, rotated for my landscape photos. I moved the title across to the top corner and ran my journalling down the column below it.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset
Paper - My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm
Letters - Basic Grey
Flowers - Dovecraft
Gems - from Stash
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Provocraft Alphabet Dies
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Studio Calico Doily Stamps

Shimelle & Me

I made this page for a couple of challenges: UKScrappers are running a new series called Scrap Like You Mean It, and the first prompt was to scrap in your favourite colour; Shimelle's latest weekly challenge is a monochromatic page.

I chose blue for my page; I'm not sure that it's truly my favourite colour but I use it a lot in my scrapbooks. I picked a mottled blue paper for my background and decided to work with a background cut file and fill the various openings with different blue papers. 

I selected the Pie Chart Background from Laura Whitaker, but her original file is 12x12 for a Cameo and I have the Portrait which can only cut an 8" width. I initially just resized her file, but then I thought that an 8x8 background would be almost covered by my photo. My next step was to copy and flip the file, weld two together and resize again so my final pie chart background was roughly 6x12. 

I normally choose a photo before I start my pages, but on this occasion I did almost all my background work before picking one. I did a quick flip through my most recent photos and picked one of me with Shimelle at a mini-book workshop last September, which I printed at 4x4 and matted twice.

I used my Portrait again to cut the word 'Shimelle' in her own handwriting (sourced from the internet) and finished my title with silver glitter Thickers; I used a gem for the dot on the 'i' and more gems next to the photo. Finally I journalled around the edge of the page as a border.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market, My Mind's Eye Bright 6x6 Pad, Crate Paper Neighbourhood 6x6 Pad, Scraps
Letters - American Crafts
Gems - Mark Richards
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Laura Whitaker 'Pie Chart Background' Cut File
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Queen & Adam Lambert

A year ago, we saw Queen and Adam Lambert live at the O2, one of the best evenings of my life. I took a LOT of photos and although they vary widely in quality there were certainly enough good ones for a double page. I'm not keen on making double pages though, so I've been looking/waiting for a suitable sketch.

This month's double page sketch from Stick It Down (originally published at Page Maps) was almost perfect, with a good combination of landscape and portrait photos in different sizes, though I did move the title and squeeze in a few more photos.

It's hard to see the pattern on the grey paper, but it's a musical note print that I spotted in my nearest scrapbook store (which was closing down) last June and earmarked for this page. I downloaded the word 'Queen' in the correct font and cut it on my Portrait, adding in '& Adam Lambert' in a script font. I also designed and cut the border of stars from white cardstock and then painted them all with mist. It's a plainer page than many that I make, but I really wanted the photographs to be the most important things on the page.

Speaking of photos, I had a few more that I also wanted to include, so I made a 6x12 divided page that will sit between the two halves of the double page. I repeated the title in the first pocket, because it's on the right-hand side of my double page, and will not actually be seen when you are looking at the left-hand side and the front of the insert in the album. These are the six cards that I made; they will sit back-to-back in the two sides of the divided page.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Crate Paper Random, My Little Shoebox Picture Perfect
Vellum Note - Quirky Kits
Stars - Papermania
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

V.I.P.

Back in 2014 my husband went to see Caro Emerald at the O2 (First Gig); when he found out that she was playing locally last year he bought a VIP package - front row seat, back-stage pass and a photo with the star herself, which obviously I had to scrap.

My page is a scraplift from Pol Prince; we are both part of the For The Love of Pretty Paper group on Facebook, and she guested for one of my scraplift challenges last year.

I'm also linking up with The Studio Challenges, whose most recent challenge is to use a patterned paper background.

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee Bella Rouge, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio 2 plus Scraps
Letters - American Crafts, Jillibean Soup
Year Sticker - Elle's Studio
Acetate Stars - Heidi Swapp
Washi Tape - Tesco, Papermania
Gems - Papermania, ZVA Creative
Epoxy Circles - Ebay
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Tag Die
X-Cut Small Circle Punch
Crayola Butterfly Punch

A Year of Wild Camps

My husband spends his spare weekends hillwalking and last year he set himself the challenge of at least one wild camp each month. I don't make scrapbook pages for all his walks, but this did seem to be an achievement worth documenting. I picked one photo from each month for a 12-photo page; they're all phone photos and proportioned at 16:9 so they fitted best as four rows of three.

The background's an ancient paper, pre-dating branding strips; I picked the red to match its leaf pattern and then the other papers were all from the same collection.

Supplies
Paper - Unknown Background, Simple Stories Awesome
Letters - American Crafts, Glitz Designs
Label - 7Gypsies?
Tag - Jillibean Soup
Brad - Papermania
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Lyme Park

I'm filling in another gap in my 2015 album today, with a quartet of photos from Lyme Park in Cheshire. I wanted to print the photos large enough to be able to see the details, so they take up a lot of the page. I cut the title on my Silhouette Portrait - no more scrabbling around for letters in the right colour, size and font.

Supplies
Paper - We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit
Cards - We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer
Wood Veneers - Studio Calico
Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye The Sweetest Thing
Enamel Dots - Trimcraft
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait Electronic Cutting Machine

The Line

My husband gave me a home-made gift certificate for Christmas entitling me to "A super duper paper shapes cutting machine thingy", otherwise known as a Silhouette Portrait. This is the baby brother of the Cameo, the only differences that I can see are the cutting width (only 8" rather than 12") and the price (about £125 versus £255).

One of the first things that I cut is the logo from The Line, a modern sculpture walk that I did last October and blogged about here. I downloaded the logo from their website, imported it into the Silhouette software and resized it to make it a major element of my page.

I had eight photos of the sculptures, which I spit into two groups, north and south of the Thames. I layered them with vellum and a floral paper but I didn't want the page to get too fussy with lots of different patterns.

Supplies
Cardstock - My Mind's Eye Kraft Fun-Day, DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - K&Company, Dovecraft Eastern Promise, Basic Grey, October Afternoon
Vellum - Doodlebug
Letters - My Mind's Eye Necessities
Chipboard - My Mind's Eye Market Street
Wood Veneer - Studio Calico
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

A Gallery Without Walls

I'm filling in another gap in my 2015 album today. Back in June we attended a family wedding in Folkestone, and the following morning we had a walk along the seafront. I'd picked up a leaflet about the various artworks that are on display in the town, and my page title comes from the subtitle on that leaflet.

I chose six 3x4 photos for my page, which I knew would cover half the area, but once they were printed it seemed like a lot more. I shuffled and reshuffled them until I had an arrangement that I was happy with. There wasn't much space left for layering and I didn't want to clutter the layout, so I laid the photos directly on the background. The stripy paper is from the same collection and I picked my embellishments to match the stripes, much simpler now that I have sorted most of my embellishments by colour. Indeed, I would probably not have used the chipboard circles otherwise.

Supplies
Paper - We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer
Letters - American Crafts, Basic Grey
Arrow Die Cut - atd
Chipboard - American Crafts
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Big Shot & Poppystamps Small Leafy Sprig Die
Craft Creatives Flower Punch

A Night in Slug Meadow

It's become a tradition around here that my husband takes our son camping on the weekend of our daughter's birthday party. She chose a theme park trip instead of a party this year, but tradition cannot easily be overthrown and the boys set off for a night on the North Downs in Kent.

I used the December Week 4 sketch from Let's Get Sketchy for my page, but not the Christmas-sy mood board which accompanied it.

I did originally stamp on the background cardstock, but I miscalculated the positioning and it is completely covered by my paper layers. I could have re-done it, but I preferred the page without it.

Looking at the sketch again now, I forgot the stitching that I had intended to do in the top corner. I think I'll go back and add that to my page before I put it away.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Simple Stories Awesome
Letters - American Crafts, Jenni Bowlin
Enamel Dots - Trimcraft
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Heidi Swapp Ticket Stamp

Go Gina!

We might be fast approaching the end of the year, but I've only just bought my albums for my 2015 pages. I've put away my pages from January to July and identified a few gaps.

One of my missing pages is from April, when my husband and I went to watch the London marathon and support our friend who was running. We were stationed at Canary Wharf, ready to hand over supplies of Kendal mint cake to keep her going.

I picked an arrows background for the sense of movement, and the numbers paper because the random print looks a little like the crowd photo and numbers are an significant element of the day. I have a pack of chipboard pieces that I am trying to use up, and two of them matched the colours of the page so I used them here, finishing off with a few gems and some gold mist.

PS Looking at this, I've forgotten to stitch the chipboard pieces in place; I hate the empty holes, so I'll be doing that next.

Supplies

Paper - Amy Tangerine , Simple Stories So Fancy, Chickaniddy Crafts

Letters - American Crafts

Chipboard - My Mind's Eye

Gems - Papermania Dew Drops

Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & X-Cut Gift Tag Dies

Tiedyetastic

This page is something a bit different for me. My daughter and her fellow Explorer Scouts had been doing tie-dye and their leader posted some photos of the results on Facebook. I decided to try a messy multi-coloured background to imitate the way that colours run into each other in tie-dye.

I mixed several colours of ink with water and 'smooshed' them into a plain piece of white cardstock using plastic packaging to spread them around. This worked best with Ranger distress inks, was acceptable with Hobbycraft ink and an abject failure with Papermania inks.

I stamped over this with a bubble wrap stamp, used modelling paste and a circles mask for a bit of texture, and spattered two colours of mist across the diagonal. Messy stuff over, I cut down my page slightly and matted it on a diagonal striped paper. I don't normally like multi-coloured titles but it seemed to be the right thing for this page. My title was originally going to be the slightly clearer tie-dye-tastic, but I found a cursive font and decided to join up all the letters.

Supplies
Cardstock - Quirky Kit
Paper - We R Memory Keepers Quoted, My Minds Eye Just Splendid
Letters - Echo Park
Ink - Ranger, Hobbycraft, Docrafts
Mist - Maya Road, Docrafts
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Washi Tape - Tesco
Gems - ZVA Creative, Forever in Time
Modelling Paste - Farrel & Gold

Tools
KaiserCraft Bubble Wrap Stamp
Heidi Swapp Confetti Mask