Thursday 23 May 2013

The Great Big Swap

The Great Big Swap of Small Things has arrived.  Yesterday the lovely Abi of Creating Paper Dreams sent me my lovely package of goodies .... and goodies is just what they are.

I felt like a child ripping open the packaging to get inside of what I could hear jingling away.

So here it is; all laid out for you to see.  I can't wait to have a play

.
Thank you Abi for putting this all together for me; and thank you Sian for having such a great idea and arranging it all.

Tuesday 21 May 2013


Now, some of you that know me will know that at the Saturday crop I attend in Cheam, a lot of my time is spent at Starbucks or Sainsbury’s, but ever so often, I actually surprise everyone (including myself) and actually get on with scrapping.  


Our lovely crop has changed hands recently, and Debbie who’s taken it over has loads of great ideas to get us all motivated (so if you’re ever looking for a crop in Surrey, just let me know, and I can point you in the right direction).  Anyway, one of these was to maybe have a sketch that we could all do and then a blind vote at the end of the day, with a little prize. 

Now since shutting the store, I've still lots of papers and bits left – so I volunteered to put a kit together with a sketch; and here’s my take on it.  Sadly, I can’t find where I filed the sketch, so here's just the layout only.  It shows a recent meal that Simon and I had; it's in a place called The Hot House Cafe; we've been before, for lunch or a coffee, and well now they've started opening one evening a week, only for a few seating's and the food is just amazing.  



I also managed another layout at the crop! … unheard of me.  I used my counterfeit kit for May, and is shows Simon and Eddie in their usual pose.   As soon as we get to the little house, these two make for the garden, and just sit together and watch the boats go by (me, I put the kettle on) 


One last thing I’d like to share with you, is a little gift I won on a blog recently.  I was over the moon when this little bundle of fun arrived through the mail. I love reading Angie’s blog anyway and comment, so imagine how delighted I was that I was picked – do pop on over and check out her blog. It’s called My Little Blessings, and if you’re not already a follower, I’m sure you will be, she’s so very very talented.




Thursday 16 May 2013

Album Update


Firstly I’d like to say sorry if you haven’t seen me commenting on your blog posts for the past few days, I’m having a nightmare with commenting on my iPad.  For some reason it keeps telling me, that I've been blocked from commenting because of a firewall, or that the blog has blocked me .... Please don’t shut me out LOL. 
I’m hoping to get this sorted out soon, but I have been stopping by, and on several blogs, have tried to comment up to 4 times, and then given up.  But trust me … I’ll get there in the end.
Ok, here are a couple of projects I’d like to share with you.
First is the wedding album for my cousin. I handed it over to her today, and was so touched by her sheer pleasure of it – I can’t tell you how much it means to me. Even her husband shocked me, he had tears in his eyes. The reason I say all this, is they’re not really crafty people.  So sometimes, I worry when making something for someone, they’ll just look and say … uumm very nice and put it to one side. But they didn’t at all and for that reason, I’m walking around with a huge smile on my face right now.
So … here are a few of the pages. I kept the album pretty simple, and most of the pages were the same – papers and a border punch. Then ever so often I added some blossoms and bling. Well, with 50 photos, I really did find this was the only way to get it done.




 
Next up, is the cover of my Smash book …. I’m loving playing with smash books at the moment. This one is just for sheer fun. Sometimes, I want to make something, but not for anything in particular … say, I’ll stamp an image and play around with that, but it’s not for a card really; or I’ll think of an idea for something to go on this blog or pull an idea from a magazine … well, all those sort of things will go in this smash book.  And I do have a page already I’ll share with you at a later date, but for now here is the cover. 



 
Right, that’s it from me for now … I’m hoping to sort out my iPad this evening, I’ve done the usual, switch it off, switch it on again; checked my software is up to date; I’ve shaken it; told it off, and even screamed at it.  None of this has worked, so now I’ll hand it over to Simon this evening and he’ll do something really quick and obvious and it will work! … you just know that’s the case, don’t you.  So I apologise now if I don’t comment over something since Monday, but fingers crossed it will all work out.

Monday 6 May 2013

For the love of Apps


I had such big plans for National Scrapbooking Day, but oh I’m so easily led.  The sun came out to play this weekend, and that meant my garden was calling me.  Still, I did manage to pop my head into the CounterfeitKit Challenge Blog and checked out their sketches and also one of the case files, they had from the amazing CSI : Color, Stories, Inspiration site. 
So yesterday evening I bought my “kit” down and scrapped while watching the tv.  Normally, I’m forever running back up to my craft room to get something just right for a layout, but only being able to use the kit, certainly made me focus. 
I used this lovely sketch from the site
And this case file
And here’s what I came up with

I honestly, don't know if I'm doing it right LOL.  But I used the colour scheme (best, I could), dots & stripes and buttons from the evidence file; handwriting broken up in different places, as requested in the testimony. But even if I've not done it quite right, I had fun, so that's all that matters really.
The layout is all about one of my all time favourite apps … I’m addicted to my iphone, totally 100% … I’m forever checking out instagram (another obsession) on it, and playing with different photo apps.  A while back I found one called Toast .. it allows you to add filters to the photos you take and change them completely! I just love it. 
Anyway, the photos show the view from our kitchen at the little house, I just never get bored of looking at it, and photograph it constantly … hence the need for more photo apps J

So thank you Counterfeit challenge, you’ve got me hooked on you

Friday 3 May 2013

Challenging Myself


I’m dreadful for standing on the sidelines watching, but never quite having the nerve to jump in and participate.  But no more! … nope, don’t hold me back .. I’m jumping in.  I’m joining in for the first time with the Counterfeit Kit challenge blog.  Yes, I know I’m so late to the party. 

I wasn’t 100% sure what to do, or what not to do, or how much you were meant to put in a kit – so I’m thinking I may well have gone a tad overboard! LOL.  Still, the plan is that this is the only thing, (other than my photo & glues) that I’ll take with me to the crops this month. Plus, I can just bring this goodie bag down with me in the evening to scrap in front of the tv.
So this is the original inspiration kit picture, from Polly Scrap Kits.  I just love Navy, Yellow and Red, so I was very happy when I saw it. I feel it has such a seaside theme to it.  

And here is my take on it; here's the papers and cardstock - I also went through my scrap draw and pulled a few small bits out as well.

Here's my Embellishments goodies

and here's the whole kit n caboodle
 
Its been a while since I put a kit together, oh but I enjoyed every single moment of it. I didn't have any of the cute little envelopes, so of course my trusty silhoutte flew into action.  Well, do you think I’ve gone a little crazy here?
I'm so looking forward to delving in and what with National Scrapbooking day tomorrow .. it's win win.

Thursday 2 May 2013

Embrace the Everyday


I’m including as part of my project life journey a series of layouts, under then heading Embrace the Everyday. Its literally going to be photos of our everyday goings on where journaling isn’t always needed.  Not only will it be fun to look back on, but hey, I get to play with pretty paper, so that can’t be bad.
The layout I want to share with you, is actually a page from my filofax! … I know, not the most exciting thing in the world. But I love my filofaxes, I'm addicted; I have one in my handbag, and this one, which is the one I keep at home; it’s the one that I write my daily to do lists, birthdays, menu plans, shopping lists etc.

The layout was based on this sketch

 

As you can see I kept pretty much true to the sketch. The title was cut on my trusty silhouette, as was the bunting - I don't think a day goes by without me cutting something on the machine. I know it's certainly helping to make me feel more creative.

I have a head full of creative ideas swimming around me at the moment, and that’s in no small part thanks to Julie Kirks, blogging series. I still have posts to catch up on, but it’s amazing, do check it out, and although she's reached her target for her chosen charity (which I think is the one of the best charitys going) :) ...  she can always use more money for them.  So do pop by and look, you won't regret it.