Penshurst - done!

Last May bank holiday we decided to take the girls out and have a nice family day out at Penshurst Place in Kent.  It was lovely day out with a walk in the woods, then lunch and the girls played for hours on their HUGE playground. I was also able to take lots of photos, I was planning to use my SLR but, stupidly, I had forgotten to charge the battery.  I ended up using my trusty Canon powershot which seems to take a reasonable photo. 

As I had so many photos that I wanted to scrap, I took the opportunity whilst my daughter was off and I had limited work to do, to catch up with a few projects.

I thought about using the layout above for the scrapbook sisters monthly challenge, but seeing as it is scrapping men, and you can't actually see my husbands face I had a rethink. Now I have 3 projects in planning stage for the challenge.

The layout above is a fairly busy one but I wanted to use these photos as I really like them, and as I was in the zone with the papers I had selected for the project, it was a sort of "don't think just stick" type of project.

A take on Shimelle's sketch of the week

I have been trying to have a go at Shimelle's sketch of the week recently, this week was no exception but I didn't have a large photo to scrap at the time I was doing this layout (I have now so I might have another go).

This is the layout, but I had to make some adjustments!!

Firstly, one photo became 3 and landscape became portrait!  I think other elements stayed the same.  I hope you like it...

Enjoy!

6x4 Photo Love - April (finally)

 I have been following Shimelle's free 6x4 photo challenge, which is a year long class scrapping only 6x4 photos.  The number of the month dictates how many photos will be used, somehow I never got round to April's but I finally managed it. 

My daughter was up for a photo shoot so I got some really cute ones of her...  this is the layout with the title flap closed, with the journalling and another photo hidden.

This one shows the flap open and the fourth photo, with journalling

Thanks for looking, enjoy!

I won!!!!

Wow, what a lovely surprise to find out I was a winner of the weekly card challenge at Scrapbook sisters.  I wasn't even sure my entry counted!

Just to say thank you very much, I am even more motivated to keep up the card making.. 

Below is my latest attempt for my Brother's birthday, as you can see the old faithful Tim Holtz stamps came out!!

I hope you like it!

6x4 Photo Love - May edition

I have been following the 6x4 Photo Love class run by Shimelle and on Two Peas in a Bucket, due to work commitments and also not seeming to have the right photos at the right time, I have missed out on the April layout of 4 6x4 photos - but have plans to catch-up so I will have the full set somehow.
Here is my attempt at May's class, a double layout for me is always a challenge when elements have to be shared across the pages.  I think the layout looks more cohesive with elements linking/straddling the two but I always manage to muck-up the sticking/cutting etc.  Unfortunately this layout has suffered the same fate, eventhough i scrapped along to the video tutorial and even rewound it to watch again, again and again! Overall, I am happy with the layout more because it reminds of the happy hours spent by the pool in Scarsdale.

I hope you like it!

Creative Scrappers #160

This layout was such fun to do, I found some of the papers we had at the scrapbook sisters classes from about a year ago.  So it was firstly nice to come across these papers which reminded of the event I first used them for (my Dad's 60th birthday celebrated in Brighton) and then to use them again for another great day out to the Bronx Zoo, NY. 

This is probably the only picture I have of me, my children, my friend Emma and her children from the whole 15 days we spent together in NY in 2009.  With so many colours in the photo, it was easy to use the papers.

Again using the sketch really pulled this together quite quickly... I hope you like it.

Sketchy Thursday 6.9 Challenge

At the moment I am finding that I have a bit of time at the weekends to do some quality scrapping rather than the fitting it in around work, family and life.

I have discovered that the most effective way to scrap is to follow the sketches out there, which is great as I am also finding that I am seeing more pages and hopefully more people than just my family and, poor unfortunate, visitors will be seeing my pages.

Using the sketchy thursday outline, I pulled the page together in not too much time.  I wanted to use the papers which are all american themed, but I think the patterns might have all been a bit too much.... comments welcomed... 

I hope you like it

English Country Garden - maybe?

Ages ago I bought the Wodware Gerbera stamp from Scrapbook sisters which I fell in love with (as I have said before - I love stamps), which was great, but it took me many attempts and a new set of Copics, more promarkers and lots of time before I got a result I was pleased with. 

Once I had sorted of worked out how to colour the image I did it in a range of colours, I also glossy accented the centres. I have made the images into a set of 4 notelets as a little gift for my Mum's birthday - I hope she likes them...

I hope the cards fits the brief of an English Country Garden

Enjoy!

LIM - One Layer #2

The second attempt for the LIM Challenge is a card for my Mum's birthday.  I am a complete sucker for new stamps, and I bought a small set of Artemio stamps from Scrapbook Sisters which combine buttons and flowers - lovely!

After had I had drawn a frame, masked and stamped, I stickled the centre of the flowers making up the frame and the central flower just to add a bit of sparkle.  I also glossy accented the happy birthday to make it stand out. 

I hope you like it x

Less is More - One layer #1

As I have mentioned in previous posts there are a number of family birthdays coming up and Father's Day so I have been challenged to come up with a number of cards.  Thank goodness for the Blogworld challenges they seem to focus my mind and help me complete my own personal ones!

Here is the result of the LIM - One layer attempt number 1for Father's Day:

Going back to my trusty Tim Holtz stamps, which seem quite man-ly to me.  The  background was distressed inked and then stamped over with more distress inks for the words and the van was done in chalk ink.  I'm still finding my way with how different inks work as the Chalk ink seemed to have resisted the distress over the top.

Enjoy!

Latest from class

On Tuesday I had my regular scrap class at Scrapbook Sisters and we had some lovely papers to work with called Springtime by Echo Paper.  I have managed to clear the odd and random photos and I am now focused on completing the pages to record a trip myself and my daughters took to New York in 2009 to visit friends. 

I think I have been putting this off as the pile of photos was a bit scary!  But I have decided that whatever paper there is in class from now on I going to try and do the New York ones.  I have decided that there are two themes running through the pages this is a punch for EK Success that makes holes like the paper has been ripped from a notebook and secondly the titles will be Day 1, 2, etc  the scrapbook(s) will then be organised in day order.

So here are the latest 2 layouts, it always amazes me how Julie and Karen can constantly produce such lovely ideas.... 

Anyway enough waffle - enjoy!

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

I was in the scrap-groove on Wednesday night, as I should have been at my class at Scrapbook Sisters but had to swap to Tuesday night instead - this was brilliant as I got TWO nights of scrapping in the week, what luxury!

As I had had sorted my photos on Tuesday and still had some to scrap I was able to quickly get on with Shimelle's sketch of the week:



In fact I almost did layout 1 in time to the tutorial video, which was fun - in fact I had so much fun I made a mirror image layout 2 to produce a double pager of our trip to Central Park Zoo. 

This is LO 1 - I used a photo I had taken about the polar bears and cut it up to make the blue sections top and bottom.

The paper used mainly is We R Memory Keepers Madame Royale, I am a bit disappointed with the title, I need to get a better of alphabet stickers.

LO 2  is done as a mirror image

Again the sign in the zoo about the Snow Leopard was able to be used in the LO and I tried to use the bracket shape and hearts as a bit of a theme.

I think both together in my New York album will work together and be a great memory of Day 7.

Thanks for stopping and I would appreciate any tips about titles and stickers to use...

One for the Dad or Uncle?

I've truly got 'the bug' today, I have made 2 cards both for men in my family.  I have also now realized how to work Blogger in a bit more detail and found the stats button (how great is that?) which has really inspired me to do a bit more...

Not sure how well this card is going to be received, I think the idea in my head for this card was better than it has turned out - which just confirms the fact that I am a much better copier of sketches/layouts/other people than following my own ideas... 

The idea orginated from the lovely work in Craft Stamper magazine when they take some old pages; then cover them with ink and glue, stick it on and, voila, it looks amazing.....  so I went shopping and found some old books, the first I have used is Now We Are Sixty (and a bit) it has poems and some nice illustrations so I thought there could be multiple uses...

I found an appropriate or, possibly inappropriate, prose about a old fella wanting "a page Three scorcher"  which I thought would be good for my Dad or my Uncle - I decided better for my Uncle as I don't want to upset my Mum!!

I ripped the poem out and then inked the edges, I also coloured the image in with the inks as i thought it needed to be a bit more prominent on the card.  I also used another image on the inside, hopefully for a giggle.

The papers used are by Scrappy Cat, border punch is EK Success and the stamp is Personal Impressions.  All inks used are Tim Holtz Distress ones.

I would like to enter to the following challenges:

Creative Inspirations Challenge - Card for Dad
Creative Inspirations Paint - Inspired By: Special Male
Here come the boys blog challenge - Fathers Day/Hubby/Partner
Scrappy Frogs challenge

Thanks for looking - enjoy

Less is More - New Challenge for me

I have been watching with admiration the cards made by Julie and Jeannie for their entries into the Less is More challenge.  I have about 4 cards to make this month and I find this card making lark very challenging, so I thought I would have a go at taking some inspiration from the various challenges.

Hence, I thought monochrome, would work for my Cousin who is going to be 21 in a few weeks time.  I have recently bought 3 sets of the Tim Holtz stamps and have been desperate to use the, I also thought the sentiments/messages of the stamps, were quite relevant to a young man who is just leaving Uni. and moving onto the next stage of his life...

The stamps are Time Holtz, ink is Black Soot and that's about it!
I hope you like the card!

More pages....

I have really enjoyed my half term break so far, I have scrapped A LOT!  I have already decided that my most favourite and least time consuming (therefore I can do more) approach is to follow a sketch...  I have the most admiration for those creative people who can design the sketches etc...

I am also really enjoying using up my stash of paper, which could supply a small shop!

Anyway on to the layouts, 

Inspiration taken from Shimelle, I have produced 2 layouts the first is from the this week's sketch of the week:

Here is my take on it - the photo's on the layout are pretty blurry but it was an important memory to keep for my girls (the cakes tasted nice even if they look psychedelic)

I can't work out why the photo's have rotated clockwise and I have given up trying to work it out!!

 

Here is another layout inspired by Shimelle, from last week I really love this layout the papers and design all seem to work together. 

 

 

All the papers used were K&Co in 2 different packs.

Enjoy!

Sketchy Thursdays entry

As I am having a scrap-fest at the moment I thought I would try out another blog with sketches and challenges.  I can't remember how I found this blog but I thought I would have a try out.

Here is my entry to the 6.2 challenge:

The papers were a mix from DCWV Citrus stack, I have been a great stash busting time - but I still don't seem to have a lot more space, which is what I had been hoping to create.

I hope you like the layout....