200 Glass jars LO for the CKCB Hop

Hi all

Welcome to the CKCB Blog hop- With luck you should have found me from Crafty Chrissy here .   

For this challenge, we were tasked to create a LO using one of the CKCB blog challenges posted this month....now... me, being me, I have already had a go at some of the other challenges and posted them previously...however, when I saw the challenge asking us to use 'containers' within our LO, I simply KNEW which photos I would use as I've been looking for an excuse to use them!

Last year, as you may already know as I had blogged about it before,  I held a pre-wedding garden party for my son who subsequently got married last June. I had a great time making decorations for the party, pom-poms, bunting, banners, paper chains and the like.. but most importantly, I knew the party would go on into the evening, so I had to think of a way to light the garden too. 

With a lot of help from my friends, who graciously helped me collect them, I 're-purposed' 200 glass jars... jam jars, pickle jars, sea food jars..you name it.. if it fitted a candle I took it! Gratefully!

I then decorated each one with lace, washi tape, netting, ribbons, tulle etc and placed a candle in each to lead the way up the garden. It looked so pretty during the day and evening... I'm just glad the English weather was kind to us.

Anyway.. that's the story behind the photos.. so now on to the LO.. which is, I'm sure, the main reason you are popping by!  Here it is! (sorry the photo is a bit wonky!)

First I chose the background from my January Counterfeit Kit.. I chose the pale mottled aqua sheet that I still had complete in one piece. Then I took the piece of red and pink striped Christmas paper from the kit and matted my photos on to this. It is a bit Christmassey really, but I hid it with the photos that I had left a white border on. I then took a piece of patterned paper with small triangles on it, and cut it into a wide banner to go across the photo mat, two thirds of the way down.  I then layered a doily on to that, cut two red labels out of some scrap and set it all in place.

And then.... I went off piste..... Well you have to sometimes don't you??.. you just know you have the perfect piece of paper to go with your LO, that you didn't think to include in your kit in the first instance. So I dug out a piece of American Crafts Dear Lizzy paper and cut two mason jars from it, adhered it to the banner with a label and added some Cosmo Cricket stickers from my stash and a couple of fabric covered wooden butterflies.

To make the title I added white foam letters, but it didn't stand out enough, so first I dabbed an ink pad on them, but that colour wasn't dense enough so I used Pro-Markers to colour the letters instead, used some ribbon from my stash for the tags and added my journaling block, some bling and a couple of pins and I was done.

Here are some more close ups of the jars and my journaling and a photo of the garden 'all dressed up' too.

BTW if you are wondering where I got the idea for the LO, I used a sketch from the 'Stuck?!' blogspot.. do remember to have a look at their blog next time you too are 'Stuck?!

Have a good day everyone and do leave me some comments.. it'll make my day! Thanks for looking...now please hop on over to Dawns BlogSpot for some more major kit smashing!

1975 Layout for Creative Scrappers Challenge

Happy Monday everyone! How's your day so far?

Mine has been quite eventful so far! As some of my regular visitors will know, I recently re-organised my entire craft room and blogged about it here back in December. However, having decided to market our home, I thought I needed to show the room as a bedroom, rather than a craft room.. so a mammoth re-organisation occurred ... again! 

Suffice to say, I have now moved the entire contents of my ex-craft room to my new space (a mezzanine above my bedroom) and today I spent almost the entire day sorting it all out..! Needless to say the urge to 'create' struck me when I was coming across all my lovely goodies.. so here is my take on the Creative Scrappers Sketch Challenge

Now... I love a good sketch and of course, I love UK Scrappers.. so when Maggie set a challenge over on UKS that had to include triangles.. well it just made my day as it fitted this challenge so perfectly. Thanks Maggie! 

Anyway... here is my layout...I have to say that the journalling irks me somewhat, so that will be typed and re-done at some point, but for now I'm OK with it as it is, until my new printer is set up and I can do it the way I want it. I used a random sheet of paper for the background and some scraps of Carta Bella papers together with some embossed red card stock and some brown too. I finished it off with some strips of gems, wooden arrows and some co-ordinanting flowers and it's good to go! 

Photos of the new craft space will appear in the fullness of time, but it's not quite ready for 'showing off' yet (wonder if it's 'cos I stopped sorting and stated scrapping instead!) ha ha ha... thanks for stopping by!

Another LO

Here is another LO using my kit.. I added a sheet of plum cardstock and some embellishments but other than that I used the turquoise PP as a mat for the large photo and some more for the two layered mat for the journalling block on the bottom right. I used some scrap blue and red CS from the kit for the small banner and cut the hearts from a piece of scrap left from the paper that I added for my last LO.  The turquoise PP actually has holly leaves on it and come from a Christmas kit but you can't see that by using it as a mat. 

I used Cosmo Cricket small words for the journalling and I dyed two white paper roses to add along with the turquoise flower which I centred with a Candi Dot.

For ages I have had some Papermania grey letters with pale blue dots on it which didn't really work with this LO, so I inked them with a Dew Drop inkpad and then used embossing powder on them to alter the colour to dark aqua. 

This fits with a challenge over on UKS that provided a sketch too. Thanks for looking. 

Two new Lo's with my Counterfeit Kit

Evening all...

Last night I spent a happy couple of hours whiling away the evening in front of the TV while hubby was at work again. 

Firstly I thought I'd do the weekly challenge over on UKS which entailed using a sketch and ensuring there was plenty of journaling. For this challenge I decided to use another of the wedding photo's from my sons wedding last year. This picture is of my Uncle and Aunt... he will be 80 this year and I am thinking of doing an album for him for later in the year.. so this is the first. As I said I used my Counterfeit Kit from their blog here. I used some of my Favourite Things kit that I blogged earlier in the month. Here it is .. I used some crown charms from the wedding table favours that I made with DIL before the wedding. Here is the link to my earlier blog about those. You can see the crowns and the journalling here. 

Secondly, I made a LO for the January Sketch Challenge over on Sue's Me and Mine Blog. It is a great site, why not pop on over and take a peek, she's always looking for more entries to her challenges. I made my centre piece larger than the example on her blog, but I got a bit carried away. I again used my Favourite Things Kit and chose to use the pink papers from the kit... for a change! I so often grab aqua, teal etc (especially all the wedding LO's that have been done in those colours) so it makes a nice change to scrap in a different colour. I confess I did use two extra sheets of PP to pad out the pink as I didn't have much in my kit. This picture is of my husband and I about 33 years ago shortly after we got married... I love his long hair in this.. although the detail s a bit fizzy now. I chose to curl up the tags along the top of the centre piece so I hope you can see that from the second photo.

Well that's about it for tonight.. if I get a chance to do some more LO's, I'll be back.. as Arnie says. 

Have a good weekend everyone. 

RYW Friday

Hello there... over on Virginias Blog, she encourages you to look back over the week to look at the positive side of life.

This week has been a good week on the whole, starting with Saturday when I was invited to a friends to craft with her. I made two LO's.. which I blogged earlier in the week. See below. I'm grateful for the invite and that the roads were clear enough of water for me to get through after all the flooding we've had.

Sunday was a nice day and we had my eldest son and his wife over for Sunday lunch.. a roast rib of beef.. which was delicious.. which is more than I can say for the turkey I cooked for Christmas.. so I was grateful for that! Here's my family before they had actually tasted the said Turkey! 

Monday was a day for chores...but it passed quickly so that's a bonus!

Tuesday saw my youngest son visit me from London.. so I'm really grateful for that.. although both he and my husband had their fire stations closed this week by the meglomaniac Boris Johnson! (I hate that man!) so they were both quite down. They have both kept their jobs though so that REALLY is something to be grateful for! 






Wednesday and Thursday passed in a whirl of work.. and today was another day of chores and getting my house ready to put on the market as we are downsizing soon.. hopefully! Now all I have to do is sell it... and then I will be really grateful... anyone want to buy a house?...... 

WOYWW

Wow! Not sure where the time has flown by to.. but its been a few months since my last post for Whats on your Workdesk Wednesday?

Today I was working but I was able to get this photograph of the current LO I am working on which is for the CKCB challenge here which entails some 'subway art'... which isn't Graffiti type lettering as you may expect but as it shows here on my LO.. with directional lettering, both vertical and horizontal. 

I am still to put the finishing touches to the LO, but it is halfway finished. I will post the finished LO for you to see tomorrow when I have finalised it. 

The sketch is from the Artful Challenge blog  for their January challenge. 

Be back tomorrow! 

Thursday!

Here I am again! I promised I'd be back with my completed layout.. and here it is... 

When I was little, aged 5, I was at a flower show with my Mum and there was a local newspaper journalist there. He did no more than ask me to sit beside the prize-winning Dahlia to have my photo taken. As you can see it was a very large dahlia! I think you can tell from my face that I was a little startled..but it was in the paper the following week and  my Mum still has the clipping somewhere. I managed to get a decent photograph of the original photo so I was able to scrap it without damaging the original. I have put some hidden journalling on a tag and I will slip it behind the picture to tell the story.

I hope you like! 

Happy New Year LO

A very happy Monday to you all on this very wet and windy day (again!) 

This weekend I had the good fortune to be able to craft with a friend at her apartment in Maidstone, Kent. Normally on the first Saturday in the month we both go to the same crop, but this month it was cancelled so I was very lucky to be invited to craft with her. She (Jo) put some finishing touches to a LO she was creating and has also resolved to finish off some of her unfinished LO's from 2013.

As for me, well I decided to have a go at the Scrapology January Challenge which challenged me to use a sketch they had provided and to use some buttons/ badges.

I loved the sketch and wanted to use some photos I had taken with my iPad (off the TV) of the fireworks in London on New Years eve. I think they came out rather well cosidering. The journalling says 'Welcoming in the New Year by the fireside' as I was safely ensconced in front of my woodburning stove, not standing freezing in London in the wind and rain. Lol

Anyway, as it happened I chose to only use on Flair badge.. which was daft as I am sure I could have found room for more. I was using my Counterfiet Kit for January from the CKCB too, so fortunately this has badges in it too. 

The papers are a randomly selected arrangement of PPs and the CS is more deep aqua than the blue/green that it looks like here..but here goes anyway.

Thanks for looking.

RYW Friday

Well!  Over on Virginias blog, Rock Your World Friday.. she gives thanks for all manner of things, ignoring the tumultuous weather that seems to have been 'rocking' most of our worlds over this festive season. Well done Virginia for being so positive.  One big thing I am grateful for is electricity! Having had a 36 hour power cut for all of Christmas Even and half of Christmas Day it makes you realise how much our lives rely on electricity. No internet, in my case no mobile phone because I need an electric booster to get a signal where I live, no TV, no cooker etc... not too bad during the day because I can craft in the daylight with no power... but by the evening it is not so much fun. We had a quick change of plan and had a last minute change of venue to my sons... so I'm grateful for that too.
New Year was uneventful for me because hubby was working but we did get out to see out friends on the 30th and we had a fun evening, so for that I'm grateful.
Unfortunately I have got an eye infection so I'm not too upbeat, but I am grateful for the doctor who gave me antibiotics anyway!
I'm also very grateful for some 'me' time on NYE and NYD when I was able to finalise my re-organisation of my craft space and create a kit for the Counterfeit Kit January Challenge and the first LO I have done with the kit I made up.. see my earlier blogs.
All in all a pleasant week (and a bit) so for that I am grateful. Thank you Virginia for making me look back over my week and making me pick out the positives... it is all too easy to dwell on the negatives in life... right.. now I'm off to take down my decorations. See you next week.

Ist LO using my Favourite Things Kit.

Well, it's blowing a hoolie out there, wind and lashing rain and the best place for me is tucked up in the warm in my craft room... so that's exactly what I've been doing. 


My dear husband is working so it's just me and the dogs so they can't complain so today is all about me. 

I have therefore just finished my first LO using my Counterfeit Kit, called My Favourite Things. 

Here it is.. co-incidentally I have used a photograph of my one of my favourite things too... the angel from the top of my Christmas tree. 

The journalling on the LO says 'She has graced the top of my Christmas tree for over 20 years. It wouldn't be the same without her. 

Here it is..

Thanks for looking

January Counterfeit Kit

After my last mammoth blog on my re-organised craft room, this blog is going to be very brief... but firstly I want to wish every one of you a VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR!
As part of my New Year Resolutions, I have resolved to be more creative, try new things, and don't get stuck in a rut... be a more regular blogger and enjoy my 'me' time.
To that end I intend to join in a few more challenges and I start with my old favourite The Counterfeit Kit challenge. This month they are counterfeiting Hip 2 be Square's December kit.
Here

......and here is my take on it which I am calling Favourite Things.. on the basis that I chose a lot of teal/turquoise which features heavily in a lot of my LO's.  Of course, I added pinks, reds and Kraft colours too.. and even some vellum, which I am hopeless with so it'll be interesting to see how that turns out. At least its a resolution to tackle.. how will I use the vellum?? I may have a snoop round You Tube to get some ideas. 


Unfortunately it is horrible weather today so the colour is rubbish, but given the conditions, I can live with it. The colours are much closer to the original in real life.

Here is another picture of the close ups of the embellishments I have chosen to go with the kit too. 

Now I'm off to load it on their blog and start using the kit... laters...

Thanks for looking!