Friendly Challenge.

My dear friend Helen and I got together Friday and we had all day (well until school run time!) to craft and chat. We also had a little show and tell of our friendly challenge that we always set each other and this time it was to focus on the colour yellow.

 

Lets start off with my page and the photo I found was perfect for this challenge with the bright yellow and red. It is showing my youngest daughter from about ten years ago!

 

 

I fussy cut the flowers out and layered them up for some dimension.

 

The tiny little yellow spots are dimensional paint that I have had for a few years (I am really trying hard to use some of my older stash!).

 

Helen has outdone me by producing a double page! What a great layout with lots of Disney characters giving hugs and autographs to Helens two girls.

 

 

Don't you just love the Mickey heads? They are made with a brad and card covered in washi tape punched out to fit inside. Awesome!

 

More awesomeness at the bottom of the 2nd page where she die-cut the washi/card with a heart die for a border. Loving those black scalloped circles too.

 

Have you seen those starter magazine kits where they offer the first issue for a really low price in order to encourage you to continue (for a really high price)?

Now if you have a friend that you can challenge (or a crafty family member) these first magazine issues can be a great idea if you can use them for scrapping.

Helen found just such a 1st issue for our next challenge.

 

 

Here is a photo of the Magazine/starter kit that we have to use next, it's a sewing one with fabric and embroidery silks. I think the idea is to build up your collection of fabrics that they have in each issue to make a quilt.

 

Here is the part of the kit Helen and I are most interested in. As you can see there is quite an interesting selection of fabrics we will have to work with and it will be great to see how each of us use them on our layouts.

If you have challenged someone to scrap, what sort of ideas have you come up with? If you haven't played, why not? It's great fun and any excuse to get together with a crafty friend!

Thanks for popping in and wish you a great week ahead. xx

PINK!

Hi crafty friends hope your weekend is ticking along nicely. The weather in the UK is super! with sunshine a cool breeze and warm temperatures. I have just popped back in from the garden to post a layout that I finished yesterday whilst round my crafty friend Helens home.

 

I found the quote that I used as a title on the web (amazing place!) and I realised I had the perfect photos of my middle girl who has got so much attitude and always has even from a two year old!

 

I had to cut the photo's down as there was a lot of 'noise' in the background but that's ok as I could then enter this page in to a challenge that required photo sizes other than 6x4.

 

 

First I started off with some homemade texture paste applied through a Crafters Workshop template and then sprayed some of Helens bright pink Shimmer Mist over it.

 

I also borrowed Helens Sizzix dies to cut my title from black glitter card. The added hearts are from a pack I purchased from Paperchase a while back.

 

The felt flowers are from The Works, great value at only £1 a pack!

 

Once again Helen came up trumps with the black circle that was leftover from a previous project of hers and some chevron pink washi tape that was the perfect colour for my pink page.

 

All in all a very frugal page thanks' to my dear friend Helen and her stash!

 

The page is going to be entered into two challenges (not something I usually do but it worked out that way!).

 

About A Girl 1st September Challenge - Black, White and one other colour.

 

Merly Impressions September challenge - Non use of 6x4 photo's.

 

 

Thanks ever so much for stopping by and hopefully I will be back tomorrow with the results of the friendly challenge between myself and Helen.

 

Bye for now. xx

 

Scrap Our Stash Blog Hop.

Welcome to Scrap Our Stash ABC ~123 Blog Hop

You should have arrived here from Lee-Anne's
 blog.   If not, click HERE and head back to the beginning of the hop.   You will not want to miss any of the designer’s awesome inspiration and/or the details on how to enter into the SOS prize drawings!  

The design team was challenged to create a layout inspired by our choice of one of three sketches and our choice of alphas (stash items) to include on our layouts.

Here is my layout inspired by Sketch #3 and using stash items: (Q & R) Quote and Rub-ons.
                                                                      

 

I turned my sketch clockwise to accommodate the photo of my cousin and me at a family party earlier this year.

The quote I have used is - A Cousin is a little bit of childhood that can never be lost.

Most of the quote is made up of rub-ons so I killed two birds with one stone by using both my stash letters!

 

Now there are several ways of using rub-on's, here I have put a large flower cluster of rub-on's onto cardstock, cut around it and mounted it on dimensional foam. I have also added a brad to the large flower to dress it up a bit.

 

You can add rub-on's to other embellishments, here I stitched a flower and used a mounted rub-on as the centre, again with another brad.

 

 

And of course you can add the rub-on's straight to your page!!

 

 

Did you notice my stitched circles that enclose my quote? Whilst I was stitching them I added some buttons along the way.

 

And here is the sketch:

 

To thank their followers and show their appreciation for the support and participation in the hop, Scrap Our Stash will be awarding two prizes for hop participants!!!

Here are the details: 

For the first prize drawing you must:  Visit each of our designer’s blogs and leave a comment.  Once you have completed the hop, return to the SOS Blog and leave a comment letting them know you have completed the hop.  You will have until Sunday, September 29, 2013 ~ 11:59 PM (PST) to leave a comment and your name will be entered to win the following prize: 

Complete the ABC ~ 123 Blog Hop Challenge and link it up on the SOS Blog, no later than Friday, October 4, 2013 ~ 11:59 PM (PST) and your name will be entered to win this Grand Prize Package:

Challenge details and rules can be found HERE! 

 As a little extra for MY blog followers I have a prize to offer in addition to the one offered by Scrap Our Stash and that is a pack of rub-on's (Sizzix  calendar icons).

 

I am trying to keep it small so I can still send it to the winner if they live abroad without breaking my bank account!!

So if you would like to enter the draw for this prize you will need to become a follower (if you are not already) AND when you leave a comment for the blog hop just mention that you have become a follower of my blog (or are a follower) and I will enter you into the draw at the end of the blog hop on September 29th.

 

Thank you for visiting my blog and hopping along with us!  

Your next stop on the blog is: Jenni 

Here is the list of blog hop participants:

Dulcinea

Joefil 

Robin  

Patricia 

Elizabeth 

Lindsey 

Lee-Anne 

Kerry 

Jenni 

Manda 

Kelly 

Carol 

GDT Megan

Rochelle 

Brenda 

Scrap Our Stash

Scrap Our Stash - Explore the Shore.

It's my turn to reveal my layout for this months sketch over at Scrap Our Stash and what a great sketch it is!

 

Along with the sketch the stash item to use is chipboard.

 

 

....and here is my layout. I'm sure you can see that I changed the background so that it looked like sunrays to go with my beach photo's. I hand stitched using some ombre silk and incorporated some clouds as per the sketch.

The chipboard I used is from a set by Fancy Pants called 'the little things' and I picked some stars that I put down on the journaling circle.

 

I also put some little hearts from the same set in the clouds.

 

I recently purchased some My Minds Eye twine called 'Ginger' which was the perfect colour to co-ordinate with the papers.

 

I know you are itching to get started on your page so if you need any more details of the challenges this month over at Scrap Our Stash you can find them all HERE.

 

Don't forget that we are having a blog hop too this month, starting this Friday so make sure you head over to the Scrap Our Stash blog  and join in the fun and there are of course prizes up for grabs!!

Thanks for visiting and have a lovely day whatever you are up to. xx

 

 

A Card and an Announcement.

Hello fellow crafters, hope you all had a fabulous weekend and to start the week off I have a card to share with you that I made using the sketch #10 at Sketch N Scrap.

Here is the sketch by Lisa Hidy.

 

 

...and here is my take on the sketch.

Slightly changed some of the elements of the sketch but I think you can still see it in my design!

It's also the first shaker card I have ever made! Have you ever made a shaker card before? I found it a bit fiddly but the effect impressed my youngest daughter!! (not hard to do by the way!).

 

Ok now it's your turn to have a go! HERE is the details.

 

Oh yes the announcement!

 

Next month over at Sketch N Scrap we will be having a 'Holiday Blog Hop' starting on October 21st so make sure you make a note in your diary and join in the fun!

 

 

 

 

A Bit Carried Away But......

Ok I have been loving my watercolour box more and more these days and I got a bit carried away with the sketch challenge at Sarah's Cards but I LOVE the result. Does that mean I am changing my style? Probably not, it just means that occasionally I have lots of fun with messy stuff... it's all good!

Anyway here is the sketch challenge for this month at Sarah's Cards.

 

   As you can see there is lots of lovely 'white' space and I am loving the sweep of those stars.

 

As my photo and the title required something with a bit of an attitude I decided I would not make my layout too girly so I started off with some texture paste and lots of paint splats using several colours.

I messed up the papers under the photo with the paint too and as is usually the case the piece of chevron die-cut paper at the back got almost covered up by the time I finished with the other elements!!

 

Instead of stars I added some gold sequins to go with my glittery title.

 

Gold glitter title, yum!

 

I fussy cut some flowers from some patterned paper (like I do) and added them where the tag is on the sketch. By the time I had finished my page is was looking a lot more girly than I intended but that's the way a page evolves sometimes isn't it?

 

I know you love this sketch too so why not join in the fun and have a go at creating a page and enter the challenge.

All the details are HERE.

 

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend whatever you are up too.

 

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

 

 

Boy Meets Girl Challenge Blog.

Have you heard of 'About A Girl' or 'About A Boy' Challenge blogs? Well the owner of both, Brenshevia is combining the blogs into one new one called 'Boy Meets Girl', (a fabulous new name!).

I am here to share the link to the new blog and I hope you will join me and be a follower. The first challenge on 'Boy Meets Girl' will be on 1st October and will be for boy layouts. Girls will be on 15th and each challenge will run for two weeks.
All the details can be found HERE.

Happy Scrapping. xx

Summers Day Fun, Sketch N Scrap Reveal.

Hey there crafty friends I have a layout to share with you today that I made for the second sketch reveal over at Sketch N Scrap.

 

This the sketch by Kelly and what a fabulous design!

 

 

Here is my take on Kelly's sketch and to start off with I used a homemade circle mask to apply some pink mist to the page to represent the marshmallows. Then because I wanted the circles to stand out a little more I doodled around a few of them.

 

 

I used washi tape to represent the chevrons on the sketch.

 

The beautiful butterflies were cut from some American Crafts paper that I have had in my stash for years and every now and then I cut a few more out! As you can imagine that sheet of 12x12 now looks a lot like Swiss cheese!!

Ok now it's your turn to head on over to Sketch N Scrap blog to check out the other designers fab creations and to have a go at this challenge. Don't forget we have been sponsored this month by The Memory Nest who are offering a gift certificate for their store!

For all the details of this challenge and the previous sketch challenges for this month just click HERE.
Look forward to seeing your entries. xx

 

Happy Birthday Card.

I have a card to share with you today that I made using the current card sketch over at Sketch N Scrap.

 

Designed by Kelly Holifield this sketch is #9 and is the first of the card sketch challenges over at SNS for October.

 

Here is my card using the sketch and as you can see I turned the sketch on it's head.

The card was made for one of my husbands aunts and was made using scraps leftover from one of my scrapbook pages.

 

 

Instead of ribbon I used twine and the sentiment is a rub-on.

 

I have some lovely butterfly images that I sourced from a children's colouring website, resized in Word and printed out on sheets of cardstock for me to colour in!

Hope you like my card and don't forget to head on over to the Sketch N Scrap blog to have a go at this sketch and the layout one too! HERE is the link.
Have a great day. xx

 

Row, Row, Row Your Boat.

My layout is up at Scrap Our Stash for this months first challenge which is to scrap using a travel theme.

Stash Challenge #7

Create a TRAVEL THEMED LAYOUT

AND... you must include the following STASH items:

At least one of the following premade embellishments: 

airplane, train, bus, car, motorcyle, bike, or boat. 

AND that's not all...

you must also include a travel signage embellishment.

 

 

Here is my page which was really fun to create as I thought I would arrange the lyrics to the song around the page and used the first and last lines as my title.

The photo's are of my children and their friends rowing about in a local estuary, they all had a great time as none of them were proficient at rowing and they were going round in circles most of the time! 

 

 

I added a couple of wooden boats which I had coloured green with Promarkers and found lots of boating signage on Google images to make the embellies around my page.

I'm sure you have all travelled by some means at some point and now is your chance to scrap those photo's for your chance to win a great crafty prize.
For the details of the challenges and prize over at Scrap Our Stash for September just click HERE.

Thanks so much for dropping by. xx

 

 

Demi's 1st Forage. With Sketch N Scrap #40.

This is definitely not my favourite month of the year, the children go back to school which signals the start of Autumn, (which leads to Winter, Brrrr!) it's my Birthday month which means I'm another year older!!! Then of course it's the month the shops start to stock Christmas products and I start to panic over what I will get everyone!
But all clouds have a silver lining and today is the reveal of this month's first layout sketch (# 40) at Sketch N Scrap, we do so love a new sketch and it's another chance to put our creative fingers to good use!

 

Now Lisa has been particularly creative and has come up with a sketch to really get you excited!

 

I have to be honest and say that when I first laid eyes on this sketch I was a little concerned about the complexity of it, BUT when I started to select my photo's and paper I realised that there is nothing complicated about the sketch at all and I can hand on heart say it's one of the most enjoyable sketches I have worked with. 

 

 

I found a sheet of Pebbles paper that was perfect for the colours in one my photo's and has some pretty flowers on it to give it a feminine feel. The photo's show our kitten Demi exploring the garden for the first time and luckily I could crop them to fit in with the sketch.

 

 

 I only had four photo's to play with so I replaced the fifth one with a journaling circle. We are totally flexible with the sketch's interpretation!

 

I have had these blue flowers in my stash for longer than I care to remember and as I am on an old stash busting drive at the moment I decided it was high time I found a use for them. A few stickers and punched leaves and I was happy with my page.

We would dearly love for you to join us with sketch #40 and there is a fantastic prize up for grabs too. So for the details of what you could win, the rules for playing along and of course the rest of the DT's layouts just swing over to the Sketch N Scrap Blog HERE.
See you there!