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,

Happy Days Photo Album

Hi Everyone,

It's been an odd week so far ... because of my sister's illness, the craft space has been neglected. Many thanks to all who left get well messages for Margaret ... crafters are all so incredibly kind and thoughtful.

And I've just heard that she is on the mend although she has a long way to go yet. The scan revealed that she has heart failure though it's not certain which came first, that or the infection.

Whatever, the treatment she is now on seems to be doing the trick, but we have been told it will be quite some time before she is well enough to return home.

Somehow I did  find enough time in the week to make this photo album for my daughter's 41st birthday today.

The album is made almost entirely with Papermania's Happy Days 12" x 12" paper stack and embellishments - all fifties style and very pretty. The only additional materials used were some cream cardstock, blue satin ribbon and vintage lace trim.

The base is made from one sheet of 12"x12" paper, as usual - you can see how here. For the pocket trims, I used the chevron pattern paper and cut along the blue stripes - it's a bit different from using a punch. Actually, my scissors were working overtime as I fussy cut a lot of the embellishments from the heavily patterned sheets in the stack.

The photo mats - cut to fit inside the pockets - are constructed from the cream cardstock and yet more of the patterned paper.

Here they are tucked inside the pockets.

Confession time - the lace trimmed wasn't planned. It's covering up a mistake I made trimming the red/blue patterned trim on one of the pockets - I held the scissors at the wrong angle and cut to much away :(

Here's the birthday girl showing off her first attempt at crochet - a cushion cover for her newly decorated lounge.

She's mainly self-taught, she watched a few YouTube demos - I only had to show her how to do the corners of the square and off she went  - now she has caught the crochet bug too :))

We have the Ayr Flower Show this weekend and normally we'd be going along but we've had to give it a miss this year. The weather has been appalling, we've had some really extra heavy showers today, so I suspect that the ground will be like a mud bath by now - such a shame for the organisers and all the folk involved.

Before I go, I'd like to welcome my new followers - hope you will enjoy popping in every now and again to see what I've been up to.

I hope you will all have a lovely weekend. Hopefully, life will now return to normal for me and I will be able to get into the craft room more over the weekend and do a lot more blogging too.

Happy Crafting,

WOYWW 165 - messing with watercolours and crochet update

Morning WOYWWers, Followers, and all,

Reasons to celebrate - it's the first of August, it's Lunch Lady Jan's birthday ... Happy Birthday to you, Jan :) ... and it's What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday! Want to celebrate along - pop over to our Head Keeper of the Linky, Mrs D's at the Stamping Ground and join in the weekly massive bloghop around the workdesks of some of the most interesting, funny, creative, sometimes messy, and always talented, peeps in blogland!

Here's my desk as it was all day yesterday, Monday and much of Sunday. Yes, I've been MIA, but with good reason - more of later. First let's go through what I had on my desk before it was abandoned.

Most noticeably, there's this month's Craft Stamper - I've had a quick flick through and, before I go any further, I have just got to congratulate our Asia King, aka Joanna, Under A Creative Spell for doing so well in the Stamper of the Year competition - her fabulous creation got her short-listed in the first round  ... well done Joanna :)  Also Sarah of La-De-Dah is in the mag with her beautiful creations, and the free stamp is extra special because it was designed by Chrissie Stokes of Simply One of Kind ... I did say that WOYWWers are a talented bunch, did I not :)

But I digress, back to the desk ... Aquamarkers, paints, some new Sheena stamps, and  leaning nonchalantly on a box of pens, Bogdan, the schoolboy meerkat, my new crafting companion, sporting my treasured WOYWW badge, and generally, the usual detritus of my crafting life - water, mica powder embossing powder, a bingo pen - don't ask, I have no idea!

The last item is a pile of water-colour backgrounds ... I've been experimenting again :)

For this technique I scribbled with the Aquamarkers on to a stamping block, spritzed with water and then stamped the resulting water-colour soup onto card. I varied the colours and even painted some of the shimmer paints on to the block too - with varying degrees of success!

Here's a card I made with the piece you can see top row, centre.

And now we get to the reason I've been MIA. My lovely sister, Margaret, an MS sufferer, was suddenly taken desperately ill on Friday last week and had to be admitted to hospital. Since then there's been no improvement, if anything her condition deteriorated and she is now on oxygen to help her breath - the doctors know she has an infection, they just can't find the right treatment for it. They've performed umpteen tests and now she is to have an MRI scan in the hope that that will give an indication of the cause - in the meantime we all wait and worry.

 In three days, this is the only card I've found time to make.

On a happier note, I had a visit from Grandson, No.2, and we had a great time, catching up on family news, his news,  sorting through my seed box ... I know, come to Gran's and leave with packets of salad seeds to grow ... and, finally, in the kitchen cooking up a storm - well, he is a chef :))

Oh, and before I forget, a crochet update.

The completed throw for my great-granddaughter.  I found instructions for a decorative trim which finished it off very nicely.

I actually crocheted too many squares, got quite carried away, so with the leftovers I'm making a wee blanket to fit my great-niece's buggy.

Oh dear, I am going to be in trouble with Julia :( Keep it brief she asks, and what do I do, witter on for ages ... sorry Julia.

As usual, I did not visit as many of you as I would have liked, other preoccupations, and if you don't get a visit from me this week, it will be for much the same reasons.

Take care all of you, and have a good week wherever you are and whatever you're doing, and happy crafting.

Happy WOYWW,