Cultural Cities Cruise

I'm heading back into my 2018 photos now with this page, the last one for my term on the Design Team at The Mad Scrapper. I've picked my favourite collection from the last six months, Vicki Boutin's Storyteller, for a double page summary of that year's cruise.

I used a globe cutfile from Paige Evans, and a page design from Shimelle Laine, with eight 3x4 photos. Please pop over to The Mad Scrapper Blog for more information and close-up photos.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Letters - American Crafts/Paige Evans

Stickers - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Washi Tape - Unknown

Ink - Memento

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Paige Evans Floral Globe Cut-File

*Disclosure - I received the Storyteller papers and stickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Anniversary Selfie

Time for my fourth and final page from our day in Flatford back in 2018. We went there on our wedding anniversary and I left this page untitled for a long time before settling on the obvious.

I used 49 and Market products again, to tie in with the previous three pages. I matted my photo and then layered pieces from the collage stack behind it. My background had an obvious space for a photo, with faux stitching on two edges. I cut round the wing of one of the printed butterflies and tucked my layers behind it, lined up with the stitching, and added two more of the same butterfly in die-cut form to make a triangle.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Die-Cuts - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology

Enamel Dots - 49 & Market Wishing Bubbles*

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

* Disclosure - I received all the 49 & Market products and the Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Flatford Lock

Today I'm sharing the second of two new pages that I made for The Mad Scrapper which are currently on the blog there. I've made four in total from a day in Flatford, Suffolk; this will be the second one in my album and features the lock on the River Stour.

I've written about it in much more detail, with close-up photos, over on The Mad Scrapper blog so please do hop over if you'd like to see those. I'll have my fourth and final page here in a couple of days.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Die-Cuts - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology

Enamel Dots - 49 & Market Wishing Bubbles*

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

* Disclosure - I received all the 49 & Market products and the Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Flatford Today

Today I'm sharing the first of two new pages that I made for The Mad Scrapper which are currently on the blog there. I've made four in total from a day in Flatford, Suffolk, which is where John Constable did a lot of his painting. Indeed, the first page I shared was a modern day view of the stretch of river where he painted The Hay Wain.

I made that page first, but it'll be third in my album; I'm not a chronological scrapper in the slightest. My new one will be first, and has four photos of the village and the river.

I've written about it in much more detail, with close-up photos, over on The Mad Scrapper blog (and there's a second page there too) so please do hop over if you'd like to see those. Otherwise I'll be back in a couple of days with my next Flatford page.

Supplies

Paper - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Die-Cuts - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Ephemera - 49 & Market Vintage Artistry*

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology

Enamel Dots - 49 & Market Wishing Bubbles*

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

* Disclosure - I received all the 49 & Market products and the Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Not The Hay Wain

I'm back on The Mad Scrapper blog now with the first of four pages from Flatford in Suffolk, the heart of Constable country, where he painted The Hay Wain.

I used Vintage Artistry papers and ephemera from 49 and Market, a new company to me, but one I would highly recommend for the quality of their products. They have the thickest patterned paper I've ever seen, heavier than some cardstock, and the laser-cutting on their ephemera is faultless.

Please do hop over for more information and close-up photos.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*

Ephemera - 49 and Market Sage Collage Stack*

Washi Tape - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*

Word Sticker - Tim Holtz

Letters - Fancy Pants

Epoxy Shapes - 49 and Market Wishing Bubbles*

Gems - Simply Creative

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Woodware Tag Punch

*Disclosure - I received all the 49 and Market products free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my design team role.

Winter Madness Is ...

I'm back on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today with a new page using papers from Echo Park's Winter Magic collection. This one's very blue and very snowflake-y, perfect for the cold weather that hit so many of us earlier this month. 

Please do hop over for more details and close-up photos.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Echo Park Winter Magic*

Letters - American Crafts*

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - Echo Park*

Ink - KaiserCraft*

Wood Veneer Snowflakes

Snowflake Confetti

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

*Disclosure - I received the papers, letter sticker and enamel dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Explore Close to Home

I have another pandemic-related page to share today. This one's from last spring and celebrates our local area which we explored during our permitted daily walks, visiting places that we hadn't been to for years and exploring footpaths that we hadn't followed before.

I've had the page in my head for a while, but I didn't have the right supplies until I ordered the Vintage Artistry in Color Collectors Edition by 49 and Market from The Mad Scrapper. This beautiful collection pack contains a mix of old and new papers, three sheets of washi strips and two sheets of laser-cut pieces all in a mix of greens, blues and pinks.

And once I had the papers, Lottie Loves Paper published a sketch that was very similar to the page in my head so I ran with that version. I designed a simple climbing plant cut-file and cut it twice to go the left of my page with some die-cut butterflies and epoxy dots. 

On the right, I switched the circles of the sketch for stamped butterflies and added epoxy stickers instead of stars. 

Supplies

Paper - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*, My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus

Letters - American Crafts*

Die-Cuts - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*

Word Stickers - Pretty Little Studio

Washi Tape - 49 and Market Vintage Artistry*

Epoxy Dots - 49 and Market Wishing Bubbles*

Ink - Memento

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Butterfly Stamp

*Disclosure - I received the 49 and Market products and the letter stickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

Christmas at Home

I'm back on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today with my Christmas 2020 page which I made with Carta Bella's Hello Christmas collection. I picked that one as I do like traditional red and green collections for Christmas photos. 

Please do hop over there for a more detailed description and more photos.

Supplies
Paper - Carta Bella Hello Christmas*

Letters/Numbers - Echo Park?

Puffy Stickers - Crate Paper*

Washi - Unknown

Enamel Dots - Carta Bella, Eyelet Outlet*

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

X-Cut Scalloped Border Punch

*Disclosure - I received the papers, puffy stickers and enamel dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Winter Ball

I'm back on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today, with a double page made using Vicki Boutin's Storyteller collection. This page will go in my daughter's university album, and records their Winter Ball from 2019.

Please do hop over there for more details and close-up photos.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Letters - Pink Paislee 5th & Monaco*

Stickers - Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Washi Tape - Ebay

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Trimcraft

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

*Disclosure - I received the papers, stickers and letters free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

The Giant

I've come to the last of the 'Be Colourful' challenges from For the Love of Pretty Paper, and this was a mammoth one, to use all nine of the colours from previous weeks - sapphire, fuchsia, yellow, white, tangerine, purple, green, teal and scarlet.

Luckily, the Late Afternoon collection that I am using for my Dorset photos has most of the colours I needed, and I just had to add teal via another paper. I decided that the best way to use so many colours and patterns was via an orderly series of 1" paper strips. 

I split my page in two, with the strips in the bottom half and my photo in the top half with just one pattern behind it. I tried my title in a few places before settling on running it vertically on one of the plainer patterns. 

Supplies

Cardstock - UK Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Letters - American Crafts*, Studio Calico

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Enamel Shapes - Carta Bella, Prima*

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Little B Arrow Die

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers and Prima sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT Role.

Club Revenge

I'm up on the blog at The Mad Scrapper today with this page using Vicki Boutin's Storyteller collection. It's my first time working with her designs and I'm loving the rich colours and bold patterns. 

Supplies

Paper - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Letters - Pink Paislee 5th & Monaco*

Stickers - American Crafts/Vicki Boutin Storyteller*

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

* Disclosure - I received the papers, stickers and Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my design team role.

Christmas Gift Card Holders

It's almost Christmas and I've bought gift cards for my niece and nephews this year, but I wanted to jazz them up and make them a bit more special so I made a few of these gift card holders from Carta Bella's Hello Christmas collection. I've shared full instructions over on The Mad Scrapper blog and the collection is available in store now.

Pages from Dorset

I can't believe that I forgot to share my latest blog post for The Mad Scrapper with you, one which features some of the pages I made for our long weekend in Dorset. You've seen the pages here already but that post focusses on my process for creating a series of pages from a holiday or event and shares a few hints and tips in case you are considering a similar project.

Please do hop over and take a look.

Lost in Time

One of the reasons that we chose Dorset for our autumn mini-break was my long-held desire to visit the abandoned village of Tyneham. The village and the surrounding area were requisitioned by the War Office in 1943 to provide an area for military training; they were supposed to be given back after the war but that never happened, the buildings fell into ruin and the area is now part of Lulworth Ranges. However the village is open to the public when the ranges are not in use. 

I took loads of photos so this had to be a double page (with a single to follow for the adjacent farm). I printed a map to go with the photos and used a couple of journalling cards, one on each side.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon

Numbers - October Afternoon, Jenni Bowlin

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Washi Tape - Efco, Little B

Enamel Dots - Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots*

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template

Big Shot & X-Cut 'Explore' Die

*Disclosure - I received the papers, Thickers, die-cuts and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Chesil Beach

A Bit of a Do

I have a lot of Dorset pages to make with two 4x6 photos apiece, and it can get difficult to come up with new ways to arrange two photos on a 12x12 page.

When I was looking through some old Christmas pages recently, I was drawn to the angles on 'A Bit of a Do' so I decided to scraplift it for a page from Chesil Beach. I kept the basis of the page the same with a strongly patterned background layered with white cardstock to provide a 'breathing space' around the photos.

I'm working with Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection for these pages and chose orange scallops for my background to satisfy a 'Be Colourful' challenge at For the Love of Pretty Paper.

There's no green in my papers this time, but I still used the green letters from the collection as I feel there's enough green in the photos for them to work. 

I moved my main embellishment cluster up compared to the original page, filling the empty space below the title and basing it around the yellow flower and green leaf from the die-cut pack with a punched orange flower. The other two clusters kept the same positions as before, but the journalling moved from the bottom to the top, where I wrote in the spaces between the scallops as I have done on a couple of previous pages.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Washi Tape - Little B, Efco

Enamel Dots - Eyelet Outlet, Carta Bella, Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots*

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template

Big Shot & Spellbinder Circle Dies

Woodware Flower Punch

Poppystamps Leafy Sprig Die

* Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers, die-cuts and sugar dots free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Portland

I'm not scrapping our Dorset break in order, and I'm jumping to the end of Saturday now and a brief excursion to the Isle of Portland. I'm starting at the north end of the island with a trio of photos from the viewpoint area there.

I'm using Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon paper pad for my holiday pages; I love the range of colours in the stripy paper but so far I've only used small strips in among the other patterns. This time, I decided to make it my background but it's really bold so I layered a rectangle of the black and white diagonal stripe over it to give a more neutral area behind the photos. (I gutted the middle part though as it's too good to hide.)

I've also been hoarding the floral die-cuts but I'm in danger of holding on to them for so long that I don't use them at all, so I used two on this page along with two halves of a ticket die-cut which I chose in order to spread the green colour from my letter stickers around the page.

Supplies
Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*
Letters - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*
Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Flair - Dotty About Flair
Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Washi Tape - Little B
Enamel Dots - Doodlebug, Carta Bella
Ink - Ranger

* Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers and die-cuts free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my DT role.

Abbotsbury

We stayed in the village of Abbotsbury for our short break last month, and I took plenty of photos of the buildings there, including the remains of the Abbey. 

I had planned to make another version of my Talk to the Animals page from a few years ago, but I didn't check my previous photo sizes before I sent these for printing and that backfired.

This time I had six 3x4 photos which were going to take up about half of a 12x12 page so I had to adjust my original design. I cut one photo down to a square and arranged them in a rough overlapping grid. My strips of patterned paper are in similar places to those on the original page but with larger photos everything got pushed down the page, including my title. I considered squeezing my journalling in at the bottom, but then I was inspired to add it to the top paper instead, writing on the lines between the scallops as I did on my castles page a couple of days ago.

I based my embellishments around yellow circles for a 'Be Colourful' challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper, stamped with a leaf pattern.

Supplies

Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon

Chipboard Stars - Studio Calico

Word Stickers - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Washi Tape - Little B

Enamel Dots - Trimcraft, Stampin' Up!

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot

Spellbinders Circle Die

Dovecraft Label Die

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad and Thickers free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.

I Do Love a Castle

Back to my Dorset pages now, and a couple of semi-random photos from Sunday afternoon. We saw both Lulworth Castle and Corfe Castle from a distance, but didn't properly visit either of them. However, as the title says, I do love a castle so I wanted them in the scrapbook, and decided to include them both on the same page.

I went with a quadrants design in order to show off the papers from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection, and distressed the outer edges of each square. I matted the photos together and tucked a few paper strips into their left edge along with a label, a die-cut leaf and an enamel heart. To the right of the photos, I punched a strip of woodgrain paper and layered it over the join between my papers to anchor a larger cluster of embellishments which includes a large floral motif cut from a 12x12 sheet. 

I nestled my title in close against the line of embellishments, and it leads directly into my journalling on the lines between the scallops of the paper below. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Stampin' Up!

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts*, October Afternoon

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine*

Stickers - American Crafts/Paige Evans, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Enamel Hearts - Prima Darcelle Sugar Dots

Flair - Dotty About Flair

Dots - Nuvo Drops

Ink - Ranger

Tools

American Crafts Scallop Border Punch

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad, Thickers, die-cuts and enamel hearts free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my design team role.

Hi Foxy

I'm back up on The Mad Scrapper blog today with a page featuring an autumnal leaf wreath cut-file from Paige Taylor Evans (which was a freebie in her Facebook group) backed with papers from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection and layered over a ring of bronze modelling paste confetti circles.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK, Stampin' Up!

Papers - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon

Modelling Cream - Viva Decor

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Heidi Swapp

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Heidi Swapp Confetti Stencil

*Disclosure - I received the paper pad and modelling cream free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role. 

Hello Stonehenge

I'm continuing with my "holiday" pages today, from a long weekend in Dorset which will be the only break we get this year. We passed by Stonehenge on the way, and I snapped a quick picture from the car.

I spotted this sketch when someone used it on Facebook, and traced it back to a July 2013 post from Liz Chidester at The Scrappiest Blogspot. She doesn't appear to be blogging any more but there are a few other sketches that I might go back to.

I'm using the paper pad from Amy Tangerine's Late Afternoon collection for my pages. One of the sheets is a cut-apart, and I used a section of it for the 'Hello' circle which starts my title. I couldn't bring myself to use three Es from my Thickers in one go, so I cut the rest on my Silhouette.

Supplies
Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Die-Cuts - American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon*

Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-ology

Stars - Studio Calico

Washi Tape - Little B, Efco

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Doodlebug, Carta Bella

Ink - Ranger

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot

X-Cut Camera Die

Little B Arrow Die

Dovecraft Label Die

Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circle Template

X-Cut Circle Punch

*Disclosure - I received the Amy Tangerine paper pad and die-cut pack free of charge from The Mad Scrapper as part of my Design Team role.