A Challenge - Orange, White and Teal

Last weekend my lovely friend Jennifer hosted an online Blog Event called Refresh Your Craft and Soul.

If you've never joined in her events you really should look out for the next one as they are great fun.

Anyway, she set a number of challenges over the weekend and I picked out a couple I liked the look of to have a go at. The first one was the Teal (or blue), Orange and White Challenge.

This is a really unusual colour combo for me - I rarely use orange but I had a hunt in my supplies and found a few bits of stash in the right colours.

Here's my layout:

I hope the yellow/orange sunshine paper is allowed in the challenge!

I love these glitter blue thickers

I created two clusters of embellishments with some circle stickers from the Simple Stories "Words Stickers" Pack, buttons and enamel dots and added the orange "Happy" sticker from the same set to balance the page.

My journalling reads: "It was a hot Summer's day and after a long day at school, Hannah was happy to come home and find the pool up in the garden all ready for her to jump in and cool off!"

Thanks for visiting today!

Pancake House Layout

Hi everyone

So where did May go to? Sorry, it's been a while since I blogged anything here .... I seem to say that at the start of each blog post!

Around this time last year we went to Centerparcs for a long weekend and I've recently been scrapping some of the photos I took!

This layout is about our visit to the Pancake House on our last morning before our journey home.

They didn't just serve pancakes there were all sorts of yummy dishes to choose from. Miss H had chocolate brownies with ice cream. Yummy!

The papers and stickers are mainly from the Echo Park Capture Life collection with my current favourite cork thickers for my title. I added a fabric tag, a few enamel dots, chipboard arrows, buttons and brads to finish it off.

Hopefully we'll get to viist Centerparcs again soon as it was such a fun, family weekend!

Thanks for popping in today!

Hellooo ... it's been a while!

Hellooo ... I know, I know, it's been a long time!

This blog has been a little quiet this year ..... But that's about to change!!

So far in 2014 I've been to several crops, a whole weekend scrapping retreat and an all day Charity crop as well as some scrappy sessions here at home, so it's fair to say I have a few layouts to show you.

I'll kick off with this one for today:

This was a layout I made for a commission for Scrapbook Magazine which appeared in issue 78 back at the start of the year for a "New Beginnings" feature.

I created a page about how we gave a new home to Lola, one of the two young kittens who had been rescued by our local RSPCA after a member of the public discovered them abandoned in a park in a cardboard box.  We actually ended up bringing both kittens home and the two sisters are now very happy with us.

The papers, stickers, fabric frame and resin flowers are from the Crate Flea Market collection. I also used some Studio Calico wood heart and arrows, Mister Huey mist, enamel dots and some of the lovely hearts washi tape.

It's good to be back on my little blog and I'll be back soon to show you another layout or two!!

Thanks for popping in!

A Sketch Challenge

The 2014 monthly challenges launched over on S J Crafts yesterday.

For our first challenge, Jennifer came up with this fab sketch:

and here's the layout I made based on the sketch

My main supplies were Simple Stories Daily Grind papers and stickers, Glitz hearts washi tape and a sprinkling of enamel dots.

A couple of close ups:

I also made a divided protector page to sit next to this one in my album - I'll pop back and show you that here soon!

We'd love you to take up the challenge as well and play along .... all the details are in this post , along with some fab examples from the rest of the Design Team. You have until the end of February to link up your layout/cards over there.

Thanks for popping in today!

My Christmas 2013 Journal

Hi everyone

December and the build up to Christmas is always crazy busy in this house but it really is one of the most wonderful times of the year for me! 

I take a million photographs throughout the festive season - ok, so maybe that's a slight exaggeration, but I do take a lot!

Each year I like to select a few favourites or the ones that tell a story or were taken at special events we have been to and get them into my albums.

This year I've decided to make a smaller book as well as some larger 12" x 12" layouts that will go into my main album.

Here is my first page in my book:

The page is 7" x 7" and I'm using an album I've had in my stash for a while now. 

The album is plain cream pages held together with a book ring. The front and back covers are thick chipboard which I will also decorate as I don't think lime green arrows are very festive!

For several years now I have loosely followed Shimelle Laine's Journal Your Christmas. This is a class which for a very reasonable initial cost gives you access every year so you can follow the daily prompts year after year if you wish.

For my Christmas book I'm using a variety of supplies , some older and some brand new. For this first page I used a sheet of Echo Park This n That Christmas matted onto red cardstock and added some Simple Stories December Documented papers and stickers, wood veneer stars, enamel dots and red gems to embellish.

Do you have a separate album/journal or book for recording December and Christmas? 

Have you started to scrap the season already or do you wait until January?

Happy December!

Sarah x

Six Cards on The 6th (October)

October's "Six on the 6th" went live on the S J Crafts blog earlier today here!

Did you know it's only 80 days until Christmas??!!

So, yes - it's definitely time to get started on those cards, if you haven't already. 

Even if you only join in with "Six on the 6th" for October, November and December you'll still have 18 cards all made and ready to send!

For my six cards this month I chose to use some Echo Park papers and stickers from the "Reflections Christmas" collection that I had won in an EP Facebook competition recently and teamed them up with a Glitz Designs "Hello December" 6" x 6" Pad. I started by taking some 12" x 12" sheets of Bazzill card in White, Stonehenge and Maraschino and cutting, scoring and folding them to make 5" square card blanks. 

I decided on a red/grey/white colour (with a tiny bit of green!) scheme for this month's six cards.

I made each card in a similar way, layering up the background papers (lightly inking the edges with grey ink) and adding doilies and stickers.

I love this red woodgrain paper from the Hello December pad.

I added wood veneer snowflakes, pearls and "splattered" a little white Mister Huey on some of the cards.

One of the Echo park sheets of papers was little vintage postcards and another was little bingo cards so I cut these up into small panels that I could use as embellishments.

On some of my cards I stamped a greeting and added twine to this one:

and a strip of red glitter tape to this one:

I made this one last and I think it's probably my favourite .... I like the simplicity of it!

Here's some detail/close ups for you:

So what are you waiting for??  

Grab some supplies and make your 6 cards!!

Even though the S J Crafts Design Team reveal their cards on the 6th of each month, you have all month (until 5th November) to link up your cards using the Linky tool at the bottom of this post. Each month you join in and link up also gives you another entry into the draw to win a box of crafty stash!!

Have you started your Christmas crafting yet?

Oh hello Blog! ..... And WOYWW 226

Oh hello my poor, sadly neglected blog!!

I had a conversation yesterday over a cuppa and biccies with Jennifer about my blog and the fact that I hadn't blogged for ages. It made realise that I do miss blogging and that I really should find 10 - 15 minutes a few times a week to write a post. So here I am!!

And what better way to get things started again than with a post to join in with What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday (the biggest world wide "snoop" at craft desks!!)

So here is my desk table this morning!

Messy?  Or not too bad??

I'm in the middle of making my 4th card for my set of 6 Christmas Cards for "Six on the 6th"!!

I have discovered this morning that my box of washi (which you can see bottom right of pic) is sadly lacking in festive tape!!!  Note to self .... need more tape!

On another note .... I have started a sort out of my craft shelves/storage!

I had a BIG clear out a couple of weeks ago and sold or gave away a ton of stuff! But now I need to reorganise what's left so I can actually find and use my stash!

I have a tall Ikea Expedit unit and two smaller units beside it. I have a bad habit of just returning from a crop and dumping my craft boxes on the top rather than put them away properly. I want to sort through the boxes and store them better.

This is some of my 12 x 12 papers in need of a good sort out!

It's a slow job .... I'll do a little bit each day!

Right, time to make another cuppa and then take a wander around some WOYWW desks ... then back to those Christmas cards!

Thanks for stopping by today! xx