Beep! Beep!

I'm combining three challenges in one page today as For the Love of Pretty Paper recently held a 'Journey of Change' cybercrop and Dotty About Flair are celebrating their first birthday with a whole month of challenges.

The first challenge was to be inspired by this rainbow page from Scrappy Kathy for DAF, which came with a video showing how she used bleeding tissue paper to create her coloured circles.

I'd never heard of bleeding tissue paper before, and had no intention of buying it, so I used India inks for my page, and switched to a full circle of coloured splodges to match the first July sketch from Lottie Loves Paper.

I used an ink dropper to dot my ink on the page and then spritzed each dot with water to make it spread. I'd never done anything like this before, generally preferring more control over any mixed media I use, so it qualifies for FTLOPP's 'Try Something New' challenge.

Once my ink had dried, I spattered the page with gold paint and then stamped circles over each colour and added puffy stars to each one. I also added nuvo drops; I'm not sure that was the right decision but they can't be undone.

My page is rather warped despite using Bazzill Marshmallow cardstock, so I'm hoping it flattens down in the album.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Letters - American Crafts/Shimelle Box of Crayons

Inks - Dr Ph Martins

Puffy Stars - Paperchase

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink Pad - Ranger

Paint - Golden

Tools

Personal Impressions ' Circle Tags' Stamps

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

Slightly Obssessed

I'm still working my way through the summer sketch series at Lottie Loves Paper, with a four photo page for sketch 7 today.

Over the summer, I became 'slightly obsessed' with photographing and identifying the butterflies that I saw on my local walks, even discovering a variety that I had never heard of before - the gatekeeper butterfly.

The sketch didn't need a lot of paper or any larger pieces so I raided my scraps box, spotting this old stripey piece from My Mind's Eye and finding a few matching pieces from the same company.

Supplies
Paper - KaiserCraft Full Bloom, My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline. My Mind's Eye Lime Twist, Simple Stories Awesome
Letters - My Mind's Eye
Puffy Stickers - MAMBI, Elle's Studio
Pearls - Doodlebug
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

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

Back Together

I have a trio of 2020 pages coming up over the next week, all made for the summer sketch series at Lottie Loves Paper. First up is a two-photo page of my friends and me getting back together in person after four months of chatting online. We used to meet weekly for coffee in a shopping centre, but we've replaced that with the outdoor area of an independent cafe instead. There's nothing to do afterwards but none of us wants to go shopping at present so that's fine.

I used three papers from the Whimsical collection for the triangles on the sketch, and double matted the photos as indicated. I didn't have a coordinating paper for the background and didn't want plain white cardstock so got brave with inks and mists. The clusters to the right of the photos gave me some trouble. I stamped the circles as they are on the sketch, but then tried a variety of different hearts and stars to finish them without success, until I spotted these floral puffy stickers and then it all fell into place.

 
Supplies
Cardstock - Craft UK
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Whimsical, Studio Calico Snippets, Scrapberry's Summer Joy
Letters - Pebbles
Title Die-Cut - Unknown
Puffy Stickers - OneCanoeTwo Hazelwood
Stickers - Paige Evans #Stickerbook
Enamel Dots/Stars - My Mind's Eye, Doodlebug, Studio Calico
Ink - Versamagic, Ranger, Ink It Up!
Mist - Heidi Swapp, Maya Road, Docrafts

Tools
Hobbycraft 'Star Circle' Stamp
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Collect Moments

Lottie Loves Paper is running a Summer Sketch Challenge, with nine sketches during July and August. I did the first two as they were released but then slipped behind, and this is my page for week 4. It was a collaboration and we had the option of using the 'Collect Moments' cutfile from new venture Peartree Cutfiles. 

I scaled the cutfile to be as large as I could because I was working with old, pre-printed 4x6 photos. This made it difficult to include the paper strips behind it; I tried various combinations but there was so little showing at the edges that I wasn't happy and decided to drop them entirely and just use a few labels instead. That left me with a new problem - having just the white cutfile against the background was too plain, so I created an offset and cut that in green to match my son's shirt. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Yes Please, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Stay Sweet, Studio Calico Heyday
Washi Tape - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio
Rain Dots - Cloud 9 Design
Mist - Docrafts. Mister Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait & Peartree Cutfiles 'Collect Moments' Cutfile
Sewing Machine
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Anyone for Cricket?

I'm continuing with the second sketch from the Lottie Loves Paper Summer Sketch Challenge today, and I'm scrapping old photos again, back to 1983 this time for a picture of my brother in the park.

The photo's quite plain but it was taken in August so I looked for summer-themed papers, and turned up the remnants of an old collection from Simple Stories. I only had one 12x12 sheet left so that became my background and I used a 6" wide white woodgrain scrap over it to tone down the pattern and provide a place for all the paper layers to sit. That part is pretty true to the sketch with two tags and some other papers behind the photo, cut from scraps and cut-apart sheets. I've killed off the collection now with a few tiny pieces going in the recycling.

Supplies

Paper - Simple Stories I {Heart} Summer

Letters - Studio Calico, Heidi Swapp

Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Simple Stories

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools

Hobbycraft Heart Punch

X-Cut Circle Punch

Old Timers

I don't necessarily blog my pages in the order I made them, preferring to group projects or albums together. Now that I've shared all my 2005 pages, I have a few oddments coming up.

Lottie Loves Paper are running a Summer Sketch Challenge until the end of next month, and this page came from the first one posted. 

I couldn't match the two portrait photos here, so went for landscape instead, with old photos from the National Tramway Museum in Crich. I considered rotating the whole sketch but the L shape of papers looked best left as it is. Those papers are old too, a collection called Vintage Charm which matched the tones in the photos perfectly.

I've stopped buying Thickers as the price keeps creeping up and I don't get very many titles per pack before I run out of critical letters. This means I am cutting more and more titles on my Silhouette - all the letters I need, in any colour and font I like. This time I layered patterned paper with an offset cut from kraft cardstock.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts, Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Vintage Charm
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Die
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Kingswear from Dartmouth

Up to this point in my National Scrapbooking Day (Weekend? Week? Month??) crafting, I'd been making pages that I would have made anyway for my 2005 and 2020 albums, just tweaking them here and there to fit them to the easier challenges.

However, every year there comes a point when the challenges drive the pages instead, and I've reached that point for this year. This page came from a Lottie Loves Paper challenge to use a set of step-by-step instructions, which needed a single landscape photo. I don't have many single photos these days as digital makes multiples so easy, so I went back for a trawl through my old film photo albums for something suitable. 

This photo was taken in November 1998 so I followed the autumnal feel picked out an assortment of coordinating scraps for the page. I distressed all the edges of my papers for a challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper and added the line of tags on the left for a challenge from Hey Little Magpie.

I missed Lottie Loves Paper's deadline for uploading this one so I had no qualms about moving, rotating or cropping a few of the papers when I wasn't entirely happy with their designated size or placement in the instructions.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania, DCWV
Paper - Carta Bella Fall Blessings, Jillibean Soup Apple Cheddar Soup, Little Yellow Bicycle Acorn Hollow, My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio II
Letters - Basic Grey, Jenni Bowlin
Wood Veneer - Creative Embellishments, Studio Calico
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & Dovecraft Tag Die
Woodware Tag Punch

Stracey Arms Windpump

This was actually the first page that I made for our Norfolk holiday, but I've been blogging them in chronological order for the week and this one comes from our last full day. We'd moored by the Stracey Arms windpump overnight and climbed it in the morning. The Broads are dotted with windpumps like this one which were built to pump water from the surrounding marshland.

The page is dotted with pieces from two tic-tac-toe challenges from National Scrapbooking Day. I chose gold, stitching and enamel dots for Hey Little Magpie, and repeated the stitching with blue letter stickers and a border punch for Lottie Loves Paper. I also knocked off a challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper by using washi tape. I then repeated several of these elements (along with the various dies used) across all my Norfolk pages to help tie them together.

Supplies
Paper - Make & Create Moments, Simple Stories Sn@p Basics
Letters - October Afternoon, Jillibean Soup
Washi Tape - Hobbycraft
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, My Mind's Eye, Echo Park
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Sewing Machine
Big Shot
X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
X-Cut Explore Die
American Crafts Scalloped Border Punch

Spin Me Right Round

I'm really pleased to have used another of the page kits that I prepared for National Scrapbooking Day; sometimes what I get ready just doesn't fit to any of the challenges that come up. 

I'm staying in 2005 for a trio of photos of my daughter in the park. I even stuck with the title and page design that I planned in advance. That page design comes from a very old class, & Now For Something Completely Different, which ran throughout 2012 at UK Scrappers, and it's at least the fourth time that I have used the May prompts. 

My page is a feast of My Mind's Eye, with pieces from at least five of their lines, and it suits three more National Scrapbooking Day challenges. Hey Little Magpie asked us to use a quote or song lyric, and For the Love of Pretty Paper gave us a pink moodboard. I don't often use pink on my pages, so I took this opportunity to use up all my pink puffy stars in one go for a challenge from Lottie Loves Paper to feature either stars or hexagons.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Collectable, My Mind's Eye Lime Twist
Letters - American Crafts, American Crafts/Shimelle
Doily - Dovecraft
Phrase Stickers - My Mind's Eye The Sweetest Thing
Puffy Stars - Pinkfresh Studio
Brads - My Mind's Eye Now and Then, My Mind's Eye Necessities
Gems, Twine & Glitter Tape - Advent Calendar Swap
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
American Crafts Scallop Border Punch

Junk Models

Having finally finished my Far East album, I've picked random old year to finish off next, and that year is 2005. I sorted through my photos before National Scrapbooking Day and assembled a few supplies, and this is the first one that I tackled. Lottie Loves Paper gave us a step-by-step set of instructions for a page, which was a different sort of challenge from the norm and one that I happily took on.

The mixed media and the circles on this page came directly from the instructions but we could embellish in any way we chose and I went with a scattering of stars, both stamped stars and puffy stickers. This was originally on an all-white background, but after a week or so I trimmed the page down and matted it on bright pink.

There are so many challenges around National Scrapbook Day that pages have to do double, triple or even quadruple duty. This one also matched up with a challenge from Hey Little Magpie to leave some white space on the page, one from For the Love of Pretty Paper to use circles AND a challenge from Shimelle to repeat a stamp (and it makes me happy that two of the three stamps that I used were designed by Shimelle herself).

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft UK, Craft Sensations
Paper - The Paper Loft, Reminisce
Letters - American Crafts
Stars - Bella Boulevard
Ink - Ranger, Hobbycraft
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Shimelle Circle Stamp
Banana Frog/Shimelle Star Stamp
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Art Fair

I had called my 2019 album "done for now" back in February, but I knew then that there were a few possible pages that I could add. Having made one for my daughter's university accommodation, I needed to even up the pages again which I did by making one for an art fair that we attended back in November. My husband was an exhibitor and he sold a couple of paintings that weekend.

It was National Scrapbooking Day at the beginning of the month with the plethora of challenges that that involves. One that caught my eye early on was a sketch challenge from Lottie Loves Paper. I printed a photo of my husband in his stand at 6x4 rather than 6x3 as in the sketch and printed 2" circles of parts of his paintings to run in a line below it, each one matted on a pinked circle to match the sketch.

I used scraps for everything but the background on the page, starting from the stripey paper and picking co-ordinating pieces in blue, green and grey.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pants Country Boutique, The Robin's Nest Boys Stripe, Pebbles/Jen Hadfield Everyday
Vellum - My Mind's Eye Necessities
Letters - American Crafts
Labels - 7Gypsies
Puffy Stickers - MAMBI
Enamel Dots - Echo Park
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
Big Shot & Studio Calico Pinked Circle Die
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Run Cyclopark

As well as working on my Far East album, I want to keep my 2020 up-to-date as we go along. We recently visited Cyclopark parkrun in Kent where we met up with my sister. I had two photos from our visit, which I scrapped with the aid of a sketch from Laura Rumble for a cybercrop at Lottie Loves Paper.

When I made my first page for a parkrun other than our 'home' course, I entitled it Run Lanhydrock; this was followed by Run Fell Foot and so now I'm sticking with 'Run (Placename)' for all our tourist parkruns.

I combined the sketch with a challenge from a second cybercrop, this time from For the Love of Pretty Paper. The challenges were themed around the letters S-C-R-A-P and the first one was to use our choice of stickers, scraps, sequins and scallops along with the colour sapphire. I have stickers and scraps plus sapphire gems and staples.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - Carta Bella Warm & Cozy,  Echo Park The Story of Fall
Letters - Jenni Bowlin Studio
Staples - Making Memories
Gems - Mark Richards
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug
Pearls - The Hobby House
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Tea for Two

We celebrated our silver wedding anniversary last year, and one of our presents was a voucher for afternoon tea at a local hotel. It took us almost a year to redeem it, but we had our tea a few weeks ago so this is another page for my 2019 album.

I printed four photos in a variety of sizes, but then shuffled them round the page a few times without hitting on a decent layout. But then I acquired a copy of Becky Fleck's Page Maps book, and this is a scraplift of one of its pages. The original was a double page in 8.5 x 11 but I used about two-thirds of the layout for a 12x12 instead.

I've used yellow, stickers and spots for Week 1 of the Summer Fiesta at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and also yellow and food for the Scrap your Summer event at Lottie Loves Paper.

Supplies
Paper - Bo Bunny Early Bird, Kit 'n Kraft
Letters - American Crafts
Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes
Puffy Hearts - American Crafts
Ink - Memento

Tools
Big Shot & Doily Die
Fiskars Bracket Border Punch

Sticks & Stones

I've gone back in time again for this page, with a trio of 1980s photos of my siblings on Cannock Chase. 

The page was triggered by a challenge from The Cut Shoppe to use one of their cut-files on the vertical. I chose Very Squarey, which is a square file, sized it to 8x8 to fit the width of my Portrait and duplicated part of it to make it 8x12.

HLM Starting Point

I realised that the file and photos would work with a Starting Point from Hey Little Magpie, and followed a This or That challenge from Lottie Loves Paper when it came to embellishments. I chose spotty paper, handwriting, enamel dots, word stickers and arrows.

Finally, I linked up with UK Scrap Addicts who asked us to scrap photos from an outdoor game (among other options).

Supplies
Cardstock - Stampin' Up!
Paper - Heidi Swapp Vintage Chic,  4Heures 37 Eiffel Avenue, Carta Bella Fall Blessings
Letters - October Afternoon
Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye
Glitter Tape - Unknown
Washi Tape - Little B
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Woodware Tag Punch

Pink Flamingo

Pink Flamingo was our holiday cottage for a week in Looe at Easter. I'm determined to keep my 2019 scrapbook up to date, so there will be more Cornish pages coming soon.

I based my page on a sketch originally from Page Maps which was set as a National Scrapbooking Day challenge by Hey Little Magpie. I replaced the large tags on the sketch with Project Life cards for an extra photo, title and journalling, but then used a column of small tags tucked into the side of those.

Of course, I've combined challenges again: Bramble Fox asked us to use die-cut pieces (my tags) on a page and Lottie Loves Paper set a 'This or That' challenge from which I used spotty paper, handwriting, enamel dots, word stickers and a camera.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes Bloom, Kesi Art Kiss My Neon, Pink Paislee/Paige Evans, Laura Ashley
Letters - Tim Holtz, Creative Devotion
Cards - Project Life
Die-Cuts - OneCanoeTwo
Label Transparencies - Studio Calico
Word Stickers - Jillibean Soup
Cork - Studio Calico
Puffy Stickers - Paperchase
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Teresa Collins
Camera & Gems - Unknown
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools
American Crafts Scallop Border Punch
Big Shot & Dovecraft Tag Die

Alfama

I'm still in Lisbon for today's page and they are following in order at the moment (though I've skipped a couple of doubles that I need to go back to). After riding the funiculars on the last page we headed towards the Alfama district, the oldest part of the city. 

I've collected together three slightly random photos for my page, but they are all linked by location - the cathedral, a street view and a tram. The mix of orientations took me to an old favourite in terms of page layout, three photos on a large circle. I'd previously inked and abandoned the background cardstock but pulled it out again here.

My embellishment clusters are my normal thing, but perfectly suited to a recent cybercrop challenge from Lottie Loves Paper which was to make a page with a trio of clusters, each containing at least five elements.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Better Together, DCWV Romantic Life
Letters - Jillibean Soup
Washi Tape - Tesco
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stars - MRI
Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
That Special Touch Grid Mask
Big Shot
Dovecraft Label Die
Dovecraft Star Die
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Gloria & Lavra

The Elevador da Gloria and the Elevador do Lavra are two of Lisbon's nineteenth century funicular railways, part of their public transport system and great fun to ride. I've already made a page for the third funicular, the Ascensor da Bica (Ups & Downs) and I wanted to include both of these too, but without them taking over, so I combined them on one page rather than give them one each.

My Inspiration

I printed four photos at 3x4 and looked for a design that wouldn't put them all in a block. With no current sketches jumping out at me, I decided to scraplift one of my own pages, but to add a circle of stitching in order to echo that on the Meet the Fleet page earlier in my album. I haven't stitched much since making that page, and I really need to repeat it a few times so that page doesn't stand out as an oddity.

The stitching also ties in with a recent cybercrop challenge at Lottie Loves Paper.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Take Me Away, My Mind's Eye Hello World
Letters - Tim Holtz
Frames & Stars - Studio Calico
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Doodlebug, Eyelet Outlet
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Heidi Swapp Stencil
American Crafts/Shimelle Word Stamp
Big Shot
Little B Arrow Die
X-Cut Camera Die
Dovecraft Star Die
X-Cut Tag Die

Lift Me Up

Lisbon again today, and a double page from the Elevador de Santa Justa, a street lift which connects the Baixa (lower town) to the Bairro Alto (upper town) without the need to walk up the hill. It's an impressive piece of engineering, built by a student of Gustav Eiffel, and forms part of the public transport system so we rode it with our one day travelcard.

The left side of my page has two photos of the lift, one taken at the top and one at the bottom; the right side has three photos of the views from the top.

I had this page planned anyway, but I made it for a Grab Five challenge in a cybercrop at Lottie Loves Paper. Our five items were quite straightforward - two or more photos, two or more patterned papers, two or more alphas, enamel shapes and florals.

Supplies
Cardstock - The Range
Papers - Pinkfresh Studios, Bo Bunny Early Bird, My Mind's Eye Hello World
Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon
Washi Tape - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Turn the Page, The Works
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft
Puffy Stickers - MAMBI
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, We R Memory Keepers. My Mind's Eye
Ink - Memento
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Postage Stamp Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch