Hoppy Easter Every Bunny!

Happy Easter everyone - hopefully the start of a beautiful spring in the UK and of course it is autumn in Australia - that always felt weird, but it is still warm and mostly balmy during the days. 

 

A simple card to share with you to wish you all happy easter. 

 

I used the "Every Bunny" set of stamps from Stampin' Up! again this year - they are a really versatile set of stamps and with only one other Easter stamp, you have to make them work for you.  Easter is the shortest time of celebration, so I am determined not to buy any other Easter themed items.

 

I masked off a circle using a punch out and inked around the edge to form the sun.  I coloured the bunny on a separate piece of paper with my Promarkers and extended the flowers being thrown from the balloon basket.  The small eggs were from a different stamp and I scattered them in amongst the bigger eggs.  They were a scrapbooking embellishment from many years ago - the eggs were joined together with green wire so I snapped off the wire with scissors and used them much more simply.  I hacked into a green and pink dotty file folder to form some grass and then stamped the sentiment in the corner. 

 

My family have always sent Easter cards and I now send them to my husband's family as well. 

 

I hope you and yours have a blessed and Happy Easter.  xx



Inspired Retreat 2010 - A Different View

Hello people!  A second layout completed within this month from the "Inspired" retreat of 2010 - very satisfying to complete projects that have been in bags for a good couple of years!  Another Emma Trout designed layout class which she entitled "A Different View". 

 

 

I enjoyed putting this layout together so much more than the last one - I loved the finished result, but this layout appeals so much more to me - maybe I feel it's more modern!  I spritzed mists on mine (try saying that 5 times after a glass of wine :lol:!) to update it a bit as they have also been seriously underutilised in my stash.

 

I got quite adventurous and changed up other bits and bobs, too - made my own journalling half-circle as the sticker in the pack was the wrong shade, added a little bluebird to the "happiness" sticker (very appropriate, don't you think? :D) and mostly the lettering is quite different.  I used rub-ons, stamping, epoxy alphas and American Crafts Thickers as the lettering in the kit was too big. 

 

We visited Sorrento in August 10 for a family wedding and it was the first time I'd been to Italy and fell in love with everything about it.  The Bay of Naples was the most stunning setting I'd ever seen and to be looking out at this view from the Foreigner's Club at sunset on a summer's evening is one of the highlights of my life.  After this, the sky turned that breathtaking mauve-apricot colour at sunset.  Far too beautiful for words.  I used the whole "sweet summer" sticker (Emma cut the strawberry off hers) because Paul was addicted to the strawberry icecream and he must have eaten his body weight of the stuff whilst there.  I adored all the food too - but the lemons and the tomatoes were divine!  All that lovely sunshine ....

 

Supplies:

American Crafts Thickers "Jewellery Box"

Gin-Ex rub-on alphabet

Turquoise Epoxy Alphabet

October Afternoon Cardstock Stickers "Cherry Hill"

Bazzill Black cardstock

Patterned papers: October Afternoon (Detours) "Walk in the Park"                   

                             My Mind's Eye (Be.Loved) "Smitten Stripes"

                             Teresa Collins (Damask) "Stationery"

                             Teresa Collins (Documented) "Measured"

                             Prima Marketing (Blooming Retro) "Cotton Clouds"

                             My Mind's Eye (Love Me Do) "Head in the Clouds"

                             My Mind's Eye (Love Me Do) "Rock and Roll Heart"

Stamps:  Hero Arts "B is for"

               Banana Frog "Teen Lower"

Inks:       Charcoal ColorBox Cats Eye Chalk Ink

               Versamark Turquoise Pigment Ink

Mists:     Cosmic Shimmers

 

Probably my best ever buy was those epoxy alpha stickers.  They were 50p each and I must have bought 10 packets - mostly black, but a few of those turquoise sheets.  They need the help of a robust wet adhesive, but then so do the Thickers and then at least you know they won't fall off after getting a good dose of Scrappy Glue! :D

 

Thanks for stopping by! :) x

 

 

                            

 

Mini Album Cover

How to scrapbook when you've got no time - do it in 5 minute bursts!  It took me longer to bring supplies up and down the stairs than it did to complete the cover ...

And how to make a dent in some of those American Crafts alphabets!

Not sure about those bright turquoise buttons - wish they were pale aqua like the self-adhesive ribbon.  Thanks so much to my friend Lisa for sending me that baby boy self-adhesive ribbon - it has come in very handy!

The credit card photo of the boys at 3 days old won't get damaged as it is thick plastic.  At last it has found a useful purpose.  I love it when I think of the perfect place for something - deep deep down, I think I must be really quite well organised ... lol!

The album is for my parents-in-law, and contains 6 x 6 photos of my 12 x 12 layouts of the boys.  Far quicker and easier to print out a layout and pop it in here and at least Grandma and Grandpa Jones are semi-up to date ...

Must make a mission to use up some more rub-on stash ... thanks for stopping by!



Emma Trout, Inspired 2010 - at 10 months

My weekend away last weekend at Meadow Barn was wonderful - it was my first break for a year (since the Meadow Barn trip the year before) and a chance to do whatever I wanted for most of the weekend.  (Well - it would have been nice to have had more sleep - but I can't blame anyone else for being such an excessively light sleeper!)

 

I have found over the years that what I prefer to do on crafty weekends away is to finish off old projects.  This weekend I was very weirdly well organised, and took a wide selection of stuff to do and things to finish off.  I got a few cards made, a layout started and finished, and I managed to progress this one below.  Not as productive as some others, but then I am excessively slow, and prefer to get all the details right before moving on to something else! 

 

This layout was taught by Emma Trout at the first "Inspired" retreat in 2010.  I believe it was also the first class she taught.  I really admire Emma's work for all the beautiful, intricate details and the overall visual picture she creates with each layout.  Emma's original piece was of her son and his dog and how they were "best buds".

 

I had just had a shoulder op when attending that retreat, and was still getting over the general anaesthetic.  I took no suitable pictures and didn't mentally absorb much of each class - I think I was pretty zoned out much of the time!  The background has been waiting in a bag since Feb 2010, and when packing up to go away this weekend, I brought out this packet and flicked through the photos on my computer.  I thought the following photos of my boys at 10 months old were perfect with the blue and rust tones in the photos. 

 

Emma used a Teresa Collins blue and white flower paper where my floral elements were, and we had to substitute it with something else when that original paper was not available for the class.  When I came back home, I rifled through my papers and found a very arts & crafts design of K & Co paper that has actually turned out perfectly, I think - I love the subtle honeycomb colour and design - very William Morris! 

 

It still took me a good couple of hours when I got home to further place the elements on the page and reprint the photos - I am such a nightmare, I always get adhesive all over my photos!  I had to reprint them all again, and change the mat size.  Because I had 4 photos instead of her 3, I also had to change the placement of the title and journalling block.  However - I love these photos of Henry and Lewis and I love the layout - especially the fact that it is now finished!  I also used different Thickers because these were a definite aqua and stood out more against that floral paper. 

 

I think my next project will be to finish off her other layout class as she used the same papers, but different elements.  What I really liked about Emma's class was that she explained how to look at a patterned paper and take different elements from it - for example, taking some of the damask elements and cutting them out of the background to form photo frames.  I don't think I would have hit upon that idea. 

 

As the rub-ons are so old, I added a layer of Glossy Accents over the top, so there will be no chance of them lifting off the page.  I also had to adhere the vinyl Thickers with Glossy Accents too, as they had largely lost their stick!  One of the disadvantages of keeping supplies so long, and a great lesson for the future. 

 

Supplies:

American Crafts Thickers "Poolside" vinyl

Making Memories "Rummage" rub-on alphabet

October Afternoon Cardstock Stickers "Cherry Hill"

Bazzill White cardstock

Patterned papers: October Afternoon (Detours) "Walk in the Park"

                             K & Co rust & aqua floral from their classic collection

                             My Mind's Eye (Be.Loved) "Smitten Stripes"

                             Teresa Collins (Damask) "Stationery"

                             Teresa Collins (Documented) "Measured"

                             My Mind's Eye (Love Me Do) "Head in the Clouds"

                             My Mind's Eye (Love Me Do) "Rock and Roll Heart"

                             Prima Marketing (Blooming Retro) "Cotton Clouds"

 

Those patterned papers are so beautiful!  I would never have thought of combining so many of them in such a striking way.  I wonder what projects I will make with the scraps?  Thanks Emma.  :)

                            



Miracles - Sketchy Scrappers Feb 2013 layout

Welcome to this challenge, using this sketch:-

I did this layout this last weekend, at a lovely retreat with friends from UKS.  I decided to scrap the birth announcement I made and sent out to people who had sent cards and gifts when the boys were born. 

 

I had no intention of making an inky, arty layout, but when a very old rub-on I decided to use disintegrated all over the page, I had to fix it somehow.  A very team effort, this - Washi tape from Tara, scraps from Jules, a white pen from Lee, Mr Huey's mists from Jess and I also borrowed some masks from Lisa to make the splodgy bits!

 

I used a stamp and masking technique to make a double image on the birth announcement and then used Promarkers around the edge for the gingham ribbon look. 

 

Supplies:

Mr Huey's misters - white and blue

Dotty masks

Washi tape

Scrap paper

Fiskars punch for the stitching effect

The blue fabric photo corner from a free gift from Scrapbook Inspirations, many moons ago

Blue punch outs using my Cropadile

Uniball Signo White Pen

Patterned papers: Three Bugs in a Rug April Showers "Chickadee"; Echo Park Splash "Big Stripes"

 

When speaking to Krafty Karen on the weekend, she said that some of her layouts that had used rub-ons had lifted off the layout and onto the page protector.  What I will do before putting this layout away is that I will secure the rub-on title by using Glossy Accents over the top.  That will fix it!

 

Not the elegant, clean layout I was envisaging, but creating is an organic process, and sometimes it just doesn't end up the way you imagined ... sometimes maybe a good thing!





March Scrapology Layout Challenge - Peeking Elements!

Hello everyone - welcome to Spring - a new month, and a new layout challenge with Scrapology.  This time, our lovely Lynn has set the challenge using peeking elements - something she has done beautifully with her page, which you can see on her blog here. 
 



 Sometimes it is good to ring up the changes, and do something a bit different.  That is why I decided to flip through my elephant photos and scrapbook a page for my elephant album.  Hardly can call it an album - it is only my second layout thus far! but I know it will be a great vehicle for those miscellaneous papers and techniques that I probably won't use on my little boy pages of my sons.  I probably do have older paper than the Urban Lily Frolic paper I've used here - but it is so cathartic to know I am using them up in a layout that I am actually finally happy with. 

 

Whilst I love dimensional and textural layouts, I refrain from doing them in reality because of the difficulty of fitting them into albums.  So I decided to interpret Lynn's peeking elements in a slightly different way - with less depth and a different theme. 

 



 

It will be no surprise to regular readers that I love bright, happy zingy colours and that is why I will love scrapping my elephant photos - I love fitting the theme to the subject of the photograph and that includes finding perfect patterned papers to accompany.  When reading artist Helen Crowther's inspiration for her painting of the elephant - combining her passion for conserving tropical rainforest and its inhabitants with her painting - I decided to go with a jungle theme.  I think the large black and white motifed Urban Lily paper works well here. 

 

I struggled to make some "peeking elements" until I decided that the jungle flowers needed some trailing tendrils and smaller flower buds.  The Bo Bunny "Flutter Butter Willow" paper is double sided - and the small circles on the other side of the "jungle" side were perfect for the buds. 

 

My friend Sherri die cut me some of the small Sizzix elephants many years ago, when I first started scrapbooking - they are perfect for this album, and it just goes to prove that my justification that things do come in handy is always redeemed!  I wish I had that die - reminds me then, off to start a new elephant hunt on Ebay ......

Supplies:
Cardstock:           DCWV Christmas cardstock stack
Patterned paper:  Urban Lily Frolic "Just Add Color" collection 2007
                            Bo Bunny "Flutter Butter Willow"
Dies:                   Sizzix Small Elephant Die
                            Die-namics "Leafy Flourish"
Alphabets:          Mod Designs Alpha Gels
                           Decadry Rub-on Alphabet black
Other:                 Doodlebug Paper Posies, MM Snaps

What will you have peeking from your layout?  Do join in with the challenge and show us ....