80

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.)

Birthday Lunch

This is one of the quickest pages I've made in a while. I had a single photo from my birthday, which was taken in a restaurant with intense blue walls. I needed a paper to complement that colour and hit upon one of Vicki Boutin's mixed media pads. The printed circles were all edged with the same blue, and felt a tiny bit like birthday balloons. I double-matted my photo, positioned it on the page, added my title, a few embellishments and my journalling. The paper already had some printed ink spatters, so I added a few more then called it done.

Supplies: Paper - Vicki Boutin Let's Wander, Vicki Boutin Fernwood; Letters - Doodlebug; Stickers - Vicki Boutin, Jen Hadfield; Enamel Hearts - Prima

(Page 84 for the year.)

50 Years Young

Sharing a page from June now, when we celebrated a friend's 50th birthday with afternoon tea. I've used two fabulous cut-files from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, making this my first DT project for September.

I cut one of 'Teapot' and three of 'Tea Cup and Saucer' from white cardstock, backed them in pastel papers to match the crockery we actually used, and overlapped them in a row across the page.

I cut my title from the same cardstock and gave it a small blue offset to help give it some presence on the page.

Supplies: Cardstock - Pioneer, Papermania; Paper - Dear Lizzy Stay Colorful, Echo Park Let's Create, Heidi Swapp Sun Chaser, Rosie's Studio This is Us, P13 Sugar & Spice; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin, Unknown Blue; Puffy Sticker - Cocoa Vanilla Studio; Enamel Dots - Pinkfresh Studio, 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.

(Page 83 for the year.)

Family Pages for 2025

Earlier this month I attended the Twilight Crafts Weekend Crop for the second time and used the Saturday to (almost) catch up with my 2025 album. I made up page kits before I went and then created the bulk of the pages there, with bits of journalling and embellishments added once I got home again. Some were DT pages and have their own posts (one on 20 May and another coming up on 5 June) but I'm sharing these two together here.

(The numbers are my page count for the year.)

47. Twins!

I used a Scrap Squad challenge from National Scrapbooking Day for this page, a scraplift of one by Kirei Baldwin for Bramble Fox. My husband's cousin had twins in March and I used a few of her Facebook photos for my page.

Supplies: Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Happy Heart, Pinkfresh Studio Tourist Mode, Pebbles New Addition; Letters - American Crafts, Heidi Swapp; Die-Cut - Pinkfresh Studio; Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, Heidi Swapp; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Carta Bella

48. 50 Today

It was my brother's 50th birthday recently and I scrapped a couple of photos with a mix of baby-themed paper and Disney-themed paper. An odd combo, but I think it worked. That 'today' sticker is the last-but-one from a sheet that I'm trying to finish off. Just 'Smile' left to go now.

Supplies: Paper - Echo Park Little Dreamer Boy, Echo Park Magical Adventure 2;  Numbers - Simple Stories; Stickers - Make & Create, Elle's Studio, Jillibean Soup, Jen Hadfield; Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Violet Studio

I have one page missing from April now as I printed photos for the Brighton Marathon but discovered that they were too big on the page for the idea in my head; I'll have to either reprint them smaller or redesign the page before I can do that one. And, of course, I now have new photos from the crop weekend.

Pages with Jenny Wren Cut-Files

I've been trying to keep on top of my 2024 album as we go along. There are a few gaps, but I'm not doing too badly. These are a couple of pages where I have used Jenny Wren Cut-Files from Twilight Crafts.

87. Celebrate 70

A page for my husband's aunt's 70th birthday in August where we had afternoon tea at a local hotel. I used a smaller version of Flower Lace 1 for this page and paired it with a soft pastel blue background and fussy-cut flowers.

Supplies: Paper - Carta Bella, Cocoa Vanilla Studio Daydream; Letters - Heidi Swapp; Numbers - American Crafts; Stickers - Cocoa Vanilla Studio, Jen Hadfield

88. Trick or Treat

I used a Hallowe'en cut-file for the title on this page, cutting the whole thing from black cardstock and then separating out the pumpkins for embellishment in two sizes.  

Supplies: Cardstock - Papermania, Bazzill, American Crafts, DCWV; Paper - Simple Stories Simple Vintage October 31st, Pink Paislee Memorandum, 7gypsies Avignon; Puffy Stars & Gems - Paperchase

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

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

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

Dino-Mite

I'm celebrating a birthday with this page today. The photos are of my husband's cousin's son, who is three years old and mad about dinosaurs.

I pinched the photos from Facebook; I wouldn't normally scrap something like this if I wan't there, but the combination of these two photos, a new sketch from Lottie Loves Paper and an old dinosaur print paper that I was about to discard was just too much temptation.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - DCWV Linen Closet Stack, Karen Foster Dinosaur Collage
Letters - American Crafts
Word Stickers - Pretty Little Studio
Enamel Stars/Dots - Marianne Design
Ink - Ranger, Memento

Tools
Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Let Them Eat Cake

It's been a strange year so far, and we all had our birthdays under lockdown. We didn't have any real presents, just promises of presents once restrictions are lifted, but we did each have a birthday cake to celebrate the day. My daughter made mine, I made the others and I've scrapped pictures of them all as a quartet.

I wanted a celebratory feel to the page, so chose the star wreath cutfile which I backed with pastel papers. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Stampin' Up!
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Whimsical
Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio
Star Gems - Papermania
Washi Tape - Hobbycraft

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Paige Taylor Evans 'Star Wreath' Cutfile

22 Today

One of the National Scrapbooking Day challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper was to make a page using a set of digital papers designed by Leonora from Crafty Templates. The pink, aqua and navy colour scheme didn't immediately spark any ideas for me so I passed over that challenge at first, but later on I found the perfect birthday cake photo to go with the papers.

There were two larger patterned papers (about 6x8 each), four 3x4 cards and a plethora of banners, tags and hearts (though I didn't use the hearts in the end).

I layered up the two larger patterns, used a 3x4 card each side of my photo, tucked the tags randomly into the top and lined up some of the banners at the bottom. I added my age to one card, a word sticker to the other card, and finished with a few enamel dots and a scattering of white sequins.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Necessities
Numbers - Fancy Pants
Doily - Advent Swap
Word Sticker - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Sequins - Unknown
Enamel Dots - Echo Park
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Sewing Machine

Celebrate

We had eighteen challenges in the recent birthday cybercrop at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and the very last one, 'Midnight Madness', was to combine any five of the others on one page.

I chose to do these with a group photo from my friend's 50th birthday party. Coincidentally, all the guests in this picture wore black sparkly outfits while the birthday girl (centre) was in dark cerise pink so I used that as the main colour in my page. I had pinched some of the table confetti from the evening to use on the page if I could, and it worked out quite well.

I didn't choose my five challenges in advance, but kept a list beside me and worked out which ones could be included as I went along. I ended up with something sparkly or glittery, circles, lots of layers, new stash (silver glitter tape) and lots of the same embellishment (gems).

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Collectable, Hot Off the Press Garnet Sarabook
Vellum - My Mind's Eye
Letters - American Crafts
Frame & Glitter Tape - from Advent Swap
Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs
Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
Big Shot & Doily Die

Make a Wish

I'd thought that I'd be scrapping holiday photos for weeks yet, but this sketch from Lottie Loves Paper popped up on my Facebook wall and I had the perfect non-holiday photos to go with it so I diverted.

My mother-in-law recently turned 70 and her sons organised a surprise birthday lunch for her. I only took a few photos, and this one of her blowing out the candles on her cake came out really well.

I started my page by spattering it with four colours of mist which I tried to keep in a central band. Then I sketched and stitched three lines across the page before adding the photos. I copied the stamped butterflies directly from the sketch and then scattered punched flowers and sequins along the stitched lines.

I'm not a great lover of sequins, though they do work well on this page, so I'm also adding this page to one of the Alpha Relay challenges in For the Love of Pretty Paper. S is for Sequins was one of earlier weeks of the relay but I didn't do it at the time and it would be nice to do them all eventually. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania
Paper - Pink Paislee Moonstruck
Letters - Basic Grey
Doily & Sequins - from Advent Swap
Embroidery Thread - DMC
Gems - Cloud 9
Ink - Memento
Mist - Mister Huey's, Cosmic Shimmer, Heidi Swapp, Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Craft Creative Flower Punch
Dovecraft Butterfly Stamp

& Eat Cake

This is the second of a pair of pages from a friend's birthday. I've already shared the first one, where we were in the spa (Relax) and afterwards we had a traditional afternoon tea. This ties in nicely with another NSD challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper - to scrap with a theme of All Things British.

This page is based on a mirror image of the previous page, which was itself based on this month's sketch from Creative Scrappers.
Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Heyday, First Edition Spring Fling, K&Company
Letters - American Crafts
Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Puffy Stickers - Paperchase
Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Kreaxions Circle Cutter
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Big Shot & Dovecraft Butterfly Die

Relax...

The next NSD challenge that I tackled from For the Love of Pretty Paper was one that I would normally pass over - to use a quote on a page. I tend to keep my pages fairly factual, a record of where we've been and what we've done, and I can only think of one quote I've ever used (and that was pre-printed on a piece of ephemera). 

However, a friend recently celebrated her 70th birthday and a group of us went on a spa mini-break. I was struck by the quote on the card we gave her, and wanted to include it somewhere on the page - "You don't stop having fun because you get old, you get old because you stop having fun." A bit of googling told me that this is a rewording of a quote from George Bernard Shaw; the original refers to playing.

We took quite a few photos between us, but the lighting in the spa was awful (great for relaxation maybe, but not for photography) and phone cameras couldn't cope. I had taken my 'proper' camera and the skin tones are correct in my pics but there's no escaping the pink lighting.

I used this month's sketch from Creative Scrappers for my page, but having already printed larger photos I made the circle larger to accommodate them. I dropped the paper strips on the right because this is the first of a pair of pages and I wanted there to be open space on the right to lead on to the next page. My title leads on to the second page too, the whole thing reads 'Relax... & Eat Cake'.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Heyday, First Edition Spring Fling
Letters - American Crafts
Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn, Stampin' Up!
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Kreaxions Circle Cutter
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch

Hello 17

We have monthly and weekly challenges in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group, and I've combined two of them here. The challenge for July was our choice of six sketches; I did a few of them and this was sketch 2. The weekly challenges are based on letters of the alphabet and we recently had G is for Gold.

This page is from my daughter's birthday when she and some friends had a sleepover. The sketch worked really well for a large photo of most of the group that one of them took, and two smaller photos that I took of the group sleeping in next morning and a few of them outside. The sketch hinted at a journalling block between the photos, but I used a number paper there and added a Project Life card further down for my writing. I embellished in the top-left and bottom-right of the page, and then added more bits around the title to create a loose line of embellishments along the diagonal. 

Supplies
Paper - Echo Park Capture Life, Chickaniddy Crafts, Jillibean Soup, Project Life Cards
Numbers - American Crafts
Wood Veneer - Heidi Swapp
Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico
Acetate - Studio Calico
Die-Cut - Jillibean Soup
Butterflies - from Stash
Epoxy Sticker - Jo-Ann Stores
Enamel Dots - Eyelet Outlet
Mist - Docrafts, Mister Huey's
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
American Crafts Simple Scallop Border Punch

Tea at The Ritz

This is the third page from one of my friend's birthday last year and it's a double for Afternoon Tea at the Ritz Hotel. We had a fabulous day out in London and you can see two other pages from the day earlier on my blog (Cheers and In the Sky Garden). 

I used one of my favourite double page sketches (from the now defunct Sketch Support) for my page, one that's really versatile and I have to limit its use. 

On this occasion, I swapped the positions of the title and journalling, and squeezed an extra photo onto the left page. On the right, I turned one of my paper layers into a pocket for the menu and swapped the larger and smaller landscape photos over to help with the layering over the pocket.

Somehow I have managed to run out of cream cardstock, so I used white for the background and chalked the edges to make it a beige/pink colour instead. I based my embellishment on circles and stars to contrast with all the rectangles of paper, and finally found the perfect place for a Shimelle sticker with the wording 'drink tea + eat cake'.

Supplies
Cardstock - Chartwell Studio
Paper - Studio Calico Heyday, Studio Calico Sundrifter
Letters - American Crafts
Circle Stickers - Anita's Glitterations
Doily Sticker - My Mind's Eye
Word Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes, My Mind's Eye
Stars/Gems/Flowers - from Stash
Washi Tape - Dovecraft
Chalk - Studio G
Ink/Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

In the Sky Garden

One of my friends celebrated a landmark birthday last year, and our day out in London runs to four scrapbook pages. I made and shared the first one last month, and this is the second, from the Sky Garden at 20 Fenchurch Street, aka the Walkie Talkie.

I picked four photos and worked with uneven quadrants on the page, using two 6x6 papers on the diagonal and filling in the other two corners with smaller pieces. Clouds seems like an appropriate embellishment, so I used all that I had along with hearts, stars and gold word stickers.

The third and fourth pages from the day are coming shortly - a double for the main event, Tea at The Ritz.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Heyday
Letters - American Crafts
Die-Cut Clouds - Studio Calico
Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Enamel Hearts - American Crafts/Shimelle
Gems - ZVA Creative
Ink/Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch

Cheers!

I'm sharing another 12x12 page today; this one is from the CyberCrop that Paper Issues held in their Facebook group last weekend. They posted more than 20 challenges, but I only did a handful including this sketch. Entries close tomorrow morning (BST) so you still have time to play along.

One of my friends reached a milestone birthday last year, and we had a whole day of celebrations. These will run to four pages in my album and I've been on the lookout for a suitable collection of papers to scrap them as a set. I finally picked Heyday from Studio Calico; I have the 12x12 collection pack, the 6x6 pad and the ephemera set. It seems to be a childhood-themed collection but most of the prints are neutral and the balloon-patterned papers are good for a birthday while still being fairly subtle.

I toyed with the title for a long time. This is the first page from the day, and we're drinking Prosecco on the train to London (at 10am). I considered 'Start As You Mean to Go On' and 'Let's Get This Party Started' but both felt too long; 'Celebrate' was a possibility for a while but it would leave me short of both Es and As for the other pages. I did the rest of the page, including the journalling, before I finally settled on a title, and it was the journalling that gave it to me; the last word I wrote was Cheers! and so I duplicated that as the title, tying the two in together.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Heyday, Simple Stories So Fancy
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - My Mind's Eye, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes, American Crafts/Shimelle, Paperchase
Die Cuts - Studio Calico Heyday, OneCanoeTwo Hazelwood
Gems - from Stash

Tools
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die

2 today

This page is one that I made for National Scrapbook Day, for one of the challenges in the For the Love of Pretty Paper Facebook group where Natalie asked us to scrap a birthday. I've scrapbooked all the recent birthdays, and a fair few not so recent birthdays, so I had a choice of my daughter's first birthday or my son's second for this challenge. I counted photos, eleven versus four, and decided on the latter. 

Those four photos were all 4x6 landscape and only slightly crop-able, so I decided on a double page. I was sure that Shimelle had done a double page with a long row of photos at some point and I tracked it down to her Hitchhikers Guide to Scrapping class; it's a double with a shaped paper positioned to cross between the two halves. I only ever bought one piece of shaped paper, but it was perfect for a small boy's birthday, and I pulled co-ordinating papers from various manufacturers to run in strips across the two pages. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Unknown
Paper - Best Creation, Sandylion, DCWV, Cherry Arte
Letters - American Crafts, Prima
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

18 Bumps

I have a page from another birthday to share today; this time it's our son's eighteenth birthday, when the family gathered together and managed to give him the bumps.

I used this month's 'Scrappy Friends' sketch from Brenda for my page, though I rotated it to suit my landscape photos, moved some of the elements about and dropped the bunting. 

Supplies
Paper - Basic Grey Life of the Part, Chickaniddy Crafts Scrumptious, Craft Creations Happy Birthday
Letters - American Crafts
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Ticket Stubs Die
Fiskars Apron Lace Border Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch