I just can't help cutting stuff out!!

This month the Design Team got to play with some Simple Stories papers and I had some from the Snow fun collection and some from the Story of Us Collection.

Now to me, a sheet of paper like this...

...just cries out to me to cut out the flowers...I really don't know what it is, I just can't help it even though I really like music themed paper I knew that I would end up cutting out the flowers ...and I did. I made a layout and a covered box with the papers and lots of cut out flowers...I like the fact that I can switch my brain off for a bit while I'm cutting out and not worry about the creative process, but then once I'm done cutting out I can play about with the cut out images, moving them around until I'm happy with where they are and then I can put some on one or two foam pads to give a real 3D effect...

 

I did the same thing with the 'Snow fun' papers. Fact is, we've had no snow to have fun in here since about 2010 and anything resembling winter weather to me means a day inside by the fire with a good book or in my craft room. Consequently I don't have a lot of wintery photographs! But once I'd taken this sheet and cut out a whole load of bits and pieces...

I had enough to start playing with. I was inspired by a chalk board card I had seen on a Stampin' Up! blog at some point and  I decided to use the 'wood' from this page...

...to create my mini chalk board cards... (They're not necessarily Christmas cards and I've left the chalk board bit blank for now so that when the time comes I can whip out a white marker pen and write a greeting on the front.)

Maybe my next challenge should be to NOT cut everything out!! (But don't hold your breath for that to happen!)

More Good Day Sunshine

After Mel's fantastic classes using the Good Day Sunshine range for the Virtual Crop, yesterday, I thought I would show a couple of layouts I made for the February DT Gallery using the same range.

The first - Good Day Sunshine, has a photo that was taken in December but went perfectly with the colourful papers and sentiments.  I have cut out the phrases from some photo overlays and glued them directly onto my photos. 

 The day the photo was taken was a 'Good Day' because Gracia and I got to spend time with Eileen and Hannah - a rare occurrence these days compared to when I used to see Hannah almost every day and Eileen several times a week.

 

The second - Dino Dinner - features a photo Gracia sent me last summer.

I really love how she likes to fool around and doesn't mind what other people will think.  Also I really, really love that she thinks - that will make a good scrapbook page and sends me the photo. This one was taken near to where she lived last year.  A very enterprising shopkeeper sold tins of spray paint and allowed people to paint Graffiti Art onto his walls.  Some of the pieces were stunning but it was always evolving as old pieces were painted over with new ones.

 I think the Good Days Sunshine range is  really versatile and can be used to scrap almost any subject.

Virtual Crop - Class 3 with Denise

Hello everyone and I hope you are having a happy scrappy time virtual cropping with us. My class uses the Prima 'Lyric' range. 

Download the instructions for my pages HERE

My first layout is a nice hopefully relaxed one - these papers are so pretty and have so many gorgeous elements in them

My second layout has a little more cutting involved - there are so many lovely bits to use I couldn't resist!

I did a tiny bit of gentle splatting with some spritzer when it was finished - but if you don't have spritzes or mists it's not compulsory!

 

I really hope you've enjoyed your classes today and will show us your makes in our Facebook group.

Virtual Crop class 2 - With Ann & some Fancy Pants!

Welcome to my Fancy Pants swagger class, easily replicable with your own papers, just treat the images as sketches and have fun. If you don't have a circle punch get creative and draw around the inside of a reel of glue dots or a sellotape reel!

My second layout uses lots of distressing and inking which is optional and you can leave out for a cleaner looking finish.

Instructions for both of these classes and a bonus card project can be found HERE.
Have fun and join us again at 2pm with Denise and her Prima Lyric class :)

Virtual Crop Class 1 with Mel

Good morning everyone, I hope you are all well and looking forward to a fun day of scrapping! We have three lovely classes for you, there were kits available for all of them but all can be amended to suit the papers and supplies you already have if you didn't manage to get the kits.

First up is my class, I chose to work with this kit as I knew that in the grey days of winter I would love to bring a little colour into my craft room with the Good Day Sunshine range from Simple Stories.

I have also gone very "Multi Photo" with two of my layouts to mix things up a little. I hope those of you who were preparing your photos in advance managed to get together a suitable selection and it didn't cause too many headaches!

 

To download instructions for all three layouts from the class click HERE.

 

Have a lovely day, I hope some of you will join in the chat thread on facebook and share your creations in the facebook album (feel free to ask questions \ comment either on this post or in the facebook group.)

 

Join us at Noon for Ann's class :)

February Virtual Crop Challenge

Our second virtual crop of the year, welcome, welcome!

In usual style we kick start your day with a challenge - based on this day in history and I am rather excited about this challenge!

February 21st 1947 – In New York City, Edwin Land demonstrated the first "instant camera", the Polaroid Land Camera, to a meeting of the Optical Society of America.  Hard to imagine then where we would be now with the advancement of technology! But we all still love a polaroid and the scrapbooking industry created many frames and papers featuring said camera and style of square printed image.

So naturally your challenge today is to be inspired by the Polaroid camera. Feature square photos on your page, camera printed paper or the colours in the image above. I cannot wait to see what you create based on this idea. As always we have a February virtual crop gallery for you to share your images. Looking forward to seeing that fill up over the weekend :)

You first class is up at 10am. See you then.

F is for Family

Howdy bloggers on this another chilly February day - indeed one might say it is Sweater Weather! That happens to be the name of the Simple Stories paper collection I got to design with this month for the gallery.  Once again I found myself scrapping older photographs, something I have been doing recently following the loss of two loved ones.

The page features an interactive opening which reveals journaling and an additional photograph and uses a pair of cards from this paper. You can't see the family card but it is there!

I added a blue dotty paper from a previous Simple Stories paper (I think) to pull in the blues in my photograph and added a brad and arrow to "close" my interactive element.

More Simple Stories projects can be found in the gallery this month here from several of the team with more following throughout the month.

Love and Legacy

There are some really lovely new collections coming in to the shop lately especially some new Simple Stories. For my kit this month Mel and Jill sent me some Simple Stories Legacy and Hugs & Kisses
The Legacy range has lots of journaling cards in varying sizes so could be used for Project Life really easily. Perfect if you are doing a Heritage album.

 There is a great pack of ephemera too - so lots of bits and bobs to sift through and choose embellishments for your layout.
I also had some Hugs and Kisses by Simple Stories too and they were just perfect for a Valentine's layout.

Lots of hearts and sayings with some washi tape too and an overly for the photo. A beautiful combination of colours,some of my favoutires.
I hope you're all looking forward to the Virtual Crop next Saturday with some great classes and inspiration - see you there !

Photo requirements for next weekends virtual crop

Here is the heads up ladies (and any gents who have snuck in at the back!) of the photograph requirements for the three classes next weekend Saturday February 21st 2015. Hope you are all looking forward to our second virtual crop of the year.

Class 1 - Mel

• Layout 1 - Between ten and sixteen photographs each measuring 2" square.  Mel cut these from standard sized photographs that hadn't been cropped too much and hers are a tiny bit bigger as she has used a 2.125" square punch!
• Layout 2 - one 5" square photograph (including a border) and six 2.25"x3" portrait photographs (2"x3" photographs would also work so long as the are all the same size!) Mel adds that you could reduce the photographs required to a minimum of three 2"x3" photos
• Layout 3 - one 3.75" square photograph  (again cropped from a standard sized photo) 

Class 2 - Ann

• Layout 1 - one 4"x6" portrait orientated colour photograph
• Layout 2 - one 3.25"x5" portrait orientated colour photograph
• There is also a quick card you can make

Class 3 - Denise 

• Layout 1 - one 4"x6" portrait orientated colour photograph
• Layout 2 - one 4.5" x 4" photograph - Denise has used a black and white photograph but colour will also work.

Any questions in the meantime please ask and one of us will do our best to assist. As always we will kickstart the day with a challenge for you as well.

A Little Sunshine on a Cold Day

Jill and Mel sent me products from two Simple Stories ranges to work with this month - the lovely Snow Fun  and Good Day Sunshine. Two very different sets of papers but nevertheless really lovely to work with. 

One of the papers from the Good Day Sunshine range was this one.

I decided that I liked the way the quite plain side with hearts contrasted with the busy words and sky on the other half of the paper so decided not to cut it into two 6in x 12 inch sections as I normally would.

.
The photo of my daughter and her boyfriend seemed perfect for this summer page.  I cut out hearts from another piece of paper and added the hearts from the co-ordinating sticker sheet.  Used a couple of journaling cards to make corners and to add a link between the two sides of the paper.  My title was cut on the Silhouette out of another journaling card and I finished the page with a sticker and couple of strips from a Simple Stories washi tape sheet. 

 It was lovely to scrap such a sunny photo on a really cold day.

January in 5 Photos

You may recall, if you took this class (which was based on a Project Life type of page) at the ATDML Autumn retreat 

that I said I loved the idea of doing Project Life but didn't think I had enough going on in my life to do a whole book. I also said that I was thinking of doing a double page each month - without using the pocket pages, as that would be the ideal solution for me. I had spoken to the lovely Denise about making a 1 photo page and a multi-photo page as a pair each month. So when I saw that Jo had decided to choose her five favourite photos from each month and to print and scrap them I had the ideal opportunity to put my plan into practice.

Here are my January ones.  Of course I have used my Silhouette to cut out some elements for the page and have used the very gorgeous Kaisercraft Rustic Harmony Collection.  

Photo 1 taken by Gracia using her Selfie Stick (the best Christmas present ever)

Photo 2 a selfie taken on the 1st of January as prompted by Ann here
Photo 3 a quick family shot - again using that very useful selfie stick, just before we took Gracia to the station to return to Newcastle after Christmas.  
Photo 4 - this one makes my little heart sing as now that Eileen has moved to Scotland we don't get very many opportunities to scrap together but she came over to play whilst she was staying with family over Christmas/New Year.
Photo 5 - Gracia and Josh.  Josh stayed with Gracia for a week in January prior to his 3 month adventure (at the moment he is in Vietnam having been to Thailand and Cambodia).  

For the front page of my album I decided that I would keep it simple and just have a smaller photo from the 1 photo page each month.  I am really pleased with this page as I used my Silhouette with a black Silhouette pen to draw the squares for the photos, the two cameras (I know the one on the right is the one on the left flipped so the controls are in the wrong place) and to outline the title, which again was another first for me - cutting glitter paper!

There we have it - a good start and thank you Jo for the idea.

The Color Lab

I had seen all the blog posts and Facebook posts by Marion Smith about her new colour lab, and I am a bit partial to lovely mists, then Karen Moss posted about her new papers being in the shop....and when I went to look I saw some Color Lab boxes, so had to get one!

Marion Smith has loads of u-tube videos about making the mists and I would recommend you take a look at them before you start.  I would also recommend an apron and covering your surfaces - though the paint all seems quite washable, you are dealing with ink powders that are strong in colour so it has the potential for being messy.

In the box you get instructions to make 30 different colours, and she talks you through the scoop system on the videos and in the instructions - most of the mists require very little powder.  You have the 5 main coloured powders, and then you get 3 iridescent mica type powders that add the sparkle - you get gold,blue and a pinky one.  I followed the colour recipes and then chose a mica powder to add to them (I added 2 scoops of the mica powder as this doesn't seem to effect the colour - just the sparkle).  I made Curious (peacock green), Aqua (a light blue) and Tea (you can see all the gold I added to this one)

You get 3 bottles, and just one scoop (so you have to wash the scoop in-between each colour powder).  The bottles are good as you can lock them so they won't accidentally spray and so far that have misted really nicely - I just wipe the end once I've finished.

Here is my page with all 3 mists on it, there is lots of sparkle from the mica.  I started with gesso, and then misted over the top and created drips.

I used some of the Simple Stories Hugs and Kisses Valentine papers as I love the red with the greeny/blue and it worked really well with my mist.  

You can just about see the gold from the tea mist I made...it's lovely.

You can also add the pigment powders to paints, which is something I will have a play with an am quite excited about trying to make some sparkly paint!  I have really enjoyed playing with the colours, and experimenting with them...plus getting a little bit messy!

Fond Memories

Hello crafty people, sharing a simple page I made today using one of the sheets of paper from the My Home Garden paper collection available  HERE in the shop. I scrapped a selfie and a view from my car from a road trip to the ATDML retreat last autumn.

Quite a quick page of a couple of not fabulous quality photos (taken on my phone) but which tell a story I want to remember. Good times indeed!

The paper has a fabulous decorative border so I gutted out the centre section cutting around the floral accents as shown above.   I then places the frame onto a sheet of grey cardstock, added my photographs, two strips of washi tape, some Thickers and a My Minds Eye journaling card and not much else! Quick and easy (once the frame had been prepared!). 

This page and others created from the same paper collection can be found in the ATDML design team gallery for January HERE on the main site.

Baby Photos with Simple Stories

For this month Mel and Jill sent me some of the 'Hello Baby' papers by Simple Stories, and I realised that I had very few baby photos scrapped of my kids, so it was really nice to go through all the photos and get them out.

For the 1st page, I just used their polaroid base paper as a guide, and printed off little 2" square photos for each month, and then added stickers and buttons, washi tape and some embossed vellum.

My next page is still a little wavy from the water, but it will flatten in my album.  I used distress inks (rubbed a bit of the ink on my mat) and picked up the colour with a water brush.  I then layered up my papers with some embossed vellum, distressed the edges and added lots of stickers for a sleepy picture.

You can find all the papers here , I also used the stickers and insta squares as well as some silver glitz washi tape.

February 2015 Photography prompts

Well it is the first of the month again which means it is time for our second set of photography prompts. We hope you had fun with January's choices and will join in again with us in February. Remember it is just for fun! 

February

Selfie on the 1^st

Love

Weather

What you are reading

In my town/village

Have fun and remember to use #atdml if you are sharing your photographs from this challenge on line. Enjoy!