Scrap Map

It's time for the new Scrap Map challenge at Creative Craft World and this month I've done a digi page again... mainly because I'm on my hols and a couple of hundred miles away from my craft room! :lol:

 

 

For my page I've actually used some photos of myself! *gasp*

 

As the journalling explains, I'm almost never in photos because I'm always the one behind the camera taking the photos. Plus I usually look awful in photos! :lol:

 

However, when we spent a (gorgeous, sunny) morning at the beach this week, my hubby actually picked up the camera - for once! - and snapped some pictures of me paddling in the sea. And I thought they were perfect for this month's sketch. :)

 

I used a Creative Victorian digikit called Visual.

 

The Scrap Map challenge is lots of fun and so easy to enter - just make your own project using the sketch provided and link it up at the CCW blog for a chance to win yourself a prize.

 

 

My birthday girl

Yesterday was DD1's 4th birthday. Still can't quite believe it... my little girl is getting so grown up! :)

 

I took some really lovely photos of her yesterday - my mum bought her a gorgeous floaty, flowery dress and she just looked adorable in it.

 

So I just couldn't resist doing a quick scrapbook page last night:

 

 

I used paper and elements from the Elegance kit by Valentina's Creations and used Photoshop Elements to put it all together.

 

I know I'm biased - as is every mum - but she really is just beautiful. :)

 

The celebrations continue this afternoon with a birthday party with some of her pre-school friends. Should be fun. :D

 

And I'm sure I'll come away with some more great photos to scrap.

 

Scrap Map Challenge

A new month, a new Scrap Map challenge at Creative Craft World! :)

 

I've gone digi again for my layout this month - much as I love papercrafting, digi is quicker to do and I've been soooooo insanely busy over the past few weeks, mostly due to Easter, school holidays and DD1's birthday! :)

 

 

I used some photos of my two girls having fun hunting for Easter eggs in the garden last weekend and used digi papers and elements from the Sweet Easter kit from Peppermint Creative.

 

We're once again blog hopping around the DT blogs this month, each of whom will be sharing their layout for this challenge. Leave a comment on each blog in the hop to be in with a chance of winning a prize. You should have come here from the Creative Craft World blog and your next stop along the hop is Jen. If you get lost along the way, you'll find a full list of all the blogs in the hop at the CCW blog.

 

Don't forget to enter the challenge yourself to be in with a further chance of winning some goodies - just make a project using the sketch as inspiration - you can check out the sketch at the CCW blog.

 

 

Scrap Map Blog Hop

It's time for the new Scrap Map challenge at Creative Craft World and once again we are adding to the fun by having a DT blog hop.

 

Each of the Design Team will be posting their Scrap Map-inspired layout on their blog and if you follow the hop and comment on each of the blogs, there will be a randomly-drawn prize on offer.

 

And, as ever, if you enter the challenge (by making your own layout inspired by our sketch) you will be in with a chance of winning yourself one of CCW's gorgeous kits and a guest design spot.

 

So here's my page for this month:

 

 

I've had a mad busy couple of weeks and the craft pit is in dire need of a major tidy so I decided to do my page digitally this month. I used Photoshop to fussy cut around a photo of my two daughters and used a gorgeous kit by Anja Schernau for Scrapper's Guide to make the page.

 

Thanks for stopping by - you should have come here from the CCW blog and your next stop along the hop is Jen's blog. If you get lost along the way, there is a full list of participating blogs at the CCW blog.

 

My gorgeous girls...

My DD2 turned two on Christmas Eve and on the day of her birthday we took the girls along to have some professional portrait photos taken. They came out gorgeous... which means I now have a bunch of beautiful photos to scrapbook. :)

 

This is one of my favourites:

 

 

I made this digital scrapbook page using the Lovely Visions kit from Creative Victorian Designs. :)

Snowy Fun

I felt like crafting tonight... but... it's cold and snowing and I'm tired and the sofa is comfy.

 

So thank goodness for digi-scrapping! :D

 

I took some gorgeous photos of the girls playing in the snow last weekend so decided to use one of them to make this layout:

The paper is from the Watery set of papers by Agnes Biro for Design House Digital, the stitched label is by Gina Cabrera for Digital Design Essentials and all the other elements are from the Winter's Deep kit from Creative Victorian Designs.

 

Black and White

The new challenge at One Stitch At a Time this week is to use a digi stamp.

 

For my card, I used this lovely heart-shaped image, part of a set called Vintage Valentine Set by Gingerloft Digi Stamps.

 

I kept my card really simple, using the digi image as the focal point. I kept the card all in white and used embossing to add texture and interest, adding my digi image on foam tape.

 

 

 

Wouldn't this be lovely for a valentine's card? Or a wedding card?

 

You can enter the OSAAT challenge using any digi you like, though obviously we'd love to see you use a Stitchy Bear image. Entries using a Stitchy Bear image will be entered into a draw to win a prize from our fabulous sponsor this week, Crimson Cloud. Entries not using a Stitchy Bear image will be entered into a draw to win a $3 gift voucher for the Stitchy Bear store. :)

I'm also entering this card into the following challenges:
Challenges 4 Everybody - Anything Goes
Come and Get It - Monochrome
Eclectic Ellapu - Vintage
Gingerloft - No Colouring Allowed
Scrapper's Delights - Anything Goes
The Crafty Pad - Anything Goes
Card Makin Mamas - Anything Goes
Delicious Doodles - Embossing

Digi-Scrapping

I've been in the mood for scrapping lately but don't seem to have had the time... or the willpower to get off the sofa in the evenings! :lol:

So, thanks to the wonders of modern technology (i.e. my laptop and PSE 10!) I've been digi-scrapping. :)

First of all I made a double page of photos of my gorgeous girls playing in the garden the other weekend:

All the digi elements on these pages are from the Summer Wings kit by Creative Victorian.

Next up I did the Weekly Challenge at UKS:

I used a Creative Victorian kit again, this time Winter's Deep... and also used one of the actions that comes with the kit to wash out the photos so they all toned nicely.

And finally, I had a play with a page using photos of DD2 (mildly inspired by an article in a recent issue of Scrap365 about using small photos on scrapbook pages):

This time the kit was Secrets of the Heart from Creative Victorian.

I do plan to actually get in my craft room this week and do some paper scrapbooking... but I do love being able to craft on the comfort of my sofa! :D

Scrapbooking round-up

I have a confession to make - I haven't crafted in nearly a week! And I've missed it SO much! I've had a lovely week enjoying the sunshine with DH and the girls (and boy, did DH pick the right week to have off work, eh?!) but oh my craft room has been calling to me! :lol:

Don't get me wrong... I *love* having DH home (and so do the kids!) but I rarely get much - or even any - crafting done while he is home. In my usual week, while he's working away Monday-Friday, I put the kids to bed and the evening is my own, to spend as I see fit. But when DH is home I obviously want to spend time with him... and it seems kind of churlish to go and hide myself away in the craft room in the evenings.

So last night I was very glad to get back into my room and have a play. And this was the result:

This is an idea I've had floating around in my head for days, just waiting to be put into practice (so much so that I scribbled it down as a sketch so I wouldn't forget it!). I spritzed Sky Blue and Jade mica Dylusions spray inks onto my non-stick craft mat and then smooshed plain white card around on it before adding a few splats and flicks of the inks. I scribbled rough circles with a fineliner pen and then cut out the centres of the circles and attached the photos behind the holes. I finished up with a bit of handwritten journalling and a Thickers title. :)

I've made a few other scrapbook pages over the past few weeks that I've not shared on here so I thought I'd take this opportunity to have a catch-up. :)

First of all, there's the LO I did as a make and take at the SU regional training day the other weekend:

I loved playing with the new Twitterpated papers and also, I'm a genius! :lol: I took four photos with me to the training day as I had no idea what colours etc we'd be working with for the make and take... and blow me if DD2's cardigan in this photo wasn't just the perfect match for the Pear Pizazz cardstock for this LO! :D

I also made two LOs as part of the Green Button fun evening over on UKS (and there's a third still in progress!)...

The first was done for the speed scrap challenge:

Speed scrap's are a lot of fun - it's always interesting to see how everyone's LOs come out as they've put together the stash "blind", as it were, and interpreted the instructions their own way. :)

I also did a digi-LO for a challenge that required "dark, grungy colours and/or steampunk":

I think I fulfilled both those criteria using these elements from the Combobulated kit from Creative Victorian.

I've got another LO sitting on the desk, in progress, and ideas for several more floating around in my brain, jostling for pole position! :lol: I'm itching to craft after my days of enforced abstinence. Does it make me a bad mother that I kind of wish it was bedtime already so I could get in my craft room? ;) :lol:

Hiya!

"Hiya" is pretty much my DD2's favourite word. To be fair, it's not far off being her only word! :lol: Her vocabulary at present pretty much consists of "Hiya", "Buh-bye", "Mama", "Dada" and "Nigh-nigh" (night-night), and of these "Hiya" gets by far the most use! :)

It makes people giggle in the supermarket/post office/bank* when she sits forward in her pushchair, shouting "Hiya!" to everyone who passes. :)  *delete as appropriate

She really is a cutie. And she's also the subject of my two most recent scrapbook pages, which is why I'm waffling on about her! :lol:

The first LO was done for the monthly challenge on UKS and followed a sketch provided:

My starting point for this LO was that I had some lovely transparent patterned tapes that I bought a while ago off QVC and which I've not used yet... and I thought they would work really well with the sketch for this challenge. I also didn't have any plain white 12x12 cardstock (must rectify that!!) to use with the tapes so I found a pale grey sheet instead and a nice shade of pink... and the combination put me in mind of the pretty party dress DD2 wore for her 1st birthday last December.

I rather like how these tapes look, especially when overlapped a little. Will be having a play with these again soon, I think. :)

I enjoyed sitting and playing with my stash to make this LO too. I started in papercrafting as a scrapbooker and still consider myself a scrapbooker, but over the years, as my experience and confidence has grown, I've expanded my interests into so many other crafting areas, from cards to ATCs, to tags, to circle journals, to art journals and altered items... and it sometimes seems like the one thing I rarely actually do much of anymore is scrapbooking! :lol: And when I do scrapbook, it often tends to be digi, cos I can do it sitting on the sofa with the laptop while the kiddies wreak havoc around me! :lol:

And that's exactly what I did today. :) While DD2 was having a nap and DD1 was sat happily colouring with crayons, I sat and made this LO for the Simple Recipes challenge on UKS:

I loved the colour palette for this month's challenge and, by happy coincidence, one of the digi-kits that I bought yesterday had exactly the right colours. All the papers and elements here are from the Summer Wings kit from Creative Victorian Designs.

You Turn Your Back...

....for just a moment.... and look what happens:

I think the title says it all! :lol: I took this photo of my DD1 early last week - she'd been happily drawing on a pad with a red felt tip pen... and then it seems she decided that drawing on paper is just so outré and facial art is where it's at! (She'd even had a bit of a go at her baby sister, from the red splodge on her chin.) :lol:

The weekly challenge at UKS was to use a sketch, use 5 patterned papers and use distressed/torn edges. I immediately wanted to use this fab photo and also to have a play with some of the scrummy papers from the Floriography CD that I bought a while ago.

I also learned yet another new PSE skill for this LO - how to download and install brushes! :) I searched about and found some free torn edge brushes for PSE and managed to successfully install and use them.

Joy

The monthly challenge over at UKS consists of a one word prompt - Joy. To be interpreted however you choose.

This is what I went with:

I immediately thought of these photos and, by happy coincidence, the colours in the photos went beautifully with the Renewed Spirit digi kit by Agnes Biro/Yellow Butterfly which I had bought recently and was dying to have a play with.

In some ways, this LO is a bit different for me... because I'm in it! :lol: I'm usually the one behind the camera, snapping away, so I don't often appear in the photos that I scrap. And, of course, I look horrendous in these photos! :lol: To be fair though, I had good reason to look awful... I'd been feeling like death warmed over just the day before, due to what was later diagnosed to have been a bout of swine flu(!), and was still dehydrated (as proven by the fact that it took two anaesthetists working together over 20 minutes to get that canula you can see into my flipping hand!!), and I'd been through a very quick, very painful, labour followed by a few hours of poking and prodding and, finally, surgery, to resolve some post-partum complications!

Nevertheless, I decided to scrap these photos - regardless of how awful I look - as, as the journalling explains, the moment these photos capture is one that pretty much sums up the word Joy for me. :)

This LO was made using PSE 10 and all the elements are from the Renewed Spirit kit, except the title and journalling, which are done with fonts installed on my computer (can't recall the font names atm, sorry!). :)

ATC experiments

I've been making a few ATCs lately, using a variety of techniques. I love playing with ATCs... they're the perfect-sized canvas to work on, a nice size, not too big, meaning they can be completed fairly quickly and are great for playing with new ideas and techniques.

The first set I made used fairly simple inking and stamping techniques and started out from me wanting to have a play with the Distress Stain watercolour stamping technique featured in the March issue of Craft Stamper magazine:

I also used my Flexmarkers on this to colour in the stamped butterfly image.

The second set I made was a much more collaged affair. I used acrylic paints and PVA glue to make the crackled background and then stamped over the background and inked the edges and collaged images stamped variously onto cardstock, vellum and matt gold cardstock to make the final image.

I'm entering this ATC into this week's "Kings and Queens" challenge over at Simon Says Stamp and Show.

And finally, I had a play with making digital ATCs. And yes, I'm still on that Sherlock kick. ;) I used a screencap from the show and used PSE 10 to collage it together with elements from the Inner Storm digikit (from Creative Victorian) and some text.

The first two sets of ATCs are pretty much accounted for in various swaps but I'm printing a limited run of the digi ATCs and will have a couple for swapping if anyone's interested?

Digi and Paper

I've been at the scrapbooking again - both digi-scrapping and traditional paper scrapping.

Both of these LOs were inspired by/created for challenges over at UKS.

The first was a digi page done for the weekly challenge:

The details of this challenge were to use the colours purple and turquoise, to make a LO about yourself and to use butterflies and/or journalling about change, growth or freedom. As soon as I saw this challenge, I knew I had *the* perfect digi kit for both the colours and the butterflies - April Morning from PeppermintCreative.

The paper LO I did was for Shimelle's & Now For Something Completely Different class/challenge:

This was a fab challenge and I loved following Shimelle's step by step photos to see how she created it. It was a lot of fun interpreting the instructions using my own stash and ideas and I'm really pleased with the resulting page.

Crafty Catch-Up

Inbetween my growing anticipation/excitment over the final episode of Sherlock last night (wasn't it *awesome*?!!), I managed to find time to do a teensy bit of crafting over the past couple of days. :)

Firstly I made a quick birthday card for my mum:

I really wanted to have a play with a lovely set of Prima flower masks that I got recently so I picked this design and used stencil glue to stick it onto the card, so as to prevent ink leaking underneath and this losing/blurring detail, and then used Dylusions spray inks over the top. I inked the edges with Tea Dye Distress Ink and then matted onto brown/gold card and inked those edges too. I attached it to the card front and stamped the greeting in Tea Dye DI and then added a little 3D butterfly sticker to finish. Quite a simple design but really pretty. :)

I also found time this weekend to do a quick digi LO for the UKS House Challenge:

I used some of the fab photos I took at our day out to the zoo on Saturday. I went with white space on this LO and used elements from Penny Springmann's 12 Months - June and Claudi Designs' Days of Joy kits.

Ali: 1 - PSE: 0!

I've dabbled in digi-scrapping for a while now. I still love to physically scrap but digi is fun too and has the major advantage that I can do it while lazing on the sofa watching TV! :D Plus it's good value for money as of course you only have to buy digi elements once and then can use them over and over and over (and, oh my, there are some gorgeous kits out there!).

However, I've found my digi-scrapping a bit limited by the software I was using. I've been using Scrapbook Factory and while it's a great basic program and very intuitive and easy to use, it simply can't do the more advanced functions like blending images into one another or using brushes. I did used to have Photoshop Elements some years ago but my computer has been reformatted/rebuilt several times since then and I've never been able to find the disc to reinstall it. And of course now it'll be several versions out of date anyway. So I've been seriously hankering to get PSE back on my computer for some time... so when I saw Amazon offering PSE 10 for £30 recently, I snapped it up!

It arrived and was installed yesterday and today I have begun experimenting. I have to say that I have never found PSE (whatever version I had) to be particularly easy to get on with - the controls are not intuitive and trying to work out how to achieve the result you want is often an exercise in frustration. However, knowing this in advance, I girded my loins and let battle commence!

It took a serious chunk of time, a lot of googling for info/tutorials - and quite a bit of swearing! - but in the end I prevailed... and so I can now proudly unveil my very first PSE-created digital scrapbook page:

I'm really rather pleased with this. I've managed to achieve the clever, "professional"-looking effect that I see in digi pages in the gallery on UKS and I feel like this is my first "proper" digi page. :)

Btw, all the gorgeous elements on this page are from the Inner Storm kit by Creative Victorian (check em out - they have some stunning kits!).

Digi-Scrapping Frenzy

I've been having a go at a few of the scrapbooking challenges over at at UKScrappers lately. I've not had a huge amount of time to spend on scrapbooking of late so I've ended up going digi for these challenges... the fab thing about digi is that I can do my scrapping while chilling out on a comfy sofa with the fire on and the TV on in the background. :)

I've done the October Week 1 challenge (3 lots of 3 items, use blue but not pink, use an everyday item):

And the October Week 2 challenge (LO about a mum, use 3 different shapes, journalling, glitter):

And the monthly challenge (following a sketch and using the colour orange):

Quick Digi-LO

I don't often do digi-scrapping, partly because playing with stash and getting my hands dirty is a large part of what I love about crafting! :lol: However, the big advantage to digi-scrapping is that I can do it sitting on the sofa in front of the tv, instead of hiding myself away in my craft room!

I really wanted to do a LO for last week's weekly challenge on UKScrappers but the way my week had gone - home alone all week with both the girls and with DD1 really under the weather and grumpy and whingey and clingy - I simply hadn't had time to get in the craft room and work on it. So on Saturday night, while chilling on the sofa with DH and catching up on Season 7 of NCIS, I fired up Scrapbook Factory Deluxe and made this:

The challenge was to include:

• a splash of yellow
• squares
• handmade, crumpled paper flowers
• name of a season in the title

I claimed points for everything except the flowers... although I included flowers in my LO, they weren't exactly handmade! :lol:

Incidentally, the yummy paper and flowers in this LO are from the Beauty kit by Cinzia Loosemore.