Sunday Crafting

Well as you know the clocks went forward which meant that even less sleep than normal was achieved for some of the late night crafters, but there was still a full house for Annie Hafermann's Echo Park minibook. With all manner of openings and flips and folds it was a great little project that was easier to create than it looked, indeed my daughter and I made another last night as part of a homework project she had to create a piece of work called "who am I?". It was a perfect project for housing an array of photos and allowing a little journalling too and the Echo Park "For the record" papers used were gorgeous.

Annie then went on to teach a Cosmo Cricket linear double layout with a neat fold out journalling spot.Sunday lunch was next (always my favourite of our meals at the retreat), followed by the challenge winners and the raffle being announced, before Debbie's final class of the weekend.

This class used Crate papers Emma's Shoppe range to scrap a busy multi photo layout with stitching and border stickers and a lovely layered flower which class delegates made from scratch. Another very popular class. As promised more retreat news will follow all week. If any delegates have any photographs they would love to share of projects of the weekend, please do send them to mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk and we will try and feature some on the blog.

Goody Box For....

A box of goodies goes to post number 13.... Obviously lucky for someone this time! Congratulations Lelly - drop me an email with contact details and the goodies will be coming out to you!

More retreat show and tell

More sharing of our retreat classes today and first up is Debbie's pretty Sassafrass class which used papers from the Sweetly Smitten range. Perfect for girlie photos this class added lots of tiny details to the flower die-cuts, a little stitching and plenty of layering too.

The final class for Saturday afternoon was a technique class taught by Mel. This involved clear stamping, heat embossing and distress inks to achieve a resist technique and some very beautiful pages. Here is Mel's completed class layout which used My Mind Eye papers.

And a close up too to show the resist technique better Saturday evening there was a flurry of shopping and crafting activity and the make and take table saw foldable boxes made with Jane and more decopatch techniques with Debbie. Plenty of delegates were working on their challenges too and we will be sharing more of the creations and the winners of those later this week.

Tune in again tomorrow when we will share Sunday's classes with you!

What a wonderful world!

Can I just briefly say before I get some much needed sleep what a totally wonderful weekend we all enjoyed thanks to a combination of superb organisation, talented and helpful teachers, great classes and of course FABULOUS company! Not everyone made it down for a group photo but most of the ladies are here - all smiles after a lovely roast dinner and a weekend of creativity.

As promised yesterday there are plenty more images to share with you all - here are just a few for this evening, but the blog will be updated all week with more images and thoughts from the weekend courtesy of yours truly as Mel & Jill attend to the post-retreat frenzy!

This was Mel's patchwork based multi-photo layout which saw some stunning completed layouts over the weekend , one of which was a double layout which hopefully we will share during the week.

Debbie, as mentioned yesterday taught and introduction to Decopatch class. Decopatch is fab! It's a funky addictive paper craft that's amazingly simple to do and all you need is the tissue like paper, the object that you're going to cover and the special glue varnish and class attendees were able to choose between decorating notebook covers, a mini triple frame set and wooden elements. Mel taught an embossing/resist technique class Saturday afternoon and photos will follow of that and the Sunday classes tomorrow, which include a fab Echo Park mini-book by Annie Hafemann. Thanks again to everyone who came and featured in our wonderful weekend. Dates for the Autumn Retreat 2011 are Friday 28th October to Sunday 30th October for those who want to bookmark their calendars -booking will be available soon.

Retreat update - wish you were here x

Day two of the Spring 2011 retreat and we are all having a lovely time. One of the delegates Rachel had to pop home to bake a cupcake order and bought these back for us all! (I just viewed in awe!!)


Mel's first class used the delicious "Its the Little things" paper collection from Fancy Pants. A multi photo layout that was a great way to start of our creative weekend.


Jane then had everyone making this stunning Graphic 45 envelope minibook which she had made into her planner for the weekend also! (neat idea!)

Debbie closed the afternoon yesterday with an introduction to decopatch class (photos to follow) which everyone enjoyed and found very therapeutic.

After a good nights sleep in our lovely hotel rooms it was my turn to teach this morning and we undertook lots of detailed cutting and layering of the Prima Madeline papers, and then stitched and flocked! Photos of our delegates creating...
Jane was back in the classroom after me teaching her AMAZING birdhouse card holder (and a second example as an easter egg holder!!). Guess how many eggs are left?!! All of them as we are being fed and watered very well during our stay!

Mel then taught her patchwork layout class, followed by Debbie doing some pretty snazzy stuff with Sassafrass. More images to follow tomorrow, until then...there is paper to be cut my friends, I'm back to the crop room!

Another Giveaway This Weekend!

We are away at the retreat all weekend but once we are home on Sunday night we will draw a number at random (in the usual way) to win a surprise box of goodies.

As usual just leave a comment below.

Hope everyone has a great weekend, please remember if you email or order over the weekend it will take a little longer than normal to reply \ send but we will get back to you either in the evening or once the weekend is over.

Happy Scrapping and good luck with winning the giveaway!!!!!

Go Vintage with Prima

Have you had a chance to look at the March ATDML gallery as yet? If you haven't it is worth stopping by for some gorgeous Prima eyecandy, including this lovely vintage style layout created by Jane which uses this paper from the Reflections range.

I am always in awe of people that can create vintage pages that totally take on the look and era of the photo, something I seem to stuggle with. I find myself time and time again reaching for those most recent photographs to scrap when I have a mountain of older ones I could be using. Maybe this might be my challenge for the retreat this weekend, to bring along some older photos and see how I get on.

We'd love to see your vintage pages created using your ATDML stash - why not share a link to them in a comment to this post below?

Winning The My Minds Eye Stella Rose Paper Pads

is.....

Comment number 16 which was made by "Buttons"

Please email me with your contact details and we will get the paper pads out to you.

As always the address is Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk

Keep an eye out for another giveaway very soon as we have a shipment on its way to us as we speak!

March Class: Diamond Anniversary

Ann designed this layout to celebrate a very special occasion - she has also written complete instructions for the layout which can be download as a free PDF.

CLICK HERE TO VISIT OUR SITE AND DOWNLOAD THE INSTRUCTIONS

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

Thanks to all of you who responded to our post about guest designers. Everyone that replied should now have had a reply. (Please forgive the length of time it has taken to send all the replies, there were lots to send and we have been a little tied up with retreat preparation!)

Time for a little giveaway........

We have a lot of new products on the site and still more to come. So we thought it would be a good time to have a little giveaway. Just leave a comment below by Sunday 20th March at 6pm and random.org will do the rest - first up will be a set of two paper pads from My Mind's Eye and then we will probably have another giveaway towards the end of next week. Mel & I are both quite busy at the moment with last minute retreat plans, kit packing, uploading new products and fulfilling orders but we are trying not to neglect the blog!

My Turn To Take A Class

Just sharing a layout I did at a class recently! The weekend before last I did a very rare thing for me and spent the day at a crop just scrapping and enjoying playing with paper!

I booked a last minute space at the Eclectic Keepsakes crop in Colchester and spent the day with the lovely ladies there, several of whom I know through our Design Team and also some of our retreat regulars.

As I booked last minute I didn't know if there was going to be enough class kits for me to join in with the class and I didn't have chance to get the info beforehand about the photo requirements. I was so pleased when there turned out to be enough kits to allow me to participate in a simply BEAUTIFUL class taught by Denise Holmes. Her sample layout was lovely and although I didn't have the photos to exactly recreate it I managed to find a couple of photos and adapt the class a little to work with what I had.


The class used My Minds Eye Lost & Found which I may have mentioned before is one of my all time favourite ranges and Denise had cleverly teamed it with some Fancy Pants Lilac house which gave us loads of options for our journaling.

I was really pleased with how this turned out and I thoroughly enjoyed being on the other side of the desk being the person scrapping not the one standing nervously at the front hoping everyone is enjoying the class. I must say that Denise did a great job, not too rushed, not too slow and talked us through a really enjoyable class.

For the Record

As promised I am back sharing some Echo Park love featuring some pages using their For the Record collection.


This collection has to be my favourite yet from them and is open to a multitide of uses, by that I mean you can scrap modern colour photos, older vintage photos, architecture, pets, kids - anything goes with this collection.



I have shared three of the layouts I have created so far with this double-sided paper collection which also comes with a sheet of mixed sized alphabet and border strip stickers!



This collection, as well as the Springtime and Little Girl collections can be found in the store along with other Echo Park collection packs.

Plenty of new arrivals

As Mel and Jill are busy preparing for those of us lucky to be attending the Spring 2011 retreat in just a couple of weeks time, I thought I would pop on here and share with you some of the goodies they have had arriving these last few days.

First up these gorgeous fabric tags by Websters pages. They coordinate with the papers but are also versatile enough to be used without the matching collection and would make a real statement on a page. I have a set in my shopping basket!!

Check here for another style of these tags!

I'm also rather in love with this cute 6x6 paper stack by My Minds Eye - their Stella and Rose - Mabel collection. I think there is just something so nice about the mix of colours here and I'm pretty sure those fabric tags will match nicely!.


There are three other 6x6 paper collections in the Stella and Rose range as well as a set of stamps - take a look here

Plenty of new American Crafts thickers alphabet stickers have been loaded to the store this week including these fabric ones (go nice with those fabric tags again!) and they are available in four different colourways


I'm sure you'll agree there is plenty to wet the appetite!
I'll be back again in a day or so with another blog post sharing some Echo Park love, watch this space!

Be our guest!

We have come to the end of our list of guest designers who volunteered last January to submit to our monthly gallery. Each month, our regular design team and usually a guest designer create layouts, cards, altered projects and home decor items using a box of products which we send out (usually from one manufacturer). If you would like to receive a free box of goodies and can produce a minimum of three pieces within a three week timescale, please contact mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk with 'Guest Designer' in the subject heading.
We have had some gorgeous submissions in the past - you can see our galleries HERE and having a guest designer gives an opportunity to several extra people to showcase their creativity. We know there is a lot of talent out there, so drop us an e-mail with a link to your blog or online gallery if you would like to take part. We plan approximately one year ahead, so we are looking for twelve guests.

Customer Spotlight - Nora Latip

We are always so pleased to see what the customers have been up to with the goodies that we send out in those pizza boxes!

At the weekend we received a lovely email from Nora Latip with this picture showing us what she had done with the Artist Printers Tray she had recently purchased from us.

These are one of my favourite items in the shop - I have a white ATC one which I have not had time to complete yet! When it is done it will be going in my craft area to match the white furniture but my bedroom is dark brown and red and Nora's beautiful use of the dark wood tray has made me quite determined to create a project along the same lines for my bedroom.

I love how she has made use of all the interesting designs on the papers as well as using stickers, buttons and metal objects and of course the all important photographs to make a unique and simply stunning item to showcase both her crafting skills and more importantly her lovely family!

Thanks to Nora for sharing her work.

If you have a project (layout, card, mini book or decor item) that you would like to share with us here on the blog please do get in touch - Mel@atripdownmemorylane.co.uk

Guest Blogger Sue Mylde: Using Paints On Your Layouts

This months guest designer Sue Mylde has kindly produced this blog post for us relating to the techniques she uses in her scrapbooking. We hope you enjoy this article and that when the gallery goes live this coming week you will take a look and see what Sue did for the DT Gallery!


You can see more of Sue's work on her blog: http://justperspective.blogspot.com

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

Hello ATDML Blog Readers!

Thank you to Jill and Mel for letting me Guest Design for ATDML this month. I would like to share with you a video tutorial on how to use paints on your layout.





Using paints may be intimidating, but don't be scared, just do it! :)

After painting on the cardstock, I let the paint dry a bit more and then used it in my layout below, entitled 'Just Be'. I decided to add some spray mists on the border of the page.

The Prima papers and journaling cards are excellent to use as a layered background for the photos. I added even more texture by putting in some ribbon and lace to embellish the page further.

I love the girlish, rustic 'grunge' feel of my finished page. And the contrasting colors gives the page a unique, fresh feel.

I hope you enjoy the video and thanks for looking!

Happy Scrapping! :) :)

A little more about me:
My name is Sue Mylde and I currently live in Aberdeen, Scotland with my husband Chris, and my two children Lara and Luc. I have been scrapbooking since 2004 and I have enjoyed this beautiful journey thoroughly. I mainly scrapbook stories of my family's life and it has been an adventurous one filled with everything from travelling to moving countries to tooth fairy visits. I am in love with textures and playing with papers, paint and all kinds of embellishment. I am honored to work with some of the most talented scrapbookers in the industry, and currently design for Cocoa Daisy kits, and a few other scrapbook challenge blogs. I have been published in a number of scrapbook magazines including: Creating Keepsakes, Scrapbook Trends USA, Scrapbook Trends UK and Scrapbook Inspirations UK.

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!

It's All In The Detail....

I was chatting to a friend today about the work in the Design Team Galleries and she was commenting on how much there is to look at, so many little details and of course she is right.

As I looked back through the galleries from the last few months, especially in these close up shots of some of the layouts, you can see just how much work has gone into the layouts.

I love the way the textures, colours and shapes combine to create little areas of busy detail which complement the layout in general or a certain aspect of it for example the journaling.

While I can enjoy clean and simple scrapping and have on several occassions tried to attempt a clean, graphic style layout I have to admit that all the bits and pieces on a layout are the things that make me happy, the swirls of bling, the die cuts, the flowers and all the frippery!

So are you a clean and simple graphic style scrapper, a busy, layer loving scrapper or somewhere in between? Is there a style you would like to emulate or do you have a style all of your own?