Royal Wedding Day

I am a real fan of the Royal Family. I went to London for the Queen Mother's funeral and found the experience very moving. I also love an excuse for a party and I love an occasion so I'm childishly excited about the events today.

My neighbours are amongst those who have taken three days off work and gone away for eleven, which is a real pity since we live in a quiet cul-de-sac and a street party would have been a lot of fun. Not to be deterred however we strung bunting around the garden, made cupcakes with little union jack flags on them and cucumber sandwiches. We've got the posh crockery out and are preparing for to watch the Royal Wedding.

I merrily cut up scrap pieces of red, white and blue papers and arranged them in to the Union Jack. I gutted some Creative Imaginations kraft diecut paper and replaced the middle with some Sassafras 'Sweetly Smitten' pen pals paper that I bought at GoGo Getaway in March. Sadly most of the tea stained bits around the edges of the Sassafras paper were lost so I made a strong tea and put my own tea cup stain and some more splashes on the paper. The scraps of paper came from 'Cosmo Cricket 'Garden Variety- Strawberry fields', 'Sassafras 'Apple Jack- Discover' and Jillibean Soup 'Blossom Soup- Anejo Cheese'. I used red, white and blue cardstoke to make bunting and inked around the edges. The kraft journalling block is from the ScrapaGoGoMay kit and the alphas are from the Crate Paper 'Portrait' collection that I bought at the Getaway too. The lines on the Sassafras paper meant that I could do lots of journalling and the photo is of us enjoying our Royal Wedding lunch.

So whatever you're doing today, I hope that you have as much fun as I intend to have :)

May Kit: New Beginnings

This layout uses the fabulous corrugated elements and Kirsty's hybrids designed especially for the ScrapaGoGo May Kit. I decided that since there were lots of houses then it was about time I scrapped my moving house photos from 2008. This was following my divorce when I moved out of my marital house and into my current home. Ironically one of the complaints that my ex-husband had about me was that I care too much other people think about me. That was ringing in my ears as I wrote the journalling off the back of being criticised for not including journalling on my layouts recently. I don't know the critics but it hit me and I journalled, even though these are personal recollections.

Although it was a difficult and stressful time it was also one of hope and happiness. Therefore I wanted the LO to have a bright and colourful feel to it and I coloured the corrugated houses, using acrylic paint, to match the hybrid house border. I painted some with the flat side up and some with the corrugated side up and stuck them in a straight line across the top of the LO. I then cut out the hybrid houses and positioned them along the bottom of the corrugated houses. All the flowers and hearts are cut from the packaging of the Basic Grey tabs and stuck around the houses.
I used the hybrid field and sun in the bottom left hand corner with a painted and inked tree and a little butterfly cut from the packaging. The title also comes from the hybrid. I didn't have enough 'g' on the hopscotch alpha so had to make some out of other letters. They are inked to help cover that up. And then I journalled my story. Is the LO richer for it? I'll let you decide that for yourselves...

May Kit: Garden Gnomes

Continuing with my ScrapaGoGo May Kit layouts, here's 'Garden Gnomes'. This layout is using a photo from 2007. We had a big house with lots of garden and I seemed never to be able to get on top of it. Every morning Connor would be awake early and we'd head out there before it got too hot. I'd weed and tidy and plant and Connor would eat the mud!
I really like the labels in the May kit and decided to use a few on this LO. I didn't realise quite how wonky the title was until I took a photo of it. Serves me right for not using a ruler and pencil to get it straight. The white splatters are acrylic paint. I splashed it liberally over the LO and used it to outline the edge of the LO too. Once it was dry I put the other elements on the page.

It's not long now until Grab it day and there are some sneaks on the blog :)

Scrap Factor Week 2

The layouts based on adverts gallery is now open for voting on UKS and it's another gallery full of delights. We are allowed to share a sneak peek of our layout so here is mine.

Scrap Factor Week 1

So the UK Scrappers Scrap Factor week 1 challenge was to use this colour palette. I'd taken some photos of Connor with the blossom outside the house that worked well so I dug out some pretty papers and got scrapping. The challenge for me with this colour palette as using the pink but I had taken some photos of Connor with the blossom outside the house at the weekend and the pinks of the blooms and the blues of his t-shirt worked I thought. I tried to bring the flowers from the photo onto the page with a mixture of flower buttons, paper flowers and some leaves and fronds. Then to boy it up a bit, I used some denim but attached it with pink staples to keep the colours flowing. I had fun using lots of different manufacturers products and my trusty old dictionary (bought from Oxfam about 3 years ago) got an outing again.

Contestants were asked not to share our layouts until the voting had closed. I was very grateful to everyone who voted and that I stayed in the competition. I'm having great fun with the challenges and trying not to let party poopers spoil that.

Voting opens for Week Two today and the competition is intense. Check out the gallery.

Supplies:
Sassafras 'Starters- Intro'
Sassafras 'Sweetly Smitten- Dainty Sketch'
Sassafras 'Count me in- elementary'
Webster's Pages 'Trendsetter- Style105'
Webster's Pages 'Trendsetter-Leaders'
Crate Paper 'Emma's Shoppe- Fabrics'
Glass flower (local bead store)
Denim
Tattered Angels 'Glimmer Mist Chalkboard- Peacock'
Crate Paper eclectic buttons 'Portrait' and 'Emma's Shoppe'
WeRMemory Keepers 'Seweasy floss- aqua' (ScrapaGoGo February kit)
Making Memories coloured staples
Silver Sewing Machine
Prima flocked alphabet
American Crafts 'Lullaby- charcoal'
American Crafts 'Delight-Watermelon'
Webster's pages 'Storytellers- nature'

May Kit: Happy Easter

Who doesn't love Easter Sunday? My little boy loves that he's allowed to eat chocolate for breakfast on Easter Sunday and the Easter bunny seems to have been extra specially generous this year. We live opposite a nature reserve that is very popular with dog walkers. I went ahead and planted a whole lot of eggs in trees and the grass and then let Connor loose with a bucket. He had a whale of a time finding them all and was so excited. I was excited when the May kit arrived from ScrapaGoGo. The colours were perfect for some spring fun.The May kit was wonderful to work with for this layout. It's full of spring colours and there are so many colours in the papers that any photos would work well. I used a piece of Bazzill Basics Cardstock Straw for the base and sploshed some paint across it with a paint brush. Then I hand cut the strip along the top from the Crate Paper Neighborhood Picnic paper and used foam squares to lift it from the paper. The Maya Road Chipboard Tag Coasters are covered in patterned paper with the photos stuck on top and then attached to the strip at the top. I love all the cute flowers and bees from Crate Paper Neighborhood Garden so I hand cut them and added the detail around the LO too. The stamp is going to be relevant to so many situations. It was great for this LO because we kept saying 'look high and look low' when Connor missed the eggs :) I added it to the bottom corner to remind us. The bunting is cut from the Crate Paper Neighborhood Picnic paper too. I thought they captured the festival of the Easter egg hunt perfectly. And of course no Easter LO would be complete without a a really cheesy title, which I added using the fabulous Basic Grey Hopscotch Alpha Stickers.

Happy Easter everyone.

More May musings

The May kit from ScrapaGoGo 'Over the hills and faraway' is another one of those kits that you want to play with again and again and since I got it on Tuesday I've made five layouts. I still have lots left for my Month in Review and I bought the add on kit'Around the Houses' to use for my Chinese Whispers lifts once I get them next week. It's fab for Easter photos and the photos of late Spring and early Summer, especially with all the sun we've had recently.

This layout was inspired by Piradee. I love that I could use small amounts of patterned paper but get a lovely colourful and interesting layout at the end. The photo is of Connor all ready for the Royal Wedding. Because I'm getting married this summer he got a bit confused and thought that it was my wedding, the Real Wedding he said. I think that mine will be on a slightly smaller scale :) I though that he looked really patriotic in his new t-shirt from Grandma so that was my title.

Thanks for stopping by

May Kit

Well I finally chose my advert and created my layout for Scrap Factor this week. But then I looked at the UKS Scrap Factor 'Playing along' gallery and wow, the layouts are good! I'm wondering if mine is too simple. I love it but we'll see.
On more a more positive note, my May kit arrived from ScrapaGoGo on Tuesday. It's stunning and full of wonderful Spring colours. I have so many photos of Connor from when he was little that I've not scrapped yet that I decided to remedy that with these photos of Connor when he first started crawling.

I cut the patterned papers at a slant and used them around the edges of the LO and to make paper beads. I threaded the paper beads onto the twine and hung them under the main photo.

I couldn't resist cutting some of the creatures and flowers out of the paper too and layered them up around the photos and on the layout.

The Prima flowers are so cute too. It's another kit I can't get enough of. I made three layouts on Tuesday evening so there are more to share later in the week.

Scrap Factor Week 2

The gallery is up on UKS for people to vote on your favourite LO and it's a hard choice! The challenge was to use the colour palette and here's a sneak peek of my LO. This week's challenge is to use an advertisement as inspiration. Here's my initial thoughts on that theme... This is funny. I like how the main photo is across the middle of the page and there could be embellishments underneath. It would be good to have a large photo across the bottom of the page. A good multi photo LO. Could use three photos here and use those great colours too. This just made me smile :) And this one ;) I like the border around this one. Time to get the thinking cap on... x

Chinese Whispers

I've taken a few photos of Connor this last week because of it being the holidays and being out a bit more. I also have some quotes that I like so I used the photos to record these pearls of wisdom: "Good parents give their children Roots and Wings. Roots to know where home is, Wings to fly away and exercise what's been taught them". Dr. Jonas Salk “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Frederick Douglas These two LOs are my Chinese Whispers offerings using the April kit from ScrapaGoGo. Earlier in the month I wrote a blog post on the ScrapaGoGo blog about how many LOs I could create with the kit. I had created 6 LOs by then. I've created another 3 since then and I have kit left for a tenth one too. That's great value I reckon!

Month in Review Catch up

I've had a chance to catch up on my scrapping a bit this weekend and I have done February and March Month in Review LOs. February (using the ScrapaGoGo kit from February- Happiness Is) was the month of Valentine's Day, Chicken Pox and Connor's addiction with the Wii starting. The main photo shows Connor with a heart balloon. The other photos fold out from behind this photo. For the March LO (using the ScrapaGoGo kit from March) I used my favourite techniques from the other design team girls. I loved what Sheena and Eileen did with the Jillibean sprouts and the bakers twine and I loved what Nicola did with the BG doilies and some ink so those are both included. Kirsty had matted her alphas on cardstock and it look fab so that gets an outing too! March was a busy month of Birthday's, Red Nose and Pancake fun and a retreat. I've even prepared April's LO all ready for the photos :)

Audition pieces

The gallery is open so I can share with you the three LOs I created for the UKS Scrap Factor Auditions. First up is the LO about me using the photo that Kirsty Wiseman took of me that weekend. I can't tell you how much I love the April kit from ScrapaGoGo and I used it for this LO. I bought loads of yummy products at the GoGo Getaway and have used them for the next two LOs. Lots of lovely Crate Paper 'Toy Box'. The first LO is the one without a photo and I've scrapped Connor's first attempts at writing his name. And then there's my double LO to record a conversation that Connor had. Last night I put together my week one LO together and am pleased with it. Tonight it's the survival LO but I really hope that I'll not need it this week :)

I've got the Scrapfactor!

I was really excited when UKScrappers launched a ScrapFactor competition. You can imagine my excitement this evening when I found out that I'm one of the contestants. And not only that, but I get to run along side two of my GoGo team mates Nic and Kirsty :) So much fun! (Have I watched too much Miranda do you think?) Sadly that means that I can't share the layouts that I created for the competition though and I thought I would be able to today because I'd be out. But how about some sneak peeks... A layout without a photo. A double page layout using Crate Paper 'Toy Box'.

Yes that is the yummy April kit you see there, just perfect for scrapping a LO about me!

This week's theme is 'Colour Challenge' and I have to use a colour palette to create a LO by Friday morning. It's got pink in it- eeekkk!