Page drafts sketch challenge 'One of a kind'

Good morning... welcome to another drizzly morning in my corner of Kent, UK! 

Today I am brining you a LO inspired by the Page Draft May Challenge.. 'One of a Kind'. This challenge inspired you to scrap about a special person, or a special event. 

Regular followers know that recently I have been scrapping wedding photos.. so this qualifies.. and pictures of my Mum.. who is also 'One of a Kind' .. but I feel I need a break from those two themes.. so I decided to scrap about my beloved husband! Altogether now... Awww! 

He is my rock! He is hard working, helpful, kind and considerate... and, I think, gorgeous and handsome too.. but then I am biased! lol. 

He helps me with everything around the house... washing, ironing, gardening.. you name it he does it. He really is a little star!

We've been married 34 years in June and I can honestly say I want to spend the next 34 years with him too... God willing! 

This LO is therefore about him.. My very own 'one of a kind'! 

I took this sketch here: 

and created the LO below. I used my CKCB kit 'May Madness' for the basics and added embellishments from my stash too. 

Often with sketches I rotate them to work for me.. but this one was just awesome the way it was and I couldn't wait to start on it. 

I started with finding the right papers to go with the card stock I had chosen to go with all the green in the photo, cut the banners and arranged them in a way I was happy with, top and bottom, then I inked all the edges and matted the photo on top. I then punched the bunting with  a Stampin' Up punch and added small hand cut cameras from a Bo Bunny sticker sheet and added some more stickers that read 'Snaphots Tell the story'. 

I used a ready made title that was just perfect for the challenge and added lots of embellishments from my kit and finished it off with journalling around the edge of the page. 

I am very pleased with the way this one turned out and I hope you like what you see.. I think it does justice to my lovely husband. What do you think?

Thanks for popping by.... come back soon! 

Elaine

x

SJ Papercrafts and SOS challenge

Good morning everyone.. here is my third and (probably) last blog post from this bank holiday weekend. As regular visitors will know, I have been 'home alone' this weekend while my dear husband has been working very hard.. giving me plenty of time to scrap! 

So.. needless to say.. that's exactly what I've done. This is my third LO and it is one I have created for the Scrap Our Stash challenge which is based on this sketch here. As you can see it is a horizontal sketch using three photos..but in this instance I decided to rotate to and use two photographs instead. That is mainly because I had taken this lovely photo of a busy bee working hard, collecting nectar from this rather tall foxglove. The colour of the foxglove gave me the next option and I chose to use cardstock of a very similar shade to mat the photos on.  

I thought I would also enter my photo on 'Our Beautiful World' photo prompt blog too as their latest challenge is 'spots' and as you can see, there are lots of spots in this foxglove! 

I then sprayed the background with a shimmer mist (a home made colour) over a die cut to leave a stencilled pattern and added some subtle rounded impressions from a small plastic box and added larger splodges to finish it off. 


I then took the bingo inspiration from SJ Papercrafts and added some torn yellow paper from my CKCB kit behind where the MS Trellis punched strip is. The bingo inspiration is where you have to make a LO with three of the elements in this grid.. ensuring you choose three in a row! 

For this challenge I decided to 'use ink or mist', 'something transparent' and 'mixed alphas'.

So after sticking down my photo mat I added a doily and inked it to match my background mist and added a strip of yellow polka dot ribbon and some organza polka dot ribbon (my something transparent) , both from my May Madness CKCB kit.

Finally I added a honey jar.. also from my kit but made, I think, by American Crafts together with some co-ordinating flowers and brads with a couple of additional gems too and a swirl of bakers twine finished with the mixed alpha title. 

I'm very happy with the final outcome as it is so bright and cheery..just right for these photos and I think I have just about 'killed' my CKCB kit now.. and here it is.. the finished LO.

Thanks for popping by again.. do let know know you've visited. Bye for now!

Scrap around the world and Scrap365 challenges

Hi again

I'm back, as promised, with a new LO that I created yesterday that I have now managed to photograph and upload.. thanks for popping back to see what I've been up to. 

This challenge is one of the Scrap Around the World challenges inspired by this photo.. as you can see, it has, what I consider to be, ice cream colours.. pink, mint, vanilla and raspberry! Yummy! 

To top it off, there is a hint of gold, so I included some of that too.. what do you think.. edible gold leaf on top of an ice cream.. too much?? No!! You can't beat a bit of decadence..so I went for it.. the whole hog! 

Next I took this sketch from Scrap365 

and this is what I came up with... as you can see I started with a sheet of white card stock.. it seems to be my colour of choice lately.. and then I cut tiny strips of Authentique Flourish from a paper pad I own and included some of in my May Madness, CKCB, kit. 

The photograph is from a very exciting night in my life.. and the word CELEBRATE is on the mood board, so I immediately thought of this photo for this challenge. 

To explain, I have been an estate agent for over 20 years, and this night was an awards ceremony.. and I am so pleased to say I won three awards that night... including best overall estate agent in West Kent., so you can see why there was a reason to celebrate!  Added to which, as my son has also followed in my footsteps to become an agent, he was there to witness the whole thing! I even let him hold my trophies! lol

All in all I look back on this night the best in my career... and I still have the trophies in my office as a reminder... those days are gone now as I have dropped to part time after a mini stroke back in 2012, but back in 2010, my job was all consuming.. so this really was a 'Priceless' night.. and it will never be repeated!

To finish the LO, I added a pearl swirl, flowers with gold embellishments, some gems and more pink pearls and I added a tag behind the photo to tell the story of the evening. Finally I added punch outs on three sides with a bit of mint coloured paper behind. 

My friend Jemma, aka JimJams,  recently told me she has a 'Book of Me' and so I thought I might follow suit.. thanks for the idea Jemma.. so this is my first entry. 

Do let me know what you think before you go! Rather surprisingly, since my last post, and before this one, I made another LO today too.. so I may blog that one later on too.. watch this space!

Elaine

x

May BAP challenge

As I mentioned yesterday.. I came across this wonderful blog, Scrapbook Garden whilst having a little 'surf' and I have been reading back all of their posts for May.. do you know they post nearly every day!! I'm so inspired by them.. what a fab find!

One of their posts was about the Prima May Build a Page challenge.. here  where you'll need to scroll all the way down to see the BAP 'bit'. The sketch is a really 'messy' one, which was always going to be a bit of a challenge because I don't have many Prima inks etc.. and the page had to be 90% Prima.. so whats a girl to do? Well.. I used as many Prima products as I could find and came up with more than I was expecting.. I'm one of those people that buys things that I see when I see them, without really realising their brand... and it turns out, I must like Prima a lot as I had quite a choice to choose from. 

In this instance I chose my background paper Prima Printery 'Monogram' some of my old stash, (it's always good to use up old stash..right??). 

This gave me the basis for the LO. I then stamped Primas Rectangular 'Stitch' (No. 570507) stamp in large a diagonal area and added some 'Welcome to Paris (No. 559434)  stamping too. This gave me the background I was after and thought I would add more 'splashes and splodges' later. 

I then matted my photos on black cardstock- this turned out to be the only product I used that wasn't Prima!. Then I cut several elements, the butterfly, bee, some letters etc from co-ordinating papers from Prima Lyric Collection, 'Prelude' and the reverse side of another sheet of 'Monogram'. (I made the title up with co-ordinating letters cut from a piece I'd used previously so I can't name the sheet) I then arranged the photos and elements on the sheet and realised I'd covered up most of my inking and stamping! I thought about this for a while and decided that I really wanted my photos this size.. so I went with the flow and stuck it all down, layering all the elements as I went... even though you can now only just see my stamping!

I finished off with a felt floral flourish (No. 715052), 2 large flowers (No. 553111) from the Allure Mocha pack, a black flower (No. 553098), two pebbles (No. 655350)  and I finished it off with a piece of 'Say it in Crystals' black trim (No. 553876) 

So, after all those embellishments and trim I decided I didn't want to add any more inking, splodges or splatters and I am, overall, happy with the way it turned out.

Thanks for popping by and do remember to let me know you've visited... I'm going to blog another LO later too.. so do remember to pop in again! 

May giveaway

Good morning everyone... What a horrible morning it is here today in the garden of England... Wet and miserable.. So what's a girl to do? Wellllllll......today, on my 'to do' list is a sort out of my craft room..and anyone that knows me knows I love a good tidy up! Lol
But before I do that, I thought I'd have a little surf of the blogs I follow... And somehow I'd managed to miss this blog here from The Scrapbook Garden Blog! Not quite sure how..but they are giving away this wonderful prize and I, for one, am keen to win it!

So here's my blog post to share with you all the opportunity to join me in my quest to be a winner... If you decide to join in too, then I wish you Bon chance, as my friend Maggie would say! (She lives in France.)

Bye for now.. Call back soon 

Weekly challenge and Sketchabilities sketch no. 115

Hi there everyone!

This lovely bright and sunny morning I am sharing with you a LO made for the Sketchabilities No. 115 sketch here with my May Madness kit.

As you can see it is a somewhat 'messy' sketch and that is something I often struggle with.. so it was always going to be hard. However, as luck would have it, over on UKS, the lovely Suzy set a challenge this week to use, paint, washi and stamping.. so it was perfect for me to have a go at!

First I took a selection of pretty papers from my kit, and added the 6" Paper pad, MME Follow Your Heart, full of pretty, soft colours and a sheet or two of music paper. In this instance I chose to use a music stamp to use first before layering the pretty papers on top. 

So, first I stamped, then I added white acrylic paint, watered down a little and then I added the papers and the photograph of my Mum and eldest son... hence the title! I used a lid of a plastic pot to create the rounded square impressions too and added 'dabs' of  ink from an ink dauber too.

The photo was taken on Mothers Day in March this year and Mum isn't doing too well at present so I want to take and scrap as many photos as I can of her. Hopefully it is a blip and she will soon be better again! (Edit... she's on the mend now.. phew!)

Next I took some of the washi tape from my kit and stuck it onto some scrap card and painted it over with the white acrylic paint to soften the colours. I didn't have anything subtle enough (does that mean I'm going to have to buy more washi?? lol) I then waited for it to dry and punched butterflies and some flower shapes from it to add as an embellishment finished off with some Stickles as flower centres and butterfly antennae and bodies.

I added bird accessories and die cuts because one of the papers I chose has a quote 'I am like a bird with a big song' ... so this is the end result. My Mum has a song for everything.. so this seemed very appropriate!

Do let me know what you think and pop back for a visit again soon! 

Happily Ever After

Good morning all...

Another lovely day in my corner of Kent... long may this continue.. so I'm restricting my scrapping time to early mornings and evenings so I don't miss this gorgeous weather.. you never know how long it'll last... and in the UK we have to make the most of it! 

So today I'm bringing you a LO created for the Scrap Our Stash challenge.. Something Old, Something New, Something fussy cut, Something Blue.

First I took a sketch from Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge where they encourage you to scrap about yourself.. well although this isn't actually a photo of myself .. it is 'about' me... the photo is of my son and his new wife when they got married last Summer. If you can't say a photo of your son is about you.. what can you? He, (along with my other son and my husband), is my world! His name is Adam and he is my first born. He is also the one that people say is most like me.. in personality, family looks, traits and even his chosen career.. he is 'mini me!' lol. So I do think that this LO meets the criteria and is 'about' me.  

Once I had my sketch all chosen out, I chose the papers and embellishments to meet the other criteria. In this case I chose papers from Authentique Classique for the matted layers.. and this is my 'something new' as I only took delivery of the 6" paper pad this week.

I then added all the clusters and added the wedding bell embellishment that you see on the top left of the photo which is my 'something old' as this is a button that I have had since I began scrapbooking 3 years ago. 

For the 'fussy cut' I cut the flower clusters, the frame and the swag beneath the bottom photo cluster... and of course for the 'something blue'.. I think you can work out for yourself! 

For the top cluster I used some 'chalkboard' washi tape with wedding script on and added two punched hearts, some heart tape and I then added some die cuts and some pearl pen dots to finish it all off. 

Well that's another post for today.. do pop back later as I am planning another one... after my osteopath appointment as I have hurt my back and can barely move.. probably all the gardening I've been doing in all this lovely weather! My own fault.. Doh! 

  

Stuck?!

Here is my take on the sketch challenge over on the Stuck?! Challenge blog for May 15th.  I do love their sketches and this one immediately 'floated my boat' as soon as I saw it. 

One of the biggest challenges for me is to scrap more than one photo.. sometimes I go with two.. but rarely three.. so this was going to be a challenge from the off. Occasionally I 'cheat' and use a journalling card for the third photo if there is one in a sketch..however.. although it looks like there are three photos here.. there are really two.. as I cut the one in half of my two 'boys' .. I'd love to know what they were laughing at while they were standing at the altar waiting for the bride to arrive!

To emphasise the groom in this photo I matted his photo on a different colour background pps and I used my CKCB kit, May Madness, once again. 

There a lot of scraps used here but the mason jars are from an American Crafts range and the red dotty paper is a Dear Lizzy scrap. To finish it all off, I scuffed to edges of all the papers and added a few random stars.. as these men are all my 'stars' and as I'm proud of them too I finished with a Thickers sparkly black title 'Pride and Groom'.. another one for the wedding album!

Thanks for looking... and thanks for a GREAT sketch.

NSD Colour your Mood LO challenge NO 1

Hi again.. 

This time I'm back again with another LO based on this challenge from the CKCB blog.

It took me out of my comfort zone from the off as I usually always choose a photo to co-ordinate with the papers I want to work with..but on this occasion the task was to scrap a photo with papers based on your mood! 

Now.. as many of you know.. I'm STILL scrapping photos from my sons wedding last year.. so I thought about that day and it made me... happy! So then I thought about what colour would I choose to signify 'happy' and in this instance I chose yellow... it is such a cheerful colour isn't it? 

The only problem is that my wedding outfit was blue, the bride was in white and the men were all in black with teal cravats.. so where did yellow fit into all this? It didn't really.. so I picked a sheet of paper.. an old Sassafras one from my May Madness CKCB kit to create this LO.. then, and only then, did I pick the photo to go with the paper.. such a backward way of doing things for me... but guess what??? I Love it.. I'm so happy with this LO.. in fact I was so pleased with it that I didn't really want to put a thumping great title over it.. so I put a teeny, tiny one on there instead.. 'Meet and Greet' .. which I think says it all.. and to top it off my friends outfit (sort of) goes with it too.. 

So.. thanks once again CKCB.. you've done it again! How you come up with these ideas I don't know..but however you do it.. don't stop! 

See you soon!

5th LO with my May Madness CKCB kit

Hi again

I was up with he lark today and wanted to set about a challenge using a sketch from Scrap 365 for their monthly challenge. Here is the sketch used and the link to their post. 

I decided to also add it to a challenge over on UKS where we were tasked with creating a LO using shaped paper.. So I used a piece of shaped paper as my background and gutted it so I could add the extra piece of paper to my photo montage.

Now as you can see I haven't faithfully stuck to the original sketch but I think you will agree the basis is there.

I wanted to use some beads on here and try out some faux stitching too.. Which you can see I have done.. The tassel is a long forgotten one that I have had in my stash for eons! It is a Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen one... I still have one left too.. where on earth I'm going to use it I don't know! Then I added some co-ordinating tags from my kit and some stickers then I finished it off with a cluster of embellishments and some hand made flower rosettes. 

I just really wish I could remember which year this set of old photos came from! I must ask my friends and see if they can remember.

Anyway.. Thanks for stopping by.. See ya all soon!

Elaine
x

Freebie give away prize winner

Good morning all

I bet you all thought I'd forgotten that I said I would do a free prize draw for followers of my blog.

I am so pleased to say that I grew my followers from a mere 16 to 30.. I'm so glad you're all able to join me! 

So here goes... The winner is ....drum roll please.......Karen Leonard! Well done Karen..thank you so much for joining my merry band of followers.

Please PM me your email address and I will send you your package. 

If anyone reads this that knows Kaen, please let her know too and I will post off her prize ASAP.

Congratulations Karen and thanks again to all my followers.. I couldn't do this without you!

Elaine

Primary colour LO for CKCB colour challenge no. 5

Good morning all

Here is todays weather report! Wet and windy... hrmmph! So here I am posting another LO that I have made this morning before my dear husband was even out of bed..lol

As part of the CKCB NSD challenges.. one was to use just three primary colours.. and NO WHITE! 

Now some of you may realise that white is one of my current favourite background CS choices so I was up against it from the off... but here I have managed to use just three colours! Yellow, Red and Navy blue.

As it so happened I knew exactly which photos to use as I have recently re-found my sons firefighter 'passing out' photos.. and these are just perfect for this challenge. 

Next I chose a sheet of yellow woodgrain paper to use and I found some red letters that have been languishing in my stash for waaaaaaaaay too long. 

I used an old sketch (121) from the Creative Scrappers blog as the basis and added some extra yellow chipboard elements. Since I photographed the LO I have straightened the banners peeping out behind the top photo (luckily I'd used wet glue!) 

As I rarely use primary colours, I had to dig deep into my stash for these bit and pieces but I am pleased to have been able to use up some old stash. So thanks for the challenge CKCB designers... here it is if you too want to play along!

Be back later with another couple of LO's from the challenges set last weekend... bye for now!

4th LO with my May Madness CKCB kit

Morning all... An early start for me today as I woke up early.. So here is this mornings LO created for design 114 on the Sketchabilities blog where I used this sketch and ScrapStuffz 'Inspired' challenge. 

Here is my take on them.

First I took some plain white card stock and splattered some lilac shimmer mist on to it, then I used Cosmo Cricket 'Tea For Two' pps to create the basis. The observant among you will have noticed that I didn't have any lilac or mauve CS in my kit, so I added a sheet here to double mat the photos on.

I then used a laser cut doily to tuck behind the pps and then mounted the photos onto the background. I fussy cut some labels from the same range of papers and tucked behind two of the photos and then added sparkles, flowers and a butterfly. I finished off with the title that is Amy Tangerine foam letters that I inked to co-ordinate with the flowers.

The photos were taken at Wisley RHS garden last spring when they had a Butterflies in the Glasshouse exhibition. These orchids were so pretty that I felt they deserved a LO all of their own to show them off, although if you look carefully you will see there is a butterfly on the large photo on the top left..it is so well camouflaged that you can barely see it.

I also matched this up with the inspiration photo over on ScrapStuffz blog which gave this photo over their blog to inspire me.. which obviously it did!

Thanks for looking! Come back soon to see what else I've been up to!

Elaine

3rd 'May Madness' Layout

Hi again

As promised here is my third LO created with my CKCB kit, May Madness.

It is another one used from my UKS House challenge, use a Winnie the Pooh quote. In this instance I used ‘Thanks for noticing me… I really appreciate it’  

This photo is another one of my dog Basil.. who has this knack of making you think he’s hard done by.. (which of course he’s not!!) I have always said that when he sits like this he looks like Eeyore and has the saddest eyes!

Of course, it was therefore perfect for my challenge over on UKS and I had fun creating this with my CKCB 'May Madness' kit.

Firstly I inked the edges of a large tin lid for the circle and ‘stamped’ it down. I then added some of the Kaisercraft Odyssey paper and stamped the ‘chicken wire', punched a strip of co-ordinating paper to sit beneath the photos, layered the photos on top, and added some more stamped circles finishing it off with several Kaisercraft matching butterfly embellishments and a swirl of black gems and finally some black Pearl Pen ‘blobs’ that I flicked several times on the reverse until they went flat (so they look like enamel dots).

I enjoyed getting messy with this one and I hope you like it too.

May Madness Winnie The Pooh quote LO

Good morning all

A wet and miserable day here in my corner of the world and I have to work, so today I’m bringing you a layout I created on Saturday when at my recent crop.

 The sketch I used (left) is one based on one over at Stuck?! And I used my CKCB kit ‘May Madness’.

Over on UKS this month my 'house' has set a challenge to use a quote from Winnie the Pooh.. and, as I live very close to the ‘birthplace’ of Winnie, the Ashdown Forest,  this is a challenge close to my heart so I decided to make two examples.. (the other one is to follow later) as you can see, I used ‘It’s not much of a tail, but I’m sort of attached to it’ which is, of course, a quote from Eeyore.

I decided to use a background piece of white cardstock and punched all around the page with a borrowed Martha Stewart punch (sorry I don’t know the name) and used Echo Park papers for the basis of the sketch, added a piece of a tape measure, some sequins and brads and finished it off with a MME ‘Collectable’ fancy Brad from my March CKCB kit. Waste not, want not after all!  

I added the title from the matching Echo Park sticker sheet and punched the exclamation marks with the MS fan punch, using the shaped part of the fan to create movement… (his tail never keeps still when there is a ball around- which there was in this shot)

My little dog Basil features in both of these Winnie LO’s so if you want another peep at that LO, do pop back later to see what I’ve been up to!

 

See you soon!

 

 

NSD with Counterfeit Kit blog

Afternoon all

Another lovely day here in my corner of Kent.. but of course with all the lovely challenges that those fab designers over on the CKCB I couldn't bring myself to miss out on all the fun.. so instead of heading out into the garden, as I did yesterday, I tucked myself away to play with my stash instead!

Now, the first challenge here that caught my eye was one that used NEON colours.. yes.. you read it right! Neon!! At first I thought there was no way I was going to use neon... but of course, a challenge is just that.. a challenge! So I dug deep into my pile of photographs and found the perfect photo to use with neon.. one of my dear Sons passing out day as a firefighter in 2011. 

As you can see it has the neon yellow and orange stripes on the back of the fire engine so I was halfway there already! 

Next I chose a sketch and there was the perfect one here on Sues Blog and then I found a dotty stencil and inked lots of large and small multi coloured dots to the background cardstock.. then, of course, I needed more neon.. so I found a bright pink post it note.. and used that as tabs behind the photo... some 'year planner' stripes from my very, very old stash and a hand cut sun coloured with a yellow highlighter pen, (using a left over water coloured circle from my March kit) and I was almost there.. a couple of 'blobs' of pearl pen and a colourful title and I was relatively satsified. If I'm honest it's not one of my favourite LO's but I've scrapped a long forgotten photo that is important to me, so for that I'm grateful.

I have several more LO's to upload that I created at my crop on Saturday..but for now.. I must get my roast chicken in the oven as my dear Mum is on her way over for lunch! So do remember to pop back soon... let me know you've visited and I'll soon pop on over to your blog to see what You've been up to too!

Happy Bank Holiday Monday everyone!

Counterfeit Kit May Madness

Good morning all

It is a lovely sunny day here in my corner of the world and of course today is (Inter) National Scrapbooking Day.. I have a crop planned and aim to be joining in with all those talented designers over at the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog. I understand they have several challenges planned so I'm hopping over there today to glean more inspiration. 

But.. first I'd like to share with you my new 'May Madness' kit, which, as you can see, is quite sizeable. This is because the crop I'm going to later is an 8 hour one.. two hours longer than usual, so I hope to get plenty done today and for the coming month. 

I finally feel as though I'm 'getting the hang' of this blogging 'lark' and am joining in with many sketch and colour challenges that I find on this wonderful world of blogging... we are so lucky to to have such a wealth of talent in the world that are prepared to share their creativity.. thanks to all of you that provide such wonderful blog posts!

I took inspiration from the colours from the sample kit to the left and then built from there.

The colours that jumped out at me were yellow and pinky-red. I had a good rummage through my stash and picked out a kit..but then when I laid it all out to photograph it I realised it was far too autumnal for my liking so I had to resign a lot of the papers to the 'reject' pile... and I dived back in for some different, paler colours to brighten my kit. 

As you can see it is bumper kit but as I had to add to my kit last month I didn't want to fall short again... so here goes.

I've added lots of stickers and alphas as these were replacements for the ones that were lacking in my stash.. I just knew I had a globe somewhere.. but could I find it..NO! Maybe I will by the end of the month.. 

Anyway, to finish it off I added these embellishments too

I'll be back soon to show you my creations.. hope you all have fun on NSD. 

Take care.