Eggtastic Graphic 45

Have you checked out the French Country Papers from Graphic 45 yet? I'm loving working with them and have been using the 8"x8" version of them for one of my retreat classes next week. But I couldn't resist getting the full size version too. I found this French egg holder online and decided it would be the perfect thing to alter using the French Country papers...

So that's the before, and after a lot of hand cutting here's the after...

 

 

 

 

With any luck the Easter Bunny will pop by and fill it up with chocolate eggs!

 

Happy Easter!

Trends on Tuesday - Over the Rainbow

Hello everyone, this week I thought I would have a look at rainbows - they aren't a new trend in scrapping...here is a rainbow page from Amy Heller from a few years back.  There is something about the colour combination and order that I really love.  Here is a more recent page from Wilna Furstenberg and an inky one from Tanya Batrak.  

I started my page with some drips of cosmic shimmer, and then used a mix of papers that matched the colour palette, some Glitz, American Crafts and Studio Calico and the purple is prima.  The Sn@p products also use the rainbow colour palette and so I used one of the stickers from this range, and then the alphabet is a mix of American Crafts and Cosmo Cricket Midway.  Other than the colour I didn't really add too much more to the page.

Here are a couple more rainbow pages I've done to inspire you some more...

This one was based on an advert for scrap factor with a mix of My Little Shoebox, Jillibean soup, October Afternoon..

and this was based on a Scrap365 sketch using lots of Crate Paper Farmhouse

I hope that inspires you to dig through your papers and find some rainbow colours and put them together on a page.

Gorgeous new ranges

There are some lovely new ranges in the shop at the moment - the wonderful Simple Stories Vintage Bliss  -  I love the colours of this one. I've just made a start on a little folded mini book with these so I will be posting that here soon!

Also in is the beautiful new Secret Garden from Graphic 45  which happened to wing it's way to my door too.

It really is lovely - I couldn't resist opening it and making a little card with it 

The colour combinations are really spring like and are some of my favourites. 

I think you may just  be seeing a few more projects from me with these papers !

Gracia's Diary

I, along with several of my scrapping buddies, participate in in the 'blog call' Story Telling Sunday.  This involves telling a story/memory on the first Sunday of each month.  For the whole of 2013 the call is to tell about something that is precious to you.

This month I chose to tell about a little collection of books I have, all from when Gracia was about 3 or 4 and all containing her version of what the day was like and what she did.  We would sit down at the end of the day, just before story time, and in her own words I would record how she saw the day.

I then decided to scrap a page with a few of her 'corkers' on and after looking through my insubstantial, ok quit substantial, pile of papers decided that these would be the perfect range for my story.  I loved the little bird stickers who seemed to be cheeping out her tales.

Have you scrapped something that may seem insignificant to others but is very precious to you?

Trends on Tuesday - Cutting out your photos

Hello everyone, this week I thought I would have a go at something I have never tried before which is to cut out images from photos.  There are a few scrappers out there like Brit Svigum and Gerry Van Gent who have mastered this technique and use it frequently on their pages. 

 I have to confess to being slightly nervous about cutting up my photos, and how well I would cut them (as I used my ordinary pointy scissors and not anything posh like decoupage scissors) but was pleasantly surprised.  I've used some lovely Glitz Yours Truly papers and created a background for my photos that was a mix of vellum, paint, lace and layers of other papers, then added my photo over the top with foam pads so that it sat over the lace. Often cut out photo scrappers create a whole scene with their papers so that their photo is walking out of the scene which works really nicely too.  

These photos also show you how far behind I am with my scrapping...I came across them the other day and was shocked that I hadn't scrapped any of my olympic shots yet....so be prepared for some more!

Scrapping for Gifts... Part 2

Well the Diamond Wedding Anniversary is tomorrow. I hope they like their gifts. I finished the second layout for the photo album \ scrapbook which featured a photo taken at the last Diamond Wedding Anniversary celebrated in our family. That was in 1957 and the couple were married in 1897.

For those that know Jill and Helen from the retreats see if you can spot them... As a clue Jill was 4 and is in the front row and Helen was 1 and is being held.

 

MY next scrapping prjects are going to be the two classes I am teaching at our retreat and the Friday bonus class project for our long weekend delegates - I won't be able to share those before the retreat but hopefully I will get some more projects on here soon.

Scrapping For Gifts... Part 1

After a quick trip to the "Movies For Juniors" cinema showing on Saturday morning I was just contemplating the mountain of school work I have to do when Mum came in and said...

"You don't fancy making me a couple of quick scrapbook pages do you?!"

Now anyone who knows me knows that "Quick" is not really a word I would use to describe my scrapping. I am a terrible faffer although I have improved lots in the past year or so!

Mums Auntie and Uncle are celebrating a Diamond Wedding Anniversary this coming week so as part of the gift she wanted to include a photo album but using a We R Memory Keepers album with divided page protectors. Then she happened upon some old photos and thought a couple of layouts would be a nice start to the album!

After a quick shop in the stock room I set to work. Here is the first page. featuring their wedding photo from 1957...

I have another page to finish which I will blog later.

I found an interesting challenge to scrap a photo from an event I didn't attend and from 60 years ago. It is quite simple but I hope they will like it.

I would love to hear if you have ever scrapped something as a gift and how you found it. Do you approach it as just "make something pretty" and hope they like it or do you have a better method.

I think I will die cut a co-ordinating journaling block which will fit on the right hand side of the layout which they can add journaling to if they want.

Banners

Back in October Katherine share a blog post as part of Trends on Tuesdays all about banners and it seems the trend is still popular among scrapbookers, and certainly the design team. From using large strips of paper cut into banners as the focal point of your page, to smaller banner pieces tucked on a page or even a bunting line of banners they are everywhere. The design team gallery for February saw many examples of this.

Karen's beautiful layout sees the banner pieces cut from a variety of coordinating pattern papers (great way to use up those little pieces you have remaining).

Edges have been inked and each banner piece slightly overlaps the next.

Katherine's I love U2 layout sees the banner pieces form her photo mount, with ink and paint and distressing softening their appearance against the background.

Distressing and inking the edges to your banner pieces can help to hide where they are not quite  symmetrical and evenly cut (as we all know they never look straight not matter how much we measure!)

Have a go at a banner inspired card or layout yourself  and be sure to share your pages by leaving a comment and link below. 

Tag Team

Looking through the design team gallery for February, full of projects using luscious My Minds Eye products I noticed that both Karen and I had created layouts featuring tag shapes.

My brand new year layout features 4 tags with two placed end to end to make a longer strip to the right of the page. I simply cut rectangles from card, snipped the corners off to make a tag shape and added a punched brown circle of card with a small hole punched in the centre. Decorating these 4 tags with papers and running titles and journalling that overlap the tags and background card leads to a simple design idea creating a layout that flows across the page.
The Honeycomb Red/Pink double sided paper I have used can be found HERE, and the glittery striped paper/brown on reverse HERE.

Karen's Sweet Treat layout also uses 4 tags placed in a line across the page. Three act as photo mounts and the third is filled with hand cut embellishments and a title. She then sneaks a 5th tag in turned on it's side for the journalling. The floral embellishments Karen has used are from this paper HERE and this paper was also used on the layouts taught by Debbie at Ecelectic Keepsakes crop that several of the design team shared.

Finally this page by Katherine features a decorated  tag to the left of her photo housing the title to her layout.

Come back over the weekend when we share banner shapes appearing on more February DT layouts, but if you can't wait why not visit the full gallery HERE.