Made a rare visit to the Paperarts 12 hour crop yesterday, as it was Giselle’s birthday weekend.  Managed 2 Layouts which is pretty good for me at  a crop!!  I think I must have drawn strength from all the yummy cakes Fiona provided!

This first one is  some photos from guides when we went out into the countryside for the girls to make their promises.  This is Echo Park ‘a walk in the Park’ papers with a Maya Road butterfly covered to match, and a journalling block that I think might have been KI Memories.  The title is doodlebug  stickers - but Denise thinks the ’s’ s are upside down - what do you think?

The second one shows some terrible photos taken in bad light.  But I really wanted to scrap them as they show how well-trained a scrapbooker’s children are!  All the other boys on the rugby team took their medals and sat down.  Joe stopped, put his medal on, turned round to where I was with the camera and waited for me to get my picture before he returned to his seat!

Papers and embellishments are Echo Park again, with Martha Stewart punched borders, rubbed over with white acrylic paint as it was looking a bit too neat before! the journalling is all stamped with tiny alpha stamps and took ages but was very theraputic!!

All in all a lovely day.

Now to end by saying HAPPY BIRTHDAY GISELLE!

The August challenge has been posted over on Modscraps - a great sketch and layout from Giselle.

Here’s my take on it:

More of the Sweet Summertime papers from Echo Park.

Here’s a LO of my daughter at her 16th bithday party - completed for a challenge on UK Scrappers.  This photo makes me laugh because of her serious expression.  If you took away her friends and inserted Robert Pattinson et al, then I think her expression is black enough to pass for a Twilight poster!  She’s actually Tigerlily - as her party had a Peter Pan theme.

The background for this LO is Ranger inkpads direct to blank cardstock, stamps are Tim Holtz Visual Artistry.  Scrolls are cut from a piece of card embossed with a cuttlebug folder, Title Banana Frog,

Had fun last night at the Twilight crop at Olveston.  There was a challenge to create a layout in the colours of a flag from the world cup.  So here’s a layout in the Argentina colours, including the tiny yellow sun from the corner of the flag!  The title is thickers whcih I coloured to match with an Azure promarker, glossy accented then added sprinkle of fairy dust before it dried.  I was happy to find a use for these stamps which were free with a magazine sub - they were perfect for Maddie’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fancy dress theme that her gang chose for Leavers Day.

I was really pleased to win the challenge - I did like this LO, sometimes they just come together exactly as you can see them in your head!  Prize was some tiny alphas (which I will use a lot, I can tell), souffle pens and chipboard birdcages, which were all yummy!  I think I should challenge myself to use all three on a layout.

Still loving the Echo Park Papers. The backing sheet for this layout is from the ‘Walk in the Park’ range, butterfly border is Bazzill with some punched glitter cardstock on top, bling is dots of Stickles.

Think I’m having a bit of a monochrome thing going at the moment. I have an all-blue LO hot on the heels of this one.  But it’s for a challenge at a crop next week so I’m keeping it to myself for now.

I’m just loving the Echo Park ‘Sweet Summertime’ papers that Ellie has got in over at Modscraps.  Here are couple of layouts I’ve completed.

I thought the colours really suited these Waterfight photos of Joe that I’ve been trying to scrap for ages.

The second layout is another heritage one from Nigel’s Grandmother’s collection - showing  his Great Grandparents and his mum and aunt.  I covered the chipboard title with patterned papers and then coloured each bit of pattern with matching stickles.  For the’Waiting’ I liked the font on these thickers but not the colour so I covered them with the new Ranger metallic gloss - like glossy accents but shiny black.  Love the effect, I thnk I’ll be finding more uses for this product

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I’ve been having a bit of a spring clean recently and have cleared out a load of stash to help me see the wood for the trees!  One thing I came across amongst some papers was a little page of doodles.  These were from a couple of years ago, when we went to Hils lovely cottage in Wales.  I asked everyone to draw me a doodle to scrap as a memento, and it’s taken me this long to get around to it!  But here’s a page from our wonderful Welsh weekend with my personalised doodles!! 

We were at Modscraps monthly crop yesterday.  As usual the focus was on chatting, but I did manage to complete my Cornwall mini album that I’ve been carrying around for a while. 

Hope we can get down to Port Gaverne again this summer.

Popped into Homesense looking for a table today and found lots of fab crafty bargains.  Got a lovely set of DCWV glitter papers, Thickers, American Crafts stickers and stamps and MM embellishments - all at bargain prices.

Came home and scrapped a LO with the papers straight away!  This is a lovely photo of Nigel’s grandama when she was training as a Milliner in 1931.

Oh NO!! now I’ve posted it I can see I’ve spelt it wrong!!  I NEVER do that!  Off to change it on the layout, but far too lazy to repost the picture!!

Also used some of the scraps and some others left from recent layouts to make some cards:

The shabby chic technique is from this month’s Craft Stamper, stamps are Tim Holtz.  Elephant stamp from Little Claire designs.

Otherwise a quiet bank holiday so far - we’ve been working on Joe’s bedroom and it looks fab now.  His gaming stuff is in on a new table, a few cushions and the punch bag has been hung up - it looks like a real young man’s room!!  Just the football table to move up now (and I get half the dining room back - yay!!).

This was actually on 10th May and we were cropping at Modscraps for a fun day of challenges.  I managed a couple of layouts in between chatting - this one was with the new 365 degrees papers from Creative Imaginations:

And this one was from the challenge kit provided by Ellie - Scenic Route paper and arrows, plus some other bits:

I miss Scenic Route - they were my totally favourite manufacturer.  There’s room in my life for a new favourite now, but I haven’t decided who it will be yet!

A month or so ago I had a bit of an ATC thing going, and never did get around to posting any on here.  As I’ve been stuck at home being a bit poorly I thought I’d have a bit of a catch up, so here are a selection that I’ve made recently.

They’re a real mix of styles and techniques - but I think that’s what I like about ATCs - the chance to have a bit of a play!!  I’ve been working through a great book called The Artist Trading Card Workshop which describes lots of techniques - some quite messy!  There’s still plenty I haven’t  tried yet though!