Ready, steady, crop!!!

We were really fortunate to be able to get into the hotel to start setting up on Thursday afternoon and the extra time really made a difference as we were able to get the cropping room set up and a significant proportion of the shop set out on Thursday.

On Friday morning we finished the shop and this is what it looked like on Friday just before the delegates started to arrive!

 

 

more soon....

Getting Started Early!

As I was uploading some photos from my camera for the class instructions I have been writing I found this photo which I had forgotten about.

I work part time as a teacher so my Mum looks after the girls doing the school run in the morning and occasionally looking after Olivia in the afternoons.

A few months ago I came home late one afternoon and found this on my scrapping desk.



Obviously while Mum was getting her lunch Olivia decided to help herself to some stickers, a piece of paper and a photo of her and her Daddy.

Now both girls know that they have their own "craft supplies" and they are not supposed to help themselves to mine or fiddle with projects on my scrap desk however it wasn't a disaster - the paper was left over from a DT kit which I had finished with and the stickers had come out of a box I unearthed in the loft so nothing I was desperate to use.

I had to smile at her pretty composition and use of the stickers to frame the photo - a future scrapper? What do you think?

PS she was only 3 at the time!

Multi Manufacturer Challenge Winner

Karen Williams is the winner of our challenge to mix it up and use more than 5 manufacturers on a layout.

Karen has used:
Echo Park
American Crafts
October Afternoon
Crate Paper
Bazzil

Karen drop me an email and I will send you your shopping voucher!

I will try to post a few sneak peeks of some of my retreat classes over the next few days. Preparation is in full swing here for the retreat which will be over in two weeks time!

Kits are being packed, emails sent out with photo information and classes available to book as add ons and the menu choices for Saturday night are flooding in! Busy busy busy and there is the small matter of completing my classes and instructions! Wish me luck :)

Country Estate - three layouts

I had a play with some beautiful papers from Websters Pages Country Estate line. I added my all time favourite thickers 'honey' in copper and here is what I came up with....

They are straight in real life!!

March Sketch

This is our sketch for March

and this is what our talented designers came up with

City Blues - designed by Jemma Sharrock
 

  a card - designed by Karen Cole

Forever & Always -  by Karen Cole

 How would you interpret the sketch?

Echo Park

The March design team gallery is up for your viewing pleasure. This month Jemma Sharrock (Jimjams) joined the team and share several lovely projects with us too.

There is lots of inspiration for you if you are working with the lovely Echo Park papers, or even if you aren't, take a look at some of the projects that the team have created.

I wanted to share the story behind one of my layouts featured in the gallery this month. A little while ago I stumbled across this image on Simple Stories blog which had then been used by a designer (who originally found it on Pinterest) to create a layout. Given how popular hexagon shapes seem to be in the scrapbooking industry lately I thought I too would have a go and used my Echo Park papers from this months design team papers we were sent.

With busy patterns this is a great way of mixing up small pieces of them to create an eye-catching page! I used the original page to judge the approximate size of the stretched hexagon shapes, made a template from a scrap of paper and used it to trace around on the reverse of several patterned papers. The spacing isn't perfect and if you are a perfectionist for equal gaps this may not be the page for you, but I am thrilled with how it turned out. You may have noticed there are a couple of sticker embellishment clusters on the page too... I love this matching stickers that come with the Echo Park collections (and they work wonders on covering up the gap imperfections that I wasn't happy to leave!!). Why not have a go and use this image to inspire a layout or card. Once you have a template it comes together real easy. Enjoy!

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 :-