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!