Welcome to Spooktacular October

Boo! Hello October... you sure creeped up on us!
It has been a while since I have done a blog post for ATDML - crazy work schedule to balance with home life and an injured left hand that has been in a cast for the last 7 weeks has meant very little crafty time for me.  Nevertheless the ATDML design team pizza box arrived on my doorstep (before hand injury I may add) and it contained some spooky Graphic 45 papers including this one from the Steampunk Spells collection.

With Halloween falling in half term this year my children had asked if we could have a spooky party with a few of their friends so I started looking for decoration ideas. A quick trip to our nearby 99p store had me armed with a halloween toot including a plastic skeleton just the right size to fit Mr Seymour Bones head from the paper above.

I had a wooden plaque from my last visit to the Ally Pally Stamp & Scrapbooking show that I knew would work for my spooky sign. Time to dig out the paints and crackle accents, add a few sharpie drawn webs and a handle from the bones necklace the plastic skeleton was hanging from originally and voila - a spooky sign for our front door inside the porch which will feature cobwebs and of course a pumpkin or two!

I love the teal and orange combined in this paper collection and hope you feel inspired to create something spooky this month!

Ann x

Trends on Tuesday - Pocket Pages

I have dabbled with the idea of project life and pocket pages for a little while, but not really having the commitment to log things every day....so at first I thought, well maybe just do monthly pages and have finally landed on a combination that I really enjoy.  Mel touched on this in an earlier post and spurred me on to give this way of scrapping a try.  I love making single pages about particular things, but then I often have lots of photos from an occasion that then don't really see the light of day.  Creating a page with both a single traditional page, teamed up with a pocket page means I get to use both the individual photo I love and then all the other memories from the event.

For my pages I used Graphic 45s French Country collection - having the pocket pages meant I could just use a photo of food for the main page, layering up and fussy cutting the papers.  I then loaded my pockets with most of the other photos from the event - these photos don't have to all be perfect but they capture what was going on and then you have loads of space for all that journalling too.  

Back To School Giveaway Winner

We went to trusty old Random dot org to provide us with a number for our giveaway winner.

Randomly selected was this comment:

erinaki:))4 September 2013 15:50

I'll be scrapping all the photos of our vacations!!Also a mini album for a road trip and at last i will scrap my sons first days at school!

 

Drop me an email (Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk) and let us have your address and we will pop your prize in the post :)

Trends on Tuesday - A little Gold

A little bit of gold has been a growing trend with golden alphabets and sequins.  My first page uses Prima's Divine papers and I added a little bit of gold by stamping some golden dots onto vellum, and then using some Golden Fish cosmic shimmer for the dots of ink

My next page uses Crate Papers DIY shop and some of the gorgeous glittery golden ephemera with is the large flower, there are also some beautiful gold striped tags in this collection.

 I made a little vellum pocket of sequins using my sewing machine, and also some more golden drips of Golden Fish cosmic shimmer mist.

Hopefully that has given you some golden ideas 

• stamping with gold ink.
• using some golden mists.
• adding some golden sequins
• using some glittering gold

UKS End of Summer Blog Hop - Using Woodgrain Textured Cardstock

 

Welcome to the first stop on the UKScrappers End of Summer Blog Hop!

 

Here at ATDML we have recently taken delivery of some fantastic cardstock. A customer posted on UKScrappers asking if anyone could source some white wood grain textured cardstock she had once had in a Studio Calico Kit.

 

Ever keen to rise to a challenge we tracked it down to Germany and ordered it in. However it came in HUGE sheets 1 metre by 70cm so we then sent it to be professionally cut to 12x12.

 

You can find the product HERE on our website (link opens in a new window)

 

I was intrigued by this cardstock and decided I ought to have a play so todays post is all about how I used this cardstock to make a card with lovely distress inked, textured hearts on it.

 

***************

 

1) First I punched out some hearts from the cardstock. You can just make out the wood grain texture in this photo.

 

 

2) I then experimented with different ways of applying distress ink to the hearts. In the photo below you can see the three colours of distress ink I used: Fired Brick, Tea Dye & Walnut Stain.

 

The heart on the left has a stronger pattern which was achieved by directly smooshing the ink pad across the cardstock.

 

The one in the middle has a more subtle effect created using the applicator and dabbing gently onto the cardstock.

 

The heart on the right was made by swirlying the applicator, starting off the cardstock on my craft mat and moving it in circular motions onto and over the cardstock.

 

 

3) I made myself several hearts in the larger size and also some smaller ones. Once they were done I inked the edges as well to add more definition.

 

4) Next it was time to make the card base. I used a brown mottled background from my scraps box (it was from the Glitz French kiss range) and cut it so it would be slightly smaller than my card blank.

 

5) I added two strips of co-ordinating washi tape and cut the ends to look like ribbon & applied these to the bottom edge of the card.

 

6) I inked the edge of the brown paper and added a faux stitching border to the paper (just because I like to add extra edging detail!)

 

7) To assemble the card I mounted a small heart inside each of the larger ones and arranged these along the washi tape strips.

 

8) I stamped the greeting in the top left hand corner with archival ink, however as the background was quite dark I wanted to give the greeting extra oomph so I added some clear embossing powder over the greeting and heat embossed it to make it raised and shiny.

 

9) Finally, to add a little extra interest and dimension I added a layer of glossy accents over the top of the small hearts.   

 

Of course you could use the same technique to make embellishments for your layouts, or journaling cards in any colour you like. I used the same technique to make a star and heart embellishment for a Project Life journal card:

 

Thanks for stopping by, your next stop in the blog hop is Fiona's (Angelfish on UKS) blog "Staring At The Sea" When you have visited all the blogs and left your comment don't forget to go back to UKScrappers and post on the blog hop thread there as this is what makes you eligible for the prizes!

Talking of prizes, before you go scroll down to the post before this - we are currently running a back to school giveaway which ends TONIGHT at 8pm so taking time to comment on that post will also give you another chance to win - and who doesn't like to win a crafty prize?!?!

Back to School Giveaway!

 

So now the kids are heading back to school and for many of us that will mean a little more crafting time available.

Leave us a comment to let us know what your first crafting project of September will be and we will randomly draw a winner and send them a Simple Stories Collection pack!

This giveaway is open until 8pm on Monday 9th September. Please do come and check back so we can get hold of our winner!

Happy Crafting
Mel & Jill
xx

Scrapping the Everyday

Another page documenting my everyday.  This time I chose to scrap a page about my laptop as I would be lost without it.  I spend way too much time on it looking at Facebook, Pinterest and Instagram and therefore I feel it should get the recognition it deserves!

For my journaling I wrote a letter documenting how without it my work and crafting life would be sadly lacking and far more difficult. I drew around a Graphic 45 pocket to make one out of the Fancy Pants paper I was using and tucked my letter in there.

Dear Laptop
We have been together for a number of years now and I just wanted to let you know how much you mean to me!  We share all my secrets, you know my passwords and just how much time I spend on Pinterest or Google.  The times when you get ill and have to go away I am lost without you and count the hours until your return.  You are always so helpful when I am doing the paperwork for David.  I cannot imagine life without you now as we spend way too much time together.  We watch films and surf the net looking for things that make us smile or even cry.  You hold so many of my precious  memories in the form of photographs and without you it wouldn’t be as much fun keeping in touch with Gracia when she is away in Newcastle.  Our little skyping sessions are a life saver, if not for  you I wouldn’t have met any on-line friends and then turned that friendship into a real life friendship.  You help me to keep up to date with what is going on in their lives through blogs, facebook and Instagram and I just don’t know how I would cope without being able to email all the time.

I know our time together is limited as you are getting older and slower and we both get frustrated by your inability to keep an internet connection going but I hope that we will make the most of our remaining days together and that we will be just as happy as we’ve always been.

Much love

Karen xxx

I used both the full size papers and 6 x 6 papers from the Fancy Pants Park Bench range for this page.

Would you be lost without your connection to the cyberworld?