CC class

I had a few spare hours last Sunday morning and decided to spend them joining in with one of the CC classes on UKS.  As anything to do with inking, tearing and distressing automatically appeals, I decided to join in with Michelle's lovely lollipop guild class.  I had a couple of different ideas for the photos (including ones of yours truly singing along to singstar in a rather 'happy' state - probably best for them never to see the light of day LOL!) but in the end decided to go with a vintage theme and use some beautiful photo's of my Nan (took quite a bit of procrastinating before I got brave enough to cut around them!!) as I wanted to use some gorgeous cosmo cricket pp's I've been hoarding for a rainy day.  I really enjoyed taking part and here is my finished page:

I was then really surprised and honoured to be contacted after the CC by the lovely Michelle who has posted my LO along with two others on her blog and kindly offered us all a prize of one of her DIY projects, so I'd like to say a very big thank you to Michelle :)

Mojo returned!!

Well, Emma's alerting Interpol's Craft Department about our missing mojo's waltzing off on holiday together LOL, seems to have worked! :) as last weekend I went to my crop and although I didn't feel very crafty upon arrival, soon felt all re-enthused and managed to find my missing mojo.
I recently bought some photo canvas paper to have a play with and had printed out one of my favourite old photo's of my Grandad, my newly born sister and myself to use. My printer is pretty much on it's last legs and had printed out the photo okay but left black streak marks across the rest of the A4 sheet of canvas. It was a happy accident though, as it sparked the inspiration for this page:

I was also inspired by this month's Indigo Mill kit, and wanted to create a LO with lots of different shades of cardstock and without even a smidgen of patterned paper. So I used the smudged canvas to create my own unique paper effect by spritzing it with different colour glimmer mists and stamping on top when dry. I was really pleased with the end effect, and although it doesn't show in the photo, in IRL the canvas really does glisten and glimmer as it catches the light.

If you'd like to have a go at creating your own LO using just cardstock then this month's challenge over at the Millpond could be just for you - all the details are here and if you enter you will be in with a chance of winning some great scrapping goodies :)

If you find

my missing mojo, please will you send him home........................

I don't know if anyone elses mojo ever goes walkabout??? - mine has truly upped and left the building at the moment. Life has been very, very hectic lately and I've had absolutely no time, energy or even the inclination to create anything / be or even think crafty these past few weeks.

I'm hoping Mr Mojo will return with a vengence very soon and for those whose mojo is not currently AWOL, there are still a few more days left to take part in the current Indigo Mill challenge, and you could be in with the chance of winning some great stash if you do join in :)

In the meantime, here is another LO I made a while back for my UKS teamie Moira's CJ. Moira's chosen topic was today, and I chose to use this quote as the basis for my entry:

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, that's why its called the present.

My journaling reads: The older I get, the more I realise just how precious each and every day is. To me, every 'today' is a special day.

All those years ago

We spent a lovely week in Cornwall last month and whilst there visited Tintagel (which is absolutely breathtaking, and a little scary, if like me, you don't do heights!) I took lots of photographs and upon our return home, was talking about it to my parents and realised that I'd visited before when I was a small child. It was really strange to make the connection when I looked at the photographs my parents have of this visit, that almost 32 years ago to the day, we'd stood in almost the exact same spot to be photographed, as the one I'd stood to take photographs in the current day. So I just had to record this and scanned and copied one of my parent's photos and printed a tiny photo of the view I had taken from the same spot.

I wanted to create lots of dimension to symbolise the passage of time and the rise and fall of the waves and so created a very layered page, with lots of torn edges, including a cut out title and some handmade wave shaped pleats which echo the pleats in my skirt in the main photo.

It's all round

The latest LO I made for Sugar and Spice combines lots of my current favourites - the fantastic alpha stamps from Sugar and Spice, the gorgeous bobunny Deliah range, circle shaped papers and glimmer mists. Now, when I bought my first glimmer mists I was a bit hesitant about spraying directly onto my LO just in case it didn't work out, and, I do have to say I have had a few mishaps! But, when it does work out as you pictured it doing, like it did on this LO, I think the results are well worth having a few mishaps!


I used the peony crafters workshop template for the glimmer mist petals, then stamped the alpha's on top. I chose to go with the 'round' theme - stamping the title of one of my favourite JT songs, which also happens to be one of my core beliefs - what goes around comes around. I added some journaling about my belief (and what the song means to me) on the back.

Watching the birdie!

Whilst away with my fellow Pink and Glittery teamies I thought it would be apt to scrap some photos which were taken by my teamie Jenny during our last retreat - the first time we all got together back in July 08. One thing you can always be certain of when a number of scrappers get together, is that along with the chatting, laughing, beautiful papers, scrapping (and oh, wine ;) ) is that the camera's will be clicking away all weekend - there is no escaping the lens!

With that in mind I used the Indigo Mill September 'Chocolate Lime' kit to make this LO. The LO was inspired by the little owl featured on the Autumn leaves papers:


Which I cut out, created his feathers using the tiny micro beads in the kit and coloured him in with a sakura pen for further definition, and attached some little buttons for his eyes.

I included some extra journaling on the back of the LO.

Challenge time

The October Challenge is now up over at the Millpond - all the details can be found here, and as with last month there will be a fab prize from Steph for the winner, so why not pop on over and have a go :)

This is the LO I completed for it. I'm lucky enough to have access to lots of lovely heritage photos of my family and I love this photo of my nan and grandad taken in the 1930's. As there is writing on the back of the photo, I wanted to be able to remove it from the LO so used the embellishments and cut a strip out of the brown paper to anchor and enable me to slide the photo in and out to ensure the writing can still be read.

I just lurve scrapping

I've just returned from the most wonderful weekend away with my UKS teamies - we try to meet up in IRL once a year and organise our own mini retreat. This year we booked a couple of chalets (each complete with their own hot tub!!) through Hoseasons, at a park just outside of Edinburgh. The chalet was like a home from home and the park itself was absolutely beautiful - the views over the Forth Estuary were simply stunning.

We had a great time chatting, laughing and of course scrapping and it really reinforced just what a great hobby scrapping is. We were all very productive and it was both so inspiring and lovely to see every one's work IRL. Here is one of the photo's, left to right (back) is Vanessa, me, Jenny, Moira and (front) Nicola, Rory the dog and Miranda:

Today it was back to reality, but I had a lovely surprise when I got home and logged onto a few of my fav sites and saw that this LO had won the Bobunny quote challenge:

I was so pleased I had to have a little jump about the room :) :)

Talking of challenges, a big thank you to everyone who entered my sketch challenge over at Indigo Mill - I've loved looking at them and have been blown away by each and every entry. There will be an announcement very soon over on the Millpond blog so keep checking in there!

Finally, I wanted to share one more entry I made for the CJ I recently took part in. I made this LO for Nicola's CJ and her theme was 'What makes you smile'

I recorded all the things that bring a beam to my face and used the beautiful, bright papers from the Bo bunny calypso range to do so.

What a week

it's been - workwise, my feet haven't touched the ground and it's been more than a little stressful! but in a few hours I will be in a much better place, as I am meeting up with some of my UKS teamies for a weekend of lots of scrapping and fun :)

Gotta run, but thought I would very quickly post my last project for sugar and spice a LO detailing my fav sweet treats using 'with a cherry on top' stamp set.

Embellished!

Steph at Indigo Mill, recently sent the DT a pack of doodlebug flocked, velvet and glittered papers in a variety of colours along with some beads, buttons and brads, and issued a challenge: to create some embellishments using the pack. So, given that I always love a challenge :), I got to work and made a number of different embellishments to use on this LO:

I've always been a bit of an independent lass (apart from when it comes to doing DIY tasks I hear my Dad shouting ;) LOL ) and wanted to create a LO about how important this is to me - I handcut the birdcage from some 7 gypsies pp and die cut and paper pieced the bird - bit of symbolism going on there! I made a load of different blooms which I've gone into greater detail about over at the millpond.

I also wanted to show a picture of all the great goodies Steph has put together as the prize for our September sketch challenge - you have until the 5th October to enter, so there is still time to be in with a chance to win - all details are here :)

I went.......I saw........& I bought......................

Yesterday I spent a lovely day, here:

at the big stamp and paper craft show at Alexandra Place. I've visited a couple of the big crafting shows now and for me, Ally Pally wins hands down and is definitely my favourite. And although it's hard to believe, as geographically, other shows are nearer to my neck of the woods, it's actually quicker and easier to get to than either the NEC or Harrogate - an hour and a half on the express train, 15 min tube journey, a courtesy bus and I'm right outside, ready to shop - fantastic!!

It ended up that sadly, both the SFTIO girls and a couple of my UKS teamies who I'd arranged to meet whilst there couldn't make it on this occasion, but I still had a fantastic day, everyone I met was very friendly and it was lovely to meet and chat to lots of other crafters as we mooched round the stalls. And oh my, there was a GREAT selection of stash to feast my eyes upon. I had a budget and managed to stick to it (kinda LOL) and here are my lovely new goodies:

including some fabby new punches that I've had my eye on for a long time, gorgeous new papers from Prima, Bo Bunny, Jenni Bowlin and Kaiser,

some masks to use with my glimmer mists, stamps and I just had to get one of the doilies from basic grey, they are just amazing - such detail!

Last but certainly not least, one of the best bits of the day was having the chance to visit the fantastic Sugar and Spice stall and getting to meet and say hello to the lovely Marion and two of my fellow, wonderful, DT girls, Polly and Jayne. Of course, it goes without saying, we had to get the camera out and have a photo shoot - here is Polly and me,

Jayne and me:

Jayne, me and Marion:

and finally having a good giggle over Marion's posing philosophy - stomachs in, chest out and chin up :) :)

It was so lovely to meet them all, and all I can say is roll on April 2010 :)

All bagged up

I love creating packaging for gifts - I think (most!! ;) ) people really love to see that their gifts are packaged / wrapped with a bit of a home made extra special touch. I bought the cricut tags, bags and more cartridge with that in mind, thinking it would be really useful to make my own gift bags. And it has, as I used the inch bag cut to make the bag below for my last project for sugar and spice.


I thought the four main stamps from the 'In a word' set would make great gift tags and used the 'with love' stamp to make mine and in line with the 'love' theme, used these beautiful papers from the cosmo cricket 'chemistry range.

All the instructions are over on the sugar and spice blog and I'd definitely recommend paying them a visit, it's Jayne's turn to post on the blog today and she has posted a really lovely project :)

Talking of gifts, I'm going to be treating myself with a visit to Ally Pally this weekend and am beginning to get very excited - all that beautiful stash to drool over!! and even more difficult to make choices over which and what to bring home with me. I've started to compile a list (which is now beginning to look like it's been dosed with miracle grow LOL) Wonder if I will stick to my list at all????......hhmmmm........................................................................

Caught out!

Here is another LO I made using the August 'The beautiful Life kit' from Indigo Mill. This is my 3rd LO from this kit and I have loads and loads of stash left in it to use up :)

I recently managed to capture some pictures of my cat's very stealthy habit of sneaking into the bathroom, and trying to drink and catch water from the basin tap! He knows he is not supposed to but frequently manages to do so, and the trail of muddy pawprints he often leaves behind are a dead giveaway to his actions :) So as I can't beat his little habit, I thought I'd join him by scrapping all about it! :)

All the instructions and links if you fancy a looksie are over on the Millpond :)

CJ pages

As quite a few of my UKS teamie's circle journals have now found their way home, I thought I'd start to share the pages I completed for each of their journals.

We each chose a theme for our CJ's and I really enjoyed thinking about and interpreting each individual theme. In addition to the theme we also had to incorporate a stamped image onto our pages - some teamies sent stamps with their CJ, others asked that we use a stamp from our own collection.

Miranda's theme was Favourite gadget and I chose my wonderful little pink ipod and used a prima flower stamp on the pink cardstock for my stamped image (although it doesn't show that well on the photo)

Clare's theme was your birth year so I found some facts about my birth year and included a baby photo. My stamped images are from banana frog, the postage set and the frames for the photos are prima stamps.

Fancy a challenge?

Starting from September, each month - usually the second Friday of the month - I'm going to be posting a challenge over at the Millpond and if you enter you will be in with a chance to win some fabby scrapping goodies, as we will choose our favourite entry each month and the winning scrapper will recieve a prize from Steph at Indigo Mill :)

So this month's challenge is a sketch challenge - the sketch and all the details can be seen here, I'd love it if you joined in :) and this is the LO I completed using the sketch, featuring my sister's adorable and very full of beans new lab puppy, Ruby:

No place like home

Well, we arrived home very late last night after a lovely holiday in Cornwall - we had a great time away - lots of R & R, exploring the beautiful sights and little towns, walking, surfing, go-karting, cycling the camel trail, eating far too many cream teas (me) and the teens ate lots of fish n' chips (my son was so not impressed tho, as not a single chip shop served chips n' gravy - only chips n' curry sauce - chips n' gravy must be a northern thing?) Although it was nice to get away, it was even nicer to come home and lots of great crafty news to come home to.

The lovely Nina has made me feel all warm and glowy by giving me this wonderful award:

Thank you Nina! and in line with the rules for the award I now have to list 5 things I am addicted to and pass on it on to another 5 fab bloggers so here goes:

I am addicted to:

1. Chocolate (particularly Cadburys Creme eggs and green n' blacks butterscotch crunch - yummy!)

2. My Friday night G & T

3. T'internet - providing chatting, shopping and scrapping places - what's not to love?? LOL

4. Lipgloss

5. Taking photos

It's so difficult to choose just 5 as there are so many fantastic crafters out there but the 5 I am going to pass on this award to are :

1.my UKS teamie Clare who makes the most beautiful cards

2.Siobhan who is making the most fabulous projects over at SFTIO

and to three more fantastic scrappers whose blogs I always love to visit :

3.Rebekah

4. Jayne and

5.Tracie.

Another bit of fantastic news to come home to was this :

My LO got a honourable mention over at bobunny

how exciting!! - I was so chuffed :)

And................................................................................................................................................

in a few days, my CJ which has been on it's travels for the past 8 months should be making it's way home and I'm really looking forward to seeing what the 'star' of my CJ - Spike has been upto :) Spike is a little hedgehog toy - who has visited 8 of my UKS teamies and had lots of adventures with each of my teamies which have been recorded on their CJ pages:

This is Spike looking very hip on the front cover of my CJ:

These are the front pages explaining the rules:

My pages, which I made into a little fold out book displaying all Spike's adventures at home:

And last but not least the signing in pages:

Family mini book

When at my LSS a while ago, I saw these cute little transparent mini books made by Bobunny and it literally jumped, yes really, jumped into my basket ;) Transparencies are one of my fav things and I wanted to use this book to house some of my most special photographs. A lot of these are old photos, taken well before the digital era, so a book like this is one of best ways to showcase them as I can print them out in a much smaller size. As each of the pages is a different shape, it took a bit of forward planning as to what could go where, but I got there in the end LOL and here are a few piccies of the finished book.

The title spans over two pages, the bottom being the front cover

which then opens out to reveal a favourite family picture on the second page:

The next pages show pictures of my son when he was a sweet little toddler and myself, my newly born sis and my grandad:

Then lastly, a pic of a MUCH younger me and my first dog and a much treasured picture my son created.

'Right now'....

I'm a big fan of including 'all about me' pages in our scrapbooks - I would so love to have had scrapbook pages my grandparents had created, so I could find out a bit more about them, their thoughts etc. So, by including pages about me, I hope one day my son will be glad I created them, and even if he isn't all that interested in later life, I love doing 'me' pages for the therapeutic value, if nothing else, so as far as I'm concerned, it's all good anyway!! LOL.

As part of this, each few months I try to do a 'Right Now' page which explores what is happening for me / the things I'm liking and enjoying at this particular moment in time. This is my current 'Right Now' page which is made using the August The Beautiful Life kit from Indigo Mill. There are a few instructions and greater detail about this page over at the Mill Pond.


Talking of Indigo Mill I wanted to share the photos of the September kits that have just been released, both equally gorgeous and I debated for ages as to which one to have........should it be pink lemonade:

or chocolate lime:

As is usually the case in our house, chocolate always wins so I just couldn't resist this one!! They are such great value and there are also add on kits for each one, so go take a looksie :)

Notebook

When thinking about what to make for my last Sugar and Spice project, as a prolific note maker and the fact that my desk top was covered in little, bitty scraps of paper covered in my scrawl, kind of prompted a decision to wipe the dust from my BIA and make a little notebook for myself :)

I don't use my BIA as often as I should, as I tend to make more 12 x 12 LO's than anything else, but it certainly comes into it's own when doing projects like this and I really enjoyed making this:
I decided to embellish my book with a flower and used the scallop circle shape from my 'In a word' stamp set as the base for my flower. All instructions re: how to make can be found over on the Sugar and Spice blog.

Now, the next challenge is to remember to have it with me when I need to note something down LOL!!

Whatever you are upto today, hope you have a great bank holiday Monday :)

First project for.......

Indigo Mill! The August 'The Beautiful Life' kit is truly delish, full of gorgeous Bella and 7 gypsies products and such amazing value! I was really drawn to the Kindred Spirit circular, stitched die cut paper and created this LO:


Further details can be found over on the Indigo Mill blog if you fancy a looksie :)

Building a page

Prima are one of my favourite manufacturers and I love Anam's Build a page sketches, so I decided to join in this month and made a LO using the August Build a Page sketch. I've received a couple of the gorgeous canvas tags in kits recently and my page was inspired by the 'journey' wording on one and the colours of the flowers on the other, so I incorporated both tags into my design!

Here is my LO:


It's all about my journey through life - a LO to celebrate and embrace all the different experiences along the way. My journaling is hidden under the tag. I rotated the sketch and used paper from the Angelique collection, some of my new glimmer mists and lots of flowers and bling :) It was a page that took a while to do but I'm really happy with the end result :)

Capturing the Castle

Now I don't admit this to just anyone ;) but I have a little bit of a thing about castles. I love em! I've been fascinated by them since I was knee high to a grasshopper - there's something so majestic and romantic (and more than a little forbidding) about them and I love visiting them. I took loads of photo's on a recent outing to Chirk Castle and used a few of them on this page:


I decided to have a go at making my own battlement accent, I created the shape of the battlements using my cricut design studio and got busy with my glimmer mists and embossing powders to add some texture then placed them along the top of the photographs. Patterned papers are from MME, the Andrea Victoria range.

Mr Jiminy Cricut

I spent a happy couple of hours last weekend making this card for a friend at work. I put Mr Jiminy cricut to work, choosing cuts from the Storybook, George and basic shapes and Mini Monograms, then I played around with them using the absolutely fantabulous cricut design studio to build all the various layers and elements.

I love my Jiminy cricut and his studio, it really is a wonderful piece of kit and is one of the best crafty purchases I think I've made. And here is the finished card:

Rescue

I've had some photos that I've wanted to scrap for a while now - they make me smile every time I look at them and there is a great story attached to them, but I've never been quite sure what pp's to use with them - matching the bright yellow and fluorescent green on the photos felt like it was going to be a bit of a challenge!

However, when I saw the bright colours on the Calypso range from BoBunny, I suspected I may have found my match, so set to work. I decided to play along and use this sketch from the BoBunny site:

and here is my LO:


Now, the story behind this LO is as follows:

I was driving to my crop back in February, it was a wintery day, bright sunshine but with some snow about so the roads were more than a tad slippy. My crop is a fair distance from my home and right in the countryside, so I was a bit alarmed when I heard a loud pop and then my windscreen wipers stopped working! It wasn't long before visibility was down to zero and I arrived feeling like a damsel in distress.

A lovely lady from my crop, Sue, had fabby AA membership and very kindly called them out on my behalf. Within minutes a 'very nice man' with his big bright yellow van arrived and diagnosed blocked water pipes (which *ahem, whispers in a very small voice* was all my fault as I'd put fairy liquid in my screen wash, which I learnt belatedly, you should never do as when it freezes it turns to a hard gel!!). Mr AA worked his magic, unblocked everything, replaced fuses AND (and this is a big and) put up with us 'mad' scrappers who took a zillion photos, and plagued him with Colin (a little pink clanger toy who was the star of a CJ we were currently taking part in) If you look really closely on the photo on the star, you can just about see Colin a posin' in Mr AA's hood LOL!

So, that's the story and I used the Calypso love, life, laugh and cut outs pp's. The letters are Alissa combo stickers. A big thank you to Jemma Sharrock who took and emailed me all the fab photos of our adventure :)

Wahhooooo!

My Friday feeling is definitely in full force this week, the weekend is looming, I'm going to enjoy the work visits I have in my diary today and ........ I had some great news this week which is now all official and can be found here - yup, I'm over the moon to be working with this fab set of very talented ladies and I can't wait to start playing with those fantabulous kits :) :)

I had better go and get on with those work visits so in the meantime here is a heritage LO I made using the very beautiful Andrea Victora range from My Minds eye.