Paper Obsession

Three (totally different) new cards

Been spending a bit of time making cards this last couple of weeks while on holiday from City & Guilds Digital Photography course. Here's one I made from some scraps of felt, heavily inspired by a card by Kristina Werner in the gallery over at 2 peas in a bucket. This U.S. based website is FANTASTIC, always really inspiring for cards, scrapbook pages and digital scrapping supplies. Plus, they are running several FREE monthly classes for the whole of this year in celebration of their 10th anniversary.

Anyway, here's my version of Kristina's card:

Last Sunday I treated myself to a day out at the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace and did some SERIOUS stash shopping! In the last couple of weeks I have become a little obsessed with stamping and I was very keen to find some particular stamps by Hero Arts. I didn't manage to find everything I wanted but I was inspired to buy some gorgeous spiky flower stamps by Tracey Dutton at Lavinia Stamps. What Tracey can do with a brayer, a few stamps and some inks is utterly awesome!

Anyway, for what it's worth, here are a few of my first attempts at using spiky flower stamps. I envisage lots of fun using these in different ways!

Finally, I bought the Cuttlebug cut & emboss Butterflies set a few weeks ago. Haven't used it much yet but I love it! Used the script embossing folder on this green butterfly and added it to a square white card covered in pink lace cardstock by KI Memories. Added a few sparkly gems to some of the flowers. Think it still needs something to finish it off, but not sure what at the moment.

Looking at these three photos I think I can safely say I don't have such thing as a signature style just yet.

Pay it Forward!

Today I received a beautiful gift from my blogging and scrapping friend Sarah, as part of an initiative called Pay It Forward. In a nutshell, I promise to send a small, hand-made gift to the first three people to comment on this post. These people then promise to do the same via their blogs. I commented on Sarah's blog and she sent me this lovely tote bag decorated with little hand-made felt flowers and embroidery. I am chuffed to bits! A big thank you to Sarah.

I'll be taking the bag to the Big Stamp & Scrapbooking Show at Alexandra Palace on Sunday to fill with lots of lovely new stash! My birthday's coming up so I'm spending birthday money/treating myself in advance. I have a few little ideas for making Pay It Forward gifts of my own, so all I need are a few supplies... and a few commenters to send them to! So if you are reading this and fancy taking part, please leave a comment below. I would be so delighted to send you a little gift!

Charlie's little book - March 2009

I've been trying to do a bit of catching up on my boys' 'little books' for 2009. So here are some photos of Charlie's page for March. I am using the gorgeous Basic Grey Offbeat papers for this book and sticking to a simple layout. Makes it quick and easy to complete a page!

Above: double page spread

Above: Left side close-up

Above: journalling card which is behind the photo.

I'll do a separate post for Harry's little book as there are quite a few pictures to include.

A fun-packed Easter weekend

My parents came up to visit this Easter and we had a very busy time, taking the boys out to all three of our local parks as well as Gambado indoor play centre in Beckenham. We had a rather damp Easter Egg hunt in the garden on Sunday morning which was great fun. Charlie and Harry adore their Grandma and Grampy - we don't see them often enough as they live in South Wales, but the boys always have lots of fun when they are around.

Here are a couple of photos from the weekend.

Above: Harry feeding the ducks

Above: Charlie and his Grampy at South Norwood Country Park

I've been trying to catch up on the boys' 2009 Little Books.. need to take some photos of my latest pages so I will try and upload them tomorrow.

Freedom... for two whole weeks!

Today I handed in my Digital Darkroom portfolio and workbook... on time (...just)!
Despite my determination that this term I would be super-organised and have it all done well before the deadline, somehow I still needed to stay up til 5.40am to get it all complete.

Why does this course demand so much time?!
I have honestly done little else with my free time for the last three or four weeks.
Not that I have a great deal of free time.. I guess that's half the problem.
The other half of the problem being that I'm not satisfied with just doing enough to pass.
No, it has to be as near perfect as I can manage.. and that takes way longer than it should.

My portfolio contained 12 images, six on the theme of Dramatic Landscapes and six on Time Travel. I will set up a couple of photo albums to put all the pictures in, but just for now here are two of my favourites.

Above: Black Hut at Rye Harbour - I added the stormy sky using Photoshop.

 

Above: Charlie aged 10 months - I converted to black & white and erased his vest to show the blue colour in the layer underneath.

Inspiration when you least expect it

I saw this ad in the paper a couple of weeks ago and thought - Hey, what a great sketch for a scrapbook page! After a few days thinking about it, I traced the sun's rays and used pieces of cardstock to put together a very similar design.

So here is my version! The lettering was fun to do - who needs letter stickers when you can make your own?

I'm still thinking about adding butterflies.. but this is it at the moment.

Been caught scraplifting

I just started subscribing to Scrapbook Magazine and my first issue arrived last week. Immediately I was inspired by some layouts from Cleo Jarvis to have a go at doodling. I kind of cheated a little as I used wooden stamps to create the flowers rather than drawing my own.. but I'm pleased with the overall result. The papers I used were freebies with the mag too! Bargain..

And here's a little close-up of the journaling:

Useful tips I learned from this which I'll definitely be using again:

• Drawing a scalloped circle onto a lined record card makes an easy journaling card - and so easy to customise with watercolour pencils.
• Raising elements on foam pads - I do it all the time when making cards but not when scrapbooking for some reason, but it does help to give some dimension.
• Buy plain white alpha stickers and colour them myself to match the layout - easy-peasy!
• Don't be afraid of 'ruining' a piece of cardstock - just go ahead and doodle! What's the worst that can happen?

I have lots more to share so will be back very soon!

Signs of spring

Spring is here!
The garden has sprung to life with tiny narcissi, crocuses, snowdrops and irises.
I've been trying to take photos of the flowers using the macro setting on my camera.
Finding it really tricky to get the bits I want in focus, but I've managed to take a few pictures I like.
Here are some of the crocuses and irises in our garden.

 
I have been thinking about having a go at digital scrapbooking..
Was inspired by Shimelle's digital layouts in the March issue Scrapbook Inspirations -
She has done some amazing things with her photos which I really fancy trying.
Also, this sort of thing could fit into my current City & Guilds Photography assignment which is actually my main motivation for trying digi-scrapping techniques.

But I will never stop paper scrapping.
I agree with Shimelle that there's not much point doing exactly the same sort of thing digitally that you can just as well do with paper and glue - especially when my shelves are bursting at the seams with paper and embellishments.
So digi-scrapping will be mainly for doing special effect type stuff that you can't achieve with traditional methods..
At least that's the idea.. I don't know if I will love or loathe digital - it's a whole new world - but at the moment I can't stop thinking about it.

My Bundle of Fun

OK I just wanted to share a layout I did yesterday afternoon while the little ones were napping. I was inspired by a LO in the book The Busy Scrapper and used papers from the BasicGrey Offbeat collection pack which is gorgeous! The layout features Charlie on a Sunday morning walk round High Elms country park last October. There is further journalling on the tag tucked behind the photo.

Harry stirred from his nap before I had started sticking all the pieces down so I grabbed the stapler and just stapled everything down - done in record time! SO much easier than glue and I rather like the effect..

Talking of Harry, this morning he uttered his first (very short) sentence. I was changing his nappy and putting the old one in a bag when he said 'Bye-bye poo-poo' and waved at the nappy bag. What he actually said was 'Ba-ba bboo-bboo' but I knew what he meant! 

A new baby card

I made this a couple of weeks ago for a friend who has just had her third baby.. and a third girl! I wanted to give it a shabby, home-spun look so I started by cutting three bird shapes out of brown felt.

I made wings and beaks out of pink felt and added lilac brads for the eyes. The flowers were made by cutting circles of brown kraft paper, scrunching them up and adding pink buttons to the centres. The stems are made from thin pink ribbon. I used a tiny rubber stamp set by Studio G for the word 'congratulations' which I stamped on another scrap of brown kraft paper stuck along the bottom. I fancy using these ideas on a scrapbook page as this was a fun card to make.