CKCB Blog hop - Challenge No 1

Good Morning everyone! 

Welcome to my part of the CKCB Members' Blog Hop. You should have come from Lesleys Blog here

Challenge #1 was to take inspiration from Ugly Jumpers!! Yes you heard me... Ugly Jumpers! Now.. I was, when I first saw this, a little perturbed by the challenge as I knew I had one of those shameful pictures somewhere.. and I had never wanted it to see the light of day.. and that was the way I was going to keep it! 

However... my UKS housemates had other ideas! Once I mentioned I had one lurking in a drawer somewhere I was not going to get away without sharing it! So here it is.. in all it's ugly glory! 

The story behind the jumper is  simple... I was invited, through my job, to a local Solicitors 'Do'... they host a Christmas bash every year.. and in an effort to be seen that solicitors do have a sense of humour (!) they wanted us to all come in a Christmas Jumper! Well, I'm glad to say I don't actually 
own a Christmas jumper.. and I wasn't about to buy one for something that would only be worn for two hours! So.. I decided to make a panel and sew it onto a nice simple black jumper. Sounds easy.. right?  Err Err...Wrong! 

Anyone that knows me, knows I don't DO any form of sewing.. why? Easy.. because I'm useless at it.... seriously.. I got an 'Ungradeable' for my Needlework exam back in the day.. and things have not got any better in the ensuing years! 

Anyway.. long story short... I ended up half sewing half gluing the panel (left) and then pinned it to my jumper.. actually I was secretly quite pleased with the results.. until I went to work and saw what my colleague had done! I was completely and utterly outdone! 

She had made this adorable applique panel (she obviously didn't get an ungradeable in her needlework exam!) and had even photographed one of our For Sale boards (I'm an Estate Agent) and incorporated it into her design! I was totally outshone! 

Needless to say it was all taken in good humour and.. amazingly, in my view, she didn't win the bottle of champagne that was 
the prize on offer... another HIDEOUS jumper won that was the tackiest, nastiest one in the room... you know the sort of thing.. tinsel, baubles and etc, etc all pinned on won it. 

Anyway.. so here it is.. the shameful example of my handiwork.. oh the shame!! LOL!

I used a Spellbinders die to cut the red and white poinsettias and used scraps from my kit on a piece of dotty Bazzil cardstock also in the layout I included a tag with the whole story on the reverse and tucked it behind the bottom photograph. The LO was inspired by Creative Scrappers Sketch 261. 

Thanks for stopping by and now you should hop on over to http://www.karenscorneroftheweb.blogspot.com/

The full blog hop list will be published on the CKCB so if you get lost along the way, head over there to find your way back onto the hop.

Don't forget to leave me a comment to let me know you were here and happy hopping!

WOYWW

Sorry for the late post, but I had to work and this is the first chance I've had to load!

Here is my desk tonight

I was working on my weekly challenge over on UKS where we were tasked with creating a LO that featured a red cross as apparently  The International Red Cross was founded in this month in 1863.

In addition the popular British actor Richard Briers died this week last year. He was, of course, well known for his role in Ever Decreasing Circles (amongst others roles)  so we were asked to include circles or spirals.

As you can see I chose to add cross stitch stamped deer and I added buttons and bling spirals for the second element.

My desk is still quite clear from the tidy up I did last week...in fact I've made more changes and I have moved a shelving unit on to my desk too... But there's still room for more stash!

In addition I am pleased that I was able to use the dregs from my February Counterfeit Kit 'Hearts and Flowers' . I used a piece of red and white paper and made red and white card stock Poinsettias  with my Spellbinders die and added the bling and ribbon from my kit too, finishing 
off with some buttons and brads from it too. 


Here is a close up of the Red Cross stitch deer stamp I added and you can see the circles on the background card stock too. 

Thanks for popping by.. and sorry I'm so late!

CKCB Angled Background challenge

Good day one and all!

I hope all you UK visitors are all surviving the wet and wild weather (in the UK you may have heard we're experiencing the worst weather for many years!) if you're not in the UK.. I do hope you are dry and safe wherever you are.

This morning my priority was to keep out of the wind and get into my craft space to work on a LO for the Angled Background Challenge... so I did just that.

I started off with a piece of plain dark grey cardstock and added strips of patterned paper from my kit at angles that overlapped the edges. I then cut the square to 18.5 cm each way. I then matted my photo onto matching CS and adhered it to it and stuck that onto a piece of beige background CS along with another strip of the matching PP and a doily heart.

I then added some bunting that I had bought earlier in the week (and was perfect to add to my kit) along with two banners attached by brads. I cut a heart shape and then fussy cut the 'Life' from one of the Websters pages from my kit and added it to the bottom left of the photo.

I finished off with some strips of black bling and the title.

The photo was taken at a photo shoot that we did several years ago... it was such fun and I think you can see that from the smiles on our faces.

I give you my FAMILY! My Life!

Rocking your world Friday

Over on Celtic House Blogspot... Virginias blog, she has a regular column that inspires you to look back over the past week and record what you've been grateful for. 

The first thing this week I'm grateful for is Virginia! She makes me take stock so I realise that I have it very good..which is very easy to forget when sometimes things look black. 

Last week, I was so distressed at work that I typed up my letter of resignation and almost left my job. I managed to hold my tongue though and didn't resign and for that I'm actually quite glad... I had a far better week this week...so I still have a job... That's got to be good ... right? 

Then I am seeing terrible flooding everywhere in the UK.. I've never seen such terrible flooding in the UK and I have never been so grateful for living on top of a bloomin' great hill! 

I am also very pleased to be able to say that I have had a major tidy up in my craft room and can actually see my desk again.. So that's also very good... And it means I can actually make things and for that I'm very grateful. 

Like Virginia, my Dear husband has also been helping out my 83 year old mother.. He is such a treasure for doing her odd jobs, painting her ceiling, fixing her fence posts etc.. Not only am I grateful for that, but she is grateful too. 

Finally, I am grateful that I have made so many friends through UKS as I am meeting tow of them today at the Craft Barn in Surrey for a catch up and a shop, followed by lunch in a nearby eaterie. That's all good too..

So being so black last week and thinking I was going to be job hunting, has now been replaced by some happy things to look forward to and the realisation that I really do agave it good.

Happy Friday everyone.. Have a good week. 

WOYWW

Morning! Happy Wednesday everyone!

Regular followers of my blog will know that I recently had to move the entire contents from my craft room to another space as I had to reclaim my old craft room back into a bedroom (my house is on the market so I had to show the room as a bedroom, not a messy craft room! lol) 

I have therefore totally re-created my space. The light isn't anywhere near as good, but I am happy with the amount of space I now have..it is so much easier to wheel around my room getting to all my lovely stash.

To cap it off, yesterday, (when out shopping) I stumbled upon these two lovely sets of shabby chic drawers that were reduced to under half price (£19 each from £45) I would never have paid full price, but I think I've got a bit of a steal there.. pretty aren't they? 

Needless to say they are now full of yummy stuff (courtesy of a trip to Hobbycraft today).... I scoured every aisle and found lots of things that were reduced.. and didn't pay full price for one thing... I love shopping trips like that don't you? 

Having found these lovely new buys, I had to make space for it all, including the drawers, so this is the end result! 

What do you think? messy to some, but I know where everything is...( I think :0) )

So... you're probably wondering where my WOYWW post is..(I hope you forgive me for rambling on) but here it finally is! 

On my workdesk is a collection of papers from my 'Hearts and Flowers' Counterfeit Kit all ready for my Blog Hop later in the month.. tantalising isn't it? 

You'll just have to wait to see what I make with it all.. and which photo I will be using... but trust me it'll be worth it... it's a shocker! Do pop back later on in the month for a 'look see'. 

In the meantime, I will continue sorting and organising and hope to be able to share some more layouts before too long. 

See you soon and thanks for popping by!

Happy Wednesday! 

I'm on a roll!

Hey all...

it would seem as though I'm currently on a roll! No sign of scrappers block for me and today I have made yet another LO from my 'Hearts and Flowers' Counterfeit Kit. 

I logged in, as I usually do on a Monday morning, to UKS to see what new challenges have been set this week on there.

I couldn't believe my luck when this sketch.. 

was there with some 'rules' that said I had to use reds and pinks! Just perfect for my kit! 

I had the perfect photo for the sketch! Now all I had to do was take the time out to do it! 

As luck would have it I was home alone today, so I had the ideal opportunity to sneak up to my craft room to do just that. 

Here is the end result.. I think the photo was just perfect for this LO.. how about you?

Double page LO

Hello everyone..happy Sunday!

For once it's actually not raining so I started the day with a nice walk I the sunshine with my dogs. I took my camera with me today so I am sure the pictures I took will soon be appearing in a LO near you!

Anyway.. other than that I have made a further double page LO with this months Counterfeit Kit. I also doubled it up with a challenge over on UKS where we were tasked to take photographs of anything with words on it that we found around our house.

As you can see, I chose to use 'Live' and 'Home'.. as these are two signs I have in my B&B room where my guests stay. I decided to make a double page LO as I had several photos to scrap showing what the guests can expect when they stay.

Unfortunately, I cropped the photo a bit short...so you can't see the far right hand side of the LO...but there were no extra embellishments there...just the remainder of the PPS!

I used two of the Websters Pages sheets from my kit and added the airforce blue CS and used my Martha Stewart fan punch to create a block of colour as the PPS is so decorative. I added several of the embellishments I had picked to add to my kit and some blue paper roses on the border. I made a stacked trim with a 1" circle punch, added a pearlised button, then added an 1/2"
circle punch and topped off with a small square pearlised button tied with a small amount of bakers twine. Finally I added some flourishes of pearl dots and a white rub on together with the title.

I hope you like.

Before and after layout

Over on Sues blog, Me and Mine, she has set us a sketch challenge that instantly got me pondering! Normally I jump straight in and make a LO but this one had me stumped... I couldn't see how I was going to link the elements together, which is a style I prefer to use.
Here is the sketch...

In the end after a couple of days deliberating, I decided the simplest thing to do was to add a strip of pps behind the two photos and rotate the sketch. From there it all came together very quickly..under an hour all told.. While DH is having a lie in! Lol

Of course it also complies with MAs Blogbits over on UKS too, earning me extra points for my team over there too. If you're  a dedicated Scrapper we'd love for you to come on over and join us here on UKS.



And of course... I just had to make the LO using my Counterfeit Kit from the challenge blog here. Now, as you can see from my earlier post, I had included some chicken wire papers and die cuts, and I was determined to use them! I knew the photos I wanted to use were country scenes, so from there I went with the flow, adding both of the elements and some real chicken wire that a friend was about to throw away on Saturday and I scrounged off her ( I just knew it would come in handy! )

To finish off I used some snowy clouds, snowballs and wooden country animals and I was just about there. I had some Thickers that blended well with the LO, but they didn't jump off the page as they blended a little too well! So with a little inking around the edges, I added the title to my LO and voila.. Here it is. All finished...thanks Sue for the challenge and to CKCB for the inspiration for my kit.

3rd LO for the Counterfeit kit

Hi all

Today I'm using some of the smaller pieces of my kit to make this LO to fit with a challenge over on UKS. As February has 'br'  in the middle of it, the task was to use something to represent 'br'!

Well as many of you know we are having deluges in the UK at present..not a hint if snow or frost, so to find a photo that was representative of 'br' was a challenge in itself!

Eventually I dug deep and found a photo from 2010 of a low flying plane flying over some snow capped trees when we had a substantial amount of snow. I have always loved the photo because of the  juxtaposition of the new/modern against nature... So this is what I came up with.

I used scraps of the paler colours in my kit with one of the pale grey/ blue sheets of cardstock and layered the photo on top, adding bling and sparkle, as also requested in the brief.

Unfortunately my laptop is in for repair and trying to take a decent photo and loading it on my iPad is another challenge! So I'm sorry for the awful quality of the photo..but here it is nonetheless.

The sketch I used was from Stuck?! Blog here

Two CKCB Lo's

Good morning, good morning, good morning.. (she says springing in to the room like Tigger) (!) Lol
Why am I bouncing around like Tigger? Well.. I have to say A HUGE thank you (CKCB organisers) for choosing me as one of the top five designers for last months kit... it has given me a real boost to be called 'Absolutely Fabulous' darling! Ha ha ha

Moving on... here we are on another glorious morning (I'm joking of course, it's wet and raining AGAIN!) but fortunately for me, I am playing along on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog this month and I have something to while away the damp and dismal days... in fact their kit this month is so lovely, I just jumped right in and made up my kit on day one! Not only did I make the kit on day one, but I used it straight away and made two LO's immediately! A great way to use up your stash.. why not pop on over and take a peek how you can join in?

Anyways... the first of my two LO's feature on the basis of my 'Hearts and Flowers' Kit - a Websters Pages sheet from their 'All About Me' range of very pretty paper - this one is called 'This is Me' and I have made it all about my Uncle Maurice (Mo). He is a larger thanlife character and has always had a big place in my heart. He will be 80 later this year, and, unbeknown to him, I am making him an album for his big day. 

So here it is- I used very little embellishment as the paper said all it needs to in this case.. well I think so anyway- what do you think? The reason I used clocks for this photo is because it reminded me of Big Ben.. and as Maurice has the nickname of Big Mo it seemed appropriate really. I have yet to circle the date of his birthday..but other than that I am finished. 

Secondly I made another LO for my 'own' wedding album for my sons wedding last year. This one is made up of the Theresa Collins Memorabilia range of papers. I used a few other scraps from my kit too and added the chicken wire die cut. I finished with the ready made bird tag. It is carrying wedding rings and as my youngest son was the best man that seemed perfect for the page. 

I made these pages at a local crop I attend on the first Saturday in the month.. and this month a couple of the ladies had bought baskets of surplus goodies to sell on. The tiny hearts were in one of these baskets and so I nabbed a bargain! Very pleased with myself. The journalling says 

'These moments are so special with my 'boys'. I live for these times. No matter how old they are they will always be my 'boys' ' 

How very true that is! As this page will go in my own wedding album of the day I am not needing to journal the actual event, but sometimes I just want to record how special days like this are to me. Family is the greatest gift! 

Thanks for looking at my pages... there are plenty more to come with this gorgeous kit inspired by the CKCB. 

February Hearts and Flowers kit

Well it's that time of the month again! I can't believe we're already of a 12th of the way through the year already!!! Don't blink or it'll be Christmas all over again!

That said, the good thing about the way the year is running away with us is that it means there has been another 'reveal' over on the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog  and this month they've hit the nail on the head with a great Counterfeit Kit .. here  

As it's February they have gone down the 'Romance' theme with plenty of black and red with hearts... and although I am OK with using lots of those elements, I wanted my kit to focus a little less on the romance and a little more on the pale blue and blacks with a little red thrown in.

However, when I set about sorting my stash, I discovered I had a lot more heart elements that I expected.. probably because I have a lot of left over heart 'stuff'  from my sons wedding album last year... and, co-incidentally, left over from last months kit. 

First I set about finding the patterned papers. I discovered I had some very old Websters Pages paper that I had been wanting to use for some time.. as it had all the right colours on, I started with that and took it from there. I found some red and black heart paper, some red and white chevron paper and a few Theresa Collins Memorabilia range of papers. 

I then sorted out some pale blue, airforce blue, beige craft card and some dark grey card and I was there. I added a few left over scraps of the Websters Pages papers, one with pop out black frames and added a sheet of MME Lost and Found stickers and a few 6 x 6  papers (not sure of the brand).  Then I added some die cut chicken wire, clouds and hearts. 

For the embellishments I added some MME Lost and Found brads and enamel dots together with some red and black bling and stars and some Theresa Collins red patterned brads. I then added some tiny red ribbon roses, some small paper roses, red and black buttons and some black feather stickers. 

Finally I added a cadiz shell heart, some Prima pearl, gem and lace border trims, a metal frame, some heart charms, lacy flowers, adhesive pearls and two heart shaped doilies with  some red and white paper sparkly flowers. I finished it all off with two sets of Thickers.. one white foam and one grey and white set so I can alter them with the pen.

As it ended up as a romantic themed kit I decided to call it 'Hearts and Flowers'. Here is a close up of the embellishments too.  

Thanks for looking!