See - I told you so!

Yes, it was payday this week and yes, I did order most of the beautiful Prima Almanac range and yes I did have to drive over to visit Jill as I couldn't wait to get it in my eager little hands.

I certainly wasn't disappointed! I took it over to my crop yesterday and I feel that, after flaunting it around so much, the stocks at the shop will be diminishing rapidly :0)

So I did the unheard of - used some of my new supplies a day after getting them. I have eased myself in gently and only used two of the wooden buttons and a couple of pieces of paper (still several sheets and some blossoms left to stroke) and made this page.

I love that the cut off strip is patterned for the whole width and so it can be used for crafting (the brown strip in the centre of this layout).

The poem, by E E Cummings, is one of my favourites.

I am now deciding if I need to just look at these papers for a few days longer or get stuck in with another page.

What would you do?

Supplies used :-

A Page Without Photos !

I am taking a class called Just One Sketch.  For this class we had to design a sketch and then we were given 12 different ways of using the sketch.  To begin with I couldn't see how you could get 12 pages from one sketch without them all looking the same.  I was pleased to be proved very wrong and have in fact made 10 of the 12 pages and none of them look alike.

I digress, one of the prompts was to make a page without any photos!  Eeeek - how on earth can any page be made without photos.  I, for one, start with my photo and then build my colour scheme and layout around that.  To start without any photos was a completely alian concept to me and one that I thought I would struggle with. 

But no, I managed it and the page has become one of my favourite pages of all time!  During the week we had had some really good news about my daughter's studies and so I had written her a rather long letter telling her how proud we were of her.  Once I had put it into an envelope I thought that the envelope was the size and shape of a 6 x 4 photo and so copied the letter again, put it into another envelope and used this as the 'photo' on my layout.

 I made the layout in my normal way and then had the pleasure of the extra space on the envelope to embellish too.  So I now have a permenant record of some 'In The Moment' journaling and a very pretty layout to keep it in.

Have you ever considered a layout without any journaling, maybe some theatre/concert tickets that do not have a photo to go with them or just some journaling as the focal point because you never got the chance, or forgot to take that special photo or like me maybe you could scrap a letter that means a lot to you.  Give it a go, I can assure you that it is fun and the results will surprise you.

Papers used for this project:-

How Many Manufacturers?!?! - Challenge Time!

Well I was on a roll last weekend and the third layout I scrapped was this one. I did it directly after I had done the 100 Days of Summer layout so after a nice easy layout with co-ordinating bits from the same range I decided to mix it up a bit with this one,

As I sorted through different boxs and bags of stash I realised there was a huge mix of manufacturers represented on this layout!

1) Simple Stories - Background paper from Yearography, Ventnor letters from 100 Days of Summer

2) Cosmo Cricket - Stripe paper with floral reverse is from Earth Love

3) Basic Grey - Motifica cream grungy plain paper and scalloped border piece also Motifica

4) Maya Rd - Journaling spot & also black flowers on right hand side cut from a journaling spot

5) Prima - Crystals in flowers and trim in top right corner.

6) 7 Gypsies - Bird rub ons and left hand floral rub on.

7) Daisy D's - Middle floral rub on.

8) Paper Adventures - Orange butterfly sticker (ancient - circa 2004!)

9) Memories Complete - Circle stickers to frame photo and cream paper circle

10) October Afternoon - pink letter stickers.

11) Bazzill - tiny orange butterfly punched embellishments.


It was definitely fun doing some mixing and matching for this layout and combining newer stash with things that had been languishing in boxes or on my shelves.

We would love to challenge you to mix up those manufacturers in your layouts. We will give away a £10 ATDML shopping voucher to one lucky winner who uploads a photo using the link tool below. Your layout must feature at least 5 different manufacturers - post in the comments box listing the manufacturers used as I have listed them above.

The challenge closes on 31st March at 8:30pm.

Looking forward to seeing your entries.