Fun Lunch.

I couldn't resist playing along with this months challenge over at  Sassy Scrappers, this beautiful mood board that feels so soft and calm.  

I came across this spotty paper which was part of Heidi Swapp's Serendipity line and it reminded me of  the pots of paint in the mood board. Then I added a blue background and some other pastel papers with a touch of gold in the form of stripey washi tape.

The photo is of us on holiday in Disneyland Paris last year enjoying a last lunch before the long drive home. It ended up being the best meal we had there, with great food and good laughs.

I love the look of thread on layouts so I gathered some behind my fussy cut flowers.

Another little touch of gold in the form of this heart simply punched from some card and added to the cluster by the PL card.

This beautiful mood board challenge runs until the end of the month so you still have a few days to play along.

All the details and the awesome DT examples can be found on the Sassy Scrappers Blog HERE.

Thanks for visiting with me today and enjoy the rest of your weekend. xx

Monumental French Icon.

Hello and welcome to my blog.

I'm finding blogland a tad quiet at the moment, not as much scrapping going on around the world. Perhaps like me you are all busy with the jobs in the garden now that Spring has sprung.

I squeezed in a day crop last weekend and managed to play along with 123 Get Scrappy this month.

Here is the challenge for April.

I chose the diagonal option of clouds, zig zags and wood element. 

Here is my layout using various Teresa Collins papers. 

We visited Paris last summer and it was the first time any of us had seen the Eiffel Tower up close and personal. We didn't manage to go up as the queue's were hours long and as we were just there for the day we decided to sight see a bit more.

This close up incorporates all the elements I chose from the challenge. The clouds are in my photo, I used zig zag paper and for the wood element I used a cute frame and wooden letters for part of my title.

I added a little wooden frame near the bottom of my layout too.

 Just one more close -up.

This wonderful challenge at 123 Get Scrappy runs until the end of April, so still a few days to get your scrap on and play along.

Thanks for taking time out to visit with me today.

Have a great week. xx

But First........

The layout I am sharing with you today was based on a sketch over at The Memory Nest where Leslie sets challenges called Make It Monday. 

The one I used was number 37.

Here is the sketch and I used it to make the first page of a double pager, I also turned it to accommodate my photo's.

Here is my layout, I had lots of great selfie's that my daughters and their friends took in Paris last summer.

For my title I used the words from the song by The Chainsmokers called #Selfie, which I'm sure you have all heard of! The girls took forever standing with the Eiffel Tower behind them taking photo's!

I used these beautiful Teresa Collins papers that I adore and as I have bought several of this flowery one I thought I would indulge myself and use a big chunk down the side! Normally I would only use these sorts of papers for fussy cutting, I don't know what came over me!! 

I have a mask that was cut using my Silhouette that I thought would be perfect for the background as reminds me of the Eiffel Towers structure.

Here is a close up of the masking, I wanted it quite subtle so used a Mr Hueys mist called Splash that matched the blue paper.

 My title was made up with a combination of Thickers and Sizzix die. 

This lovely tag was on one of the patterned papers and the thin strip at the bottom was part of the cut off strip (waste not!).

This challenge runs until 1st May and there is another awesome sketch Leslie has posted this week too. So head on over to The Memory Nest blog HERE for more details, 

Thanks for stopping by. xx

Love This.

I had great plans to scrap until I dropped this month but here we are way past the middle of the month and I am just getting started on some of the challenges I wanted to enter!

Luckily I had a day crop organised this past Saturday so I did manage to make a start on my challenge list. 

Stuck's first sketch challenge of the month is where I started with my scrapping and due to the photo I changed the orientation of the sketch.

Here is my take on the sketch which I kept to almost exactly, but when it's a great sketch I usually do. I played around with some new masks that I bought this month, getting messy with ink in different ways.

I love this photo of me posing with my youngest daughter with my eldest daughter photo bombing in the background!

A close-up of the top cluster.

I am always a bit nervous about using masks (doesn't stop me buying them though!) the results can't always be predicted especially when using mists as well. 

With this Tim Holtz mask I used a Distress Stain which ran a little under the mask, the edges are less sharp than they would have been using mists but by the time I splatted, inked and stamped over the rest of the page I quite liked the less formal effect.

Thanks for stopping by today and if you want to play along with this challenge you have until 29th April to link your layout on the Stuck blog HERE.

Toodles. xx

Birth of a Dragonfly.

I am always in awe of Mother Nature, Spring brings new life and new beginnings for my garden and it's wildlife. I love seeing the new shoots push out of the ground and seemingly dead shrubs producing vibrant green shoots and leaves!
We have a very small pond in our garden and it was teaming with life just a few short month's after we built it a couple of years ago. Last year though we couldn't understand why our tadpoles were going missing, we ended up with no little froglets at all.
Then one summer evening I spotted the ugliest, huge bug I have ever seen clinging onto one of the pond iris stems. Fascinated by the creature I called my hubby and girls out to see it too and as we stood wondering what it was the body started to split open!
The ugly bug turned out to be a dragonfly larvae and over the next couple of hours we were spellbound into watching the new dragonfly come to life!  

As it's mid-month we have a new challenge reveal for you over at Sketch N Scrap and I used the sketch to scrap (some of!) the photo's I took of the dragonfly emerging.

Today's sketch comes courtesy of Kelly Holifield. 

Of course I needed to spread the photo's over two pages so I adapted the sketch to make a double-pager. The right hand side is based on the sketch.

Here is the right side on it's own. As you can see from the photo's the dragonfly is so much larger than the larvae shell that it's amazing to think that it was squashed up inside!

The left side and the first photo shows the head emerging as the shell splits open!

These Thickers worked perfectly for the effect I was after with the title.

I kept the page very simple as the photo's are quite detailed, with just a few paint splats and a couple of understated clusters.

From just the larvae that we counted we estimated we had more than fifteen in the pond feeding on our poor little tadpoles. No wonder we had no survivors! 

I wonder what will become of them this year!

I hope you enjoyed my little story today,

Don't forget to play along with us at Sketch N Scrap.

All the details can be found on the Sketch N Scrap blog HERE.

Sketch N Scrap is so excited to announce their THIRD annual Birthday Bash beginning May 1st! There will be lots of fun challenges, lots of inspiration and best of all LOTS of prizes!!!!  

So make sure and join Sketch N Scrap everyday in May and be ready to be inspired!!!

Take A Nap!

Finally winter is officially over in the UK and we are all enjoying going outside without bundling up in coats and gloves!

With Spring comes the flurry of pretty flowers and the rushing around of small critters.

Except in our house!

My cats have decided that the appearance of the sun just means basking in the warmth, no rushing needed!

The Studio Challenges have a photo prompt challenge this month and it is so pretty I couldn't help but play along!

Here are all three of my kitties enjoying the sunshine in a way that involves not moving much!

I used all American Crafts papers, I couldn't resist using the cute cloud paper as my background.

I have a birdhouse cut file & I had already cut some out  in white so I just re-coloured one to co-ordinate.

I placed my title on a Project Life card.

This tag needed some TLC so I stitched a heart on it and then added a couple of banners and some flowers. The bunting was cut from a sheet of patterned paper.

I have entered by the skin of my teeth but if you are quick there are still a few hours left to play.

The Studio Challenges blog can be found HERE.

Thanks for dropping in.

Hugs. xx

Posh Kitty.

Hello again friends and fellow scrappers, today I have a layout to share that I created for Sketch N Scraps Twistback Thursday Challenge.

It was my turn to choose the challenge for April so for the sketch I traveled back in time to 2012 to find a sketch from before I was on the design team thus had not worked before.

For the Twist I decided that the sketch called out for a creative background so I chose to include masking.

Here is the Twistback Thursday sketch for April, originally from 2012 and design by Lisa Hidy.

This is my mask and you would be correct in thinking it looks like the waste from some lettering! I try to re-use everything I can for another purpose so I had kept the waste from some lettering that I cut using my Silhouette. I had tucked it in with my other purchased masks and when I came across it I thought it was time to give it a second life! 

I usually shy away from masks and sprays because I can never control the outcome (Wendy I am thinking of you as I type!!) but for once I got the effect I was after! I am sure you can all recognise our cat Ginger in the photo's, all dressed up to impress the ladies! 

Keeping it simple for a masculine page (what, no fussy cut flowers I hear you ask!).

I re-coloured these wooden hearts to co-ordinate with the papers.

I hope I have inspired you to play along with us this month with my Twistback Thursday challenge and of course there is a plethora of inspiration to be found on the Sketch N Scrap blog from the other fabulous Design Team gals. Head on over HERE.

Thanks for popping in and see you soon.

Hugs

Kerry. xx

A couple of cards for a change.

Hi there crafty friends, so sorry I have been M.I.A. lately but I have completely lost my mojo!

It happens to all of us at one time or other and it seems to be my turn!

So for a change I have a couple of cards to share with you that I made a while ago.

This first one was made for the 5th April card sketch reveal over at Sketch N Scrap.

I had some birthday paper that was crying out to be fussy cut, so I did just that with the presents on the card. The stars are actually little wooden ones but I coloured them in red with Sharpies.

A quick close-up of the top corner with the sentiment on a banner.

Here is the sketch that we at Sketch N Scrap would love for you to play along with.

For more details and for inspiration from the DT head on over to the SNS blog HERE.

My other card was made for my eldest daughters birthday last month, as she is now 19 I thought a pretty feminine card was is order. I have a die that cuts the chevron background and I added some gold accents as I was feeling trendy!

Here is a close-up of the  fussy cut flowers (is there any other kind?)!

Nothing makes me happier than cutting out flowers to use on my layouts and cards, a really good job that I have three girls to scrap!!

Well, I thank you so much for stopping by and hopefully my mojo will return very soon.

Hugs. xx

Indulgent Ice Cream.

I was asked to be April's guest designer over at Amanda's Scrapbook Pages.

This month she is challenging you to scraplift one of her previous double pages.

Here is Amanda's page.

Amanda had sent me a beautiful prize for winning her scraplift in February so I decided that the 6x6 papers would be perfect to use for the grid pattern on the April scraplift.

Here is my double page. Although the grid background design was kept, my photo's were not the same in number and orientation as Amanda's so I just let my photo's dictate the rest of my design.

All the photo's are from a visit to a ice cream parlor in the beautiful French town of Annecey during last years family holiday. 

I utilised one of the doilies to mount my title on and placed the photo's of the five of us on this first page. 

Just two more photo's on the right side but also a journaling card and a little card (cut in two) from the ice cream parlor.

A embellishment cluster on the first page.

Amanda had sent me everything I needed in the page kit to make this double page, including the blue washi tape, the pearls and the flowers, I did sneak in some fussy cut flowers that I cut from one of the 6x6 papers though because you know me I just can't help myself !

Last little photo.

I hope you will join Amanda and me in this month's scraplift challenge.

For all the details go to Amanda's blog HERE.

 Happy scrappy day to you. xx