Crocodile Rock

Although I haven't been able to use my studio this week (for fear of messing things up and then someone coming to view the house!), I have been able to craft at a crop and at a friend's house.  I borrowed one of Paula's magazine clippings for inspiration and created this layout using Echo Park's This and That Charming (sorry, not sure which magazine!)

The photo of my boy is blurred - I'm no photographer and so capturing excited toddlers on a dull day is beyond me!  I don't mind though - its an action shot ;-)

It marked quite a big moment for me back then.  I finally felt like I was doing the normal stuff that mums did with their children and actually achieving some of the things I thought parenting was all about.  I suffered with post natal depression during his first year and only started to feel a bit normal (whatever that is) by the time he was 2.

I think he must have been about 2 and a half in this photo.  We spent hours covering the egg box with paper and then painting it and putting it together.  He was so pleased with his crocodile creation and spent ages whizzing it around and taking it for a walk.  I was so proud of him too.  Actually... I was proud of us.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 275

It is with regret that I show you my desk this week - it is almost embarrassingly pristine.  I say almost because I do have good reason for it to be untouched and that was that we were about to have a house viewing.  This people, is as good as my room gets!

I have done some crafting this week though at the lovely Artful Angels crop.  I started to unpack after the viewing so you can see bits of the three layouts I was working on using Echo Park.  I normally get a lot more done than this but I was viewing another house and the children came to visit for lunch and before you know it the day has gone!

I can't wait till the next one because I am fearful of getting my room messed up again.  Did I mention how much I hate this process!!!

I shall content myself with living vicariously through other people's busy spaces over Julia's for this week's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 274

Its been a while since I joined in with WOYWW dear readers but this Wednesday marks a very important part of our year - the children go back to school today!  I have such plans!!  Some of my plans for this week involve getting in my studio and making some stuff - woop woop!  Some of my plans involve getting my house back into some sort of order so that we are ready for house viewings at the weekend.  Our house sale fell through recently after waiting since April so we have to start all over again - meh.

So what is on my table of craft after such a long time?  Well...  Top left is my Learn Something New Everyday book that I am determined to put something in this year.  Its a class run by Shimelle every September and I made this book 3 years ago and never put anything in it.  2 years ago I changed the date on the front to start again and never put anything in it.  Last year I didn't even try.  I am keeping a record this year and trying to take daily photos so hopefully something will go in there at some point.

In the centre of the table I have some very exciting things!!  I was picked as a winner in a Cosmo Cricket giveaway on Facebook and within about 4 days I had a parcel arrive from America!  Inside was a wall sconce, 4 matching mason jar lids (I need wide necked jars now!), a sweet little pink hanger with clips on and a pad of 12x12 vellum!  If you know where I can get the jars from then please do let me know (in the UK) because I would love them to go in my new studio, if / when we move!

Right, on with the cleaning.  6 weeks of summer holidays and I don't even recognise my house anymore!  Don't forget to link up with Julia if you want to join in with the desk hop :-)

Bye for now
xx

T.I.G.G.rrrrr

Its just me and my girl here today because the boys have gone camping so we are doing our nails and getting our craft on and watching lots of girly films :-) 

Miss Bella is very girly, and I don't know where she gets it from.  She loves having her face painted too.  This double layout was about a trip to Beaulieu near Halloween a couple of years ago. 

She sat sooo still and the finished result was amazing.  How can a tiger look so cute??!

I used lots of orange and harvest type colours to reflect the time of year as well as the colours in the face paints.  I also used lots of textures with buttons, felt leaves, sheer ribbon and that gorgeous canvas tag.

I think I made this layout at a Christmas retreat a couple of years ago and just never got around to sharing it on the blog.  I've still got others from around the same time that got missed and because things have been so hectic here with summer holidays and house sales falling through etc (don't ask) my poor old craft room hasn't seen much actual crafting!

This little girl is full of attitude and sass and definitely has some very tiger like qualities.  Me and my little tiger cub are going to do a lot of snuggling up together this afternoon.

What have you got planned for this weekend?  For some of you it might be last weekend before the children go back to school - is that a good or a bad thing? This summer has been a mix of good and bad but I am looking forward to getting back to some sort of routine and definitely looking forward to getting back to some regular blogging!

Bye for now
xx

Princess - an oldie!

I've been trawling through my archives trying to find some of the layouts that I haven't shared and I came across this one.  I'm currently sat in a play centre watching Miss Bella charging around with her friends celebrating the end of her year in Reception.  Its gone so fast and so has the time since she tried on this princess dress for the first time.  She's not a particularly girly girl but these photos enabled me to embrace some pink and glittery goodness anyway!

The layout is several years old now and uses papers from My Mind's Eye when they first started this particular style of Lost and Found collections.

I must have got them in a sale because I bought the brads and other bits too and I don't usually pay full price for things like that!  I also remember having very sparkly fingers after making and handling this layout and then transferring it onto my face causing people to wonder if I was crying!  How does glitter manage to make it look like you have tears in your eyes!?  And how on earth does time go so fast when you are watching little people grow up?!  Answers on a post card please.  (Gosh, when was the last time you heard that too!?)

Bye for now
xx

Choosing themes and colours with S J Crafts

When I first started scrapping a few years ago, the general trend, and I thought "the rules" were that you tried to match the colours in your photos with your supplies.  Of course that poses a problem when you don't have an exact match, and a near match can sometimes make things look forced or can accentuate the colour difference.  

lately I've been focusing more on the feel of the page or the story behind it. Using embellishments to bring out the focus of the story can give you much more scope for using different colours.  Changing photos to black and white can prevent any dramatic clashes and can often really pull the theme together.  Of course it can also help you to use up colour schemes you have in your stash already too.  

I used the Crate Paper Boys Rule collection from S J Crafts because the retro feel of the range was perfect for the photos of the gym.  You might have seen other photos on my blog of the gym in colour - the iron work in the weight machines is actually orange and a really close match to the orange in the collection, however, I didn't want to have to over-think where I put the orange embellishments.  Sometimes using colours very close to those in your photos can cause the image to get lost and this page was very much about the journey I am on so I wanted to make sure the embellishments were not too distracting or clashing.

The background piece is actually a great match for the back and white in the photos so the splash of orange in the photo mat lifts the pictures and stops them getting lost.  I wanted to use the cassette tape paper because music is such a big part of my training sessions but it has a lot of colours in.  If I had used colour photos, I would probably have had to cut the tapes out individually because of the likelihood of clashes and overlaps in shade.  Obviously the strip of tape measure washi tape highlights the theme a little more.

I wanted to create this page to remind me of how important it is to remember that I have just started on my fitness journey.  Yes, I do have a long way to go and it will be a long process so I have to bear in mind that this is just the beginning of a new me and it won't happen over night.  I have to be proud that I have started.

The embellishments in this collection are aimed at young boys but they fit perfectly here too, like the little word pieces from the ephemera pack and this fab veneer Boom!, which seems to be a word I hear often at Spartans gym!

Of course there is nothing to stop you using the colours in your photos as the lead if you are careful about your choices and they enhance rather than detract from the images.  I find the best way is to pick out one or two colours from the photos and then add in other colours.  Keeping a slight distance between the supplies and the part of the photo with the matching colour in it can also help.

In this layout I wanted to focus on the fun and playful vibe rather than overloading the page with seaside supplies.  I've picked out the orange from the hat and shorts but it is not a perfect match so I have kept them apart.  I also picked out the yellow from the te-shirt which is a better match but it does change shade in the photos depending on the light - this obviously makes it impossible to try and get an exact match in your supplies!

Choosing sunny colours lends itself well to the happy theme of the page and this helps to pull everything together.  Adding in the star print paper with the blue and green in it reflects the colours in the sea and the sky closely enough that it works, without being so close that it is trying to match and failing.

I've used embellishments from the ephemera pack and journalled onto one of the blocks from the cut apart sheets.  I love piling on layers from coordinating supplies and they don't have to be really specific to work. Here they just echo the theme of play and some of the colours I've used - they don't have to be boy specific layouts to use things from boy themed collections.

I added shells, twine and a cork heart from my stash to echo the natural beach feel without being over the top.  The veneer "4 fun" token from the collection was perfect here for the four friends playing on the beach. The journalling talks about the fun they had skimming stones and how great it was for me and our friends' mum to catch up while they played... until one of them found a hypodermic needle among the stones.  That's one theme I won't be accentuating in my embellishments!!

I've done a bit more shopping today on the S J Crafts Bargain Basement sale and the things that jumped out at me were always the feel of the colours or the styles and not the specific name or theme of the collection. I'm looking forward to using some Basic Grey Hipster on some more of my gym training pages because it has the right touch of orange and again with that slight retro feel.  I hope you find some bargains there too and expand your choices beyond the pure colours in your photos.  Let me know if you do!

Bye for now

xx

WOYWW 258

I'm late to the Wednesday party this week because I had a little accident in my craft room... I lean't over the side of my chair to get something from the floor and it tipped over.  I thought I had just hurt my hip where I landed but as yesterday went on I realised I had done something to my opposite shoulder blade.  I think its triggered an old pinched nerve but it means no crafting or training today :-(  

This was my desk as I left it yesterday afternoon.  The pile of Echo Park Off The Record in the middle is for some DT work - I just love the summery colours!  The Simple Stories pile at the back is for my One Little Word project and I'll be taking that to the crop on Saturday.  The Promarkers still need labeling and putting away and the pile of magazines on the left still need to be ripped up for my OLW project too.  But it all looks better than it did the hour before!

I needed to seriously sort some stuff out as you can see.  I still can't find my heat proof mat and my heat gun which I must have put away at some point getting ready for the house sale but it will turn up.

I was trying to find my mat to make some enamel dots from some beads that I liberated from my daughter's supply.  They need a bit of work but I am pleased that I can use some of them.  The ones that are more blobby than dotty can be used by the children - win win!!  That brown bead that hasn't flattened at all was an experiment - it was an Aqua bead and didn't change shape at all but it was blue to start of with!

Talking of my daughter... she made this yesterday...  It says...

To Mummy and her friends, Love Bella

Make your own design on any coloured piece of paper.  I maked this when I was 5.

Bless her!  Setting challenges already!

This post was brought to you by What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday hosted by Julia at the Stamping Ground.

Bye for now

xx

Divided Loyalties - part 2

Following on from my previous Divided Loyalties post with S J Crafts, I have two more layouts to share with you today that use a collection intended for use in divided page protectors.  These collections are so versatile if you think of them as smaller pieces of paper rather than set sections that have to be used in certain pockets. The colours in the Simple Stories Homespun collection lend themselves to a wide range of subjects but there's a definite focus on home and family.  

Family

This first layout featuring my two crazy children makes use of one of the beautiful full pages which has a bit of embellishment printed on it already.  It means that you don't have to do much more than add something between the two areas and you have a really quick layout.  I simply added some 6x4 cards in a messy stack so that unlike the previous post, I didn't have to do any creative patchwork to cover gaps and joins.  

I used one of the journalling cards as it was because the sentiment fitted well for my photo but it is very easy to cover them up if you like the writing area but the wording doesn't fit.  I added some brads and stickers from the collection and made my title with the chipboard and finished off with a few enamel dots.  Very quick and another memory captured.

 Love

This bright layout features my two great-nephews (which makes me feel exceptionally old...) having a bit of a smooch, or trying to!  Here again I've used a full sheet from the collection because the hearts fitted the theme but the bright colours stop it from being too feminine.  I've used one of the larger strips (4x12) to layer the photo and to act as the title piece by adding an ampersand and their initials from the sticker sheet.

The journalling appears on a 3x4 card and then I have matted the photo onto a 6x4 and then onto one of the larger pieces from the collection.  This black piece had an ideal border (which you could stitch) but I didn't need the sentiment underneath so it worked really well for this mat.

The cute flower is from the brad pack and I also added a couple of flowers from the chipboard set too. I backed one of the larger brads onto a pinked circle punched from a spare card that I knew I wouldn't use as it was.  I love adding things like this to a paperclip to make my own embellishments.

I finished off by adding some branding strips and off cuts from the journalling card to the top corner to balance the design and then added a heart sticker with pop dots alongside other stickers and chipboard pieces.

The end result is a fun layout about two cheeky boys who love being together.  And we still haven't used a divided page protector!

I still have 2 off the page projects using this collection to show you so check back soon for more ideas on using those collections intended for divided page protectors.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 257

If it wasn't for the plethora of sharp objects around me this morning then I think I would fall asleep on my desk!  Its been a busy week but today is a day for washing (boo!) and working on One Little Word (Yay!).  The gorgeous rainbow chevron paper is part of the Simple Stories Daily Grind collection that I'm using for this project which has been sadly neglected recently but I'm exciting about doing this month's painty prompts - stand well back, paint will be splashed about!  

On my desk this week there are also some new things - last year's Spring Summer Promarker pens (reduced to £10 for all 12 in Hobbycraft!!) and some things that came free with a magazine (the scrabble tiles, chalk speech bubbles, card pack).  Also these rather yummy bright pink bottle caps which I hope to make something out of very soon.

 One of the many reasons I am so behind with housework and am needing an art day is this....

A very long line of toy cars...  Over 2 kilometers actually we think.  The end result was smashing the World Record for the longest continuous line of toy cars which finished at 24,189 cars!  A team of staff and volunteers (including myself and Management and both children) laid them out all around the Beaulieu Motor Museum, twisting and turning around and about and doubling back, all around the inside and the outside and up and down the paths.

This was part of Bella's area - a line which had to be changed several times as the logistics of counting versus opening doors etc proved very tricky indeed...

 This was the area that I stewarded while the official count took place.  The line at the bottom of the picture went right across the walkway and the rules are that the line cannot be broken until the count has been completed.  Which took nearly two and a half hours.  While people in wheelchairs and mobility scooters were trying to get around!  But they did it!  All the cars will now be sold off to raise money for Naomi House Children's Hospice so I hope they get lots of lots of funds as a result.

My knees, feet, and hands are blistered from crawling and I have sunburned nose.  I'm just pleased it wasn't raining!  Oh and that car there... its a Gordon Bennett!  I couldn't help saying Gordon Bennett, what a lot of cars!  Well... it was a long day...

If you are a crafter of any sort and you'd like to share your work space or whatever you are working on this week with other kindred spirits then please do link up with Julia who is the host of this wonderful world wide snoop entitled What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

Bye for now

WOYWW 256

I do keep meaning to post more than my desk for What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday but I still haven't properly recovered from the last few months and got back into a routine yet.  I did spend Saturday crafting in a good cause though at a 12 hour charity crop for Naomi House children's hospice and you can see one of the layouts I made after my desk shot.

And here it is...

 Points to note: I was finishing up some DT work (partially hidden under the letter stickers) because I didn't like it, it didn't seem finished.  I added some twine with some tacky glue and I like it more now.  I had actually put it away as finished, hence my AC album being out but every time I went to post up the photo to the DT blog I found I was holding back because it didn't seem quite right!

Anyhoo, its done now and will be up on the blog soon but it needs to dry and be photographed - which in itself is a conundrum with this incessant weather.  I usually take my pictures outside in the day time but I just haven't been home when it hasn't been raining!

There is an empty pint glass there but it wasn't full of beer - I take a soluble vitamin thingy every day mixed with another medicine that I have to take and together they taste quite nice and get me to drink more water so its a win win - except that it makes my wee fluorescent yellow which can be quite alarming the first time you notice ;-)

At the back of the table are two boxes of embellishments that I have recently been travelling with.  The Jo Malone candle box hasn't been unpacked since the retreat a fortnight ago and the clear box is everything I've been using on my Devon album.  If I don't have time or energy to gather together stuff for other layouts, I grab that box, my bag of papers and my album and I'm good to go.  It already has all the page protectors in with the photos appropriately spaced so I can pick it up and put it down and return to it as and when.

This was one of the 5 or so layouts that I completed on Saturday.

All the supplies are October Afternoon, some very old, some not quite so.  The divided page protectors are American Crafts and come in various sizes so much easier to play with in short bursts than a regular 12x12.

Gosh it feels like a long time since we first visited Featherdown Farm's Aller Farm and therefore a long time since I started this album.  I think I've broken the back of it now though... if I could just resist trying to use EVERY SINGLE picture of a cow then I would have finished by now...

Right, I'm off for another session at the gym and then I can come back and relax and peruse the other desks knowing I have done a good thing for myself - it really really helps my depression (more on that in another post).  If I can still use my arms afterwards I might even leave a comment or two so please do stick the kettle on ;-)

Bye for now

xx

WOYWW 255

Well it may not be the messiest desk on the block this week but neither is it the tidiest or the most productive.  The selection of letter stickers was out to finish the little book you can see near the parcels there.  It is not supposed to be visible yet so you'll have to check back of you want to see more :-)  

The packages might seem interesting and you'd be forgiven for thinking that they contain new crafting goodies, however, you'd be wrong.  I'm being exceptionally good about new stash, even in the face of huge sales on my favourite brands.  I simply cannot fit any more into what we hope will be our new house.  No, the packages contain a chocolate protein shake sample and a bag of powdered superfoods.  Both things to be taken together in a shake with oats and peanut butter as a breakfast before training.  I'm really hoping that the green powder (which contains things like spirulina) will boost my system and general health and help me get back into some sort of fit shape.  I'm back at the gum today after over 2 weeks off while the children were on Easter holidays and I know I will hurt tomorrow but I've really missed it.

The magazine cuttings are also going to help towards my goals but they are crafty too.  Its part of Ali Edwards class for One Little Word which I have done nothing about recently.  I'm really hoping to tackle it on Saturday at the Artful Angels 12 hour charity crop.  I'm also hoping to finish the couple of layouts you see on the left there before then so I can start some new ones but one of those is for my OLW album too.

You might be wondering about the white blobs with safety pins on the back.  So am I.  They are fairy badges, created from plaster and painted by Miss Bella but the pins provided won't stick as they are supposed to.  Luckily Mummy has a supply of a variety of glues to try so that I can wear whichever one she chooses for me.  All day.  In public.  With pride. :-)

This post is brought to you by the powers of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday at Julia's Stamping Ground. 

Bye for now
xx

Divided loyalties

Good grief the Spring is marching on isn't it?! One minute we were drowning in rain filled fields and overflowing rivers and the next minute the garden centres are sunny and crowded and we are awash with hayfever and the smell of cut grass.  It is nearly time for the children to go back to school after the Easter break and we've been away to Wales and I've been on a craft retreat too.  Of course now the house looks like a bombsite and there is a pile of laundry bigger than my mother so the house looks a far cry from the tidy pictures on the estate agent's website!  

The good news is that we have found a house but the bad news is that they can't find anything yet. So in the meantime I will cherish the space in my current craft room and try not to buy anything else to go in it!  It is very hard though when you come across wonderful collections like Homespun by Simple Stories.  I was immediately drawn to the variety of primary colours and sweet designs however, like many companies and collections these days, Homespun is designed with pocket pages in mind.  Now, I love using pocket pages for big events like holidays and Christmas but I don't want to use them for the every day stuff really.  Does that mean that we have to miss out on such collections or can we be a bit creative and use them for our standard pages too?  Let's see shall we?  

The Simple Stories divided pages come in a variety of styles so the collections are not just 3x4 and 4x6 journalling style cards.  I wanted to see exactly what I had to work with so I trimmed all the cut apart sheets in to their various pieces.  I went through and selected the ones I wanted to use as they were and kept these in a separate pile.  Any others were fair game for being used in other ways and this meant that I could fussy cut them, use them for layering, punch shapes from them, etc.  

Family

One of the first pieces that really grabbed my attention was this 6x12 woodgrain section.  The wording and design on the bottom make a great title and so another option would have been to use just that portion.  I love the whole piece though and I think it makes a natural home for the striking photograph.  I did a little photo shoot of my niece and her little boy so most of the layouts from that day probably won't have much in the way of journalling other than perhaps the first few.  

I really liked the eclectic bunting near the title so I used the matching design from the sticker sheet on pop dots for texture and interest.

My next use of one of the pieces was to make a photo mat.  I cut down the photo slightly to make it fit onto the standard 4x6 card but I wanted a second mat too.  Here's where you need to get a bit creative! I really liked the pattern on the card but I knew I wouldn't use the sentiment so I could cut an L shape to expand the parameters a bit.

I'm no good at sewing so this is the nearest I get to patchwork!  I added a punched shape, a sticker from the sheet and a heart from the chipboard sheet on one corner

To cover the other corner I used the same punched shape, some banners cut from the branding strips and one of the beautiful brads from the same range.

Elliot

There are going to be quite a few layouts from this little photo shoot so I like to mix things up a bit by using some A4 pages too - they fit just as well as any other page protector in my American Crafts D Ring albums.  For this layout I decided to use the 3x4 cards to make a grid of the photo, a journalling block and then 2 for decoration.

 I used a piece of red A4 card and cut out the middle to use as a mat for the whole grid to lift it from the beautiful floral paper.  The designs on some of the cards are so pretty that you really don't need to add much to them.  Here I've just extended the design a bit with a chipboard heart and a button tied with baker's twine.

I drew the design together by using another button diagonally opposite and used the stickers from the alpha sheet for the little title and mini tag.  Branding strips and thin off-cuts ground the design and then I finished off with some fun bobble trim.

So far then we've used a 6x12 piece as it is, used branding strips and off cuts and punched shapes from a "spare" card for embellishments, made a grid from 3x4 cards, used one as a journalling card, used one piece for a title, used another "spare" card as a photo mat.

But if you are still undecided about using divided collections on standard page then I still have 2 more posts to show you lots of other ideas too!

Bye for now

xx

WOYWW 253

Rushing in briefly to join in with WOYWW.  As you may have read last week we were putting our house on the market that day.  It sold in the first viewing!  We've since been rushing around to find a house for us and I can tell you that there is a real shortage!  People are fighting over viewing appointments - its a crazy time.  Add to that the school holidays, Miss Bella's 5th birthday and associated party, a trip to Wales, a craft retreat in the Cotswolds and now a poorly husband and you can see why my desk is not in use again this week.  I even rushed to take the picture and didn't check it hence the dodgy angle.

Because I haven't had much chance to prepare for the retreat and I can't spread loads of stuff out because our buyers are coming several times in the next couple of days, I am just grabbing large collections and a big bundle of photos and hoping for the best!  I can't train with the children off school either but I did reward myself with my previous hard work by purchasing the Project Life Jade kit to use with some of the camping photos from last year.  It doesn't go exactly with the Echo Park Happy Camper collection you can see just above it but it goes well enough that I think I can make it work.  Check back next week to see if it worked!  I've also got loads of DT stuff outstanding too but luckily the team is a bit bigger now so our projects can be spread out a bit and Sarah is wonderful at appreciating that life sometimes doesn't allow for crafting, no matter how much we would like it too!

Right, another play date beckons but at least the weather is dry enough for them to get out in the garden (at the moment!!)

This post is brought to you by the wonders of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

Bye for now
xx

WOYWW 252

It's time for another WOYWW and I have missed the last couple of weeks thanks to my madness.  That doesn't mean that things have been quiet here at Crazy Towers, oh no no.  

Our house goes on the market today so I have had to clean up my craft space ready for the photos.  I have no idea where anything is because I just boxed it all up and hid it away!  Doesn't look too bad though does it?

I haven't actually done any crafting since our Artful Angels retreat a few weeks ago because of how bad I've been feeling - normally it would help.  I even missed our regular crop last Saturday because of a stupid vertigo type attack.  I finally went in my room to craft at 7pm last night!

Because of my recent "blip" and the lack of any medical treatment that works, I have had to try something different, a different sort of crafting if you will...  I'm planning a post on this in more detail but you get the idea from the photo...

This is my amazing niece - she has literally saved my life in the last couple of weeks.  She is my Personal Trainer and people find it hard to believe that she lifts all these weights because she is even shorter than me and I barely scrap 5'2"!

She has really really helped me and as such, I felt I was able to finally go back in my craft room and mess it up again!  I had to do a very speedy card for Miss Bella because she is 5 today!

Hopefully once this very busy week of birthday celebrations and house marketing is out of the way I can get back to regular blogging and regular visiting again.  Put the kettle on, I'll be around soon ;-)

This post is brought to you by the powers of What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday.

Bye for now

xx