Mmmm Cake!

This weeks inspiration over on the Chicken Soup blog was a photo of some cupcakes. I didn't use any cupcake products but I did scrap photos of Isabelle with some cupcakes we made.



I used a mixture of products including some Bella Blvd - I just love the "Bits A Bella" papers they do - a really good cheap way to get loads of embellishment bits for your page!


Don't forget to go over to the Chicken Soup blog to see the original inspiration picture and what the other girls came up with!

Some Belated Soup For You

The layout above was my Chicken Soup for Friday. I chose the inspiration this week and although mine ended up looking NOTHING remotely like the original inspiration I did start from it I promise!

I sat down to look through my photos and work out what I wanted to scrap and selected several photos from our 2010 cruise and I just happened to find a selection from our stop in Vigo. We had nothing much planned for that port and just ambled but there was some really cool stuff in the port area itself, the head you can see in one of the photos is part of a huge figure lying in the port - I would estimate that the head is approximately 9 feet high, so quite large! Izzy was ridiculously excited by a really shiny building at the top of some steps which reflected our ship like a mirror and she HAD to have a photo in front of it!

It was only when I was saving the photo of the layout that I realised that I had scrapped another photo from Vigo a few months ago and by happy coincidence the colours of the two layouts go really well together (see below for the other layout)

Don't forget to check out what the other girls did for Chicken Soup this week and try your hand at scrapping from the recipe.

Some Soup For You

This was my layout for the Chicken Soup challenge blog tonight, The inspiration was a very beautiful (and somewhat expensive) butterfly necklace.



The background for this layout was started a long time ago - at our spring 2010 retreat infact as it was part of Debbies class using masking fluid and watercolours.


I enjoyed spending some time in the classroom creating a background but I had no photos or idea what I wanted to do with it. When I was having my most recent clearing out session of part done layouts I found the background and matched it with a photo I took of Olivia at Butterfly World on the Isle of Wight last summer.


I added a few more doodles, some stickers by Crate paper and some butterfly and flower embellishments by KI memories which I had been hoarding away for ages and it all came together quite quickly.

More Christmas \ Winter Layouts

As promised I thought I would share some more projects that would fit in with the themes from Chicken Soups 12 Days of Christmas.

I loved the Winter Weather projects that were produced for the Chicken Soup Day 10 Inspiration - I created this layout for the December Design Team Gallery on our site using Fancy Pants Tradition paper, some embossing, cosmic shimmers and a few other bits. I loved the colour combination of the pale pink in Isabelles coat and hat with the pale wintery blue.

This layout is one I made last year and I really enjoyed making it using multi photos and capturing the memories of Olivias first Christmas dinner - so it would fit really well with Day 8's Christmas Food Recipe!

Have You Been Treating Yourself To Some Chicken Soup?

With the chilly weather and fast approaching festive season there has been a warming treat over on the Chicken Soup blog giving you some inspiration for poorly mojos!


The 12 Days of Christmas feature has offered up a wide variety of projects, inspirational recipes and general all round Christmassyness to get you crafting for Christmas!


The three recipes I worked on were "Trees" "Decorations" and "Father Christmas" which are shown below. I also have some projects, old and new, which would relate to some of the other recipes. Check back tomorrow to see my take on "Winter Weather" and "Christmas Food" and then on Tuesday for a couple more!

Friday Night is Soup Night

Well actually tonight in our house was Fish & Chips (ssshhh don't tell Ann I am supposed to be doing her SOFA healthy eating thing but no one wanted to cook and it is the weekend so fish and chips it was!)

However, it is Chicken Soup day.and this week the recipe was the poster for Audrey Hepburns Breakfast at Tiffanys. I used the design as the inspiration for my layout of course but i also used the title as a theme and worked with a photo of Olivia and Minnie Mouse from our cruise character breakfast! I cut around the photo to mimic the silhouette on the poster and also because rather annoyingly there was someone else looking rather strange in the background!

If you enjoy taking a look at the Chicken Soup blog each week and playing along sometimes why not take a look at the Chicken Soup DT Call. We would love to see what you have to offer and remember that you are not committing to joining in EVERY week, just a minimum of once per month (although if you want to participate every week then great!) Details of how to apply are HERE.

Time For Some Soup...

This weeks inspiration over at Chicken Soup is one of my favourites so far. I knew I wanted to use a bit of the gorgeous new Lost & Found product that we unpacked earlier in the week so i ended up using the Portobello Road, Party, Celebrate paper and combined it with the October Afternoon Sprinklers paper and some cardstock to make this layout.

It was great to go through my old stash and use up some rub ons for the frame around Lost and also some flourish vines and borders. Finally I finished the body of the butterfly with some e line pearls.

I hope you enjoyed my take on the recipe, do take a look at the Chicken Soup blog to see what the others got up to.

The August Gallery

Some of you may have already seen that the ATDML DT gallery for August is now available for viewing and ooohing and maybe some ahhhing too!

The design team were joined by Laura Johnson this month, and all were working with the lovely and very versatile Echo Park papers and created some fun layouts and some great cards too. The colours are bright and fun and certainly more cheerful than our so called summer with are having! Where have the sunny days disappeared too?

Hopefully the gallery will brighten your day and have you motivated to scrap any sunny summer pictures you may have. This layout created by Dawn certainly makes me want to do just that!

If you are still seeking inspiration after you've been through the gallery don't forget the ChickenSoup challenge at 7pm this evening. Have a crafty weekend everyone!

Scrappy Birthday!

This weeks Chicken Soup recipe was so sweet and immediately I knew i wanted to make a card with it. As I love to do I raided my scraps box to make this little birthday card for my cousin.



About 18 months ago when I was setting up my new craft area I set aside a cube in my expedit unit and one of the large boxes that fit inside it just for scraps. Previously I was rubbish with scraps, it wasn't that I threw them away or was wasteful with the paper I just didn't really have a system for dealing with them. I tried putting them in baggies with the un cut sheets of what ever they went with which seemed like a good idea so that when I worked with a paper I would have some co-ordinating off cuts to hand but in reality it didn't work for me.

Instead I now have a large deep box and all my scraps get chucked into it. I then rummage through it for just the right piece when creating a layout or especially when card making. It has helped me move away from only ever using papers from the same range together and it has made card making much more fun as I was always put off by having to cut into a whole 12x12 sheet to make a card. Now I have plenty of options and feel very good about using up my scraps rather than guilty for "wasting" a sheet of paper on a card!

It's Chicken Soup Time Again

This week the inspiration was my choice. I love the bright colours on the Glee poster and although I rarely manage it, the clean graphic style is one I would love to be good at. Somehow I can never quite manage to go for clean and simple but I like to try occasionally!

Of course by the time I had finished my layout it was nothing like the Glee poster although I did start out with it in mind! I ended up flipping the grid of 12 square on its side to make it 4 acroos and 3 down. Then I amalgamated the top two rows (8 squares) into two larger squares for my photos.

I used the bottom four squares foe a trio of embellishments and my journaling.

Come on over to the Chicken Soup Blog to see the original inspiration and what the rest of the team came up with.

This Weeks Recipe...

...called for a grungy, distressed style and an eye catching yellow black and white colour scheme! Well that is what inspired me when i saw this weeks recipe over at Chicken Soup. The recipe inspiration was provided by Ann and it is so her! I thought about ideas for a layout using it but it wouldn't quite fall into place in my head and then I decided to make a card and it all came together quite quickly (for me!)

Anyway, i hope you are enjoying the challenges over on the Chicken Soup blog and that you take a look at what the other girls have done with it.

Minimalist!

Head on over to the Chicken Soup Blog to see what the girls came up with for this weeks recipe based on a David Bowie Album cover - it was VERY minimalist!

Here is my layout, I followed the layout of the album quite closely but it was so hard to leave all that white space!!