Paper Obsession

A busy month ahead!

Well I seem to have neglected this poor little blog for a few weeks, but that's about to change. I've signed up for not one but TWO fantastic online classes starting in November.. foolish, maybe - but I couldn't resist either class.

It wasn't a hard job convincing myself to join in with Shimelle's new class 'Blogging for Scrapbookers' - I'm certainly in need of a mojo-boost as far as blogging goes. I'm hoping this class will unravel some of the mysteries of blog-writing and help me to customise and improve Paper Obsession.

And then I spotted a new class on Julie Kirk and Kirsty Neale's wonderful Copy + Paste blog - it's called 12 Days: A Copy + Paste Christmas. It promises masses of projects, downloads and tutorials 'designed to help you make the most of your creative supplies in the run-up to Christmas'.. not only lots of ideas for Christmas gifts but the projects can be adapted for other times of the year. 

Meanwhile, I have rediscovered the joy of scrapping in 12x12 format, making plenty of cards and trying to catch up with various projects I've had on the go for ages. Here are my latest efforts...

This was in response to the Pencil Lines blog's Sketch 155, which I spotted on Shimelle's blog, here... Charlie and Harry just love playing 'peepo' in the shelters at Dulwich Park and looked so cute peeping through the windows.

I have used various ribbons and green sequin mesh on Bazzill brown and blue Dotted Swiss cardstock; the letters are Jillibean Soup's corrugated kraft alphas which I painted orange.

The bird was cut from orange felt using the Spellbinder Shapeabilities Bird set. I added a hand-cut wing and a blue button eye, then stuck it on an orange flower.

This next page shows the boys in the park on a sunny afternoon, running around and picking dandelion clocks. The low sunlight on the dandelions was beautiful, inspiring me to take loads of photos. The papers are from Cosmo Cricket's 'Earth Love' range. I made the photo collage in Picasa, Google's free photo-editing software.

Finally, here is a layout featuring the boys having a delicious grass salad in the garden last week. Harry would actually have eaten it, too, if I hadn't shouted 'Harry, no!!!' (after taking the photo, of course..). I stamped the orange cardstock with my new Hero Arts Designer Woodgrain stamp which I'm in LOVE with at the moment.

Here's a quick close-up to show the woodgrain:

And that's all for now.. I'll be back soon with more crafty bits and pieces to share. Sooner than last time, anyway, I promise!

Two cards in one day - it's a record!

This morning I realised TODAY is my sister-in-law's birthday and TOMORROW is my nephew's seventh birthday. One day late is better than never - and on time is better still - so I set myself the task of getting two cards in the post by this afternoon.

Here is what I came up with for Eve:

The flower stamps are by Lavinia Stamps, not sure of their name. I stamped them using my new Distress Inks (Peeled Paint and Dusty Concorde) and then sprayed the paper with diluted purple acylic paint from a mini-mister. I cut out the picture with a Nestabilities Labels 1 die (the second biggest), then cut out a bigger one in green BasicGrey paper. The papers are both from BasicGrey's Eva range.

I then stamped my favourite Hero Arts stamp, Heart-winged butterfly, on to some more purple-splattered paper and added dots of pink glitter and Hero Arts black accent pearls before cutting out and mounting onto the flower panel with a foam pad.

The 'Happy Birthday' greeting is one of a set I found in 'The Works' - they are really handy when you're in a hurry!

And here is my card for Kieran:

I stamped the Hero Arts owls onto scraps of BasicGrey Scarlet's Letter paper and also on to white card, cut them out and pieced on the wings of the largest owl and the eyes of all three. I stamped the branch in white ink but it wasn't clear so I went over it using Souffle pens. Finally I stamped 'You hoo!' on to white paper, drew a speech bubble round it and cut it out.

The owls are mounted on BasicGrey papers (what else?!) - the woodgrain is from the Granola range and the purple and green are Granola and Eva respectively. I couldn't resist adding some glittery stars - in the photo they look a bit big and blobby - it was a mad dash to finish the card, wake Harry up and get to nursery to pick up Charlie, all in about ten minutes. We just made it on time, and the card is in the post. RESULT!!

Stash, stash and yet more stash

I have so many bits of news and pictures to share I don't quite know where to begin.. it would help if I got around to posting a bit more often I suppose. But here goes..

Saturday was my long-awaited day out to Alexandra Palace (Ally Pally) for the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show - I'd been resisting online stash-shopping for MONTHS (..ok, weeks..) to justify a little spending spree. It was also a chance to meet up with some of the ladies I'd 'met' on the forums in UKScrappers. It was pretty overwhelming in the big hall - hot and hectic - so it was good to slow down for a while to chat with Pat, Kate, Petra and Lee from UKS. I didn't manage to take any photos of the ladies or the stalls, despite dragging my camera round all day, but I did take some piccies of my stash haul when I got home.

Et voila:

The papers above are called 'Earth Love' by Cosmo Cricket and they are wonderful. They are double sided so I took two pictures, one of each side. I am REALLY looking forward to doing some 12x12 layouts with these soon.

And more stash news...

Way back in July you may recall I won a prize in the Hero Arts blog's weekly challenge for a scrapbook page I did ('Baby Face') using a monochromatic colour scheme. The prize was a $50 shopping spree in the Hero Arts online shop (oh, bliss!). It took me absolutely AGES to decide on my goodies but eventually I did, and they arrived VERY promptly on Monday.

Here they are:

The full list is:
Clear Design - Scalloped Borders
Clings - Antique Brocade
Clings - Striped Circle
Clings - Snowflake Circle
Designer Woodgrain
Midnight Black Accent Pearls

I've already had a play with the woodgrain and the scalloped borders - I'll show pictures in my next post, which will be a Learn Something New catch-up post.

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.

LSNED - Thurs 10th and Fri 11th to share

It's becoming a bit of a struggle to create a page every day but I am at least keeping up with noting my thoughts and 'lessons learned' in my little book. I do hope to catch up with all my pages this weekend.. but we'll see what life throws at me!

Anyway, I have two completed pages to share from last week. I think Thursday's page is fairly self-explanatory...

Yes... this is a real bugbear of mine - irresponsible dog-owners, you make my blood boil. A dark, angry topic set against girly bright papers - for some reason the contrast really appealed to me. The little birdie sticker was from Paperchase (oh how I LOOOOVE this shop! But that's another story).

The next page (Friday 11th Sept) follows a similar theme as they lie opposite each other in the album. My title was prompted by a particularly stressy morning trying to get the boys dressed, teeth and faces cleaned and out of the door in time for Friday Toddler Group which starts at 10. We got there, eventually, at 10.40 with me in a foul mood. Within two minutes all my stresses melted away and serenity was restored. It's just such a happy, friendly place to be - the boys have such fun there and I get to chat with grown-ups and eat cake. Perfect!

I chose the pigeon picture as an image of calm, unruffledness - something I wasn't until I got to Toddler Group.

One piece of exciting news before I go - I just received a huge amount of Glue Dots in a giveaway in this month's Scrapbook Magazine - woo-hoo!!! A girl can surely never have too many Glue Dots. So, my lesson for today? Keep applying for all those giveaways.. sooner or later, your name WILL come up!

LSNED - Saturday's page and a new obsession?

Hi there,

Just a quickie post to share my latest page from Saturday.. and to muse about something which could well become my latest obsession..

I have not yet done pages for Thursday or Friday and I'm beginning to fear I'm falling behind now. Eeeeek! I just HAVE to speed up my scrapping process. Some people's pages look as if they were put together in five minutes - but in a VERY good way! I often labour painfully over my pages - and these are often the pages I am least happy with. When a page comes together quickly and easily I am very pleased!

So here is Saturday's page, about (another) trip to the park in which I rediscovered the thrill of finding shiny brown conkers.

Here is a peek at the journaling which is under the photo:

For a while I've been becoming intrigued by art journaling. Some of the work I've seen around the web is utterly fantastic and so inspiring.. I would LOVE to be able to do it! Then this evening I was having a browse in the Altered Art forum on UKScrappers when I came across a post about a new class by Dina Wakley. I couldn't resist having a peep at her website - her work is awesome - all-out art journaling as well as scrapbook layouts with an arty twist. Now I am getting VERY tempted to sign up for one of her online classes, Art Journaling 101.

It could fit in rather nicely with Learn Something New Every Day - the idea of treating myself to a new skill..? (Here I'm trying to convince myself the investment is a good idea, and that I really could squeeze a few more hours into my day ;-)  Or should I wait til after LSNED finishes? It is a self-paced class so I could always start in October.. but I'm just too impatient!

If anyone has any experience of art journaling and/or Dina's classes, any comments/advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks for reading!

LSNED - catching up Monday to Wednesday

I've had a bit of scrapper's block for my Monday page, even though I had no problems with Tuesday or Wednesday. I managed to get it done using one of Shimelle's new sketches today - and in record time! So now I need to play catch-up.

On Monday I learned that I REALLY need to keep my calendar up to date with events I have planned. It's simple enough surely. I had bought a ticket for the Knitting & Stitching Show weeks ago but,for some reason, failed to write it down. Then my DH, Gareth, arranged a weekend in Eastbourne with my in-laws on the same weekend - when he asked if I had anything on that weekend the date didn't even ring a bell... I discovered my foolish mistake on Monday and, thankfully, we were able to rearrange the Eastbourne weekend so I can still go to the show. Phew.

There have been other organisational mishaps this week but I think I should probably not own up to them - it's just too embarrassing..

So here is my page for Monday - the whole sorry tale is tucked away behind the BasicGrey paper.

On Tuesday, we were treated to the most glorious sunshine and by lunchtime we were basking in at least 25 degrees. I took the boys to the park in Addiscombe (a rather more upmarket park than our shabby local one) and we had a lovely time playing on the climbing frames and having a little picnic on the grass. On the way home we passed some fantastic sunflowers in a front garden, so perfectly golden against the blue sky I had to take a photo. It really did make me feel Summer had returned, just as I had resigned myself to the onset of Autumn and Winter.

On Wednesday we took Charlie for his pre-school appointment to meet his class teachers before he starts Nursery on 21st Sept. Although he was shy and didn't say much, he did a beautiful picture while we were there, and got to play on the computer (or 'pin-cuter', as he calls it). We bought him a school jumper which he then refused to take off - although he was VERY reluctant to let me photograph him in it. He is very mixed up about whether he wants to start nursery or not. The photo shows me trying to get him to show off the badge on the jumper. No chance..

If anyone's made it to the end, thanks for reading!!! ;-)

LSNED - Sunday's page has gone digital!

Yesterday, we spent a lovely morning in Dulwich Park, somewhere we'd never been before. Gareth cycles through Dulwich every day on his way to work so he had seen the park and thought it looked worth a visit. Well, yesterday I learned how the other half live! The park is just incredible. I could write at length about all the wonderful facilities and what a lovely time we had - but suffice to say I fell in love! And wished we could afford to be Dulwich residents.

I took lots of photos there, mainly of the boys playing, but I really liked the ones I took of some huge flower heads that were full of fluffy seeds. So I thought I'd have a go at a simple digital page.

I just cropped the photo into a square and resized it to 6x6 inches in Photoshop Elements.
I then added the text.. although it took surprisingly AGES to get the font I wanted and the text where I wanted it.
Finally I added the frame - it is from a set by Carina Gardner which I downloaded from 2 Peas in a Bucket. It was originally black so I changed the colour to white.

It's not my very first attempt at digital scrapping, but it is the first I have finished and printed out. It's a steep learning curve though.. and even though I'm pleased with my effort I do feel it looks a bit, um, flat. So I won't be chucking out all my papers and embellies just yet!

LSNED - Trash from the attic... or Saturday's page?

For the last couple of weeks my DH Gareth has been disappearing up the loft putting up shelves to store all our junk and finding anything worth selling to put on eBay. Despite his heroic efforts, the place still looks like a land-fill site so I finally agreed to get up there and do my bit. The vast majority of stuff is, after all, MY junk.

So I spent a back-breaking couple of hours yesterday morning sifting through endless lever-arch files and boxes, ruthlessly recycling and binning anything I could. While sorting through all the mess I ended up with a pile of bits and bobs that 'could be useful' - stuff too pretty or interesting or colourful to sling out. Like old birthday cards, bits of wrapping paper, even gridded paper from my old teacher's planners that would make great journaling spots.

I decided Saturday's page would be made entirely from stuff rescued from the loft:

The cardstock is an old subject divider. The pink and green strips and the elephant are from an Oxfam birthday card, handmade in Bangladesh using wheatstraw pieces. The flowery paper is a gift card from Topshop and the grid paper is from an old planner. I wrote the date on a bit of masking tape.

The photo was actually taken after all my efforts.. clearly there is still a LOT of work to be done - and maybe more little treasures to uncover?!

LSNED - Friday's page in the park

At the moment we seem to be developing a routine of going to the park in the afternoons at about four o'clock. We've had all sorts of weather this week, ranging from torrential rain to high winds and perfect sunshine, showing that summer is rapidly giving way to autumn. The boys love nothing more than a trip to the park, hunting for conkers and acorns, splashing in muddy puddles (thanks Peppa Pig..) and having rides on the swings, slide and roundabout.

This afternoon we took a ball with us and had a wonderful kick-about on the grass. I REALLY had the urge to run and leap around the place - which I did - and it felt so good! In fact it made me think I ought to unearth my running gear from the loft and start going out jogging again. I used to go nearly every day and haven't run regularly for probably four years now. There can be NO excuse any more! OK, by next Sunday, I want to report that I have actually got off my behind and run two laps round the park.

On to my page for Friday 4th Sept, before I make any more rash promises...

I used one of Shimelle's sketches for this page although I think I changed it a bit as I went along. It does help to have a little nudge sometimes though.