Graduation

This page has been a long time coming. It's a double that will finish my 2023 album and I first saw the sketch back in July but it's taken me until now to decide on papers and actually make the page.

The sketch comes from a Facebook group called 1 Sketch: 3 Ways where each month three ladies each make and share a page with a process video, all based on the same sketch. The sketch they chose for July originally came from Page Maps and I thought it would work well for the photos of our daughter's graduation from the University of Sussex.

I've had the mortar board print paper for years, having originally bought it for my own graduation (which I haven't scrapped yet). I chose to use it in place of the spotty paper in the sketch but struggled to find other papers to go with it, until I bought some papers and a sticker sheet from Echo Park Graduation in the January sale and picked out red from our daughter's hood as an accent colour.

Supplies: Paper - Echo Park Graduation, Sandylion Graduation Caps, Shimelle Head in the Clouds, Paige Evans Whimsical; Stickers - Echo Park, Tim Holtz

(Pages 20 & 21 for the year)

West Pier Sunset

Twilight Crafts are half-way through a '12 Days of Christmas' cybercrop over in their Facebook group, and today it's my turn to set the challenge. I've chosen a stash challenge based around the letters of the alphabet. I'm asking people to choose any four consecutive letters of the alphabet and then choose an item of stash for each letter; for my sample page I chose butterfly stickers, a cut-file, die-cut tags and enamel dots for BCDE.

My photo (or rather my daughter's photo) is of sunset over (the remains of) the West Pier in Brighton and the page will go in her University Years scrapbook. I started out with the Criss Cross Grid cut-file from Jenny Wren Cut-Files which I cropped down as my Silhouette Portrait can only cut 8" x 12". I cut it in grey cardstock, backed the open stripes with papers from 7 Dots Studio  and flipped it round to be on the left of my page.

I had a sheet of die-cut tags from the collection so layered some of the larger ones behind my photo and tucked a couple of the smaller ones in next to my title, adding three trios of enamel dots. At this point I had used C, D and E from the alphabet and had a decision to make between adding B or F; the butterfly stickers were on my desk, rejected from another page, so they were an easy choice.

Supplies

Cardstock - Papermania

Paper - DCWV Romantic Life, 7 Dots Studio Illumination

Letters - Basic Grey, Crate Paper

Tags - 7 Dots Studio

Stickers - OneCanoeTwo

Enamel Dots - Crate Paper, Artenew

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & Jenny Wren Criss Cross Grid Cut-File

Big Shot & Spellbinders Circle Die

Disclosure: I received the digital cut-file free of charge from Twilight Crafts. All other supplies are my own.

Just a Minute

This page is nothing to do with the radio programme of the same name; the title was inspired by the fact that these two photos of Brighton beach were taken just one minute apart but have very different looks. 

I'm combining challenges again, starting with a mood board from Hey Little Magpie. I'm not usually a fan of mood boards, but this one was easy with these photos on my 'to scrap' pile. I pulled the beach theme and woodgrain from this one, along with aqua and beige for the colour scheme. I even squeezed some butterflies onto my page.

I also took on the 'Minimalist' challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper, using straight lines of washi, paper squares and stamping on my background. The use of squares led to a third challenge, one of the April sketches from Lottie Loves Paper. 

I rotated the sketch to suit landscape photos and used old woodgrain, beach and zig-zag papers for my squares.  Obviously my photos are much bigger than those in the sketch, but I have the main elements from it on my page. I've translated the stars into stamping, and moved them to be beside my photos.

There's no journalling at present as this is a page for my daughter's university album and she will do that, but I did add the time to each picture in tiny number stickers.

Supplies
Paper - OneCanoeTwo Hazelwood, DCWV Linen Closet, Sandylion Seashells, My Mind's Eye, Bo Bunny

Numbers - Creative Devotion
Ink - Ranger, Memento

Tools
Scrapberry's Compass Stamp

Studio Calico Stars Stamp

Heidi Swapp Inspire Stamp Set

Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp
American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Stamp Set

Make & Create Stamp Set

Big Shot

Make & Create Alphabet Die Set

Falmer Bar

I have another page for my daughter's university album today. The photo was taken on the diagonal and I've had a layout in mind since I saw this page from Orange Gearle at Paper Issues last autumn but it's taken me a long while to get it down on paper.

I chose a set of papers that had the same few colours in lots of different patterns and cut four 3" squares and four 1.5" squares from eight of them which I used with four 2" insta-cards. The cards already had rounded corners so I rounded all my paper squares and the photograph too. 

I arranged them all on the page in a more regular pattern than the original and added extras to most of the squares - cork arrows on the arrows paper, enamel shapes on the triangles paper, enamel dots in the middle of the doily prints, etc. My title went on the plainest large square and I added clusters with arrows and enamel dots to each side, outside the squares, to soften all the regular lines.

The 'Date' square is blank for now; my daughter can journal there next time she's home.

Supplies
Paper - We R Memory Keepers Free Spirit
Insta Cards - We R Memory Keepers Indian Summer
Letters - Basic Grey

Arrows - Freckled Fawn, Studio Calico

Puffy Stickers - MAMBI

Enamel Dots - Pretty My Page, Echo Park, Studio Calico

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die

EK Success Corner Punch

Sunset & Skates

I'm pausing with 2018 photos for a short while ... as I've scrapped all that I have had printed! I've ordered more but until they arrive I shall have to scrap other things.

I still have a few of my daughter's photos for her University album, so I'm turning to those today, and combining two challenges in the process, a sketch from Lottie Loves Paper and a colour combination from GoGo Getaway. 

I used papers from Paige Evans' Whimsical collection which covers all the colours, and rotated the sketch as I preferred my photos to be side-by-side rather then stacked up. I copied the sketch by using stars as my embellishments, building three clusters from die-cut, puffy and epoxy stars in various sizes.

The photos are of my daughter and her friends on Brighton seafront as the sun was setting. She'd captioned them 'Sunset & Skates' when she gave them to me and I went with that as the page title, running it along the diagonal lines between the stars in multi-coloured tile stickers. My final addition to the page was another smaller cluster of stars at the bottom-right of the page which created a triangle around the photos.

Supplies
Paper - Pink Paislee/Paige Evans Whimsical
Letters/Word Stickers - Paige Evans Stickerbook
Glitter Tape - The Works
Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio
Epoxy Stars - Latech
Ink - Memento

Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Dies

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.

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.

Brighthelm

I've scrapped both of these photos previously on separate pages for my 2019 and 2020 albums (Hello Brighthelm and Goodbye Brighthelm) but now I'm putting them together for another page in my daughter's university album. Brighthelm was her first year accommodation, a house which she shared with four others. 

I've used another sketch from Dotty About Flair, die-cutting my hexagons from a Pinkfresh Studio 6x6 pad. As is normal for me, using this number of different patterned papers meant that I added minimal embellishment, but I included some white puffy asterisks for a Be Colourful challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

Supplies

Paper - Make & Create Moments, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide

Letters - American Crafts

Puffy Stickers - Studio Calico

Glitter Tape - The Works

Ink - Memento

Tools

Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die

It All Starts Here

I'm working with another sketch from Dotty About Flair today. Sketch #2 didn't fit any of my remaining Dorset photos so I'm switching subjects and albums with a page for my daughter's University album. I used a photo I took of her on her first day next to one of the electronic display signs on campus.

I went for a couple of extra paper layers than are in the sketch, pulling the blue and green colours from the photo and adding orange as a contrast. I used a text print for my background as hinting at education, smooshed a little blue ink over it in a diagonal line and stamped a few clusters of tiny orange stars.

Supplies

Paper - Make & Create Moments, American Crafts/Amy Tangerine Late Afternoon, PhotoPlay Boarding Pass

Letters - Pink Paislee, Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes

Word Stickers - American Crafts/Shimelle Sparkle City

Puffy Stars - Elle's Studio

Enamel Shapes - Doodlebug

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's

Tools

Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

The Squad at 95

The ladies at GoGoGetaway ran another cybercrop last weekend, and I made this page from Kirei's sketch.

I used a couple of photos from when my daughter and her friends moved into their student house in August, back together again for the first time since March.

I made the strip of arrows paper wider to accommodate my taller photo, added washi tape above and below it and turned the title sideways compared to the original sketch. 

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill

Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits

Letters - American Crafts

Acetate Stars - Heidi Swapp

Washi Tape - American Crafts/Shimelle

Sticker - Maggie Holmes/Crate Paper

Die-Cut - Advent Swap

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Heidi Swapp, Docrafts

We Did It!

Scraplift #41

I'm combining challenges today, with another scraplift from Scrap Squad, and one to use fuchsia from For the Love of Pretty Paper.

Fuchsia took me to a Heidi Swapp paper pad that I had barely used and I pulled four coordinating papers to make the page. I don't have any embellishments from the collection, if there were any, so picked things from my embellishment drawers (where I store random pieces by colour) to create two clusters by my photo.

The photo is another that my daughter gave me and the page will go in her University Years album.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV

Paper - Heidi Swapp Wanderlust

Letters - Unknown

Die-Cuts - Unknown

Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye

Glitter Tape - The Works

Enamel Dots - My Mind's Eye, Echo Park

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Sewing Machine

Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch

Here Be Monsters

Shimelle's Page

I'm scraplifting Shimelle Laine today, copying a page from one of her recent Facebook live videos.

The photo is another from my daughter's first year at University and is from a Monster Ball. I wanted grungy papers to match the theme of monsters and chose some old papers from Scrap Within Reach, a company which I think is now defunct.

I used a coloured background so didn't stencil it, but I did spread some distress oxide ink behind my photo. I didn't have any embellishments from the collection, but I store mine by colour so was able to pull a few things that match up, and cut some of them into three pieces to spread across three clusters around my photo. Being landscape rather than portrait, there was more space for my title below the photo than beside it. I was out of Ms but I think an upside-down W makes a decent substitute.

Supplies

Paper - Scrap Within Reach Elliott

Letters - American Crafts, October Afternoon

Die-Cut - October Afternoon

Word Stickers - My Mind's Eye

Star Sticker - Jillibean Soup

Brad, Ticket & Metal Circles - Unknown

Enamel Dots - Simple Stories, Doodlebug

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die

Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch

Woodware Postage Stamp Punch

Pat & Deirdre

This page is one for my daughter's university album, and she suggested/requested the title. Those aren't the real names of her and her friend, but some sort of private joke.

I made the page for a scraplift challenge over at Scrap Squad where Keighley chose a page by Jana McCarthy for Hip Kit Club for us all to lift.

I went pink and floral for my version of her page, with papers from an assortment of Maggie Holmes' collections.

Supplies
Paper - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes Sunny Days, CP/MH Gather, CP/MH Chasing Dreams, CP/MH Open Book, Basic Grey Indie Chic, KaiserCraft A Touch of Gold, Pink Paislee Moonstruck

Letters - American Crafts, 

Journalling Cards - Crate Paper/Maggie Holmes Open Book

Border Sticker - Crate Paper Random

Tickets, puffy Stickers & Chipboard - Unknown

Enamel Shapes - Studio Calico, Simple Stories, Echo Park

Ink - Hobbycraft

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot

Cut & Make Doily Die

Dovecraft Label Die

A Night with DJ Steves

I'm back on The Mad Scrapper blog today to share my third (and final) page made with papers from Cocoa Vanilla Studios' Legendary collection.

It's another for my daughter's University album. She gave me the photo, just captioned DJ Steves, but no further information. It seems that he's a character from the TV show 'People Just Do Nothing' and he appeared in Brighton earlier this year.

Supplies
Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studios Legendary*
Letters - American Crafts*, Creative Devotion

Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft

Enamel Dots - Echo Park*, Eyelet Outlet*

Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Star Dies

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

Seeing Triple

I'm carrying on with my daughter's university album today, but the page has a photo of one of her friends, in triplicate as they played with panorama photography.

A photo like this has to be printed as large as possible so I went with A4 paper which made it about 3.5" by 11.75" and chose an old sketch from Shimelle that I've used before. Obviously I dropped the three circles from the sketch as I was using one photo not two, and I moved the photo up and title down, but I kept the paper layers as they are.

I had intended to keep the central composition throughout, but when I added the arrows to the page, they really wanted to be more spread out, and then the large star worked better slightly offset so I broke that rule entirely with my smaller stars and pearls.

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus, My Mind's Eye 29th Street Market, Make & Create Grunge Dreams, Kit 'n' Craft

Letters - American Crafts

Cork Shapes - Studio Calico

Pearls - Unknown

Washi Tape - Unknown

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Big Shot & Dovecraft Stars Dies

Hobbycraft Star Punch

American Crafts Scalloped Border Punch

Turtle-y Cool

I'm back on my daughter's university album today, and grateful to her for the photos as I have very little to scrap for this year. This photo just has the caption 'Turtle' but I think the street art is on the back of one of the pubs or clubs in Brighton.

I started this page a couple of weeks ago, when I cut a couple of turtles on my Silhouette and backed them with white cardstock that I'd coloured with a mixture of inks. I got stuck then, couldn't work out how to finish the page and put everything to one side. 

At the beginning of the month, Rochelle Spears published her October sketch and it got me going again. My photo was 4x4 so I looked at my 6x6 pads to make the row of paper strips across the page, finding a gorgeous ombre paper and deciding to use just the one pattern instead of a variety. I then picked a couple of colours of blue ink and used the packaging technique on a white cardstock background for a diagonal line of colour. I placed my paper strips lower on the page than in the sketch so that my larger turtle could sit on the top edge and reversed the direction of the sketch to suit the orientation of my turtles.

I decided on washi for the strip at the bottom but it felt disconnected there so I moved it up, and then added another strip at the top to balance it, picking colours that match the top and bottom of my ombre paper. 

I combined this challenge with a tic-tac-toe from Scrap with Stacy and used five items from her grid - gold, enamel dots, word stickers, one photo and ink/paint - which complete the top row or the right column.

Rochelle and Stacy join forces every month so you can have three chances to win with just one page - Rochelle's challenge, Stacy's challenge or the two combined as I have done here.

Supplies

Cardstock - Craft UK

Paper - Making Memories??

Letters - American Crafts, Tim Holtz

Washi Tape - Unknown

Rain Dots - Cloud 9 Design

Ink - Ranger, Memento

Mist - Docrafts, Cosmic Shimmer

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Trick or Treat

This is another page for my daughter's university album, with a couple of Hallowe'en photos that she gave me. 

I've never been keen on Hallowe'en so only have papers from one collection, October Afternoon's Witch Hazel, which I originally bought for my Harry Potter album. I was down to scraps, with the only piece of any size being a 6x12 of zig-zag print which hurts my eyes if I look at it for too long. However I picked that for my background in conjunction with a spider's web cut-file as a lot would be covered by the time I finished. 

Building the rest of my page was a game of Tetris, identifying the papers which were big enough for photo mats, then working out how my scraps could be fitted together and which pieces could be cut and stretched where needed to look bigger than they are. 

I embellished with pumpkins cut from one of the papers, the word 'Beware' die cut from another to form a label and a sprinkling of enamel dots. 

My scraps are even scrappier now, but I might just be able to squeeze out one final page if my daughter has another Hallowe'en event this year. 

Supplies
Cardstock - Craft Sensations, Bazzill, Stampin' Up!
Paper - October Afternoon Witch Hazel
Enamel Dots - Eyelet Outlet, Simple Stories, Pretty My Page
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Dovecraft Label Die

Bring on the Next Chapter

That's the caption that my daughter used when she added this photo to Instagram a few weeks before she started at the University of Sussex, and it seemed appropriate for this page, the first in her University Years album.

Of course, it made me think of books and I hunted around for a suitable cut-file but didn't find one immediately. However, a few days later Confessions of a Paper Addict published the perfect file, called Stacked Books, a freebie at the time.

I backed the open book with an old 6x6 book-print paper (what else?) and used a similar colour from the same pad on all the paper edges. I think that books are quite old-fashioned now so I picked distressed papers to back the three in the stack and chose a background with a vintage feel. 

My aim with the embellishments was to use something pretty but subtle, nothing that would distract from the photo or the cut-file. I think these kraft floral die-cuts fit the bill, and I added a few dusty green leafy sprigs and a scattering of pearls to finish off.

Supplies

Cardstock - American Crafts

Paper - Simple Stories Simple Vintage Botanicals, Pink Paislee Indigo Bleu, Simply Made Crafts, Dream Street Papers

Die-Cuts - Studio Calico

Pearls - Artoz

Ink - Ranger

Tools

Silhouette Portrait & COAPA Stacked Books Cut-File

Big Shot & Poppystamps Small Sprig Die

SK8R Girlz

I'm back on The Mad Scrapper blog today with another page using papers from Cocoa Vanilla Studios' Legendary collection in conjunction with some mixed media in coordinating colours.

You can read all about it over at The Mad Scrapper.

The photo is of my daughter and her friend on roller-skates at sunset and will go in her University Years album. No journalling yet as she will do that next time she's home (whenever that might be).

Supplies
Paper - Cocoa Vanilla Studios Legendary*
Letters - American Crafts*
Word Sticker - Tim Holtz
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Mister Huey's, Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Hexagon Mask
Creative Embellishments Stars Mask
Hobbycraft Star Circle Stamp
Heidi Swapp Arrow Stamp
Studio Calico Stars Stamp

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

Mirror, Mirror

Our daughter has been at the University of Sussex for a year now. Before she went, I offered to make her an album for her experiences if she supplied me with the photos. It took her almost a year to organise, but she presented me with a memory stick just before she went back this term so I'm finally able to make a start for her.

I'll be tackling them in random order as inspiration strikes or suitable challenges arise, and I'm starting with the first September challenge from For the Love of Pretty Paper which is to scrap a selfie.

I recently rediscovered a set of Freckled Fawn stickers which I'd forgotten about. I received them as part of a prize a couple of years ago but they're not really my thing so they've sat around ever since. I decided that these fell into my 'use it or lose it' category and that if I didn't use them soon then I should either sell them or give them away.

I was so happy to find the perfect paper to go with my stickers, a stripe from Heidi Swapp that not only matched all the colours but the stripes were at the right angle for the diamond shapes to sit neatly between the lines.

I cut my title on my Silhouette because few alpha sets have six Rs, and this also meant that I could reflect the second word.

I have plenty of colours and patterns on the diamonds and I didn't want to clutter the page with too many other embellishments so I just added a trio of black puffy stickers, magenta enamel diamonds overlapping a few of the cardstock diamonds and a smattering of jade enamel dots.

Supplies
Paper - Heidi Swapp Hello Today, HOTP Garnet Sarabook
Stickers - Freckled Fawn Chit Chat
Puffy Stickers - Heidi Swapp Journal Studio
Enamel Shapes - Heidi Swapp, Ebay
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Maya Road, Mister Huey's 

Tools
Silhouette Portrait