Sunday Snippets - Butterfly Touch

Afternoon Folks,

I see the sun is struggling through at last but it's been a fairly overcast day up to now so I hope you've had it much better wherever you are today. In fact, I hope you've had a wonderful weekend! We've had a quiet one as a planned outing for today has been postponed until Tuesday ... hoping for better weather. In the meantime, I've been sorting through stuff in my craft room and organising myself ... it's a tough job but someone has to do it!!!

I don't think it is too difficult to see where the snippets are on this layout ... a ton of butterflies. The idea for the butterflies came from the page title which, in turn, came from story captured in the photograph. I thought the story is just so charming that I had to create a page to record it.

The hands in the photo belong to two little cousins, two year old Brodie and baby Callum, born just a few days before the photo was taken. Little Brodie was so excited to meet his new baby cousin and even more excited when he was allowed to hold him for a few minutes. It was love at first cuddle! However, he was really disappointed when he had to give up baby Callum. That was when he started to stroke Callum's hand, oh so gently.

He really didn't want to let go!

Butterflies ... all 26 of them. To make them, I raided the scrap box, picked out all the butterfly dies I own, and went for it with the die-cutting machine.

Materials used:

• patterned paper: a sheet of 12"x12" red chevron pattern, Docrafts Papercraft Happy Days, for base; a sheet of 12"x12" check patterned paper, American Crafts Play Cat's Cradle Truly Inspiring, for first layer; scraps of patterned paper for photo layers.
• ink spatters: Brusho Brilliant Red crystal powder, Mister Huey's Heirloom Blue colour mist and Cosmic Shimmer Mist Rich Gold.
• title: Kaisercraft Happy Snaps Alpha and Basic Grey Fresh Cut sticker sheets.
• embellishments: Kaisercraft Happy Snaps Alpha and Simple Stories So Fancy Fundamentals stickers sheets, Fun Fare by Heltz Cuppleditch enamel dots and embroidered brad from Docrafts Papermania Happy Days 
• butterflies: a variety of snippets of patterned paper and cardstock 
• dies: X-cut Butterfly set, Spellbinders Sapphire Basic Set A; Tattered Lace Mini Die set; C'Art Us Butterfly set 
• adhesives: glue tape and glue gel

As it is Sunday and as I've used a ton of patterned paper and cardstock snippets and scraps on this layout I'm submitting this to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 186.

Right! I'm off to do a bit of blog-hopping and then it will be back to the tidying and organising.

Happy Crafting,

Siblings Having Fun With a Selfy

Evening Everyone,

I've been scrap booking more than card making recently because I've had a lot of interesting photos which I thought just had to be scrapped - not all taken by me for a change. For example, the photo used on this page.

My two youngest grandchildren were amusing themselves with taking selfy shots on their mobile phones. This one they converted to black and white and posted it on Facebook for the family to see. I just loved it - they look so happy together and having fun.

It's a simple layout with the photo matted and layered on to scraps of left over patterned paper which was then adhered to the base sheet, Glitz Color Me Happy Stripe. I chose this sheet with a subtle grey/white trellis pattern because I thought it would make a good background for the photo. And, bonus, it already had, in the bottom left corner, those very useful journaling prompts.

It made for the easiest journaling I've ever done.  The title was made up from three different alpha sets - Jillibean Soup Alphabeans Blended Black, Docrafts Forever Friends Cosy Christmas Stickers and a tiny red/white set I found in my stash - maker unknown.


 

The camera embellishment is from Simple Stories So Fancy Sticker sheet and those in the clusters are made up of stickers from Kaisercraft Photo Friendly Happy Snaps Sticker sheet. I wanted to repeat the chevron motif that was already on the base sheet so punched a border using a Stampin' Up border punch and a snippet of black cardstock. The waste this created was chevron shaped, exactly right for the page. I finished with a sprinkling of gold sequins (from Paper Cellar) and one red enamel dot popped on the camera motif just above the title.

Yeah! No new stash was used in the making of this page :) Once again, I've been able to 'shop' from my stash, use up a few fairly large scraps of leftover patterned paper - love it when I can do that - and a few snippets of black cardstock. And because of that I'm submitting this page to Pixie's Snippets Playground - Week 185 where anything goes as long as snippets are used somewhere in the making.

As mentioned earlier, I haven't made any cards recently but, as there are a few occasions coming up soon, I'll have to set to and get down to it or else I'll be forced to actually go to the card shop and, I'm whispering this, buy some!!!

Happy Crafting,

Scrapbook Workshop - Return to the Collection - Part 1

Hi Everyone,

Happy Tuesday everyone. I hope this finds you well and enjoying far better weather than what is our lot at the moment ... wind and rain that looks as though it will never stop!

Yet again, I have to admit to having made not a thing, nada, zilch, nothing. Anyhow, to make up for the lack of industry I thought I'd do a series of blog posts covering the layouts I completed with the help of Shimelle's Return to the Collection workshop last year. This workshop was a follow on from her The Perfect Collection class of 2012 ...the idea of which was 'to take a collection pack of patterned papers and use it until it was all gone'.  

Shimelle was working with the same kit she used in the 2012 workshop but, a) I wasn't too smitten on that particular kit and, b) I wanted to make a kit from stash ... as ever it's my aim this year to find a way of using stuff up! So here's the kit I put together. 

Apologies for the glare in the photo but I hope you can see that it was a sizeable kit, made up as follows: 

• 12 patterned papers: from Basic Grey's Fresh Cut collection, My Mind's Eye Lime Twist, Lasting Impressions Cotton Candy, Docraft's Papermania Happy Days, and the Memories sheet which had no maker information on it.
• 3 cardstock: BoBunny Aquamarine Dot, Coredinations Worn Lipstick, black American Crafts. 
• 3 alphabet sets: Basic Grey's Fresh Cut, Echo Park's Splendid Sunshine, Hobbycraft White Felt stickers.
• Embellishments: BoBunny Ambrosia Cut Outs, Basic Grey's Capture Snippets, My Mind's Eye Now & then flairs, Basic Grey bobbles, Mr Huey Estate Green colour mist, a red/white washi tape, a selection of enamel dots from various sources, 
• Stickers: Basic Grey Fresh Cut sheet, My Mind's Eye Miss Caroline labels, Pebbles Masking Tape & Border stickers, Teresa Collins Canvas sheet, Dear Lizzy Accents & Phrases.

With a lot of help from the workshop prompts I managed to create 4 one-page layouts and 2 double-page layouts altogether. Here are the first two layouts created with items from the kit.

This is the first I put together and perhaps you can see that already I had to add two more alphabet sets (Pebbles ABC stickers& Jenni Bowlin Chalkboard Black). The ones originally chosen for the kit did not work with this page. I also pulled out some heart-shaped wood veneers from stash too - they were easily coloured with Promarkers. Otherwise everything else came from the kit. The photos date from a 2010 trip to the Yorkshire coast - we stopped off on the way home just to see Antony Gormley's Angel of the North.

I'd love to say that everything on this page came from the kit but, in truth, I added some stamping and some die-cut flowers (lilac, to match what my late mother was wearing in the photos). The base is a sheet of patterned paper trimmed and layered on to the sheet of black card from the kit. I particularly love this page. The photos were taken in the spring of 1996 during a stroll round the campus of the US college where I was studying at the time. Mum, at the age of 69, had never been in a plane, before, in fact, never been out of the UK before, so this was a truly unforgettable experience for her!

I think that's enough for today ... otherwise this would be a very, very long post and I doubt you'd want that. And, in any case, it's way past my bedtime (it's Monday night at the time of writing). I'll be back with two more layouts soon.

Take care and stay safe.

Happy Crafting,

Something Fuzzy - The Scrap Our Stash Challenge

Good Afternoon Everyone

I hope you have all had a great weekend and you are enjoying Monday too, even if it does mean back to work for many of you.

I have a quick share for you today.

Over at Scrap Our Stash this month the challenge is to use something fuzzy in a layout. These tiny fuzzy pompoms were leftover, and forgotten, after a Christmas cardmaking session with my two youngest grandchildren a few years ago ... yes, they've been in my stash that long! However, when I saw the challenge theme, I immediately remembered them and thought they would be perfect for this challenge.

I love these snowy photos but choosing papers that looked good with them was so difficult. First, I pulled out blue based papers but they just didn't look right. In fact, most colours didn't look right except the reds - an unusual choice for a winter scene but the page is going into a Christmas album so I decided to go with the red.

This is the sketch, designed by Karen, Karen's Papercraft Life, for members of UKPC, I used for the layout. The base is a smooth white cardstock, the corners stamped with flourishes and spritzed with red and gold shimmer mist. Instead of having a circular shaped photo, I decided to layer a cropped photo on top of a doily. The die-cut reindeer was embossed, first in a white coating and then a coat of crystal powder, given golden hoofs and nose and given a blue gem for it's eye. 

The embellishments consists of circles and a pennant cut from patterned paper, red die-cut flowers (a Christmas gift), clear gems and the red and white fuzzy balls. The pennant has 'winter wonderland' stamped on it.

Materias used:
Base - 12" x 12" sheet of white cardstock, Stampin' Up
Stamps - Dawn Bibby Delicate Scrolls, American Crafts Christmas Date Stamp
Shimmer Mists - Cosmic Mist Lava Red & Rich Gold
Inks - Memento Tuxedo Black, VersaMark 
Embossing powders - white, crystal and gold  
Papers - Docrafts Papermania, Happy Days Collection & Noel Collection, My Mind's Eye, Love Me Do Blooming Love
Alphas - Docrafts Forever Friends Cosy Christmas, Glitz Teeny Alpha Pearl, Doodlebug Design Simply Sweet Blue Jean
Embellishments - white paper doily (large), die-cut deer and flowers, clear and blue gems, fuzzy balls

More often than not, I'm not too pleased with my scrap pages, but I am happy with this one. I've still to add the journaling but I'll do that before I find a home for it in the album.

Today, I completed another page that I've been working on for days - it's been a struggle thinking up the title! It's quite different from the one above and all I have to do now is photograph it and then I'll be able to post it.

Take care all and happy crafting,

The Day Disney Came to Ayr - SOS Challenge

Hi Everyone,

Today it's my turn to share a layout I created for this month's "TAG, You're It!" challenge at Scrap Our Stash. 

The page is square, the photo isn't, but it was the best I could do!

There are two requirements for the challenge, one is to create a layout using tag(s) - fine, no problem there - and two, use a photo of yourself - now, I found that kind of taxing. You see, I’m usually the one behind the camera and, as a consequence, there are very few photos, recent ones in particular, taken of me ... and, here's the rub, most of those I really don’t like at all. 

However, regular readers of this blog may remember that whilst out doing a bit of Christmas shopping last month, we were fortunate to meet Mickey and Minnie strolling through our town centre and, luckily, I had my camera with me - posted here. And, better still, they were more than happy to strike a pose!

To create the layout, I raided my stash and used papers from a few different sources, Docrafts Papermania, Kanban, K&Company and My Mind’s Eye on a black card base (Bazzill Basics). The round flower-like embellishments were made simply by punching out two different size circles from the patterned paper, assembling them together and adding a polka-dotted card candy as the finishing touch. Minnie's shoes are yellow, hence the pop of that colour in the 'flowers'.

The label used for journaling was purchased from our local stationery shop (WH Smith). The round black/white title letters were punched from paper with a typewriter keys design. This paper is truly ancient and has been in my stash for several years - and there is no indication anywhere as to who the maker was - so it was a bonus to finally find a use for it. The white letters are from Jillibean Soup, Alphabeans.

I admit to still not being too happy with this layout ... love Mickey, Minnie and the EM but I'm really not pleased with me ... sigh! 

If you have a photo of yourself your okay with, please go ahead and create a layout with it, include a tag and send it to Debbie at Scrap Our Stash - all details are over on the blog. I'm sure she would be delighted to receive it.

In the meantime, take care everyone, and happy crafting,

Peaches and Cream - Scrap Our Stash Challenge for December

Hi Everyone,

I was sorting through and reorganising my paper stash recently, and all the while thinking about this month's DT challenge, Circle Around, over on Scrap Our Stash ... the remit being to use circles in a layout, when I rediscovered this sheet of beautiful patterned paper from The ScrapCake, My Private Happiness - Happiness In The Air. 

It was one of those gorgeous designs that sung to me when I spotted it in the craft shop, had to have it, of course, and then, when I got it home, could never think of how to use it. However, the floral circles in the design were perfect for the challenge, and this photo of me ... of a much younger me, I hasten to add, taken some twenty-two years ago ... was just right too!

A saucer was just the perfect size to use as a template to cut round the photograph. All the materials for the three clusters came from my stash, only the title letters are new - I never seem to have suitable alpha sets when I want them.

I have to thank my lovely Canadian friend, Maureen, aka ScrappyMo, once again for the cream ribbon roses and the delicate white butterflies - a little pink tinting to the wings and some tiny white pearls and they were perfect.

I used scraps found in the snippet box to punch the tiny flowers and the scalloped shapes, and also to create the pennant for the words - does that qualify a scrap page for Pixie's Crafty Snippets #51 I wonder? Di, what do you think ... are scrap pages allowed in the playground?

Materials - as I remember them!
Patterned Paper: The ScrapCake, My Private Happiness - Happiness In The Air
Chipboard pieces from the Country Diary collection ... free with a crafting magazine
Dragonflies from Tilda Garden Party Collection
Alphas: My Little Shoe Box Sprinkle Glaze Stickers, Sunshine (peach) and Kiwi (lime green); American Crafts Thickers Flocked Letters, Emerald (cream)
Words from Tim Holtz Ideology Chitchat Verbiages
Ink: ColorBox Cat's Eye Chalk, Pink Pastel
Cream satin ribbon, pearl and gem flourish, green gems, pink and white pearls - all from stash

This page will probably end up in the Family History album to be seen by my great-grandchildren one day ... wonder what they will think of those huge padded shoulders!

It's not too bad a day here ... the EM described it as almost tropical!!! I hope it's as pleasant wherever you are and that your preparations for the festive season are going along nicely. Me, I'm still in the thick of it ... presents still to be wrapped, last minute cards to post off, etc., etc. Every year I think I won't be done on time and every year I am ... this year will probably be no different :))

Thanks for checking in and if you feel like popping over to the Scrap Our Stash blog to see how others have interpreted the Circle Around challenge, you'd be most welcome ... you could even have a go yourself :)

Take care everyone and keep crafting,

Laugh, Laugh Often ... SOS Pagerize #24 This Challenge Layout

Hello Everyone,

Each month Scrap Our Stash has a Pagerize This Challenge. Pagerize is simply a scraplifting challenge and a lot of fun!  This month we have been challenged to pagerize this lovely page made by fellow DT member, Karen.

And as soon as I saw Karen's scrap page, I just had to pagerize it. I've chosen to scrap a photo taken of my son 42 years ago when he was only 9 months old and the apple of his mother's eye :) We were on leave from Germany, visiting his grandmother in Ayrshire, Scotland. In fact, almost the whole family gathered to meet him, aunts, uncles and even his great-grandmother came through from Edinburgh to see her first great-grandchild. 

This was the first professional photo I had taken of him and I can still recall it vividly to mind. He laughed and chuckled happily for the photographer throughout the session - hence the title - he was an incredibly happy baby :) Although it's a black and white shot, I remember that he was dressed in palest green so I chose to have that as the main colour with touches of blue, yellow and pink in the embellishments. I've moved the photo cluster up to the right of the page and swopped embellishment clusters round a bit, but otherwise it is more or less the same layout as Karen's.

Materials:  Papermania, Happy Days; Imaginisce For Peep's Sake, Spring Fling; Fancy Pants It's, The Little Things; blue BoBunny cardstock; Hot Of The Press, Serendipity; Nitwit Collection, Bumbleberry Cottage; Champion Art Stamps, Laugh Often; WH Smith, blue label; all the other embellishments from stash.

If you would like to have a go at pagerizing/scraplifting Karen's layout, you have until the 12th of December to submit to Scrap Our Stash - full details can be found on the blog.

Thanks for looking. 

Happy Crafting,

Tearing Paper - the Scrap Our Stash Challenge for November

Hello Everyone,

I still find tearing beautiful patterned paper difficult but that is the challenge, to Tear It Up, over at Scrap Our Stash this month.

My response to the challenge? Well, I steeled myself and added just one torn piece of Ruby Rock-It's Flourish Vintedge to the lower edge of this page. The base and the fussy cut flower trim is from the BoBunny Serenity collection. I added a bit of stamping around the edge with a Victoria and Albert Museum leaf trim and added a chandelier, from Kaisercraft's Le Chateau set, to the top right corner. 

The lace and trims are vintage style, as is the Prima locket which can be opened to reveal photos of my great-grandparents. My great-grandfather appeared in an earlier post - in the layout is entitled Hero. I can't say I will ever find tearing paper easy but I do like the effect on this layout.

This is a page made especially for my family history album. The journaling reads as follows:

"This photograph is of my great-grandmother, Nana Douglas, my grandmother, Granny Vass, and great-uncle Robert. It's a studio pose, with them all in their Sunday best, taken for my great-grandfather, James Douglas, to carry with him as he went of to war in 1915. Safely stowed away in his wallet, it went with him to France and he still had it when he finally returned home at the end of the war. By then his copy was dog-eared and much creased from constant handling - it helped him through the horrors of war."

Nana was the tiniest creature I ever knew, not even 5' tall and with the most perfect figure right into old age. She was also incredibly sprightly well into her eighties. When I was a little girl, and had the temerity to ask her how old she was, she would always tell me she was sixteen - for years I believed her!

War made her bitter and who could blame her -  she lost the two men that meant the most to her because of war. Her husband returned a sick man after active service in WWI - due to gas inhalation - and her only son died fighting in Hong Kong during WWII. She was widowed in 1930 and towards the end of her life, whenever I visited, never failed to tell me that she had been a widow for more than forty years. She never remarried, saying no one could ever replace great-grandfather.

If you'd like to have a go at the SOS challenge, Tear It Up, and want to tear either a little or a lot of paper, pop along to the blog where you will find details on how to submit your layout(s). You can also see all the other great interpretations of the current challenge that have been posted this month already. There is also the opportunity to take part in a pagerize (scraplift) challenge every month too - this month's layout, Pagerize #24, is terrific and I may well be having a go myself.

Time I stopped and got myself off to bed. I will be back later with this week's WOYWW post - quite a bit later though because I have forgotten to take a photo of my workdesk for it.

I hope you are all well and finding plenty crafting time.

Happy crafting,

Shell Garden - Scrap Our Stash Challenge - Hot Chocolate

Hello Everyone,

Happy Saturday ... I hope you are all enjoying the weekend so far.

This month over at SOS, the challenge was for us to create a layout around the theme of Hot Chocolate. As I don't actually drink hot chocolate and so couldn't take photos with it as a theme, I have gone with the colours chocolate, pink and white as you would find in a steaming hot cup of the stuff topped with fluffy marshmallows.

And I've really tested myself by creating a double page layout ... I have only ever made single page layouts till now. 

The reason for the double page is that I had so many photos taken from different parts of this fantastic garden showing some of the special features, it seemed a shame to leave any of them out.



To give a bit of interest to the pale brown dotted embossed base card I've splashed chocolate and raspberry coloured paints randomly around. There's very little patterned paper in the layout - I thought the photos provided more than enough pattern - just the Kraft Kuts die-cut, split in two over the layout and a few scalloped circles punched from Bella BLVD's Family Circle paper, used as embellishments.

Title letters are from various sources as are the flowers and doilies. The shells are not from Jersey but from Cornwall. 

Because the photos were all different sizes this proved to be a difficult project, however, I am pleased with the end result, but it could be a long time before I tackle a double page layout again :)

It's been a really pleasant day here ... not something those of you suffering on the East coast want to hear, I'm sure, I understand it's been snowing up in Aberdeen and possibly even further south with snow forecast for Billericay!  

Anyway, we've had what I call chilly sunshine, more than a hint of frost in the air but it's been warm in the sun, so we took a trip to our favourite country estate, Culzean, and had a wee walk and a long browse round the book shop, followed by a trip to another favourite eatery for a skinny latte and a piece of something delicious but bad for you - toffee apple cake. And, no, it's not lost on me how contradictory that combination is :)

I only bought one book, but it's a goody - so here's the plan for this evening, Strictly Come Dancing followed by a night at the pictures with a new DVD, Sugarland Express with Goldie Hawn, and then a bit of bedtime reading ... 

 

... perfect!

Hope your evening is as pleasant.

Happy crafting,

Time Will Tell - A Scrap Page Layout

Good Morning Everyone

I hope you are all well and enjoying the start of the weekend. Here in Ayr it's damp from a fall of rain in the night but the sun is struggling to shine through - it may even succeed :) 

When I was considering what photograph(s) to scrap for my DT layout for the Scrap Our Stash August Challenge, Time Will Tell, I kept coming back to this delightful photo taken of my granddaughter, Shari-Ann, sitting on her granddad's knee, listening intently as he was telling her a story - when she was small she absolutely loved story time with granddad and particularly adored hearing his rather tall tales :) 

I chose a Daisy Bucket Designs background paper, Under the Boardwalk, because it is fairly neutral, and the other elements feature colours taken from the bird border - from Cosmo Cricket's Nutmeg Elements. 

Most of the papers used are from the snippet pile and unfortunately I no longer remember all the makers or even the what the sheets were called. However, I do know that the borders, along with the bird border, the Simple Pleasures sentiment and the Remember When journalling spot are from Cosmo Cricket's Nutmeg Elements. I cut the clocks from the fabulous World Map sheet (the clocks are on reverse) from Kaisercraft Timeless Collection. The large clock is only a partial image so I've disguised this by tucking it under the photograph.

I've used Kiwi Lane Designs templates a lot on this layout - the curvy borders are from the Abbie Road set, the bracket shape on the left of the photo is Bracket 1 and the arrow head is from the Tiny Nature set. 

The dotty photo matting was trimmed with a pair of scalloped edge scissors - these are the ones that came free with a craft magazine, the same ones I put them away thinking I'd never use them, and might even pass them on to Shari-Ann for her to play with, but here they are getting another outing! Definitely more useful than I thought :)

The embellishments - the die-cut butterflies, also in the RAK package from my friend, Chris Lee, Tim Holtz Adage Tickets, and adhesive-backed gems were all from my hoard of stash. 

I have still to add the journalling, will do that later when I've thought out what to write.

I'm sure you all have your own plans for how to spend your day, for some it will be shopping, catching up with housework, stoking the washing-machine, doing the ironing ... or any other task from the million and one things you have on your to-do list ... but I'm planning a day of craft related delights. I've been suffering from withdrawal symptoms and nothing else will do! 

To start with I'll be watching Barbara Gray's workshop on C&C TV, then I plan to make a start on Tim Holtz's August tag ... this could take some time as there's a requirement for the handmade roses he made in an earlier post and as this will be my first attempt to make a TH tag, I need to make the roses first! It will be interesting to see how far I get with that today :)

So, whatever you are going to be doing have a happy day and happy crafting,