August Week 5 - Job Done!

Well I have done it. I am very pleased with myself. I didnt think I would manage to do all the weekly UKS challenges in August especially when I discovered there were five.

My teamies and I will do it again next month I think as I know that in between crops I am very bad at scrapping at home on my own and this gave me the incentive to have a go. I am actually pleased with my layouts as well which is a change as I refuse to do the challenges just for the points whether I like the layouts or not.

Here is mine for Week 5. Picture is of my Mum and Dad and the beach at Low Newton by the Sea in Northumberland - taken this summer on a beautiful day which is why they are squinting into the sunshine. I used some of the Sassafrass Lass Sunshine Broadcast papers and a journalling spot from my July Quirky kit. I love the long title. The challenge included a great sketch from Page maps which helped.

I might re-take the photo as it is not a good one and doesnt show up the colours properly.

Now I can get back to my Create 10 mini book - Tonight I will do the pages for today and yesterday.

Create 10 - Day 1

I have signed up for my second class at Crafty Templates. This one is Create 10 a mixed up mini. It great value. For £5.00 you are emailed every day and over the course of the class you will end up with a fab mini book to store 6 x 4 photos. I bought some bits and pieces from Leo's supply list and for others I am making do with what I have. I think it will be fascinating to see how everybody's books look at the end. Yesterday was the first prompt but as I was cropping all day I had to make my book up in the evening.

I have finally decided that I am going to use it for some of the surplus piccies of Beadnell and Northumberland which I havent scrapped. So I will need to pop into Boots and get them printed off.

Here it is. I am pleased with it so far and am waiting with baited breath for today's prompt which I will do when I get home from work tonight

Happy Bank Holiday to all my English friends. Its a normal working day here in Scotland

4 Down, 1 To Go!!

Well I am amazed at myself for reaching Week 4 of managing to do the UKS weekly challenges. I think I should set myself this challenge more often.

This week the theme was "home" whether it be real/fantasy etc, use a trio of something, your favourite colour and a list.

This is my layout. I called it Fantasy Home by the Sea. The photos are of Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland - Oh how wonderful it would be to live there. My list gives the reasons I would love to live there, 1. Fanatastic Architecture, 2. The beach as my back garden, 3. A magnificent view of the village from my front window and 4. Queen of all I survey.

I used craft card as the base and inked all round the edges. I used a piece from the sheet of Sassafrass Lass Sunshine Broadcase from my Quirky kit - I loved the soft inked effect it already had. The yellow paper is a sheet from the Pink Paislee Sweetness line, the Photos are various shots from the Castle taken one very sunny day. I used my torn notebook punch for the list and the yellow sheet and decorated the paperclip with a wee flag. Finally for my trio I added a bunch of three keys - to represent the keys to the Castle! Well a girl can always dream.

One more to go next week to be set by Fiona (Angelfish) team on Scrappers - I hope she has picked an easy one.

A Fabby Scrappy Weekend

Well I had a fantastic weekend due to the fact that my scrapping friend Heather came to stay. We did nothing but chat, laugh, eat and drink plenty of the pink stuff which obviously oiled the wheels of creativity somewhat as we both managed to do six layouts each and I started on a seventh.

I took Heather along to the East Kilbride crop on Saturday. It was our third one and the busiest so far with 24 ladies in attendance. The new tables we bought were certainly put to good use.

We also indulged in a small spot of craft shopping on Sunday at one of my fairly local craft shops, Craft World in Hillington and thanks to a spend by both of us I filled up a loyalty card and treated myself to two nestability dies - one was all fab file tabs in different shapes and sizes and the other one had a fab border, some corners, blooms and plaques - I can see myself getting plenty use out of both of them. Heather got in a bit of practise with the border one on a couple of her layouts.

I wont bore you with all the layouts at once and one I have to keep under wraps for now as it is for my Sketch and Scrap Group and I have to wait until the end of the month.

This first one is of my daughter and I. Fiona is a natural blonde but thought it would be a good idea to dye her lovely hair dark brown a couple of years ago. She didnt suit it at all as her skin is too pale. Thankfully she is now back to her beautiful blonde self. My hair used to be blonde but is now almost grey/white and relies on some Nice and Easy to keep it blonde. The hidden journalling tells this story and the title reflects this.

The second one is of my son and daughter last year at my nephews 18th birthday party. I love this photo of them. The layout is a simple one and I didnt want too girly an embellishment for this. One of the lovely ladies at my crop had brought some embellishments back from the States and worked out that we could make these for ourselves so I did. I think its a simple but effective little embellishment and I can see myself making more of these in the future. Basically its just two strips of patterned papers with a V cut into each end - crossed over and stuck together with a piece of material gathered in the middle and frayed at the edges stuck on to the strips and finished off with a punched out circle in patterned paper inked at the edges.

Continuing the August Weekly challenge

Well Week 3 and I have managed to compete another weekly challenge. This one was to use black, scrap a celebration and use something Free.  I have had this photo of my Great Grampas 90th birthday party waiting to be scrapped for a while and thought it would be perfect for this challenge.  I used papers from the Crate paper Portrait range qnd my freebie was the frame as it was the waste left from when my friend Heather cut out a shape to use on another layout. The picture shows my great grampa surrounded by his daughters Who are my Gran and my Great Aunts.

Well 3 down, 2 to go and so far Lisa, Sandra and I are keeping it up.

August Weekly Challenges

Well I have a little challenge going with myself, Lisa and Sandra on UKS that we can do all of the weekly challenges in August!

So far so good as I did Week 1 whilst I was at the caravan. A layout of my daughter's friend Jade for her album I am making for her 18th birthday

This week's challenge looked a bit trickier, multiple photos and a sketch which I loved but which had loads of elements to it. I decided that the grid like pattern on it would look good sewed but as I havent yet learned to thread up or work my mini sewing machine I had to do it by hand. Blooming heck that took a while and was tricky at night in low light. However I got it finished. I also did a wee bit of sewing accross the middle and again it was tough to sew through cardstock, patterned paper, foam pads and photos. I am pleased with the results.

Just need to hope now that the next couple of weeks challenges are doable as I am on a roll. I know Lisa has done the first two weeks so its over to Sandra now lol.

Take One Sketch CJ - First Round

I blogged my own cj for the Take One Sketch CJ a few posts back. The first cj I have received is Netty B's. It's the smallest cj I have done as it is a lovely tag book. Netty's own entry was absolutely fab. I have never done even a tag swap before so this one was a bit daunting.

I had to the follow the sketch set by Netty and this is the result.

I had just bought the tatty button stamp and thought this would be ideal for its first use. I inked some butterflies on the background using a mask made by punching out a butterfly shape. I ripped the edges of the paper and finally coloured and mounted the stamp adding a real wee button where the button was situated on the stamp. A wee touch of stickles was added but this hasnt shown up too well in the photo.

I glimmer misted some flowers and added them along with a wee length of pom pom trim to the bottom

I really hope she likes it

Holiday Crafting Part 3

I think being away from work and at the moment being away from home has been good for me.

I have been feeling much more creative and its a pity that just as I am getting into my stride I will likely have to stop. Mum and Dad are coming back to the caravan today so I will need to pack up the craft stuff for now. Might managed to sneak enough of it back out to finish a mini book I feel I have been working on forever.

I have two more layouts today

The first one funnily enough is a pic of myself and DS and DD when they were both small sitting in the sun outside this very same caravan. We are whiling away a sunny afternoon painting on stones collected from the beach. Funny how something as simple as that can keep kids amused for hours. We had a fun time and I think my Mum still has some of the painted stones kicking around the caravan somewhere. The papers are MME Lime Twist from a recent Gottacraft kit.

The next one is of my UKS friend Heather the first time she came to visit m. We went for a pub lunch and she couldnt resist this lovely caramel sundae. I had to take a picture and it has been needing scrapped for a while. I used the rest of my Cosmo Cricket circa 1934 papers I got in a kit from Sam Taylors as I thought the colurs matched the photo well.

Holiday Crafting Part 2

Hi there. I continue to be a bit more creative and also have more time on my hands to blog than when I am at home and working

This layout was for the weekly challenge on UKS last week. I used what was left of my Echo Park For the Record papers from a past Gottacraft kit. I think thats my favourite Echo Park range so far although once I see Victoria Garden in the flesh then I might change my mind. The photo is of my Mum, Dad and Gran when we were on holiday in Northumberland when I was small. I think they were sitting against the harbour wall at Seahouses. When you see the photo close up you will be struck by the happy (not) expressions on their faces. In fact my Mother looks most grim which was not like her at all. I have hidden the journalling in the little envelope on the right hand side which I covered with two different papers and made a wee closure from brads and bakers twine. I used one of those manilla dinner money envelopes I got in a pound shop. I am hoping this layout will count as "postal themed" and go on Julie Kirk's pinterest board along with my sketch cj made from envelopes. If you want to know what I am talking about then visit Julie's fab blog here

Anyway here is the layout. The black and the yellow scroll shape were made by cutting a wee Tando Creative shape in half and painting it. I got the pack of these shapes from Angela at Angel Crafts

Sketch and Scrap July

This is my second month on the Sketch and Scrap Group on UKS run by my teamie Lisa (3 Peaches). This month Heather put up the sketch and this is my take on it.

The photo is of Fiona my daughter and her friend Stephanie when I took them to the caravan in the summer of 2008. The pic was taken on the beach at Bamburgh. The photo mat was sprayed with teal glimmer mist although the photo doesnt show it very well. I am becoming addicted to these sprays which I have been buying from Angela at Angel Crafts. I cut the wee bunting pieces from a border from papers from the Crate Paper Emmas shop range from a kit by Sandra at Gottacraft. I painted the chipboard shape and again sprayed with glimmer mist, I thought it looked a bit like a piece of seaweed. I really like the beachy look of this layout with the kraft card as the base. I am even getting braver with the doodling round the edge courtesy of the fine nibs for promarkers which are fab

First layout from my first Quirky Kit

Well i managed my first layout from my very first Quirky kit.

I did the layout at the holystone crop yestetday.  I made the floqer using the strip from the sassafrass paper.  I specially like the little seaside rock badge.

The photos are ones of me taken on the beach at my beloved Beadnell when i was just a little girl.  My num, dad,aunt and uncle are also in the photos. 

I just love this kit and will be playing with it again this week.