Journey Around Britain

This is the fourth of four pages for our main summer holiday. We took two back-to-back cruises with a relocation in between. Thus the four pages are one for our cruise to Iceland, one for a day walking the Fife Coastal Trail from Rosyth, one for a day walking/running the Tyne Trail from Port of Tyne, and this one for our cruise around Britain.

I decided to use another cut-file, and chose Nine Messy Circles from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren cut-files, making this my second DT page this month. However, I wanted some space at the side of the page so I chopped the cut-file down to use just six messy circles and tucked them under a strip of map print paper which holds my journalling and embellishment.

I cut five photos to 3" circles, which nestle just inside the cut-file. I have one of each of our four ports and one of my husband and me on a golfcart we hired to explore St Mary's in the Isles of Scilly. I used the sixth circle for my title, running letter stickers around the word Journey.

Supplies: Paper - Simple Stories Sub Zero, Photoplay Travelogue; Letters - Rosie's Studio; Stickers - Photoplay, Heidi Swapp; Filmstrip & Ticket - 49 and Market; Label Die-Cut - Unknown; Puffy Words - Rosie's Studio; Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Craftelier, 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.

Fife Coastal Path

We had two changeover days on our cruises this summer as the ship relocated between the two and we stayed onboard. The first was in Rosyth, and we spent the day walking from Rosyth to Inverkeithing along the Fife Coastal Path.

It's another grid page, loosely based on one from Shimelle's recent Clear the Desk Live class. Hers had four photos but I adapted for six (and moved the title onto the side). All my papers and embellishments apart from the background come from a Heidi Swapp collection that I originally used for the Mediterranean cruise that we did in 2024.

Supplies: Paper - P13 Lady's Diary, Heidi Swapp Set Sail; Letters - Basic Grey; Stickers & Die-Cuts - Heidi Swapp; Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Violet Studio

Scotland 2026

Scotland 2023

Moving through the year, I've reached May, when we took a three week road trip round Scotland. This will eventually have its own album, but also needs a double in the 2026 album.

This was our second road trip, following one in 2023, and I took the double page from that trip as the basis for this new one.

I looked through the leftovers from previous travel albums, and went with Simple Stories Safe Travels as I had enough long pieces for the horizontal strips which span the double page. I tried to use up as many stickers and die-cuts as possible, including a few from other collections.

The biggest change is that I dropped the large red-and-white circle from the original page, replacing it with a cut-file, which makes this my second DT project of the month for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files.

I used Circle of Circles and cut it from kraft cardstock at about 11.5" across, using the same cardstock for my photo mats.

Supplies: Cardstock - Make & Create; Paper - Design & Create, Simple Stories Safe Travels; Letters - Hip Kit Club; Stickers - Simple Stories; Die-Cuts - Simple Stories; Enamel Dots - 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.

The Great Outdoors Challenge

The Great Outdoors Challenge is an annual event with participants planning and walking their own routes from west to east coast-to-coast across Scotland. My husband has done it six times and this double page documents his most recent challenge and will go in my 2025 album.

I originally printed 16 photos and later ditched two so that I could make a 4x4 grid in the middle of the page, with title and journalling in opposite corners. I then filled in the edges with torn strips of patterned paper and created a couple of similar embellishment clusters, happily using up a few die-cut labels and heart stickers of  indeterminate age and origin.

Supplies: Paper - Simply Made Crafts?, Heidi Swapp Wanderlust; Border Sticker - atd; Laser-Cuts - 49 and Market; Stickers - Echo Park, 49 and Market, Pretty Little Studio; Die-Cut Labels - Unknown

(Pages 20 and 21 for 2026 - I count doubles as two.)

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.

February Pages

Time for my round-up of this month's pages. I started February with the intention of completing my 2023 annual album, but I had to edit and order another batch of photos first. That lead to me tackling the backlog in my 'Parkrun Continued' album while I waited for the prints to arrive. This album is 8x8 which gave me a quandary for page numbering this year. Should they count as whole pages when they are less work than their 12x12 brethren? I decided to count them as half-pages as their total surface area is 64 square inches while a 12x12 page is 144 square inches; less than half the surface area but they still need all the elements to be a finished page. Six parkrun pages later, and half-way through the month, I picked up the 2023 pages again (but still haven't quite finished the album).

12. Walking with The Snowman
Technically this was from the first weekend of 2024, but it's probably going in the 2023 album as it feels like it belongs with Christmas 2023.

Supplies: Cardstock - Papermania; Paper - Vicki Boutin Color Study, Pebbles Merry Merry; Letters - Doodlebug, EK Success; Wood Veneer Stars - Studio Calico; Paper Tape & Enamel Dots - Unknown

12.5 V25

My first February DT page for Twilight Crafts, using their Triangle Arrows Background cut-file to mark the 25th time we volunteered at our home parkrun.

Supplies: Cardstock - DCWV; Paper - 7 Dots Studio Illumination; Letters - American Crafts; Enamel Shapes - My Mind's Eye; Cut-File - Twilight Crafts

13. North Yorkshire Water Park

A spot of parkrun tourism, made using scraps.

Supplies: Cardstock - DCWV; Paper - My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus; Letters - EK Success; Enamel Heart - Marianne Designs

13.5 Parke

Following a challenge in the Snap Scrap Repeat Facebook page to use a black background, mixed media, yellow, patterned paper and a heart.

Supplies: Paper - Craft Sensations Chalkboard, Make & Create Moments; Label Sticker - Tim Holtz; Journal Card & Washi Tape - Unknown; Enamel Heart - Marianne Designs

14. Killerton

More parkrun tourism and more scraps, using the February sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania; Paper - K & Co Studio K; Letters - October Afternoon; Gems - TPC Studio; Puffy Stickers - Unknown

14.5 We're Back!

Going back to 2021 and the first parkrun after Covid restrictions were lifted, with a tic-tac-toe challenge from Snap Scrap Repeat where I chose arrows, rainbow and green.

Supplies: Paper - Unknown Stripe; Numbers - Fancy Pants; Letters - Simple Stories; Border Sticker - Ruby Rock-It; Rainbow Die-Cut - Heidi Swapp

15. Milestones and Tourism

This is the opening page of my 'Parkrun Continued' album and uses the Bike and Tree cut-file (without the bike) from Twilight Crafts as the tree is a lot like the one in the parkrun logo.

Supplies: White Cardstock; Paper - Simple Stories, Unknown Green; Cut-File - Twilight Crafts

16. Slices of the Southern Upland Way

Documenting my husband's 6 day walk on one of Scotland's Great Trails.

Supplies: Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Good Times, Pinkfresh Studio Happy Holidays, Jen Hadfield Warm & Cozy, Maggie Holmes Chasing Dreams; Letters - October Afternoon; Word Sticker - Studio Calico; Enamel Dots - Carta Bella, My Mind's Eye 

17. Cruise Scandinavia

A summary page for our summer holiday (which has its own album too). This was my second DT page of the month for Twilight Crafts, using their Covid Memes Polaroid cut-file with the wording removed.

Supplies: White Cardstock; Paper - Studio Calico Heyday, Amy Tangerine Stay Sweet; Letters - American Crafts; Stickers - Tim Holtz, Studio Calico; Unknown Washi Tape; Pearls - Mark Richards; Cut-File - Twilight Crafts

18. & 19. South West Coast Path 11

A double page for the final instalment of my husband and father-in-law walking the 630 miles of the SWCP (which they started in 2008). 

Supplies: Cardstock - Bazzill, DCWV; Paper - Craft Creations, Flair Design; Letters - American Crafts, Glitz Design; Phrase Stickers - Tim Holtz; Pearls - Artoz; Enamel Dots - Freckled Fawn, My Mind's Eye, Carta Bella

I've also made a couple of cards, both based on this month's card sketch from Stick It Down,

and finally, a cute little box which I made following a video by Helen Ding for Hey Little Magpie.

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

Cruise Scotland

I finished my Scottish cruise album recently, but there's one more page that I need to make, a summary page of the holiday which will go in my 2021 album. I've taken the same approach as I have on a couple of previous occasions, creating a cut-file using the country's name and filling each letter with a photo. 

I normally use the same paper collection for these pages as I used for the main album, but this time I had no 12x12 papers left. I was using 49 and Market's Vintage Artistry Anywhere collection so I pulled in a pink map print from Beached that was a suitable match in colour and style. I broadly copied the Norway page above but flipped it vertically as I didn't want to cover up the map details on the left of the background paper and I moved the journalling card to the top where there was more space due to the shape of my cut-file.

The ephemera pieces were all left-overs from the main album, and I added the last three glitter hearts from a pack of shapes that I want to clear out.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Beached, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry  Anywhere

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Washi Tape - Ebay

Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs

ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Ullapool

Our Scottish cruise last summer lasted five days and the resulting album has only 16 pages, so I'm at a loss to see why it's taken me so long, but I've now made the final page. This one's for Ullapool, the village beside Loch Broom where we paused and then turned around.

I took a landscape photo and printed it in two 4x6 pieces which I then cropped slightly and overlapped across the middle of my page. I'm low on papers (which is just as well at this stage) so I've cut and stretched several pieces and also made use of the branding strips.

I used the same font with my Silhouette for the title as on all the previous pages, and I'll be glad to have finished with that now. It's been useful for continuity and it has meant I couldn't run out of any letters but that curly font has been a pain at times and I'll choose something else for my next project.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Sage, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Glitter Tape - The Works

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Dies

Dunscansby Sea Stacks

I'm going backwards in my cruise album now; this will be the fifth page and was the first sight of our scenic cruising, but I skipped over it earlier after I decided to reprint the lighthouse photo in a smaller size.

It was an early start to the day and the photos are rather misty, but the three are: a stretch of the coast, a closer picture of just the sea stacks (which are at the left end of the main photo) and a close-up of the lighthouse on the cliffs. I'm running low on papers now so I matted the photos on three different scraps and layered them over a large piece of map ephemera and an off-cut from another page. I tucked a journalling piece from a cut-apart sheet into the left of the bottom photo, cut my title in the usual mix of fonts and put a couple of small embellishment clusters together. 

The page is simpler and has less colour than a lot of the others in the album, but I quite like it and didn't feel the need to add any more.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Sage, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Gems - Simply Creative, Love to Craft

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

X-Cut Circle Punch

Loch Broom and the Summer Isles

I'm nearing the end of my latest cruise album now so I've not many full 12x12 sheets left. With three photos printed for this page, I stuck a leftover half-sheet from another page (Welcome Aboard) onto basic white cardstock and stacked the photos in a column against it. I then punched a pile of 1" squares from scraps to fill the opposite side of the page.

I used my usual two fonts for my title and added small tile stickers too so I'm entering this page for a challenge at Scrap Our Stash where they asked us to use three or more types of alphas.

The space beside 'Summer Isles' was the perfect shape for this ephemera piece; I placed a geo-tag above the title, journalled below it and added a trio of star gems in the empty spaces.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Letters - Jillibean Soup

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Glitter Tape - The Works

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & The Works Alphabet Dies

Marwick Head

I'm sharing another page from our Scottish cruise today, with a single photo of Marwick Head in the Orkney Islands soon after sunrise. 

The photo's about 4.5" x 8" so I trimmed a little off one end to mat it on one of my 6x8 papers. I then layered that over a couple of L-shaped scraps positioned to look like larger pieces and added strips of paper and glitter tape below the photo.

I wanted to put the title above the photo but the descenders on the M and H gave me a potentially awkward space which I filled with stamping for a birthday challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper. I added another patch of stamping at the bottom to match and then layered embellishments over it and wrote my journalling alongside.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere

Die-Cuts - 49 & Market

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger, Memento

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Scrapberry's Compass Stamp

American Crafts/Shimelle Starshine Stamp Set

Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Heidi Swapp Inspire Stamp Set

The Works Clear Stamp Set

Cape Wrath

After far too long a break, I'm finally getting back to my cruise album for a five night sail around the north of Scotland last summer. This page has a couple of photos of Cape Wrath, at the north-west 'corner' of the country.

I'm working with 49 & Market Vintage Artistry papers for this album, mixing their  newer Anywhere papers and ephemera with their older collections. For this page I used a couple of 6x8 papers to form an L-shape behind my photos and added cut-apart cards to hold my title and journalling. I'd previously cut a filmstrip in two so I tucked in the leftover piece in on the right of the page and made a couple of embellishment clusters next to the photos in opposite corners.

I cut the title on my Silhouette again, giving it a small offset for stability and clarity as it crosses over several layers of paper and photo.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Coral

Ephemera - 49 & Market

Enamel Shapes - Pink Paislee

Gems - Simply Creative

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Punch

X-Cut Circle Punch

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Loch Eriboll

Back to my Scottish cruise scrapbook and the afternoon that we spent sailing down Loch Eriboll and back. This should be my only double page in the album and I had planned to use two sheets of Heidi Swapp paper as my background as I only had one of each of the 49 & Market papers. However when I turned over the last page I made, I realised that the other side of that background was the plainish brown from the collection so I could use that instead to make up the pair. 

I had five landscape photos, a smaller portrait photo and a great deal of journalling, which fell into a series of columns across the page. 

I made my title with a mix of one word cut on the Silhouette and one word in puffy stickers, repeating the trick of curving the smaller word around some of the letters in the larger one to eliminate any trapped white space between the words.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere, Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - American Crafts/Shimelle

Ephemera - 49 & Market

Glitter Tape - The Works

Word Stickers - Tim Holtz

Puffy Stars - Unknown

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Dovecraft Tag Die

That Special Touch Compass Mask

Whiten Head

Whiten Head wasn't on our list of scenic cruising but we were glad we were on deck as we passed as the cliffs, cave and sea stacks were worth seeing. 

I printed a couple of photos, matted them together and layered them over a column of paper strips, which ties in with this month's challenge from Hey Little Magpie.

I built an embellishment cluster to the right of the photos, based around a filmstrip die-cut, and placed my title (cut on the Silhouette) above it. The way the words fitted together left some open space which I filled with some ephemera pieces.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Collectors Edition

Ephemera - 49 & Market

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Little B Arrow Die

The Old Man of Hoy

Up until now I've been scrappping our cruise in order, but our first piece of scenic cruising was Duncansby Sea Stacks, and I missed printing one of the photos I want for that page so I'm skipping over it for now.

The second sight should have been The Needle, on the coast of the island of Hoy, but that was lost in the mist, which brings us to the Old Man of Hoy, one of the tallest sea stacks in the UK and the subject of this page. It was still misty so the Old Man wasn't easy to see, but the photos have printed quite dark and less distinct than they are on my screen. I've scrapped what I have, but also lightened them for reprinting in the next batch of photos I order, and I'll swap the prints over later.

I started off using one of last month's sketches from Sketch-n-Scrap as it had the two photo sizes I'd printed and the tags at the top tie in with the tags on the last page I made. However, I flipped it horizontally and then played about with the paper layers and moved the title so it wasn't a close likeness by the time I'd finished.

This is the first page where I've used a paper other than those I chose from 49 & Market; the brown map is from Heidi Swapp, but I think it's a good match for the colours and prints of Vintage Artistry Anywhere.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Anywhere, 49 & Market Vintage Artistry Sage, Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - Pinkfresh Studio

Ephemera - 49 & Market

Puffy Hearts - Unknown

Gems - Papermania, Love to Craft

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

TGO Challenge

Back to the 2018 album, and a page for The Great Outdoors Challenge, a trek across Scotland that my husband did for three years before Covid struck (and is set to do again next year). This was his second Challenge, and I asked him to choose a selection of photos to illustrate the experience, as I find it hard to pick the significant moments when I'm not involved in the story.

My layout is pretty conventional, the logical choice for a walking page. The photos are in roughly chronological order with a grid of six in the middle and a more varied arrangement to the sides.

The quadrilaterals of stripy paper at the sides came about because the paper is a diagonal stripe but the lines run at a shallower angle than the arrows print and they looked odd together, so I turned the stripes to run vertically instead.

Supplies

Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit

Letters - American Crafts, Teresa Collins

Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, OneCanoeTwo

Enamel Shapes - Doodlebug, Papermania

Ink - Memento

TGO3

I'm filling in a gap in my 2019 album today, going back to May when my husband did The Great Outdoors Challenge for the third time, walking across Scotland from west coast to east coast. It merits a double page, and I asked him to choose the best 4-6 photos to illustrate the walk. He obliged with six, including his boots in the sea at the end, so I added his feet in the sea at the start and also a map with the track of the walk.

I scraplifted myself for this one, copying a summary page that I made for our holiday in Austria a few years ago. This time I printed the four view photos at a larger size to go in the middle with the sea pictures and a group photo of some of the walkers at the edges.


Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - DCWV Romantic Life, Prima Zella Teal, My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market, 7Gypsies Avignon, Fancy Pants Swagger
Letters - American Crafts, Prima
Border Sticker - Fancy Pants

Tools
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Templates
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
X-Cut Circle Punch
Hobbycraft Star Punches