Pass the Page Blog Hop

Last weekend I was on the annual crafty bloggers weekend away. This is the fourth one held and we've created a few traditions along the way, one of which is Julies Pass the Page.

Julie organises the order we go in and sends the first person (me this time) a photo of her layout, that person uses it influence their page. A photo is then taken of that page & sent to the next person on the list, and so it continues until the end.

We had the great unveiling of layouts at the weekend away, & now we're sharing them with you :)

The blog hop starts at Julies blog before you get here

I loved the way Ju had written on the rays, actually I liked all of what Julie had done so used quite a lot of her ideas.

From here you should now hop on over to Jackys blog to see what she did with my page.

A nice surprise :)

Its currently a quiet saturday morning, the OH has gone to work, the kids are occupying themselves & I'm considering what I need to do for the day. As my eyes pass over my scrapbooking items that are piled up on the lounge table, it reminds me of the lovely time I had last weekend.

We'd been planning it for a few months now, a weekend of meeting up with our UKScrappers team mates and scrapping away. & finely the day had arrived.

A few of us had decided to gate crash Niki's crop she holds on a friday night, it also meant I could catch a 3pm train rather than a very early 7am train, I am NOT very good at getting up in the morning.

Fay gave me a lift from the train station, which helped my anxiety loads, and meant a very pleasant journey chatting away.

We arrived in time to help set everything up & dived straight in with scrapbooking. Ruth had kindly brought me a mug to use, I should say bought as she gifted me a new one ..... with a pink flower on it .... wrapped in pink tissue paper .... in a PINK beaded bag!!! Now I'm sure some of you are well aware that I'm not keen on pink. Some pink as a flash of colour is fine, great even (well I did have pink hair for quite a while), but I am not a pink girl. So Ruth & I have an ongoing joke over it.

We scrapped late into the night, with pizza delivered for tea before back to Niki's house where we were staying. I could have moved in there & then. Not only was the kitchen huge, the craft room well laid out & stocked but, the best thing, I got a super king sized bed to myself that was super comfy!

Up early the next morning, we all got ready. Ruth & Niki made excuses & left to open the hall we were using while Fay & I popped to the shops to grab some lunch for later.

We walked into the hall & what was I greeted by?...

White & pink bunting & pom poms, a table full of goodies (& pink), as well as my craft area totally pinkified!
The crafty things, led by Ruth & a pink theme, had organised a Baby Shower for me, perfect timing as on that day I was exactly 6 months pregnant. It was a lovely surprise.

.

We crafted until everyone had arrived & then I got to open my gifts. Ava & I have been well & truely spoilt. With gorgeous outfits, including pink PJs for me :D , toilettries, pink nappy sacks, a beautiful hand crocheted rabbit by Sheena & lots more. Then there was the food, Niki had made the cutest cupcakes which we ate with pink (of course) lemonade, & melt in the mouth buttery shortbread Sheena had made

Ruth said the PJs probably wouldnt fit yet but would be good for afterwards, well of course I had to try ;)

We played "guess how many bon bons in the baby beaker", I was 1 out, but Sue got it spot on.
There was also a "guess the baby" competition which Ruth won

The lovely Fay gave out little crafting goody bags, as did Ruth. Ruth also gave the challenge to use another little bag of goodies on a scrap page of our baby photos - I didnt manage mine but I'm still planning on doing it.

We had takeaway that night as well, I had KFC while everyone else had chinese (yes, I'm awkward!),

We left at 12 but stayed up until almost 2 looking through the silhouette store on Niki's laptop.

Ava thought 5:15 was a fab time for a kick about, waking me up to the sound of birds singing outside. That day went way too fast, in no time at all Fay & I were packing up. We did get a team photo done though, yay!

While waiting for my train exhaustion suddenly hit, a happy kind of "I'm going to sleep for a week".

Lotsa Inspiration

I have recently got back from a fantastic weekend away crafting with friends, more about that another day...

..right now I'd like to show you some of the layouts I made, following a lot of Jennifers posts she did for Focus your craft & Soul event.

This is my personal favourite, washi tape used as a mask, painted over with water colours.

Using squares & lots of frames

 Using diamonds, a 3x4 card for the title & writing within a frame.

This one was heavily inspired by a canvas Jennifer did. 

 These 2 were using up items I had a lot of - unfinished alphas were the majority of letters I wouldnt use, and blueish sequins

This one I also used an overlay over the photo

I still have loads of ideas from the event, and shall continue to use them this week :)

Focus Your Craft & Soul Blog Hop

Hi all, today I'm joining in with Jennifers Focus Your Craft & Soul blog hop. All weekend she'll be holding an event on her blog, Jennifer Grace Creates - she holds a couple a year & they are well worth checking out, & joining in (I always do).

You should have arrived here from Out of the Mire, if not then you can start the hop at Jennifer Grace Creates - Jennifer Grace is giving away a WRK Insta Album Kit - enter to win by commenting on all the blogs in the Focus Your Craft & Soul hop! The giveaway closes on Sunday the 24th of May at 10pm BST, and is open internationally

Jennifer gave us the task to do a projects based on the theme "Focus".

Its a hard task for me at the moment, I'm finding being 26 weeks pregnant (almost 6 months) my focus is a tad all over the place. One moment its on cleaning, then I get distracted & I'm thinking how I need to list all the things the baby needs Vs all the things we have, then I get distracted by kids, food (normally food), & anything else going on, or that I need to do.

The craft project I want to Focus on though is getting my photos from when Zack is born (1999) scrapped, upto the present date - not as hard as it seems as theres only about 5 years that are not complete. So I'm starting with Focusing on my 1999 album.

I start with getting out my 1999 photos, most are in flip albums but some I've had reprinted. Then I check my 1999 scrap album to see what I've already done pages for. This gets entered into my spreadsheet...

The red is those pages I've done, the pale blue I havent done, the white I need to print photos off for.

I start off with the front page. All my albums have a front page of the year made up of the photos from that year using a program called Andrea Mosaic (You can download it HERE). I print it & create the front page

So next I go hunting for challenges. Normally I look for challenges & then match any of my photos that I think go with them. This time I have my 1999 photos. I decide on 2, the weekly challenge on UKScrappers, and Simple Recipes, also from UKScrappers.http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/

As I finish each one I update the Spreadsheet.

I'm going to try & continue focusing on my 1999 album through out the Focus your craft & Soul event.

So from here you are now off to my friend Jo's at Curly Scrapbooker. Enjoy the hop & please keep coming back to see what else I come up with during the event as I'm bound to be joining in this week.

Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop

Hi, I hope you've hopped on over here on your way along the Counterfeit Kit Blog Hop, if not then you can start HERE, it is well worth it for inspiration.

This is the first time I've joined in, & have learnt I'm not very good at scaling down the kits I make, but they still speed my scrapping up some what.

My mind split this months kit into 3 sections based on colours - green, light blue, navy & mustard yellow - Orange, light pink, dark pink & bright yellow - black, white & grey. I used the 2 colour batches separately, and the neutrals in both.
I also listed other bits I want to include that I'd spotted from the original kit, such as white brads, circles, PL cards & gold.

This is what I came up with...

Patterned Papers

Plain Cardstock (plus white & black)

Embellishments & Journaling cards

Alphas 

From these I took on the 1st challenge ..... pick a challenge. Well there are plenty of challenges on UKScrappers so I did a few of those....

April week 1 challenge,
Use the sketch provided, Alter the background, Add handwritten journaling.

I loved making these bows from cardstocks.

April House Challenge
Include 3 of the following ingredients 

Yellow, green or purple cardstock
Flowered patterned papers
Butterflies, bees or birds
The garden
Clouds
Kites
Rain and/or a rainbow

Blog Hop Challenge
Get inspiration from any of the blogs on the home page

I chose the sketch challenge from Me & Mine

I'm going to continue with this kit until the next reveal, its quite relaxing not looking through ALL my stash for what will go together.

If you are on the blog hop you should have arrived here from Just Scrapping & should now jump on over to Recklinghausen Musings (fab blog name!)

The full list of those who have joined in on this blog hop (in order) are...

CKCB   http://www.counterfeitkitchallenge.blogspot.com

Jemma   http://just-jimjams.blogspot.co.uk

Sherrie   http://sherriesmuddlepuddle.blogspot.ca

Julie   http://jsquaredscrapspot.wordpress.com

Leslie   http://lcsmithsaved-outofthemire.blogspot.com

Julie   http://spendlesscraftmore.blogspot.com.au

Tina   http://tinasscrapcorner.blogspot.com/

Margie   http://scrappinmargie.blogspot.com

Maggie   http://maggiebscrapblog.blogspot.fr

K    http://kscraftycorner.blogspot.co.uk/

Lisa   http://lisahausmann.blogspot.de
Have fun, & I hope to see you back here soon xx

Sweet 16

Sometimes you get drawn in by a sketch, as soon as you see it you know you have to give it a go, this for me was the February challenge at scrapology.

All of the examples were beautifully feminine with lovely flowers, which wouldn't work with my lads or my style. I wanted something grungier, more teen boy to go with this photo from Zacks 16th birthday, so I went exploring my papers.

Teen Angst papers immediately grabbed me, as they usually do, with a few other papers and embellishments.

As most of my teen angst papers are now scraps the squares worked perfectly with them.

If anyone has any teen angst papers by We R Memory Keepers they want to pass this way, give me a yell as I've almost run out & love them ... or if you know where I could get some, I'd be really grateful.

Gingerbread

for Christmas my lovely other half bought me a Cricut Explore, and I am finding it so useful.
Such as for the layout below, based on the February sketch from the Me & Mini blog.

I found I didnt have any gingerbread embellishments so went searching online for ones I could cut out on my machine & came across quite a few. With a little bit of altering & running of the machine I was sat sticking "icing" onto "gingerbread shapes". I could then put together my page, keeping it fairly simple as the paper is so busy and I wanted the photo to remain the centre of attention.

Maternity T-shirts

As some of you know I'm now in my 14th week of pregnancy with my 3rd child. Though planned we didnt really expect to have another child so almost all our old baby items have been given away, so we're starting from scratch.

First thing I needed was Maternity wear. Full of excitement we went shopping knowing most of the shops in our area advertise maternity wear online, only to find only 2 actually stocked maternity wear, & they were quite pricey. So online shopping it was. Plain tops were well priced but those with cute slogans etc were triple the price, so I decided to make my own.

I bought a set of tops from George, Asda, & another from New Look. I was lucky enough to have won some Cricut iron on vinyl in silver, red & white, so set up the Cricut Explore and started playing.

First the maternity tops.

One of my 2 personal favourites. The baby sits (at the moment) perfectly on my little bump, I'm hoping as my bump grows the baby skeleton will just rise up the bump.

Here is me wearing it today. I LOVE long t-shirts, and vest tops means I can layer up with shirts & cardis, or wear as is in the warmer Summer months.

This is Kai's favourite, he finds it hilarious. 

My weekly counter T-shirt, I cross out the weeks gone by. The numbers sit over the bump.

 The tops I got from George are both maternity & feeding tops so I wanted a design I could wear after the pregnancy as well.

The design moved slightly as I was distracted when ironing affecting the m & s unfortunately.

This is my other personal favourite as I love bats, this particular bat is from Miss Kate Cuttables, an online svg shop I adore.
This also shows how well it stays on after being washed & tumble dried, which was my my main worry.

I've only got a small amount of iron on vinyl left, maybe enough to do a baby vest or 2 :)

Merry Christmas All!

.....But especially to my Secret Santa (not so secret now)

Every year Carmen from Whoopidoo...ings sets up a Secret Santa swap between bloggers. Once the date has arrived she randomly allocates you a recipient to spend a minimum of £10 on pressies for them. You get an email listing information for your recipient & where you can stalk them to get ideas.

This is the third year I've joined in & its just as fun to collect the presents together as it is to receive them.

When my parcel arrived I briefly opened it to make sure it was from my Secret Santa & then hid it away so I wouldn't be tempted to open it before Christmas Day. On Christmas eve I opened it up a bit more to lay the gifts out & was touched by the fact that not only was there beautifully wrapped presents for me, but also for Ryan & the kids!

On Christmas day I carefully unwrapped the presents so I could keep the reindeers & other beautiful ribbons & embellishments my Secret Santa had included.

Isnt it all fab! Cake decorating items, yay! Wooden embellishments, yay yay! & a variety of shaped paperclips!!! I am super happy. The Thornton chocs are Ryans, while the kids got sweets & a pen each, which Kai had to immediately try out.
And I must draw your attention to the tiny origami Santa on the card, how cute is he!!!!

So who was my Secret Santa, the card, which I opened last, revealed it all. My Secret Santa is te talented Laura from Beads, buttons & birds. Thank you so much Laura, you have made me a very happy bunny :)

Friends

With it being the last day of Frosty Festivities I went back and looked for things I might not normally do myself. I found a few to use on a layout which I could tie in with this weeks UKS challenge.
The challenge is to....
Use 5 or more paper/card layers
Use 3 or more washi tapes
Use 10 or more small embellishments

I framed a photo with beads as suggested HERE, the photo was a little bit too small so I extended the top with white paper which I then could cover with the beads (inspired by THESE)
Other areas of inspiration from Jennifers event were.....
Stencil all over the background of a layout or project
Make your wood veneers extra sparkly with gilding flakes or glitter
Heat emboss the edge of stickers, or paper, die-cuts, etc
Use glitter through a stencil
Mix up different colours of embossing powder - A blend of gold & gold sparkle embossing powder.

I would like to say a huge thank you to Jennifer for holding Frosty Festivities, I've had great fun entering the competitions, seeing what you've made and joining in. As you can see, I got heaps of inspiration from it.

Relish the Moment.

The inspiration I got from Frosty Festivities helped me with last weeks UK Scrappers challenge.
The challenge was to include.....
* Ribbon/twine/string/raffia
* Rectangle(s)
* 1 photo
* Stamping and/or embossing

I started off with a large rectangle aperture in the red paper, showing some of the yellow dotty paper having taken inspiration from Jennifers Giant Aperture christmas layout. It was missing ... something ... once I'd finished so I cut out a kind if wave from the aperture .... is this still classed as an aperture?

I also took inspiration from the prompts...
"Put three bits of ribbon/string together to tie around a project""Use a play-on-words phrase""Use contrasting patterns next to each other (eg geometric and floral)"& "Put a phrase on top of a photo"

These are definitely not patterns I'd normally put together but they do go. & with space on the photo detracting from the main subject (Zack eating a hot dog) this became the perfect space to fill with a title.

Altered Baubles

Good afternoon folks, I've had a lovely time crafting this week, dabbling in different mediums, allowing myself to be lead by the inspiration Ive found at Frosty Festivities.

Jennifer altered a bauble by painting an owl on it, now my painting skills are somewhat limited but I have been wanting to alter a bauble for some time. Inspired by Riikkas post using broken jewellery & found objects I went rooting through my scraps, christmas decorations & broken jewellery tub.

Plain, cheap read baubles covered in black netting with red bats on (not that you can tell they're bats like this), some ribbon, black chains & beads and some red flowers. I really need to get some more red flowers so I can create some more as I really do like them.

I also found some clear baubles I'd had for a while & thought they'd make perfect little snow scenes, a miniature version of Jennifers Scene box frames. A couple of broken wooden christmas decorations would work perfectly.

I added little dots of glue on the back half of the bauble & covered in glitter, rather hard to see them in this photo. I then covered the base in Snow-tex, a product I'd bought the first time I went to Hobbycrafts at the NEC & has sat in my cupboard ever since



This little lady had broken wings so I cut a couple of petals off a paper flower and covered them in gold gilding flakes before gluing them on, along with a silver thread.
I covered the inside of the bauble with glitter glue with the thought it would look like it was snowing. I then attached gold stars to more silver thread and left everything to dry

Once dry I could stick the string to the bauble making to stars & angel appear to be floating (almost)

Any one for candy canes?

The last pair of earrings I made were these ones....

Jennifer mentioning fimo in her Frosty Festivity inspiration prompts reminded me of the ones I made last year, but sadly one had broken, so this year I made another set & improved on them.

Rather than straight candy sticks I curved them at the top to make candy canes. I also had special looped screws I could put in the corks rather than wrapping wire round, much more of a smooth finish

Icicle Earrings

At Frosty Festivities Jennifer created a layout with icicles she made, this made me think how nice icicles would be as earrings, though the real things probably wouldnt.

So I made these beaded ones.

The part of the weekend I wanted to get the most inspiration from was Riikka Kovasin's mixed media trees. I'm not very good at seeing something that I would normally throw away as something else, but I went to the Recycling box to give it a go. I saw a plastic bottle & remembered seeing something about using similar containers as shrinky dinks & how the plastic can be manipulated.

TING! Light bulb moment!

Twisted plastic icicle earrings made out of a section of pop bottle :D

Christmas Earrings

As many of my regular readers know, I love making my own Christmas earrings and have more than enough for a different pair for each day in December, and yet I still like to make more. Yesterday Jennifers posts on her Frosty Festivities event spurred me to get cracking on this years. Jennifer herself is a Jewellery maker.

So today I'll be showing you 3 posts with the 3 stages I went through.

I started off thinking "Robins", which lead to "Robin Red Breast"

These are wooden robins with red felt on the back which shows through the gap to give them a red breast. The large ones are dangly earrings whereas the smaller ones are studs.
I made 2 pairs of the dangly robins, one for myself & one to gift to a stranger who finds them on black friday ... to learn more about this and the artists joining in check out the facebook page HERE, maybe you'd like to join in yourself.

I then started thinking about the prompt given for using a flower on top of a Christmas tree...

I attached the flowers & the stars to stud earrings, they can be worn with or without the christmas trees which just slide on & off the earring, I can chop & change them so they are both seasonal & can be worn at any time.

While looking at my supplies I also came up with....

Each of these pairs of earrings can be made for you & bought for £1.50p each plus a one off payment, regardless of how many you buy, of 50p to cover p&p. Just get in touch with me at blackangel (at) blueyonder (dot) co (dot) uk

Each block of words in red leads to Jennifer Grace Creates, Frosty Festivities where I've taken inspiration.