Paper Obsession

Oh, we do like to be beside the seaside..

Here's a picture Charlie did for me on Friday in nursery. I was moved almost to tears, embarrassingly enough! 

I was at the Bromley Scrapaholics crop yesterday and managed to (almost) complete a layout telling the story of Charlie's picture... pretty fast work for me! ;o) I used the cover layout of February's 'Scrapbook Trends' magazine for inspiration (OK, it was a shameless scraplift)...

Supplies:

Cardstock - Bazzill Basics (white)

Papers - October Afternoon 'Report Card'

Stamps - Banana Frog 'Journaling', 'Pharmacy', 'It's All About Stars'; October Afternoon 'Ducks in a Row' set

Letter stickers - American Crafts Felt Thickers 'Playroom'

Various buttons, Dulux paint chip card, ribbon

It's great to be able to share a layout at last!

xoxoxoxoxox

It's been a busy few weeks.. To cut a long story short, we have decided to move to Eastbourne - and soon! Having made the decision just two weeks ago, our house went on the market yesterday. We have one couple who are very interested but we're waiting to see if they can come up with a reasonable offer. All being well, we hope to go down to Eastbourne next weekend to view four or five houses and - fingers crossed - make an offer ourselves!

The whole story of our sudden decision to relocate is the subject of a layout I've done for Gauche Alchemy, using a selection of bits & pieces from their 'Ball and Chain' kit and two of their mixed media colour kits. It will be featured on the GA blog on 8th February as part of a post by Julie Kirk. I'm not sure if it's any good.. in fact I think I have probably laboured on it and fretted over it waaay too much - the pressure got to me!! But hey, it is what it is.

Cute puppy, lots of thanks and some giveaway news

Details below...

I have been overwhelmed by the kindness and generosity of my crafty cyber-friends this week. So I would just like to say a big THANK YOU to those who have left me lovely comments about my competition success. At the risk of this turning into an Oscars-style speech, I also want to show my gratitude to four lovely ladies in particular...

ScrappyJacky, for emailing me her brilliantly helpful lesson plans for scrapbooking classes she runs in her local Children's Centre, and giving me lots to think about before I embark on my own scrapping classes in the near future.

Helen from France, for emailing me instructions on how to make a wonderful fabric Christmas Tree collage - I was so impressed with the one she showed on her blog before Christmas I just had to know how to do it... maybe by next Christmas I'll have my own to show off!

Kirsty Neale, for giving me some super-easy instructions on how to make felt from a woollen jumper (and then make me regret my hasty decision to send my boys' old Monsoon woollies to the charity shop). This was prompted by my comment on her blog post about some fabulous things she'd made, including a very cute felt iPod cosy.

Julie Kirk, for sending me a gorgeous bag of Gauche Alchemy colour kit goodies to help me finish off one of my layouts for Scrapbook Magazine... and for giving me a wonderful opportunity to do a layout specially for the Gauche Alchemy blog {more will be revealed soon...}

While on the subject of Gauche Alchemy, they are currently having a contest for readers to pick a suitably gauche name for their black colour kit.. comment on this blog post with your suggestion and be in with a chance of winning a prize!

xoxoxo

Once I've tackled my upcoming project deadline I'm thinking of holding a little giveaway-challenge-blog party type thingie. I've had an idea for this swirling round in my head for a week or two.. when it's all come together I'll make an announcement here.. and hope that at least a few of you would like to play along!

I'll finish with another picture of that very cute pup.. we chanced upon her on a walk on the South Downs near Beachy Head on the 2nd January, sitting in her high chair-cum-bike seat enjoying the fresh air and the sea view. I'm not normally a doggie person but, well, she just melted me!

At last... I can share some scrappy news!

Well, I didn't actually win the coveted title of Scrapbooker of the Year (huge, well-deserved congratulations to Helen Salthouse), but I was one of the nine runners-up! Congratulations to all the other runners-up too, their layouts were all fantastic!

now my copy of Scrapbook Magazine has finally dropped onto the doormat - and I've seen it in print (layout blogged here) - I can share my little snippet of news.

The editor, Lee Jepson, also asked me if I would like to submit an article on using black & white photos in really colourful layouts - naturally, I said I'd be delighted! The article is due in at the end of January and will be published in issue 45, on sale 25th March. Now I just have to knuckle down and get it done.. three layouts and 750 words... no problem!??? Eeek!

x o x o x o x

In other news...

While at the Children's Centre with Harry this afternoon I got chatting with one of the staff members, John. The Children's Centre puts on various classes for parents, such as Flower Arranging and Yoga, while looking after the children in the creche. Fantastic for giving mums a break while enabling them to have fun learning new skills.

I asked John if he'd be interested in letting me run some simple scrapbooking classes for beginners.. once I'd explained what scrapbooking was, he was indeed very interested! I just need to come up with a plan and go in for a chat to talk through the details. I probably won't be paid much, if at all (although they will of course pay for materials), but it could be lots of fun as well as a brilliant learning experience.

So many exciting things happening, what wouldn't I give for a few extra hours in the day?!

Poppy lying in wait under the bird-table... in vain as usual

Happy New Year! Two little projects to share

Well, we survived the Christmas season, happy and virtually unscathed. We had my parents over from South Wales for the big day and then traveled down to Eastbourne for New Year with Gareth's parents. It's been so busy I'm afraid my little blog fell by the wayside for a while.

I have a ton of Journal Your Christmas pages to share but rather than post them all here, I have uploaded all I've done (so far) to Flickr, along with descriptions and details of supplies used. My JYC photo set is here if you fancy a look - or just click the link to the left to go to my photostream!

Meanwhile, I have a couple of small projects to share - first, another of my UFO's (UnFinished Objects) which is now Finished. It is a small canvas, covered in patterned tissue paper from IKEA using Mod Podge, as described by Kirsty Neal in the 12 Days Christmas workshop.

For several weeks, this was how it remained, until I had a sudden flash of inspiration just before Christmas and finished it off in just over an hour. My inspiration was this piece of ribbon, bought at the wonderful Knitting and Stitching Show back in October.

Using my Cuttlebug and Spellbinders Birds die, I cut two medium-sized birds from blue felt. I then hand-cut three hearts from red felt and stuck the smaller ones on to the birds with the third one to go in between them. I added a pink and a blue brad to each birds for eyes.

Next I stuck some red and white gingham ribbon around the edges of the canvas as a frame for the birds. Finally I stuck on the birds and the heart in the middle, using Art Glitter Designer Dries Clear Adhesive (it's brilliant stuff!).

I was going to add the word 'Peace' in letter stickers but NONE of my sets of stickers had more than one letter E so I gave up.. I might come back to it some time but I quite like it as it is, for now at least!

xoxoxoxoxoxoxox

My second little project to share was an unexpected - and much appreciated - Christmas present from Gareth. It was a 'Make Your Own Heart Decoration' kit from Accessorize, containing everything you need to make a cute stuffed heart - felt, floral fabric, ribbon, buttons, gems and wadding, as well as thread, needles, pins and a plastic thimble.

I sewed it all together while curled up on the sofa on Boxing Day, watching 'Flushed Away' and eating choccies. Bliss! It looked lovely on the Christmas tree and I can imagine making lots more out of scraps of fabric to give as gifts, maybe stuffed with dried lavender or other herbal smelly things.

These kits are now selling at half price (£3) in Accessorize - a nice pressie for someone crafty perhaps?