Decorative Pins

I have seen pretty pins on a number of cards and scrapbook pages recently but I haven't seen them to buy anywhere and I'm not sure that I would actually buy any if I did see them. Sheila at ScrapFit has a solution to this with her latest step class - a tutorial for making your own pins. I concentrated on one of her methods, gluing beads to jewellery head pins and rummaged through my stash for neglected beads. I managed to make a number of pins very quickly.

I'll post links here as I use them:
Butterfly
Small Heart
Blue Shell
Three Beads
Large Heart
Green Beads

Supplies
Head Pins - The Bead Cafe
Beads - from Stash

Hello Baby

This is another page for Scrap Whispers, using their sketch from Challenge 120. I'm combining it with Workout 62 at ScrapFIT which was to use XOXO on a layout.

I'm not one for lovey-dovey layouts, but I dug out a photo of my children when my daughter was just a few days old and planned to stitch a heart around it. They loved each other then, even if they can't stand each other these days (now aged 11 and 14).

Once I'd chosen my background paper, which has those XOXO's, I decided to change the heart for a double circle to match the 'stamps' on the paper. Then I moved the circle across so that I could curve the title around the circle.

All in all, the finished page isn't a lot like the sketch, but that's just the way it went. There wasn't a good place on the page for my journalling so I made a pocket behind the photo.

Supplies
Paper - Fancy Pants It's the Little Things
Letters - Papermania
Thread - DMC

Tools
Heidi Swapp Circle Mega Mask
Bazzill Paper Piercer

Peer Mentors

The sketch-a-thon at My Sketch World is over, but we have a little longer to finish our layouts. This is the last one, but I need to go back and fill in a few gaps.

The sketch clearly needed a large photo, but I rarely print them larger than 4" x 6". This lead me to a photo of the Peer Mentors in my daughter's year at school, which is 5" x 7" and was already printed. I paired it with paper from a 6" x 6" paper pack, but I don't know which one as I bought it as a part-pack which wasn't labelled. 

I combined the sketch with a couple of embellishment challenges. The first one, also at My Sketch World, was to make our own version of a shop-bought embellishment. The Amy Tangerine range at American Crafts has some cute tags with hand-stitched words on them. I copied these by stitching the year onto a tag for this page.

The second challenge was the first Step Class at ScrapFIT, where Sheila gave us step-by-step instructions for covering raw chipboard with fabric. I followed them to make my green star embellishment.

The circle near the top of the photo is attached to a card with the names of all the people in the photo (before we forget).

Supplies
Paper - Chartwell Studio, plus some from Stash
Letters - Papermania
Chipboard Star - Papermania
Thread - DMC
Ink - Papermania
Tag & Fabric - from Stash

Tools
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Bazzill Piercing Tool

Eastern & Oriental Hotel

When I saw that both ScrapFIT and My Sketch World have a challenge to create a layout on white cardstock, I though that it would be really easy. I wasn't going to create anything specifically for it, just enter the next layout that I made on white. This has taken a surprisingly long time as white just hasn't been the right colour choice for the last few layouts. Today it was, and I combined this with a sketch also from My Sketch World and a techniques challenge at My Scrapbook Nook.

The techniques challenge is the last one from the Nook's New Year Crop and kept up the theme of top tens. Gina listed her top ten techniques and challenged us to use at least four of them on a layout.

Keeping with my Far East album, I decided to scrap some pictures and memorabilia from our hotel in Malaysia. My title circle is actually a coaster that I saved and the water colour picture at the bottom of the layout is one that I bought in the hotel gift shop.

My circle was much larger then in the sketch, and couldn't really be trimmed,  so I had to shuffle things about a bit to make them fit. Techniques-wise, I inked the edges of my card stock to provide a border and punched the edges of my central panel. I also stamped and cut out two flowers for the ends of my paper strips and stitched crosses at the opposite ends of the strips.

Supplies
Cardstock  - Papermania
Paper - Dovecraft Eastern Promise paper pack
Ink - VersaColor

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Pebbles Flower Stamps 

Who Needs Shoes

The sketches are coming thick and fast in the Sketch-a-Thon over at My Sketch World; luckily we have until 3 March to complete them. Or do we? It is Lucy's birthday today and she has a special draw for those who can upload their finished layouts from today's sketch by 11pm EST.

I decided to give it a go, but due to the time difference I had to work fast. A deadline of 7am tomorrow means completing this before I go to bed tonight. No time to fuss over which supplies to use or to look for the perfect matching items. I had a quick flick through my photo albums for a suitable pair of photos, chose my colour scheme based on my son's sleepsuit, and started scrapping. Luckily the sketch isn't too fussy and doesn't need too many papers.

As I neared completion my layout was looking a bit bare, so I decided to add three clusters of buttons. This also fits the Warm-Up challenge at ScrapFIT which is to use clusters on a layout.

EDIT: My late night was worth it. I won a $20 gift voucher for The Robin's Nest. Shipping looks very reasonable ($5!) so I shall have new stash soon.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Basic Grey Perhaps, Glitz Design Laced with Grace
Letter Stickers - Pebbles
Quote Sticker - Basic Grey Archaic

Shrek & Gingy

I tend to dip in and out of the ScrapFIT blog, rather than participating in every challenge. However the latest Weekend Warm-Up was too simple not to join in - use Kraft cardstock somewhere on the layout. I kept this incredibly simple, using kraft as my background and just layering a couple of papers and a single photo.

The photo is from Madame Tussaud's where we found waxworks of Shrek and Gingy. I used two fonts for my title to emphasize the difference in size between the two characters. Isn't it strange how once you've used something (like this bracket template) for a layout, you just keep using it?

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Basic Grey Mellow Equinox, K&Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Letter Stickers - Scenic Route
Peel-Off Letters - Goldlabel

First Food

Well here we are, another Wednesday evening, another last minute layout for Sketchy Thursdays. They have teamed up with Scrappy Chics for this challenge so we have a sketch and a colour combination - to use blue and silver.

A single photo sketch plus using blue meant that I turned to old photos of my son; looking for silver embellishments led me to some corrugated cardboard stars, and meant that I could combine another challenge - the Weekend Warm-Up #22 from ScrapFIT was to create a layout using stars.

I flipped and rotated the sketch to accommodate a landscape photo and a large amount of journalling and came up with this version about weaning my son:

The background cardstock is really silver but it hasn't come out too well on the photo.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV Neutral Stack
Paper - Pebbles New Additions, Sandylion Blue Gingham, Craft Creations Pale Blue Painted
Peel-Off Letters & Cardboard Stars - from Stash

Climbing Wall

I haven't done a workout at ScrapFIT since they teamed up with Sketchy Thursdays back in September, but a link on another blog led me back there for their workout #58 - to use mini pictures on a layout. I took these pictures of my children on a climbing wall with my mobile phone, and once I had figured out how to get them on to the computer they were disappointingly small - only 3.3cm x 4.4 cm at full size - but perfect for this challenge. I concentrated my layout into half the page and left plenty of white space:

Supplies
Paper - Sandylion Biscotti, Basic Grey Mellow, HOTP Sandstone
Card - DCWV Neutral Stack