Paper Obsession

We're on the move.. at last

Well, we've been through a hellish few weeks trying to get to the end of the house-moving process. It's been one set-back after another.. but at last today we exchanged contracts on our house purchase, with completion set for tomorrow.

It's been such a rocky ride I can't say with any certainty that we'll get to move in to our new place tomorrow.. the only sure thing is that we will be moving out from here! This could be my last post for a couple of weeks as it takes a while to get the phone line and broadband all set up (yes, I am going to go CRAZY! But at least I may get some scrapping done.. as and when I locate my essential bits and pieces.. on that subject, packing up brought home to me what an embarrassingly huge amount of stash I have!).

Today is my Dad's 60th birthday (Happy Birthday Dad!!!)... as part of his present I made a little mini-book called 'A little book of happiness'. It's filled with photos of Dad, Mum, Charlie and Harry during our holidays in Wales and their visits to us. It was fun to make and also busted a bit of stash!

Here is the front cover:

The papers are by Bo Bunny and the butterfly stickers by Papermania. The other alphas are assorted letter stickers and rub-ons.

Here's the inside front cover:

Well, that's it - my time is up.. got to finish packing and get to bed.. so apologies if I don't get around to see you for a while, my blog friends.. I'll catch up when I can!

Sarah x

I've just gone hybrid!

Last Friday I showed you my first 'proper' attempt at digital scrapbooking and mentioned I was itching to try hybrid card-making and scrapping. Well, I'm pleased to say I've had a go.. and it wasn't that difficult!

Here are two very simple cards I made using the FREE 'Dream' mini-kit by Vinnie Pearce:

The kit is available for immediate download from Vinnie's gorgeous blog (which is well worth a look - she is a brilliant designer as well as an inspirational hybrid scrapper). 

Here's a picture of the whole kit, to whet your appetite evern more!

So here's what I did:

• Downloaded and unzipped the kit using Winzip.
• Opened the flowery background paper in Photoshop Elements 7.
• Opened a new canvas and resized it to A4 (210 x 297 mm) size.
• Dragged the background paper on to the new canvas and resized it to 5 inches square.
• Copied and pasted it just below the first one so there were two on the page.
• Printed it out on white A4 card.

To create the butterflies:

• Opened a new canvas and resized to A4 as above.
  
• Opened a butterfly and dragged it to the size I wanted.
• Copied it a couple more times to make a few large and a few small ones.
• Repeated this with the second butterfly and the banner, creating an A4 sheet of butterfly and banner elements.
• Printed it out on white A4 card.

To make the card:

• I cut out the background paper to 4.75 inches square and distressed the edges with a BasicGrey edge distressing tool.
• Stuck this onto a 5 inch square pink base card.
• Cut out a large butterfly and inked the edges in turquoise chalk ink (Colorbox).
• Embossed the butterfly with Cuttlebug and Script embossing folder.
• Inked the raised script with turquoise chalk ink.
• Stuck the butterfly to the card using a sticky dot.
• Added the Papermania vellum sticker greeting.

Hope that makes some sense! If you're interested in trying hybrid scrapping, have a look at Vinnie's blog - she has some incredible examples of her hybrid pages for you to drool over! ;o)

Easter bunnies, a new baby card and crazy blog ideas

Our Easter day started with clouds and rain.. but as soon as the sun appeared I was in the garden surreptitously scattering little chocolate eggs amongst the flower-pots and in the borders. When all was set, out we went, the boys clutching their little Easter baskets, to see if the Easter bunnies had been.

Unfortunately, my scattering of choccie treats in the flower borders was not such a smart idea.. while retrieving an egg nestled in a clump of bluebells, Harry managed to trample heavily on a couple of newly-emerged Allium plants. Oh well... they'll be fine next year, when we're gone from this house!

(That yucky-looking brown thing is a wet leaf, not a slug.)

The boys were delighted with their spoils - six eggs for Charlie and five for Harry - and they have got through the day eating just three each. We didn't buy them any other Easter eggs and they didn't expect any more. Oh, how I wish it would stay that way!

We had a delicious Easter lunch - steak for Gareth and Charlie, Quorn escalopes for Harry and me - complete with roast potatoes, parsnips, broccoli, garlic mushrooms and mini corn-on-the-cobs. Yes, a slightly bizarre combination but it tasted good!

On a crafty note, here's a card I made yesterday for our friends, James and Kate, to celebrate the birth of their baby, Samuel:

The papers are from the 'Ducks in a Row' range by October Afternoon and the alpha stickers are Basic Grey's 'June Bug' letters.

It's so exciting to see that Shimelle has extended the 'Something From Almost Nothing' class with challenges continuing through April. It's been such fun seeing the amazing pages everyone has come up with - so many fresh new ideas to try.

I'm still thinking about the possibility of starting up a new challenge blog, based around finding new ways to use up old stash. I know there are already lots of challenge blogs out there, so I'm going to have to convince myself the crafting world needs another one before I plunge in there. A couple of virtually sleep-free nights have given me plenty of ideas.. this would not be just a challenge blog, I'd like to make it a bit more than that! Once I've turned these ideas into a coherent plan, I'll let you know what I'm thinking.. and then you can give me your honest opinion!

Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of your Easter weekend.. hope the sun shines where you are! :o)

Talking digital

I don't generally 'do' digital scrapbooking for two key reasons...

(a) I have way too much real stash to get through

(b) I've tried a couple of times and found it frustrating and difficult.

But this morning I was inspired to have another go.. by a beautiful hybrid card by Lucy Abrams, in which she used the brand-new digital kit by Michelle Underwood called 'It's the Little Things' (available on Two Peas).

I thought I'd share, not because I think it's amazing (it so isn't!) but I am a little bit proud of the progress I've made. And I actually enjoyed doing it, too! It's good fun being able to move papers and elements around, resizing them and turning them round - without fear of ruining a good sheet of patterned paper or using up letter stickers!

For this layout I used Michelle Underwood's kit and also a free kit of page templates by Jen Martakis, available on Two Peas now.

Evidently I still have a steep learning curve in front of me.. like how to put in drop shadows, for a start!

What I really want to do now is make hybrid cards (like Lucy does so incredibly well), and print bits of digi-kits to use on hybrid scrapbook layouts. Being able to resize journaling boxes and labels would be really handy, for example.

But do you know what I'd like to do even more? Design my own digital elements. I'd love to be able to do this! I'm really not sure where to start though.. I've had a tiny play around with Photoshop Elements but it wasn't entirely successful, shall we say. Maybe there's a better way, a piece of software that all the digital designers use... Any ideas?

What are your views on digi-scrapping? Is it the way forward.. or would you rather stick with paper and glue (mind the pun..)?