Paper Obsession

Buttons... I've used a few...

Thank you so much, ladies, for your kind words yesterday.. my Dad arrived home from hospital yesterday afternoon and sounded very chirpy on the phone.. my Mum, however, said she felt like 'an old rag' after what he'd put her through!

So, life can return to normal, more or less, which means I managed to do a quick layout last night, inspired by Shimelle's prompt on using up some buttons.

I've been meaning to scrapbook this 8x10 inch photo for ages, and tried to do something with patterned paper scraps last week, but no go. Buttons, on the other hand... a simple heart-shaped frame and white cardstock background... (almost) voila!!

I couldn't resist adding a couple of birdies, die-cut with space-dyed felt (from 21st Century Yarns), with feathers for wings (got these from a toy shop in the craft section) and Hero Arts black pearls.

The alphas are Basic Grey, from the 'Perhaps' and 'June Bug' collections. The journaling tag was inked with blue chalk ink round the edges and with purple and blue inks in the centre using sequin waste as a stencil. Loving this technique!!!

The photo was taken in February 2008; Harry was nearly 6 months old (and a little chubby, it has to be said!) and Charlie about 20 months old.

I've been having thoughts... and ideas... about 'Something About Almost Nothing', and the fact that it's nearly over (boo-hoo!!). I'll do a separate post on this a bit later.. I'd love to know what you think too, so please stay tuned!

Spring is in the air

Happy Mothers' Day to any mummies reading this! I hope you were truly spoiled today. Me? Well, there was no breakfast in bed (can you imagine, with a two-year-old and a three-year-old leaping around beside me?! It would literally be in the bed..) but we did have a very lovely walk in Grangewood Park this morning. The sun was glorious, the squirrels were out in force.. it was a perfect Spring day.

 

Harry has been poorly with a really nasty cough for the last few days (complete with awful nights of little sleep) but seemed lots better today. The boys had both made me beautiful Mothers' Day cards and also decorated a gorgeous little photo album with chipboard and foam hearts while we were at Toddler Group on Friday (I would not let them leave without doing one each!). Gareth very thoughtfully bought me an American Crafts 12x12 cloth album in Cardinal Red - how on earth did he manage to know that was just what I wanted (ahem.. I might have dropped a small hint)?!

So here's the evidence...

 

Fab... what more could a girl desire for Mothers' Day..

Hand-made cards from my sweet boys (born to craft, methinks)...

Charlie's message, faithfully transcribed by his teacher in Nursery.. and his signature... had me in tears!

And finally, here's a picture of the title page of my 'Celebrate Life' project, which I'll be putting in - oooh, let me think - my new AC album!

Have a great week!

Some scrappy discoveries

I seem to have been glued to the blogs for the last few days and have created nothing new.. shame on me! However, my boys have both created some lovely art - and seem to be developing very different styles! Charlie likes to put hand-prints on everything, while Harry just loves to make train tracks in paint.

Despite my lack of creativity this week, I have managed to bring my Google Reader under control (now down to a mere 23 subscriptions)... and have also discovered some interesting blogs and sites...

A website called ScrapScene - 'the who's who of scrapbooking' - am I the only scrapper who didn't know about this? It contains all sorts of scrapbooking news, along with design team calls and useful articles. Definitely worth a look.

Over at Get It Scrapped!, Debbie Hodge is running a free class called 'Scrap "Your" Story'. It's a series of 11 weekly lessons, posted each Tuesday, designed to get you scrapping about yourself. The first one, entitled 'Yourself: Who are you right now', is on the website now. It looks pretty detailed, and I doubt I'll commit to it, but could be useful if you've been meaning to scrap about yourself but keep putting it off.

From a link on the Gauche Alchemy blog, I discovered the Submissions page for Scrapbook Trends, Cards, Bead Trends and Simply Handmade magazines. I only have one copy of ST (the December '09 issue) but it's a fantastic source of inspiration, the layouts are just gorgeous.. and SO beautifully photographed. It would be a dream to be published in those hallowed pages.. so I thought why not have a go?

Well, you don't get anywhere if you don't try, right?!

I could go on, but it's getting hard to type with a little one on my lap..

Oh, just one more thing - I did sign up to Shimelle's new class 'Something for (Almost) Nothing' - so if you have too, see you in class! ;o)

Like Mum Like Son?

Here's a layout I made last week... I was really inspired by the style of Emma Trout's layouts in Scrapbook Magazine. She does a lot of paper tearing and inking with black ink and the effect is really striking.

All of the papers are Basic Grey (various ranges) apart from the text one, which is by Doodlebug. The yellow American Crafts Thickers letter stickers were part of my runner-up prize in the Scrapbooker of the Year competition and I am LOVING them so much!

The birdies were cut from patterned paper with the Spellbinders bird dies and Cuttlebug. I stuck on Hero Arts black gems for their eyes.

When we were three...

Last week my laptop was away being fixed.. and I managed to get THREE 12x12 layouts done.. coincidence? Or a sign that I usually spend more time surfing the blogs than I do scrapping. As I couldn't print off any recent photos, I turned to my massive pile of 'to-be-scrapped' pictures.

This layout is of me, Gareth and Charlie, when the little 'un was just three months old, on holiday in the Isle of Wight. I was inspired by a page I saw in Scrapbook Trends, December 2009.

Supplies:

Cardstock - Bazzill Kraft

Patterned paper - BasicGrey 'June Bug'

Alphas - American Crafts Thickers (red felt and green vinyl); Doodlebug Loopy Lou (black)

Stamps - Hero Arts 'Decorative Birds'

Punches - Fiskars 'Threading Water' border punch; Woodware scalloped circle

Trim - Bazzill pom-pom trim

I stamped the birdies on to yellow patterned paper, then again on to pink and blue papers, just cutting out and sticking on the wings. I inked the bodies with orange chalk ink for a bit of shading. The little one is mounted on foam pads. I drew the legs on with black pen.

I'll be back soon with the other two layouts.. just need to photograph them in decent light.

Tomorrow it's the Bromley Scrapaholix crop - I always have such a dilemma choosing which supplies to take, and NEVER have exactly what I need when I get there! I guess if I planned a layout in advance it would help.. 

Have a happy scrappy weekend :o)

We got the house!!!

Well, we did it.. our offer was accepted and WE ARE MOVING TO EASTBOURNE!!!

I have yearned to live by the sea for sooooo long! I'm so happy that the boys will grow up here.. near their family.. near the countryside and the beach. We still have plenty of hurdles to overcome (especially getting Charlie into the school we want) but this is such a positive start.

And today, just to top off a pretty special day, my layout was featured - as promised - on the Gauche Alchemy blog. Here's a snippet of it:

Oh, the awful irony if we'd not got the house today...

The rest of the layout is on the GA blog here. Also featured was Helen Salthouse, the Scrapbooker of the Year competition winner, who displayed her talent with an amazing layout using GA kit bits. Truly fabulous!!!

Who wouldn't want to live here?!

Eastbourne... the beach on Saturday morning... Charlie, Harry and their cousins Caitlan and Kieran, having wonderful fun splashing in the puddles at low tide... all the reasons we are planning to pack up our lives in London and relocate to the south coast.

It's been an exhausting week. On Thursday evening we went to stay with Gareth's parents in Eastbourne, still without an offer on our house, to view some properties and also a nursery school for the boys.

We viewed four houses on Friday but there was one in particular that we both set our hearts on. It's a 1930s-built semi, in desperate need of repair and modernisation, but potentially a wonderful family home that will suit us for years.

I felt moved to do some scrapping this afternoon and produced this.. so that I will never forget how I'm feeling today.. the day before a potentially HUGE turning point in our lives. The journaling tells the story in a nutshell.

Terrible lighting, so here's a couple of close-ups..

Supplies:

Cardstock - Bazzill Basics white

Patterned paper - Basic Grey 'June Bug'

Letter stickers - American Crafts Thickers 'Rain Boots'

Stamps - Banana Frog 'Journaling' and 'Tiny Teen' alphas

I'll keep you posted...

Mallow Magic... the layout

Just like the proverbial London buses... no blog posts for five days then two turn up at once. I've been up to my elbows in various projects over the last few days, largely prompted by the start of Julie Kirk and Kirsty Neale's 12 Days class, amongst other things. I will share what I've been doing for this class in a couple of days.

For now, though, I would love to share a layout I did to record the story of Charlie and his first taste of marshmallows (blogged here).

and a close-up...

As you may be able to guess, I used giant bubble wrap dipped in pink and white paint to create the background splodges on black Dotted Swiss paper - enormous fun!

The alpha stickers are American Crafts Thickers (Smoothie) and black Dymo tape. The rest is just Bazzill cardstock and little scraps of other card. 

Thanks for looking!

Charlie starts nursery.. and LSNED catch-up

This week I've been rather preoccupied with Charlie starting nursery. It was his first day on Monday - or, at least, his introductory hour. On Tuesday Harry and I stayed with Charlie the whole time - one of his teachers suggested I leave him for a while but Charlie overheard and clung to me in horror.

On Wednesday I managed to persuade Charlie that I needed to take Harry next-door to the Children's Centre for Stay & Play. He just about accepted that, although we did have a bit of a battle at the door. I was able to 'spy' on him outside in the garden scooting around on the bikes and bouncing on the trampoline. But then I spotted him sitting forlornly on one end of a see-saw for ages, all on his own, and my heart wept for him.

I left him there for an hour and a half yesterday - and it was probably as hard for me as it was for Charlie. Today I told him I would take Harry home for his nap, and when I pick him up we'd go to the park. He took this pretty well - and gave me a big wave when I left with Harry. So now I'm sitting here with the radio for background noise, Harry asleep and Charlie not here. It's a strange feeling.

The upshot of all this is that LSNED has taken a back seat.. I've been learning plenty but just haven't had the time or inclination to scrap it. But I can share a couple of pages I made last week.

Here's last Monday's page, celebrating a little outing with friends we haven't seen for ages. Charlie and Zac got on so well, it was lovely to see him having such fun with a friend.

And here is last Wednesday's page - documenting my revelation that it WAS possible to go shopping with the boys AND come back with a significant amount of new clothes. This spur-of-the-moment shopping spree was prompted by a glance at my Autumn/Winter wardrobe which has barely seen a new addition in the last three years.

And finally, here is a card I made for a friend, Kate, who is thirty today. I was inspired by a card I saw on Flickr in the Hero Arts Group by the wonderfully talented Lucy Abrams.. although in the end I think it turned out quite different.

My little sweetheart

Well, the butterfly obsession continues as I predicted in my last post. This layout was inspired by last week's challenge (Be Inspired # 32) on the Cuttlebug Challenges Blog, which was to create a project with the theme of Butterflies and Hearts, ideally made with the Cut & Emboss combo sets. I just HAD to play along with this one!

The photo is of Charlie at 9 months during a holiday to Bruges. He had crashed out on the bed in our hotel and just looked like an angel. [A far cry from the little monster he has turned into at 3 years old, but that's another story...]

Supplies used:
Cardstock:   Bazzill Basics
Patterned paper:   Heidi Grace
Buttons:   S.E.I. Chick-A-Doo
Letters:   Doodlebug Simply Sweet
Punch:   Fiskars Threading Water