Tiny Dancers

Good morning all!  I hope that you are all enjoying your weekend and being a little bit crafty :)

Today I'm sharing the challenge set by Rachel Millington during the Hey Little Magpie Challenge Weekend.  The challenge was simply to use paint and stitching.  I love paint and I love stitching so this one was a pretty good challenge for me.  I don't get to use a lot of pink so I decided that since the photo is black and white, I would treat myself.  This photo was taken at my sister's wedding last October.  It's my cousin's daughter and my sister's page boy doing some barn dancing and it's one of my favourite from the wedding album.  They only met that day but they danced so well together.

Tiny Dancers

To create this layout I painted using big strokes and a lot of paint both at the top and the bottom of the cardstock.  I also used a brighter pink to create some splatters of paint on top of the paler pink solid blocks of paint.  Once that had dried I used a sewing machine to stitch the circles. I always draw a circle in pencil as a guide but I often do more than one circle so that if it's not absolutely perfect, it doesn't show.  I decided to go with the musical link with some musical note patterned paper and the gorgeous pink flowers on a blue background, linked up with some Prima blooms, October Afternoon Stickers and washi tape from my stash.  I bought some enamel dots from Hey Little Magpie this week and they've gone on pretty much every layout, and this one is no exception. The layout is finished off with a title in Thickers and a little bit of journaling just to capture the date and venue. 

I'd love to see how you've used paint and stitching on a layout so please do link to it in the comments below :)

A Magpie Challenge

I'm pretty proud of myself this week.  I've managed to do all but two of the Hey Little Magpie Challenge Weekend challenges.  The other two aren't really my bag so I'm done!

This was Claire Fader's  challenge, which was to create a layout based on this advert:

It's a really interesting idea, isn't it?  For my layout I decided to go with strips of paper rather than a solid block.  I used some Prima and Glitz papers for this one along with Simple Stories stickers from their Say Cheese range since I was scrapping a photo of the boy and Donald Duck.  We went to Disneyland Paris last October and I thought that he would be too old to want to meet the characters but no!  He wanted to meet them all, which was lovely.  And it meant that I got loads of photos which can be a challenge now that he's older.

Totally Quackers

The balloons replace the bags hanging off the swish, or in this case the title, but I had to put them the other way around.  The layout is finished off with selection of October Afternoon and Simple Stories stickers.

I really enjoyed this one and am really interested to see all the different layouts that are being created from the same point of inspiration :)  If you're playing along, please feel free to link your blog in the comments so that we can see how yours turned out.

Have a great Saturday,

A look back

Next weekend I'm off to Wanborough for the autumn 48 hour crop.  Today I'm looking back at the class that I taught there two years ago.  I can't quite believe it was that long ago!

Catch of the day

The background of this layout was created using a piece of acetate, some distress inks and some water.  Firstly I put two complementary inks on the acetate, one hot and one cold.  Then I spritzed it with water and placed the acetate central to the page in a square.  You can see how the ink splodged out on the page.  I used the acetate to then create some panels by stamping on to them with Staz on.  I love to cut out flowers from patterned papers and these are gorgeous colours.  

The photo is of the boy crabbing in Old Felixstowe.  It's one of my favourite photos of the summer.  It makes me want to go back and do some more crabbing :)  

I'm looking forward to teaching at the crop next weekend and have some lovely Bo Bunny papers to play with.  

Thanks for stopping by!

A mood board challenge

Don't you just love a mood board?!  This mood board is courtesy of Natalia on the Hey Little Magpie Challenge Weekend last weekend.  It's gorgeous isn't it?

I absolutely love birds and these colours are beautiful.

I found some fabulous paper in my stash from Webster's Pages.  It's one of those that I wish I'd bought two pieces of because I couldn't decide which side to go for but in the end I decided it had to be the yellow side with a navy bird in the bottom left hand corner.  I also love the distressed look of the paper.

My photo is layered up on top of some journalling cards from Fancy Pants, along with a doily, some tickets and some old slide mounts.  The colours of the mood board reminded me of some gorgeous flowers that I have in my stash from Prima and the birds had me reaching for my Studio Calico wood veneer birdies.

  

I tore the bottom off the layout and used a border punch to create a frilly layer beneath the yellow patterned paper.  The layout needed some contrast with some darker elements so I added some black sequins and some 7 gypsies rub ons.  And here is the final layout, 'Gorgeous Boy', which is what my mum calls my son.  This photo is taken in the bath.  The boy has a look that I know very well.  It is his tired face.  But he always loved his bath and didn't like to get out until he wanted to get out.  Luckily he was small enough for me to just lift out when I saw this look.  Unlike now!

I really enjoyed this challenge and was inspired by the mood board.  Do you create your own on pintrest?  

Christmas paper in September

Hello again :)  Thanks for stopping by.  Today I'm continuing with my reveal of my Hey Little Magpie layouts from the Challenge Weekend.  

This challenge was from Nancy who said, "So the challenge is, if you wish to accept it, is to make a non-Christmas themed page using Christmas stash."

I found these little photos that were previously in a photo frame around a mirror.  The photos on the left hand side of the layout are from my honeymoon and from the day after my boy was born depicting our first family lunch.  Both of those were lovely moments in my marriage.  The photo on the right is of my boy when we first took him home, wrapped up in his crib.  And whilst the marriage didn't last, my role as a mum will go on forever so I called this layout...

Short lived, long lasting.

My first challenge was to find some Christmas stash.  It's not something that I often buy and I was really surprised to find this cute range, Bundled Up, from Crate Paper.  Not only a Christmas range but also very pink for me!  Perhaps I couldn't resist those cute little snow angels ;)  

The papers are teamed with the following embellishments:

• My Minds Eye, My Story Chipboard buttons
• Crate Paper, Pretty Party Fabric and Epoxy Brads
• American Crafts, Christmas bits (die cut wood pieces)
• October Afternoon stickers from various collections
• Studio Calico die cut frames
• A tag
• Some tiny wooden butterflies
• Two star pins
• Two cabochon roses

I really enjoyed this layout and using small photos.  It meant that there was more space on the page to load up with embellishments.  The reindeer sort of works with the boy who is,  after all,  is 'deer' to me :)  

What do you think?  Does it work?

Long Time, No See!

Well, it has been quite some time since I blogged.  One of my new (academic) year's resolutions was to sort out my work life balance and find time for the things that I enjoy.  Obviously one of the things that I enjoy is scrapbooking and it's such a good way of relaxing too.

What a good time to start scrapbooking again!  Thank you Hey Little Magpie for putting on a challenge weekend.  I'll be catching up on the challenges over the next couple of weeks and telling the stories behind the layout on my blog.

I didn't do the challenges in order for some reason, so Challenge 2 came from Jen Naulls and was to make a page or project using black, white and one other colour.

Le Tour

I have so many photos that I want to scrap and the pile certainly doesn't get smaller so I deliberately went for a couple of photos from 1994.  The photos are taken from the time that the Tour de France came to Hampshire.  As a venture scout I was asked to marshal the event (along with my fellow venture scouts, Natasha and Vicki).  It was a long day of standing and the crowds got larger and larger until the racers descended.  You could hear the whir of wheels from a distance but blink and it was all over!  Those cyclists serious flew by in a blur of colour and metal.

I love yellow so I instantly picked these photos out as some that I could pick out the colour from to use in this challenge.  I used a Tim Holtz arrows mask and Wendy Vecchi white embossing paste to create the background.  If you followed me of old then you will know how much I love stickers and there are plenty on this layout, all from October Afternoon, some of which are still available at the lovely Papermaze.  The brads and buttons are from an old Crate Paper collection.  I think that brads have gone out a bit recently but I really like them for adding a bit of depth to a layout and I really like these from Hey Little Magpie that might just fall in to my basket!  The word fun is from the Freckled Fawn Words collection and the little bikes from Studio Calico, all in wood veneer.

Getaway!

I am a little tired today. The reason being is that I couldn't sleep last night! I was too excited about this weekend :) In about three hours I'll be arriving at Theobald's Park for the 8th GoGo Getaway and I can't wait. I can't wait to see my fellow team mates, the delegates and to unveil the classes that they'll be taking over the course of the weekend. Over the weekend delegates will take seven classes. Here are some sneaks of all those classes;

I'm teaching three classes this time around, 'How Tweet! How can you resist', 'Life's a Beach (with a capital 'B')' and 'Through and Through'.

If it's anything like October's Getaway there will be a lot of laughter, a lot of creativity and not a lot of sleep. If you're joining us this weekend I shall see us there, and if you're not then why not book for 2013? It's one experience everyone should have :)