Finishing my Norwegian Cruise Album

Last post for my cruise album, and it's finally time for the title page. Sometimes I make these first if I have a clear idea, but often I leave them until last which gives me time to think them over, and an opportunity to include pieces that I want to be in the album but haven't used elsewhere.

This time, I knew I wanted to use the Norway cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files as my title but I had no other ideas so I left it until inspiration struck (or I finished the rest of the pages). 

I started with the cut-file, making it the width of the page, and cutting an offset to back and frame it. I then printed photos of our six ports of call and cut them into hexagons as that has been a repeating shape in the album. However, getting the large title and the hexagons to fit nicely together was tricky. I arranged and rearranged them on the page until I hit on the positions below, filling the gaps in the middle with larger paper hexagons rather than trying to  stick with one size. I then tucked a few smaller ones in around the edges to break up the uniformity.

As I've previously mentioned, I've ended up with an odd number of pages in my album, so I've been through my photos and decided to make an extra one for the silent disco that was held onboard one evening. My page design was driven by the papers I have left, which included two papers from my 6x8 pad and a few tags. I didn't think I would use the cassette sticker from this collection, but it found a home here.

There's been one page that's been bugging me since I made it, one that I'm not happy with, and that was the page I made for Badness, a Madness tribute band which was one of our guest acts on board. I liked the background ink and the central design, but not the line of hexagons so I removed them. They came off cleanly on the right but left some sticky marks on the left of the page which I covered up, and then added some extra pieces at the bottom right to try to balance them. It's not how I would have made it otherwise but I'm happier now.

One final task was the title card for the window in front cover. I don't have the album yet (it's in the post) so I've based the title on a 4x6 card which I will trim down to a square when the album arrives.

I've also been through all the pages to see if any of them felt like they were unfinished, a bit bare or had something missing. This included adding the dates to each port's subtitle page as I didn't manage to include a full itinerary on either my title page or my ship page. I've also squeezed in a few of my leftover stickers where I could.

So, it's all done, and time for a moment's reflection. I've only used a subset of the supplies that I originally gathered. My decision to use white cardstock backgrounds for all my pages rendered most of the 12x12 sheets surplus to requirements and I've only used three of them I think. Never mind, they came from my stash and will go back to my stash. I barely touched the remnants of Simple Stories Hello Today and Pink Paislee Atlas, which I have already repurposed for another project. I've also used far fewer of the embellishments than I intended, though I used almost all the enamel dots (and pulled out some more). My biggest 'mistake' was to buy the Alchemy Hearts Out and About 2025 collection, as I found the style and colours just didn't work with Simple Stories Happy Travels. However, I like the patterns and it is good, sturdy cardstock so I am sure I will put them to good use elsewhere.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels; Letters - Simple Stories, Tim Holtz; Numbers - Doodlebug; Stickers - Simple Stories, Pretty Little Studio, 7Gypsies; Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, 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.

(Pages 13 and 14 for 2026.)

Pages from Åndalsnes

Åndalsnes was the third port of call on our Norwegian cruise last summer, but it's the last to be scrapped as I don't work in order. This means I'm coming to the end of the project, but I still need a title page and I'll be reviewing everything else to see what's missing or where I can add more pieces to use up my kit. In particular, after I've made the title page, I will have an odd number of pages so I will need to make one more to even them up.

8. Åndalsnes

My usual sub-title page, which should be familiar to you by now: a strip of stamp-print paper, a vertical title cut on my Silhouette and a big block of photos with journalling. 

9 & 10. To Nebba & Back

We'd planned to get the cable car to the top of Nesaksla (the mountain on the page above) and walk back down but poor weather meant we cancelled that and instead walked up the mountain as far as the first viewpoint, called Nebba.

Shimelle's Page

11. Byparken

I've already made a page with this title for Ålesund, but Norwegians seem to take a very straightforward approach to naming their parks: by=town, park=park and en=the - so The Town Park. My page is a loose scraplift of one of Shimelle's December YouTube pages rotated, with two photos of the park and a journalling box below them.

 

Amy's Page

12. The Train Chapel

This is one of the pages I made for Week 2 of the Winter Challenges at Scrapbook Challenges - UK, where I scored points for using yellow with two or more photos plus bonus points for scraplifting a previous challenge page from Amy Kattenbelt. 

My photos are from the Train Chapel at Åndalsnes station which is a converted train carriage with an altar made from railway sleepers.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, My Mind's Eye Market Street, Photoplay Anchors Aweigh; Letters - Hobbycraft, Creative Devotion, Maggie Holmes, KaiserCraft; Stickers - Simple Stories; Die-Cut - Vicki Boutin; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Paige Evans, My Mind's Eye, Papermania

Pages from Ålesund

Ålesund was the sixth and last port of call on our Norwegian cruise this summer. We'd been here three times before so my husband and I made separate plans for the day there.

(The numbers are my page counts for 2025 and 2026.)

117. Ålesund
Starting with a sub-title page which splits the album into sections for each port. These have all had a strip of stamp-print paper then a vertical title then a large block of photos in a variety of sizes with a journalling block at the bottom-right.

118 & 119. Sunnmøre Museum

A double page for my visit to an outdoor museum where they have collected together old buildings from across the region. I put two general views on the left side and a grid of individual buildings on the right side.

120. To Hessa and Back

Meanwhile, my husband went for a run round the island of Hessa, including the climb to its summit. I split the page in two for this, with a large photo of Hessa from the port in the top part and a collage of hexagons from his run in the bottom part.

4. Byparken

We both visited the Town Park (by=town, park=park & en=the) separately after our other activities, including the statue of Rollo the Viking (who is my many times great-grandfather so we always go to visit him). 

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Safe Travels, Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025; Numbers - Dear Lizzy; Stickers - Simple Stories, Jillibean Soup; Die-Cuts - Vicki Boutin; Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Paige Evans

Pages from Lofoten

Moving on to the Lofoten Islands now, which was the fourth stop on our Norwegian cruise this summer. Out itinerary gave Leknes as the port of call, but we moored in the bay between Leknes and Gravdal and went ashore in the ship's tenders. There was a shuttle bus to Leknes but we'd been there before so we decided to explore the countryside on a circular walk which took in Gravdal instead.

(Numbers are a mixture of my page counts for 2025 and 2026.)

115. Lofoten

The usual sub-title page, with two strips on the left and then a block of photos and journalling.

1 & 2. Let's Go Exploring

I'd reserved all the postage-stamp paper strips that I needed for sub-title pages and that gave me two left which have found their homes on the opposite sides of this double page with 11 photos from our walk. The title is a sticker that I otherwise probably wouldn't have used, and I've added 'Haugheia' (the hill we climbed) as a sort of subtitle running vertically on the left. It blends in to the background, but I don't mind that and I'm happy to repeat these alpha stickers which have only appeared on one other page so far.

116. Buksnes Kirke

Finally a page for Gravdal's main church which was built in the 'dragon style'. It's on a slight hill and visible for miles around.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Summer Snapshots, My Mind's Eye Market Street; Letters - Basic Grey, Tim Holtz; Die-Cut - Paige Evans; Journalling Cards - Project Life; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin, Stampin' Up!; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Papermania, Studio Calico, Altenew

Pages from Haugesund

Back to the cruise album now - Haugesund was the first port of call of our Norwegian cruise this summer, a small town on the North Sea coast. 

While making these pages, I was also reviewing what I've made so far; I'm sticking with white cardstock backgrounds and plenty of ink to colour them but I felt the need to make sure that the different styles of inking and the uninked all balance, no method dominates and nothing is so rare that it jars. Of the 14 pages before these, for two ports and some onboard activities, I have:

• Six stencilled pages 
• Five uninked pages
• Two with ink smooshed on the pages via the 'packaging technique'
• One where I swiped ink onto the page directly from the ink pad

While I may need to do a bit more smooshing, this is a technique that I feel should be used sparingly and only when it suits the subject matter. However, it should be easy to make more pages where I colour the cardstock by swiping the ink pad directly over it, so that the only one I've done so far fits in better. 

I've used a 50/50 mixture of letter stickers and cut-files for my titles, and I'm happy with that mixture. Using the same font whenever I cut them on the Silhouette adds to the cohesion of the album as a whole. 

I chose to use hexagons as a repeating shape in this album, a decision which was inspired by a PhotoPlay paper, and I haven't used that paper at all yet. I must rectify that soon. I've also only cut my photos into hexagons once and I'd like to repeat that at least once, if not a couple of times, before I finish.

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

107. Haugesund

My sub-title page is similar to the ones I made for Nordfjordeid and Trondheim, but this time I have more photos in a mix of orientations. Using some portrait photos gave me a bit more space on the right, so I got my hexagon stencil out again. The star is a stray one that I found and decided to use immediately.

108. Haraldshaugen

This monument was built in 1872 to mark 1000 years since King Harald Fairhair united Norway. I used my trellis stencil on the background and chose a classic two-photo layout, with my title running vertically. Now I see it on the screen, I'm going to try to move that title down a bit so that it sits  directly opposite the journalling.

109. Kyststien

A couple of photos of views from the coastal path that we followed from Haraldshaugen as part of a circular walk, and one of Kvala Fyr, a tiny lighthouse. I chose to make this one as a 'no ink' page but the edges look too plain now so I might add some ink later.

110. The Rising Tide

I went inky here, picking up the colours from the sea. The four horses of this sculpture are loosely based on the four horsemen of the Apocolypse and are a warning against climate change. More info on this link. 

111. Kvala Batteri

A simple layout and one I've used before, with a stack of three photos and a 6x8 paper cut in two to fill the rest of the width of the page. This battery was built by the Germans during WW2 to protect the town.

112. Our Saviour and the Fishermen

A classic three-photos-across-the-page layout, but I 'bounced' the photos up and down and filled the gaps with a stamp-print paper. This is one where I felt it to be right to repeat the ink-swiping rather than using either stencil again.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Safe Travels, Simple Stories Summer Snapshots, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025, Maggie Holmes Sunny Days; Letters - Basic Grey, KaiserCraft, Tim Holtz; Stickers - Simple Stories, Heidi Swapp; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft, Vicki Boutin; Chipboard Star - Studio Calico; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, Pink Paislee, 49 and Market, Cocoa Vanilla Studio, Twilight Crafts

Pages from Trondheim

Trondheim is Norway's third largest city, and was the fifth place (of six) that we visited on our cruise this summer. It's the second that I'm scrapping though as I deliberately go out of order so that any progression in style from beginning to end is disguised.

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

98. Trondheim

My sub-title page for Trondheim is very similar to the one for Nordfjordeid, and I've decided to stick with the column of motifs next to a vertical title for each one, but I already know that the number of photos will change for other pages, while still placing them in a block with the journalling.

99. Stiftsgården

This is the royal residence in Trondheim and I have photos of both the front and the back with gardens that are now a public park. I used the sketch from GoGoGetaway's September cybercrop for my page but my photos are considerably larger than those on the sketch, and I chose to use the pair of tags for my journalling so had to make them larger too. This led to me juggling all the different elements around the page to suit my needs, but I believe you can still see the original sketch in the finished page.

100. Kristiansten Festning

I went with a stencilled quadrants for this page, holding three photos plus title/journalling for a fortress on the hill above Trondheim.

101 & 102. Nidaros Cathedral

I made the right-hand side of this pair first, a simple grid of cropped 4x6 photos of the inside of the cathedral, with strips of stripey paper top and bottom. I then repeated those strips on the left side before filling in the middle of the page with the aid of Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class (which ran in 2011 but the designs are timeless).

103. Statuary

My last page from Trondheim has six photos of the statues we saw around the city, placed in two rows across a stencilled background with torn paper strips at the sides.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Pink Paislee Memorandum, Shimelle Never Grow Up, Sandylion; Letters - Hobbycraft, Simple Stories, Craftelier, Basic Grey; Stickers - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Jillibean Soup, Pretty Little Studio; Die-Cuts - October Afternoon; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market, Simple Stories, Shimelle, Studio Calico

Trek the Deck

Trek the Deck was a charity event on our cruise, with passengers walking round the promenade deck one morning to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

This is my second October DT page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, using the Hexagon Border cut-file cut from black cardstock. I cut my photos into hexagons too, matting them as one piece to layer over the cut-file.

I inked my white cardstock background direct from the ink pad and added a couple of strips of paper down the left of the page before positioning the cut-file and photo block. 

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Maggie Holmes Sunny Days; Letters - Hobbycraft, Creative Devotion; Stickers - Heidi Swapp, 49 and Market; Enamel Shapes - Shimelle, 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.

(Page 97 in my count for the year.)

Badness

Another cruise page, but we're back on board now. Badness, a Madness tribute band, was one of the best guest acts we've seen on a ship. I followed the First Idea from Shimelle Laine's recent One Two Punch class, which was based around repeating lines of punched shapes.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025, Shimelle Never Grow Up; JOurnalling Card - Project Life; Puffy Stickers - Bella Boulevard; Washi Tape - Unknown; Enamel Shapes - Latech

(Page 96 in my count for the year.)

Pages from Nordfjordeid

Nordfjordeid was the second port of call on our Norwegian cruise, a small town on the side of the Nordfjord. I try not to scrap the ports in order as it takes a little while for me to settle into the rhythm of an album and I don't want to see any progression in style from the beginning to the end. 

I always start with a 'sub-title' page for each port to divide the album into sections. Up until now, I've gone for general views of the town, but they aren't always very interesting. I often also find myself making follow-up pages with a few smaller images, nothing important enough to merit a page of its own, but together they give a sense of the character of the place and sum up our general meandering. For this album, I'm ditching the overall views and picking a selection of smaller pictures for the sub-title pages. 

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

93. Nordfjordeid

My sub-title page for Nordfjordeid has five 4x4 photos, but I'll be happy to vary that number and size on future versions. I arranged them in a 2x3 block with journalling and embellishment in the sixth space. I cut my title on my Silhouette, using the negative of the lettering to let the white background show through.

94. Rundehogjen Burial Mound

I used last month's sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper for this page, flipping it upside down and switching triangles for the hexagons which I'm using in this album. The sketch was a good one as it has two areas, allowing me to separate my photos. The top one, of a nondescript-looking hillock, is a 9th century burial mound where the remains of a burnt Viking ship were discovered in 1874. Ship burials from that time are considered to be royal burials, and so this is probably where King Audbjørn was cremated with his ship and belongings. The bottom photo is an artist's impression of how this could have looked at the time.

95. Sagastad & Myklebust

Nordfjordeid's main attraction is the Sagastad Viking Centre, where they have a full size replica of the ship above, known as the Myklebust ship after the farm where it was discovered.

It's early days for this album, but I've made more pages than I've shared so far and there are definitely some trends emerging:

• I've made all my pages on white cardstock, often coloured with inks whether that be direct from the ink pad, smooshed with water or dabbed through a stencil, so I will continue with that (making lots of the papers I pulled for my kit redundant). 
• I'm finding that the Out and About papers don't mix very well with Happy Travels after all, so I've only used a couple of patterns. 
• My pages are quite minimalist with few layers and flat titles.
• I'm using my Silhouette a lot, including more cut-files than I normally do in a cruise album and cutting a lot of my titles on it too (particularly in the Teen font).
• I have followed my initial thought of using the hexagon as a repeating shape in this album.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Summer Snapshots, Simple Stories Safe Travels, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025; Letters - KaiserCraft, Basic Grey; Stickers - 49 and Market; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Enamel Shapes - Papermania, Simple Stories, Latech

All Dressed Up

Another cruise page today; this one is from a Celebration Evening (with a formal dress code) and I used the All Dressed Up cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, making this my first DT project for October.

We tried a few places around the ship to get a photo; none of them was perfect so I used four, printed them in a smaller size and added a sort of sub-title rather than conventional journalling. 

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill, Carta Bella; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels; Stickers - Simple Stories, Pretty Little Studio, Jillibean Soup; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories, Latech

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 92 for the year.)

(not) parkrun

I have another page from my Norwegian cruise today. This one will come mid-album and records the (not) parkrun we did on the ship on the middle Saturday of our cruise. I'm going to use hexagons as a design feature in this album so I cut one as large as I could from an A4 paper and arranged my photos on it with a 6x8 paper cut and stretched behind it. After I'd made a few more pages, I returned to this one and added the extra green and yellow hexagons.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025; Die-Cuts - October Afternoon; Stickers - 49 & Market, Jillibean Soup; Cameras - Project Life Card; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin, Hobbycraft; Enamel Shapes - Simple Stories

(Page 91 for the year.)

Aurora

I'm starting my cruise album with a page for the ship we sailed on, P&O's Aurora, which is the smallest and oldest shop in the fleet.

This is also my second DT project of September for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, using the Aurora Borealis 2 cut-file which I trimmed down to leave just the name of the ship. I backed it with six colours from the Simple Stories Happy Travels collection which was my starting point for gathering supplies for this album.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Photoplay Anchors Aweigh; Die-Cut - October Afternoon; Stickers - Heidi Swapp; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market

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 90 for the year.)

A New Project - Norway 2025

I've brought my 2025 album up to mid-August now (except for a double page where I need photos from my husband) and I've released a few supplies by completing the pages for a 2022 holiday in Yorkshire, so I finally feel free to start work on the album for our most recent cruise. This was twelve nights to Norway on P&O's Aurora, their smallest ship, visiting six ports. We've been to Norway several times before, but this itinerary interested us as four ports were completely new to us and one we hadn't visited since 2009.

I generally build a kit for my holiday albums, and this one started from Simple Stories' Happy Travels collection; I have the collection pack, 6x8 pad and enamel dots. Simple Stories tend to keep the same colours across their collections, so I also have the 6x8 pad from Summer Snapshots for more non-travel patterns to mix with it.

Also on a travel theme, I have the Out and About 2025 collection from a new UK company called Alchemy Hearts; they print in A4 and A5 paper sizes and I have the A4 version. It's a different style from Simple Stories but the colours are close and I hope I can make the two work together. Another new purchase was three sheets from Photoplay's Anchors Aweigh collection which is cruised themed. I particularly like the hexagon print which  I think will lead to me using that shape across the album, as I have a set of dies, some ancient nesting chipboard shapes, a small hexagon stamp, two stencils and various cut-files.

I returned to Simple Stories to pull in the remnants of two older collections - Safe Travels and Hello Today.  Safe Travels is down to one sheet plus scraps and a few die-cuts so it will be good to use that up if I can. The 'A' sides of Hello Today are themed by month, but I am intending to use the 'B' side patterns instead. Not all the papers match perfectly but a lot of them will work, at least in small amounts. 

I've also added the remains of Pink Paislee's Atlas collection which I used for my 2016 Austrian album; the original pad had 48 sheets and I still have a significant amount left along with some insta-cards, tags and enamel geotags. I don't like all of the patterns but the plainer sheets could be useful. 

So far, I only have twelve 12x12 sheets from Happy Travels and a handful left in the other collections, so I turned to my stash for some more. I've pulled quite a few from various manufacturers (including more Simple Stories, My Mind's Eye, Heidi Swapp, Pinkfresh Studio, Crate Paper and Basic Grey) but I'm torn between using some of these as my backgrounds or just going for plain white cardstock with stamping and stencilling. I'll find out what I'm drawn to as I go along and I may reject some of these later on.

In terms of embellishment, the Happy Travels collection pack has a 12x12 sticker sheet as does Hello Today (though I'm not sure how much of it will be useful). I've added the remains of Pinkfresh Studio's Out and About sticker sheet and an old one from Jillibean Soup where I'm drawn to the orange pieces. I have some Project Life cards with the same camera motif in different sizes and colours which I plan to cut up and spread around as a repeating motif. The acetate filmstrips from 49 and Market are also something I can repeat. I have two packs of October Afternoon tidbits and some Pretty Little Studio confetti mix, all of which I would love to use up. 

Going smaller, I have sticker stitching from Pretty Little Studio; arrows and geotags in various colours from Studio Calico, 49 and Market, and American Crafts; puffy stars from Bella Boulevard; puffy words from Rosie's Studio; a travel words sheet from Bramble Fox; the remains of some words and phrases from Pinkfresh Studio's Tourist Mode which I used for our 2023 cruise. I will add more enamel dots to these as I go along.

I haven't photographed my tools, but I have travel-themed stamps and stencils, tile letter stamps, hexagon stencils as mentioned above, plus shape punches and dies, all of which I can repeat. I can also use stamps, dies and my Silhouette for titles.

I have a few sheets of co-ordinating cardstock too (not pictured) and will pull in more as I go along for things like photo mats. One glaring omission is the lack of letter stickers in this kit. I haven't bought any new ones for this album so I will be pulling them from my stash as I go along and once I do use a set I will add it to the kit to use again. I'll also pick my washi tapes later and add them to the box once I get started.

I'll mostly be sharing the pages that I make in batches for each port as I did before for my Mediterranean album. That worked for me as it forced me to make any 'difficult' pages as I went along rather than leaving them all to the end. However it will also mean that my blog goes quiet sometimes, with longer spaces between posts.