Scraps of paper and glitter

Birthday cards for a friend's twin daughters - made using a number template I bought a number of years ago, a Cuttlebug embossing folder I've also had for ages (but is one of the most useful embossing folders I have), stickles, some freebie My Mind's Eye papers (Pretty Please and Quite Contrary ranges) and a freebie flower stamp - all from old issues of Cardmaking & Papercraft.

Wembley

Last year the football team that my husband and eldest son have been supporting got as far as the play-off finals at the end of the season. Unfortunately they didn't win but the experience of travelling to London and going to watch the match at Wembley was a big first for my son. It was a really hot day and Daddy had to buy him a large bucket-sized cup of lemonade to keep him cool - he drank it all!

I am particularly proud of the ticket embellishments which I made myself using a stamp set. First you stamp the background colour. I had used kraft card and didn't want to change the colour much so I used the Tim Holz old paper distress ink. Next you stamp in a darker colour the outline and finally choose and stamp on a sentiment. To get the authentic, torn off a strip look, I used a perforator on each end of the ticket (unfortunately I can't make it show up properly on a photo - look closely on the bottom of the left hand edge!).

This sketch was inspired by the One page sketch no. 9 at Sketch Support - when I look back at it, inspired more than I thought. I saw the wavy line and copied that for the spotty paper under the photos but then didn't look back at the sketch until afterwards. I can see quite a few similarities now!

Materials used:

Tim Holz distress inks (old paper and forest moss)

Bazill Grenadine cardstock

Papers from a papermania "Summertime" kit

Doodlebug beetle black alpha stickers

A stamp set for making tickets

A perforating tool

Kiss

One night at bathtime my boys were being very loving - unusual for that time of day! I had fun with all the spraying and hand stitching on this LO. I knew I wanted to have hearts scattered around but the idea for the stitching came from a LO I saw in Scrapbook Magazine.

Materials used:

Nestabilities Heart die

Doodlebug Colours of Love paper

Bella Glittered Chipboard alpha

Inkadoos ink

Martha Stewart Optics border punch

A scrap of time on a Friday to record something that happens on a Monday

I've been busy with a Scrap Whispers game recently (look out for the big reveal in a couple of weeks' time) I haven't got space really to do more than one LO at a time and I didn't want to start another and then have to stop to do the Scrap Whispers one so was saving myself. But now I've done my bit for that, I've been lucky enough today to get a little bit of time to do another LO. Issue 55 of Scrapbook Magazine came with some free Nikki Sivils papers which caught my eye. I was particularly attracted to the paper with pictures of cameras on it.

This LO was made using almost entirely the free papers.

Materials used:

Niki Sivils free papers Issue 55 Scrapbook Magazine

Bazill Kraft cardstock

Tim Holtz rosette die

Tim Holtz distress ink

Doodlebugs beetle black alphas

Scraps of felt

I've had some small squares of felt in my stash for ages now that I've been wanting to use. I love the soft feeling and edges of felt. This layout is about my children catching snowflakes on their tongues so I thought the soft felt would echo the soft feeling of the snowflakes which melt in your mouth.

Catching Snowflakes

Materials used:

Scraps of felt

Sizzix Corners, Flourish no.2

Nestabilities large circles

Go Kreate concentrics Frilly Square no.4

Echo Park Its Wintertime papers and journalling cards

Tim Holz Distress Ink Old Paper

Core'dinations Portal Blue cardstock

Mica watercolour paint

I'm a living in a . . . .

Another Twisted Sketches challenge. I've really been enjoying using sketches recently. This LO is based on Twisted Sketch no. 96. The twist was "card".

The big box in the photo was from the running machine we bought a couple of years ago - it has been at least as much entertainment as the running machine itself! I know it is a cliche but my children really do enjoy boxes probably even more than any expensive toy.

Cardboard Box

Materials used

Echo Park Little Boy Alpha stickers, Awesome dots paper and Journalling Card

Crate Paper Orbit Collection Maze paper

Martha Stewart punch anywhere star punch

Core'dinations cardstock

Just Us

I created this LO using Twisted Sketch no. 95. This twist this week was "paper".

The word paper first makes me think of lined paper, like that in school exercise books (I had a teacher at secondary school who insisted on calling it stripy paper rather than lined). I've used some lined paper for the two little hearts and the journalling spot and then spritzed them with inkadoos ink.

The photos are from last summer and it's been such a lovely day today that it inspired me to go for lovely bright summer colours.

I didn't have time to put the journalling on this one as I wanted to photograph the LO while it was still light but it's going to be a message for my son about how much I love him and being with him. Most of my LOs tend to be about some sort of event and so the journalling is usually taken up describing what happened. I love seeing other's pages which have messages to their loved ones and so am going to keep challenging myself to try and do that every once in a while.

All the materials for this LO were things I've had in my stash for quite some time so it was nice to use them finally. Thanks for looking!

All the scraps together

I've been so busy over the last month. Now we can finally get out in the garden we needed to clear it all up from the snow damage last November and we've also started tackling some of the larger plants that we really should have been pruning regularly over the last 4 years but just haven't got done. My youngest son has also had chicken pox and so needed lots of tlc. I have managed to work on the odd LO but it really has been scraps of time snatched here and there and I haven't had time to photograph any of them until now so here's all the scraps together!

Snow Much Fun

Thought I'd start with this one given I've already mentioned the snow. It brought some great times despite the damage to the garden.

I was really excited to win a copy of Sketches for Scrapbooking (published by Scrapbook Generation) from Allison Davis' blog during a recent Sketch Support blog hop and have used one of the sketches in it for this LO. Have just realised that I've taken the photo before adding the journalling - I'd left it off as I wanted to check what the date was. The journalling is going to be about how my eldest son enjoyed sledging this year more than last but both sons managed to spray snow into their faces while coming down which they didn't enjoy and/or about how much I enjoyed sledging with them both (depends on what will fit on).

Materials

The papers and journalling card are from the Echo Park wintertime collection. The title is Making Memories alpha stickers. The snowflakes were die-cut using my bigshot and their centres are actually card candi from Craftwork Cards. I've inked the edges of the photos using a Tim Holz distress ink.

First sports day

I've recently been admiring rosette type flowers on other scrapper's LOs and wanted to have a go myself. I've had some trouble with finding a glue that will hold the end of the strip together - glue dots haven't done the trick.

Materials

Basic Grey basics papers plus the bunting and rosette were made with some very old scraps of paper I had in my stash.

Martha Stewart punch

Tim Holz distress ink

QuickKutz die for the journalling card

Autumn Leaves stampology "Ticketed" clear stamp set

MLS alpha stickers

So not camera shy

Some fun photos of my oldest son that I've been wanting to scrap for a while.

Materials

I've used a Bo Bunny paper for the circles (think it was called Jamboree)

Some Echo Park sticker phrases from the "All boy" range

Doodlebug stickers and Cosmo Cricket tiny type alpha stickers for the title

The tabs are from My Mind's Eye 12x12 die cut sheet bloom and grow range

Scraps of photos

On Christmas Eve there was a special crib service where all the children could dress up in nativity costumes, they did a sketch, sang some songs and read some readings. Matthew read an extract from In the Bleak Midwinter ("What can I give him, poor as I am" etc.). We had fun practising it - particularly because of the silent 'b' in "Lamb"!

We took quite a few photos but there were lots of children running round and so I knew I'd need to cut them up quite a bit to scrap them - so they feel to me now like just scraps of photos!

Materials used:

Echo Park Everybody Loves Christmas Alpha Stickers

Die cut flowers and card candy from Craftwork Cards

"Joy" clear stamp set from Craftwork Cards

Patterned paper from Blonde Moments

Scrap of Collage Press Malta Springs doubletake (coloured using pencil crayon)

Ribbon leftover from an old Angel Crafts ribbon kit.

Playing in the rain

I've got some free print credits I need to use up soon so am trying to make an effort to get some of the backlog of prints previously ordered finally scrapped before the next lot arrives in my pile of photos to scrap.

The pictures are of my youngest son who had been playing out in a puddle on our drive, had a whale of a time but got absolutely soaked - I love the way his hair has started to curl as it has got wet.

And my scrap theme? The scrap on this LO is the scrap of chipboard I found to use for the title letters.

Have made the mistake of photographing the layout at night so might need to redo in daylight to get rid of the electric light glare on the photos.

Products used:

Studio G clear stamp

7Gypsies journalling card

Inkadinks inks (with a little mica powder added in)

Ellison Design Thin Cuts "Chunkadelic"

Bazzil Kraft cardstock

Crate Paper Seasons Collection Showers patterned paper

Scraps of card and vellum

Had some unexpected time to scrap last night due to my husband's train home being delayed. The twist for the latest Twisted Sketches sketch (no. 087) is "comfort" and this made me think about the fact that my son sucks his thumb when he most needs comfort. I had a photo of my son that I'd wanted to scrap for some time but hadn't been able to come up with the right idea for it.

The photo was actually taken as an example of him staring off into space lost in his own thoughts but when I looked at it afterwards I noticed his sucking thumb was stuck out as if ready to be popped in if needed and I knew I wanted to make some reference to this habit as one we'll remember long after he has (hopefully) grown out of it.

Carrying on my own theme of scraps, I've used scraps of card which were the offcuts of the photo mat to stick the cloud stickers on to help them stand out against the white backing card and a scrap of vellum with a sort of cloud effect on it that I've had in my left over scraps from when I first started out cardmaking.

Products used:

Core'dinations cardstock (snowflake and bahama blue I think)

Echo Park Little Boy Alpha Stickers

Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type letter stickers

Doodlebug Up Up & Away patterned paper

Doodlebug Great Getaways fancy frills cardstock stickers

Scrap of vellum

Echo Park Little Boy Journalling Cards

Martha Stewart punch

Scrap of lace

I have just bought a bargain Papermania kit called "Family" (£2.99!). The colours are mainly pinks, browns and turquoises. The first thing that jumped out at me from the pack was the chipboard element "Home". I wanted to scrap a picture of where we live using it and have chosen this photo from the heavy snowfall we had at the beginning of last year.

I used Twisted Sketches DT application sketch (posted Weds 2 Feb 2011) as my starting point for this layout - but didn't incorporate the twist (which was "map").

I knew I wanted to have a large snowflake as my main embellishment on the page and found this one which I have had for while in my stash. The problem with it was that it looked very bare given its size so I added some gems to the centre of it which worked for me! It was nice to have a chance to create a layout with a lot of pink - not something I do very often having 2 boys. The scrap of lace round the bottom of the photo was very much an after-thought but I thought that it fitted well with the title of this blog and that's why this is the first layout I've chosen to upload here! Couple of close-ups below.

Above is the chipboard element that started the whole layout off. Below the snowflake and the scrap of lace.

All things new

So a New Year, a time to try new things.

Last week I planted a garden bed full of fruit trees and bushes - 1 cherry tree, 2 apple trees, 2 pear trees, a plum tree, a damson tree, 2 gooseberry bushes, 1 blackberry, 1 boysenberry, 10 raspberry canes and 6 strawberry plants. I had to keep them in the garage for a while after they arrive because the ground was too hard to dig and one of the strawberry plants looks like it may have suffered from this. Let's hope it is the only casualty.

This blog is the second new thing then for me this year. I've never blogged before so who knows how this will develop. I have been enjoying other scrapbooking blogs for a while though so thought it might be nice to have a place for my own creations. Don't think I'll be as prolific as some of the other scrapbooking bloggers are though as I really do only have scraps of time every now and then to fit in scrapbooking activities.