A lot of cutting

I loved cutting my own shapes for the cuddle bunch LO so thought I would have another go at some hand cutting last night. I have these photo's of Kari on her 2nd birthday that I wanted to scrap but as I couldn't get them down from 4 it had to be a DLO this made the whole shape thing a little more complicated!

I started by choosing Basic Grey 2 scoops pp for the DLO but as I only had one sheet of each colour I had to get inventive! I cut the Butter pecan, Sprinkles and Mint Choc Chip papers in half and added a piece of scalloped dark blue cardstock also cut in half. I then stuck the blue cadstock to the Butter Pecan pp making sure that the papers lined up and then stuck the Sprinkles pp onto the blue card again lining it up.

I turned one of the pages over and hand drew half a bracket shape and cut it out, I used the cut out to trace on the other page so that both sides would match up. Once I was happy that they shape lined up perfectly I stuck the Mint Choc Chip paper under the Sprinkles and trimmed to 12" as I ended up with pages nearly 13" deep. I trimmed the sides so that the scallops were no longer showing through at the sides and then rounded the corners.

Once all the pp's were done I attached the photo's and journalling card and used stickers from the 2 scoops range to embellish the DLO. I kept the embellishments fairly simple and minimal as there was so much going on with the papers.

I wanted to get this lovely picture of my littlest man Alex scrapped. He looks so serene and thoughtful it was a very rare quiet moment for him. I hand cut some more wavy rectangles from papers in the April Gottacraft kit and then distressed them with sandpaper. I inked the backing card and the middle of the pp's as the distressing didn't show up as well on the paler pp. I tied the 2 chipboard buttons in the kit with some fibre added a journalling card and used lots of different alpha's for the title.

CJ round 2

I actually did this on Wednesday evening but forgot to update my blog. I used BG pp and made a pocket to hold the recipe and method cards if you haven't tried Whoopie pies you should my monkey's love them. I haven't made them in a while I might do some over the weekend if my knee stops playing up :)

Trying new things

I am so lucky that my husband has hobbies, he has his Xbox and he has recently started doing Triathlons so he goes out running, cycling and swimming. All this means he completely gets the pull of a hobby and how sometimes you just can't do anything else but your hobby! Yesterday was one of those days, I had done my latest CJ the night before (still need to post that eek!) but after my postie finally bringing me my april Gottacraft kit on Tuesday I was itching to cut into it.

I had a little trouble deciding on photo's to go with the papers but eventually settled on the pictures of my big three having their first cuddles with the little guy. I had wanted to cut my own funky shape for a LO since doing the gorgeous card from MJM's kit here and so I cut off a strip of the green paper and just cut a wavy rectangle from it freehand then distressed and inked it. The rest of it came together quite nicely and the only title I could use was my little nickname for my babies "The Cuddle Bunch" hope you like it all the elements are from the kit apart the Thickers, pompom ribbon and blooms from my stash;

After that I wanted to continue being creative with an idea I had a couple of weeks back but still hadn't attempted. I had the idea of doing reverse decoupage after seeing some reverse applique, I have never seen this done before which doesn't mean it hasn't been I am sure I am not that innovative but this wasn't inspired by anyone elses work it was all me. Instead of taking a motif and building it up with layers I took 3 sheets of pp and cut large shapes from the centre of each with each layer's shape getting smaller so that it is 3D but like the inside of a pyramid IYKWIM.

I used so much foam tape it is unreal but each layer is raised so it is about 1/2" thick and will not fit in Alex's scrapbook as it is too thick lol which is ok as Phil loves it :) He has said it is his favourite of all my scrapping and he wants to get a frame and put it on the wall :D

All PP are Basic Grey Baby Boy and all the apertures and shapes are hand cut, the flowers are made using pp from the same range and the only addition is a bit of fusion felt dragonflies.

Old photos of my 2 older boys

While I was continuing my spring clean yesterday I found some old school photo's of my big 2 boys and as they were so cute I couldn't have them hidden away again so today I scrapped some of them. This first one I am not quite happy with it it feels as if it needs something else but I am not sure what so please please help me out here :)

My Best Friend

This one I left quite simple as the cardstock I used was embellished around the edges. I used my sewing machine to make the paper pieces into a "quilt" and sewed on my title. I am debating sewing around the photo too but am leaving it as it is for now.

Shining Smile

The last one is actually the first one I did and is for the April week 4 weekly challenge on UKScrappers. The challenge was quite involved this week we had to;

Use black and/or white

Use metal

Use 11 of something

Use ribbon

Use something miraculous or wonderful

I used Cosmo Cricket Lil Man pp, thickers, and ribbons from my stash. I made the "cogs" using grungeboard coloured with Fibre Scraps EZ Tintz in tea stain which I then heat embossed using a versamark pad and Personal impressions Turquoise sparkle powder which gave them the rusty look. The black metal brackets are Dingbrads by Around the Block.

A lovely crafty day

I had a lovely day today (well as it is past midnight I guess it was yesterday really lol) I was reading through some of the blogs I follow and saw the Saturday Scrap Map on the Creative Craft World blog and instantly knew the sketch would suit some photo's I had of my 2 big boys playing footie with hubby until the little man decided to pinch the ball lol.

Before I started and scrapping though I decided to go for a little stash shopping well hubby encouraged me so who am I to argue? I got some lovely new bits and bobs and spent way too much money heehee but used the fab Cosmo Cricket Lil Man papers for the LO. I am totally in love with the range and will be having a lovely online window shopping browse through their other ranges sometime soon me thinks but no more actual spending for a little while :)

Here is my bash at the CCW scrap map what do you think?

I was left completely inspired by the sketch and as I also got some thickers today (won an auction on ebay and got 10 packets of different thickers for £21 inc p&p) decided to scrap my 2011 red nose day pics of the big three. They made me laugh so much this year, the last time we had red nose day they could go in normal clothes no need to dress up but this time they were told to "wear something funny". My eldest at first wanted to go as a toilet!!! not quite sure where that came from but I managed to persuade him that it would not be a suitable costume for doing schoolwork in so all three of them decided to go as Zombie schoolkids with ripped up school uniform that was due to be thrown. I think they looked fab but am still confused as to how it was funny lol. The title comes as they are all big Michael Jackson fans and their poses remind me of the video :)

Lastly I wanted to use these beautiful papers and chipboard stickers I got today in a page kit and chose this gorgeous photo of my daughter with my mum's best friend Dawn who has always been Nana Dawn to my monkeys. I cut the flowers out and stenciled a Tim Holtz mask and cut that out and finally covered a chipboard circle and distressed and inked it. I wish the flourish stencil showed up a bit better in the photo it looks better in reality but I love the page anyhow :)

Spring has sprung

A few weeks ago I posted some pictures of the flowers in my garden. It has been a constant delight going into the garden and seeing what new flowers have sprung up. It all started with the Daffodils which popped up while it was still fairly gloomy and brightened the garden up considerably, then the garlic hyacinth sprung up everywhere around the garden carpeting the borders in a beautiful shade of blue. Then my favourites the Tulips started to appear, first red then plum, then pink and finally the orange ones. There are also some small purple flowers that I am not sure what they are possibly Verbana but I am not sure.

I thought that was that for flowers until yesterday when some gorgeous huge purple Iris's appeared along the fence. I have some sneaking feeling they may have travelled here from next door but I am not complaining :)

We have never had a proper garden before we have only had patches of lawn and a patio area so this is all new to me and it is so nice to have plants that I can't kill lol. So today I did my first LO of my beautiful garden flowers. I have taken so many pictures I will do a couple more or maybe a mini book but this is the first :)

UKS April week 3 challenge

So the challenge this week was hard really really hard. It was set by Sue who you can find here and the requirements were;

* scrap with any shape but square
* use no brads, buttons or blooms and no patterned papers
* include one or three photos
* use pinks/purples or oranges/browns colour palettes

So here is my effort, I went with the pink/purple theme as I thought it was enough of a challenge without trying to find something which fit orange/brown. I used a picture of my DD on a visit to a local farm last summer. My cricut did a lot of work for this LO cutting the card into a fancy shape and cutting out butterflies, hearts, letters,a swirl and a journalling tag the same shape as the base card. The letters were inked up and I love the distressed look it gives them without being distressed which wouldn't sit well on this LO. The very pale lilac shapes and the backing card were all inked at the edges with the same pad. The butterflies were glittered although it doesn't show too well in the picture. I finished it off with a chipboard sentiment which reads natural beauty.

I was very tempted when I finished at 10.30pm to go get my DD as I know she will love this LO but I thought better of it lol Thanks for dropping by and why don't you have a go?

More crafty kids

Yesterday I did some scrapping with Dylan as he hadn't done any on Sunday. He was very organised choosing his papers and embellies and laying them all out befoe any glue or tape came into play. He did it all himself and is rather pleased with him self here is his page;

After he was done Dylan took his page out to the garden to show the other kids and as he bought it back in the little guy came running in yelling "My turn my turn" so my littlest Monkey Alex at the grand age of 2 has already started scrapbooking! He chose the photo and I stuck it down for him then he did the rest with some stickers;

I spent the evening cutting some alphas out on my cricut to see me through a week or so but am hoping to get some thickers soon. So I have bits cut out for Mini's challenge on UKS which is a doozy but not got it done yet :)

My sunday fun day

I received my latest prints in the post this week and I knew after doing the CJ with the recipe pictures from my cooking and scrapping marathon last weekend I wanted to scrap the pictures of Phil and I and of Alex and "MY ball!"

I used some of the absolutely gorgeous Stella and Rose papers for our page, I really wanted to have some of the lovely Prima ruffle trim for this LO but I don't have any so I made my own version by box pleating some plain ribbon to make roses along the length. I think it came out well I am really happy with it and plan on doing it again :)

Capturing these photos of Alex was such fun I had over a dozen photos to choose from and it was hard to pick but I managed eventually lol. This is again using the March Gottacraft kit. It has definately made me aware I need to invest in some Thickers though I am not happy with the title lettering at all and may change it.

Crafty kids

So there I was yesterday happily scrapping away and my DD came in the room. I had got a DCWV kit that I was never going to use so I gave it to her and let her join me. The kids have all done a few LO's but this time I just left her too it and she did 2 pages. I had to be careful not to laugh at the title reading Kariout side rather than Kari outside but I think for a 6 (nearly 7) year old hse did well;
and this is her second page from her 4th birthday;

Then little miss blabbermouth went and told her brothers about her scrapping and I got my eldest come in to do one too lol. His is a present for my youngest and reads "Alex your brothers and sister will always be here to protect (you), however annoying you can be"

Circle Journal

I have a lot of new projects to share today so I am splitting them over 3 posts. First up is my entry to Max's CJ it is my very first time working on someone else's project and to say I am worried about stuffing up would be an understatement! I copies the way Max had laid out her own pages and just hope it is ok. Here are my two pages and my "sign in" tag the theme was favourite recipes;

Busy busy bee

I have a fair few birthdays this month and last night I finished birthday cards for my 6 yr old god daughter and my best friend. Here is my god daughter's card it is a stamp from Crafts and Me by the talented artist Jasmine Beckett Griffith. I love her artwork and am so happy she has stamps of some of her work this one is called Pink Lightning.

I cannot show you my best friend's card yet as she may visit here ;)

After I had made the cards last night I stamped another of JBG's stamps this time Skulls and Stars and coloured it. I made the card up this afternoon for the daughter of a close friend who is turning 11 and getting a little goth :)

After completing the card I got my wedding album out I managed two LO's but lost my way with it I am not sure if I like these or not atm :(

I decided to play with my Gottacraft kit a bit more to recharge my crafty mojo and I love this page showing how cute my eldest looked (and still does) when he shrugs his shoulders when he smiles :)

I love the March Gottacraft kit and am just waiting on the April one to play with now (no pressure Sandra :p) but I can still get at least another 5 or 6 LO's from the one I have yet :)

Afternoon quickie

Hahahaha get your minds out of the gutter please people ;) The littlest monkey had a nap today so I got in a quick scrap page. It was actually surprisingly quick to do mainly because the main part of it was the other card from MJM's kit which I used as an embellishment on this page instead. The LO features my brother Marc and uses Glitz Olivia papers and stickers a range I love and wish was easier to find!

Monday monthly crop

I had my crop last night, the group are mainly card makers with one lady teaching the group a new technique each month and there are those few subversives including me who sneak off to the scrapping table lol.

I only managed one LO last night as I did a card kit too from the wonderful MJM (more to follow later). The LO is for the April week 2 challenge on UKS and the requirements were;

1/. Scrap a type of celebration

2/. Use pink or blue

3/. Have either a house, bells, stamping or flowers.

My LO is a celebration of my wonderfully clever kids :) They all came home from school the first week in september 2008 with a certificate for hard work and it wasn't a let's give every kid an award only 3 or 4 kids per class were awarded a certificate so we were so proud that all three of our monkeys got one :) I stamped some swirly flowers and coloured them with promarkers some red, some yellow and some blue. I used some more pp from my Gottacraft kit and from the paper not on the page I cut some more of the flower images and used foam pads to "lift" them off the page. The backing card, journalling card, saying, lettering, bloom and button were all from the kit and the green ribbon was from my huge bag of ribbons lol.

As promised here is the card I made using a kit I bought at olympia from MJM if you like things a little different and with a lot of creativity and imagination you will love her work :) I very very rarely follow kits to the letter I usually adapt them and change things up but the two cards in this kit are so fantastic and so unique that I wanted to learn the technique of how to make them so that I can take the basic techniques and adapt them to my own projects. I only did this one last night but there is another for me to sink my teeth into when I get a chance :) I love the way the bird moves around the clock it is so tweet lol

Crafting and cooking

So another Sunday and another round of crafting but this time I had a bit of a challenge I had to do some cooking for my crafting! I have just received the first CJ from the group and I have to do recipes and need pictures of said recipes so I made my Roasted Butternut Squash Risotto and an Italian Strawberry Cheesecake. Risotto turned out beautifully and was scrummy and I got a nice picture of it for the CJ but the Cheesecake for some reason hasn't set. It is a first and the kids were mightily unimpressed at being told I was making it and not being able to have any lol. I am hoping a night in the fridge will be all it needs but if not I have told them it will be fine to eat just a bit sloppy but I will have to make another one so I can get a photo. Well that cheered them up they are now hoping it doesn't set :)

I managed to get 3 LO's done my entry for Scrapology this month, an entry for Sarah's cards which I haven't entered before and another one just because :)

This is for the Scrapology blog which you can find here I loved these pics of the kids from our Legoland trip and it always reminds me of their screams of "terror" that they were being eaten :) I used Echo Park "For the Record" papers which I love and for the first time used my quilting baby (aka my sewing machine) on a page so hope you like it :)

The Sarah's Cards challenge can be found here I haven't stuck to it religiously but kept to the circles theme. This is another little set of photo's I have been wanting to scrap of my daughter on her 3rd birthday. Daddy was in Afghanistan and he had missed her 2nd birthday being in Iraq so she was a little upset and I arranged a surprise visit from her Nana and Dandad (my parents) and her Auntie Hilary and Uncle Peter. We all went out for a meal and while I took Kari to the bathroom Dandad used the oppurtunity to "borrow" Kari's birthday hat. I think the look on her face says it all and I am so glad I captured it!

Sticking to the theme today of scrappy multi photo LO's which is something I don't do often these days I decided to get some more pics of Kari done. I have pics of the boys that I want to do but I was in a girly mood for flowers and pretty papers so I went with these. There is a hidden journalling card attached to the star brad that reads "and spin and spin. It was summer 2008 and we had bought you this new long skirt like mummy's and you loved the way it flared out when you span and twirled. You span all the time until you were dizzy"

Thank you for visiting I would love to hear from anyone who drops by whether accidently of purposefully hope you all had a lovely weekend :)

It's a mad world

I have proof that part of the reason it's a mad world is down to my Hubby and Dylan my 2nd boy :) These photo's were taken at Dawn's 60th birthday party. I am not sure if Dawn has come up yet but she is my mum's best friend and I call her my mummy 2 and the kids call her Nana Dawn she is very much part of the family. At the party were my 3 kids (it was pre-Alex) and Dawn's 4 grandchildren from her own children so Dawn and her husband Stan got a Pinata for the kids to attack!

After the Pinata was utterly destroyed and all the sweets were found and devoured the kids left the empty shell (well what was left) and the shredded paper abandoned on the grass. Phil my DH being a little drunk and a lot crazy decided it would make a great hat and even posed for photos which he has regretted ever since. Dylan would not be out loonied so he wore the "hat" too. So here is my take on the UKS House Challenge showing my 2 Eccentric men :)

Now for those who need to know this is how it was done. I used Basic Grey papers from the Obscure range, the main backing paper was Motion which was liberally inked along all the edges with Sepia ink to make it look grungy. Then I cut a strip of the Random paper and inked it with Forest Green and stuck it down about 2 inches from the bottom of the page. I then cut out a section of the Amplified paper tore one side to reveal the white core and then inked with the forest green again and stuck it partly over the Random paper and not quite up to the edge.

I then used a large Tim Holtz swirl mask along the bottom and inked over it with Turquoise ink which doesn't show up too well. It was my first try with the masks and I think I need to make sure there is a bigger colour seperation next time. The photo of Phil was trimmed and stuck on the Amplify paper and the photo of Dylan was stuck on the Motion paper. I used a few of the card shapes from the Obscure range to add a bit of motion to the LO and used the Glitz Olivia sticker ECCENTRIC for the title and added the word Pinata using the BG alphas and a cut up 8 for the squiggly bit above the N.

The challenge this month was to use something altered and this I did with the bottom right journalling pocket. It started life like this;

I cut it in half and then stuck it down on Clouded pp and left it to dry. Once dry I cut it into a rough quarter circle shape with some deckle edged scissors then roughed up the edges with some coarse sandpaper and inked them in the turquoise ink. I used a small Tim Holtz mask and inked over it in the turquoise and it worked much better here. I then used foam tape to stick it down on the LO so that it was raised and added my journalling card and a large brad which reads 100% original :)

So that's it hope you didn't find all the explaining boring but it was such fun I wanted to share :) The Turquoise ink pad came unstuck half way through the project so I had to hold it in my hands suring some of the inking so with the pink paint splattering me and inky blue fingers I looked like a PP last night and still have blue fingers and nails today lol

Wedding album pgs 2 and 3

I had big plans to get the house challenge for UKS done part of the challenge is to alter something to be used on your LO and I had a fab idea involving some acrylic beads from one of Kari's broken bracelets paint glitter and fibres. So I sanded the beads down so that the paint had a nice rough surface to get a grip on and then got my paint which was in a squeezy tube and SPLAT!!! the tube literally exploded with paint all over me and the table and half my tools argghhhhh!

I only had the one suitable tube of paint as I don't use paint much and when I do it is usually my H2O's which would be no use here.

So I decided to get on with the wedding album rather than sit there for an hour trying to think of what to do next with these beads. Whilst I was working on the wedding pages I had a completely different idea for the HC page it means using different photo's but I had a set of 3 I was choosing from so it is still one of those sets. I am not going to tell you any more yet you have to wait and see :p

First April challenge

The first wekkly challenge of April has been set and here is my take on it. It has actually inspired me to get my own wedding album done so expect to see more pics of my wedding :)

The challenge was in four parts;

1/. Only 1 or 2 photos

2/. Use circles

3/. Have a line from a song as your title

4/. No more than two types of embellishment (ie ribbons brads, flowers etc)

I only used the one photo which is generally my style anyhow and I used my basic grey Two Scoops clear stamps to make my own black and white patterned paper and then cut circles with my Cricut. The title is the Shania Twain song which played at our wedding as I walked down the aisle :) I only used flowers as embellisments and glittered them using stickles all other bits are paper. The colours are red white and black although in the photo it looks pink *sigh*

Anyhow this will be the opening page in our wedding album hope you like it tfl :D

Yesterday was a complete photo day for me. The sun came out and the garden sprang into the most glorious colour. We are not used to having a garden with flowers as we are a forces family and move so often it seems silly to plant a lot of flowers that we may not see bloom and will get dug up by the next people to live in the house. When I do have flowers they are in pots but unfortunately I don't have green fingers mine are black and I kill everything :(

So this time the army couldn't find us a house on camp and we are in a private rental with a huge garden. Here are some of the gorgeous shots I got yesterday I am sure you will be seeing them in LO's soon :)

Second stage of sunday crafting

So after the troops were fed, bathed and in bed I went and messed up the dining room again lol. I wanted to do a LO for us it had seemed like it was ages since I had added to the family album and I had a crop kit from a local shop using the Basic Grey Oliver papers that was calling to me.

I chose to use the collage photo of my monkeys and decided to try the crackle accents for the first time.

I then decided Hidden Treasures deserved something special so I have started altering box with DCWV Once Upon a Time papers and she is gracing the lid. It is still a work in progress

Finally I have been meaning to share this LO ever since I did the LO of my hubby in uniform on our anniversary. Here is a LO I did in 2007 of him attending a Remembrance service.