Scrapbooking: Piggyback Ride

It was an interesting challenge this week at UKScrappers, it really made me think. We had to use 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 6 of pretty papers, cardstock, the same embellishments, words in the title, circles & photos. If I tell you what I chose to use it'll probably make it a bit clearer.
On this layout I used
1 Circle
2 words in the title
3 photos
4 different pieces of cardstock
5 different types of patterned paper
6 embellishments - triangular eyelets.

A while ago I asked Jems permission to scraplift THIS page, she happily gave it & I used the layout for this page. It turns out Jem based her page on a sketch, but I dont think I would have had the same inspiration from a sketch so the credit goes to Jem :)

Scrapbooking: Looking for a Gruffalo

I knew, as soon as I saw the "Pine" sheet from Kaisercraft's Tiny Woods Collection that it was perfect for the Gruffalo page I wanted to do. The layout from this months Creative Craft World Challenge also went nicely with it.

I printed off some Gruffalo finger puppets from HERE & cut them out for the layout & added a rub in squirrel.

Scrapbooking: Red Red Robin

Last weeks Challenge on UKScrappers was a lovely sketch....

We also had to include ribbon or washi tape, chipboard & sewing (either real or faux)

I had lots of fun with this one, punching, layering, stamping, sticking. All great fun & the colours were matched up with those in the photo, green, brown & red.

Scrapbooking: Kai's class.

Week 10 of 52 layouts step by step, with a few small alterations to make it fit my needs which I think is the best way to follow tutorials, to take them & run with them. The main alteration is the piece of acetate I used. Its attached to the page by tape hidden under the grey strips of card. By using acetate I could trace the outside edges of the children with marker pen & number them. Rather than putting journalling to the right of the image I put the outlines, I then wrote the "key" below, with each childs name next to their number.

I matched the colours with their uniforms, the bunting with the bunting behind them, and the odd bit of school stationary.

Obviously I've had to swirl up faces, school logos etc to hide the kiddies privacy, I'm sure you understand, but you do get the jist of the page.

Scrapbooking: Family Football

Another page following a 52 layout step by step tutorial, this time its week 12. I love how different the pages turn out just by using different colours & photos. I also really like how the stamped images look, I shall be trying this technique out again.

Scrapbooking: Bluey in a box

A page made by following week 9 of 52 layouts step by step.
The blues were to match blueys name, the grey to match his fur & the oranges to bring out the colour of his eyes more .... plus they all go wonderfully together.

I was tempted to put the title as "you dont get chinese food fresher than this" ;-)
Could be taken as in poor taste though (excuse the pun).

Scrapbooking: Snowangel

I almost felt like I was cheating with this scrapbook page. I followed Niki's week 11 of 52 layouts step by step, & mainly used papers & stickers from echo parks Winter park collection kit. I did make the tissue paper tape myself & edged the background white sheet with pale blue ink. I really enjoyed making the tissue paper tape and can see it becoming a regular thing.

Scrapbooking: Spooky

The kids have been back at school for over a week now, I naively thought that after the busy, spontaneous filled holidays I might get a bit of work/play balance (I cant really say work/life balance as being a stay at home Mom my work is my life & visa versa). I seem to be doing a lot of work work work though, & not my ususal jobs either. I constantly seem to be either playing catch up or rushing round. I get the shopping done, help my sis decorate, help my Mom on the computer, rush home to get Kai from school then rush round to get the house tidy & meal on. In my head I'm thinking I havent visited or contacted the inlaws for ages & really should, that I need to write Zack a note for school, that I have paint waiting to be put on the walls, I need to ring the landlord to get the windows fixed etc etc etc &  it goes on & on; So I decided I'd had a busy week, that I'd spend the weekend doing minimum jobs to give me time to scrapbook.

I scrapbooked, filled the kitchen with paper, stamps, inks, punches and more. There wasnt a single space left & I enjoyed it SO much.

Heres one of the pages I made...

I'm starting to run out of Halloween photos :-OThis page was for last weeks UKScrappers challengeUse an Autumn themed photograph - HalloweenUse leaves on your layout - TickUse the typical autumn colours of orange, yellow and green - Well I used Orange & Green

The page is basically a collage of pieces from other Halloween pages. I had a lovely sheet in green with bats & swirls round the edge, I was going to use that as my background sheet & then decided it was too pretty to use in just one page so cut some of it out, you can see it on the left.Then I saw the skull with Haunted written on a banner, I didnt want to cover any of that sheet up either so cut bits out of it. These were stuck down onto a sheet covered in orange bats.With a few stickers, an ornate area to journal & an embellishment to finish it all off.

Anyone else notice there's suddenly a nip in the air in the mornings? I feel Autumn is definitely on its way.

A Week of Cards: Copper.

Copper was my favourite medium of the lessons, I found the effects that can be done on it beautiful.

I cut a sheet of copper with the Tim Holtz butterfly die, the wings twice. I put the wings with the holes in to one side along with the body. The background wings I set to with a heat gun, changing the colour to orange, then purple and finally a light blue. Its beautiful how the colours change and were perfect for the butterfly wings.

 I lightly inked the raised side of a leafy embossing folder with versa-ink and embossed the white card before
dusting with copper coloured mica powder. The colour stuck mainly to the debossed areas (the leaves & stalks).

Using the same embossing folder (after I cleaned it) I embossed a sheet of dark green card & then used mica spray on it. When dry I ripped around the edge & mounted onto black card which I then also ripped. This was mounted onto the card, and Happy Birthday was (badly) stamped on & heat embossed.

Finally I fastened the dragonfly together using a heat gun onto the card.

This card I am the happiest and proudest of out of the bunch, until prices come down I doubt I'll be able to recreate anything like it :(  Lynne bought her Copper sheets quite a few years ago, £1 for an A4 sheet, she didnt know how much they were now-a-days. I looked it up on ebay where copper sheets are being sold, 10cm by 10cm for £5!!!! This dragonfly would use up more than that. So if anyone knows anywhere thats selling it DIRT cheap please let me know :)

A Week of Cards: Metal

I now LOVE playing with metal for cards, absolutely adore it. In the taster sessions it was the first time I've played with sheet metal to make my own embellishments. We tried embossing it with embossing folders, heat embossing & by hand with little tools. We used alcohol inks & stamping on it.

I cut this bird & cage using the Tim Holtz sizzix die, I cut the die out twice. I also cut out a swirl of the silver sheet (I'm guessing its aluminium)

With the bird I added red, black and brown alcohol inks and dabbed them on to add some colour.
I fastened the branch on to the cage with a glue gun. I then fastened the 2 cages together either side of the bird.

 I added a slightly patterned sheet of fawn paper onto the card, and used a sizzix card to cut an appeture out of it that the cage could swing freely in. I added a chain from the cage to the swirl and then stuck the swirl with sticky dots to the card.

I finished off with peel offs to the frnt of the card and an embossed sheet of card inside the card.