Journey Around Britain

This is the fourth of four pages for our main summer holiday. We took two back-to-back cruises with a relocation in between. Thus the four pages are one for our cruise to Iceland, one for a day walking the Fife Coastal Trail from Rosyth, one for a day walking/running the Tyne Trail from Port of Tyne, and this one for our cruise around Britain.

I decided to use another cut-file, and chose Nine Messy Circles from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren cut-files, making this my second DT page this month. However, I wanted some space at the side of the page so I chopped the cut-file down to use just six messy circles and tucked them under a strip of map print paper which holds my journalling and embellishment.

I cut five photos to 3" circles, which nestle just inside the cut-file. I have one of each of our four ports and one of my husband and me on a golfcart we hired to explore St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly. I used the sixth circle for my title, running letter stickers around the word Journey.

Supplies: Paper - Simple Stories Sub Zero, Photoplay Travelogue; Letters - Rosie's Studio; Stickers - Photoplay, Heidi Swapp; Filmstrip & Ticket - 49 and Market; Label Die-Cut - Unknown; Puffy Words - Rosie's Studio; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Craftelier, Violet Studio

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

Fife Coastal Path

We had two changeover days on our cruises this summer as the ship relocated between the two and we stayed onboard. The first was in Rosyth, and we spent the day walking from Rosyth to Inverkeithing along the Fife Coastal Path.

It's another grid page, loosely based on one from Shimelle's recent Clear the Desk Live class. Hers had four photos but I adapted for six (and moved the title onto the side). All my papers and embellishments apart from the background come from a Heidi Swapp collection that I originally used for the Mediterranean cruise that we did in 2024.

Supplies: Paper - P13 Lady's Diary, Heidi Swapp Set Sail; Letters - Basic Grey; Stickers & Die-Cuts - Heidi Swapp; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Violet Studio

Incredible Iceland

Before we went away, I was up to mid-June in my 2026 album, but with a long list of June and July pages to make. Now I'm back, I'm going to work roughly backwards until I meet the pages already made. 

I've started with a summary page for our cruise to Iceland, and returned to a page design I've used several times before - making a cut-file from the country name and backing it with photos from the trip. My background is a map print from Simple Stories and the rest comes from an older travel collection from Photoplay; by coincidence, it's the collection that I bought to document our previous trip to Iceland (in 2017).

Supplies: Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Photoplay Boarding Pass, Simple Stories I Am; Stickers - Photoplay, Maggie Holmes; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Carta Bella

Tyne Trail

I'm sharing my latest page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, which makes use of the Anchors Border cut-file, either side of my title.

The whole Tyne Trail is 135 miles long, but I just walked the last section, from the Port of Tyne to Tynemouth, on the changeover day between two cruises last month. My husband ran from Wallsend to Tynemouth the same day, using the same path for this part.

I printed seven photos from my walk, and arranged them in a 3x3 grid with journalling in the first and last boxes, then split the grid with my title across it.

Supplies: Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Photoplay Anchors Aweigh, Craft ID Travel the World; Letters - Hip Kit Cub; Stickers - Heidi Swapp

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

A Pride of Lions

Continuing with 2026 pages, and a statue trail that I did in June. The statues were lions and lionesses, and the theme a curious mix of pride and the world cup. There were 17 lions; I printed 13 photos (the ones with less street clutter) and then dropped two of them as the page evolved into two areas.  

Supplies: Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Everyday Musings, Paige Evans Whimsical, Paige Evans Wonders; Letters - American Crafts, Simple Stories; Journalling Card - Project Life; Stickers - Maggie Holmes, OneCanoeTwo; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Echo Park

Scotland 2026

Scotland 2023

Moving through the year, I've reached May, when we took a three week road trip round Scotland. This will eventually have its own album, but also needs a double in the 2026 album.

This was our second road trip, following one in 2023, and I took the double page from that trip as the basis for this new one.

I looked through the leftovers from previous travel albums, and went with Simple Stories Safe Travels as I had enough long pieces for the horizontal strips which span the double page. I tried to use up as many stickers and die-cuts as possible, including a few from other collections.

The biggest change is that I dropped the large red-and-white circle from the original page, replacing it with a cut-file, which makes this my second DT project of the month for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files.

I used Circle of Circles and cut it from kraft cardstock at about 11.5" across, using the same cardstock for my photo mats.

Supplies: Cardstock - Make & Create; Paper - Design & Create, Simple Stories Safe Travels; Letters - Hip Kit Club; Stickers - Simple Stories; Die-Cuts - Simple Stories; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

Tea @ Claridge's

I've reached April now on my run through 2026, and an afternoon tea at Claridge's to celebrate my friend's big birthday. I'd thought that this page would have a mint green colour scheme, to match our cups, and even mentally selected the papers, but the the cool tones did not work with the warm tones in the photos, so I had to rethink.

After considering quite a few collections, I decided on 49 and Market's Plum Grove, using their rub-ons to create a roughly square frame around my photos, with my title across the middle. 

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Plum Grove; Letters - American Crafts; Rub-Ons - 49 and Market; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories

Cycling the Downs Link

I'm trying to fill in the gaps in my 2026 album chronologically rather than picking out the 'easy' pages and leaving all the 'difficult' ones for later. The next set comes from my husband's first major cycle ride of the year, back in March. This was along the Downs Link, a route that runs through Surrey and West Sussex, joining the North Downs Way to the South Downs Way then continuing to the coast at Shoreham-by-Sea.

I printed seven photos, all at the same height, and arranged them in two rows, loosely based on the June sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

There's not a lot of colour in the photos, so I concentrated on the orange from my husband's shirt, this being one of his favourite colours. I found a couple of individual sheets from Bo Bunny which match perfectly despite being 11 years apart in age (2006 and 2017) and both so old that they are well overdue for being used up or passed on. 

I kept the plainer piece as my background and tore the stripes to go in the top part of the page. Later on I tore another smaller strip to go at the bottom (that isn't on the sketch). I also moved the embellishment clusters to go at the ends of my photo strips, clusters made up of assorted oddments arranged around a couple of die-cut chevrons. The cross-stitch sticker was the last one of that colour in the pack so I cut it in two and used bits top and bottom.

Supplies: Paper - Bo Bunny Daydream, Bo Bunny Cottontail, Shimelle Starshine, Pink Paislee Memorandum; Letters - Pinkfresh Studio; Border - Unknown; Bicycle Die-Cut - Simple Stories; Acetate - 49 and Market; Stitching Sticker - Pretty Little Studio; Stars - Studio Calico; Gem Chevrons - Prima; Enamel Dots - Hey Little Magpie, Ebay

From Ledgers to Leisure

Today I'm sharing my second DT page of the month for Twilight Crafts and, for once, I haven't used a cut-file. Instead I've used a couple of papers from 49 and Market's Spectrum Gardenia collection; it's a slightly older one now (2023) but collection packs are still available in the shop (at the time of writing).

My page has photos from my leaving do when I retired earlier this year. The title is something that one of my colleagues wrote in my leaving card, which I earmarked for re-use here. I double-matted my photos using both sides of the Menagerie Medley paper and positioned them on the Pinwheel paper. I embellished by colour-matching some puffy stickers to the different areas of the background, and added a couple of black ones to balance the black title.

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Spectrum Gardenia; Letters - Anita's Glitterations; Puffy Stickers - MAMBI, Bella Boulevard, Rosie's Studio

Fact or Fiction

I'm returning to my 2026 album now, and filling in a gap from earlier in the year. My son and I went to a recording of the Radio 4 show The Unbelievable Truth in February but we were a long way back and my photos (the smaller ones, taken at the end) weren't very clear. Thus I waited until the programme was broadcast and pinched a publicity photo to go with them. 

I'm trying to clear some old stash, so the colour scheme for this page came from a set of border stickers that I want to use up. Everything on the page except the letters and enamel dots is probably at least eight years old and comes from a wide range of suppliers.

I have two more border stickers left from this sheet, but they are black/white and grey/white so more versatile than these with the yellow and blue.

Supplies: Paper - Dear Lizzy New Day, Bazzill Basics, Simple Stories Heart, Pink Paislee Portfolio, My Mind's Eye; Letters - Hobbycraft; Stickers - Fancy Pants, Crate Paper, OneCanoeTwo, October Afternoon; Stars - Studio Calico; Enamel Dots - Violet Studio

Club Night with AI

I have another page for my 2026 album today, and it's also a DT page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files. My pictures come from a social night for our running club, where afterwards a member turned the group photo into a drawing using ChatGPT, and then my husband turned us all into Lego people.

I stuck with the Lego theme by using the girl from the Lego Pirate, Girl and Spaceman cut-file as a large embellishment, cutting her from dull brown cardstock and backing her with paper scraps, including making her shirt match our club colour. I didn't trust myself to draw her face, so I used some punctuation stickers instead.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania; Paper - Heidi Swapp Sun Chaser, Heidi Swapp Hello Today; Letters - Shimelle, American Crafts, Papermania; Journalling Cards - Maggie Holmes; Word Stickers - Tim Holtz; Stickers - Studio Calico, Hobbycraft, OneCanoeTwo; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft, Unknown; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

Salt Marsh Half Marathon

My husband's first race of the year was the Saltmarsh Half Marathon, and I went along as support crew, dropping him at the start, pausing twice to see him en route and picking him up at the end.

This page was built around one of the photos I took of a line of runners beside the river, which came out in soft focus and reminded me of a watercolour painting. I decided to print it on plain white cardstock which adds to the softness, and use it in place of patterned paper in the middle of this page. I then layered the before and during photos over the top and the finish photo with a journalling box over the bottom part.

Supplies: Paper - Mintay Golden Days, My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline, Basic Grey Urban Prairie, Shimelle Glitter Girl; Letters - Hip Kit Club, Echo Park?; Die-Cuts - Simple Stories, Pinkfresh Studio, October Afternoon; Enamel Stars - Latech

20 Years of Blitz Gooday

Years ago, I received some swatch books from Paige Evans' collections in a mystery box; these are 2" square books packed with patterns and sayings filling each page. I've been meaning to make a tiled layout ever since but never got round to it. April's sketch from the girls at 1 Sketch: 3 Ways (originally published by Page Maps) finally gave me the push to get it done. 

I picked a photo from our company's 20th anniversary celebrations as it matched the colours in my swatch books, an odd way for me to start but it was curiously satisfying to switch round my normal process.

Supplies: Paper - Paige Evans Truly Grateful, Amy Tangerine Brave + Bold, Shimelle Never Grow Up; Swatches - Paige Evans Wonders, Paige Evans Go the Scenic Route; Letters - Doodlebug; Washi Tape - Shimelle, Little B; Enamel Dots - American Crafts, Stampin' Up!

Quiz-ical

Time to share a new DT page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny-Wren Cut-Files. I've used Circle in Sections with a photo of our work team after we won the local Chamber of Commerce quiz.

The cut-file was pre-cut in a soft yellow so I looked for a 6x6 pad to match it and found an old one from My Mind's Eye with enough patterns left to make it interesting. I tried to alternate darker and lighter papers but did them randomly rather than in strict rotation as I had varying amounts left.

My embellishment is quite simple as I didn't want to distract from the circular shape of the cut-file by tucking anything in around it. I have a pack of vellum stickers that I would love to finish off, so I placed pairs of black and teal ones in three places and then added trios of enamel dots from the same collection as the papers.

Supplies: Paper - K & Company, My Mind's Eye Now and Then; Letters - American Crafts; Stickers - Studio Calico; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye 

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Page 27 for 2026)

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Today's DT page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files was initially inspired by the February sketch for For the Love of Pretty Paper. I knew that I could use the Star Bunting 1 cut-file with that sketch and a photo from my mum's 80th birthday.

I based my colour scheme on the plate that my mum's holding as I knew I had a mixed media style paper from Vicki Boutin in those colours and, since I store my whole papers by manufacturer/designer, I immediately spotted the floral from another of her collections to go with it. 

I cut half the cut-file from a pink patterned paper to go against the yellow stripes on the background, and ended up cutting it into two pieces so that it would show on the left half of the page.

I built a paper stack behind the photos and went through my embellishment drawers (I store those by colour) for anything else that I could tuck in (and used up a pleasing amount of oddments). 

Supplies: Paper - Vicki Boutin Let's Wander, Vicki Boutin Sweet Rush, Pinkfresh Studio Happy Holidays, Basic Grey Urban Prairie, Paige Evans Bungalow Lane; Numbers - American Crafts; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Word Stickers - Jen Hadfield; Stars - Hobbycraft; Acetate Heart & Tab Die-Cuts - Unknown

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Page 25 for the year.)