Pretty Paper Party

I am really enjoying the challenges at Shimelle's Pretty Paper Party. Using her suggestions I selected the following papers:

This is the front veiw of the papers

This is the back of the double sided pages.

These are the two pages I've made so far:

These are some photos from my garden.
I had a trial run at the hair dressers before my son's wedding - what can I say Dallas doesn't suit me - I looked so much worse than this photo. I ended up with straight and sleek for the wedding. This photo makes me smile though.

Many years ago I used to write web pages as part of my job. Now I am going round in circles trying to get blogger to do even simple things - like get my photos in the right order. I guess a little knowledge is a bad thing and things like Blogger have made me rather lazy.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. Anne x

Bungee Man

I made this page as part of a two page spread at my first scrapbook class at Crab Apple Crafts.  Looking through my photos January was a dull month and the only photos I took where of this little bungee man.  My sister bought it for me for Christmas.  He was made of bird seed and sadly didn't last long.  This page makes me smile especially as it looks like he is loosing his pants ;-)

As I'm not working at the moment and am doing quite well at using up craft stuff I already own, but let me loose in a craft shop and even when I set myself a budget of just a few pounds I still come home wondering why I have bought some of the stuff e.g. alphabet stickers in colours I don't like!  Oh well I guess I will get better over time.

Have a great week.  Anne x

Cruise Food

Last year we went on an amazing Baltic cruise and as expected the food was amazing.

This page is made from another of Shimelle's starting point challenges.  Thanks to Shimelle I am really starting to get into scrapbooking and I think this is about page 23 - I wonder how many pages you have to make to call yourself a scrapbooker?

This is Shimelle's starting point...

...and this is my finished page.

Apart from the red paper under the words all the rest came from this £1 pack of paper pieces I bought from Crab Apple Crafts or the 7 Gypsies background paper.  I am challenging myself to see what I can make with is pack of paper and have already started another page which I will share when complete.

I hope you are enjoying your weekend.  Anne x

Bluebell Woods

I used Shimelle's sketch of the week for my bluebell page below.  I always wanted to live near a bluebell wood and after living here for over 20 years I found I had one just at the end of our street.

Here is her sketch. 

Hop on over to Shimelle's blog for a video of how she put her page together.  I'm looking forward to seeing your page.

I used some of my ancient 'too nice to use' papers from Stampington.  The sticker says 'laugh and the World laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone'.  I probably have something more suitable; but it makes me smile and I like to add in unexpected twists.

In using up my stash I am getting to know my silhouette machine and used it here for the title and ric rac border.

Enjoy your day.  Anne x 

Introducing Miss Hettie Hedgehog

(AKA Shimelle's starting point challenge)

I am having fun with Shimelle's latest starting point challenge.  The challenges are great; especially for a beginner like me.

Above is Shimelle's version and below is my background.

This is my page made from my Scrapagogo kit.  I have started tweeking it already and the horizontal stripe now goes over the two side photos.  It's very minimal, but that is how I tend to work.  As I can't find any other pages with a diagonal photo placement I expect that I have broken a few rules :-)  I like triangles, but mainly I did it to cover up the light switch on the bottom photo. 

I think it needs a little something top right as I find 'white' space difficult and it needs some embelishments.  Please share your ideas for embelishments as that is the part of scrapbooking that I find difficult.

In July I was lucky enough to be given a baby hedgehog to release into my garden.  I bought her a lovely house, but she doesn't want to live in it.  She visits most nights for her tea (chicken dog food) but sometimes lies in until after my bed time.  She is completely wild now so we just spy on her from the patio windows from time to time.  She is now a lot bigger and quite fluffy.

I hope you will have a go at one or more of Shimelle's challenges.  For some lovely eye candy go to her web site and take a look at what all the talented scrapbookers from around the World have made with this sketch.

Have a lovely evening.  Anne x

Quick Card

This is a quick card I made for a wedding anniversary.  The white heart is on pop dots.  Coloured with gel pens and pro markers.  The backing papers are ones the recipients bought me.

Have a lovely day.  Anne

What a Lovely Day

My niece had a beautiful vintage themed wedding: complete with ceremony in an old Hall, vintage clothes and a street party reception. They had homemade food, bunting, tressel tables, a tea urn, old photos, etc. It was a lovely memorable day.

I am very much a beginner with scrapbooking - though you would not think that if you could see my stash of scrapbook goodies. The wedding layout is based on the one below that I made at my first scrapbook class at Crab Apple Crafts.

Have a lovely weekend. Anne

Shimelle's Starting Point Challenge

I am a bit of a miniturist at heart so usually find 12 x 12 scrapbook pages a bit overwhelming; but I enjoyed doing this page. I based it on Shimelle's challenge and turned the sketch to fit the photos. All the papers are from Scrapagogo's January 2011 kit, except the gray behind the photo which is the only wedding type paper I used. I used prima flowers and stars from the kit - wedding theme was stars.

So far I have only made about ten 12 x 12 pages; but I have enough papers for at least 200 :-)

Anne x

Fun Swap (AKA what on earth am I going to do with this!)

The lovely Dot set a Yahoo group I belong to a challenge to create something from a scrap of peach leather and two small square envelopes. We did not know what the items would be until they arrived.

For mine I used the leather to cut out letters for the front of a little book. The book is from We Are Memory Keepers paper and I added some tiny beads to the spine.


I used the little envelopes to add in tags and used the last of the leather to create tabs for the tabs.

I had fun stamping in a few nice qotes and added some photo mounts so Janice can personalise it. The pages are all different sizes to give a fun look.

This is a little calendar that the lovely Helen made for me. Very clever use of the envelopes as the stand and the leather is the butterflies. I love it!

I am leaving my job on Friday and taking a year off to get my health back to what it was before I took the job, to have some fun, do some travelling and to do some jobs on the house. One of my tasks is to clear out my craft room and then I will be more likely to do more crafting. I need some pretty colours in what has become a rather gray life to get my sparkle back. Walking away from a well paid job is feeling a bit scarry at the moment, but I know that it is the right thing to do. I hear Gap Years are all the rage for people my age!

Love Anne x

ATC swap

This is my first swap for ages. The theme was handbags or shoes. Surprisingly I don't have any shoe stamps - I think I may need some :-)

I dug out my old favorites my radiant pearls and a tiny paint brush. I wish they still made them as I love their shimmer and transparency.

Here is the card I enclosed with the swap. This is coloured with pro markers.

More from Dina's workshop

Here are a few photos of my moon and star jounals

The cover of the star journal.

A face at the window.

This is my moon journal cover

Sorry about the quality of this page. I love the lady with the broom and also the wellies/ugg boots.

An altered Stampotique image.

Dina Wakley Workshop Weekend

I had a fab weekend at Art from the Heart in Harrogate at a Dina Wakley weekend workshop. Three days filled with lovely people and messy paint techniques - what more can a girl want??? No stamps in this, which is new for me.

Here are a few photos of my work in progress sun book.

Christmas Thank You Cards!

I have had a few days off work and have been making a few Christmas thank you cards - I received some lovely Christmas cards but didn't make any this year so will send these as soon as I have enough for everyone. I have yet to make thank you cards for the lovely birthday cards I received but I will get there eventually.

These cards are made using the winter scene it stamp set from Hobby Art. I started with one set and now I have several and two DVDs! They are great fun and very easy to watercolour if you use watercolour paper. The grass is a bit greener than it looks here.

I am very lucky to be spending the weekend at Dina Wakley stamp classes and I'm really looking forward to it.

Kind regards, Anne

With one stamp and one ink pad

I am so far behind one day I will catch myself up! Here are a few simple cards made with just one stamp and one ink pad. I joined the Clarity stamp club and this is the latest stamp. The dark ones make nice men's cards.

This was stamped in brown versafine and the mount is the castle stamped randomly. The background white paper is flocked. I was saving this as it was too nice to use - then the cat walked all over it - so I had to throw away the muddy paw prints bit! It should teach me not to hoard things but I can't help it.

This is the same layout in a moss distress ink. The castle makes a nice tessellating pattern for background paper. The mount is washed over with a wet brush to give it a different feel.

This soft pink brilliance ink card is more feminine. I held the pad flat and gently rubbed over the flocked paper for a different look. This also has random castles as background interest.

Kind regards, Anne

A few more journal pages

I have been working on a few more journal pages in my little moleskin. I love Dy's new Dylusion border stamps. Not sure the gifts work but I stuck them on before the girl! The Octopode tree is cute and the wording says 'What would you like in your stocking?'.
I think the next one is far too true...
The right hand page had blue/green ink that had seeped through and looked awful. This page has a bit of mica and is now one of my favorites. Oh those were the days when I did dressmaking in a size 10 for me! The dress form stencil was free on a magazine. Stampotique stamps.

Finally two sayings from Tim Holtz and great Dylusions border and leaf stamps.

Where did the weekend go. I had most of last week off work but I'm still playing catch up. Have a lovely week.

Anne x

Where have I been?

I wish I could tell you that I have been somewhere lovely, but the truth is I've probably been working or playing FarmVille far too much!

This is the first card I've made in ages and it's called 'spot the stamping' as I made it for a stamping list and only manged to stamp the sentiment. This is my first play with the Time Holtz birdcage die and I chopped off the top to make it fit.

I have done quite a lot of messying around in my journals and I just love it. I often go back and add a few squiggles or colour in with my favorite red glaze pen. This is my favorite page this year. The 'lady' is from Octopode and the sentiments are from Dylusions. Dyan had the idea on her blog to use one word, one sentiment and an image. I did a few at Christmas (see below) and really enjoyed it so I've done a few more pages of sayings.

I made up a page on the pc of sentiments I like and the image is from Viva Las Vagas Stamps.

More Octopode, AFTH letters and computer generated words. Background is Dylusions sprays over random torn strips of paper - yum.

These are some pages I made around Christmas time. I like this one but the dark patch is a bit too heavy. Backgrounds are mainly Ranger daubers.

This is a bit darker in real life - sorry my photography skills are so lacking. Trees are from AFTH.

These pages make me smile.

I hope you have a lovely week.

Anne x