Debs’ Random Ramblings: instalment 1

(I was going to title this post “Getting organised with Debs” but even I can spot the irony in that statement!) I am far too forgetful to be trusted with a regular challenge or inspiration station as my contribution to the blog so ... make yourself a cuppa as my random ramblings is what you can look forward to each month 🥴

I am a very slow scrapper ... at the ATDML retreats I’m still titivating over layout numero uno while ‘Janet’ is proudly adding her finishing touches to layout number four hundred and seventy two. Having said that, I don’t mind being slow as I really enjoy the process of creating pages but it’s not necessarily the creative process that slows me down. No, it’s the trying to find the right elements/papers/alphabets to pull together the layout I picture in my head. This is why I love the ATDML classes at the retreats, everything I need is put together in a bag and handed to me. Clue number one: THE BAG. Our dear friend Ann is really good at doing this, preparing for retreats and crops by popping co-ordinating papers/bits/alphas/etc into a bag ready to use. So, inspired by Ann I spent a day putting together kits of papers and ephemera to use at the retreat. 

I selected a handful of photos as my starting point then chucked in papers and ephemera that complimented the photo. I went with colours or patterns that co-ordinated with the photo rather than themes. {in the layout below I used scraps of paper and bits from the Echo park “I’d rather be crafting” range, amongst other odds and ends, to scrap a photo of my daughter Emily’s 12th Birthday lunch}. 

And taking the time to be prepared really paid off. I spent more  time enjoying the scrapping and less time looking for bits to use. I now do this not only for retreats and crops but to have kits to hand for whenever  I fancy scrapping. It is a great way to use up those left over elements from collections you can’t bring to throw away but have the potential to sit in your ‘scraps’ box for forever and a day. The bonus is if you’re scrapping more and using up what you’ve got ... you can restock your scrapbooking supplies from ATDML with loads more fabulousness for your page kits. I think that’s what some may call a ‘win win’ situation.

Happy preparedness people. MWAH.

Let it snow, let it snow!

Good morning everyone!

Scotland has hit snowy season, and while it's been lovely to watch from the window it's been 

super nippy outside!

However it has made for some lovely inspiration for some winter pages and I've loved using the Bo Bunny 'Winter wishes' range. This range has a beautiful selection of delicate, subtle colours and includes some frosty vellums glowing with silver details.

The 'Frosted' paper includes stripes made up of a variety of colour and textures and includes some lovely birch branches.  I trimmed a selection of these in a variety of thicknesses and layered them over and under some sections of snowflake vellum from the range.

'Wonderland' and 'flurries' inclused some some detailed filigree snowflake and trees with printed pearl  accents.  I tucked the snowflakes in groups around the page under and over the strips. 

Using the remaining black side of 'Flurries' i chopped down 3 sections roughtly about the size of my photo.  these sections weren't perfect rectangles but the randomness added to the layering.  

I used 4 of the filigree trees tucked into the sides - I varied the layers they were tucked into to give dimension to the trees.

To finish I added the title to the page by cutting the 'let it snow' vellum square and carefully trimming off the first 'Let it snow' I used one of the remaining sections of 'flurries' to create a mount.  i slipped this under the snowflake vellum and then added the small 'let it snow' section to the top of the mount and the 2 'let it snow' lines to the bottom.

Pop back throughout the month to take part in our billiant challenges and don't forget to upload it to our facebook pages so we can see what you have been up to!

Colour Swatch Challenge

Hello everyone, Dolly here with a challenge for you.


It is a colour challenge with a lovely wintery swatch.

I love pinks in the winter as I think they work so beautifully with snow and so I was thrilled to have had the Bo Bunny Winter Wishes papers to work with this month.

The papers combine pinks and browns alongside naturals and I loved the combination.

So here is your challenge swatch

This is the page I made with it.

I can't wait to see what you come up with for the challenge. Do post your pages in the facebook group so we can all see. There is a colour challenge album HERE for you to share your beautiful creations.

January 2019 Virtual crop class 3 with Debs

Brrrrrr ... anyone else feel the chill today? This afternoon's class features papers from the Simple Stories Winter Wonderland collection.  I love that they have used colours usually associated with Autumn to celebrated snowy Winter days when creating this collection.

In this class we will be using elements from patterned papers as focus clusters around your photographs on your layouts. 

Instructions  can be found here.  We'd love to see what you've done with your kits on our Facebook page which can be found here. 

We do hope you have enjoyed this month's scrappy inspiration. Until next time, stay warm and keep scrapping.

MWAH xxx

January 2019 Virtual crop class 2 with Tricia

Good morning campers 

I hope you all are well and enjoyed the new year celebrations.

I've been using Graphic 45 'St Nicholas Collection' today.  This range is steeped in traditional Christmas styles with nods towards Victorian Christmas cards.  However, throughout the class, I have brought some modern touches.  

The first layout has elements of Christmas light displays to add sparkle and shine to the layers of traditional colours in the greens and gold.

Layout 2 - 25th of December takes you back to homemade paper garlands and rows of Christmas cards hanging on cardholders.

Finally, we have a bonus layout.  With 80's style, geometric designs and a shower of delicious peppermints for that candy cane feel. 

Click here for the full instructions

 Challenge yourself to use elements from your papers in new and unusual ways and let us see what you have created over on the Facebook page.

Thanks for playing along today and come back to join us at 2pm for our last class of the day with Debbie.

Have fun!

Jan 2019 Virtual Crop Class 1 with Karen

Good morning everyone and welcome to another virtual crop and I am really pleased to bring you the first class of the day. It uses the beautiful Rose Avenue Collection of papers from KaiserCraft.
The papers offer such a beautiful mix of soft pinks, blues and greens and it is the perfect antidote for the cold greyness of January.

I will show you how to get real bang for your buck and create three pages from the class instructions.
If you didn't manage to snag one of these beautiful kits you can still follow along and enjoy the class with other papers from your supplies.

I hope you enjoy playing along.

You can find all of the instructions here

Do head over to the ATDML # Create facebook page to share what you have been creating and let me know if you have any questions. Then pop back at midday to see Tricia's lovely class giving you an opportunity to scrap some of those festive photos you took last month.

Virtual Crop Weekend Challenge - Album Covers Edition 1

Hello and welcome to my new series of challenges and inspiration for 2019.

This year on the Saturday before each months Virtual Crop we will post a new edition of The Album challenge. This will involve an image used on an album (or occassionally a single) cover which is then used as inspiration for a layout. It could be that the layout uses the colour palette, design or subject matter of the album artwork as it's starting point.

I will add the album artwork and my layout to the Album Challenge Gallery on the ATDML # Create Facebook page, if you join in and create a layout for this challenge do go ahead and add yours to the album aswell.

So our first album artwork comes from The Beach Boys 29th studio album "That's Why God Made The Radio" released in 2012 as part of their 50th anniversary!

Now obviously album covers don't always include the elements we might want on a scrapbook page and although I loved the rows of scallops reminiscent of the sea there is of course no photo on this artwork so I made a sketch to plan out where I would put my elements.

I found the perfect paper in my stash from Bo Bunny's Lemonade Stand and set to work cutting up the scallops to make the waves. Then backed my scalloped sections onto cream cardstock.

I took inspiration from the yellow and black title and of course the "Beach" element then used smaller letter stickers to add a subtitle. Of course I couldn't resist adding a couple of extra bits so the word stickers on the bottom left of the photo were added. Finally I trimmed the layout by 1/4" top and sides and mounted it all on kraft (sadly I have realise that this is not that clear from my photo!)

So a fairly simple layout to start us off on our Album challenge, I look forward to seeing what you come up with.

ATDML Alphabetical challenge B

Hello scrappers and welcome to the next letter in our series called the Alphabetical challenge. ff you didn't see the post for the letter A don't worry, I will explain the challenge again.  We will take a different letter of the alphabet on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of each month (skipping the more difficult letters) and giving you a list of up to five scrapping prompts beginning with that letter to inspire a layout. You'll then have two weeks to create a page based on the prompts and upload them to the gallery before we move on to the next letter. 

This week is the letter B and your prompts are:

Your pages can use any or all of the elements above and you can then share your page within the next two weeks in THIS ALBUM on Facebook. 

Here is my page using Bo Bunny Winter Wishes paper featuring Blue, Banners and Black (& white) photo.

Enjoy the challenge!

Sketch Saturday with Dolly

Hello everyone - Dolly here and, as always, the second Saturday of the month is  Sketch Saturday.

I have a sketch for you today which has hidden secrets. I love hiding things on pages and this sketch hides both the main picture and the journalling.

This is the sketch.

It will be easier to explain it using the page I made from the sketch.

I used the beautiful Bo Bunny Winter Wishes foiled vellum, pink cardstock and also the Bo Bunny Winter Wishes Chill paper.

I cut down the paper to 11" and mounted it on the pink background. I love winter pages with pink - they just seem to work so well. Blue is a good winter colour but pink warms the page up whilst still keeping the winter feel.  

The lift up square hides the main photo and the journalling and in my case was a vellum square matted on more pink cardstock. It is easy to make a flap, just make small card hinges.

This is the flap lifted up revealing the journalling and the photo. The snowflake border on the flap and under the photo is another piece of vellum.

The page doesn't need a great deal of decoration, especially if, like I did, you use a patterned paper.

I hope that you do use the sketch and if you do, please share what you create on our facebook page.

10,9,8,7........

Happy new year everyone!!!

As a Scot, Hogmanay is very special to me and although we moved into our new home nearly 3 years ago we were as yet, to celebrate it in our own home. 

This year we invited friends old and new (some only a few hours old) to join us to see in the bells. We had a cracking time and it was lovely having everyone to shout "HAPPY NEW YEAR! with us as our first one as a married couple.

I wanted to create a page that felt like a good old fashioned Hogmanay with streamers and party poppers and glitter everywhere - the feeling of being in a crowd of people with lots going on at once!

As I'm normally a 'clean' scrapper I decided to keep the colours to a minimum and work with textures and layers.

I started by using the countdown side of "Simple stories - Hello, New year' from their '2019' range.  and cut a diagonal section from it with the corner pointing towards the countdown.  This allowed me to layer behind the page the spotty side of 'watch the clock' from the same range.  

The idea behind this was to give the illusion of confetti going off behind the page. 

I then used a hole punch to pop out some holes from the remaining section of 'Hello new ear' this was to bring the confetti to the front of the page.  I backed this on to black card to make the holes stand out. I mounted my Photo on lilac Bazzill and attached to the page leaving both the photo and mount unstuck at the top to allow as a pocket.

I created streamers using strips of the stripy side of 'hello new year' curling them around a pencil and then squashing them flat - its fun to see what shapes you get and adds the haphazard feel of them falling.  I also used lilac Bazzill to cut some wavy strips to weave in amongst them.  

'Watch the clock' has some lovely pocketwatches on them and I cut several of the edge ones off to work between the streamers.  I cut the largest one from their '3x4 & 4x6 elements'

Using some Punctuation left over from some silver thickers, I dotted these between the streamers to act as falling confetti. 

To finish, I cut two tags, one for each year and added '2018' at the top of one and  '19.  I popped the '2018' one behind the photo and tucked the '19' tag behind the mount.  These provided great journalling spots not only to write my plans for the coming year but my reflections of the one passed.

I hope to see you all in April at the retreat and that you all have a happy,  and healthy New year!

New Year Trend with a bit of Christmas and Simple Stories

Happy New Year everyone, we have lots planned for you this year and I thought I'd kick of with a page inspired by some of the trends I've noticed on my blog hopping!

I've noticed a recent trend for large shapes filled with ephemera, stickers, wood veneers....all sorts of goodies, so this was my start point.  I cut out a large star from an old piece of 12" and then drew around it.  Next I punched stitch holes around the edge and then added a candy cane stitching - so every other stick red and in-between white.  I've noticed lots of hand stitching appearing this year, and it looks beautiful (it does take some time though!  I do find that if I punch the holes first with  a pokey tool it makes the process so much easier).

The next stage was filling it with all sorts of Christmas goodies that I had  lurking in my stash - the basis is Simple Stories Vintage Christmas stickers, then Simple Stories and BoBunny Wood veneers, some snowflakes that I had received on a card and were too beautiful  - so had to be recycled and then a few sequins in between.

All sorts of ephemera!

I added a candy cane paper clip and small bit of washi tape to the photo too...just to continue the theme.

Do check out the gallery for more Christmas inspiration as you start to scrap your photos and do share your creations over in our Facebook group.

ATDML Alphabetical challenge A

Welcome to a new series of challenges which I'll be posting on the first and third Wednesdays of each month throughout 2019.

We will take a letter of the alphabet each time (skipping the more difficult ones) and giving you a list of up to five scrapping prompts beginning with that letter to inspire a layout. You'll then have two weeks to create a page based on the prompts and upload them to the gallery before we move on to the next letter. Sound good?

So we start of course at the beginning with letter A and your prompts are as follows:

You don't have to use all of the prompts, any single one or multiples of those on the list are fine. The prompts are there to inspire you.

Here's an example of one I made which features Prima papers and elements from their Flirty Fleur Collection  I used ACETATE to apply watered down distress ink for the painty background , AQUA blue as my main colour  and then a Thickers ALPHABET for my title. 

Hope you'll join us in this regular blog feature in 2019 and be inspired to create.  The gallery to upload your challenge layouts can be found HERE.
M