Narrow Boats, Wide Skies

I had a clear plan for the pages I wanted to make from our canal holiday in July, and it always included a double to sum up our day-to-day life on the water. I even decided on its title ages ago, back when we were still on the boat, we passed a narrow boat that is used for retreats and meditation, and painted on the side were the words "narrow boats, wide eyes, open minds..." I liked the sentiment and snapped a quick photo so that I wouldn't forget it; I particularly liked the contrast of narrow and wide, and pondered on that until I came up with my own version.

I do like to use a sketch for double pages, and I found this one on Google images, though it was too small to read the source. A reverse image search came up trumps, taking me to a larger version and the blog of Cheryl Even who originally published it back in 2012. I had a play around with the number and sizes of the photos, but the basic design is all hers.

It's a photo-heavy spread - I have fifteen pictures on the page - so I didn't leave myself a lot of room for journalling. I've captioned the larger photos and added a list of our route at the bottom, leaving the photos to tell most of the story.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - Basic Grey What's Up, Basic Grey Granola, Crate Paper Prudence
Letters - American Crafts, Making Memories
Washi Tape - Quirky Kits
Brads - My Mind's Eye
Gems - Scrapberry's
Ink - Docrafts

Up the Junction

This is another page from our canal holiday earlier this year, and the junction of the title is Hawkesbury Junction where the Oxford Canal meets the Coventry Canal. It's awkward to navigate, with a lock, a 90° turn under a bridge and another 90° turn before you line the boat up to go through a very narrow passage. 

I printed six photos of our progress through the junction, out and back, and scraplifted an old six-photo page, Zip It. My photos were larger this time, and I didn't leave myself any space for journalling, so I turned the photo mat on the right into a pocket and tucked a long piece of paper in there, adding the word Details to the top with tiny letter stickers.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - Basic Grey What's Up, Basic Grey Capella, My Mind's Eye Now & Then
Letters - Trimcraft, Prima, KaiserCraft
Flair - Imagine That
Puffy Stickers - Fancy Pants
Washi Tape - Quirky Kits
Ink - Docrafts

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punch

Take a Seat

This is the third page from our canal holiday in July, with photos of my daughter relaxing around the boat. I think I have one page left to do now, a double with various views of the canal and our boat-handling, but that will have to wait until I have the photos printed.

I picked Sketch #112 from Sketch N Scrap for my page, and for once I didn't change the number of photos. However I did reduce the width of the paper strips across the page, and play with the layers behind the photos to try and match the feel of the previous pages I've made.

I'm also linking with Rochelle Spears' This or That Challenge where she has asked us to use enamel shapes OR puffy stickers (but not both). I have both in my kit for these holiday pages, but used only enamel shapes here.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - Basic Grey What's Up, Basic Grey Capella, Crate Paper Prudence
Letters - Trimcraft
Label Sticker - Crate Paper
Washi Tape - Teresa Collins, Quirky Kits
Brads - My Mind's Eye
Enamel Shapes - Marianne Design, Doodlebug, Echo Park
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer
Ink - Ranger

A Week With Wild Sorrel

Wild Sorrel was the narrowboat that we hired for a week's holiday back in July. The scrapbook pages that I make for that holiday will be part of my annual 2016 album so I am using a kit of papers for all the pages so that they make a distinctive sub-section of the album.

I used the very first Turtle Crafts sketch for my page, but flipped it horizontally to suit the orientation of my main photo. I also squeezed in three smaller photos by extending the paper pieces on the right of the sketch/left of my page and moving my main photo across the page a bit. 

I'm also linking up with Shimelle's current weekly challenge where she has asked us to use floral motifs; I used a floral paper for the vertical strip, and fussy cut a flower from the same paper to go in the embellishment cluster on the right.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss
Paper - Basic Grey What's Up, Basic Grey Granola, Basic Grey Capella, Crate Paper Prudence
Letters - Making Memories, Authentique
Flair - Imagine That
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Washi Tape - Quirky Kits
Label Sticker - My Mind's Eye
Puffy Stickers - Paperchase
Enamel Shapes - Shimelle True Stories
Pearls - Scrapberry's
Ink - Ranger
Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools
X-Cut Circle Punch

Taking Turns

Back in July we hired a narrowboat for a week's holiday on the Warwickshire canals. I took more than 200 photos but a lot of them are quite similar so I put off scrapping them until I had a clear idea for how I wanted to approach it. I'm now planning a double page overview plus three singles for more specific groups of photos. 

I want these pages to have a cohesive look so it will be clear to anyone looking through my album that they belong together and cover the same holiday, so I've put a kit together which I will use for all the pages. It's based on Basic Grey's What's Up collection, which is from 2011 but I've just bought some on clearance and I think the pinks, reds and aqua will work with my outdoor photos. I've pulled in papers from several other Basic Grey collections, plus a few papers from My Mind's Eye and I'll use the same dotted Swiss cardstock for all my backgrounds. 

The first page that I've made is a single, from the 1st August sketch at Stuck?! Sketches, with photos of my husband, my daughter and me driving the boat. I've stuck fairly closely to the sketch (apart from changing the number of photos) and even copied the stripey paper running across the page. 

I've used blue and green chalks on my background to add a little colour at the top left and bottom right, but it doesn't show up very well in the photo.

I'd originally pulled out white Thickers, but they don't work against the white background so I've added a few cork and kraft alphas to my kit.

Supplies

Cardstock - Bazzill Dotted Swiss 

Paper - Basic Grey What's Up, Basic Grey Granola

Letters - Making Memories

Numbers - Kaisercraft

Label Stickers - October Afternoon

Washi Tape - Quirky Kits

Brad - My Mind's Eye

Enamel Dots/Hearts - Shimelle True Stories, Marianne Design

Chalk - Readicut Crafts

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Cosmic Shimmer

Tools

X-Cut Circle Punch