Altered Notebook

Earlier this month I was lucky enough to win a prize from Michelle at Scrapthology for entering her 'Turn of the Century' sketch challenge. One of the items was a set of chipboard letters; there is one of each letter and they're 2.5" high so I earmarked them for cards rather than scrapbook page titles.

The next day I opened one of my notebooks upside down and at the back for the umpteenth time, because the front and back are identically plain.

I immediately decided to decorate the front of my notebook, and to use the 'A' from my prize alphabet set. I used some tissue paper for its translucency, and layered a couple of washi tapes over it. Michelle also sent me a small silver frame and a tiny shoe which I tied to the spiral binding with a tassel from my stash. I filled the frame with a scrap of the printed tissue paper and an owl sticker; the leaves on the front of the notebook came from the same sticker sheet.

I don't think I'll be opening this book at the back again!

Birthday Card

It's my Dad's birthday in a few days, so I have a new card to share with you. I based it on this month's card sketch at Stick It Down.

I die-cut my hexagons with my Big Shot using the smallest die I have, and placed them closer together than in the sketch, running them off the top and bottom of the card. It's looking a little 'flat' but everything else that I tried to add just looked wrong, so I stopped here.

Brave

For this week's challenge, Shimelle challenged us to scrap a black and white photo, and the Scrap Like You Mean It prompt at UKScrappers was to scrap an old photo, so I'm going back to the 1940s for this page.

My father has been researching our family history, and found that his cousin had an old newspaper cutting from World War II. There's no headline on it so I don't know whether it's part of a general round-up of forces news or it was an article specifically about our family. The narrative starts "Three sons and a son-in-law of Mr & Mrs Potts ..." and goes on to say where each of them was serving at the time. My grandad is the young soldier on the left.

Obviously I only have a scan of the cutting, not the original, so I printed it on thin cardstock as I didn't want the shiny finish of photo paper. 

I used the mid-month sketch from Stuck?! Sketches for my page, stamping circles with a lid and adding buttons to the circles.

Supplies
Cardstock - DCWV
Paper - Basic Grey Wisteria, My Mind's Eye Follow Your Heart, Bo Bunny Double Dot
Letters - American Crafts
Word Stickers - Tim Holtz Idea-Ology
Buttons & Tag - from Stash
Ink - Memento, Ranger

Tools
X-Cut Scalloped Border Punch

City Centre Landmarks

It's been a while since I joined in with the challenges at Scrap Our Stash. They changed format at the start of the year, and I haven't been able to fit the new challenges to the pages that I am making for my cruise album. However their latest Sketch+3 Challenge was perfect for me. 

The '+3' part is to use items from three lists alongside the sketch. These have been alphabetical so far, they've reached GHI and I've picked Graphic 45, Heidi Swapp and Ink. I've been mostly using Heidi Swapp's No Limits collection for this album, together with Graphic 45's Artisan Style in 6x6 and several other random papers that fit the colour palette. I've inked the edges of all my papers, inked the wood veneer triangles, and used ink again to stamp on the page.

As the title says, it's a few of the landmarks in the centre of Belfast - St Anne's Cathedral, the Albert Memorial Clock, City Hall and Buoys Park. My photos were different shapes and sizes, so I arranged them in a collage and filled the gaps with paper and stamping. 

Supplies
Cardstock - COlorset
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits, Graphic 45 Artisan Style, Fancy Pants Country Boutique
Letters - Pink Paislee Memorandum, American Crafts Shimelle
Wood Veneer - Heidi Swapp
Ink & Mist - Docrafts
Enamel Dot - Trimcraft

Tools
Big Shot & X-Cut Ticket Stubs Die
Hobbycraft Star Punch
Stampendous 'Travel Words' Stamp
Papermania 'All Aboard' Postmark Stamp

Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt

They think it's all over ... it is now.

Spring is (officially) here and so the Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt has come to an end.

Back in December, Eileen and Joy posted a list of 21 items to be found and photographed by 21st March and I've done my best to track them all down (with a little interpretation here and there).

By the end of February I had found 14 of the 21 items, I neglected the hunt for most of March and then had a final run around with just days to go but I did find all 21 items.

My previous scavenger hunts posts were:
December - 7 + 1 alternative
January - 5 + 1 alternative
February - 2 

My final seven finds are:

5. A Snowman - A mug that I was given for Christmas one year. It's a little awkward to drink from so it lives on my bookshelf all year round.

10. A Windy Day - I'll admit that this one was staged, but it's a reconstruction of something that did genuinely happen in the storms of autumn 2014.

11. A Fancy Button (or two)

14. Afternoon Tea - I prefer coffee, in my favourite mug, with a home-made biscuit.

15. Candle Light

20. Cutlery - My spoon and pusher from when I was small.

21. My Handwriting - The scavenger hunt list, ready for my December mini-album (if I ever get round to making it).

So that's it, all done! 

Thanks to Eileen and Joy for organising it, and to Rinda who runs the summer hunt which inspired this one. It won't be long before that one comes round again. Until then I'm off to check out how well my fellow hunters did via the final link-up on Eileen's blog.

A Millennium Milestone & A Giveaway

My one thousandth post!

I started blogging in February 2011, but at that time I posted sporadically, and only when I wanted to link a page to a challenge site.

Now I share all my papercrafting, accounts of the long distance paths I walk and the two photography scavenger hunts that I do each year. Since January 2015 that's been a post here every other day, even when I've been on holiday.

I'm celebrating with a giveaway, but first I'd like to know more about you.

According to the gadget in my side bar, I have 21 direct followers but I know that other people do follow me via other gadgets and widgets. I'm a curious soul and I'd like to know who follows me, how and why, so I've created a quick questionnaire. I'll put the names of all that enter into a hat and draw a winner for the giveaway at the beginning of April.

Please be assured that I'm not collecting any information that will identify you, and that the only purpose of this questionnaire is to satisfy my own curiosity. I will probably share the results here, but only in the broadest sense (e.g. my average reader is ...).

Since I can't identify you from the survey itself, please also leave a comment to let me know you've done it, and to enter the giveaway.


Create your own user feedback survey

If you can't see the survey embedded here, please click here instead to complete it on an external site (Survey Monkey).

The survey will close in seven days time, Monday 28 March; the giveaway winner will be announced on Monday 4 April.

Belfast

After a diversion through Shimelle's challenges and a belated Capital Ring post, I'm back to my 2015 Cruise album today. Four days after leaving Red Bay in Canada we arrived back in the UK; our final port of call was Belfast. We only had an afternoon there, which really wasn't long enough to see everything the city has to offer.

I'm starting with an arrival/introduction page for Belfast; I've done one for each place we visited and they will divide up the album into sections. I used a sketch from ScrapMuch? which I flipped horizontally because the views in my photos are that way round in real life. The photos were taken from the ship looking across to the Harland & Wolff shipyard and the Titanic Belfast building.

Supplies
Cardstock - Colorset, DCWV
Paper - Heidi Swapp No Limits
Letters - American Crafts
Washi Tape - October Afternoon
Enamel Dots - Papermania, Echo Park
Ink & Mist - Docrafts

Tools
Fiskars Postage Stamp Border Punch
Fiskars Shape Cutter & Circles Template
Woodware Scalloped Circle Punch
Stampendous 'Travel Words' Stamp
Amy Tangerine Camera Stamp