A Couple of Cards

Hello Hello

I'm in a creative whirlwind this month. As well as lots of layouts (which you've seen) and some design team work (which you haven't - yet), I've also been making cards. Here's a couple of them:

The first one is a 'Welcome Baby' card for my friend, who had a baby boy. She gave birth to him in the car. Whilst her husband was still driving (he was trying to pull over at the time!). You don't think things like that happen in real life, do you?

The other card I actually made 24 of - with a lot of help from my sister and my friend (not the one who just had a baby!). 

This is the invite card which my sister and I are sending out for our joint birthday party in June. She's turning 21, and I'm turning 30, and we're having a family do at a pub. Our theme is 'Disney' as we both love the movies, and for the party she's dressing as Belle and I'm going to be Ariel. Here's the card:

We hope our other family members will embrace the theme and dress up too! If you were going to a Disney themed costume party who would you dress up as? 

I'm sure I'll be showing you some fabulous photos after the event! 

Bye for now! x

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Cousins Together

I've managed one more layout for Shimelle's challenges from her online crop last weekend. I've got ideas for lots more of the challenges but not enough time, so I shall just bookmark them for one day when I need ideas!

This layout is for the 'Rubbish Photos' challenge, see here for more information. I printed this photo out last summer, just after it was taken, but because it's so grainy and the colours aren't quite right, I hadn't managed to scrapbook it. But I wanted to, as it's rare to get a shot of these kiddies all sitting together:

Supplies = Crate Paper Paper Heart 'Cupid' and 'Petals' Papers, Chipboard Accents, Phrase Stickers, and Border Stickers, Farmhouse Alpha Stickers, Yellow Thread, Assorted Gems and Pearls.

I'm glad to have scrapbooked this photo despite its technical flaws. I think I need to have a rummage through my photos and see what other important photos I've missed out because they're a bit grainy or blurry. Sometimes those are the moments that mean the most, right?! x

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SJ Crafts Challenge #4

Hello all,

It's time for SJ Crafts Challenge Number 4, and this time the theme is 'Favourites', see here for more information, and to join in! You can make any papercraft project using your favourite papers or techniques, or scrapbook about something that is your favourite (eg. things or a place). Here's my page to give you a bit of inspiration:

Supplies include: MME Kraft Funday Good times paper, MME Miss Caroline favorite madras paper and cute brads, Glitz Teeny teeny alphas, Prima pearls and crystals, and Pink Paislee Mistable Alphas.

I chose to use my favourite type of photo to scrap - a beach photo. Regular readers will know I'm lucky enough to live by some lovely beaches, and I seem to get a few great photos each time we visit them. I think it's a combination of good light, an unbroken horizon for a background, and relaxed people to photograph as we all have fun or chill out by the seaside. 

I also used my favourite colour - the turquoise blue shade of the My Mind's Eye paper, and some favourite techniques of painting, machine stitching, and scattering gems / brads. 

Have you got a favourite type of photo or colour that you love to scrap with? Or a favourite technique to use?

x

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Mummy's 1st Drive To The Beach

Another layout for Shimelle's online crop challenges, this time for challenge 5 (see here) to create a page using a specific layout by Wilna Furstenberg as inspiration.

I've used Wilna's techniques of tone-on-tone punched shapes on cardstock, her negative-space lettering title, and the linear journaling:

Supplies: Pink Paislee Nantucket 'Jumbo Shrimp' Paper, Ephemera, and Wood Shapes, Old School Element Stickers, Papermania White Cardstock, Sassafrass, Cosmo Cricket, and My Little Shoebox Alphas, Scrap of brown paper with letters cut using Slice Die-Cutter,  Martha Stewart Vintage Doily Punch, Kars Blue Gems, 3D Foam Dots, Uniball Black Gel Pen.

I chose the beach umbrella embellishment because that day I had taken a parasol, but it was really windy so it blew away, and I had to chase it down the beach! I forgot to write this in the journaling though, so I now need to think of a creative way to add this extra story.

I'm starting to run out of Nantucket papers now, and I think I'll miss them when they're gone. I'm tempted to try and buy some more, but there's so many new papers to spend my money on. What do you think, buy some more of a collection that I love before it disappears, or just appreciate the pages I've made with it so far, and move on to exciting new items? What would you do? x

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I like Everything About You

I have another layout to show you for a challenge at Shimelle's online crop - this one is for challenge 4 (see here) - to use yellow, grey, and one other colour. I've cheated a little as I chose green as my extra colour, but I ended up with a couple of little splashes of red too, because I really wanted to use the My Mind's Eye title on the page:

Supplies: My Mind's Eye On the Bright Side 'Yellow Chevron', Miss Caroline Dolled Up 'Day' Butterflies paper (b side), Lost & Found 2 'Rosy' 6x6 paper pad, Rosy 'Ordinary' Brads, Rosy 'Everything' Title, Fine & Dandy 'True Blue' Chipboard, Mister Huey 'Warm Calico' Mist, 3D Foam Dots, Uniball Black Gel Pen.

I love this cheeky little photo of my boy, especially with the cute hat on. I think hats suit him! 

There's not a huge amount of grey on my page (except for the colour of his hat!) because the sheet of grey cardstock I planned to use was too dark. So I watered down some Mister Huey Warm Calico mist, and painted around the edges of the page with it. The b-side of the Miss Caroline 'Day' Butterflies paper had a nice grey and white stripe which I used to mat the photo too. 

I think the yellow, grey, green combo is nice and spring-like, don't you? x

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Baby Boy

I guess I shouldn't complain too much when baby boy wakes me up at 6am, as it does mean I've managed to get up, create a layout from scratch, photograph it, and blog about it, before leaving for the day! This one is for Shimelle's 3rd challenge (see here), to mix styles.

When I read this challenge, I'd just been commenting on this layout by Louise of Boys, Bugs and Beautiful Buttons, saying that I admired the muted colours but hardly ever used them myself as I found it difficult - if you're a regular follower you know my layouts are usually bright. I also admire Rahel Menig's (of swissgirlDesigns) use of softer colours, and I also chose to try her technique of leaving loose threads. I hope I've managed to combine it with my own style too, using distressing and paint as techniques I love:

Supplies = My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline Dolled Up 'Princess' Paper, Fine and Dandy True Blue Chipboard, Papermania White Cardstock and Heart Brads, Gesso, Lace, Sewing Machine, Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly Punch, White Foam Letters, Uniball Gel Journaling Pen.

I like how the soft colours work for this page, but I think I'd miss the brightness if I did this too often! Do you think it still looks like 'my' page?

Hope you all have a lovely, crafty, Saturday! x

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Pretty Shoes

The lovely Shimelle is treating us to another weekend full of challenges and inspiration: an online crop at www.shimelle.com. If you haven't checked out her online crops before then you really should, I always enjoy the prompts and the interaction with other crafters. I don't have any crops near enough to travel to, so this is the next best thing for me - if not better, as I can join in in my pajamas!

The first challenge is to take inspiration from a page by Jaime Warren (you can see her page and the challenge here). I love Jaime's pages, especially those she does for Crate Paper, so I was eager to try this challenge out, and used mainly Crate Paper supplies to do so:

Supplies include: Crate Paper Farmhouse 'Accent Cuts' Paper (b side), Paper Heart Chipboards, Cardstock  Stickers, Border Stickers, small amounts of 'Romance' and 'Petals' Papers, Making Memories Noteworthy Shimmer Alpha Stickers 'Ava', Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type 'Turquoise', American Crafts Delights 'Sunny Side' Flowers, Prima E Yellow Pearls and Crystals, Kars X-Mas Collection Blue Adhesive Stones, Making Memories Slice & Noteworthy Card, Yellow Ink Pad, 3D Foam Dots.

I enjoyed copying the scattered, and the disappearing-off-the-page, elements of Jaime's design, and used the same sort of colours as her layout, but with the blue as my dominant colour. I like the 'free' look of the page, like it was effortless to put together. It wasn't effortless, but it was certainly fun. Scattered gems are one of my favourite techniques right now, so I think that will appear on some more layouts this weekend!

I'm out for the day tomorrow, but you can expect me back tomorrow evening with another project or two! Bye for now, x

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10 Things ... Over my Easter weekend

I'm joining in with 10 things on the Tenth again, a monthly blogging phenomenon led by Shimelle Laine. You can see her post for this month, and links to lots of other '10 things' by clicking here.

I have had an action packed Easter Weekend, and none of it was to do with Easter. In fact, it was my friend Rosie's 30th birthday, and we got up to all kinds of fun...

1. On good Friday, her actual birthday, we went to Rosie's house in the afternoon and spent a couple of hours giving her some cards and presents, eating muffins, and chilling out in her garden:

The birthday girl with my baby boy.

2. We made a multicoloured birthday cake:

3. And in the evening some lovely friend's of mine babysat so that we could go out for dinner. The food was delicious, but even better was the view straight onto Swanage beach, watching the sun go down:

4. And after the meal we took a short stroll along the cool, moonlit sand:

5. Us girlies went back to Rosie's house for a sleepover after the meal, where we painted our nails, chatted a lot, and played Band Hero and Disney Trivial Pursuit:

6. And the next morning we did facials, including some gorgeous facemasks:

7. On Saturday evening, after a delicious barbeque, the girlies went out for dancing:

8. And enjoyed a few cocktails:

9. And then on Easter Sunday, we spent a fabulous day forming a girl punk band (one of Rosie's lifelong dreams!). We are called Rosie and the Rockettes, and I am the drummer (with limited skills!). We had great fun dressing up and doing a photo shoot:

10. And we even recorded a few songs, and made a video for one of them:

So, you can see I had a fun filled weekend! I was quite tired by the end of it, and so was my husband as he'd been looking after the kids by himself quite a lot! Back to normal life now, at least until Rosie and the Rockettes become a hit and I have to start touring the country...!

I hope you had a lovely Easter too! x

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