Brighton Marathon

I'm filling in an April gap in my 2025 album today, a page for my husband running the Brighton Marathon. My daughter and I moved around the course providing snacks and encouragement, but also taking photos of his progress. I have eight photos from the points where we saw him, which I lined up in two rows with the distances on them. I filled the space below with pieces from a 6x6 pad and layered journalling strips over them. 

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill; Paper - Pebbles New Arrival, My Mind's Eye Just Splendid; Letters - Simple Stories; Washi Tape - Dovecraft, Unkown; Enamel Stars - Latech

(Page 67 in my count for the year.)

Graduation

This page has been a long time coming. It's a double that will finish my 2023 album and I first saw the sketch back in July but it's taken me until now to decide on papers and actually make the page.

The sketch comes from a Facebook group called 1 Sketch: 3 Ways where each month three ladies each make and share a page with a process video, all based on the same sketch. The sketch they chose for July originally came from Page Maps and I thought it would work well for the photos of our daughter's graduation from the University of Sussex.

I've had the mortar board print paper for years, having originally bought it for my own graduation (which I haven't scrapped yet). I chose to use it in place of the spotty paper in the sketch but struggled to find other papers to go with it, until I bought some papers and a sticker sheet from Echo Park Graduation in the January sale and picked out red from our daughter's hood as an accent colour.

Supplies: Paper - Echo Park Graduation, Sandylion Graduation Caps, Shimelle Head in the Clouds, Paige Evans Whimsical; Stickers - Echo Park, Tim Holtz

(Pages 20 & 21 for the year)

Summer Scraplifts with Scrap Squad - Part 1

The Scrap Squad group on Facebook generally post a scraplifting challenge once a week, but sometimes they do longer seasonal events and this month they ran '12 Days of Summer Scraplifts'. These series are great for getting me out of a scrapbooking rut and making some 'different' pages. 

I won't be doing them all, and I'm just sharing the first four today. Please follow the links over to the group if you want to see the original inspiration pages.

61 & 62. Getaway - Scotland (2023)

The first lift was a double page, which enabled me to make one of the last two pages for my 2023 album, a summary of our three week road trip around Scotland. I stuck to a single travel collection, trying to use up as many stickers and die-cuts as I could.

Supplies: Cardstock - The Craft Place; Paper - Photoplay Boarding Pass; Letters - Unknown; Stickers - Photoplay, Simple Stories; Die-Cuts - Photoplay; Enamel Dots - Carta Bella, Simple Stories

63. Easter Engines (2024)

The second page was based on a diagonal line of hexagons, and I've long thought about cutting up this hexagon patterned paper as I found it too busy to use whole. This was my chance, with two photos from the Bluebell Railway on Easter Sunday.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill, DCWV; Paper - DCWV Linen Closet; Filmstrip - 49 & Market; Washi Tape - Stampin' Up!; Ticket & Puffy Sticker - Unknown; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye

64. Southend Half (2024)

Day 3's page featured a giant chevron, which I thought gave a sense of movement, well-suited to documenting my husband's first half marathon.

Supplies: Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studio No Limits, Bo Bunny Little Wonders; Letters - American Crafts; Acetate Filmstrips - 49 & Market; Die-Cuts - 49 & Market; Star Stickers - Unknown; Enamel Dots - Carta Bella, Altenew

65. Out for the Count (2024)

I concentrated on the patterned border from Day 4's page, and used inks and stamps to create something similar. I went off-piste in the middle, replacing the original trio of photos with eight pictures from election night when we were involved in the local count. I used the Filmstrip cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files so this doubled up as my second DT page of the month.

Supplies: Cardstock - First Edition; Letters - American Crafts; Puffy Stars - Rosie's Studio; Acetate Filmstrip - 49 & Market; Washi Tape - American Crafts

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

Sunset & Skates

I'm pausing with 2018 photos for a short while ... as I've scrapped all that I have had printed! I've ordered more but until they arrive I shall have to scrap other things.

I still have a few of my daughter's photos for her University album, so I'm turning to those today, and combining two challenges in the process, a sketch from Lottie Loves Paper and a colour combination from GoGo Getaway. 

I used papers from Paige Evans' Whimsical collection which covers all the colours, and rotated the sketch as I preferred my photos to be side-by-side rather then stacked up. I copied the sketch by using stars as my embellishments, building three clusters from die-cut, puffy and epoxy stars in various sizes.

The photos are of my daughter and her friends on Brighton seafront as the sun was setting. She'd captioned them 'Sunset & Skates' when she gave them to me and I went with that as the page title, running it along the diagonal lines between the stars in multi-coloured tile stickers. My final addition to the page was another smaller cluster of stars at the bottom-right of the page which created a triangle around the photos.

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Whimsical
Letters/Word Stickers - Paige Evans Stickerbook
Glitter Tape - The Works
Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio
Epoxy Stars - Latech
Ink - Memento

Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Dies

The Squad at 95

The ladies at GoGoGetaway ran another cybercrop last weekend, and I made this page from Kirei's sketch.

I used a couple of photos from when my daughter and her friends moved into their student house in August, back together again for the first time since March.

I made the strip of arrows paper wider to accommodate my taller photo, added washi tape above and below it and turned the title sideways compared to the original sketch. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits

Letters - American Crafts

Acetate Stars - Heidi Swapp

Washi Tape - American Crafts/Shimelle

Sticker - Maggie Holmes/Crate Paper

Die-Cut - Advent Swap

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Heidi Swapp, Docrafts

We Did It!

Scraplift #41

I'm combining challenges today, with another scraplift from Scrap Squad, and one to use fuchsia from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

Fuchsia took me to a Heidi Swapp paper pad that I had barely used and I pulled four coordinating papers to make the page. I don't have any embellishments from the collection, if there were any, so picked things from my embellishment drawers (where I store random pieces by colour) to create two clusters by my photo.

The photo is another that my daughter gave me and the page will go in her University Years album.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - Unknown

Die-Cuts - Unknown

Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Echo Park

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Sewing Machine

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Turtle-y Cool

I'm back on my daughter's university album today, and grateful to her for the photos as I have very little to scrap for this year. This photo just has the caption 'Turtle' but I think the street art is on the back of one of the pubs or clubs in Brighton.

I started this page a couple of weeks ago, when I cut a couple of turtles on my Silhouette and backed them with white cardstock that I'd coloured with a mixture of inks. I got stuck then, couldn't work out how to finish the page and put everything to one side. 

At the beginning of the month, Rochelle Spears published her October sketch and it got me going again. My photo was 4x4 so I looked at my 6x6 pads to make the row of paper strips across the page, finding a gorgeous ombre paper and deciding to use just the one pattern instead of a variety. I then picked a couple of colours of blue ink and used the packaging technique on a white cardstock background for a diagonal line of colour. I placed my paper strips lower on the page than in the sketch so that my larger turtle could sit on the top edge and reversed the direction of the sketch to suit the orientation of my turtles.

I decided on washi for the strip at the bottom but it felt disconnected there so I moved it up, and then added another strip at the top to balance it, picking colours that match the top and bottom of my ombre paper. 

I combined this challenge with a tic-tac-toe from Scrap with Stacy and used five items from her grid - gold, enamel dots, word stickers, one photo and ink/paint - which complete the top row or the right column.

Rochelle and Stacy join forces every month so you can have three chances to win with just one page - Rochelle's challenge, Stacy's challenge or the two combined as I have done here.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK

Paper - Making Memories??

Letters - American Crafts, Tim Holtz

Washi Tape - Unknown

Rain Dots - Cloud 9 Design

Ink - Ranger, Memento

Mist - Docrafts, Cosmic Shimmer

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

SK8R Girlz

I'm back on The Mad Scrapper blog today with another page using papers from Cocoa Vanilla Studios' Legendary collection in conjunction with some mixed media in coordinating colours.

You can read all about it over at The Mad Scrapper.

The photo is of my daughter and her friend on roller-skates at sunset and will go in her University Years album. No journalling yet as she will do that next time she's home (whenever that might be).

Supplies
Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studios Legendary*
Letters - American Crafts*
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Hexagon Mask
Creative Embellishments Stars Mask
Hobbycraft Star Circle Stamp
Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

* Disclosure - I received the papers and letter stickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role. 

Hello Brighthelm

I've been sitting on this page for a while to keep all the Far East posts together. I made it at the end of March for a collaboration between For the Love of Pretty Paper and Quirky Kits which gave us a sketch which didn't suit any of the Malaysian photos that I was scrapping at that time, but was perfect for a couple of photos from last autumn.

The photos are of our daughter at her university accommodation (Brighthelm), taken on the day that we dropped her off at the start of the academic year. The sketch suited the mixed orientations of the photos, but I extended the horizontal papers so that the photo on the right was not quite so isolated.

I started by choosing a ledger paper for my background (since the page is education-related); this was the last whole sheet that I had from My Mind's Eye's Cut and Paste so I pulled out all my scraps from that collection too. Luckily I had enough co-ordinating pieces left to fit the sketch (and I have completely killed that collection now).

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Cut and Paste
Letters - Pebbles
Stickers - Basic Grey
Enamel Dots - Craft Consortium
Puffy Stars - MRI
Puffy Hearts - Studio Calico
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts, Cosmic Shimmer

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Today is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life

Jocandy22's Page

This page was completely inspired by a Scrap Squad scraplift to celebrate their 500th member last autumn, but it took me a long while to actually make it. The original page was made by Jocandy22 and is in the gallery at Studio Calico. The colourful, mixed-alpha title is not my thing at all, but I made a more restrained version to mark our daughter's first day at university.

I had two photos, so expanded the bottom section of the page to hold them neatly, with a few more layers than the original.

I haven't done the journalling yet as I'm still working out what will go where, and whether there will be other pages for either our initial visit to the university or her accommodation there. I only stuck three sides of the ledger paper to the background, so this page is essentially a large pocket which can hold the 'story' of her university applications and offers if this is the only one I make.

Supplies
Cardstock - Readicut Crafts
Paper - American Crafts/Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm, Pebbles Season's Greetings, PhotoPlay Like a Girl, American Crafts/Shimelle Head in the Clouds
Letters - American Crafts
Phrase Stickers - Tim Holtz
Glitter Tape - Advent Calendar Swap
Paperclip - Doodlebug
Enamel Dots - Carta Bella
Star Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Memento

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
X-Cut Circle Punch
KaiserCraft Bubble Wrap Stamp

Great Little Engines

I'm sharing another page today that I created by pairing up a 'starting point' with some old photos. I started off this page some time ago in order to kill off an Echo Park collection pack, and then left it for the right photos.

The ones I picked are from the Bluebell Railway in East Sussex, which I visited very many times as a child. I had two photos of the engines from this visit, so matted them together and then tucked in a punched strip next to the photo block. I hadn't stuck down the journalling card or all the circles previously so I rearranged those and fussy cut a camera from one of the scraps I'd kept from the collection.

My title gave me a lot of trouble as I couldn't find the right size, colour and font for the space available. I ended up using some small tiles above the journalling card, as being the best fit, but I'm still not entirely happy with it.

Supplies
Cardstock - Unknown
Paper - Echo Park This & That Charming
Letters - KaiserCraft
Stickers - Echo Park, CLaoud 9 Design
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
X-Cut Circle Punches

592

An odd title, but this is the number of the engine in this set of photos - sadly it doesn't have a name. It's the engine that the boys were watching in my last page (Trainspotting) and this will lie opposite it in my album so I used the same supplies and a simple 'stack up three photos against a border' layout that I have used a couple of times before. It came together really easily as all the decisions had already been made.

Supplies 
Paper - Simple Stories Awesome, Crate Paper Random
Journalling Card - Elle's Studio
Numbers - Jillibean Soup
Word Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, The Range
Ink - Ranger Distress Ink, StampCraft

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Studio Calico Doilies Stamp Set
Papermania All Aboard Postmark Stamp
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Trainspotting

I'm returning to Shimelle's latest class now; Return to the Collection has six videos for six pages from a single collection pack. I have watched all six videos now, but this is only my second page from the class. It features a pair of offset photos, and some stamping on the background which runs under the photo block.

I had gutted the background paper of my first page (Hardwick Hall) when I made it so I started with that piece as my photo mat and pulled in some red cardstock as a second mat.

I do have photos of the trains as well, and my next page will be a companion page for this one.


Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Simple Stories Awesome, Crate Paper Random
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Word Stickers - Crate Paper Restoration
Washi Tape - Trimcraft, The Range
Ink - Ranger Distress Ink, Papermania, StampCraft

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Studio Calico Doilies Stamp Set
Papermania All Aboard Postmark Stamp
Craft Creatives Alphabet Stamps
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Woodware Tiny Star Punch

Bodiam Castle

A third sketch from the sketch-a-thon at My Sketch World. I wanted to use a portrait photo next to the landscape one so I swapped them over compared to the sketch. I cut long slits in the cardstock and passed the spotty paper through them, to make a stripe, rather than adding another pattern, layering ribbon and a journalling spot over the top. My title got a bit lost against the pattern, so I outlined it in black pen. Finally I added a row of crystals at the top left and mirrored it at the bottom right.

Supplies

Paper - Basic Grey Urban Dot, HOTP Sandstone

Card - Papermania, DCWV Natural Stack

Letters - American Crafts

Ribbon - Tesco

Crystals - atd

Pen - Faber-Castell