Advent Swap.

Choccy, furry & myself were chatting about Christmas, swaps, making gifts etc and decided to do an advent swap between us. On my other blog you'll be able to see what I receive, and on here I shall show you what I have made for them, along with a little bit of background.

We swapped bags at the nec, I was soo glad as the ones I had taken for them were quiet heavy.

Heres the bags I took for them:

I love the Marks & spencers christmas shopping bags, and have 4 myself for shopping, they are lovely & strong so I decided they'd be fab for giving the gifts in.

Keep checking back here to see what pressies I made, I shall upload them as soon as I know the girls have opened them :)

Christmas earrings

I'd got a bit bored of the generic christmas earrings in the shops at the moment, so, while playing with fimo I opted to make my own.

A pair of nightmare before christmas earrings. I only wish I'd made the one earring the other way round, ah well, we live & learn

Jungleland.....2

A different party at Jungleland and a whole different layout.

The background sheet is a photo of ivy. I had a sheet of HUGE palm leaves so cut these out in groups and individually and played around putting them in front and behind the photos, only sticking down when I was happy. The photos are mounted onto a fawn backing paper, to make them stand out more, otherwise they just faded into the background.

I cut up pieces of wood patterened paper into thin stripes and stuck them down in letter shapes to create the title, I then added dots to represent nails, sort of like a drift wood title. It stands out a lot more than it looks on the photo.

I used minimum journalling as this layout was already so full. I picked 3 large leaves in a row to write basic details on.

Jungleland .... 1

The thing that drew me to card making, and then scrapbooking was the endless techniques that could be encompassed.

On this layout I initially used glossy accents to highlight some of the pattern on the background sheet, and give texture. I used wood patterned paper to try & give the feel of drift/salvaged wood, and tried to tie the writing in with this feel.
I thoroughly enjoyed making the quilled animals, though they were a little tricky to stick down, I need to research and buy some different types of acid free glues etc.

Journalling

Big Monkey

Little Monkey

Giraffe

Autumn

Kai and I walked up to the local shopping centre via the town park, its quite a nice walk, though it was a rather wet windy day. Kai however began to notice things he hadnt before, such as the sound of the wind as it rustled the leaves, amd most of all, all the colours that autumn brought with it. He walked along pointing at leaves and telling me the colours.



I was thankful that my mobile had a camera on it, not matter how low a pixel it is. I got some gorgeous photos, and was eager to do a scrap layout.

I cut out leaves from some 6x6" paper I found in my stash. The other leaves are ones I stamped and coloured in, along with skeleton leaves.

These letters were perfect for the title.

I cut out a large leaf to journal the day on. I did it in green to match the grass and try to make it so it didnt stand out too much, I wanted it to blend in.

Wanted!!

When I saw the pictures of my son dressed as a cowboy for a western day at school I knew I had to scrap it asap. All along I had the idea of a wanted poster. At a trip to hobbycraft at the NEC earlier in the month I bought a set of cowboy embellishments (thanks for finding them Ruth xx) and used one of those on this layout:

I attached the sheriffs badge he'd been wearing, and put a brad at the top of the "wanted" poster to make it look like it had been nailed up.

4 brads in both the bottom right, and top left corner.

The cowboy boot embellishment from the set.

Been having some crafty fun..

....lots of crafty fun tbh! So as not to flood you with lots of items all at once I'll show one or 2 a day.

So yesterdays craft project was inline with the Alter a Container Challenge on Crafty Place the blurb being "alter a diary so cover and embellish the cover and embellish some of the pages inside eg easter, halloween, christmas".

So heres my entry:
BEFORE:

AFTER:
I decided to make a Scrap Journal, its something I've neen meaning to do. Each time a take a photo, or someone makes a comment I want to scrap I'll make a not of it in this journal. Important details and memories fade so easily I'm hoping this will keep them fresh until I get chance to make a scrapbook page about it.

A new flap, held closed by velcro. A picture of Ruby Gloom, a bat (of course, I love bats :) along with a moon and stars. I punched some red paper for the spine (actually its a HUGE picture of a watermelon, but from the bit I used you'd never guess) and replaced the ribbon with one that matched the new layout.

Just inside, grey paper with a couple more pictures of Ruby Gloom.

Lots of Magnolia pictures (& a christmas tree) to mark special occassions inside

& finally, the back cover.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Giving my blog an overhaul, shall be moving piccies around folders, possibly changing layout, background etc so things may go a bit funny for a while. Stick with me & things will hopefully be better than before :)