Parkrun Pages

Now a couple of pages for my Parkrun Continued album, which is 8x8 in size. I try to use up my scraps on these pages so these both have two part backgrounds. I count them as half-pages so always share them in pairs to keep the page count even.

(The numbers are my page count for the year and I have now exceeded the 105 that I made last year.) 

105.5 Queen Elizabeth

We ran at Queen Elizabeth Country Park in July en route to Southampton for our Norwegian cruise. I had a 12" tall chevron shaped paper scrap which I cut down for the left side and paired with green spots.

Supplies: Paper - My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus, Bo Bunny Little Wonders; Stickers - Crate Paper, October Afternoon; Enamel Shapes - Carta Bella, Cocoa Vanilla Studio

106. Happy Birthday Thurrock

Our home parkrun celebrated its 10th birthday in October, so I picked a photo of us all at the start line. I had a scrap of birthday paper which I decided to use, leading to a pink and navy colour scheme.

Supplies: Paper - Bo Bunny Little Wonders, DCWV?; Letters - American Crafts; Enamel Dots - Carta Bella; Cake - Unknown

Dartmoor Selfies

Another page for the 2025 album today, and another of my husband's exploits. He walked the Dartmoor Perambulation in August, a modern recreation of a ride round the royal hunting ground made by 12 knights in July 1240 on the instructions of Henry III.

The walk goes through 33 checkpoints and he took a selfie at each one. There's an account of the walk on his blog if you are interested.

I picked 18 photos and arranged them in a circle on my page, with title and journalling in the middle. I used the Boot Tread cut-file from Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files to fill the corners, cutting it in white and colouring it with three brown and green Distress Inks. 

I wanted to include a map, but I ran out of space so I cut a slit in the page and made a pocket on the back for it to sit in. The lace-printed strip is at the top of the map card, it pulls out easily and I've referenced it in my journalling. 

Supplies: Paper - 49 and Market Nature Study, 49 and Market Hike More; Letters - Tim Holtz; Washi Stickers - 49 and Market; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Page 105 in my count for the year.)

Grays 10k

I'm taking a short break from Norway to make a few pages for my 2025 album instead, aiming not to fall too far behind. 

First up is the Grays 10k which my husband ran in September. I printed four photos which fell into two pairs - during and after the race - so I kept them that way on the page.

My colour scheme started from the blue of my husband's vest and led to a mixture of three of Vicki Boutin's collections.

Supplies: Paper - Vicki Boutin Color Study, Vicki Boutin Fernwood, Vicki Boutin Sweet Rush; Letters - Fancy Pants; Journalling Cards - Project Life; Die-Cuts - Vicki Boutin; Washi Tape - Vicki Boutin; Puffy Stickers - Elle's Studio, Jen Hadfield

(Page 104 in my count for the year.)

Pages from Trondheim

Trondheim is Norway's third largest city, and was the fifth place (of six) that we visited on our cruise this summer. It's the second that I'm scrapping though as I deliberately go out of order so that any progression in style from beginning to end is disguised.

(The numbers are my page count for the year.)

98. Trondheim

My sub-title page for Trondheim is very similar to the one for Nordfjordeid, and I've decided to stick with the column of motifs next to a vertical title for each one, but I already know that the number of photos will change for other pages, while still placing them in a block with the journalling.

99. Stiftsgården

This is the royal residence in Trondheim and I have photos of both the front and the back with gardens that are now a public park. I used the sketch from GoGoGetaway's September cybercrop for my page but my photos are considerably larger than those on the sketch, and I chose to use the pair of tags for my journalling so had to make them larger too. This led to me juggling all the different elements around the page to suit my needs, but I believe you can still see the original sketch in the finished page.

100. Kristiansten Festning

I went with a stencilled quadrants for this page, holding three photos plus title/journalling for a fortress on the hill above Trondheim.

101 & 102. Nidaros Cathedral

I made the right-hand side of this pair first, a simple grid of cropped 4x6 photos of the inside of the cathedral, with strips of stripey paper top and bottom. I then repeated those strips on the left side before filling in the middle of the page with the aid of Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class (which ran in 2011 but the designs are timeless).

103. Statuary

My last page from Trondheim has six photos of the statues we saw around the city, placed in two rows across a stencilled background with torn paper strips at the sides.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Heidi Swapp Hello Today, Pink Paislee Memorandum, Shimelle Never Grow Up, Sandylion; Letters - Hobbycraft, Simple Stories, Craftelier, Basic Grey; Stickers - Simple Stories, 49 and Market, Jillibean Soup, Pretty Little Studio; Die-Cuts - October Afternoon; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Puffy Stars - Bella Boulevard; Enamel Shapes - 49 and Market, Simple Stories, Shimelle, Studio Calico

Trek the Deck

Trek the Deck was a charity event on our cruise, with passengers walking round the promenade deck one morning to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.

This is my second October DT page for Twilight Crafts and Jenny Wren Cut-Files, using the Hexagon Border cut-file cut from black cardstock. I cut my photos into hexagons too, matting them as one piece to layer over the cut-file.

I inked my white cardstock background direct from the ink pad and added a couple of strips of paper down the left of the page before positioning the cut-file and photo block. 

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK, Bazzill; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Maggie Holmes Sunny Days; Letters - Hobbycraft, Creative Devotion; Stickers - Heidi Swapp, 49 and Market; Enamel Shapes - Shimelle, Simple Stories

Disclosure - I receive digital cut-files free of charge from Twilight Crafts as part of my DT role. All other supplies are my own.

(Page 97 in my count for the year.)

Badness

Another cruise page, but we're back on board now. Badness, a Madness tribute band, was one of the best guest acts we've seen on a ship. I followed the First Idea from Shimelle Laine's recent One Two Punch class, which was based around repeating lines of punched shapes.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025, Shimelle Never Grow Up; JOurnalling Card - Project Life; Puffy Stickers - Bella Boulevard; Washi Tape - Unknown; Enamel Shapes - Latech

(Page 96 in my count for the year.)

Pages from Nordfjordeid

Nordfjordeid was the second port of call on our Norwegian cruise, a small town on the side of the Nordfjord. I try not to scrap the ports in order as it takes a little while for me to settle into the rhythm of an album and I don't want to see any progression in style from the beginning to the end. 

I always start with a 'sub-title' page for each port to divide the album into sections. Up until now, I've gone for general views of the town, but they aren't always very interesting. I often also find myself making follow-up pages with a few smaller images, nothing important enough to merit a page of its own, but together they give a sense of the character of the place and sum up our general meandering. For this album, I'm ditching the overall views and picking a selection of smaller pictures for the sub-title pages. 

(The numbers are my page count for the year.)

93. Nordfjordeid

My sub-title page for Nordfjordeid has five 4x4 photos, but I'll be happy to vary that number and size on future versions. I arranged them in a 2x3 block with journalling and embellishment in the sixth space. I cut my title on my Silhouette, using the negative of the lettering to let the white background show through.

94. Rundehogjen Burial Mound

I used last month's sketch from For the Love of Pretty Paper for this page, flipping it upside down and switching triangles for the hexagons which I'm using in this album. The sketch was a good one as it has two areas, allowing me to separate my photos. The top one, of a nondescript-looking hillock, is a 9th century burial mound where the remains of a burnt Viking ship were discovered in 1874. Ship burials from that time are considered to be royal burials, and so this is probably where King Audbjørn was cremated with his ship and belongings. The bottom photo is an artist's impression of how this could have looked at the time.

95. Sagastad & Myklebust

Nordfjordeid's main attraction is the Sagastad Viking Centre, where they have a full size replica of the ship above, known as the Myklebust ship after the farm where it was discovered.

It's early days for this album, but I've made more pages than I've shared so far and there are definitely some trends emerging:

• I've made all my pages on white cardstock, often coloured with inks whether that be direct from the ink pad, smooshed with water or dabbed through a stencil, so I will continue with that (making lots of the papers I pulled for my kit redundant). 
• I'm finding that the Out and About papers don't mix very well with Happy Travels after all, so I've only used a couple of patterns. 
• My pages are quite minimalist with few layers and flat titles.
• I'm using my Silhouette a lot, including more cut-files than I normally do in a cruise album and cutting a lot of my titles on it too (particularly in the Teen font).
• I have followed my initial thought of using the hexagon as a repeating shape in this album.

Supplies: Cardstock - Craft UK; Paper - Simple Stories Happy Travels, Simple Stories Summer Snapshots, Simple Stories Safe Travels, Alchemy Hearts Out & About 2025; Letters - KaiserCraft, Basic Grey; Stickers - 49 and Market; Filmstrip - 49 and Market; Washi Tape - Hobbycraft; Enamel Shapes - Papermania, Simple Stories, Latech