It will be fine...

Its been a little while since I shared any of the layouts from Shimelle's Return to the Collection class and I still have a couple more to go.  Here I used a Papermania kraft sheet for the background and more of the Echo Park For The Record collection.  I also misted a little in the corners and did some painting and stamping to add detail and layering. 

 

I promised that I would explain the background to this unexpected holiday and this layout really does that so this will be the first page in the Kos section of the album.   I can't remember where this photo was taken so I used it as a reason to scrap the backstory a little. 

On the journaling block, in case you can't read it, I've written what we were thinking at the time.  We hadn't expected to be on holiday at all because I should have been about 6-7 months pregnant at the time.  We had lost our first baby at 5 months a few weeks before this and I had been in and out of hospital and we'd been through tests and the funeral and were still waiting on the results of the tests while we were away that would determine if we could go ahead with trying for another baby. 

We decided to take a last minute booking and have some much needed R&R time together but we couldn't really forget for more than a few minutes.  I drank water at a fertility fountain, we tried to get healing vibes from the Esclipion, anything and everything to try and get us back on the road to being parents as quickly as we could.  We ate lots, chilled out watching England win the Ashes and relaxed as much as we could but I ended up getting tonsillitis and laryngitis! 

We had a lovely time though and when we got back we received the news that we were clear to try for another baby and thankfully we got pregnant again straight away.  I wish I could have told myself that the results would be good and we would have our family before long.  I wish I could have told myself that it would all be fine.

 

Bye for now

xx

WOYWW 244

I know it looks a mess but I promise you that I know exactly where everything is and there is actually an order to proceedings... sort of...

No seriously, its a hive of creativity at the moment, so much so that I am in danger of utilising every room in the house for something.  Lets begin with the desk seeing as that is what What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday is all about. Feel free to share your desk too over at Julia's Stamping Ground.

I was encouraged to get a bit painty with this layout (from Shimelle's new class) using white acrylic paint and Glimmer Mist on an acrylic block.  The idea is that the gap and the beginnings of the paint are covered with another piece of paper and you just see the edges of the paint as an extra layer.  However, it went a bit wrong after this.  I had pencilled in where the lines of the paper were going to go but still managed to stamp in the wrong place.  This meant I had to move the paper and so one of the pencil lines was visible.  Why did I not just rub it out I hear you cry?!  Well that will be because the painty / misty layer was protecting it... Ahem...

Its almost finished now so I'll be back in a couple of days to share that.  I'm still using Echo Park's For The Record 2 for some Greek photos and still loving it.

I've also been really OCD this week and I've been sorting out all the photos and putting them all in order. This means I can go through my albums on the computer and work out which ones I haven't printed.  I seem to have very few photos from 2007-8 so there are plenty more to come I'm sure!

I don't think I'm going to run out of photos to scrap any time soon!

As part of this big sort out I've had to work out which layouts / stories are in my albums and which ones have been blogged.  You might be seeing some very old layouts here as a result!  This particular layout started life as an 8x8 but I couldn't make it work so I added a few layers and put it onto a 12x12 instead.

 I think I made this in about 2011 not long after I had started scrapping (2010) and it remains one of my favourites, especially from my early years.

It was the first time I had tried doing my own thing with layering and clustering embellishments so I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Obviously there are things I would do differently now but isn't there always?

Time for a cuppa and a scoot around the desks.  I have a LOT of blog reading to catch up on!

Bye for now
xx

S J Crafts - February Challenge

I'm so happy!  Sarah has decided to start a monthly challenge on the S J Crafts blog and the first one is a sketch and I hope you'll join in too.  I love using sketches - they are a great way to push yourself into trying a different style than you normally favour.  We'll be picking a few of our favourites to 

This month's sketch came from Jennifer (who is also now on the sketch DT for Scrap365 mag!) and we have quite different styles so it was great to try and create something from one of her layouts.  I used some left over pieces from Echo Park's This and That Graceful collection which was one of the first things I ever bought from S J Crafts.  I'm down to the final bits and bobs so this was a great sketch to use them up on.  I've made SO many layouts with these collection packs and loved every one of them - they really work out great value for money.

I was very brave and used Jennifer's style as inspiration to add some droplets of Mr Huey's mist and scatter my embellishments around a bit.

I love these photos that I snapped at a baby shower nearly 18 months ago.  I sneaked some shots of my nieces and their cousins eating cake which kept making them squeal "Oh no!  Aunty LJ!"  The incoming baby was blue flavoured and the blue icing matches so well with the aqua in the collection.  I love it when that happens ;-)

Why not pop over to the blog and see what the other designers have made using the same sketch.  Maybe you'll be inspired to have a go yourself?

Bye for now

xx

Mowing Fun

It was supposed to be a very wet day today and goodness knows the garden could do with a good drenching.  Alas it is that sort of weather that is not so good for the garden - warm and overcast.  Our poor grass is not so much a lush green and is more of a parched straw colour.  The only benefit is that it hasn't needed mowing for some time!  

This layout was one of the ones I found during my logging process that has been completed in November last year and hasn't made it as far as the blog.  The photos were taken last summer when we seemed to need to mow the lawn every week.  

Enjoy the wobbly bunting won't you....

The gorgeous papers are Cosmo Cricket's Tea for Two and the pretty little rub on is a very old one by Dear Lizzy's Enchanted range.  I used two different fonts of Thickers, both canvas covered and some of my most favourite ever.

I'm thinking of using a Mister Huey's to make the grass look as green as it did last year.  Waddyafink?

Bye for now

xx

You Are My Sunshine (Scoot)

Ready for something girly?  Oh go on then.  Several of the girls on the retreat with me last weekend couldn't believe that I had made this with the same Echo Park Scoot collection from S J Crafts that all the others came from.  It honestly did and it just shows that with careful coordination you can use most collections for most things.

Bella is wearing orange and aqua in the picture so I picked up those colours in the collection using a couple of the B sides.  Using kraft card stock helps to ground the colour scheme and then I added pops of colour with the stunning American Crafts ribbon rose and some embroidery floss.  Its wonderful to be able to use my threads on layouts and feel like I'm getting something out of my years of cross stitching   Although as a slight aside, Louis is enjoying stitching with felt at the moment and today he convinced me to buy him a £1.29 cross stitch set for him to try so I could well be back into it before long!

This fabulous heart background is a freebie from Daniela Dobson (thanks Daniela!) and I used the reverse side as a mask for some light misting with Mister Huey's first for a subtle background.

I die cut the title on my Silhouette too and I really like the subtlety of the kraft against the orange although I have gone around all of the die cuts with a white gel pen.  Some charms, buttons, pearl brads and pretty stick pins and the end result is something far more feminine that would be immediately obvious from such a colourful boy themed collection.

You can expect to see more of these wonderful die cut backgrounds here as I got a bit carried away with them but I do love them and the different effects they can give.

So that's layout number 3 and I'll be sharing yet more in the next few days.

Bye for now
xx

Teacher Presents

I worked for a while as a Teaching Assistant and I was amazed by the amount of gifts I received at the end of term and at Christmas.  I don't remember giving presents to my teachers when I was at school so it was quite a pleasant surprise.  I experienced a range of gifts and cards but I have noticed each year that there are more and more things available in the shops especially for such occasions.  I thought back to my gifts and the ones I remembered were not the bunches of flowers or the epic amounts of alcohol and chocolate (although they were VERY welcome), but the slightly obscure, the really odd, and the ones that were home-made.  I decided that I would avoid the really odd and try for something a little out of the ordinary and most definitely home-made.  I had an idea for spraying a gorgeous design onto the 99p Hobbycraft canvas totes and it started really well but the final butterfly messed up big time and I had to have a rather swift rethink.  I was making a Dundee cake for my Dad and I thought it might be a good option for the teachers as it keeps well and isn't chocolate :-)

Obviously I wanted to make the thank you cards as well.  I've been waiting for the right time to use this little owl and now seemed very appropriate.  All the papers are My Mind's Eye and both the owl and the bunting punches are by Stampin Up.  I punched out the scallop circle before I adhered the background card to the card blank and the little owl fits right in the negative space - perfect!

I needed to stick the baking paper down with something and I literally squealed when I remembered my newly purchased Smash tape.  It had just perfect wording on it for edible loveliness.

I wanted the finished gift to be wrapped in brown paper and twine and then prettied up with a tag that they could keep.  

Here's a close up of the tag using papers from Echo Park's Everyday Eclectic range in 6x6 (more on that very soon!)

I will go back to the canvas bags but I need to do a bit more experimenting with the spray inks to try and stop them bleeding but either way, one won't be going to Louis' next teacher as it is a man.  No pretty trinket boxes or notebooks, no floral bookmarks, I need to get my thinking cap on for this one!

Bye for now

xx

My Buddy

The challenge this month over at S J Crafts is "About the Boy".  I had these pics in my pile watching to be scrapped and I remember thinking around the time they were taken (last May) that Louis and I had come a long way since our tricky beginnings together.  We love to spend time with just the two of us (pretty difficult!) but we have become friends who enjoy each other's company (most of the time!)

I used the awesome This and Echo Park "This and That-Charming" collection and some stunning new washi tape from Cosmo Cricket, but the added challenge was to use older stuff from your stash too.  The 3 pieces of chipboard are from an old mini album kit but the colours and style fitted really well.  The cardstock is pretty old from a bumper set and the gems are pretty old too!  I mixed white acrylic paint with some Glimmer Mist for a pop of colour and interest - lets not talk about how underused and unloved my mists are...

So now its over to you.  Something masculine or about boys / men and something older from your stash - easy peasy.  Upload it to S J Crafts blog by the middle of June and you could be in the draw for some mini ink pads.  Go.  Get busy!

Bye for now
x

Love is like a butterfly.

My most recent DT package from SJ Crafts was a gorgeous set of Jenni Bowlin vellum butterflies.  They were just in time to feature on my Sister-in-law's special birthday card.  I layered them up on scalloped and embossed circles, inking the edges with Vintage Photo Distress Ink.  The butterflies have a wonderful dimension and the vellum allows the shapes and textures to show through.

 I used inspiration from Kirsty Wiseman for this card as I just love her style.

I used the remaining 2 pink butterflies on my layout about the fun of joining in with What's on Your Workspace Wednesday every week and the wonderful friends I have made.

The pops of dimension they give to the bunting really lift the layout and add something special to the pretty papers against the kraft cardstock.

I was also given a pack of blue butterflies and you know me, I like to show the flexibility of a product, so I tried something a bit different.  This is a heartfelt layout about that moment when you realise your children are growing up before your very eyes.

I was inspired by a layout I saw somewhere and it seems to have escaped my frantic Pinning but it was about letting your children fly.  The butterflies were perfect to signify how children grow and suddenly develop into something so much more wonderful than you thought possible.  But also that you can't hold onto them.

I really stepped out of my comfort zone here and I used bubble wrap with acrylic paint (you could use Jenni Bowlin's Dabbers), to stamp the background design.  I used a script stamp (you could use a stamp with any style of script design on) and stamped onto micropore tape from the chemist.

I echoed the vellum butterflies by using punched shapes as a mask (you could use this punch).  Again, the wonderful dimension these beauties supply adds just the right amount of lift for what I wanted.

Its quite a different style for me but it was great fun and its another important moment documented.  And there are butterflies.  Seriously, is there anyone who doesn't like butterflies?!

Bye for now
xx