Cascades & Coasters

Disaster struck on Sunday evening when I ran out of yellow printer ink after the shops had shut. Having bought some on the way home from work yesterday, I was able to print my pictures for this layout, for Shimelle's sketch from last Wednesday.

I stretched the sketch to make it a double page spread about our trip to Alton Towers in May, adding a second narrower vertical panel of stripey paper on the right, to balance the one on the left. 

The papers are a recent purchase - the Sugar & Spice collection from Dovecraft. They are actually 8"x8" papers so the stripey pieces have been pieced together. However, being stripes, the joins don't show. The picture is a bit fuzzy (don't know why as the one on my PC is clear), but I have used my bracket border punch to make the blue borders above and below the central spotty pieces. The photos are matted on kraft card which happily matched some new letters. Sadly I have used all the Cs and Ss in one go.

Supplies
Card - DCWV Neutral Stack, Papermania Kraft Basics
Paper - Dovecraft Sugar & Spice
Letters - Crate Paper 

Simply the Best

I bought myself a new toy yesterday - the Fiskars Bracket Border Punch - and I put it to good use on this layout, loosely based on Shimelle Laine's 4x6 Photo Love class from March. Shimelle is teaching a series of twelve classes, one per month, with increasing numbers of 4x6 photos - see the link on the right.





















I rotated the sketch to accommodate three landscape photos of my daughter's dance show rehearsals. This made it hard to do the row of title, journalling and embellishment that is on the sketch, so I ended up with a more spread out random look.

The pink strips are cut from a DCWV paper which has lots of rows of words about girls on it. A friend gave it to me as it was one from a pad she bought and she only has boys, so I am not sure of the exact name. I am not keen on the paper as a whole, but these strips that say 'girls just wanna have fun' are great for a dancing page. I layered them on white paper cut with that bracket punch. The journalling spot is one I downloaded from 2 Peas in a Bucket. I added a tiny strip of pink paper and a piece of stitching rub-on that was leftover from yesterday.

Supplies
Card - Bo Bunny Licorice Dot
Paper - DCWV, pink scraps from stash
Letters - Anita's Glitterations
Journalling Spot - Courtship Circle Stamp from Stacy Marks for 2 Peas in a Bucket
Rub-On - Papermania
Jewels - from stash

Ben

Real life got in the way yesterday, but it's back to scrapping today. This layout is for the current Pencil Lines sketch, number 251.





















I made things difficult for myself by choosing a portrait photo, and then mounting it on even taller portrait paper, but I love these ducks and boats, and I don't have many babies in my life. No babies really - as this photo is from 2007 and Ben starts school this term (gulp).

I was originally going to stitch across the top and bottom of the stripy paper but I wasn't sure which colour to use. However, once I had outlined the title letters, I realised that I needed a touch more black in the layout and so decided to use rub-on stitching instead. To my shame, I've had the rub-ons for about 18 months without using them and I wasn't sure how well they would rub. Although not perfect, they rubbed on reasonably well, especially considering they cost me 20p in a sale. All-in-all this was a very cost effective layout as the stripy paper was 10p in the same sale and the background is another white insert that I again coloured with chalks. 

Supplies
Paper - Me & My Big Ideas, Papermania, Mulberry from Stash
Letters - Basic Grey
Rub-Ons - Papermania
Brads - HOTP
Chalk - Readicut Crafts

Photogenic

I was beginning to think I wouldn't finish a second layout today, but I did. This one is for another sketch from last week, from Sketchy Thursdays.

The strips of paper all come from the same collection and were mostly double-sided off-cuts from previous layouts. The background piece was a white scrapbook insert which I coloured with chalks. I've done this a few times recently - it gives a soft cloudy colour which I can match to the papers I'm using. I love Basic Grey's Archaic papers and a tiny piece has made its way onto this layout - a railway track between the photos.

I've deviated from the sketch a bit as I wanted to use two larger photos and  I found that they looked better with the strips filling the page rather than being confined to the left. There was no obvious space for journalling, so I used the title box and moved the title up the page instead.

Supplies 
Paper - s.e.i Dill Blossom, Basic Grey Archaic
Letters - Making Memories
Chalk - Studio G

Seal Watching

I have a day of catching up with various challenges today. This is the first layout - for Shimelle's sketch of the week from last week.

I knew from the start that I wanted to use a second photo and have space for some journalling on this layout. It evolved as I went along, with the small photo and journalling being combined on a tag and with the vertical panel of paper first moving behind the square and then moving left. I rarely add much in the way of embellishments and this layout is no exception.

Supplies
Paper: 7 Gypsies Sunnyside, HOTP Barnwood, Bo Bunny Ocean Dot, MME Bloom & Grow, K & Co Hannah Scrap Pad
Letters: American Crafts Thickers, Making Memories
Fibres: Papermania

Seeing the Sights

I didn't do Shimelle's last Starting Point challenge; it started with a bundle of offcuts arranged in a rectangle at the bottom of the page which didn't immediately inspire me. Having seen some of the completed layouts that were submitted, I may go back to it. 

However this week's challenge was very different with four separate blocks of patterned paper to build from. This suggested four separate but linked photos to me so I used some from a trip to Paris last year. After a rummage, I decided to use only two patterns and repeat them, partly as I couldn't find four co-ordinating papers that didn't overwhelm the pictures. 

I only had one of the name-tags and it was too large so I scanned it, resized it and printed five with the place names and my journalling. I used a piece of 35mm film instead of the paper strip across the middle; this tied in with my title sticker which has a camera on it. Finally I tucked my ticket from the Louvre behind its photo.

Supplies
Paper - Colorbok Travel Page Kit, NitWit Collections Winter Wishes
Name-Tags - NitWit Collections Winter Wishes
Title - atd

Stepping Stones

I've got a bit behind with the challenges; this sketch is from Sketchy Thursdays from three weeks ago. I chose the background paper easily as soon as I had picked the photos to use, but I did the paper shuffle over the large piece on the right. This piece has small pink paint splats on it and I had some punched butterflies lying on my desk that I didn't use on this layout so I went with pink as an accent colour. I added the title in two fonts but I do wonder if I should have stuck to just one?

Supplies
Card - Basic Grey Marjolaine
Paper - Fancy Pants Designs Little Sprout, Dovecraft
Butterflies - Punched from Making Memories Glitter Butterfly Just Chillin' Girl
Brown Letters - Doodlebug Design
Pebble Letters -  from Stash