Where Next?

Have you heard of ScraptoberFest? Four scrapbook challenge blogs have teamed up to offer a four-part challenge for October. You can do them individually or combine all four to have a go at the Bonus prize.

I first saw ScraptoberFest on Scrap Our Stash, and their challenge was straightforward enough - use two different washi tapes.

Challenge YOUrself asked for a layout with YOU in the photo. At this point I was thinking that my entry would be another cruise page, but ...

My Scraps and More gave us a colour combination, and this was not going to work with the aqua, orange, cream and grey of my cruise album so far.

Finally, The Memory Nest gave us a sketch, a fairly simple sketch, so open to interpretation.

I focussed on the requirement for me to be in the photo, but I didn't really have any unscrapped that would fit both the sketch and the colour combination. However, we've been talking about our holidays (vacations) recently, and planning where we'd like to go next year and the following years and I decided to get my thoughts down on an 8x8 page.

My annual family albums and my holiday albums are all 12x12, but I sometimes make 8x8 pages which are more about thoughts and feelings, rather than the 12x12s that document our activities.

I used a photo of me in one of the photo spots on the sketch and used the other for my title.

I worked on white cardstock, matted on navy, and used several of my travel stamps to make the background. I've written the names of all the countries I've already visited around the edge of the page, and also written a little about some of the places I'd still like to visit. At the moment, I think we'll be returning to Austria next year, but after that, who knows?
   
Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV, Moments
Paper - Pink Paislee Snow Day, Echo Park This & That 
Letters - Hobbycraft
Doily - Dovecraft
Chipboard - My Mind's Eye Market Street
Washi Tape - Tesco, Trimcraft
Ink - Docrafts, Ink It Up!
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools
Stampendous Travel Words Stamps
Papermania All Aboard Postmark Stamp
Amy Tangerine Camera Stamp

She Reads

This IS a cruise page, but it's a 'people' page rather than a 'places' page, one about our daughter and her propensity for reading wherever and whenever she could.

I started out with two 3" x 4" photos and Sketch #115 from My Scraps and More, but I soon realised that I wanted to sit my daughter and the vellum girl back-to-back in their similar positions, and my photo was too small for that. I reprinted it and cropped the other one down to a 2" square, which means that my page no longer looks exactly like the sketch.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset, Papermania
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Graphic 45 Artisan Style
Letters - American Crafts
Vellum Girl - Crafty Templates/Quirky Kits
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-ology
Ink & Mist - Docrafts
Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Doodlebug
Washi Tape - Unknown
Epoxy Dome Stickers - Ebay

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Small Circle Punch

Paddington in Paddington

When I spotted this sketch from My Scraps and More, I immediately saw it as an eight-photo sketch, even though some of the squares are marked 'Title'.

I had a set of eight photos ready to scrap, from The Paddington Trail in London last December. The city was host to 50 statues of Paddington Bear to tie in with the film release, and these eight were in and around Paddington itself.

Since Paddington Bear is basically a book character, I wanted to use bookprint paper for my background, and had a piece in my latest Quirky Kit. I used blue cardstock (in the closest shade I had to Paddington's duffle coat) to mat the photos, and also to mat the whole page. My pictures are a different size from those in the sketch, so I moved them around the page before settling on using four columns. 

There was a yellow pattern already on the edges of the bookprint paper, so I used yellow as an accent colour on my page. I also spread a little white acrylic paint on the paper to tone down the print, and give me a place for my journalling.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Bo Bunny Sweet Life, Crate Paper DIY Shop

Letters - American Crafts, Lily Bee

Washi Tape - Unknown

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Wood Veneer - Studio Calico

Enamel Dots - Studio Calico

Tools

Big Shot & Little B Chevrons Die

Floral Cards - Part Two

Yesterday I shared my first five cards from the My Scraps and More Sketches blog hop to celebrate World Card -Making Day. Ten ladies, ten sketches in total, and I've used them all for ten cards using patterned papers and printed embellishments from Hot Off the Press.

I've reached stop six in the blog hop, which is Michelle, and I found hers the hardest sketch to follow. Her cluster of triangles was too far outside my comfort zone, and I replaced it with just one triangle and a flower.

Next stop was Tracy R, with a nice simple sketch, though I still changed mine a bit, placing my sentiment on the central panel. 

Another Tracy was eighth on the blog hop. I adapted Tracy F's sketch slightly by layering my banners. I also dropped the ribbon trim in favour of a fussy-cut flower.

Nearly finished. The penultimate stop was Janessa, and I kept quite close to her sketch. I was helped there by having an appropriately-shaped sentiment panel.

And finally, the end of the blog hop was Missy. I love the intricate pattern on her card sketch, and I would have loved to stitch it but I couldn't copy it accurately freehand. I ended up rotating the sketch, stitching circles and layering my sentiment over them.

So there you have it. Ten cards made from one freebie set of papers. Some of them look a lot like the sketch that inspired them, some less so, but hopefully you can see the connections.

Supplies

Card Blanks

Paper - HOTP Soft Nostalgia

Ink - Docrafts, Ranger

Flower - Making Memories

Brad - Laura Ashley

Gems - Forever in Time

Threads - DMC

Mist - Docrafts

Floral Cards - Part One

It's World Card-Making Day today and I'm joining in the celebratory blog hop that the girls from My Scraps & More Sketches have organised. I'm not a big card maker, but the DT have produced some lovely sketches so I felt that I had to play along. I often use freebie papers from magazines for my cards, and I dug out a pretty set of papers from Hot Off the Press that came with little tags and sentiments - perfect for cards.

Starting at the beginning of the hop, this is the card I made from Audrey's sketch. Hers was circular, but I took the easier option of sticking my circle to a square card:

Next up was Nadine. I played with her sketch too, layering vellum behind the sentiment panel and dropping the ribbon across the middle.

Third stop was Wendi. I'd intended to stick to her sketch more closely, but when I pulled out the spotty paper I discovered the floral in the corner and decided to show it off.

On to Lisa's sketch, where I decided to use my border punch rather than cutting banners. I also fussy cut and layered some flowers over a small tag.

Fifth on the hop (and last one today) is Jessica's sketch. This was one of my favourites and I stuck fairly closely to it, the main difference being that I had a circular sentiment that I used. I also fussy cut another flower.

I have a few more cards to share from the rest of the hop, but I'll save them for tomorrow. Hope to see you then.

Supplies
Card Blanks
Paper - HOTP Soft Nostalgia
Ink - Docrafts
Buttons - Meiflower
Gems - Forever in Time

Up to Their Necks In It!

I've been on the lookout for a four-photo sketch for a while, for these pictures of our daughter and our friends' son burying each other in the sand when we were on holiday in Norfolk.

The sketch I needed came from My Scraps and More Sketches on Friday, but I stretched the central panel to suit my wider photos and large title.

Last autumn I sorted most of my scraps into co-ordinating sets, and most of the pieces on this page came from my blue/yellow/beach paper scraps. The woodgrain paper is new, as is the die I used to cut the title. It cuts beautifully, but pushing out all of those tiny circles was a bit fiddly.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts, Bazzill
Paper - Studio Calico Wanderlust, Pebbles, Paper Pizazz, DCWV, Craft Creations
Word Stickers - Authentique
Washi Tape - Waterstones
Gems - The Hobby House
Ink - Ink It Up!

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Headliner Alphabet Die
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Craft Creatives Heart Punch
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Wonderful Day

A new month means new challenges, and I've managed to combine four of them in the making of this page. But let's start with photos and paper - the photos are from our holiday in Norfolk in May and my daughter is wearing a purple dress which led me to choose Basic Grey's Plumeria range. This was the first collection where I bought the ephemera pack and although I've used most of the paper I still have a lot of the die-cuts and transparencies left. I tried to use a few up here, including the title. 'Wonderful Day' is an exaggeration, but 'Very Nice Day' wouldn't be much of a title.

I used the 1st July sketch with a twist from Paper Secrets for my page; this time the twist is to use items for each of the letters of the word SPLASH. I have Sequins, Purple, Layers, Arrows, Staples and Hexagons.

Paper Secrets are sponsoring Scrap & Play this month so they are sharing the same challenge.

I was trying to use up some old stash on this page which fits in with Stash Challenge 16 at Scrap Our Stash, where they asked us to use at least five different items from a list. I chose die-cuts and transparencies (obviously), plus sequins and wood veneer pieces. I also used two different punches in my embellishment cluster - the scalloped circle and scalloped border.

Finally, Jen set this week's challenge at UKScrappers and she asked us to look at our process for making a page and photograph each stage. She broke it down into Good (paper & photos in position), Better (distressing, inking, embossing etc) and Best (all the embellishments). The photos of these stages are (at time of writing) in the UKScrappers gallery.


Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper Story Teller, Basic Grey Plumeria
Die-Cuts & Transparencies - Basic Grey Plumeria
Wood Veneer Arrows - Creative Embellishments
Staples - Making Memories
Mist - docrafts
Sequins - from Stash

Tools
X-Cut Scalloped Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Bodmin and Wenford Railway

I had been trying to concentrate on pages from 2014, but when I saw this sketch from My Scraps and More, I wanted to use it straight away. I didn't have a suitable pair of current pictures around so I went all the way back to 2001 for a couple of 4x6 photos (one landscape and one portrait) that I was able to crop to squares. They're still larger then the ones in the sketch, but they worked fine.

Simple photos of my my son and a steam engine while on holiday in Cornwall.

Supplies
Paper - Bo Bunny Camp-a-Lot, Simple Stories Awesome
Letters - American Crafts Thickers, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type
Buttons - The Works
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Sewing Machine
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punch

Red Pandas

This page has been milling around my head for a few weeks now. When I saw Sketch #75 from My Scraps and More at the beginning of the month I thought that it would be useful for scrapping our day at Colchester Zoo, but it's taken me until now to stick photos to paper. I decided to concentrate on the red pandas, which were just the sweetest animals; my daughter and I could have watched them for ages.

I printed three of the photos that we took and used the fourth quadrant for my title and journalling:

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV, Papermania
Paper - Echo Park Paradise Beach, Basic Grey Eva, Unknown Leaves
Letters - American Crafts Thickers
Ink - docrafts

Tools
Sewing Machine