It's Sale Time!

The turkey has been eaten, crackers pulled and wrapping torn from the presents but here at ATDML we are not settling down for a post Christmas snooze! Our sale is now on with reductions across the store!

Come on over and grab yourself a bargain to start your new year off in creative style!

Parcels are being posted everyday that the post office is open over the festive season.

We would like to wish all our customers and blog readers a very happy and healthy 2011!

Post Christmas Sale is now on

I hope you have all had a very Merry Christmas, enjoyed good food, maybe a drink or two and spent some quality times with your family. How many of you received a crafting related gift or two? I was very happy to unwrap a couple of new Spellbinder dies to use with my die-cutting machine and received some pennies too with strict instructions to buy something specifically for myself. Say no more, I'm off to the ATDML winter sale then!! I did notice Stickles (including Distress Stickles which you can speed dry with a heat-gun a la Tim Holtz) are 20% off! Time for a restock I think - will you join me? The sale runs until 12th night, January 6th.
Happy shopping!

Want To Be Featured?

A couple of weeks ago one of our regular customers emailed when her order arrived and asked if we would like to see what she had done with some of the products she had bought. Of course the answer to that is YES, we love to see what you have been doing.

That got us thinking about how fun it would be to look back at 2010 in review by looking at some of the layouts our customers and blog readers had done in the year gone by.

If you would like to share your work from the year gone by then drop me an email - Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk With Blog Feature in the subject line. For each person featured we will need between 3 and 6 layouts or projects which you have worked on in 2010 along with a bit of info about you and why you chose those projects to send in. The written info could be just a sentence or if you feel inspired to tell us a little more about the story behind the projects, the techniques used or anything else then that is fine too.

We will do a draw at the end of January of all the readers showcased and send a box of goodies to one lucky winner! If there are enough people wanting to take part we can continue into February and do another draw at the end of February.

I hope we can get as many people as possible sharing their work so we can celebrate all the creative achievements of 2010 and look forward to a year of fun and crafting in 2011.

12 days of Christmas Printers tray

Remember this post? Well I promised to share more from my printers tray and am happy to do that today, albeit later than I envisaged. To be honest the 8-maids a milking had me stumped for a while until I saw a cute cow bell pin on e-bay and then it all fell into place. The background is made up of strips of Tim Holtz tissue tape with a stamped cows head and my e-bay bell added to it. A little distress stickles and the number 8 and this window was done.

I was really happy with my windows for the 9th and 10th, the dress made out of layers of cut blossums for my 9-ladies dancing and a grungeboard "leaping" reindeer was my loosely interpreted lords-a-leaping window.

My 11 pipers pipers piping window featured music note stamped clear-embossed background with a chipboard scroll adored with several musical elements, including a prima music pebble and my 12 drummers drumming window contains more grungeboard which I inked and stickled and addes to a music note stamped background.

So my printers tray is now completed and is located on the wall in the hallway of our home for the rest of the month and until 12th night. Then I will remove each page (which I only adhered lightly) and store them ready for next year - then I can decorate my tray windows all over again, maybe with family photos so it can be featured in my home all year round!

The printers trays can be found here in the shop and would make a great new-years project!

A Few Festive Layouts For You....

A couple more festive layouts for you, sadly I have been super busy with school Christmas concerts (for that read me singing very badly in front of the parents as my class of 3 year olds cruelly abandon any attempt to join my in my rendition of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or Jingle Bells!) so there has been little time for crafting - I will post some new bits soon but there is that never ending list of Christmas preparation to work through first!!!

More Christmas \ Winter Layouts

As promised I thought I would share some more projects that would fit in with the themes from Chicken Soups 12 Days of Christmas.

I loved the Winter Weather projects that were produced for the Chicken Soup Day 10 Inspiration - I created this layout for the December Design Team Gallery on our site using Fancy Pants Tradition paper, some embossing, cosmic shimmers and a few other bits. I loved the colour combination of the pale pink in Isabelles coat and hat with the pale wintery blue.

This layout is one I made last year and I really enjoyed making it using multi photos and capturing the memories of Olivias first Christmas dinner - so it would fit really well with Day 8's Christmas Food Recipe!

Have You Been Treating Yourself To Some Chicken Soup?

With the chilly weather and fast approaching festive season there has been a warming treat over on the Chicken Soup blog giving you some inspiration for poorly mojos!


The 12 Days of Christmas feature has offered up a wide variety of projects, inspirational recipes and general all round Christmassyness to get you crafting for Christmas!


The three recipes I worked on were "Trees" "Decorations" and "Father Christmas" which are shown below. I also have some projects, old and new, which would relate to some of the other recipes. Check back tomorrow to see my take on "Winter Weather" and "Christmas Food" and then on Tuesday for a couple more!

ATDML Spring Retreat

Set in a beautiful location in the countryside of the Essex Suffolk border the Stoke By Nayland Club is the venue once again for the ATDML Retreat Spring 2011.

If you are looking for something to look forward to in the new year why not join us for a weekend of scrapping and fun (oh and maybe a little bit of shopping!)

Details of the retreat can be found HERE on our website and bookings can be made by emailing Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk

December Class...

Another new class has been added to our website. This time it is designed by the wonderful Suzanne Torr who has stepped outside her usual comfort zone and gone to town with the mixing and matching of manufacturers to create this lovely layout.


As ever the instructions are available to download as a PDF for free. Just click HERE to download them to work on at your leisure.

12 Days of Christmas

On the 1st day of Christmas, my true love gave to me,
A partridge in a pear tree - this being the first "window" in my 7Gypsies printers tray that I purchased whilst at the retreat in November. I have been longing to get one of these trays for sometime, but knew if I purchased it before I had an idea what I might do with it, then it would sit unattended in my craft room gathering dust. Rest assured after some contemplating I settled on the idea of making a 12 days of Christmas display for our home. I spent an hour or so on the internet doing image searches for each of the days to get some inspiration which I then sketched down roughly, gathered some supplies and started to create. Because the tray comes with 12 equal sized windows I first made a template to make sure I knew what each card needed to measure. These I searched through my stamp collection to see what I already had that could be used to interpret each day. The little partridge on my tree here for day one is part of a PaperArtsy Stamp from a few seasons ago, stamped, cut out and raised on a foam pad. The background is a card cut from the card sheet of patterned paper from Fancy Pants Hot Chocolate collection to which I added Frayed Burlap distress stickles to the trunk. My favourite element is the pears which are clear chandelier drops with dark brown alcohol ink dropped on, which I then adhered with a clear drying wet adhesive. I added a small Crushed Olive distress stickles stems to complete them before inking the edge of the entire card in charcoal ink to blend it into the wooden printers tray frame.

My two turtle doves window features paper from the Graphic 45 Christmas past collection and two doves with prima flower wings and a Tim Holtz tissue tape border. My three french hens are having a ball climbing my stamped Eiffel Tower, and the bells decorating this card are also from the same Graphic 45 collection. Using elements from the same collections throughout my tray has helped keep a coordinated feel to it, but I have still managed to vary my products used. My 4 calling birds card mixes the Fancy Pants Hot Chocolate paper with Graphic 45, which is adorned with a couple of stamped images and some more stickles. The Thicker numbers used throughout my project can be found here in the shop, and have to be my all time favourite thickers! I've used them so much!

Final card being shared for today is for the 5th day of Christmas - my five gold rings card which also featured on the ChickenSoup blog last weekend as part of their 12 days of Christmas inspiration. The rings are small washers which I added alcohol ink to and then stickles over the top with Tarnished Brass. The background paper is again Graphic 45 but I picked out the berries and added tiny dots of stickles to those, stamped a wreath and added a couple of punched out holly leaves (also distress stickled) and some red gem berries.

More sharing of my 12 days printers tray later in the week, but why not have a go at making one of these yourself? With 12 windows you can add images of loved ones from months around the year - it would make a lovely Christmas present for someone and they come together in no time once you have settled on your idea and the papers you will use. Find them in the shop here.

December Challenge

Remember this post about using packaging from Ann? Well it got us thinking... For our challenge this month we want to see what you can do with the packaging we would normally throw away. Show us your layouts, cards or other projects which include some packaging from a scrapping supply.

The deadline is January 5th ( a little extra time allowed as i guess many of you will be a little busy this month!

The winner will be announced on January 7th and will receive a £25 ATDML shopping voucher.

For The Grunge Lovers Amongst You

Are you caught up in the annual frenzy that is "Tims 12 Tags of Christmas?" - every year there is always a surge in interest in the Tim holtz style of scrapping \ art when he produces his gorgeous tags.

If you feel drawn to this and want to treat yourself to an early Christmas present you can see all our Tim Holtz products HERE and the Ranger products HERE.

Despite the awful weather we are still processing and posting orders and will continue to do so as long as the Post Office is open so why not cheer up the cold snowy days with a parcel of goodies :)

November Sketch Winner!

Our sketch winner this month was Scrappy Sarah with her bright and funky layout. Sarah drop me an email and i will send you your gift voucher!

More than just the packaging

Have you ever looked at the packaging our scrapbooking products come in and thought "I can't throw that away, I might use it!?" I'm sure I can't be the only one, and Prima seem to be one of my most favourite companies when it comes to product packaging. At the ATDML retreat at the start of the month one of the classes used several Prima Journaling notecards, which when purchased as a complete pack, come in a very neat notecard box. When packing up the kits with Mel & Jill, I remarked at the boxes and how neat they were, saying to Mel "I could do something with that" and there the challenge was laid down. "Go on then, and we can share it on the blog" they said!

So, here I am a few weeks later sharing my altered notecard box. First up, BBA image (Box Before Ann!)

And now BABA image (Box Altered by Ann!)

I have made the box into the housing for my Shimelle Christmas journalling class and the inside which once held Prima Journalling cards, now holds blank 6.5"x4" pieces of Kraft cardstock ready for the first class prompt tomorrow. The box actualy comes apart reasonably easy making it simple to cover in your choice of papers, and then reassemble as it was before. Add some distress stickles and a few beads, a stamped tag and a thickers JYC title and I'm all set.
The Prima notecards can be found here and are less than a fiver! Nice inexpensive Christmas gift to yourself!

Special Offer In The Run Up To Christmas

We all love the countdown to Christmas, there is something especially nice about getting a little treat each day in the advent calendar and getting more and more festive as the big day approaches. But how would you like to get something a little more than a chocolate as a pre Christmas treat?!

From now until Christmas Eve (or until stocks run out!) we are offering a free mini book kit with all orders of £20 (excluding postage) or more. The kit will include a shaped book with chipboard covers and 10 cardstock pages, 2 book rings, co-ordinating ribbon and 10 chipboard embellishments. It will be added automatically to your order, there is no code to remember.

So why not give yourself a little pre Christmas present from us!

PS October Afternoon Modern Homemaker arrived today and is on the website... it's very pretty and the die cut paper is great if you love your retro papers! Think Ladybird Reading Books!

Remember Remember The Sketch of November

In THIS POST Ann posted our retreat sketch challenge and opened it up to blog readers. You have got to be in it to win it so get creating with the sketch and link to it in the comments on that post!

Happy Scrapping!

Creating for Christmas

Been busy here, not a lot of time for crafting but I have a few projects that I am working on.

Several of them are for the Chicken Soup 12 Days of Christmas project so I can't share them here until they have gone on the soup blog.

One of them is my card class for the Eclectic Keepsakes Christmas crop so again I will share here after the crop!

What I have been doing which I can share is making some little Christmas gift bags and boxes using dies for the Big Shot. I love these for putting little gifts and goodies in - I will be making a matching set to be table favours for when my in laws join us a couple of days after Christmas for a rerun of Christmas dinner!

Snowy Layouts

No snow here (yet) but I know lots of you are experiencing the big chill - of course once the novelty of the snow wears off (usually after around 5 mins I find) you have a great excuse to be confined to the crafting area!

I thought I would upload a couple of snow layouts from years gone by - I am ashamed to admit that I have still not scrapped my photos from the snowy winter last year but here are 3 from my back catalogue!

If you have any snow layouts (new or old) then upload them to your blog and leave us a link, we would love to take a look.

Keep warm everyone!

Teachers gifts for the holiday season?

Fancy grabbing a cuppa and popping by to peruse the latest creations from the Design Team this month who worked with Websters Pages. Items created included this great minibook by Jane which would make a neat gift for the teachers this forthcoming holiday season, and such a great idea with the pencil too!


Think I might be scraplifting this idea!
Anyone else care to share their top-tips for creating that handmade something for our teachers and classroom assistants? I could use the inspiration with December just around the corner!!

Belated Challenge Winner!

Oh Wow, time really did get away from us the last couple of months with things being so CRAZY hectic at home and work!

Remember the spotty dotty challenge?? Go on, think hard and you may remember it!!!

Well I realised today that we hadn't chosen a winner. I sidted through the entry emails again and I just adore this layout!

Thanks to all who took the time to enter the challenge. Karen Williams please email me and I will get your prize sorted :) Apologies for the delay

A Couple Of Websters Pages Cards...

Here are a couple of Thank You cards I made this week using the Websters Pages Hollywood Vogue range. Both card backgrounds came from the same sheet of 12x12 paper and it was then just a case of embellishing the lovely papers further to create the cards. The card on the left has clear gems stuck on the chandelier which do not show up well in the photo and the card on the right uses two punched shapes using my favourite butterfly punch of the moment to create a 3D butterfly.

Hope you like them and also that the recipients like them too!

PS Just another shout out for Queenie - please send me an email - you won the giveaway and we have some goodies for you :)

And The Winner Of The November Giveaway Is...

Thanks to all who took part in the blog giveaway by leaving a comment - the winner is comment number 12 - Queenie! Drop me an email to Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk with your details and we will get your box of goodies sent out to you.

New Layout - Old Paper!

As promised here is the other layout finished from the weekend - finally got chance to photograph it in the daylight (well it is so murky here that it barely counts as daylight!)

The papers are from the now ancient Lillipop Shop collection from Basic Grey which I liked at the time and which have stood the test of time because I still like them! It seems funny to think back to the time when every new release from that company caused such an enormous buzz of excitement that you could harly move on forums for posts asking when it would be here, who would get it first, which scrappers would be first to get a layout scrapped and uploaded using it etc.... Basic Grey is still popular but with a vastly different economic climate and seemingly endless products to choose from that fever pitch of excitement hasn't been replicated for a while!

Don't forget to leave your comment on the giveaway thread before 6pm on Sundayto be in with a chance of some free stash... you've got to be in it to win it as they say!

Come back over the weekend to see another new class with free downloadable PDF instructions coming your way!

It's Giveaway Time Again

Today we are sorting out some new goodies for the site and we wanted to offer a little box of goodies (to include some new Maya Road items) for one of our blog readers.

just post a comment on this thread before 6pm on Sunday night (21st November) and on Sunday evening we will consult with Random dot org to see who to send the goodies to.

Good luck!

Love My Bump

I hope you will forgive the poor photography. This layout is just about passable but the other one refused to be photographed in any remotely presentable way so I will have to wait until I have some daylight time to take a photo of that one!

This is one of the layouts I finished off at the crop I went to. It is at the extreme end of simple but I love it all the same. The journaling talks about how I loved having a baby bump. The photograph was taken by Kirsty Wiseman at our first retreat - that seems such a long time ago - it was almost exactly 3 years ago.

There were a load of different patterned papers in the baggie with the half finished layout but in the end I used the plain white Bazzill and two sheets of Basic Grey which were some of the plain but distressed pages from their collection packs. It is clean, simple and straight forward but I love it all the same, for the sentiment it represents and of course it is one less layout on my "half started will it ever be finished?" pile!

*Mel Waves Hello!*

First of all a big thanks to Ann for blogging for me last week, as you can imagine the post retreat work continues with unpacking and reorganising retreat stock and going through feedback forms before sending out info to the delegates about the events for 2011 so it was very welcome when the lovely Ann offered to do a few blog posts for us :)

I did have a wonderful day out on Saturday at somebody eleses craft event and it was simply heavenly to sit down and just scrap. We absolutely love doing the retreats but there is very little time to sit and just enjoy it because there is always a list of things that need doing - for the entire weekend our job is to do whatever we can to ensure that the delegates have the most relaxing and fun time, so to just enjoy a bit of time to sit and scrap was lovely this past Saturday. I worked on my class for the Eclectic Keepsakes December crop (which obviously I can;t show you!) and then accomplished something I have been promising myself I would do for ages and complete some of the half started layouts that sit in my "work in progress" drawer at home.

It is half past 11 and the light is dreadful but I will photograph and upload the two I finished tomorrow. Once again I needed to remind myself that it is ok to mix it up and have some layouts which have taken a lot of time and effort and others which are quick and simple. I find it is a constant battle with myself to balance out faffing around trying to make a masterpiece with the need to get on and get some photos scrapped and in an album!

I am pretty happy with the two layouts I finished - they won't win any prizes for exciting technique or design but they are now complete and it feels good to be able to file those away instead of keep looking at them half done in a drawer!

I also made two cards - one of which was an emergency, send it in a hurry card and I forgot to photograph it and one is for the Chicken Soup Blog - we have something quite fun coming up in December so keep an eye out over there :)

Apologies for no pictures - i will get those layouts up after work tomorrow :)

New Gallery Now Online

Take a look at this months DT Gallery featuring Websters Pages goodies. our guest this month was Tracy Lihanne Lane who, along with the regular DT produced some lovely items with the different ranges from Webster Pages most recent release.

Click HERE for the gallery

A little more retreat sharing

The last of the Sunday classes to share today, and we had Debbie teaching us a double layout class using October Afternoon papers, including the tag die-cut sheets. Add a little stitching and voila!

Closing for the teachers last weekend was Suzanne with her gorgeous Prima layout full of texture and colour.

In addition to the sketch challenge, the card challenge and the altered heart challenge delegates were able to particpate in a mystery kit challenge, a music challenge and play scrapping bingo over the weekend.

The mystery kit contained 2 double sided sheets of paper, a sheet of card, a HOME die-cut and a bag of flowers and buttons. There was a wonderful array of layouts created using the kit, with only a few items permitted to be used with it such as white card, black/white stitching, die-cutting machines/punches/stamps, adhesive, photos and black or white pen/ink.

There were some fabulous layouts entered for this challenge but the winning one was from Melissa and featured some beautiful handcut layered flowers.

Six delegates chose to enter the music callenge and the winning layout was the yellow melon-muching page!
The final challenge was Bingo scrapbooking which we have featured here on the blog before. Our crafters had to choose a line of scrapbooking components and then build a page around them, plenty chose to do so and picking a winner from these was a real chore!


The winner chosen in the end was this lovely page.

I hope you have enjoyed our week of retreat reviewing. If we have tempted you to want to join us at a 2011 retreat keep your eye on the website where details will be revealed about the March retreat in the next couple of weeks. If you like any of the class layouts shown and aren't sure what products have been used or would like to know more, leave us a comment and one of the team will come back to you.

The retreat news continues & the November sketch

As promised I'm back bringing you more news from the 7th ATDML retreat last weekend. Sunday morning saw the crop room in rays of glorious autumn sunshine and after a hearty full english breakfast it was crafting time again, the classroom filling up this time for a festive minibook taught by yours truly. Known amongst those who took the class as "the class the just keeps on giving!" the lovely Echo Park Merry Christmas papers, a few sheets of cardstock and some serious cutting out lead to this 12 tales of Christmas minibook being made - all ready for photos from the forthcoming holiday season.

Clare taught next in the classroom with her ATC/Mini Album class using 7Gypsies products. Again lots of lovely variations of this created by class attendees, all very happy with their projects.

Sunday lunch up next, always a very popular roast and this year did not disappoint. The dessert did cause quite a bit of a stir with waiters almost being bowled over in the rush to secure one of the very pretty cheesecake desserts that were initally in short supply!

The raffle was drawn just after lunch and over £400!! was raised for Cancer Research which included proceeds from the sale of raffle tickets, from the silent auction bids and from the sale of Christmas cards some delegates had made in advance. Many thanks to everyone for their generosity in both donating raffle prizes and cards, and indeed in purchasing tickets.

Tomorrow we will share the last of the classes for the weekend and some more challenge layouts, but to close for today, the sketch challenge entries and of course the sketch.
Congrats to Jackie who won this challenge with her Princess layout - especially nice as she had to leave the retreat early due to feeling unwell.

We haven't forgotten that we need to post the winner for the September sketch challenge, that will follow next week when normal blog business resumes after all this delicious retreat news! Until then let this be your November sketch, post your layout or card inspired by this sketch here to be in with a chance to win a £10 ATDML Store voucher. You have until November 30th to play along! Back tomorrow with the penultimate day of retreat news

Mid-week retreat review

Welcome back again as we continue sharing with you news of the retreat last weekend. More classes to share with you today, but before that a quick glimpse at the make-and-take table where some serious sparkling occured in the making of miniture Christmas trees using gems and glitter to decorate chipboard cones.

Over the weekend the make-and-take table also saw delegates making giftbags using Sizzix dies, alcohol inked metal ornaments and notebook covers.

The classes on Saturday were kicked off to a flying start with Suzannes Crate Restoration paper photo cube project. Featuring multiple photographs, this cube would make a wonderful gift which anyone would love to receive, although I'm not sure many of them were going to be given away as they seemed too cherished by those who made them!

Next up teaching was Debbie who worked a little magic with die cuts to achieve a beautiful layout using Girls Paperie papers. There was plenty of options within the kit to change this layout around by mixing up the die-cuts which led to several unique pages being created for some very happy scrappers.
The next class by Clare Brown saw delegates creating a stunning A4 shadow frame wall décor item with a time theme in a “steampunk” style featuring some beautiful 7Gypsies embellishments.
After a refreshing cup of tea and delicious pastries that were virtually on tap all weekend the Saturday afternoon classes continued with a gorgeous layout from Mel using My Minds Eye and October Afternoon. Quite possibly one of my favourites from the weekend this blues and browns layout featuring a floral cluster of embellishments was very popular among those who took the class.
The final class for Saturday was again with Suzanne who created a luxurious layout using the exquisite and unique range of papers by Pink Paislee (Parisian Anthology) and distress inks.

Saturday dinner was as always divine, and the every popular crumble for dessert made the evening! Plenty of free time then was enjoyed into the early hours as class projects were finished off and more challenges were undertaken. Here is my workspace just before I abandonned it for sleep at 3.45am Sunday morning!

More retreat news tomorrow including the sketch challenge which is always popular at the retreat and images from the Sunday classes.