Wednesday 31 August 2016

It's August Tag Time

I'm finally here with the August tag - it nearly didn't happen since my computer has been in intensive care being fixed - but all is well now and I can share the photos of the August Tag in Progress.
The theme here is very definitely 'sunflowers'! I loved the sunflowers on the August Children's Hour papers the minute I saw them and knew that I would have to do some fussy cutting!!
To make this tag you'll need the two Children's Hour papers for August, some thick string or rolled up paper, dark brown card, light brown or terracotta card, green ink and co-ordinating ribbon.

As usual I started with a 4"x8" tag - but this time I used dark brown card,
To make flower stalks I  coloured some paper strings with green distress stain and left them to dry...
Next I cut the girl with cat card from the August Collective paper and centred it on the card towards the top. I glued the stalks on and surrounded with foam pads.
Then I cut the terracotta coloured card to make pots and pot rims - starting with rectangles then cutting them down by eye into flowerpot shapes and inked the edges...


I stuck these to the bottom of my tag on the foam pads and covering the ends of the stalks...
Time to sit down with some good scissors, a film you enjoy and the August Montage paper and cut a load of sunflowers out...
I also cut out lots of the little blue flowers and leaves.
I added the sunflowers to the top of the stalks...

and glued the blue flowers and leaves to the top of the middle flowerpot...


Finally some co-ordinating ribbon through a punched hole in the top and the tag is done!


Using Memorabilia On Your Pages

Hello, Karen here with a quick post about how I have used memorabilia on some of my pages.  I hope I can inspire you to use some of those brochures and tickets, you have kept from your summer hols, on your pages instead of leaving them to gather dust in a pile somewhere.

The first page is one I made last year and features a ticket from the production I went to see, an information pamphlet about the globe and also some badges I purchased, whilst there, with quotes from A Midsummer Night's Dream - not the production I saw but they had quotes that were appropriate and worked beautifully with the teal on the Simple Stories papers.


The next one features memorabilia from an Alexander Calder exhibition I went to at Tate Modern.  I always said I wouldn't waste my time going to Tate Modern but gave it a go - this was not for me as I like more traditional works of art - but I did like the Alexander Calder mobiles. 

This one has my exhibition entry ticket, a postcard with one of his mobiles on, the exhibition guide and again a couple of badges bought from the gallery. 


My final page was made this month using Graphic 45's Safari Adventure. I had taken my Rainbow Pack to Colchester Zoo and took a few, not very good, photos on the day.  I knew that these had to be printed out quite small to hide their quality so printed them in strips, added the zoo guide to the left of them and my ticket (the cute red panda) to the right.  


I do like incorporating memorabilia onto my pages as I often think, what else would I do with that ticket or program other than keep it for a while and then throw it away.

Monday 22 August 2016

Getting Romantic with G45.

Hello, hello - Karen here with a quick blog post featuring a little memory album I made for a friend who got married last week.



When Jill sent me some items from the Enchanted Forest range I thought it would be ideal to make a little mini book, for Michaela, as she is a drama teacher and very romantic.  We had just worked together on several Shakespeare plays and the characters on these papers reminded me of those.

In my box of goodies I also had some G45 Policy Envelopes which I decided to incorporate into my album.


I used my Silhouette to cut the pages, cover and bindings and then set to making my album.










Michaela was delighted with her little keepsake book and strange to say, as someone who says they don't like working with G45, I loved making it.



Saturday 20 August 2016

August Virtual Crop Class 3 with Ann Freeman

Welcome all to your third and final class for today - a nice easy one for me which I think is great every now and then to just help get those memories into albums. Sometimes this is what I like to do, others I prolong the creative process to enjoy that aspect of the hobby too.

So today I bring you two layouts and enough left over products for a birthday card.
The kit was using Simple Stories Happy Day collection which whilst a birthday themed range can be used for other celebrations if you're a little creative!




Simple Stories website has some other great layout ideas with this collection too which can be found HERE.  Don't have this collection but another from Simple Stories, then follow the design concepts for a similar looking page with different theme/colours. Failing that make it up as you go along with your own products!!

Thanks for joining in - go download your FREE instructions for my class this month HERE

August Virtual Crop - Class with Katherine Sutton


Hi, welcome to our Virtual Crop, my class makes 3 pages using the beautiful Pink Paislee Memorandum collection. There is a little bit of watercolour in the second layout and they are all quite quick and easy to put together.  I've tried to use all the little elements on the papers in different designs.

I hope you enjoy the pages, you can find the instructions and other 2 pages here.

August Virtual Crop - Class 1 with Karen

Good morning lovely scrappers.  I hope you are ready for a day of inspiration with our August Virtual Crop classes.

My two page layout class uses the very pretty Enchanted Garden range by Bo Bunny.  I have to say teal and lilac may well be my new favourite colour combo!

Page 1 uses a 6 x 4 portrait photo and I had the perfect one for the papers - my two favourite girlies in the bluebells.


The photo on page 2 was taken the same day and it is of the three of us - a Famfie (family selfie).


I hope you enjoy making these layouts - the instructions can be found here and pop back at 12 noon to see what Katherine has been up to with her August kit!

August Virtual Crop Challenge

Happy Saturday scrapbookers and welcome to another virtual crop day with your design team. As always we will kick start the day with a challenge.

On August 20th, 1977 the Emotions started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'Best Of My Love', which made it to No.4 in the UK.

Your challenge today is to create a page along the theme of love, or perhaps featuring another emotion!! Let your imagination run wild and don't forget to share your creations on our Facebook page. 

Friday 19 August 2016

August Virtual Crop Photo Requirements

After the fun of last month's cybercrop we will be back with our virtual crop on Saturday August 20th and your photo requirements for the three classes are below.

Karen's Class

Layout 1 - 4" x 6" portrait photo
Layout 2 - 6"x4" landscape photo

Katherine's Class

Layout 1 - 4" square photo with a white border
Layout 2 - 6"x4" landscape photo - mine is black & white with a white border (but that isn't essential)
Layout 3 - Two portrait 3"x4" photos - again mine have a white border. 

Good to have (none are essential) heart punch - some watercolours or distress inks - mustard seed, pine needles and barn door are the ones I used but any red, yellow and green, heart punch and small star punch or other punches.

Ann's Class
Layout 1 - 5"x4" landscape photo
Layout 2 - 4"x6" portrait photo
A bonus birthday card

If you have a few gems or any sequins these would be great to add.



Thursday 4 August 2016

Go BIG on journaling


Summer holidays which for us means family days out and adventures to make the most of the time I have off work. This layout featuring Simple Stories Bloom & Grow range. It uses one of the papers with a 6" x 12" journaling piece on it featuring a floral design at the base and a faux tape piece at the top which I cut from the paper and then punched down the side with a notebook punch. 


I also used the "you", "make" & "happy" words from the same paper along with some alphabet stickers for my title "you make me happy" which I added to the journaling piece and then wrote around the rest of the paper, the grid lines making this very easy to do.

A couple more pieces of paper (including the blue floral also from the paper above) and some stickers complete this page which uses the gorgeous dotty paper as the background.

The full collection of Bloom & Grow can be found here in the shop and our gallery for July features plenty more inspiration using Simple Stories paper. Go take a look HERE >>>>

Tuesday 2 August 2016

August Photo prompts

A day late, my apologies, but here are your August photo prompts.


Feel free to join in and then share your photos on our Facebook page. Happy August!