A yellow layout

Yellow is not a colour I use often, but I seem to have quite a lot of it in my stash so these pictures of M making her Brownie Promise (on the climbing wall) seemed as good a reason as any to use up some of it.

 

I started with brown cardstock and layered a piece of handmade cream/yellow paper on it for the background.

 

Then I found the butterfly-embossed Core'dinations cardstock and that gave me my theme. I didn't have any Brownie- or climbing-specific embellishments anyway and I wanted to keep it girly to match M's personality.

 

I enhanced the large butterflies with a bit of sanding and chalk colours then punched out some small ones from a very old Papermania pad called Spring Life. I like the punches of lime green to brighten the colour scheme.

 

I'm not sure about the title  - it's a bit contrived- but I could spell it with the woodgrain Thickers I had left. A narrow strip of lace makes it more feminine and an adhesive pearl makes the date on the calendar strip (which was cut from the remains of last year's Christmas papers)

 

Another Oliver layout

Sorry - you're going to be sick of these pictures and I  haven't even received the CD of professional shots yet!

 

I love this black and white promo shot. I don't often print photos in B/W and there was no particular story attached to it which I haven't already told elsewhere so it was a chance to play with different colours and techniques. I actually found that much more difficult than I expected - I like to theme my embellishments and colours to the photo or the event. Choosing the blues just because I liked them was surprisingly scary!

 

I punched out 2in squares from a variety of blue papers. The florals are from Papermania's Capsule collection but the others are scraps. I mounted them in a grid on blue cardstock. I seriously considered stitching them down like a quilt but I've never had much success using my sewing machine on paper. How do you do it? Slow or fast? tight or loose tension?

In the end I bottled it and drew faux stitches with a black pen.

Then I embellished with black doily rub ons (had them ages - can't remember the make) and pearls. The letters and swirls are by BoBunny.

I like that this is a different style from my normal layouts. I think it showcases the photo well.

Any advice on stitching would be much appreciated

Project Life is still on Holiday

And so am I. Hurrah.
I'm trying to ignore the fact that I'll be back at work this time in two weeks, although I did have to do some marking yesterday.
We have been super busy and I  have lots of fun things to document. I'm printing direct from my DSLR with my 6x4 hp Printer. For some reason it will read my camera memory card but not a saved image from my PC so I can't use Photoshop or cameraphone pictures. But I'm happy to swap that inconvenience for the enjoyment of scrapping things almost immediately. There are only a couple of cards that I know I'll want to redo when I get home. I'm doing lots more journaling too than normal, probably because the events are so fresh in my mind so I need to keep that up when I get back.

 

 A 12x4 landscape across 2 pockets. This is one I'll have to reprint at home as the colours aren't as defined as I'd like. The embellishments are all on top of the Becky Higgins  transparencies though so it'll be easy to do. 

A random beautiful snap of M.

Goat cuddling and cheese tasting at a local goats' cheese producer.

The first week in August.

P and I ate at the local Michelin-starred restaurant, just the two of us, while our kind friends watched the kids. I've wanted to go there for the past 6 years, but resent paying that sort of price for dishes I know the children won't eat. I wasn't disappointed.

An open-air concert in the sunshine.

Sunset over the village church.

A visit to the national pottery museum.

Barbecue and karaoke with the neighbours. I like the series of single portraits of the 4 of us singing. I'm trying to include more pictures of myself this holiday

More pictures from the pottery museum, including a demo.

Our guests went home so we had a slightly quieter week:

R watching films on my laptop

Another BBQ with other local Ex-Pat friends.  It was never our intention to become part of the Ex-Pat crowd, but they are nice people and this was a very funny night.

A friend M made at the second open air concert.

A game of Jenga

Journalling about the books I've read so far (on going) and about the fact that we have actually made French friends as well as English. We spent all of Sunday speaking French with our village acquaintances.



We had one big day trip this week, to the Zoo. This layout is the result of a lot of selection from the 100 plus pictures I took. I placed the paper-pieced giraffe and lion on top of the page protector so they crossed several pockets.



I made 12x12s of the highlights - for the kids that was the chance to feed the giraffes. The layout was inspired by a colour  combo in 'Esprit Scrapbooking' magazine. I'm short on tools and supplies here so I added interest by tearing the papers and distressing them with white chalk. I 'hung' the title from a piece of Baker's twine.

 The highlight for me was managing to capture these bat pictures. They were shy and extremely fast and I took a lot of rubbish snaps. In the end I waited until the crowd had moved on to watch the otters being fed, set my camera to Sports mode and continuous burst and succeeded in getting these.

The background papers were layered and then doodled. As the story was about taking pictures of bats rather than the bats themselves, I drew attention to the camera print paper by doodling over 3 cameras with black pen. To give the title extra interest, I used the letter stickers as stencils to draw the black 'shadows' before adhering them offset.

I had more photos from the goat farm which I wanted to use, and I didn't want a whole PL page about it so I made this 12x12. The lovely paper had complementary patterns (white/aqua, aqua/white) on each side which gave me the idea of folding back the corners. As I obviously didn't have any farmyard embellishments to hand, I cut the kid out of a 6x4 print and had him peeping out from behind the fold.

 

The

Mixing new stash with old - a Special Place in our Hearts

This LO was originally inspired by this Glitter Girl Mini adventure, but I went off-piste pretty quickly!
                            
I started with the shaped cardstock from Kraft Kuts which I've had forever and cut 3 pennants from both sides of a green Simple Stories December Daily. But then I decided to only shape the middle one to match the die-cut.
I found a doily - a pack of doilies lasts a very, very long time, and I have had these for ages too -which I layered to soften the dark coloured.
                            
 The chipboard flowers  time, have also been hanging around in my stash for a long time, partly because they were very dimensional and had a particularly nasty mustard-yellow layer. For some reason, only today I had the idea of just taking off the yellow layer. The red was still not a perfect match for the cardstock and Thickers but I am OK with it. It  always makes me happy to get something out of my stash and onto a page.
                            
The letters are brand new - I ordered lots of Thickers and small Doodlebug alphas recently because I really had almost no usable packs left. I have plans for the leftover X and Zs. I'll share that another time. And I ordered my first ever pack of enamel dots! These are by My Mind's Eye and I love the colours.

The rub on heart doilies were also new. They were super cheap from a Pound shop and  now I know why - they were super sticky and left a nasty residue- but they fit with the them well.

3 generations of dancers

More older pictures. I love these pictures of my grandmother, mother an daughter in their ballet poses. You'll notice I'm missing from the line up - dancing was never my thing! My Nan was a great dancer though and, had she been born in a more enlightened era, would probably have made a career of it. M loves her ballet class too.
 

I changed the modern photo of M to black and white to match the older ones then went to town with whatever pink/floral scraps I could find. I cut the title and journalling cards from a 6x6 Chalk Studio pad, but everything else is from my scraps box. I just kept on layering until I was happy with the look of it, then stuck everything down.

I'm not sure what album this belongs in. My heritage album is A4, but that wouldn't have worked for this series of 3. It can live in my 2012/13 album for now.

Scrapping older photos

I have been scrapping this week. I just had to wait for some daylight to photograph my layouts.
Whilst waiting for my wedding  and Halloween pictures to be developed (I'm not the most patient of people) I decided to get on with a couple of older photos from my university year for my Book of Me.

Haworth shows my 1980s fashion sense off so I used those trousers as inspiration for my colour scheme. The patterned paper isn't quite as old as the photos, but not far off. It is from the very first paper pack I ever bought, before I realised that having so many sheets of similar paper was false economy. I spent a week in Haworth researching Emily Bronte's poems for my final year dissertation, so I included a verse of poetry printed on vellum as part of my journalling.

The other page is one of the very few pictures I have of my housemates. We were not best buddies, sadly, but we lived together amicably enough for a year and then never met again. Nevertheless, I've had the photo on my desk for ages in my To Scrap pile so I'm happy to have it in an album. The background is by Jenni Bowlin and I used PL cards instead of patterned paper so I could include several different memories from that year.

I'm shameless!

Firstly for splashing out on Shimelle/Glitter Girl's Scrapbooker's Survival Guide. I couldn't really afford it at this time of year, but I'm hoping I can eek out the PDFs and videos to last me until Journal Your Christmas starts. If you haven't seen this, it's a great self-paced workshop at Two Peas in a Bucket comprising 10 videos and 5 PDF classes.
                               
This page is a shameless scraplift of one of Glitter Girl's favourite basic layouts. 2 6x4 pics, a 11x11 on a 12x12 and a 12x4in strip. I stole it completely, and I love it. This whole layout took me less  than an hour and, since I'm decidedly photo-rich and time-poor at the moment, that was exactly what I needed.
 
Finally, and most shameless of all, I used 4 full sheets of patterned paper on this. 4!! No scraps! I didn't even open my scraps box, I just chose 4 sheets from my new J'Adore paper pack by First Edition Paper at Hobbycraft. It's great value - only £15 for 48 sheets (3 of each design) but I still felt decadent just cutting into them all as I am normally a very frugal scrapper.

I love that the papers co-ordinated so well. The Awesome title stickers were from Simple Stories Awesome, as was the motorbike sticker - a motif I never thought I'd find a use for. The rest of the layout came together quickly with some bicycle washi tape (from  Hobbycraft but I don't remember the make), some Studio Calico wood veneer pieces and a couple of random dimensional stickers from my stash.

By the way, I've turned off word verification again so I hope that makes it easier for you to comment. I'll monitor it though as I was getting a lot of spam a few months ago.

X Box party layout and 2 cards

R wanted an X Box for his 11th birthday and he agreed that he would contribute all his birthday money towards it. I ordered it in time for the big day as a surprise (he was expecting to go shopping after he got his gift money) and he had enough left over to buy some extra games. I was proud of his grown up attitude here.

 

My Mother-in-law make R a great Xbox cake for his party. Unfortunately (and unusually) I didn't get many photos but I scrapped these 2 of the candle-blowing.

The papers were Kate Hadfield's Hipster collection from Scrapbook Inspirations. I added a black background sheet by DCWV. I didn't expect to be able to use this kit, which is very retro - lots of cassette tapes and moustaches but the diagonal striped paper and the bunting just suited the colours in the photo and the sentiment boxes suited R's personality. I wrote journalling on a Project Life card tucked behind the picture. X BOX is a great title to use up some rare letter stickers (PARTY is rubbish - I had no As or Rs left in any of the fonts I wanted to use) and I used up some more Xs to embellish the card and the bunting.

 As I had the Retro kit out, I thought I'd make a card for my brother's birthday; the embellishments are much more suitable for cards than scrapbooking. While I was at it, as so often, M wanted to make one of her own for her friend. I think I like her version better

A masculine layout

P's birthday fell the day after we returned from France, and my first day back at college so we did not celebrate in a big way. Instead his family came over for takeaway curry. I cooked rice and starters for 15 people and we ordered the main curries. P is not a fan of birthday cake so I stuck a candle in a samosa for him to blow out!

The Times Weekly background paper is a rather gorgeous one from MME, which I've had for ages so I was happy to find an appropriate use for it. I added a half-sheet of textured orange DCWV cardstock and a strip of embossed Core'dinations then embellished it with a cluster of Simple Stories stickers and stuff I found in my stash

Scrapping school photos

I know there are loads of school-themed products out there, but I really struggled to find appropriate ones to scrap the milestone of R moving from Primary to Secondary school. Many are American and those yellow school buses and apples don't fit my stories and the spelling is all wrong!. Other are too ABC-ish - great for pre-school and reception pictures but not an 11 yr old.

I found these foam pins and crayons in Hobbycraft and they were cheap enough, even though it included elements I probably won't use, but otherwise I had to fall back on my general supplies for this one. I'm not very satisfied with it, but I like that I have photos of my son on the first and last days of KS2 and that I've got my journaling down.

 

For 'Be Memorable', which documents R's first day of Yr 7, I wanted it to be more grown-up so I decided to raid my office supplies. The school colours are red, white and black and I easily found note paper, post-its (the red arrows), tags and paperclips. I had a new delivery of the My Mind's Eye Chalk Studio line so I used 2 6x6 sheets of that and a sticker cut in half. The alphas are by Jenni Bowlin and Amy Tangerine and I used a 4x3 Project Life card for the subtitle, which Ruth had kindly sent me.

 

The photo is matted on a vintage dictionary page, but I will reprint it next time I send off for prints to get better quality than I can print at home. At the moment it is just attached with the paperclip.

                           

What products do you recommend for British school-themed pictures?

Mixing Old and New

Stash, that is. I was inspired by another Glitter Girl episode, here, although actually I do this all the time.
 

 The background is a sheet of handmade paper with rose petals in which I've had for ages and the frame is cut from a die-cut 12x12 by Kraft Kuts 2009 but the papers are from a new 6x6 Dear Lizzy Lucky Charm pad which I only bought 2 days ago. I cut the flowers from an old Kate Hadfield 6x6 pad and added a couple of chipboard flowers which came with this month's Papercraft Inspirations magazine.

The title is also a mixture of old and new alphas: a 3yr-old Papermania set, Basic Grey from 2012 and a brand new Amy Tangerine translucent font. This is normal procedure for me. I never have the cash to buy full ranges, just as I can't afford to go clothes shopping every season. I just invest in a few bits I love when I can and add them to my eclectic stash. I actually love mixing and matching. Full kits take away the bit of scrapping I enjoy most - choosing papers and embellishments. What about you? matchy matchy or pick and mix?

Putting the Scrap back into Scrapbooking-Not my Usual Style

I felt like making a beachy layout since the sun is still shining. I have loads of small scraps of summer-themed papers but I wasn't sure  how to go about using them all.

 I layered and collaged all the pale blue/sandy coloured scraps I could find then stuck them down. I added some splashes of white acrylic paint and the circles of water-patterned plastic I've had lying around for ages. The French texts are from a recent French Scrapping magazine and I know the kraft cameras are from a scrap of Amy Tangerine paper because it still had the branding strip attached but I'm afraid I couldn't tell you any of the others. Some have been in my stash here in France for 3 summers.

This background is way busier than I usually make so, to make the photo stand out,  I mounted it with foam pads on corrugated card. I handcut the title from the same card. It's a bit rustic but I quite like the 'driftwood' effect. The be windmills were made from a piece of yellow card with washi tape on the back as I didn't have any co-ordinating double-sided papers.

It certainly isn't my usual style, but the more I look at it the more I like it. That's what holidays are all about - trying something new.

Waiting for the Tooth Fairy

A pretty page for a pretty girl:

M lost her first tooth at the end of July and this picture was taken a couple of days later when she was made up for her ballet show. She has lost 1 tooth and broken another since we've been in France, so she has been visited by the French Petite Souris as well.

2 sheets of Bazill Basics dotted cardstock, Kraft Kuts owl paper and alpha. Studio Calico wooden flowers, Simple Stories word stickers. Washi tape and enamel dots to finish off.

I can't write any more, she looks so sweet and innocent but she is currently whining at me to get off MY laptop so she can use it. I SOOO need an !Pad!

5th Kyu - blue and blocky

I've been wanting to scrap these pictures of R grading to Blue Belt for a while. All 3 photos show a different aspect of the day so this grid pattern seemed a good way to give them equal weighting.

 

I layered the lovely Teresa Collins Stationery Noted text paper onto blue/grey cardstock. (The text is all about a parent's advice to his/her child; lovely without being overly sentimental and perfect for this page to show how proud I am of R) I matted the photos onto another sheet of blue and filled in the gap with pale blue polka dots.

 

The sentiments are also from Teresa Collins Stationery Noted and I matted them on red to give them some focus. The one at the bottom reads 'Go confidently in the direction of your dreams' - exactly what I wish for R. I didn't think it needed any further journaling so I just added some washi tape and a short title. I  might add something more dimensional to the embellishments areas when I get home to my stash, but for the moment I'm happy with it.