Monday 29 September 2014

Sister Act.

Happy Monday!
I have a layout to share with you today that I loved creating as it came together without a fight! Usually I am shuffling papers and embellishments around on the page trying to get a cohesive design, (sometimes failing completely!) but today's page was a delight from beginning to end!
Of course it helps if you have a great sketch to follow and my layout was based on the September sketch at My Creative Sketches.
Such a pretty and fun sketch!
My girls will smile and have their photo's taken together in selfie's but as soon as I point a camera at them.....there is suddenly a no show on the happy faces! So these days I am getting my best photo's from off their phones!
As usual with a sketch I love I kept basically to the design. 
I even managed to incorporate a PL card in my page design as I have decided that I have too many of them and as I don't actually do PL I need to start trying to use them up!
I had taken just one packet of flowers with me to the crop on Saturday and was surprised when they matched the papers on my layout perfectly!
I don't normally need an excuse to put bunting on my page but when it is on the sketch it becomes a necessity!
Now the deadline for the September sketch challenge at My Creative Sketches is 14th October so there is plenty of time to play along!
The details can be found HERE along with the awesome DT examples. 

Thanks for stopping by today. xx

Sunday 28 September 2014

18 Candles.

What fabulous Autumn weather we are enjoying here in the UK, sunshine and temperatures that reflect Summer - perfect for spending time in the garden tidying for the coming harsh weather that we know will be here sooner rather than later!
I had a lovely day Friday with a dear friend, trying to get a couple of challenges finished before the end of month.
The first one was for Kreative Koncepts September sketch challenge that you can see here.
The page I created features my eldest daughter who celebrated her eighteenth birthday this year! I had three photo's of her blowing out her candles so they were perfect for this challenge.
My circles consist of a mix of drawn and hand stitching.
Lots of fussy cutting of American Crafts papers.
Don't you just love the little strips you get these days on the ends of the papers that either have a pattern or a cute saying like this one. Perfect for a little embellishment that matches your papers without you having to try! A few gold stars scattered around to jazz it up and I was done.

Hope you like my page and I will be back tomorrow with another layout that I finished over the weekend.

Friday 26 September 2014

Anyone For Pie?

Hi and welcome to my little scrapbooking haven. I have been to visit mt dear friend Helen today and among the usual chatting, scrapping and eating we also had our usual friendly challenge to share with each other.
This month's challenge was set by me and it was to include a Pie Chart on your layout.
I had seen a few examples around Pinterest and decided it would make a great challenge as neither of us had scrapped a pie chart on our pages before. 
 Here is my page to start us off, I wanted to scrap this photo of my daughter having a piggy back one evening at a local festival. It was really bad quality, too grainy and the colours are completely off (her wellies are actually bright orange!). But I loved the photo for the fun and uninhibited feel to it.
 Once the pie chart was on the page I wanted to keep the rest quite simple as the photo and pie chart were quite dominant and I liked it that way. Here I cut into the top of a Project Life card and slipped the photo under to create a tab.
 This sweet badge from Sarah's Cards looked cute in the middle of the pie with a die cut flower and some thread.
 Now to Helen's page. She was a bit apprehensive about this challenge to start with but came up trumps with her layout. A very pretty and feminine feel staring her youngest daughter (from many years ago!) and the title is perfect for the photo!
 I love the flower cluster added to the pie chart, some die cut pieces and pre-made flowers with brad centers - delightful.
A cute girly page wouldn't be complete without some butterflies and these little wooden ones are on my shopping list! The heart border was made with some washi tape and Helen's favourite die.

Helen and I are so glad that we have the opportunity to get together and scrap, we love our days together and on Saturday there is an all day crop so we will have the pleasure of each others company again! (She will tire of me soon so I need to make the most of it!!).
Anyway thanks for stopping by and hope you liked our friendly challenge this month. 
Have you made a pie chart page? We would love to see it, so leave a comment with a link if you have and we will pop in, take a peek and say hi back.
Bye for now. xx

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Daddy's Boy.


Everyone seems to be extra busy at the moment, kids are back at school and we are trying to settle into a routine again! We have gardens to prepare for winter, vegetables to crop and for me lots of DIY! But I still find time some evenings to sit down and scrapbook for an hour or so.
I really wanted to have a go at the 12th September sketch-y Friday Challenge at Scrap Much?
Here is the sketch and I still love the sunburst even though it's not so trendy now!

For my take on the sketch I turned it on it's head and added some solid paper as I was using some old paper scraps and didn't have enough of the blue for more rays!
The photo's, as you can probably tell from the title show my hubby with our cat Ginger lording it on his lap! There is a rule in our house that if you have a cat on your lap (we have three cats) someone else has to wait on you so as not to disturb the cat! Unfortunately for me Ginger prefers dad's lap over mine! 

Just a few little embellies to finish off and we are good to go!

Now there is a few days left until this sketch challenge ends so head on over to Scrap Much to see the awesome design teams layouts HERE.
There is another sketch and a colour challenge to play along with too all of which can be found on the Scrap Much Blog HERE.


Tuesday 23 September 2014

Hair Chalks.

Leslie from the Memory Nest has a sweet little sketch posted as a challenge this month so I thought I would play along!
Here is the lovely sketch.
And here is my layout that in the end is very loosely based on the sketch! After I started with my four photo's there really wasn't enough room for the title so I shoved the bottom photo's over and placed 
 it on the horizontal strips. Then it was looking a bit boring so I added some heart paper down one side and moved the star embellishment in the sketch up so that I could add a cluster.
There still needed something else on the layout so I added some bunting for good measure!

In the end my page looks almost nothing like the sketch but hey isn't that the beauty of simple well designed sketches - your own photo's and stash can sometimes take you in a whole new direction!

Leslie would love to have you join in with her sketch challenge which runs until 1st October. All details can be found on her awesome blog The Memory Nest HERE.

Thanks for dropping in. xx


Sunday 21 September 2014

Surprise Sketch!

I don't know if you recall but I was Guest Designer for The Studio Challenges last month and the page that I created for their button challenge was made into a sketch for this month's sketch challenge, which was a total surprise for me! So of course I wanted to have a go at creating another page but make it totally different to the original.
This is a reminder of my page that inspired the sketch.
Here is the sketch that the talented Valerie created from my page - what a great reproduction.
And here is the page I made using the sketch.
As you can see I flipped the sketch to accommodate the portrait photo of my eldest daughter
I also really wanted to use this OLD sheet of Dream Street paper as a background, it was the only sheet in the range that I had and it would certainly give a different 'feel' to the page if I used it.
I needed a large accent piece and my dear friend Jackie came to the rescue with this main flower which I think she said it was from Papermania. I added some more flowers punched from assorted scraps and everything on my page has inked edges which is something I haven't done for years!
My title was made up of these cute banners that were also given by a friend, (thanks Sue).
In place of the buttons were more punched flowers with brads for the center.
I just had to keep the stitched circle the same as I love hand stitching on my pages when I get time!
Well there you are two totally different pages from the same design but which one is your favourite?

I really hope you find the time to play along with the sketch, all the details and the Studio Challenges Design Team's take on it can be found HERE.

Thanks for stopping in and saying hello. 
Until next time. xx

Saturday 20 September 2014

Owen's Little Helpers.

Hi fellow scrappy friends, hope your weekend is going great so far. I have been helping hubby build a partition stud work wall today and although so far it's going ok, there's still a long way to go as we are wall newbies!
So I am having a reprieve from the wood and screws, noise and the dust to share a layout with you that I created for the Stuck 15th September sketch.
Here is the sketch - what a cutie!
My photo's were a bit large for the sketch design so I turned the sketch and then the photo's and title.
Then there still wasn't enough room for the top strip so that got omitted! 
I had an anchor brad that was perfect for this page as Owen was building a sand Titanic. So I added some circular layers and made some little flags from toothpicks and washi/paper strips.
For the circle in the sketch I used a doodle circle that I cut from my Silhouette and placed the start of my title on it.
I couldn't resist adding this lovely August badge from Hey Little Magpie along with some chevron paper.
Well that's it folk's!
Hope you find chance to play with paper and glue in between all those chore's! 
Why not play along with one or both of this month's Stuck Sketches both are open until the end of the month . 
All the details can be found HERE. 
Thanks for stopping by and hopefully I will be back soon!

Monday 15 September 2014

Santa Eularia.

Goodness where is time going! I know I probably say that every month but September just seems to be flying by even quicker. Doesn't seem five minutes since the last time I was here sharing my layout for a Sketch N Scrap challenge!
So here is the last layout sketch for September to tempt you, designed by the lovely Kelly Holifield.
Again I created a double pager with the left hand side using the sketch and then taking some of the elements over to the right.
I increased the number of photo's here on the left hand one and I took the horizontal banners across to join the two pages but the rest is basically the sketch.
The circles, chevrons and stars were used on both sides and I also took the title across both pages.
I enjoyed making this pinwheel out of just six triangles and a button!
I had this Silhouette cut word arrow left over from a previous project but loved how it looked on the large expanse of water in this photo.
I cut the stars from my paper and glitter card scraps.
Hope you liked my page and inspired you to play along with us at Sketch N Scrap this month. 
Hop on over to the Sketch N Scrap blog HERE to see the rest of the DT's takes on this sketch and any of the previous card/layout sketches from earlier in September.

We are so lucky to have a returning sponsor this month, The Robin's Nest is back and offering a $15 gift certificate to their store this month for one randomly drawn winner!!! 
All challenges are open until 30th September.
Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to say Hi!
Kerry. xx



Friday 12 September 2014

Dream Big.

I was doing a bit of tidying up on my computer desktop today and found a layout  that I had not shared with you before!
So as it's been a little quiet here lately I decided there was no time like the present to remedy that.
The photo on this page is of my youngest who would have really loved the icecream in reality! 
I think I made this layout way back in the beginning of the year for a magazine submission for ribbon. But I don't do ribbon (even though I have a large stash of it!!) so I used ric rak instead and I don't think it counted!



A few close up's of various parts of the layout and I used American Crafts (Dear Lizzy) Neopolitan strips to make the background.
 I hope to get on with some more scrapping tonight or I might play with my Silhouette as it's gathering dust, I am usually rushing to finish layouts but as I am ahead of myself with my DT work so I  might plan ahead and cut out several pieces! 
Wishing you a wonderful & relaxing crafty weekend.
xxxxxx


Wednesday 10 September 2014

Can Marca Caves.

I have been busy making cards today! 
Not something I do very often but my stash had reduced to just one! But that is not what I am here to share with you today because the cards are for Sketch N Scrap's celebration of cards in October!
Still with Sketch N Scrap though I have created a double page layout for the Inspired By Challenge.
Lisa created this sketch from a layout by our DT member Wendy.
The left side is my take on the sketch and as you can see that I made a couple of adjustments but the design can still be seen.
A closer look at it and I was really pleased to be able to match all these papers from three different paper lines and paper manufacturer's. I have been setting myself the task of  using up not only old but single sheets of paper! Use it or lose it is in full swing!
As I had added three rows/columns of squares I kept the rest  plain and uncluttered with just a few quotes dotted around and a little bit of bunting.
Here is the right side.
 I followed the squares across and made a simple embellishment to finish.
 I don't normally add pre-made flowers to my pages as I only have a few of them and they are usually not the right colour but I was lucky to find these two that looked nice layered with a pretty button.

 I am sure this sketch has set your mojo raring to go and if you would like to see the rest of the DT takes you just have to pop over to the Sketch N Scrap Blog HERE!
We are so lucky to have a returning sponsor this month, The Robin's Nest is back and offering a $15 gift certificate to their store this month for one randomly drawn winner!!!  

Hope to see your take on this or any of the Sketch N Scrap sketches this month.
Have a wonderful day.
Bye for now. xx