Canary Islands Cruise

It's time now to share another DT page that I've made for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files. I'm making a whole album for our cruise to the Canary Islands a couple of years ago, but I also need a summary page for my annual album. I've chosen JWCF814 Circle in Sections for this, but removed some of the dividing lines to give me ten sections rather than twenty.

I've backed half the sections with photos and the other half with patterned papers, using off-cuts from the main album. I've then filled the middle with a cut-apart piece and my title.

I've mentioned before that I have a Silhouette Portrait, that has an 8" cutting width. I cut this cut-file in two parts and pieced them together again to give me a 10.5" circle overall. I positioned two of the ten gold puffy dots to cover the joins on the inner circle and they also draw the eye so you don't notice the joins in the outer circle.

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft UK
Paper - Heidi Swapp Carefree, Jen Hadfield Peaceful Heart

Letters - Tim Holtz

Die-Cuts - 49 & Market, Heidi Swapp, Rosie's Studio

Puffy Stickers - Elle's Studio

Stickers - Heidi Swapp

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Circle in Sections Cut-File

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

50th Parkrun

I'm going back to the third of the Twelve Days of Summer Scraplifts now, as hosted by Scrap Squad on Facebook.

Part of the beauty of a scraplift is its adaptability; you can take as much or as little of the original as you want in order to inspire a new page, and this one's at the more minimal end of the scale. I started with the white cardstock background and coloured it with a hexagon background mask but after that I went my own way.

I had a 4x6 photo of my husband doing his 50th parkrun, which I matted and then ran my title down the side. My embellishment is simple and scattered rather than clustered.

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts, Craft Sensations

Paper - My Mind's Eye

Letters - American Crafts

Flair - Unknown

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz

Puffy Stickers - Elle's Studio

Enamel Stars - Doodlebug

Ink - Hobbycraft, Ranger

Paint - Golden

Tools

Hexagon Mask

Big Shot & Little B Chevron Die

Boosted

I'm switching away from my Canary Islands album and back to my 2021 annual album for this page in order to do a challenge from Dotty About Flair which fitted these photos better. it was set by DT member Lisa and she asked us to use her sketch with at least two patterned papers, five circles and a 'more is more' approach to embellishing.

I used a couple of photos of our local community hospital for my page, to mark us having our Covid booster vaccines last December. I didn't take any photos on the day but in retrospect it seemed worth documenting along with some comments on the Omicron variant, so I went back and took the photos a few days later.

I don't buy lots of ephemera so the band of pieces on the sketch was going to be difficult for me. I planned to use a stripy paper for my background and something busier across the middle, but ended up with a grid and some tiles from Vicki Boutin's Storyteller collection which were much more subtle.

I moved the tag out from behind the photos on the sketch, to sit beside them and hold my journalling, and used a piece of branding strip as a shelf for my title to sit on. Following on from that I added another strip at the top of the page and moved the label clusters on the sketch from being central top and bottom to sitting on the strips. I think I failed on the 'more is more' as my embellishment is quite simple - flower stickers, die-cut leaves and labels and trios of enamel dots.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller

Letters - American Crafts

Stickers - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller

Washi Tape - American Crafts

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Stampin' Up!

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Spring Chicks

I'm back with another project for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files. This time I took the camera from the Hobbies Elements 2 set and used it as a large embellishment on my page.

I had four 3x4 photos of cygnets, goslings and coot chicks in our local nature park and I cut the camera at the same size to fit a rough grid. 

I backed the camera with patterned paper, picking colours from the photos. However, just taking my colours from the photos would have given me quite a dull page. I looked in my scraps box for colour inspiration and found a stripe and a green from the same collection. I then pulled orange, blue and brown papers to match the stripes. 

I layered torn strips on the right, matted my photos on the four colours and butted up four 3" strips on the left of the page. I then made up three embellishment clusters from punched and die-cut shapes using the same papers again.

Supplies

Paper - Make & Create Grunge Dreams, Scrap Within Reach, Simple Stories, Bo Bunny

Letters - Pinkfresh Studio

Word Stickers - Pretty Little Studio

Enamel Dots - Papermania, Freckled Fawn, Eyelet Outlet, Simple Stories

Ink - Memento

Paint - Golden

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Big Shot

X-Cut Camera Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

Cruise Scotland

I finished my Scottish cruise album recently, but there's one more page that I need to make, a summary page of the holiday which will go in my 2021 album. I've taken the same approach as I have on a couple of previous occasions, creating a cut-file using the country's name and filling each letter with a photo. 

I normally use the same paper collection for these pages as I used for the main album, but this time I had no 12x12 papers left. I was using 49 and Market's Vintage Artistry Anywhere collection so I pulled in a pink map print from Beached that was a suitable match in colour and style. I broadly copied the Norway page above but flipped it vertically as I didn't want to cover up the map details on the left of the background paper and I moved the journalling card to the top where there was more space due to the shape of my cut-file.

The ephemera pieces were all left-overs from the main album, and I added the last three glitter hearts from a pack of shapes that I want to clear out.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Beached, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry  Anywhere

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Washi Tape - Ebay

Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs

ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Christmas Parkrun

I'm adding to my 2021 album today, with a page from parkrun on Christmas Day. There's nothing very Christmassy in the photos so I chose to emphasise the theme via my papers and the Hanging Baubles Strip from Jenny Wren Cut-Files for Twilight Crafts.

I cut the baubles strip from white cardstock, coloured it with a gold pen and backed it with red and green patterned papers, then cut it into three pieces. Two of them span the page either side of my photos and the third is a single bauble next to my title.

That title was made with letters from one of the first packs I ever bought, and I had to cut down a few letters; the r's used to be m's and the n was an h. I added a few snowflake stickers among the baubles and banner stickers below the photos.

Supplies
Paper - Carta Bella Hello Christmas

Letters - Papermania

Stickers - Carta Bella, MAMBI

Star Gems - Hobbycraft
Pearls - Kanban

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

The Book of John

We saw Rhod Gilbert live last November, in his stand-up show called The Book of John, and I made this page for a couple of recent cyber-crop challenges.

Peartree Cut-Files asked us to make a page starting from a cut-file we love, and I'd already earmarked 'A New Chapter' as being the one to use with these photos (if I could successfully remove or cover the wording).

A week later, GoGoGetaway asked us to be inspired by alphas. I have loads of part-used packs and I do want to use up some of the older ones where I don't have enough letters left for any good words, but have too many left just to throw them away. I decided to use my tiny rub-ons here, having them fly out of the book.

I cut the book from black cardstock to match the dark backgrounds of the photos and backed it with a single piece of ombre paper. I chose a star print background paper that has some interest but is subtle enough to take all the lettering, and pulled the colours for my embellishment clusters from the printed stars.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft Sensations

Paper - Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Heidi Swapp No Limits, DCWV Romantic Life

Letters - Doodlebug

Washi Tape & Ticket - Unknown

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Enamel Dots - Altenew

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Run Eastleigh

For a couple of years I kept on top of my annual albums as I went along, finishing 2019 in February 2020 and 2020 a year later. Here we are in February 2022 though, and my 2021 album is far from finished. I was alright until May, then there is a gap for my birthday, a few more pages done for June and July and then it fizzles out with only one page done for August to December. I really need to get on top of this before we get too far into this year as it looks like being a busy one. 

I'm starting with a page which I made for Twilight Crafts with a Jenny Wren Cut-File. The file is their Hexagon Background which I shrank down and duplicated to give me a patchwork of shapes to back. 

My photos are from Eastleigh parkrun which my husband and I ran in November. Their colours are decidedly autumnal so I chose Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection and pulled out all my orange and yellow scraps.

Whenever we run away from home, I title the page with RUN and the parkrun name and this was no exception. I then took three asterisks from my chipboard letter pack and used them on three plain orange hexagons to start off some simple embellishment clusters.

I added my journalling to the page after I took these photos.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts, Payper Box

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon

Letters - Pink Paislee, Basic Grey

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine

Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine?

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn, Simple Stories, Pretty My Page

Ink - Memento

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Jenny Wren Hexagon Background Cut-File

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

Lead the Way

I'm only a few pages away from finishing my cruise album, but I've moved over to my 2021 album for this page which I made for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files.

Twilight Crafts' challenge this month (in their Facebook group) is to create your own patterned paper so I've combined that with my second DT page for January. I started from a sheet of white cardstock and applied three colours of distress oxide inks through a hexagon stencil. Then I took the Triangle Arrows Background cut-file, shrunk it and welded three together to give me a piece around 5" x 10" which I cut from green cardstock.

I kept the rest of the page quite simple as I didn't want to distract from either the background or the cut-file. I matted two 4x6 photos on the same green cardstock and added a small cluster of stickers to the empty space in the top one. Then I decided to emphasise the triangles by adding enamel shapes to them, and finished off with a spattering of gold paint.

I'm also linking up this page with two other challenges - one to use triangles from Lottie Loves Paper and a tic-tac-toe from Hey Little Magpie where I chose the line of paint, triangles and 2+ photos.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill, Coredinations

Letters - American Crafts

Stickers - OneCanoeTwo

Enamel Shapes - Doodlebug, American Crafts/Shimelle

Washi Tape - Unknown

Ink - Ranger

Paint - Golden

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Jenny Wren Triangle Arrows Background Cut-File

Hexagon Stencil

Disclosure - I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

Tea for Two

I'm sharing another page for Twilight Crafts today and this one uses two Jenny Wren Cut-Files. I went for the Tea for Two file as I had photos from an afternoon tea to scrap, and also chose Cupcake Elements so that I could fill the open Os of the title with tiny cupcakes.

I used the remains of Vicki Boutin's Storyteller collection for my page, and the pieces I had left dictated the layout of the page to some extent. I used a couple of strips across the top of the page, added a branding strip across the bottom and matted my photos on the only suitable pattern that was large enough to hold them.

I'd originally thought of backing the title with several colours from a stripy paper, but changed my mind as the page came together, sticking with a peach which was close in colour to my photo mats.

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller

Washi Tape - Little B

Enamel Shapes - Prima

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Disclosure: I received the cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All the supplies are my own.

The Two Towers

My final page from Dungeness, and the Two Towers of my title are the old and new lighthouses there. My photos are just smaller than 4x5 and I placed them in opposite corners on separate stacks of paper layers. The bottom layer of each stack is a navy L-shaped piece to echo the large paper square on the first page I made from this day (Listen Very Carefully).

I've mostly journalled on paper strips for this series of pages, but I originally used a journalling card for the first page and I've brought that back here too. My title repeats three styles of letter stickers that I'd previously used, and my embellishment clusters make use of scraps topped with epoxy arrows in two sizes.

Supplies

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - American Crafts, Teresa Collins, Simple Stories

Arrows - Heidi Swapp

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn

Tools

Big Shot

Dovecraft Label Die

Dovecraft Star Die

Hobbycraft Star Punch

X-Cut Circle Punch

Birthday Lunch at The Pilot

Next page from Dungeness now, with our pub lunch. I printed four photos at 3x4 and matted them in a block. I have a growing pile of scraps now from the first three pages and those pieces determined the paper layers behind that photo block.

I repeated two of the letter styles that I've used on the other pages, and found a peel-off 'Birthday' to fit between the L and h of 'Lunch'.

Supplies

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - American Crafts, Teresa Collins

Peel-Off - Anita's Glitterations

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Glitter Tape - The Works

Epoxy Stars - Latech

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Childhood Memories

I'm still in Dungeness for this page, which features engines from the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch narrow gauge railway. We used to visit the railway regularly when I was a child, and I've taken my son there too, so seeing the engines again made me get a bit nostalgic.

I've been using a four-colour palette for these pages, so I picked one pattern in each colour for a quadrants page this time and stacked my photos up in a column with scraps and branding strips tucked under the edge. 

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - American Crafts, Teresa Collins

Word Stickers - Teresa Collins

Tab Die-Cut - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans

Epoxy Stars - Latech

Glitter Tape - The Works

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Discover Dungeness

Before we went away, I'd embarked on a series of pages for a day walk around Dungeness in Kent. I'm making them out of order so this one comes before the last one I shared and is a double page overview of the day.

The '-ness' part of Dungeness means headland, the area is sort of V-shaped with the sea on the two sides of the V, and it's mostly covered in shingle which was very hard on the legs.

I started these pages with a colour palette of yellow ochre, magenta and navy from Heidi Swapp's Wanderlust collection, and I've added aqua into the mix for this one. I've used a slightly odd positioning for my title, splitting it across two places and running the words in different directions, but they fit so well where they are and I don't mind if they are read as title and embellishment instead.

Supplies

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine

Word Sticker - Heidi Swapp

Phrase Sticker - Tim Holtz

Tab Die-Cut - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans

Washi Tape - Hobbycraft?

Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn, Altenew, Pretty My Page

Tools

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Listen Very Carefully

This is the first page I've made from five I have planned for a day trip to Dungeness in Kent that we did in June. I'm using papers from Heidi Swapp's Wanderlust collection for a colour palette of yellow ochre, magenta and navy.

Jean's Page

This page is for the sound mirrors at Denge, built in the 1920s and 1930s to pick up the sound of (enemy) aircraft crossing the channel. My title is taken from the sitcom 'Allo 'Allo!

I scraplifted a page by Jean Childs for a challenge at Dotty About Flair to lift another page in the group. I kept her square border and photo placement, but added a larger title and a journalling card to the other corners. My embellishment is different too, based around an acetate circle that I cut in two.

Supplies

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - Simple Stories, Teresa Collins

Journalling Card - Project Life

Acetate - Studio Calico

Washi Tape - Hobbycraft

Tools

Big Shot

X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

Dovecraft Star Die

Hobbycraft Star Punch

Hares About Town

I have a double page to share today, another for my 2021 album. Hares About Town is a charity sculpture trail, currently being held in Southend-on-Sea before the hares are auctioned in aid of Havens Hospices. I spent a few hours ticking off the ones on the sea-front and the town centre.

I used the July double sketch from Stick It Down, with a grid of hare photos on the right side. My photos didn't fill the full height of the page so I ran lines of washi tape across the top and bottom of the double page. 

I chose to kill off a 6x6 pad by using shorter paper strips than those on the sketch, 6" tall in the bottom part of the page, and shorter ones to fit the space above.

One of the statues was positioned against a painted background (under a railway bridge) with the name of the hunt and a hare illustration; that photo's on the left side of the page and doubles as my title. I squeezed in a couple more hares on tags which overlap the main, larger photo.

I cut viewfinder circles from one of the papers, and die-cut labels from a couple of others, and used them in three clusters with some stickers and enamel dots.

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts, Bazzill

Paper - My Mind's Eye Now and Then

Washi Tape - Unknown

Stickers - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Enamel Dots - Studio Calico, Freckled Fawn, Altenew

Tools

Big Shot

X-Cut Tag Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Make Your Own Tent

If you're a regular reader here, you'll know that my husband enjoys hiking and wild camping. He's owned a variety of tents over the years but never the perfect tent, so he taught himself to sew and then made his own. This page captures the process from first computer design through various paper and cotton prototypes to the finished tent in use on Dartmoor.

I chose a split background for my page as neither paper seemed right on its own, and then worked with a strip of small photos, a column of journalling and some patterned paper strips behind my main photo.

Supplies
Paper - Simple Stories Simple Vintage Great Escape, DCWV Linen Closet, Crate Paper, My Mind's Eye
Letters - American Crafts, My Mind's Eye, Jo-Ann's

Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, Dovecraft

Enamel Dots - Eyelet Outlet, Simple Stories

Tools

Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die

It's Back

"It" is parkrun (a free weekly 5k run held in parks across the country) which resumed in England a couple of weeks ago after a 16 month break due to covid. We generally have a volunteer photographer to record each event so none of these photos are mine. I chose a panorama of the socially-distanced participants before the start and two smaller photos of my husband and me out on the course.

It was raining heavily when we arrived (but luckily it stopped for the run itself) so I chose a multi-coloured raindrop paper for my background and pulled colours from that one for my layers.

My page is a scraplift of one of my own for a Dotty About Flair challenge to do just that. I used two small portrait photos rather than one landscape this time and moved them to the opposite side to suit the direction we are running.

It's also an entry for the final challenge of the 'Journey of Change' cybercrop at For the Love of Pretty Paper, which was to document something that we never want to change. I don't want parkrun to stop again and normally attend every week. Running on my own just isn't the same.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studios Daydream, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon, Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page

Letters - Docrafts, October Afternoon

Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Washi Tape - Little B

Tools

Big Shot

Dovecraft Label & Tag Dies

Freedom Ahead?

I made this page to mark us getting our second covid vaccinations, which happened in June as cases were beginning to rise, our second jab was brought forwards and the final step of lifting restrictions in England was postponed. 

Although being double-vaccinated removes some of the risk from covid, it was unclear at the time how that might change our daily lives. I suspect that many restrictions will remain or be reimposed later on, and I was trying to convey this uncertainty in my title.

My page was quite a simple one, with torn papers from Heidi Swapp pads and a couple of clusters of washi tape, die-cut shapes and stickers, including my husband's 'I've had my Covid Vaccination' sticker (I didn't get one!).

Supplies
Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust, Heidi Swapp Hello Today

Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine

Stickers - OneCanoeTwo

Washi Tape - Stampin' Up!

Enamel Dots - Amazon, Marianne Designs, Simple Stories

Ink - Memento

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Labels Die

21 Today

I'm ticking off another challenge from Dotty About Flair's birthday celebrations today. This one was to be inspired by celebrations and to use gold. Our daughter turned 21 last month so I had photos from her birthday lunch ready to go. My layout is taken directly from Shimelle Laine's 'Half & Half' class, specifically the 'Boxes on Boxes' lesson, with separate areas of photos in the two halves of the page. 

Supplies

Paper - Make & Create Moments, Pebbles Seen & Noted

Letters - American Crafts

Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Puffy Stickers - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine

Enamel Dots - Eyelet Outlet, Simple Stories, Stampin' Up!

Ink - Memento

Paint - Golden

Tools

Big Shot

Cut & Make Leaf Die

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch