It's Hot Hot Hot So Here Is A Beach Themed Class For You!

To celebrate the warm weather we thought we would upload a class for you to showcase your beach photos.

This layout: "Beach, Beach & More Beach" is by Vicky Johnson, as usual there are free PDF instructions available to download HERE.

And The Winner...

... of the lovely little pair of 7 Gypsies notebooks is (as chosen by Random dot Org)



Claire! Congratulations Claire, I just hopped over to your blog and I see you have still got loads of Florida photos to scrap - perhaps you could use the books to plan your layouts and jot down ideas for papers, embellies and sketches! Enjoy them whatever you decide to put in them. Please drop me an email ( Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk ) with your address and we will get them sent over to you.

Bingo!

We have had some lovely entries for our Scrapping Bingo challenge this month but there is still time to join in. See this post for more information and don't forget to email your entries to me ( Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk ) on or before 8pm on 30th June.

Also you have only one more day to add a comment to the previous post to be entered into the Giveaway for the gorgeous 7 Gypsies notebooks.

Giveaway - Take Note!

These beautiful notebooks from 7 Gypsies are gorgeous and they are going on the website tonight. We have a pair of these to give away to one of our blog readers. Just leave a comment on this post and we will draw a name at random on Tuesday night.

Be sure to check back to see if you have won so you cans end us your contact details.

Handmade Buttons

You know sometimes I like nothing more than to use lots of lovely products from my stash on a layout, there is a lot of satisfaction to be had using those special embellishments that you were saving for "just the right layout!" However, there are other times when you want to make something that is uniquely yours, that no one else will have exactly the same of and the only way to ensure this is to hand make your embellishments.

The layout below is not a new one, but it is one I absolutely loved making and which is not the same as anyone elses! I made all the little buttons on it with fimo and hand painted them to match the papers I was using. Would I do it for every layout? No way! but an evening spent in front of the TV making little round balls, squashing them into flat buttons and then adding indents and button holes using a variety of tools was quite theraputic. I then cooked the whole batch and used the majority the next night to make this layout. It was so easy to dig out the right number, paint them and glaze them with glossy accents - then I knew my layout was entirely uniquely mine!

The rest were stored in little jars which I came across last night while having a semi sort out. There aren't many left now and I feel another night of fimo playing coming on very soon!

"Home" Decor On A Large Scale?!?!

Well I have had a really busy week so thought I would pop by and tell you why... I teach part time in an infants school and have had a bit of extra work this week moonlighting in my school as "Artist In Residence!"

Really that means I am being paid to work outside the classroom with small groups of children to create a large piece of art work for our new entrance hall. It is a lot of fun, we are painting backgrounds and then stenciling on childrens own pictures to create a large PATCHWORK style mural. Hahaha i told you I was patchwork obsessed!

I will try to share picture when it is done, we are only just starting but maybe next week. I have also managed to use some scrapping products (Heidi Swapp masks) and may also fire up the Cricut to help out tomorrow - just need to locate the cutting mat.......... !!

Anyway, I hope you are all enjoying the good weather, no doubt it won't last and we will all be back indoors scrapping and moaning about the rain soon!

A Little Reminder...

The ATDML Sale ends tonight at midnight so if you have been umming and ahhing now is the time to order your goodies if you want to benefit from 15 - 20% off most products in store.

Belated June Sketch!

Here is a sketch based on a layout i did sometime ago for the ATDML DT Gallery. It was an unusual arrangement which allowed me to use 6 photos so fits in with our recent Multi Photo focus.

And here is my layout "Simply Irresistible" using the Bella Blvd "Pack Your Bags" range:

Sketch Winner For May

Wow, what with a crazy busy month somehow we are nearly at the end of June and I realised we hadn't posted Mays sketch winner or any June sketches! Slapped wrist for me.


So the winner is....

"My Boys" By 'Juliwan' We loved the colour scheme and the choice of papers \ embellishments. Of course the very cute cat photos also caught our eye! Cat lovers (and animal lovers of all sorts will want to check out the July DT gallery as it will feature Basic Grey Max & Whiskers products amongst others!)

Please drop me an email with your email address so I can email you the shopping voucher prize!

A sketch will follow in the next post. As we are nearly at the end of June it will roll into July's sketch challenge so the deadline for sketch entries will be 31st July.

Ingredients Challenge Winner

The voting has now closed on the Ingredients challenge, thanks to both ladies who took part this month. The winner was anna Parker with "Just Because." Congratulations Anna, a shopping voucher is on its way to you.

The Ingredients challenge is taking a summer break but will be back in a couple of months time!

Happy Father's Day!

To all dads everywhere, but especially mine... happy father's day.

This is the card I made my dad...

It's some bits and pieces from Graphic 45's Proper Gentleman range, a page from an old book, some letters I got at the last ATDML retreat and some Thickers. When I remembered this morning that I hadn't made him anything yet it made me realise how glad I am to have my stash around me.

A Class For June

As promised I said I would post the layout I scrapped using the photo of the girls in their England shirt and here it is and it is also our latest class. Great for scrapping photos of the family following the World Cup this summer but also easily adaptable to suit other sports or even travel photos.

As always the instructions are available as a free PDF download. Click HERE for the PDF

Father's Day Card Idea

Generally speaking I think the majority of card makers struggle with new ideas for cards for the men in our lives. With Fathers Day approaching this weekend I have been trying to think of different card for my husband from the kids and after browing several card shops for ideas I decided to create a faux wallet, with a credit card from each of the children.


To make this card you need one sheet of 12x12 card/patterned paper, a small piece of accetate (to cover a 3"x2" window and three pieces of cardstock each cut to the size of a credit card, a large brad, a magnetic closure and double sided tape and a pen.

First of all score your 12x12 card down the centre from top to bottom, and then score from left to right at 4" and 8". Fold along the 4" scoreline, and then fold over again at the 8" scoreline. This will create a 12" x 4" folded piece. Trim 1" from either end but do not throw away - this will be used later.


Open the wallet ensuring that the bottom long edge is closed but the top long edge is open. The mark a 3"x2" window on the inside left pocket of your wallet and mark three lines for your credit cards on the right hand pocket (mine were 2", 2.5" and 3" from the bottom and centrally aligned. Unfold the paper and using a craft knife cut along the 3 credit card lines and cut out the 3"x2" window. Attach your piece of accetate to the reverse side of your window and affix double sided sticky tape as shown. Position and adhere your photo to the bottom left section of your wallet (when looking at it opened as shown - this will show through the accetate window - be sure to stick it the correct way so that when the wallet is folded back together your photo is not upside down! Add one half of your magnet closure to the left of the photo, centrally aligned.



Next decorate the front and inside of your wallet. I added faux stitching with a black pen, a simple DAD title to the front of the wallet and a message from all inside. Each of my three children will be decorating a credit card sized piece of card to add to the slots on the right of the wallet and a photo of the three of them will be visible through the accetate pocket.


The final step is to make a strap for the wallet using the 1" strip that you cut earlier. I measured the length of mine by eye, again added faux stitching to match the wallet and affixed a brad for decoration. I made the strap double sided to hide both the back of the brad and also part of the magnetic closure. Adhere your strap to the back of your wallet, and when you are sure everything is completed seal the sides of your wallet with double sided tape. The wallet is capable of holding cash, or faux cheques with IOUs on, or even a voucher in the pocket behind the credit card and photos.

I hope you like the card and decide to have a go. It can easliy be adapted to suit those male birthdays as well. Let us know if you decide to make one, I can't wait for my husband to receive his from our children. Happy Card Making!!

World Cup Scrapping?

Well it is here, love or it or loathe it the World Cup has come around again and we are a the beginning of a month of football fever!

In our house we are in the "Love It" camp, well Olivia is indifferent but Izzy, Darren and I are enjoying it. I am determined to do a layout this time, last time I took a couple of photos of Izzy in an England T Shirt but never scrapped them (one day I might!) so yesterday I put the girls in their England tops and made them go outside to have pics taken!

(Above is Izzy in a little 3 Cubs T Shirt from Sainsburys back in 2006!)

Layout of the recent pics to follow shortly when my photos arrive from Photobox and I have scrapped it, but if anyone has any world cup or football related layouts they want to share do let me know, either post a link in the comments box or email me.

Ingredients Challenge For June

We have just two ladies taking part this month for the ingredients challenge but what a lovely pair of layouts we have!

Wendy Bukowski and Anna Parker both received kits with the muted greens and blues of My Minds Eye Life Stories collection plus some cardstock and some co-ordinating bits and I think this months challenge really epitomises the idea behind it. The layouts are totally different and I hope you have fun looking at them. The poll will go up to see which of our challengers gets the £10 shopping voucher.

Thanks to both ladies and here are their layouts:

Just Because - By Anna Parker - see more of Annas work on her blog

Exploring - Wendy Bukowski

Perfect by Suzanne Torr

This stunning layout, created by Suzanne as part of the design team gallery this month uses the reverse side of two of the Bella BLVD papers shown below. I very rarely remember to check out the reverse side of a paper when browing on line and you can miss out on some very pretty papers doing this.



The close up of Suzanne's layout shows just how pretty the Coin Purse paper is with those little flowers, and we also get to see the lovely handmade spiral flowers which are so simple to make and yet make a great statement on your page.


Freehand cut (or even punch out) a circle and then cut into a spiral from the outside, cutting around and around until you reach the centre. Then you can scrunch your flower if you want a softer look, ink the edges or even distress them some as Suzanne has done. Then take a pair of tweezers and gripping the outside of your spiral twist until you have a tight coil. Press firmly together then release your tweezers, turn your flower over and press down with the palm of your hand to flatten slightly. Have a go and see how you get on!

Product Spotlight: Bits A Bella By Bella Blvd

This month the DT team worked with a variety of papers from Bella Blvd. In my kit I got one of the Bits A Bella Papers from the Camped Out Collection.

Having previously worked with the Bits A Bella paper from the Super Stud collection for my "Wonster" layout I knew how much i loved working with them and used them heavily on my "Our Camping Adventure" and "Outdoor Girl" layouts. (below)

In each of their newer ranges Bella Blvd have included a "Bits A Bella" design which consists of borders, phrases, words, elements and journal boxes printed onto a 12x12 sheet. It makes it very easy to work with clusters of journal boxes, photos and decorative elements - there is no sifting through your stash looking for just the right thing to go with it, the colours match the range and the images are appropriate to the range. Of course the other bonus is that with so many embellishment pieces packed onto one sheet of 12x12 it makes creating busy, detailed layouts with lots of elements a lot cheaper than it would be if you were using elements from sticker sheets, chipboard packs etc..

To add variety and change things up a little you can easily mount elements onto scrap pieces of chipboard for added dimension or add glossy accents to create different effects.

We would love to see any creations you have made with Bits A Bella papers - drop me an email Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk

DT Seaside creations using Bella BLVD

As mentioned in our blog post yesterday the Design Team worked with Bella BLVD papers this month. There are some lovely seaside/beach themed papers in the All Inclusive range perfect for the sunny day layouts as demonstrated by Debbie in her Fun Times layout.


And in my Family Fun layout.


If you've not yet been to the coast yet this year and are maybe saving for your holidays how about decorating an inexpensive money box to encourage those pennies to build up? I got this moneybox from our local 99p shop and used the Bella Blvd papers and the stickers to cover it in a holiday theme. We are saving our 1p and 2p coins ready for the seaside slot machines!



Don't forget our Bingo challenge too which this month could see you scraplifting a design team member - the perfect time to go check out the DT gallery this month and see what inspires you!

New Gallery Uploaded

The June Gallery is now online and features work by Sarah Meacher and Jo Willis as guest designers. The gallery spotlights the Bella Blvd paper ranges.

Click HERE to see the June Gallery

A new Ranger Blog!

I was very excited yesterday to learn that Ranger have started a new blog!
Sure to be full of inspiration with tips and tricks using their products I for one cannot wait to see what they have in store. The shop now has Ranger Stickles reduced from £2.20 to just £1.89 and Distress ink pads also reduced from £4.50 to £3.83 so it's the pefect time to stock up on your Ranger products and eagerly await the inspiration from the new blog!

Stickles have to be one of my favourite scrapbooking products, inexpensive and they add that little something to your cards and layouts.

I'm just off to add a few more to my shopping basket!!

Missing in Action!

I feel like I have been missing in action a little the past few days. Isabelle, my oldest daughter, turned 5 on Friday and we had two parties and a family day out in the last three days and another family visit tomorrow! Needless to say I am shattered!

I haven't been completely non crafty though. I have been making birthday related items: personalised packets of colouring pencils for party bags - VERY sinple to do and cheap to make. Unfortunately I gave them all out without photographing them but I haven't done Izzys pack yet so will photograph and upload when I do that!

Then there was the birthday card. Some people are not so keen on them but I like poppets a la Claudine Hellmuth so Izzys card featured herself and a variety of stamped bits and pieces. Lots of fun to make and she loved it :) I used the American Crafts "Warble" stamps from the Dear Lyzzy collection to make the bunting, the doodling under "Happy Birthday and the dress and some Hero Arts ones for the balloons, butterfly and greeting.

And finally of course there was the cake, actually two but the first one didn't count as it was a quick and easy choccy cake with smarties all over. The one for todays party though had been planned in my head for a while. Here is the cake, a plain sponge tray bake covered in green buttercream texturised with a fork to make grass. Tinkerbell was borrowed from a friend and the little sugar flowers were from Tesco! The Toadstools I made with a dome shaped sillicone cake mould. Once the cake domes were cooked and cooled I rolled out red icing and covered them with red icing. Small balls of white icing were flattened and adhered to the red with a little water. The stalks were made from marshmallows, covered in white chocolate and allowed to set in the fridge on baking parchment. I then used more white chocolate, covered the underside of the toadstools and stuck the stems on.

I am never terribly organised when it comes to parties but I was very pleased with myself as I made a whole load of extra toadstools which went straight into cake boxes when ready so that all the party guests could take a cake toadstool home!

I know this is a papercraft blog really but a lot of crafters like baking too so I thought I would share my cake pics :)

A Few More Ribbon Layouts...

We really loved the entries we had for the ribbon challenge, such a lot of different effects, techniques and styles. Here are a few more for inspiration :)

By Yvonne Izzard

By Andrea Gourley

By Maria Thomas

By Olivia Robertson

Thanks to all those who entered, don't forget that this months challenge is Scrapping Bingo and details can be found HERE.

May Ribbon Challenge Winner

We have had some lovely entries for the May Ribbon challenge and hope to showcase a few of them later but we have chosen a winner.

This layout, "I Want" by Sue Jones is our winner, here is what she said about her layout.

"I saw these necklaces on the accessorize website and thought they were lovely. Probably quite easy to make with a few curtain rings. I decided to use them to inspire me for the ribbon challenge. I cut some circles and wrapped them with ribbon and even got out a box of threads to embellish the discs, attached a few gems to one or two of them and finished the "necklace" off with a flower cut from the Tim Holtz alterations die. The bottom edge also has ribbon threaded though it and adhered with 3D foam pads."





We loved how well the technique matched the necklace in the photo, a true case of the perfect embellishment for a this photo. The effect of the ribbon wrapped around the discs really is very striking and something I'd like to have a go at very soon.

June Challenge: Scrapping Bingo!

This month our challenge is a little different. Throughout June we are playing Scrapping Bingo. It is very simple to join in and once again you could win yourself a £25 ATDML stash voucher.

Look at the grid below and choose a line (can be vertical, horizontal or diagonal) and create a layout with those four elements in. Email your layout to me ( Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk ) on or before 30th June. Please list the four elements which make up the line you chose in with your entry. Please note you CAN use other elements from the grid too but your layout must also include 4 elements that are in a row in the bingo grid.

Thanks to Ann for giving me this idea for a challenge, it sounds fun and I will definitely be playing along!