Trends on Tuesday - Simple Stories

The whole Project Life and divided pockets and partitioned papers has been growing from strength to strength.  Having read Mel's post on the 'I Heart Summer' papers and already having a Simple Stories album it was the perfect excuse to start a holiday album from our recent camping trip.  

I'll pop back and keep you up to date, but I have a Blue Simple Stories album which has some blue pages and the chipboard partitions as well as some pocket pages.  On top of that I bought the I Heart Summer Stickers, Snap Pages, the 4 by 6 cards and a couple of sheets of paper.  I also used some stickers and offcuts left over from a project with  Vintage Bliss.  

The process I went through before I actually started sticking was to sort out the Snap Pages with the beautiful die cut ones into the album and mixing it up with the blue pages and plastic inserts, I then added in the journal cards too - just randomly but so I have somewhere to start and can look at them all.  As I go through I can always swap an insert or a die cut for another one, it just helps to have them evenly spread throughout the album so I know that I won't end up with a cluster of them all in one place.  The next step I went through was to sort out the photos in date order and then place them on pages - just roughly so I know where to start and how many pages I'm filling.

At the start of my album I began by mounting one of the journal cards on some acetate, and journaled all the details on the back.  I have yet to decorate the cover or the chipboard dividers.

Here are the pages so far, I've used lots of the stickers and made a few embellishments too

The right hand page is one of the full clear pocket pages, which I cut one of the papers to fit - it is slightly bigger than 6 by 8", I made my own journal squares by cutting up some of the journal cards, which is also where that beautiful camera comes from.

I have loads of photos so lots to fit in this album, hence the stacked photos on the 1st page. To add a little more dimension the right hand page I cut out Summer and Snapshots banners from one of the journal card and then mounted them on pop dots.

I still have a long way to go, but I think this album will easily my summer holidays in too as there is still plenty of room in the binder.  

If you would like some more inspiration then check out this series of videos by Vicki Boutin - video 1, video 2 though there are more to follow.

Cards On Sunday - Loving Lost & Found

This week I dug out some of my beloved MME Lost & Found - This is from the Union Square range. I have several baggies of bits and pieces which go with this as I had sorted out a lot when I made my selection of base layout pages with the Union Square range.

 

 

It was then really quick and easy to add a little washi tape, the oval red and cream sticker and the stamped & punched butterflies.

 

To finish the butterflies I added a little bit of bling (Basic Grey square bling to be precise) to form the bodies on the butterflies.

Another Simple Stories Layout To Share

A bit more I Heart Summer...

This is another layout made with the new Simple Stories I Heart Summer range. Unusually for me I trimmed the background paper so it was the correct width to pass through a printer and I printed my title and journaling directly onto the background paper.

Then I added other papers to make it back into a 12x12 page and used a selection of embellishments including washi tapes (woodgrain and camera) some stickers (from both the I Heart Summer collection and also from the Sn@p ranges.

Finally I highlighted the title by adding some Say It In Crystals Arrows (currently on sale) pointing in to the title.

Thanks for stopping by!

Cards On Sunday - Woodgrain Washi Tape Love!

For my Cards on Sunday this week I pulled out the lovely wood grain washi tape from Glitz designs and used it on two different cards. For the card backgrounds both started off as plain white cardstock but I coloured the backgrounds using distress inks (tea dye and walnut stain) using a ranger ink blending tool which I love to use.

On the first card I used the washi tape along with some ruffled brown velvet trim to form a band across the card. On the second one I created a wooden frame around my stamped image

What's Up What's App? Scrapping the Everyday

I spoke of my passion for scrapping the everyday in my last post and realised that I had made another 'everyday' layout for one of my latest DT pieces.

With my daughter living most of the year in Newcastle, we miss her very much.  A way we have gotten around this is via an app called WhatsApp.  This enables you to send photos and messages for free and therefore is very appealing to a cash strapped student!

We only seem to use it for frivolous messages, which for some reason are mostly photographs of what we are eating, as the more important ones are texted to each other, I am not sure why but that is just the way it is.

I need to give you a little background to the WhatsApp message I scrapped.  I work for a charity and their offices are based at a marina, quite a way from normal civilisation.  There are two full time members of staff and one part time working in the office.  On the days when I am the only one in I take my dog to work for company and on the day in question Gracia was revising hard for her exams.

I used Fancy Pants - Trendsetter and the little wooden chevrons from Studio Calico to indicate the flow of the conversation.

 So there we have it, another of our everyday happenings scrapped for us to giggle about at some later date.

For all the FanTASHtic dads

Well Fathers day is this weekend and I don't know about you but I tend to struggle a little on making male themed cards. I didn't so much this year when in among my Fancy Pants design team papers this month arrived this paper from the Swagger collection.

Having seen the fanTASHtic pun on pinterest (whilst browsing for male card ideas!) I knew these were going to make a couple of fun cards one of which you can see below which uses both sides of the paper above and some chevron paper from this sheet.

I safely handed this card to my dad early today to ensure it didn't go astray in the post like his birthday card I had so lovingly made! And the funniest thing?... my dad doesn't even have a moustache and probably won't get this card but it amuses me!! Do share a link below in your comments to any Fathers Day cards you have made with your ATDML product.

The oversized chevron

I love Studio Calico's little wood veneer chevrons, but you can also make them on a much larger scale to draw attention to the photo.  I choose some Studio Calico papers which have a lovely ombreish/rainbow pattern to them.  I cut a strip about 4 inches wide, and then on the back I marked the centre, and then marked down 2" on each side, joined the lines together which made the point on my chevron, I then made some 1" deep and some 1/2" deep - inspired by those wood veneers and their different sizes.  I like the way that they draw your eye into the photo...though I think my husband is right - I should have used the colour photo for this one as that would have made it pop from the page  allittle more. 

I also used a pile of embellishments from the Maggie Holmes ephemera pack - there are loads of gorgeous goodies in there including the tickets, tags, bows and several cameras.

A Place in Time again

At the beginning of the year I decided to make a monthly page with the lovely Graphic45 A Place in Time range. I posted the first two and thought I'd share the next two with you.
Here's the one I did for March...

I love the little stamps that come with each month's papers -great for cutting out and dotting over the page.I used a photo of a very special meeting that happened in March. A group of us ladies who had met via having blogs all met in London as one of them had flown over from America. It was a really good day and perfect for remembering March.

The second one for April...

This was taken at the recent ATDML retreat and was the first time my son's girlfriend had been - she absolutely loved it and is going again next time!

I think this particular range shows that Graphic45 can be really pretty as well as 'grungey.

Over in the shop  there are some great chipboard embellishments and stickers to go with the papers too.

May and June's coming soon!

May Blog Participation Prize!

Remember this post?

Well there has been way more activity on the blog this month so thank you all for taking time to stop by and leaving comments on the posts - it is always lovely to read your responses to the posts :)

I went through the comments in date order for May and assigned every comment (except my own and any spam ones which have now been removed) with a number. There were 49 comments from 22 different posters.

As you can see Random.org picked comment number 12 which was

thriftycrafter11 May 2013 16:46

I can't get enough of this technique, lovely card, rather special.
It was a fab class.

ReplyDelete

So Thriftycrafter please email me with your name and I will send you your £10 shopping voucher to be used online at ATDML

Cards on Sunday - Embossed Backgrounds

I made this card for Darrens Nans 80th birthday recently. If you take a look in the bootom right hand corner you will see the metal embossing technique used on a die cut butterfly which added a new twist to the technique.

 

 

To make the card background I used a piece of blue cardstock stamped randomly with a flower image in a slightly darker shade. The blue and white section was made by inking up an embossing folder with the light blue ink on one side. You then run the folder through the big shot with a piece of plain white card. As the folder embosses and presses in the pattern the background area is also inked.

 

I cut this piece to size and punched a white decorative border to go above and below the embossed background and then added a stamped flower in the darker blue to the centre of the card.

 

To finish I added the greeting and the butterfly embellishment to the bottom of the card.