Cruise Norway

I finished my Norwegain Cruise album a couple of weeks ago, but there was one more page needed, a summary page that will go in my 2019 album and point out the existence of the holiday album. I took a similar approach to the one that I made for our holiday to Austria in 2014, creating a cutfile from the country's name and backing each letter with a photo from the trip. 

I was part way through making this page when our birthday party cybercrop started over at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and I put it to one side until I realised that I could finish it for one of the challenges. 'Guests' asked us to use lots of the same type of embellishment on a page; I was already planning to use up some of my leftover puffy stickers from the main album on this page, but the challenge made me add more and just using the red ones gave me ten in total without looking excessive.

Supplies
Cardstock - Papermania
Paper - Pinkfresh Studio Out and About, Pinkfresh Studio Let Your Heart Decide
Letter Stickers - Echo Park
Puffy Stickers - Pinkfresh Studio, Elle's Studio, American Crafts/Shimelle
Ink - Memento

Tools
Silhouette Portrait 

Celebrate

We had eighteen challenges in the recent birthday cybercrop at For the Love of Pretty Paper, and the very last one, 'Midnight Madness', was to combine any five of the others on one page.

I chose to do these with a group photo from my friend's 50th birthday party. Coincidentally, all the guests in this picture wore black sparkly outfits while the birthday girl (centre) was in dark cerise pink so I used that as the main colour in my page. I had pinched some of the table confetti from the evening to use on the page if I could, and it worked out quite well.

I didn't choose my five challenges in advance, but kept a list beside me and worked out which ones could be included as I went along. I ended up with something sparkly or glittery, circles, lots of layers, new stash (silver glitter tape) and lots of the same embellishment (gems).

Supplies
Paper - My Mind's Eye Collectable, Hot Off the Press Garnet Sarabook
Vellum - My Mind's Eye
Letters - American Crafts
Frame & Glitter Tape - from Advent Swap
Enamel Hearts - Marianne Designs
Gems - Simply Creative
Ink - Hobbycraft

Tools
Big Shot & Doily Die

Going, Going, Gone

Last month, the chimney of a retired power station near us was blown up. We knew in advance and quite a crowd turned up to watch, safe on the opposite bank of the river. I took a series of time-lapse photos and printed three of them to run across the page in a horizontal line.

I've adapted this month's single page sketch from Stick It Down by extending the row of photos. I matted them first on black cardstock then looked for a patterned paper with black in it, pulling out a stripey one from Junkitz with a 2005 date. The problem with paper that old was finding anything else to match the colours in it, and I ended up using plain cardstock for the rest of my layers and I couldn't find a second paper to make the split background.

My page also fits another of the birthday party challenges at For the Love of Pretty Paper where 'Sleeping Lions' asked us to create a page with a horizontal design.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill, Papermania, Stampin' Up!
Paper - KaiserCraft PS I Love You, Echo Park Winter Park, Junkitz Winter
Washi Tape - Ebay
Enamel Dots - Echo Park
Ink - Hobbycraft
Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Silhouette Portrait
Big Shot & Little B Arrow Die
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
X-Cut Corner Punch

School Days are Over

Another of For the Love of Pretty Paper's cybercrop challenges gave me another opportunity to finish off a 'starting point' page. This time we were asked to use triangles on a page for the 'Sandwiches' challenge, and I had a page background ready that I'd made when I was experimenting with my Silhouette Portrait a while back. 

I went to some theme park photos which match the colours of my papers, but they were quite old and really didn't work with the stark white background. 

Flipping through the same album, I picked a couple of photos from my last day at school, more than 30 years ago. They were originally about 4"x5" and I moved them round the page A LOT, before deciding to add a larger triangle to the page (even though it would cover some of my existing smaller triangles). Following that the rest of the page fell into place - crop and mat the photos, title along the side of the triangle, extra strip of paper on the left edge, journalling on strips alongside the top photo and embellishments in opposite corners.

Supplies
Paper - Studio Calico Sundrifter, Studio Calico Snippets, Studio Calico Heyday
Die-Cuts - Jillibean Soup
Sticker - Studio Calico
Enamel Shapes - Marianne Designs

Tools
Silhouette Portrait

Castle Builder

Another of the challenges in For the Love of Pretty Paper's birthday party cybercrop was 'Musical Chairs' which asked us to create a repeating pattern. 

Some time ago, I made a 'starting point' page with a mosaic of hexagons cut from the scraps of a 6x6 pad, and that was still sitting around my craft space so I decided to finish it off for this challenge.

The blue and yellow feel 'beachy' to me and I had always intended this to be a single photo page with the photo covering the empty space in the mosaic, so I searched my old photo albums and found one of my brother that would work for this.

I matted the photo on a scrap of denim paper that was wider than the photo, and filled the gap with a few pieces from the same paper pad. I'd originally added a couple of yellow enamel dots to the page (the end of a pack, I'm sure) but I preferred to have three and managed to find another that matched before adding some blue ones too.

Supplies
Cardstock - Bazzill
Paper - My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart
Letters - American Crafts/Shimelle, Papermania
Washi Tape - Ebay
Enamel Dots - Echo Park, Simple Stories, Pretty My Page
Ink - Docrafts
Mist - Mister Huey's, Cosmic Shimmer, Docrafts

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Hexagon Die

Christmas Starts Here

We ended the year over at For the Love of Pretty Paper with a cybercrop to celebrate the group's fifth birthday. The admin team organised 18 challenges across New Year's Eve which is far too many for me to do them all, but gives me a wide variety to choose from.

I started with 'Musical Statues' which asked us to use a vertical design or vertical stripes, and picked December's single page sketch from Stick It Down to go with two photos from a Christmas party that we attend every year.

I like to use a traditional colour palette of red, green and gold for Christmas photos; for this page I mixed a variety of old and new papers from several different manufacturers.

Supplies

Cardstock - DCWV, Stampin' Up!

Paper - American Crafts Be Merry, Carta Bella Christmas Market, Simple Stories DIY Christmas

Letters - We R Memory Keepers
Glitter Tape - Hobbycraft?

Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard

Ink - Ranger

Mist - Docrafts

Tools

Silhouette Portrait

Big Shot & X-Cut Star Die

Woodware Tiny Star Punch

Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt - December

We're a month into the Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt now; time to check in and see what everyone's found so far. Mine has been a quiet start as December is always a busy month at work. I have a few local photos planned but just haven't found the time to take them yet. However I do have a few finds to share:

4. Colours
A 'Twelve Days of Christmas' themed Snowman, part of a trail near London Bridge.

6. Vintage
This is a complete copy from Eileen's post. My favourite childhood cuddly toy, my panda, which was 48 years old on Christmas Day.

7. I Stood Here
Braving the scales after Christmas excesses - I need to lose a few pounds to get back to my target weight at Slimming World.

11. Industrial
We watched them blowing up the Chimney of Littlebrook Power Station.

14. Flavour of the Month
For December, it has to be mincemeat, something that we don't eat for the rest of the year. We make a version of Mary Berry's Mincemeat Streusel rather than mince pies.

There are twenty items to find, plus two alternatives if any of the 20 prove to be impossible for you. The hunt runs to 31st March, so you have plenty of time to join us.