Children's Hour Tag of the month

Introducing a new monthly blog item  - Tag of the month tutorial.  I will be using Children's Hour from Graphic 45which features two 12"x12" sheets for each month. The usual rich colours of Graphic 45 each with seasonal elements.
The January papers look like this...and can be found here on the website.

And here is this month's tag... This could be used as a card, a piece of home décor or attached to a layout...

If you want to play along this month you will need:

• Children's Hour January papers
• White paint
• Acetate
• White card to punch snowflakes
• White and blue ribbon
• Diamond stickles
• Gems
• Foam pads

You will also need to make yourself some tags for each month - I cut mine from Kraft card 4" x 8" (or 10cm x 20cm) with the corners cut off. You could use any colour of tag because the background won't show.

I started by covering the tag with the light blue patterned side of the paper and then used a little white paint applied with a foam pad to edge the tag...

I cut out one of the pictures of the mother reading to her child & the flowers to add later. Next I cut a piece of the blue patterned paper (darker side) 3" wide by 4" high, edged with white paint and fixed this towards the top of the tag...

I cut a piece of acetate 3.5" x 5", rounded the top corners and edged with white paint before fixing over the dark blue panel with foam pads, adding some punched snowflakes...

Next I fixed on the cut out elements, using foam pads to help them stand out a little...

Then I added the small dark blue snowflake strip, a small length of white lace underneath and one of the postage stamps...

After that I fixed the Let it snow banner on top of the snowflake strip, I distressed and stuck the small blue quote on, tucking it behind the woman and the yellow flower...

To decorate further, I put on more cut out flowers - I put all of these elements on foam pads to add to the 3D feel...

Finally - I stuck gems in the centre of snowflakes and decorated the snowflakes and the edges of the acetate with diamond stickles. 

White and blue ribbon threaded through the top of the tag finished it off...

See you in February for another tag!
Jane
x

From This to That - January 2016 Edition

This month Jill sent me a selection of papers and stickers from Echo Park's The Story of Our Family. I believe that Ann did a class using these papers at the last retreat and don't you just love those cute little owls.  They featured on several of my pages this month. 

I also had some Simple Stories - We are Family wooden elements.

The first page I made was to document Gracia's new hair colour.  I can't believe how lovely and natural it looked but then again her hair was that colour when she was a baby, before it went dark blond.  I used some washie tape to make a banner and some flowers and doilys from my own supplies.  

Next I made a page which featured a photo taken earlier in the month, before the kids went back to Newcastle.  This was at the start of a lovely walk.  Unfortunately it absolutely poured with rain all the way and in the 'after the walk' photo we are all soaking wet!

We met up with our best friends, who happen to be mother and daughter too, just after Christmas and had a mediocre breakfast.  Seeing Eileen and Hannah more than made up for the food and we spent a lovely day together. For this page I used several of the word stickers from the sheets.

My next page was inspired by one of the cut apart pieces and some words from one of the sticker sheets.  A photo from our Boxing Day walk.  I used three of the little wooden people and framed the large owl sticker with a little wooden frame. 

For my final page I wanted to challenge myself to use a very small photo as more often than not I scrap 5 x 7 photos - I love pages with just 1 big photo.  This page has a 2 x 3 photo and the size was determined by the size of the sticker frame that I wanted to use.  I tried to keep it quite clean and simple but then got carried away with layering and stickers as I usually do.  I used the little wooden flowers and 'WE ARE' from the Simple Stories wooden elements and the word 'family' was from my own supplies.

So there are my DT pieces for January and I'm now waiting in anticipation to see what Jill has for me for February.

Jan 2016 Virtual Crop Class 3 with Mel

Welcome to the final class of this weekends Virtual Crop.

Prima released their optimist collection when "chalkboard" was THE big thing but they changed it up and offered chalboard with colour which made it a gorgeous range to work with.

I also enjoyed incorporating a classic paper in there in the shape of the Artsylicious flocked paper. It has stood the test of time and is still lovely even a good few years after it was initially released. What I love is the textural element it adds to the page.

Click HERE to download the instructions for this class.

I hope you have enjoyed the classes so far today and of course the challenge. Don't forget to share your creations on the ATDML # Create facebook group.

Class 2 - Katherine Sutton - Simple Stories Life Documented

Hello and welcome to the 2nd class of this weekends crop using papers from Simple Stories.  With all the different month cards in this kit I had to make a page with the year in review....and 2 pages was just not enough, so it's a 4 page layout!

I used a photo from each month, and made them all black and white.  The photos are 3 3/4" square (so you can fit them all on the pages) and I use a mixture of elements from the papers to make 2 double pages that all link with the way they are laid out. 

I hope you enjoy the class, you can find the instructions here.

January Virtual Crop Class with Karen

Hello, hello lovely scrappers - I hope the year has been kind to you so far.  I am up first with January's Virtual Crop class and this one gives you a fantastic opportunity to get a couple of those Christmas photos off your camera and into your album!

For this quick and easy two layout class I have used Simple Stories - December Documented.

My first page - Hello Santa features a 5 in square photo but a 5 x 7 portrait one would do just as well.

Although my page is Santa themed there is plenty of opportunity with this kit to scrap a different Christmassy photo.

My second page showcases the Gingerbread House Gracia and I made over the Christmas period.  The kit includes a set of alphabet stickers, which I didn't use, giving you the opportunity to give your pages different titles to the ones I have.

Instructions for this class can be downloaded here.

Hope you have fun making these pages and pop back at 12 when Katherine will be up with her Virtual Crop Class.

January 2016 Virtual Crop Challenge

Hello virtual croppers and welcome to our first virtual crop of the year. We will have three classes for you today from our design team and these will go live, here on the blog, at 10am, Noon and 2pm. Each blog post will share a link to download FREE instructions to create a project designed by one of the team which you can do today, or save for when you need a shot of inspiration.

As with last year we start our virtual crop day with a challenge. For 2016 the challenges will be based on "this day in music history" with a small piece of music related trivia followed by a link (often tenuous!) to a scrapbook challenge! You can upload your challenge layouts to the virtual crop gallery created on Facebook and share them with your fellow crafters to inspire. 

CHALLENGE: Create a layout about or inspired by "Make Believe". That's it!

See you back here at 10am for your first class

Ann

x

Photo Requirements for the January Virtual Crop

Class 1 - Karen Moss

Layout 1 - 1 photo either 5" square or 5" by 7" tall

Layout 2 - 1 photo 5" tall and 3" wide and 2 photos 3 1/4" tall and 2 1/4" wide.

Optional Tools - 1/4 corner rounder, white paint, glitter/stickles and white journalling pen.


Class 2 - Katherine Sutton

Layout 1 (which is 4 pages)  -  12 4" square photos, one from each month in 2015 and trimmable to 3 3/4" square.  Mine are all black and white so I didn't have to worry about colours matching.  I have added a white boarder to my photos, so the photos are just over 3 1/2" and then the boarder takes it up to 3 3/4"

I use brown distress ink to ink my edges and I also distress my edges, you can use the edge of your scissors or a tool/sand paper for this.

Class 3 - Mel Hand

Layout 1 - 6  by 4" landscape but 2 optional extras 2 by 2.75" portrait photos

Layout 2 - 1 6 by 4" portrait

Get Christmas 2015 in your albums

Well before 12th night comes around have you printed any of your favourite Christmas photographs off and started scrapbooking them yet?

The December gallery is full of inspiration using festive lines, including this page from me which is based on this paper from Simple Stories Claus & Co range which features traditional festive colours with a touch of sparkle!

My boys love new pyjamas at Christmas and usually want to spend the day in them, if not all of boxing day!! This year I was adamant I would get a photograph of them for my album to tell this story.

I trimmed the paper slightly mounting it onto some dark brown cardstock. I then cut three rectangles just larger than my photograph and used two for photo mounts and one i in between the photos, holding them all in place with some red sparkly washi tape. I then added a small detail of paper at the top left of the page and some rub-ons. Nice and quick and from event to album in less than a week :)

You can find the full Simple Stories Claus & Co range HERE in the store and if you are an Instagram fan the Simple Stories page is full of lots more inspiration using this collection.

https://www.instagram.com/simplestories_/ including this image which I particularly love by Simple Stories design team member Ashley Horton.

January 2016 photography prompts

Happy New Year to all our crafting friends and welcome to 2016! We hope you are looking forward to a year of crafting and more inspiration from your design team as we continue to share layouts, projects, challenges, virtual crops and more with you in the year ahead.

We are going to continue with our monthly photography prompts this year and so without further ado we kick start our year with the January prompts below.

There are five prompts to inspire you throughout the month, and when you have five images to go with the five prompts why not share them with us on our Facebook page ATDML # Create or on another social media with the #atdml.

I look forward to seeing your interpretations as the year unfolds

Ann

x