Sweet Child of Mine.

Happy Thursday everyone!
I have been having a lovely time in the garden this week as the weather has been delightfully pleasant, lots of weeding done and I've pottered around tiding my shed, trying to find places for all the gardening paraphernalia that was just thrown in there without any order!
Apart from all the fresh air and general busyness, I also managed to play along with this month's 'Inspired By' Challenge over at Sketch N Scrap, this sketch by Kelly Holifield was inspired by a layout by DT member Surama Carvalho.

The sketch!

Here is my take on the sketch, featuring my middle daughter way back in 2002!

The papers are from the sweet paper line by American Crafts called 'My Girl'.

The heart card is a Simple Stories PL card and I cut part of the heart so that it would go over my photo slightly. 

Right on trend is a doily and hand made crochet flower (not by me though!).

For the confetti in the sketch I stamped lots of little hearts in blue ink.

I really hope you can play along with not only this 'Inspired By' challenge but our other card and layout sketches this month.

This month we have Creative Embellishments as our sponsor!

Thanks for dropping by and hope you are have a great week! 

The Great Descent.

I have managed to squeeze in a layout for the Scrap365 sketch challenge this month, it is only open until 11th April so I was cutting it a bit fine!

Here is the sketch.

And here is the layout I created using the sketch.

During our holiday last year in Ibiza we discovered a great beach but there was a drawback! The climb down! There was a good path but it was so very steep as the beach was below a cliff and whilst the descent was ok as it was early morning and down hill, coming back up in the midday sun was torturous!

I wanted the page to have movement due to the theme of my photo so I added some texture background through a homemade triangle stencil. Then I recreated the chevrons from the top printed cluster using some white card chevrons re-coloured using Promarkers.

Some more chevrons (good job they are trendy!) this time cut from some patterned paper and placed around my title. A smattering of sequins and a couple of labels to finish.

All the details and the awesome DT inspiration can be found on the Scrap365 Blog HERE.

Thank you so much for stopping by today. xx

Summer Bliss.

Scrapbooking trends come and go and we all love to try the new techniques and products to see if they work for our style of crafting. Some products have come along and stayed for the long haul, others have been more short lived, but what is trending at the moment?
Some of my favorites are -
Watercolours,
Texture Paste,
Chevrons,
Masks,
Stitching,
Brush Script,
Washi tape,
and Polaroid style frames.

This month at Challenge YOUrself we are challenging you to scrap about YOURSELF and use at least THREE trending products/techniques on your layout.

Here is my trends layout, and the photo shows me enjoying some relaxation by the pool with my second favorite pastime - reading.

The trendy items on my page are - washi tape, hand stitching, wood veneers and brush script.

I was totally cowardly when it came to the brush script and wrote it onto some cardstock and then cut it out before adding it to my page. I certainly couldn't trust my handwriting enough to brush straight onto my layout!! (It took about a dozen attempts before I was happy with the results!).

With the hard bit out of the way I could relax and enjoy adding the other trendy embellishments. I love these wood veneers stars from Studio Calico.

I don't think washi tape will ever go out of fashion!

Here is a close up of my wibbly wobbly hand stitching!

I know we all have our favorite trends and us girls at Challenge Yourself  would love to see those photo's of the fabulous YOU scrapped with your go-to trends. So please join us this month in front of the lens! 

There is lots more trendy inspiration to be found at the ChallengeYOUrself blog with details of how to play HERE. 

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to get some scrappy time in even with children and hubby home for a fortnight!

Rain Stops Play.

Hello and welcome to my little chunk of blogland where today I have the 1st layout sketch challenge reveal over at Sketch N Scrap to show you.

Here is the sketch - designed by the lovely and talented Lisa Hidy.

Here is my take on Lisa's sketch and it shows my daughter and her friend waiting out the downpour in one of the Disney Parks during our trip to Florida in 2011 (yes I am way behind in my scrapping!).

I had fun punching out these raindrops and then doodling them before adding foam pads to bring them off the page a little.

I love this playful font that I used to cut these letters out with my Silhouette, it's called Boopee.

Of course the rest of the Sketch N Scrap Design Team's layouts can also be seen at the SNS blog HERE. Along with all the details and rules of the challenge.

This month we have Creative Embellishments as our sponsor!

Creative Embellishments is offering one lucky participant a $20 gift certificate to their store!!! 

But remember you can't win if you don't play! 

Hope you can join in with us and I look forward to visiting your little corner of blogland too.

Bye for now and have a wonderful day. xx

Goodbye March.

I have been chasing my tail this month! With the start of Spring I find myself outside more trying to battle the weeds before they take over my garden and allotement compIetely. I have had lots of Birthdays including my eldest daughters 18th this weekend and just the little everyday stuff seems to take longer (or I'm getting slower!).
I haven't managed to get much scrapbooking done this month but I have made a few cards, so I thought I would share them with you as my blog seems a bit neglected these days!

I got the tutorial to make this 3D card from the very talented Therese at Lost in Paper.

The tutorial can be found HERE.

A card for a teenage boy using the #22 card sketch from Sketch N Scrap.

The Mothers Day card I made for the best mum in the world.

I had enough papers to make two cards, so this will go into my card box for another Birthday.

Lastly the card I made for my daughters 18th Birthday - a mason jar shaker card. 

Lots of fun to make!

For the free printable mason jars that I used on this card visit the Graphics Fairy HERE.

Well that's it Folks! I hope you liked my cards and found the links helpful, I will be back tomorrow with a page for the 1st April reveal at Sketch N Scrap.

Until then have a fabulous Monday. xx

Celebrate.

It's celebration time over at the Scrap Our Stash blog this month as it's our Birthday month! There are challenges galore and plenty of inspiration to get you up and running.
It's my turn to kick start today's challenge which is to use mini bags on your page.

I used a Birthday photo for my project in keeping with this months theme.

My layout has lots of pretty tags and three of them are inside mini glasine bags, one of which holds my journaling.

You can see the first glasine bag here with the red check tag inside and decorated with washi and paper embellies.

Number two is tucked behind the top corner of the photo.

Number three at the bottom has the journal tag inside.

Lots of cute bows and some mother of pearl sequins give this page a real girly feel, just right for my mum's Birthday page.

I hope you can join me in this challenge. All the details of this and the rest of the challenges so far hop on over to the Scrap Our Stash Blog HERE.

So glad you stopped by. xx

Altogether Now!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend, I spent the whole day on Saturday at a crop I organised in Bradfield. The sun was shining and I was spending hours with my dear scrappy friends, doing what we all love - playing with paper and glue!
Amongst the pages I got finished was a layout created for Scrapology's March Scraplift Challenge.

Here is the sketch.

I replaced one large photo for two smaller ones of my girls and their friends jumping altogether into the pool one evening. Although the bottom photo is a bit blurry it shows the movement of the kids jumping which is an effect I like to show.

The sketch had a ribbon ruffle but instead I pleated a paper strip and added it to the bottom of the photo's.

I managed to borrow a palm tree die and it was just what I needed to finish off the sunny holiday page.

Scrapology's March Challenge runs until the end of the month and all details and the original layout that inspired the sketch can be found HERE.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week. xx