...and handmade too!

Scrapbook Challenges: March Madness

2012-03-13T09:00:00.000+01:00

...and it really is. Madness. They're pitting us DT against each other in a knockout competition where forum members can win big if they predict the right winners. It's dog eat dog, each woman for herself... and other fighting terminology that's suitably kick-ass for the level of this contest.

Get on over to the forum to find out what exactly it's all about, and how you can win big!

The (Mini) REVolution Event

2012-03-12T09:00:00.002+01:00

On Saturday I spent a fantastic day with Revlie Schuit, who had organised a day full of craft classes up in The Netherlands.

There was a great, cute mini album made from fabric and felt, and a Tattered Angels workshop by Birgit which was just amazing.

my workspace before things got messy

I am so glad I went - what an inspiring, creative day! I brought home so much from it - ideas, knowledge, a warm heart, a smile, new friends, some random Dutch vocab... not to mention two projects that are so far from being finished yet that I can't even show you!

Thanks, Revlie - I'll see you next time for sure!

Do YOU Want to Go Gauche?

2012-03-09T09:33:00.000+01:00

I recently made another card solely from my Gauche Alchemy stash, and this time* I managed to save the photo before my temperamental SD card deleted it:

a his n hers kinda card

After I’d made it, I staged it, and stepped back, camera at the ready… and stopped for a moment to admire it. Yep, I actually admired one of my own cards. Over the last year, my fingers have worked hard at scrapbooking, but neglected card making to the extent that I have now lost confidence in the art. But this Gauche card, to congratulate a Gauche kind of couple on their engagement, was a doddle. And I realised that it was the nature of the products that made it so easy: I hadn’t worried about composition, balance or the message; I’d just done. The process was so enjoyable because I hadn’t had all of this worry hanging over me and my fingers were free to do as they felt. It came together in less than 20 minutes, and is perfect for the recipients.

The great news is that throughout March, in honour of National Craft Month, Gauche Alchemy is offering 10% off everything** in their store – so drop by, browse and splash out!

What news could possibly beat that? Actually, this might: if you already love Gauche Alchemy and want it to be a bigger part of your life, check out their Design Team call. It runs until the end of March so make sure you get your application in by then! The Gauche Alchemy mamas are a feisty but caring & sharing group of driven yet fun-loving ladies, and the DT are a superbly creative and active bunch. You will feel welcome from day one, will be challenged and stimulated daily, and will without doubt feel proud to be part of this growing company.

I’ve got lots of Gauche stuff planned this month so while you’re browsing, buying or applying I’ll be working at reducing my GA stash. Enjoy National Craft Month, everyone!

* I have created a few other great GA cards in the past, using various Color Kits, and the Nearly Nekkid and Acme kits, but I’d put them in the post box before my SD card did the evil deed, and the recipients haven’t managed to take photos for me yet.

** Acme subscription kits are not included in this offer.

A Very Special Day

2012-03-07T14:00:00.001+01:00

Today I’d like to tell you a little story.

It was the height of the summer holidays, and a blazing hot, thirst-making kind of day. I was perhaps eight years old, and playing in the street with my friends, at the outskirts of the small town on the edge of farmland where my family spent a few years living the country life.

At some point that day, I came inside for a cold glass of refreshing lemonade, or maybe it was an ice-pop, and found my mum in the living room, listening to Kool & the Gang, knelt over a spread of fabric. There were chalk lines and scissors, pin cushions and thread, and panels ready to make up a dress for a little girl.

I can’t remember if she asked me to stop in for a while so that she could measure me; but I do remember the fabric: it was white, with large neon orange polka dots, and it was pretty much the same shape as the dress I’m wearing today:

Chery's cherry dress #2

And why am I wearing such a dress today?

Today is a very special day, because a very special lady is having a very special birthday.

Last night she was surprised by an unexpected visit from us, and today she is showing us her new craft room and opening cards and presents. She also doesn’t know that this afternoon we’re going to take her out for tea.

I made her a card, naturally:

Happy Birthday, Mum!

But I also made her a little something to hang on the wall of her new craft room:

that's right. Ain't no one else's craft room.

She loves Webster’s Pages, and things in the style of Cath Kidston and East of India, so I hope this little wall decoration will meet her tastes and match her craft room. The image you can see inside is from Crafty Secrets, and I chose it because, more than scrapbooking, cardmaking, flower arranging and baking, the strongest memory I have of my mum is of her at her sewing machine.

Cute, huh? All those little sewing elements are actually buttons. I just set to work on them with my glue gun and suddenly there was a miniature sewing basket fit for a doll’s house.

Having taken direction from All Things Thrifty, I spray painted this box instead of using acrylic paint and a brush:

the finish is much smoother. Now I feel confident to move on to big pieces of furniture!

a better view of the inside

Wishing you a very happy birthday, mum!

The Handmade Wedding

2012-03-05T09:00:00.003+01:00

You've all seen by now all the handmade things the wedding brought along - now it's time to scrap about it all!

The sketch this week at Scrapbook Challenges made me so happy about sketches and scrapbooking. It was one of those moments when you've been waiting to scrap a certain idea or certain photos for a long time, and one day the answer just pops up.

The sketch looks like this:

And after I put my page together it looked like this:

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #285

What I used for this page: Doodlebug Love Potion patterned paper, Echo Park Style Essentials Upscale Black Quatrefoil and Grey Dots & Stripes patterned paper, Echo Park Happy Days patterned papers & alpha stickers, Rayher wooden hearts and bobbins, Toga chipboard alphas.

Quite to my surprise, I'm building up our wedding album pretty quickly. And it's looking pretty sweet.

Get over to Scrapbook Challenges for this sketch, and all of the March Madness going on this month. As ever, you could win something for your participation!

Roots

2012-03-02T09:00:00.000+01:00

In the middle of a storm of user rights, copyrights, intellectual property rights, and generally a whole lotta difficulty, rumour, uncertainty and confusion, True XOXO has challenged its DT to be inspired by Pinterest this month.

And what did we do? Pushed on regardless. Inspiration and interpretation are ours this month.

Pinterest, for me, at least before this storm came a-brewin', firstly an explosion of visual stimulation, and secondly, a place where I dream about the house that we are currently looking for. From that angle I have scrapped a photo of our little family and how we are putting down roots in this here city, as well as incorporating aspects that I think are visually stimulating, like bright colours contrasted with dark ones, patterned paper shapes, and a little airplain effect that I'm already very fond of!

Go check out the new XOXO blog and join in with the challenge - you could win a guest DT spot!

I Go Out Walking...

2012-02-28T09:00:00.009+01:00

A little while ago I showed the sneakiest of peeks of a project I’m going to be working on all year. Well, today’s the day for the big reveal over at Gauche Alchemy!

I always knew I was collecting postcards for a reason. (Apparently I have a bit of a thing for them.) Turns out this is it. I used to have hundreds covering my bedrooms walls at university – you know, the kind they give out as flyers or adverts or art – but they were long gone, recycled in one of my fits of ruthless cleaning over the years. Now, each time we go to a bar or museum or someplace similar we pick up the interesting ones, and the collection was starting to add up again. So now is my chance to give them all a reason to exist! Read on…

My aim for this year is to make up a mini book, filled with 52 postcards, each of which is scrapped with a photo taken during a weekly walk, with each photo inspired by a weekly prompt. The idea’s not new, I know, but I did think that the Scrapbook Challenges forum could benefit from a year-long project like this, so that is where you can find the prompts and members’ responses to those prompts if you’re interested in playing along (some catching up will be required by now, but the load is not too much. Besides, the prompts are guaranteed to get you thinking!).

I WILL stick to this project

this Gauche Alchemy boot wasn’t made for walking, it was made for adorning my mini book

go out walking - you might find dinosaurs (or other exciting stuff)

I’ve been keeping to the programme on the photograph front, and I’m almost up to date on the scrapping, too. Here’s what I’ve done so far, photograph-wise:

Thanks to Gauche Alchemy and their eclectic array of products, I was able to pick and mix and create a cover for this mini book that was perfectly suited to the theme of going on walks and taking photos. Here’s how the cover came together:

Products I used (all from Gauche Alchemy)

Color Kits – It’s All Gravy, Blue Streak, Purple People Eater

PVC Punchinella

Ouchless Cardboard
Mail Art kit
Nearly Nekkid kit

Regular Punchinella

I can’t tell you strongly enough how easy it is to come up with projects from the GA Color Kits – with them, a project pretty much makes itself. For example, I’ve nearly used up the whole Banana Hammock kit (even though it’s a difficult colour for me), and I’ve got a project in the pipeline using the (peach?) kit which is a colour I NEVER thought I’d use. On top of everything they’re great value because you get a lot of bits and pieces and some really unusual items in them. (I’ll tell you a secret… when I applied to be part of the Gauche Alchemy DT, they asked me which of their products I liked the best. I spent a paragraph gushing about how inspiring these Color Kits were – and that was just from the product photos in the GA Artfire store! Now I’ve got my hands on them – wow. I have not been disappointed!)

The Official Duties of a Bridesmaid

2012-02-27T09:00:00.002+01:00

I mentioned here that I certainly asked a lot of my bridesmaids. But even though they had a lot of official duties on the day, I think they enjoyed getting ready with me in the morning. I enjoyed it too, at least until the timing got a little tight.

This double-page layout, made from the sketch below, shows snapshots of us doing our hair and make up on that special day.

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #284

Here's the sketch, up this week on Scrapbook Challenges:

The single pages:

Elements used: Echo Park's Happy Days, Crate's Emma's Shoppe and Cosmo Cricket's Early Bird

Elements used: Prima flowers, Gauche Alchemy stamps

Just want to say thank you again to the polka dot princesses who were so amazing on the day!

Oodles of Doodles

2012-02-23T09:00:00.033+01:00

So the big news of this year for me so far is that I've gone back to the office. Part-time, mind. I'm still freelancing at home for the other half of the week, but we need a mortgage and the banks need a payslip, so this is what I have to do.

(You can sense my enthusiasm already, right?!)

As a result, I've been 'attending' lots of training sessions this year. The quote marks are because most of the training is issued online, via either CBT or presentations, so I'm not really attending so much as... sitting at my desk.

So, these last two months, when I've not been taking notes, I've been doing this:

they made a mistake by giving me a pen and a piece of paper

Which made me remember what I used to do when I was a lot, lot younger:

can't believe I still have this

It reminded me of this layout that I did recently for Punky Scraps, and how I said I wanted to begin to introduce more light-hearted, hand-drawn elements into my work. So, doodling. Does anyone else out there like doodling on their craft creations?

PS. I also found this from a very long time ago:

how are you? Oh, I'm vine, thanks!

It made me go 'HAH!' because it is evidence that I once was able to cut and rip and stick very, very neatly, and so I have no excuse not to regain those skills!

A Day to be Proud

2012-02-21T10:00:00.001+01:00

Such a busy month for layouts! - It's a good thing I have so many photos to scrap these days.

Scrapbook Challenges has another sketch up on the forum - this time, there's a bit of choice, with different photo formats and different size pages. It certainly makes for a good challenge!

I chose this sketch:

why was I scared of this sketch?

...which is actually squashed up a bit in order to make an A4-sized layout - something I normally like doing, but just to be difficult I stretched it out again to fit the regular 12x12.

My layout, I confess, came together very quickly. The reason? I was scared.

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #283b

Why on earth was I scared? Well... I talked (boasted?) here about how my layouts hardly reflect the sketches I take inspiration from these days. BOOM! That was the sound of me falling back to earth. I am trying to keep a 'togetherness' in my wedding photos - for example, I've used a certain Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge circle stamp somewhere on each page (even here, although you can't see it) - and in that framework I just couldn't see any room for manoeuvrability with this sketch. I didn't want to experiment and mess up the continuity of my wedding album. Perhaps I didn't want to distort the sketch too much because I wasn't feeling confident that day. Mainly I just didn't want a dud page in my collection. So I stuck to the sketch like glue and the result is a verrrrrrrrrry clean layout - almost boring, I find.

The colours work, and I changed the matting paper to a frame, but otherwise it's not much different. I get that the challenge isn't to take a sketch and interpret it to oblivion, but I guess judging by my recent interpretations I was expecting a bit more from myself.

At the end of the day, I am happy with it as a page in my wedding album, and since that was my primary objective, I can say I've succeeded! Perhaps a break from wedding photos is in order?

A Recipe of All Sorts

2012-02-18T10:00:00.002+01:00

When I cook, I rarely follow recipes to the letter. Sometimes because I disagree with them, but often because I am lacking an ingredient or two and have to improvise. The only exception is when I'm baking - then, it's essential to follow recipes to the letter. That, I'm happy with.

But following a Punky Scraps recipe to the letter is a whole different story. This month, I really struggled to make a cohesive page... but that's why it's called a challenge!

I needed a helping hand, so I used this sketch:

I found on this very talented lady's blog (who I discovered via Scrapbook.com) and it was designed by this scrapper.

And I tried really, really hard to follow the recipe. Here is my layout:

Punky Scraps challenge #42

Now I can take a step back I can analyse where I think I went wrong with this layout - I started with a patterned paper, and had to work around the pattern on the base layer. In the end I did end up working it into the design - the idea is is that the raindrops are turning into hearts, or the hearts are flying up and stopping the rain, so I'm happy with the symbolism of that part. In the end it turned out fine, I guess, but it was a struggle when I was putting it together!

The recipe (and my rendering of it):
Hexagons (raindrops)
White paint (behind the title)
Make a grid (the background paper and the map paper)
Use small photos (yup - too small for you to see properly!)
NO PINK (ooops.... realised at the last minute that the background paper has pink on it)
Use three circles (two wheels and a button)
Use three squares (the letters)
Use something transparent (red flock transparency semi-circles)

As always, you can go find out what the other members made from this recipe on the Punky blog. We'd love to see what you might come up with too, so please join in!

Home is...

2012-02-16T10:00:00.001+01:00

A looooong time ago I bought a sort-of printer’s tray in a funny shape. A specific shape, considering what I wanted to do with it - I wanted to celebrate the concept of 'home', which, for me, isn't a house, a town, a country; it's less tangible than that. It's a feeling.

Anyway, I’ve been working on it slooooowly and thought I’d finally share some of my progress.

I've used some of the ancient letterpress kit I found that same day to embellish

First I asked my husband nicely to sand it for me and stain it that dark red colour. Then I started collecting bits and pieces that I’d like to add to it. I cut some shapes for the wallpaper of the little ‘rooms’, and selected some photos to fill the spaces with.

'home is where the heart is' is so true for me

And that’s as far as I’ve got. Maybe in another 18 months it’ll be completed. When it is, I promise I'll share it fully.

it was a great idea, but I've been slow at completing it

I'm in the Mood for Love

2012-02-14T09:00:00.002+01:00

About a year ago, we started trying to decide on a song for our first dance. We didn’t necessarily want a first dance, but as we’d been taking swing dancing lessons (Lindy Hop, to be exact), we admitted that we were certainly going to dance, and that one of the dances would naturally have to be the first one. So we threw ourselves full swing (hehe) into the search.

Now, between us we have a lot of music. And when I say a lot, I mean a lot. Not just in sheer volume, but also in the range of eras, genres, levels of fame and success, and sources and styles. Choosing from that seemed an impossible task. In total we were searching for 5 songs – 1 for our first dance, 3 for the town hall ceremony (entrance, signing and exit), and 1 for our own personal ceremony after dinner. The song for the first dance we thought we’d decided on by the time May came around (the others were finally settled on during the week before the wedding…how that stressed me out I can’t tell you). And it is the little story behind this song that helped me make my valentine’s card this year.

My parents came to visit at the end of May and, naturally, we told them about the song. We talked a bit about the artists and how we’d come to know them, and then practised our dance a little.

Cut to the moment on our wedding day after our first dance, when we were called aside by my parents and given a very special gift: the album on which the song appeared, on original, unplayed vinyl – signed by the surviving female singer. This surprise was an even bigger one than seeing my parents jiving – Where? How? When? – of course, we were amazed.

They told us that at a vintage fair they’d gone to in July, Keely Smith had been there signing autographs. She was old, and frail following an illness, but she was there and full of the edge she showed when she performed on stage with Louis Prima. My parents headed for a record stall, looking for one thing only – and found it. She was happy to sign, apparently punching my dad on the arm for giving her a pen that didn’t quite work, and happy to hear that some ‘young people’ were still interested in her music. My parents went home triumphant and full of glee.

Since all the DT at Scrapbook Challenges have been challenged to incorporate a love song into their projects this month, I’ve made an easy decision and gone for this one.

first card I've been happy with in a loooong time!

Don't forget, if you haven't already, get on over to SC, sign up, and get your share of the scrappy love!

Rockin' the Sketch

2012-02-11T10:03:00.001+01:00

When I made this sketch I tried out something with a sort of multiway title... well, I've tried it again. This time it's a bit simpler, so it works better.

That's me, though. I never start off simple, and then work my way up to something. I always try the hardest thing first, and then cut back when I realise I can't quite make it. What does that say about me, I wonder?

Anyway, here is my layout for this week's Punky Scraps challenge - a very punky sketch from Nat.

it's not just a skull, it's a skull with a 'tache!!!

I actually had a really hard time with this sketch, because it was so white-spacey. I really wanted to stick to the white space, too, but as I worked the page just kept spreading. But in the end, I'm happy with how it looks because I love bright colour on black, even if it is all a bit tidy.

Punky Scraps challenge #41

There's that multiway title I was telling you about - 'he rocks my world' and 'she rocks my world'. I love the speech bubble feature on this page because it is playful and really works as the thoughts of the subjects in the photo.

Go and see what other DT members did - you'll love their creations - and even join in yourself!

Messing Things Up

2012-02-09T09:00:00.010+01:00

For the design team at True XOXO this month, the challenge - get messy - was divisive to say the least... but what the challenge has shown, although tough, is that there are MANY different ways you can be messy, and that messy is ALL RELATIVE. I love some of the LOs on this challenge for the personal value - you might not necessarily look at a page and think automatically that it is messy, but once you read the artist's little summary of the page and get to know their 'usual' style, you see how they've gone through a creative process to arrive at the layout.

Mine was intended to truly reflect the messy state of my brain the other week - lack of sleep leads to some interrrrrrrrrrrresting artistic accents, that's for sure!

all kinds of messy

I wanted to get lots of layers on there without turning it into an art journal-style page or mixed media piece, but I think it just looks like I Jackson Pollocked it (I wish!).

Anyway, join in the fun this month and you could win a month-long guest spot on the DT!

Interpretation: The Debate Continues

2012-02-07T09:00:00.002+01:00

Following on from my previous post on the Inspiration Debate, I’m going to talk a little bit today about Interpretation, since it’s loosely related to those aforementioned copyright laws and the difficulties involved with intellectual property rights, the internet and so on.

It is very often claimed that any given creation is not a copy of another, it’s an interpretation, which is pretty much like saying ‘it’s OK, I’ve put my own spin on it’. This is OK, until the claims start to be made over creations that are in fact copies, or uncredited, or both. The problem is that all of this is subjective. You might think something is a rip off of something else, but I might not be able to see it. I absolutely don’t have any answers to this one. Again, it’s a situation that is developing every day, and we are just trying to keep up with the fast-paced changing world of instant online connectivity.

So to completely go the other way and run from the debate, I’ve kind of done the opposite with the layout below. It’s made from a sketch, but it is very loosely based on the sketch. For many reasons (two of them being printer related, causing me to feel like this) I switched things up and did my own thing.

In the past, before I was scrapbooking regularly, I did sometimes look at a layout that was supposedly based on a sketch and wonder how the artist got from sketch to layout, as I couldn’t see any resemblance. Now that I’ve been more active in scrapbooking circles, I see the interpretation process a lot more clearly. And frankly, these days I’m disappointed if a layout is too closely, too precisely based on a sketch – what I find inspiring, like the majority of us, I’m sure, is seeing different people’s different interpretations of a sketch (yep, I used 'different' twice there intentionally). More than that, I find it fascinating that a small group of people like a design team can come up with different layouts for a sketch and no two are even remotely alike.

This is the main reason I love sketches so much these days. Not so much because it takes out of my schedule that extra step of thinking up a design, saving me time; more because the process of getting from sketch to layout is an art in itself.

Look at what I’ve done with Scrapbook Challenges’ sketch this week:

hi, my name's Cheryl and I can't multi-photo scrap

Mine doesn’t look like that. It looks like this:

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #281

I turned the sketch 90 degrees, moved the title position so it diagonally mirrored the original, opted to go for one photo chopped up instead of multiple photos, tried to play around with the title in place of the journalling, and used wavy (literally!) lines instead of straight, moving them from the outside in.

trying to be too clever?

For the title I tried to do something a bit different. (In case you can’t see, there are Heidi Swapp Ghost Alphas on there that spell out ‘Dubrovnik’). It’s (supposed to be) a multi-way title, so you can read it as ‘I love Dubrovnik’, as ‘in Dubrovnik’, as ‘in love’, or as ‘in love in Dubrovnik’. I think I’ll try this again in the future as I didn’t quite get the positioning right on this one (the ‘in’ needed to be closer to the ‘love’, for example, and perhaps I needed to use smaller letters for the ‘Dubrovnik’).

What are your thoughts on interpretation? How far do you like to take a sketch?

If you want to see what the other DT members did, and submit your own layout for a chance to win a prize, visit Scrapbook Challenges. This month, because we feel like sharing the love, there are also extra prize-winning opportunities for new members, so come over and sign up!

Inspiration – The Debate

2012-02-04T09:00:00.001+01:00

Everyone talks about inspiration – where theirs comes from, what they use to get inspired, whether it’s an overused term or an undervalued part of life, where it touches borders with copyright infringement and stealing…

… but as far as I’m concerned, human consciousness is one huge living entity anyway. It always has been. It just takes, now and again, one individual in the right place at the right time to stand up and put an amazing idea out there, and then other ideas will spark off of that one and other people will have their own ideas and… so on.

Everything we put out there – whether it be our skills, our talent, or even our personality or our words – is an amalgamated, processed version of everything we’ve ever put in. We absorb information (read inspiration), then we recycle it; or, maybe a better word is upcyle.

In the past this process has gone rather slowly. It went quite slowly for quite a long time, in fact; only in the last 200 years has it sped up. And the acceleration is exponential – now, with the web at our fingertips (and probably soon to be linked directly to our brains), the sharing, processing and reusing of ideas has exploded into a constantly moving, ever-evolving quasi sentient thing where if you sit still for one minute you get left behind. Lawmakers can’t keep up with it, that’s for sure. Intellectual property law has been acknowledged for centuries, albeit unnamed, but only became commonplace a few decades ago, and it and its counterparts haven’t moved fast enough to be effective in providing a good set of reactions to the changing environment.

So where do we turn for inspiration? I talked in my guest post here about turning more and more to sketches… although even this is a foggy area: with so many sketches from different sources each week, and a limited canvas, it’s inevitable that overlaps occur. What do we do, then? Should we be concerned?

I think, at least in the online scrapbooking community, that old rules should still apply and be applied: do unto others as you would have done unto yourself. Or, an it harm none, do thy will. It’s common decency, and common sense. Even though when I look around I think I see mostly people who do not live by the same values as me, I’m somehow still convinced that people willing to be part of a community act in that community with these values in mind. There are always exceptions, of course. But those people, I just keep away from.

So, again, where do we turn for inspiration? If we become too scared of breaking the rules, however fuzzy they are, that we can’t move, there’s no point in continuing. Stasis is… inhuman.

This week, Natalie of Punky Scraps picked out an image for us to be inspired by. I had a ball – in fact, such a good time making a layout from this image that I will return to it again and again as I begin to incorporate some of its elements into my own style. And it made me realise: since she’s been running Punky Scraps, Nat has always offered an inspiration image every month. They’re much more than a colour palette, more than a theme or a style. I don’t know where she gets them, but they really work for me.

big, bold and bright - I love it!

printed rainbows - thanks, Sass!

hand-drawn rainbows - thanks, Copic!

loving shadows and shading here

And so, I’ve learned something. We’ve all been told to always look outside of the box. But I’ve actually only just come to understand what this means. Like when you look up into the night sky, and you have to not look directly at a cluster of stars in order to see them all; like doing those magic eye posters; like trying to remember something so hard and then it comes to you when you're in the middle of something else entirely; well, this is the same sort of thing. So, to answer my persistent question of where we can turn for inspiration, I will say, for now, that not going in search of it is the best course of action. Just keep all of your channels open, and it will find a way in.

Wow! Your Parents Really...

2012-01-31T09:00:00.004+01:00

When I mentioned here that I didn’t have any resolutions this year as such, but that I did want to scrap more, a very specific part of this wish was to scrap our wedding photos. I can tell you that there won’t be any disappointment or self-flagellation on this front if January is anything to go by – here’s another layout, inspired by this week’s sketch from Scrapbook Challenges. This one’s about my mum and dad at the wedding, and has a frivolous side to it, whilst still remaining stylish and in theme with the rest of the wedding album.

At some point in the build-up to the wedding, my parents were sort of/almost dictating which songs we should have in our playlist. You would think I would have either freaked out, or cottoned on. But evidently I was too distracted. So when the first of their requested songs came on in the evening, and they picked up their feet and started jiving – yes, jiving – my jaw hit the ground like Sebastien the Crab’s in Disney’s The Little Mermaid. When we finally got them off the dance floor they admitted they’d been having secret lessons in the build-up to the wedding. In fact, they went to such lengths to hide the lessons from my brother, who lives at home right now, that they told him they were going out to marriage counselling!

They really got on board with the whole 50s-ish theme – and they loved it. AND they looked incredible. This fact was not missed by anyone – one of our friends said to me, in that voice that sounds surprised because it’s generally unexpected that such a possibility could exist, ‘Wow, your parents really have style!’… and so the title for this layout was born.

The sketch – yet another great one from Scrapbook Challenges:

this is one of THREE different takes on the sketch on offer this week

And my interpretation:

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #280

A Project to Stick To

2012-01-29T09:00:00.007+01:00

Last year I made lots of resolutions – hardly any of which I managed to keep. This year I know better, and have only a few things I’d be pleased to stick to: walking, photographing, and scrapping – specifically, doing more of each.

A project I’ve seen bouncing around the forums was about walking at least once a week, and taking your camera with you. Nearly perfect, I thought – that’s got two of the three. But I thought more about it, and realised I could easily make it about all three. So I’ve set up a section on the Scrapbook Challenges forum specifically for this 52 Walks project. Each week I add a prompt word or phrase, and then anyone who wants to participate must take their camera out with them on their walk and snap something that is inspired by the prompt word or phrase. Then when they come home, they gotta scrap about it. The format’s nothing new, I know: it’s like Project Life, Project 365, December Dailies, that sort of thing… but for me the leading of such a project certainly is new.

I’ve decided to make a mini book out of mine – I’ve altered the outside of an old notepad and ring-bound hole-punched postcards inside to act as pages… and since I've used lots and lots of Gauche Alchemy products, I've turned it into a video.

the sneakiest of peeks

(The full video – another stop-motion triumph – will be available some time next month!)

But I can’t just tease you with a sneak of the cover, can I? Here’s my progress so far – for this month, I’ve made it through 3 weeks of prompts, and am working on the fourth as we speak.

The photos:

Week 1: Out of Context

Week 2: Blue

Week 3: Reflections

And the decorated postcards (sorry, photos taken at night):

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

It’s a great project – small and spaced out enough to not monopolise my time, but still motivating and inspiring.

Want to join in? Find out what Week 5's prompt is? Back-daters are welcome! Come on over to the Scrapbook Challenges Forum and sign up!

Bobbing and Weaving, Ducking and Diving, Picking and Choosing

2012-01-26T09:00:00.012+01:00

What feels like a really long time ago I made this tray – for me. There was a second tray, destined for the husband’s lap, which never got altered.

Until now.

Over at Scrapbook Challenges it was my turn this month to post a technique challenge – so, thought I, the perfect opportunity to finish this two-part tray project!

My technique? Paper weaving. I thought about repeating the sunburst effect on his tray, but since good old checkers are really his thing, the paper weaving idea fit much better:

he loves the black and white

It's not finished - I need to add his name, laminate it and varnish the frame, so I'll post a nice picture when I've done all that.

But I liked it so much I did some more on a birthday card for our friend:

the birthday boy's gonna so totally, like, flip over this

If you want to see in-progress pictures of me weaving paper, get onto the Scrapbook Challenges forum!

*** *** ***

In other news, the Gauche Alchemy mamas challenged me in December to make a video showing how to make a scrapbook layout with their mixed media products - for anyone who is stuck in mixed media canvas mode but wants to switch to layout mode and doesn't know where to start. Now, I want to add a little disclaimer here for the video quality: December was a tough month for me – it seems that I ate everything in my path, including all the hours in all the days, and I just couldn’t get to doing anything as properly as I wanted to. This project included. But to go with this GA blog post, here is the video nonetheless – and a promise that next month’s will be altogether more… together!

*** *** ***

Finally, my trusty assistant, DJ the Dog, helped me pick out two winners for the SC blog hop RAKs here on AndHandmadeToo:

Winners, PM me your addresses – there’s a long-awaited trip to the post office I have to make anyway, so I may as well send all the packages in one go!

Our Brilliant Stars

2012-01-24T09:00:00.002+01:00

When we were planning our wedding, we knew from an early stage that more than mere observers, we wanted people to be involved in the wedding. So in our intricate detailing of how our day was going to pan out, we included a lot of people, and from those people, we asked for quite a lot of things.

I’m sure it’s fairly normal to ask family members to help out – all of my family decorated the venue for us on the day, my mum made all the cakes the day before, and his close family hosted welcome drinks for guests the night before – and when it comes to the bridesmaids and groomsmen, there are pre-set, etiquette-driven, certain particular tasks that fall into what you would call the ‘normal’, ‘standard’ or ‘to be expected’ category. But what we asked of our bridesmaids and groomsmen went beyond the norm – then again, our whole day did, too.

We assigned certain responsibilities to each of them, such as asking one of the boys in braces to be the music monitor; we got the polka dot princesses to manage the quiz during dinner by collecting and marking the answer sheets; they all ushered the tables into the ceremony room for our own personal ceremony after dinner; and they each invented and asked vows to the bride and groom to make sure we were going to look after each other. They did a lot more besides this – an awful lot. For that we are eternally grateful, and so touched by the distance they went for us.

It’s for this reason I wanted to make this layout a fairly uncomplicated page: to show off the simple fact that we are so thankful for these friends and what they shared with us on our wedding day; they really were superstars. The true meaning of friendship came out on that day and we will not forget the feeling of immense pride and joy at having these people present at our wedding.

It’s another Scrapbook Challenges sketch – up this week on the forum – in fact, I designed this one myself (except Brynn, SC Queen Bee, jazzed it up and made it look all snazzy like that):

it didn't look this good when I handed it in

The double-page version looks like this:

i tried smooshing it all onto one page, but it's better on two

And a rare double-pager from me looked like this:

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #279

Using only Bazzill cardstock and MME Quite Contrary patterned paper, a few snips of Happy Days paper, alphas and journaling cards, some Happy Days and For the Record stickers, AC Thickers and Bitty Grunge stamps from Tim Holtz to get the circles into the layout, I created a panorama of what I hope is love, gratitude, awe, respect and happiness.

they really were superstars!

Thanks, you lot, for helping to make our wedding day so awesome. We will not forget. x x x

Guest Creative Scrapper

2012-01-22T11:32:00.000+01:00

And so for the exciting news!

Kristine at Creative Scrappers contacted me last year to see if I wanted to be a guest on their blog... and of course I said yes. Why would I say no when the blog is just about my favourite source of sketch and layout inspiration?

You can read my guest post on the Creative Scrappers blog but I'll show you what I made with sketch #192 here:

Creative Scrappers sketch #192

Our first engagement photoshoot was uncomfortable for me. I am not great at posing and really needed to be directed more strongly. Out of 500 photos there were about 50 I liked, and about 30 made it into the final collection. Which all makes me more happy that we got this one - full of attitude, looking totally comfortable and acting quite the poseurs.

rockabilly say yes!

The page is a memory of our discussion about props: he had his hat, I had my handbag... and then at the last minute I said 'Bring your guitar!'.

me and him, in object form

Echo Park collections make up the majority of this layout - I seem to have kept scraps from Life is Good and For the Record which match well with Happy Days. You'll also find some Lily Bee, Crate and Jenni Bowlin in there. Credit also has to go to Basic Grey for their postal stamp... don't you just love the black on black of the heat embossed postmark?

I'll be using this technique again

A big thanks to Kristine for asking me to be part of the Creative Scrappers scene! If you haven't heard of them already, you should go check them out now. They are really very, very good.

Boxes... and Skulls... Again

2012-01-19T09:00:00.002+01:00

While I'm working on something very exciting and waiting on something else very exciting (I'll share this very soon), I've got a very tiny thing to show you today.

Like I did here, I've gone and made another skull box.

lots of skulls....yeah!

(Sharing time: I have a possibly unhealthy obsession with boxes. Boxes, tins, and the like. I like to collect them. Even if they may not have any future potential use. I like to stack them inside each other. I like to find the precise right one to store things in. (Boy do I love to store things.) I like to decorate them as giftboxes. I like to incorporate them into scrapping projects. I like to make myself them and...etc)

I used a heat embossing technique and Inkadinkado stamps borrowed from my mum to get this super smart look:

love how oily and grungy it looks

Did I mention I like boxes? This one was used to house a gift voucher at Christmas - and now it holds cufflinks. The gift voucher wasn't for cufflinks, but cunning box reuse is evidently one of my husband's traits too.

Hold On Tight

2012-01-17T09:00:00.003+01:00

Well I hope everyone enjoyed the SC Blog Hop - there were certainly a lot of you hopping around and leaving comments! More Scrapbook Challenges today - I have sketch #278 to share with you.

Participating in the weekly sketch challenges can earn you the title of Pick of the Week or even win you a prize. Most importantly, the sketch itself and the layouts made by the DT can go a long way to nudging you out of a creative rut or giving you the confidence to try something new.

If you've been hanging around here for a while, you'll remember my horror story about my wedding hair. I won't go over that again (if only to avoid the pain of recounting it) - at least not entirely. But now I've made a layout about it, it's kind of hard not to retell this aspect of the wedding day.

I think my hair and make-up girl fainted when she heard the driver of the caddy say 'since we're running late, we'll have to take the big roads' - big roads being the inner city ring, which dips up and down and in and out of tunnels, and is two, three and sometimes four lanes wide. She assured me the style would hold (what else could she say?) but I think it was the major disruption to traffic flow caused by the beer festival that saved my curls: after we got off the ring, every road we turned down was blocked, leading us onto progressively smaller and slower roads. Going slower meant less wind, and less wind meant precious moments more of preserving my carefully curled wedding hair.

The photographers followed behind us in the car and sneaked this shot of me and my mum holding on for dear life:

Scrapbook Challenges sketch #278

I used Echo Park's Happy Days collection primarily for this layout, but you'll find some Crate (Restoration), Lily Bee (This & That), Melody Ross and American Crafts in there as well.

love that AC ribbon

This is the sketch - create to your heart's content and upload to the SC gallery - but always remember to hold on to your hair!

Scrapbook Challenges Blog Hop

2012-01-13T15:57:00.007+01:00

Welcome to the January Scrapbook Challenges Blog Hop! This January we're celebrating more than a new Design Team - there's also the small matter of having moved away from Ning to our very own site. This makes for easier interaction between us all, which means more inspiration for members!

If you're on the Hop, you should have joined me from the talented Anna's blog. Before moving on to the Blog Hop sketch, I'll tell you a little bit about me. I'm a recently married freelance editor living in the inspiring and interesting city of Brussels, Belgium with my dog and my husband. I'm a little bit punk, a little bit rock n roll, and I like to push myself to achieve new techniques and methods. I've been scrapbooking for about five years, but it's only really in the last couple of years that I would venture to call myself an artist. It can take a while to get started and then to keep up with the online community, but I've found that eventually you find your rhythm.

Anyway, onto the customary sketch. SC challenges you to make a layout based on this sketch and upload it to the Forum for the chance to win a prize:

Or the double-page version:

For my take on this sketch, I squished up the two pages into one:

capturing our arrival in London this Christmas

yes - that is a cell phone circuit board under the title!

And now the moment you've been waiting for: the prizes!

1. For completing a layout based on the above sketch and uploading it to the Hop On section in the Forum, you stand to win this pretty prize:

2. For leaving a comment on every blog of the DT, including the start and the end points, you could win this following amazing prize:

3. One new member who joins between 13 and 15 January will be selected at random to win the following sweet prize:

4. Finally, I have a RAK to offer to two lucky readers:

a whole bunch of interesting bits and pieces

To be selected at random for the RAK, you'll have to tell me in your comment on which date I got married. You'll find it here on my blog. Hint: it wasn't this year :-)

So, leave me a comment and then move on to the next blog on the Hop: the amazingly gifted new DT member Livy!

Aim for 2012

2012-01-11T10:00:00.001+01:00

Although I learned from setting resolutions in 2011 that that's just not the way I roll, I do have one aim for 2012 that I would really like to stick to.

For my birthday last year my parents gave me a sweet little bridge camera - a Canon PowerShot SX130 IS. I have slowly been getting to know it, but now I would like to ramp up relations and become an accomplished user.

I started off the year well. Just before getting on the Eurostar back to Brussels, I snuck this shot at St Pancras Station in London:

using the 'miniaturise' function

I am not often pleased with my own photography work, but I really like this one. I was just standing there waiting in the queue, staring at this exact shot, when I realised I should turn my eyes into a camera lens.

I've added a new page on my blog which will be dedicated to those photos of mine with which I'm particularly proud or happy: let me know what you think so far.

What are your aims for 2012?

For A Little Girl

2012-01-08T09:00:00.001+01:00

Today I'm going to share a project that I worked on in fits and starts last year, in between wedding planning and decoration making. The trouble with projects like this one - and I'm sure you've had the same - is that although the idea forms early on, say, with a new collection (Crate’s Emma’s Shoppe, in this case), the execution of it is slow and spread out, and even worse, the date on which it can be made public is far away because it’s a gift being made well in advance.

Emma's Shoppe was made for little girls

I gave this mini-album to my best friend’s daughter as she turned two. It’s empty, ready for mummy and daddy to fill with cute pics and tales of their princess. Of course Emma’s Shoppe was perfect for this.

I chose the gatefold design to take advantage of the husband's binding services

I loved making this album - even though I find it almost impossible to pre-make albums. All my pages and minis are designed around the photos, so whenever I sat down to work on this project, even though the concept was there, all my ideas went aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! and ran away. It took me ages to get over that, and to get over the feeling that I was somehow leaving it unfinished.

this reminded me of my books when i was a little girl

I'm sure she doesn't need a book to tell her this!

You wanna know the best part about this project? Better than the thought that went into it, how beautiful it is, or how the little girl will be fascinated by the different layers and pages? Better than all this is the fact that my husband has a binder at work. One day he looked at what I was making, and knew what I wanted to do with it. He knew what a Bind-it-All was before I even had to explain and - get this - offered to bind the album for me! So one day in November he was seen entering the office with a cute floral stack of papers, taking them to the binder, punching them and binding them together for me!

a gatefold with varied layers makes for an interesting book for a little girl

I took many more pictures - because I loved the paper collection and what I did with it. But I also hope to see the princess soon and see what she and her parents have done with it :-).

One and Only One

2012-01-05T09:00:00.001+01:00

There is only one....

....the 'one' challenge at True XOXO Girls, that is. Get on over there this month for you will not be disappointed! There are a few new girls to welcome as they bring their unique creative styles to the blog this year. There are some stunning, beautiful layouts there - and they are all inspiring in their different ways. Some girls chose a 'one love' theme, others a 'one manufacturer', others still a 'one of each' idea. I opted for one colour because I've wanted something all white of my own for a while.

all white?

It didn't come out how I was expecting. And I can tell you, those people who make monochrome layouts make it look easy, because this was DIFFICULT. And I think it shows - I'm not really too happy with it, although I can't seem to put my finger on why? Any help, anyone?

But don't let me put you off. This really is a challenging challenge - if you're looking for a kickstart this new year, you need look no further. Don't forget, there's a prize to be won!

Just a Note

2011-12-27T10:00:00.007+01:00

Well, I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. We certainly did.

I have a little story to tell today. It's about the time when I got married, and I forgot to bring my vows with me to the ceremony.

I had been thinking about what to say for months, rewriting, deleting, starting again... I never thought I would have such trouble. I've always been able to express myself in writing - much better than in speaking. Anyway, I was planning to write them out by hand and take them with me. But in the rush of things (you can read about my veil incident here) I clean forgot. It's not like I'd committed them to memory or anything - I needed those vows!

I remembered just in time to quickly scribble from memory a few of the things I wanted to say. But for the most part I was so mad at myself, and felt like I was doing the husband an injustice, that I rushed through them and failed to make the moment what it should have been. At least, that's how it felt, but he will say otherwise.

So to make things up to him, I have now written out the vows in full. I popped them in an envelope and gave them to him on Christmas morning. I also gave him this:

music, cake, love - our wedding in a nutshell

It's a Tagxedo representation of my vows, rendered in the wedding colours and framed for posterity. He loved it (of course!).

Tagxedo makes you feel clever

I'm still annoyed that the one time I really truly needed to express how I felt, I fell down. But it could've been worse, and it certainly doesn't mean that I don't feel what I tried to say I felt. This print, though, makes me feel a lot better. It's added the full stop to my sentence, the vow saga is now over, and I feel complete.

And on that note, I'll announce here that I'm going to take a little break from blogging - just a week or so while everyone recovers from Christmas. See you in the New Year!

My Very Own Peg Wreath

2011-12-24T10:00:00.003+01:00

Yup. I copied Hambly - and just in time for Christmas, too.

Surprisingly quickly, you can apply washi tape to pegs, apply pegs to a cardboard donut, and apply a cardboard donut to your front door.

just in time for Christmas

I went a little further and used some of the fake snow I had left over from last year's Christmas Crafts classes:

the only snow we'll be seeing this Christmas

We had a lovely evening yesterday hosting mulled wine and nibbles with friends who are still in town. The house still smells of mulled wine, which is not a bad thing. Now it's time to hole up with the husband - wrapping presents (well, embellishing them with home-made bows and labels), watching Home Alone (we've gone right through the Christmas film library this year, starting with A Nightmare Before Christmas, and ending with Die Hard 2), cooking and eating a lovely three-course meal (got to get our eating stamina up for tomorrow), and pretending all our tiny candles are in fact one large warm cosy fire. A twinkling tree, a nightcap, and to bed to wake up on Christmas morning.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Ps. I forgot I issued a teaser here about another wreath I made. It's a bit late for a tutorial, since it's an advent wreath, so maybe we'll revisit that next year. But here's a photo of what it looked like at the start of December anyway:

pretty, no?

Give a Girl the Right Shoes...

2011-12-22T09:52:00.000+01:00

...and she can conquer the world.

(Marilyn Monroe)

A long, long time ago, I started a blog. On my blog I wrote my first post. And in that post I wrote a poem about shoes. I've blown away the dust, so you can read it here.

Fast-forward to 2011, and things have changed somewhat. A wedding on the horizon produced the necessity for both the bride- and groom-to-be to buy shoes. Usually, when it comes to weddings, no expense is spared; but we are sensible people, and know our limits. We also knew what we wanted from our respective wedding shoes.

So, while he secretly broke in his shoes by wearing them around the office, I secretly practised teetering around in mine at home.

Creative Scrappers sketch #187

Mine were grey felt with a scottie dog patched onto one; his were black and white and shiny. They certainly produced a lot of 'ooohs' and 'aaahs' on the day.

and dance we did

On that special day, it wasn't just about a girl and her shoes - it was about a boy and his, too. And you know what? We both knew we'd chosen the right shoes, and we both felt that we could conquer the world.

Smart Words

2011-12-19T09:29:00.000+01:00

A few people out there in the cloud are talking about the new answer to Wordle (Sian, your finger is on the pulse as ever!) - and so I will too.

Tagxedo is a cute, easy-to-use little app that makes pretty things happen to words. You have to play around with different colour/layout/orientation combos, and different amounts of words and which font(s) you choose, to get a shape that you're happy with, but in the end, you end up with word (sm)art like this:

It's pretty. But I looked at it aftwerwards and wanted to bling it up a bit. This is when things get dangerous - I'm liable to ruin something in search of a (possibly unreachable) goal. So I "reined" it in a bit. I kept bling to a minimum and it gave it just the right amount of Christmas sparkle, don't you think?

a sparkly eye for christmas time

You can even create your own colour theme (if you don't know all the HTML colour codes by heart (!) then go here for some simple assistance).

I have made a couple more but since they are Christmas presents I'm bound to secrecy until after the 25th. Go check out Tagxedo and link back here - I want to see what you create!

Scrapbook Challenges Sketch 273

2011-12-16T09:00:00.004+01:00

It's been a long time since a Scrapbook Challenges sketch came about. The transition from Ning to SC's own site has been a priority though, and well worth it.

The sketches are back now, and number 273 has produced some brilliant interpretations from the DT. The sketch:

Scrapbook Challenges Sketch #273

My interpretation is... well, autumnal (just coming out of summer). That's the mood and season I was in when I made it - and that's how long it's been since an SC sketch! So nothing very Christmassy here, but inspiration nonetheless, I hope:

a rare photo of my dad

I used a rare photo of my dad from Father's Day this year - he's holding a chocolate orange (his favourite) cupcake that I made for him (and that I have to admit were even too sickly for me). I used a lot of different brands on this page - Websters', Cosmo, Lily Bee, Basic Grey, Crate, Sass - because I wanted to get that brightness of colours going.

still loving those circles

Here, I punched a circle in the base layer and adhered some patterned paper to the other side to show through the window.

OK - over to you! Go to Scrapbook Challenges, sign up if you're not already a member, and find the inspiration!

Doing a Jenni Bowlin

2011-12-13T09:39:00.000+01:00

At the weekend we visited a flea market while all others about us were losing their heads in the melee of Christmas shopping. And in the crisp clearness of Saturday lunchtime, with our breath before our faces and our toes crunching up in the cold, we came across a stall tended by a little old lady and her daschund, wearing matching quilted, bejewelled navy coats. She was selling vintage fashion items (what a fool I felt for not having my camera with me that day) - brooches, clothing patterns, stockings, earrings... and buttons.

The Husband quickly ducked out; any opportunity to avoid having to look at, think about or touch buttons is leapt at by that man. I was left to rummage, happy if a little colder for having taken off my gloves for the express purpose of more effective rummaging.

I found many things I would have liked to take home. In the end, only one item found its way into my bag:

in the fashion indeed.

please excuse the lighting; it's black outside today

Just as Jenni Bowlin boasts vintage button finds, now so can I. I expect I'll look at them for a while, before using some on wedding layouts. And then, back to the little old lady and her daschund, for the next purchase.

Our Own Little Christmas

2011-12-09T19:18:00.001+01:00

Although Christmas is supposed to be a family time - and I'm not complaining about that - we've had scant opportunity to explore other options over the years. As we've both lived away from home since we were 18, each Christmas was taken up with visiting sets of parents - separately, at first, and then together (meaning we have to operate on an every-other-year basis).

In 2009, when we moved to Brussels, it was the Belgian parents' turn to have us. But because of one thing and another, in particular horrible snowstorms, we ended up waking up in our own house on Christmas Day. It was perfect - we had smoked salmon and scrambled eggs, a glass of Bucks Fizz, and a few presents in our dressing gowns before having to pack up into the car and trek down the empty highway to the family dinner. But we didn't have any real decorations - we'd just moved in in October - save the home-made wooden heart garland that my parents had lovingly put together.

toadstools can be christmassy too!

Last year being the English parents' turn, we didn't bother with decorations at all. But this year, we are here, newly married, at home, much more settled - and we have just put up our tree. It's there in the corner, twinkling and smelling all christmassy, and it embodies a lot about our own little Christmas - we've made the place all festive, we are now husband and wife, we will work all the way up until the 23rd and then have a cosy Christmas Eve, and wake up on Christmas Day in our own place, with our own tree, and we will be here to enjoy its beauty.

So, you wanna see it?

{heart cushion from Ikea}

Punky Scraps only have one challenge this month, because they know how busy we are all going to be with the last-minute shopping. It's a sketch - an incredible sketch:

# 36 from Nat. WOW!

I felt very christmassy when I was thinking about what to do with this sketch. And so, my first Christmas layout (yep - ever!):

I have s.e.i. and their Winter Song patterned paper to thank here

I used mostly ancient stuff - bling, alphas, epoxy stickers, sequin shapes felt flowers - but also some Emma's Shoppe accents and a lot of stamping and painting and misting.

sideways close-up

Here's to the next few weeks and a happy, exciting build-up to Christmas 2011 - our first as a married couple.

Why not play along? It's a beauty of a sketch. Head over to Punky Scraps for some more inspiration from the DT - it's not all christmassy, if that's not your thing!

Scrapbook Challenges - New Site Launch

2011-12-07T14:38:00.000+01:00

Scrapbook Challenges newsflash: the new site is open and awaiting your registration! With a great new look, better interface (meaning waaay easier to use) and its ever-inspiring sketches and challenges, Scrapbook Challenges is reaching for the stars.

Go register now to become part of it, and join in with the opening celebrations for lots of chances to win goodies!

Off Celebrating

2011-12-05T09:30:00.028+01:00

It's the husband's birthday weekend, and somehow it's turned into a four-day celebration. Lucky he took Monday and Tuesday off work. Unlucky for me: I'm ill, ill, ill.

His card this year is a good reflection of how I was feeling when I made it. I was just beginning to see a bit of colour again, but my head was all over the place: buzzy, frenetic, wishing my cold would fly away.

this is me, ill, in card form - could be worse, I suppose!

I used some Gauche Alchemy stuff of course - perfect for this kind of mood. New punchinella from India, ouchless cardboard and pages from an old dictionary and a music book. Most surprisingly of all, though, was the fact that I busted out my watercolour pencils after years of neglect - and I'm so glad I did. (Even if the red did turn out a bit pink - sorry, husband!)

watercolours, oil paint and Cosmic Shimmer Mist make up this eclectic background

I sealed it all together with a home-made envelope:

that's the man's name

Happy Birthday, Husband!

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part Five

2011-12-03T09:30:00.001+01:00

I got a great write up on Gauche Alchemy's blog - go check out our wedding being famous!

getting married on the same day as the National Beer Festival... priceless

New Paper

2011-12-01T09:30:00.002+01:00

I got a delivery at the end of last week. It was a very exciting delivery, because it embodied at least three things in one.

It satisfied the need to impulse buy that sometimes befalls all of us; it pulled together lots of papers I'd been looking for for a while; and it appealed to the part of my brain interested in wallpaper patterns. In short, it was perfect.

And what did it look like? It was this:

And with it, I did this:

bliss indeed

It makes me so happy to look at it and remember the feeling of the first day of our honeymoon - euphoria, triumph, love, satisfied exhaustion, excitement, anticipation... and more, so much more.

I can spot 3 Gauche Alchemy goodies in this shot

And I suppose it makes me a little sad, too - so brief, that first day, and soon the honeymoon was over, and life began again. But memories are there for enjoying, and that is what this page does.

Creatively Scrapping

2011-11-29T10:00:00.001+01:00

I'm on a bit of a roll with layouts lately. Perhaps I'm subconsciously trying to hit 50 before the year is out.

Creative Scrappers gave me a hand with this one. They're on a stars fix at the moment, which suits me just fine. This is how my thought process went: stars - nautical stars - nautical - boats - harbours - the harbour on honeymoon. And a layout was born.

Creative Scrappers sketch #184

I'm loving this streak - I'm using up scraps, using paper that I bought ages ago and can't remember why, and combining it all with newer bits and pieces too.

ah, stars! how I love you

Why not go join the fun at Creative Scrappers? They're very, very, very good. You'll see.

Just for Me

2011-11-27T12:35:00.000+01:00

It seems like I've been doing an awful lot of tasks for DTs lately, and not a lot just for the sake of scrapping. It's not that DT tasks are tiresome or unwanted; it's just that in moments of high motivation and creativity I feel the need to just...well, create.

stretching the Sass to the max

So I started from scratch, drew a sketch, and made a layout just for me.

the engagement shoot photos finally get an airing

It's a whole fun, eclectic mess of bits and pieces and ideas, and I love it. The good news is, this period of high creativity hasn't stopped yet. I've got another layout up my sleeve waiting for a break in the clouds so it can be photographed, and one on paper and in my head that will probably come into fruition later today. Anyone else feeling super motivated at the moment?

Christmas - a Preview

2011-11-24T10:00:00.000+01:00

Not much time to stop in today as I'm preparing for an interview, but I just wanted to show you a sneak peek of something I've been working on. It's not available to the recipient until the First of December... any ideas?

Both Gauche Alchemy and I will be publishing a tutorial on how to make this, so keep an eye out. But what is it, exactly? I'll give you another clue: it's shaped like a donut.

In the meantime, Punky Scraps challenges for November are still open (I'll be featured there tomorrow so please swing by and leave me some love), and True XOXO Girls scraplifting opportunities continue until the end of the month.

Last but not least, Scrapbook Challenges is moving! Make sure you follow them to their new home. The Challenger newsletter is also being relaunched with moi as Editor - sign up here before 25th November (that's tomorrow!) to be in with a chance to win some Echo Park Christmas paper:

Feedback and Freebies

2011-11-22T09:35:00.000+01:00

I'd like to thank everyone who left a comment here when I asked for feedback a few weeks ago.

I let Django Dog pick a winner, and that winner is:

...to whom I will send a small gift of handmade goodness (oh the tension - I'm not going to show you even a peek of what it is!). ScrappyJacky, well done! Thanks for your comments! Please drop me a line with your postal address.

Thanks again everyone!

PS. When I was talking before about this community being so generous, I meant it. I've been proved right by Michelle, a.k.a. the Willieburg Scrapper at My Analog Life, from whom I have just received in the mail from across the ocean this cute and generous gift:

not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR Sass packs!

She even included this incredibly thoughtful card to congratulate us on our marriage:

great colours, huh? ;-)

Thanks Michelle - you're a star!

ScrappyJacky, don't forget to email me your address so I can mail you something handmade!

Christmas Already?

2011-11-20T12:54:00.001+01:00

Time sure flies.

The flurry of post-wedding sorting, tidying, organising and documenting has only just started to calm down, and I find myself half-buried under an avalanche of card-making materials.

But it's the life I signed up for, I guess! Actually, this year, without a wedding looming in the near distance I feel very relaxed about Christmas preparations. Good thing, too, since I have nearly 100 cards to make for customers! The first batch has already gone, and I'm working on the second next week.

rolled paper scraps make a great Christmas tree

and give such interesting dimension to a card

the brief was traditional, but I like to add my own twist

again, great dimension from these baubles

and reusing last year's gift tags? genius!

How about you? Have you started with Christmas yet?

Punky Recipe - the Star of the Show

2011-11-18T16:59:00.000+01:00

It's time for another Punky Scraps challenge! Don't try to resist, because this one is too good to miss.

Make a page from the following ingredients:

Stars
No patterned paper
Masking
Staples
Exposed cardboard
Book page
Bottle cap
Washi tape

Credits can only go to Inkadinkado and Tim Holtz for the star stamps

Not using any patterned paper was the biggest challenge for me - the biggest to date. (At least I know the need to use patterned paper will prevent my stash from ever getting out of control.)

I used everything on the list EXCEPT for the bottle cap because I FORGOT it. I had a Newcastle Brown Ale bottle cap somewhere (it has a star on it - perfect) but I only remembered it after I finished the page.

Love stars? Love ripping up cardboard? Look no further...

Again, as I mentioned in my previous post, I spent a LOT of time thinking about this page. I left it till the very last minute, and then woke up on the last day before deadline with the idea in my head. This time, the ingredients were decided for me; it was the laying out of the page that was taking time to come into focus.

I would LOVE to see people playing along with this challenge especially, so please pop over to Punky Scraps and check out the inspiration from the DT.

My Creative Process

2011-11-16T09:39:00.001+01:00

I've had a few questions lately about my creative process, so I wanted to talk a little about that today. I've been asked whether I plan everything on a page or just go with the flow. I'll focus on layouts today.

Usually these days I start off with a sketch - Scrapbook Challenges and Punky Scraps DT duties provide me with most of them, but I also like to look at Creative Scrappers and others that come up along the way.

Punky Scraps Challenge 34 sketch

my take

Then I spend a good few days thinking about the theme of the layout - I'm finding I like to tell a story on a page, but not necessarily with words. My journalling is usually on the back of the page these days, or hidden in an envelope or pocket somewhere on the page. So I think about the story, and which embellishments I have that can help me tell that story. Gauche Alchemy kits are great for finding the right bits and pieces.

I'll usually re-draw the sketch myself, adding notes about layers, embellishments, techniques and so on.

Next - and I find this Absolutely Important - I select the Most Appropriate background paper (I'm making 12x12 and A4 layouts at the moment). This is the true beginning. I have often made the wrong selection. I rarely go back and redo a page if I've already finished it. But if I haven't yet begun, or have only just begun, I will go back and select the right paper.

From this, the colours and textures will start to flow. Keeping the sketch in mind, I think about the page layer by layer - do I want the rub-on under the paint? Should I mist and mask the base paper? Can I stamp over that series of paper strips? Can I stamp over that stamp already there?

And then I get started. I roughly follow the sketch, but don't get panicked if things start to go off course. It's an organic process, and a page may turn out looking very different to a sketch in the end. I make mistakes, and accept them. I commit.

I've made a few 'test' pages, practising techniques and so on, but I've never been happy with them. I seem to be happier experimenting as I go. And it's this experimenting that is helping me develop my skills and broaden my repertoire.

Take, for example, the punchinella that comes from Gauche Alchemy. There has to be more to it than just layering it underneath something, right? Play with it! Test it! Push it to its limits! There are LOADS of things you can do. See for yourself:

And a bonus this month:

the card I made with the punchinella resist technique

Experimenting is so important for the creative process. You can decide what you like doing, what you don't like doing, what you're better at, what you want to investigate more.

Go experiment!

Happy Days

2011-11-14T10:00:00.023+01:00

We'd already been planning our wedding for a long time when Echo Park's Happy Days collection came out. To be honest, I was so consumed with making wedding decorations that I hadn't really thought ahead to what the post-wedding scrapbooking would be like. Echo Park saved me the trouble, in the end. More than that - it was a match made in heaven.

Of course, recently I've been getting stuck in to that post-wedding scrapping, recording our happy day.

This layout you've already seen:

Materials used: American Crafts Thickers (Rainboots in Aqua Glitter Foam); Bazzill White cardstock; Echo Park: Dots and Stripes in Concrete, Happy Days chipboard accents, Happy Days element stickers, Happy Days journalling cards, Happy Days paper (Checker Board, Little Flowers reverse side); My Mind's Eye paper (Lost and Found Union Square Perfect "Happy"); Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge stamp set.
{Scrapbook Challenges Sketch #271}

I stitched and stamped before sticking down the paper strips. Then I added a printed swallow, a Cricut-cut nautical star and an RSVP - all from the wedding invitations - as extra memories. Finishing off with Happy Days chipboard shapes and Thickers was a doddle.

Why so easy? Well, Echo Park has pretty much decided my theme for me - I still want to be quite free and 'different', but I do want to have some main colours and motifs running through the pages. And Happy Days is perfect - you've seen the photos of the wedding. It should help me reach that subtle theming I'm after.

I made another Happy Days layout last week - taking into account this layout too, do you think I've achieved continuity?

Materials used: Bazzill Dragonfly cardstock; Echo Park: Dots and Stripes in Concrete, Happy Days alpha stickers, Happy Days element stickers, Happy Days journalling cards, Happy Days paper (Checker Board reverse side); Gauche Alchemy Punchinella;Tim Holtz Bitty Grunge stamp set; Toga alphas; vellum.
{Creative Scrappers sketch #181}

For the border, I cut up the remains of this chequered vellum I've had for years and machine-stictched it on, then drew a couple of extra outer lines with a black pen. To make the chevrons, I cut a strip of the reverse side of Happy Days Checker Board paper, and then cut this strip into squares. Keeping the squares in a line, turning every other square 90 degrees gave the rough pattern; then it was just a question of lining the stripes up and trimming the edges. I did the same with the Dots and Stripes paper.

yummy!

Since we went for cupcakes as the wedding cake, the Happy Days element stickers had to be used: cupcakes, layer cakes and sundaes - yummy! I cut around the cake on the journalling card a little so it could stick out over the photo. Then the title - punchinella, more chevrons, and lovely pure alphas.

And finally, my piece de resistance this month...

....take one deep photo frame from a well-known supermarket chain, take it apart, and make it your own!

Materials used: Echo Park: Happy Days alpha stickers, Happy Days chipboard accents, Happy Days element stickers, Happy Days paper (Ads, Retro both sides); Gauche Alchemy Punchinella and various Mixed Media Color Kits elements.

The frame comes with a super-thick inner mount that is quite wide, providing a great working surface. I drew around the mount directly onto the patterned paper and then simply cut out the shape I wanted to partially cover the mount. I did a teensy bit of fussy cutting to get the Retro flowers; glued some GA elements onto some thin wire and stuck them down behind the big chipboard title; and then just layered the rest up.

because the frame is so deep you can really go to town on the layering

on the subject of matches made in heaven... look at this Echo Park Happy Days chipboard accent with a vintage mini film negative from a Gauche Alchemy Mixed Media Color Kit

It's All About The Journey

2011-11-11T18:00:00.000+01:00

I'm loving this artistic journey I'm on, and I'm finding myself fascinated by the twists and turns a journey can take, and how each new avenue leads to change, influence, adaptation and improvement. All those terms are subjective, obviously, but I really mean them in a sense of how happy I am with my creations and the direction they are heading in.

A journey can be so many different things.

This life journey I'm on, for example: I'm married now, and I feel like we can take on the world. We will go places together.

All this and more fed into this layout as I was making it for this week's Punky Scraps sketch challenge. I wanted to pay homage to life and living, to enjoying and experiencing the journey as we are on it, not just after it's finished.

Don't you love it when you look at something you've made and it makes you happy? I used: Basic Grey Basics and Wander paper and Wander rubons, American Crafts Thickers and Toga Alphas, Sassafras Lass bunting sticker, Heidi Swapp Ghost Alphas, Glitz transparency, Echo Park For the Record journalling card, and Gauche Alchemy goodies (feather, sequins, plastic embroidery grid, map, foot paperclip, WOODGRAIN PUNCHINELLA!)

how great is that foot paperclip?!

Go check out the sketch and the other DT members' awesomely punky work, and share a tiny slice of their journeys too.

Back to Black

2011-11-08T11:51:00.000+01:00

In rebellion against the lovely autumn colours, today's post is going dark. Or maybe it's just because I completely bypassed Halloween this year. Or because I used to have goth tendencies. Or all of the above.

The November challenge up at True XOXO Girls is all about black - about being inspired by black in any way. I was inspired by this photo via Pinterest...

photo from bleachblack.com

...because, well, WOW.

I wanted to play with texture in this challenge, so I made a canvas, with just a splash of colour. A ray of hope, if you will, emerging from the shadows.

I used some texturising medium to get that sandy look on the bottom third, mixed acrylic with PVA glue to make it glossier for the top two thirds, and added some gesso coffee rings for added relief. I also stamped and heat embossed the swirl which I love.

It's tough, to make something inspired by black, and then to photograph it well. I've not done such a good job: I should have listened to Michelle's excellent tips on photographing all-black creations.

It's a bit better in close-up though.

Oh, and - exciting news - there are a couple of DT spots open on the XOXO team. If you like the sound of creating something for a monthly scraplift challenge, go see the DT application post and apply!

No Regrets

2011-11-04T09:55:00.000+01:00

Often it's too easy to dwell on the past, to go over things that didn't quite happen the way you expected and analyse them for how they could've been changed or avoided... I'm guilty, sometimes, of this - like most people. But I do make it a daily challenge of mine not to live this way. This year one of my resolutions was to stop worrying about the passage of time and see how much it slows down (it works, by the way), and an aspect of this change was adopting the 'No Regrets' mantra.

this project is subtitled 'my tidy catharsis'

This was put to the test almost precisely two months ago today. Awake at 7.30am on my wedding day, and with 6 hours ahead of me in which to get ready, I was blissfully unaware of the stress that would bring the morning to a close. The car (you've already heard that story, about which I have no regrets, by the way) was due to take us away at 1pm. So, in a leisurely, calm mood, I had my nails painted, and had some coffee, breakfast, and then some champagne. Then it was My Turn - I sat in The Chair and began to have my hair and makeup done. From there, I was facing a clock dead on. I watched with anticipation as both hands approached the 12, then with discomfort as the minute hand hit the 6, and then with rising panic as it passed the 12 again, and passed the hour hand pointing at the 1.

Five minutes later my makeup girl finally gave me a Murray Walker-esque 'Go GO GO!' and I ran downstairs, literally jumped into my dress, had my bridesmaids zip me up, and ran back upstairs to grab my bouquet and my shoes. Outside there was just time for a quick photo and then - uopa! - into the car we squashed, and sped off into the busy centre of Brussels.

It would be two hours later before I realised that I'd completely forgotten to put on my veil - the first accessory I focused on in my wedding planning to embody the image I wanted - and a further 5 hours after that that I realised I'd completely forgotten to write up my vows for our personal ceremony - leaving me with a scribbled piece of paper of half-remembered things and huge gaps where I had wanted to put the love in.

Today, these two issues are still smarting. But in the grand scheme of things, neither caused the world to end, neither ruined the wedding, and neither were unfixable after the event. We will have a 'Rock the Dress' photo session next year, and I will wear the veil. I have written up my vows in full and in the way I wanted to read them, and will give them to him soon. I'm moving on, with no regrets.

...none whatsoever.

For more similarly themed projects, get yourselves over to the Punky Scraps blog this week for the first challenge of November. You'll love what the team have done, and you'll probably love the challenge, too. Thanks for reading my stress story. Now it's out there it feels much, much further away and an entirely tinier problem. See? No regrets!

Autumn: It's Here

2011-11-02T10:01:00.000+01:00

Where I am in the world has gone through a bizarre six months of weather changes. In May we had our summer; in July and August, storms and flooding; in September, a heatwave and more flooding; and in October, we had a week of winter, then summer, then finally - finally - the season settled on what it should be: Autumn.

What better than a long afternoon walk in the woods?

the park's still looking green

finally! a legendary toadstool to photograph!

oh the colours

somehow he's arranged our walks so that the halfway point is a tavern

Time to scrap some of these beautiful colours!

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part Four

2011-10-30T13:10:00.000+01:00

Two big reasons behind the handmade nature of our wedding were the desire to express ourselves precisely, and having a small budget. The table decorations we pulled together show both of these:

I spy nautical stars again

The flowers, as you know, were handmade from paper. The vase was a coffee tin covered with punchinella (look out very soon for a video tutorial on using punchinella); the candle holder was a jar that once held gherkins. I designed the labels on the jar and candle myself.

We kept it simple and understated - just us. No frilly froofiness, no swan-shaped napkins, no bows on backs of chairs. There were a couple of other things that formed the table centrepieces - a quiz, again completely designed by me to look like a old diner menu, and the evening programme:

I totally love that microphone image

Once again those beautiful swallows made an appearance. I am planning something else for these swallows, something that I hope will happen this year.... to be continued....

Trayding Places

2011-10-27T10:00:00.007+02:00

Altering things is a pastime that often evades me. I fail to break down the project into small, manageable pieces and then get so overwhelmed with the seeming enormity of the task that I put off starting - or, to be truthful, in most cases, finishing - the job.

Not so with this one. It kind of wrote itself, in a way.

do they actually have a name for these cushion-tray-things?

Take one TV-cushion-tray-thing. Take a bunch of old scraps of paper, a pair of scissors, and some glue. Sit down in front of the TV (in my case, it was a silly film called Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), and proceed to cut and stick. Afterwards, laminate and paint the wooden frame (only if you like painting wood. My husband near forbade me to do it as the tray is one of two which came from his late grandfather and for some reason he dislikes painted wood to an almost extreme degree. But I am working on that, now we're married).

it's mine. it's not any one else's.

Finally, brand it as yours so no one else can use it. Then promise that you'll make one for said person trying to steal usage minutes of your tray, but remain vague on the timescale involved. You never know, this might be a one-off case of finishing something within a day of starting it.

it's the shabby-chic distressed effect of painted wood he dislikes the most

To round things off, here are some end-of-the-month competitions for some weekend crafting:

Punky Scraps - three October challenges to choose from: a collage, a spooky sketch, and a recipe
True XOXO Girls - October's scraplift challenge is still open: choose one of the team's eye-catching creations as a jumping-off point

As always, if you enter you could win a prize. There's no excuse not to get crafting!

And if you're still reading, a small toot: I'm usually their video alchemist, but today I'm also being written about on Gauche Alchemy's blog.

Caddy Love

2011-10-25T10:03:00.002+02:00

Lily Bee Designs are starting to offer sketches for inspiration - and they're good.

I joined in with the first one by creating the second ever page of my wedding album. This was the sketch:

For over two years we had known which car we wanted for our wedding. And for over a year it had been booked. It was a 1956 Cadillac Sedan de Ville... this 1956 Sedan de Ville:

*sigh*

Why the sigh? Because at midday on the day of our wedding, I received a phone call from the car company, saying that the Sedan de Ville wouldn't start.

look! look how calm I am!

I went into Seriouser than Serious mode. The company offered me, instead, a Rolls Royce in silver or a Jaguar in British racing green. There was no way I was letting this slip away from me - the car was a big part of our vision, and my underlying desire was always only for everything to be coherent - so of course, I simply said that no, neither of those options were any good. That's when the company told me that they might have another Cadillac... it was from 1960, just about on the edge of what would work for me. It was also from the higher price range, but they would provide it at no extra cost. Naturally, I said. Then I heard the word 'tailfins' in my ear, and I was sold. Relieved, too.

Less than an hour later, the Caddy turned up. It was only at this point - while I am having my hair painstakingly put in place - that we discovered it had no roof. Now, I can look back and laugh at how I've always liked the windswept look. But on that day, at that moment, the journey to the Town Hall (we were running late, and there was an annual Beer Festival taking place which meant road blocks and diversions on top of that) was the most stressful of my life* because the wind in your hair is nice and all, but not what you want on your wedding day.

Anyway, back to the layout. I wanted to stitch on my page. I've cleared the way to the sewing machine again so I can stitch on my pages once more. But for me, to stitch the circles would've been too obvious. So I brushed on some acrylic paint, didn't like the look of it, and smudged it with a cotton wool pad. And then I was happy.

see them circles and stars again...

I used some paper and stickers from Lily Bee's Picket Fence collection, and combined them with Echo Park Happy Days bits and pieces, with some sparkly Thickers thrown in and Tim Holtz stamps.

still loving those nautical stars I made for the invitations

I didn't win the sketch competition, but the sketch was a great starting point for a layout that I'm happy with.

The official photos have arrived now so I'm planning, planning, planning... how many pages can you fit into a post-bound album?

*coming in a close second is the one on which we transported my fish in their bowl from Norwich to Brussels by car. They learned about tidal pull that day; not to mention a little surfing. One of them was so traumatised it jumped right out of the bowl that evening after we'd arrived and went to fishy heaven (which was either somewhere under the sofa or in the doggie's stomach).

Practising Alchemy

2011-10-24T09:20:00.000+02:00

As a Gauche Alchemist, I am lucky enough to have received a package of goodies from them - a package which kept on spilling more and more goodies as I sifted through its contents.

I have been using Gauche Alchemy products in almost all of my creations since then - you'll remember My Bouquet, the Copenhagen Album, and the Skullies Box - but I've just made a (very almost) solely GA creation, and it was so easy. They basically provided me with everything I needed to put this card together - all I added was the spray mist, the ink and a Tim Holtz stamp.

a card without an obvious message - there were too many things to say

So, the card came in September's Going Postal Kit, along with the bakers' twine, the shiny orange circle stickers, the 'Comprehensive Guide' punch and the 'Congrats' fake stamp punch. The button came with the Scarlet Fever Mixed Media Color Kit. The map and the foreign text and the labels can be found in various kits and the ouchless cardboards is plentiful and varied and can be bought to suit your needs.

I got the look I wanted with the splashy flicky paint splatter look: I took the tube out of the mist spray bottle and dripped onto the card, and then blew with a straw so they spread out. I used Versamark ink to give a watermark stamped effect with the Tim Holtz sunray stamp at the top of the card. And then I just layered and layered and layered.

For more inspiration on what to do with GA goodies, check out the Gauche Alchemy SNR event later tonight - 7pm EST at Scrapbook News and Review. The SNR design team were given a bunch of GA products to work their own alchemy with. Pop in and see what they've been up to!

The One Hundred

2011-10-20T09:55:00.000+02:00

Have you ever expected something to be a really momentous occasion, and then realise that it totally passed you by?

I recently hit 100 followers on this here blog, and in the flurry of the True XOXO blog hop, I didn't even mention it. So here's to Christa (follower number 100) and everyone else for making me feel special and all warm and fuzzy inside.

Thank you to each and every one of you - loyal commenters, silent readers, shy sometimers, occasional dip-inners, and those who are too busy to do much at all. From the bottom of my heart, I am grateful and flattered at the way this blog has turned out - because of you. I am guilty myself of letting things slip, only sometimes skim-reading what I should instead eagerly jump on, even of neglecting those things I truly want to read and comment on but in reality look at the clock when everything else is done and see that it says 'bedtime'. I know it's hard to keep up in this environment of ever-increasing social platforms (I'm struggling, for sure). So, thank you all for being you and keeping my blog alive with your comments that make me laugh, think, want to have a conversation with you, send me off to look at your blog, inspire and more.

Now, I had planned a giveaway to mark this grand event, but I have been in a state of disorganisation lately, one that I am finding it hard to shake off. So, instead, I am going to share with you a few ideas for the future of my blog, and ask for your thoughts in return. And to one of those thoughts' owners, I will send a little handmade something to brighten their day and make them revel in the amazingness that is the online crafting community.

Before the year is out, I'd like to:

revamp the design of the blog
tell you more about my creative process - what happens before and around a creation
include more tutorials

Please let me know if you agree or disagree with any of these, or if you want to see more or less of something here, or if there is something else not here that you'd like to see more or less of. I'd like to work to make this blog more readable for you, the readers. What piques your interest, whets your appetite, gets your creative juices flowing?

Front-Page News

2011-10-18T12:46:00.002+02:00

Thanks to the skills of all our camera-toting wedding guests, I have a few really excellent pictures to work with while still (yes, still) waiting for the official photographs.

I've started our wedding album, people. Monumentous! And true to form, my organisation head wouldn't let me make any pages before I'd made the front page. Scrapbook Challenges' sketch 271 - out this week, so go and play along to be in with a chance of winning a prize - helped me pull this front page together.

The sketch:

#271

I used the photo of us taken by my bridesmaid that I mentioned before. What this photo doesn't show (thankfully) is the tourists milling around, also taking photos of us; the random man wheelbarrowing a Mannekin Pis statue across the courtyard; the Spanish lady asking for a photo of my bouquet; and the other random man in a kilt trying to get in a photo with some of the bridesmaids.

it pulls together elements we used in the decor with some Echo Park goodness and some American Crafts sparkle

It does show a moment of calm just after we were declared husband and wife. It shows a style which, despite the twists and turns and the doubts and criticisms of the journey, I'm forever glad we stuck to our guns over. And it shows - of course it shows - the thing that lies at the centre of it all. Love.

told you I was loving circles and stars at the moment

and how could I resist the polka dot heart?

Look out for more wedding album pages very soon!

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part 3

2011-10-16T10:00:00.003+02:00

This is the only photograph of all 6 bouquets together, so feast your eyes for a while.

You recognise mine, of course, from my excited wedding day post and my Gauche Alchemy video tutorial.

The 4 bouquets of yellowed music score roses were for the bridesmaids. Those roses... I started making them in January, at which time I made about 10 (there are about 20 in each bouquet). Then I had a 'break' for 6 months (I couldn't face going back to them, because I was scared of running out of paper. But instead of acting soon and finding out with enough time to choose an alternative path if necessary, I put it to the back of my mind. Great forward planning skills. I was lucky I got away with it). In July I came back to them and blitzed the music score paper supply, ending up making too many roses in the end. But they are beautiful, so I don't care.

And the cute red gingham bouquet was for the flower girl, my husband's niece. My mum put it together, as well as making all the flowers (she was much more organised than me - she finished them all by May).

By now they are all home somewhere with their respective owners. None of them were caught, because none of them were thrown. There was NO way I was throwing mine. Hell, I even winced when the photographer told me to rest it on the trunk of the caddy (there's a teaser for a photo I'm waiting on!).

XOXO Blog Hop!

2011-10-13T18:00:00.005+02:00

Hey there hopping XOXO Girls! (And hey to everyone else who ain't hopping!)

The True XOXO Girls blog has been going through some changes lately, so to round them all off we've decided to have a blog hop.

First, a little bit about me. I'm a very recently married, lindy-hopping, vintage-loving, dog-owning, punky but shy scrapper. I live in Brussels, Belgium, and am lucky enough to work from home so whenever the need takes me I can just pop into my craft room and get scrapping. At the moment I am loving stars, paint, texturiser, circles and ink.

If you've just come to visit me but would like to start the blog hop, begin here. As ever, there is a prize! And this time, it is immense!

The overall prize for the person who completes the blog hop: a Guest Design Team spot for True XOXO for December! Completing the blog hop means commenting on every single member of the team's blog. There are also RAKs along the way, depending on how generous or organised people are, and whether they suffer from stash overflow or not (me, I'm in the Not Organised category this time. I am, however, planning to sort through my stash and offer a RAK when my follower numbers reach 100... not far to go!).

Now, there was a twist to the challenges for this blog hop. Each member challenged another member, so all the challenges are different - and I can tell you, we are a diverse bunch! I was challenged by Ana Oxendale-White (who you should have come to me from if you're hopping right) to make a layout inspired by a road sign.

All I could think about for a long time was how I didn't have my own version of that classic photo: the American desert, a lone roadsign, a deep blue sky, sand and dust, nothing else around, inevitably hipstamaticised or instagramised. I didn't have my own version of that photo. But oh, how I wanted it.

After a couple of weeks I fished around in my brain and caught all the swirling ideas. I dipped into our hard drive of pictures and emerged with one that was just right for me to mess around with in Paint.net:

this is it post-production

Then I set to work with my haul of ideas. I wanted to get that feel of brightness the classic road sign photo evokes in me, so setting it all against a dark background was important for me. I also added some shapes that were reminiscent of signs, and a couple of casino-inspired embellishments to point at the desert part of my vision. The electric blue and purple paint splotches are almost hidden by the clusters of paper but I wouldn't be without them.

So there you go. I in turn challenged Emma Ruth Cruz-Fronda to make me smile with some awesome nu-school/old-school tattoo-inspired work - I mean anchors, nautical stars, swallows, hearts and barbed wire, bright colours and thick black outlines. Go check out what Emma did - you won't be disappointed. I wasn't!

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part 2

2011-10-08T09:30:00.001+02:00

It feels really weird to write this, but there were more than two hearts at our wedding.

What you saw when you looked up

Those hanging paper hearts are, and have been, all over the internet and especially Etsy for some time. But I still had to have them. I made them back in February, and I was damned if I wasn't going to use them! Cherry paper and everything!

The magical bunting was a labour of starchy love. My mum made over 50 metres of it, having chosen a whole range of fabrics that would match with the outfits and colours and styles of the wedding. I don't have the precise data, but I think it took a good couple of days to starch all of those triangles.

And the nautical stars - well... I made those a couple of weeks before the wedding, deciding one day that there was not enough nautical star in the whole picture. After the little star on the invitations, there had to be more!

These little ones were fiddly to put together

The hanging stars are 3D. I can tell you how I made them, if you like. It's quite easy.

1. I printed a large star template, and added tabs onto each outer line in pen. Then I used the template to cut out two stars from a piece of card, complete with tabs. I drew all the inner lines on in pencil with a ruler, including the ones separating the tabs from the main body of the star, and then scored along all the lines.

2. I manipulated each star so that the long lines coming from the centre to the points were mountain folds, and the shorter ones coming from the centre to the dips were valley folds. I folded all the tabs inwards.

3. This is where you decorate the star as you wish. I used the folds and lines to measure and cut out contrasting half-points to give it that nautical look.

4. Then I used PVA glue to stick the tabs of each star to each other. This was quite slow, as I needed to pinch and hold each part so that it adhered fully and began to dry before I could move onto the next part.

5. Once dry, the star - if you've made it, like I did, from thick card - is very sturdy, and holds up to more manipulation. Squash it down a bit, to make the folds and valleys really pop and dip.

6. Finally, hammer an eyelet through the top point and string it up.

They're equally good for Christmas... and that's just around the corner!

I'll leave you with a picture of me and my family.

Stylish, no?

The Wedding of Awesomeness: Part 1 of Many

2011-10-05T16:03:00.000+02:00

Hello everyone, and welcome to my little story about the time I got married. It was not, I can assure you, though I'm sure you already know, a day of pink frilliness and enormously long dress trains. It was more a day of Things That Make Up Us.

The groom and the bride got ready on the morning of the wedding in separate houses: I with my bridesmaids and my mum, and he with his groomsmen and his family. A few days earlier I'd taken a little box of presents over to the house where he was getting ready, for the boys to open on the day. The little box contained the boutonnieres that the boys would be wearing. Of course, they are handmade. As was the box.

Gauche Alchemy goodies helped decorate the lid

The texture of the box was achieved by mixing some texturising medium with acrylic paint, loading it up onto the lid and sides of the box, and then pressing a woodgrain pattern embossing folder into the paint. You gotta try it - it's a great effect!

See? They're just jumping to get out

I hand-sewed the felt skulls myself. Regrettably, I can't take credit for the idea, though. Here is the main man's skull in action:

Lots more to come soon! (And possibly some official photos, one of these days)

Instagram, Hipstamatic, and all those things that are too cool for me

2011-10-02T09:00:00.002+02:00

A month after our wedding, we are still waiting for the official photographs (perhaps that is not a long time, but I haven't been married before so I don't know). I am getting a little restless - starting to wonder if they've been lost or deleted, if none of them are the kinds of arty shots I wanted, if I'll be disappointed...

Thankfully one of my bridesmaids had her iPhone with her on the day. And she took my favourite photo so far:

Taken with camera+ for iPhone using beach mode and lo-fi filter

Although I think this one, by one of the groomsmen, is pretty awesome too:

This is what happens after I mess around with photos in Paint.net

Not having an iPhone myself, or any kind of fancy phone, I don't have the cool little apps that make magic like this happen instantly. Instead, I mess around for half an hour in Paint.net until I've got the effect I want. Paint.net is quite good, though, because you can download add-ons to get different effects and new ones are being developed all the time, so it's kind of a similar set up, post-production, to phone apps. Plus it's easier to learn that Photoshop.

I love looking at phone app photos to see what people have done with them: they're a great source of inspiration. Not just for my own photo-editing, but also for crafting. Colour combos, angles, shadows... take, for example, the October challenge over at True XOXO Girls: be Inspired By Instagram. If you're still reading this, STOP and go check out the challenge NOW because the creations the team have come up with this month are BLOWING MY MIND. I've been designing with True XOXO for almost a year, and I've never seen such eye candy from the team. Seriously, go NOW. No, hang on, wait a second. Let me just show you my own Insta-Inspired layout:

I coloured the rainbow rays onto patterned vellum with Copic markers and I love what came out.

All right, now you can go.

Finding the Vintage

2011-09-27T12:02:00.000+02:00

Looking back, it's fascinating to see how ideas for our wedding developed into realities. It all started with a shape:

Then the music we were listening to began to change. We started taking dance lessons. I finally sang to his guitar. I tried to do different things with my hair.

And after I braved the red lipstick, there was no turning back.

My interpretation of Scrapbook Challenges' final September sketch, here:

...took on a distinctly vintage theme, using some fabulous 4heures37 paper and a Crafty Secrets Creative Scraps embellishment. It features a picture of me looking distinctly vintage too. Gauche Alchemy brought me the heart stamp in the top left corner and the famous ouchless cardboard, and I'm sure you can spot the Cosmo Cricket Circa 1934 paper in there too.

In other news, my mail art video tutorial is now available. A little snapshot of our trip to Copenhagen. Coming soon: wedding stuff. I promise!

Watching the Seasons

2011-09-24T12:39:00.000+02:00

The final September challenge over at Punky Scraps is up and running - and it's a beauty. Team B picked an element each and Team A had to make a page up from this list.

Michelle - Use canvas (anything canvas)

Nat - use this picture to inspire you:

Elin - use chipboard

Camilla - use 3 staples

Mandy - B&W photo or image

Maureen - make it monochromatic

For the canvas I used part of a Pink Paislee canvas number border; I used chipboard letters; 3 staples in the top right-hand corner; a sepia-tone photo for the B&W; and tried my hardest to make it monochromatic whilst still being inspired by the image.

The photo on this page is a picture of a watercolour painted by my mum. In the envelope is a story about how I come to have a photograph of this painting.

So what did I do on this page? Because there's a hell of a lot going on! Well... I stamped some Inkadinkadoo leaves onto a page from an old book and cut them out so that I could layer them up. I mixed a little water with acrylic paint and let it run down the page. I coated the inside of an embossing folder with texturised paint and ran a piece of plain paper inside it through the Big Shot to achieve the woodgrain effect (still LOVING woodgrain!).

And I used lots of bits and pieces - from Echo Park's For the Record, from Webster's Pages, from October Afternoon, Graphic 45 and Artemio.

Go join in - there's still a week to take part!

Time Travel

2011-09-21T20:43:00.000+02:00

Hop in. I'm going on a short journey back to May, before we got married, before we (and by 'we' I really mean 'I') lost the plot and spun off into a crazed wedding-planning-induced stress, before my bout of blog neglect, and before I'd even considered the issue of identity and name being, somehow, inextricably interlinked.

A calm before the storm, you might say. (We did actually have a storm on our wedding day. It was forecast for the afternoon, but because I obviously didn't have the time that morning to check a weather report, I didn't have anything to worry about. I woke up to bright blue skies, and as far as I knew it, that was all there would be. All day. Ah, the power of positive thinking. The skies remained bright blue until they turned dark blue, and it wasn't until most people were inside and the band was playing that the heavens opened and the lightning forked and the thunder crashed, although not as loud as the drummer in the band drummed his drums.)

Anyway, in May we took a short trip to Copenhagen. Not the best of weather, and not the lightest on the pocket, but it was a welcome break and we had a mad 'quick, let's fit in as much touristy stuff as we can' weekend to bring the trip to an end. So there were lots of nice photos that made it look like we were there for 8 nights, not 4.

I knew from the moment I flicked through the photos on the way home that I wanted to make a mail art-inspired album to put them in. I also knew I wouldn't have time to do it until after the wedding. Meaning I had a lot of time to think about it, and that anything could happen in the meantime.

So what did happen in the meantime? Well (*grins*)... I made this awesome video, and became a video tutorialist for Gauch Alchemy, who then released a mail art kit called Going Postal (new this month!), and only went and sent it to me to play with, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Look out for the video tutorial for this album on the Gauche Alchemy blog soon!

So I Married a Rebel

2011-09-17T11:02:00.000+02:00

I'm finally back - back from the wedding, the honeymoon, and the week's recovery afterwards. I can once again face Blogger. But, I need to break myself in gently... I'd love to show you all the wedding decorations, but my head is still swimming, and we don't have our official photos yet. So I'll rebel against that for the time being, and plug a layout I made for the Punky Scraps team.

Challenge 28 is a sketch that looks like this:

This was my take on the sketch:

The first September challenge at Punky Scraps, number 27, was to get inspired by this photo:

It made me want to scrap my brother:

Hop on over if you want to join in and be in with a chance of winning a prize!

I'm Getting Married Today!

2011-09-03T10:00:00.002+02:00

I'm getting married today!

What a whirlwind last few weeks it's been, and now it is all about to come into fruition!

You'll see lots photos of the decorations over the coming weeks. For now, a super-special look at my bouquet.

Check out the Gauche Alchemy blog any day now for my video tutorial on how I made it and what products I used.

Counting Down

2011-08-16T12:31:00.001+02:00

I might have mentioned here that there would soon be a plethora of grey-plus-a-colour pages on my blog. Scrapbook Challenges' sketches are helping me create layouts right now, which is good because there's no time to think up sketches of my own. Here is this week's:

I'm counting down to the big day, and it's already a lot closer than when I made this layout.

Look! I used pink AND hearts! I'm really pushing my boundaries!

That dotty, puffy heart above is from a Gauche Alchemy Color Kit - you'll see lots more products in the coming months!

Gifts from the Heart

2011-08-14T10:00:00.001+02:00

My fiance's best man (well, one of them) - in fact, the one who was the first person we told face-to-face that we'd gotten engaged - had a 'saw this and thought of you' moment recently. He sent me this present:

It's a collection of hand-carved wooden stamps in paisley designs. I can't wait to use them!

Letters

2011-08-11T09:48:00.000+02:00

A quick post as I'm off for a long weekend with my bridesmaids. More wedding decorations under the belt - this time, I've decorated wooden letters for our initials.

The cork ampersand was particularly fun to do. Give it a try - it looks amazing!

Singing Praises

2011-08-09T09:55:00.002+02:00

Scrapbook Challenges has its weekly sketch up and running. This week it's brought to you by the very talented and punky Nat and looks like this:

My first reaction to my page, when I'd finished putting it together, was disappointment that I hadn't managed to get the skulls in - I so wanted to include them, but the creative journey took me away from them and sometimes it's just the way things go.

Last month I sang a couple of songs with my fiance and his friend at a gig of theirs. Big deal for me, trying to get back to those days when I was happy to stand up in front of the whole school and read out poetry I'd written. But I did it, and felt good. And I'll be going back for more.

Using tiny pieces of cardstock and patterned paper: at this rate, I'll never use up my scraps.

This page has sent me off on a journey that I think will be a long one. I am loving grey plus a splash of colour now, so look out for many more pages in this colour scheme. Grey has allowed me to even use pink, a not-favourite colour of mine - you'll see in a couple of weeks when I get to share that page here. And I'm looking forward to trying out grey and orange, and grey and green, and grey and aqua... if you have a favourite, let me know!

Vintage Summer

2011-08-07T09:34:00.001+02:00

'Vintage' is the word of the summer - not just for me: it's hugely popular in the UK right now. The first Augsut challenge at Punky Scraps is not going to disappoint, or diverge from this theme.

The challenge is to allow yourself to be inspired by this image:

I so wish I had time to play along with this one... I think I'll save it for later. Happy scrappy Sundays, everyone!

All Work and No Play makes Cheryl an Impatient Woman

2011-08-04T07:34:00.000+02:00

Yep, it's been like that for about 3 weeks. Just when I thought I would start to wind things down with work so that I could spend some time on the wedding preparations, people start banging at my electronic door to have this done and that done by, oh, when do you want it? Yesterday?

Sigh.

As a result I've got little to share on my blog except for an invisible but definitely present mounting panic. I'm in dire need of some zen. So, a few deep breaths and I look to my camera for calm... and, it turns out, hopefully inspiration too.

Here are a couple of photos I took with my new camera the day we got lost in the woods. As I was playing around with the settings, seeing what differences I could make, there was an eerie calm all about, a silence more silent than usual. After the photos, there was nothing familiar along the path. Even the trees and the ferns were different. And for a full five minutes we walked, and wondered if we'd stepped through a window into another dimension.

Next up, a photo of the ceiling of a bar in town (yes, they are beer trays). The bar is called Delirium, after one of the beers it sells (Delirium Tremens, 8.5%). This beer's logo is a pink elephant, because apparently that's what you'll see if you drink too many of them. I guess how many you can see in the photo depends on how drunk you are.

Then there's the awesome moment when the singer of a rockabilly band we went to see stood on his bassist's double bass (which had a pretty sweet paint job) and rockabillied out for a few seconds. Awesome, Voodoo Swing, awesome!

And finally, just because:

My new camera, a very early birthday present (thanks mum and dad!) is a Canon PowerShot SX130 IS, and after having checked my records I have to say that only pictures 1, 2 and 5 here were taken with it. Pictures 3 and 4 were 1 month BC (Before Canon).

Birthday Season

2011-07-30T09:52:00.000+02:00

...it is around here, anyway. Today we're off to a Leo Party with about 40 others. We're all wishing for sun. But in the event that he doesn't put his hat on and come out to play... actually, there is no back up plan. We'll just have to wish really hard.

I've made a softly coloured card this year for my fiance's mum, who is a Leo like me. I've used my not-so-new but newly favourite technique of cutting lots of strips of paper and fanning them out across the canvas. It was inspired by this week's challenge at the Play Date Cafe, which looks like this:

And my card looks like this:

I'm off to the Leo Party. Have a great weekend everyone!

This is My Tree

2011-07-26T09:15:00.000+02:00

This is my piece of artwork. Many times pencilled in, many times erased, painted over, re-sanded and re-pencilled. It finally took shape, aptly enough, from the roots upwards; specifically, from the heart.

Annoyingly, I was so eager to get started on it that I completely forgot to take a 'before' picture of the frame. It was something I found on recycling night: down the road from us, someone had left this painting outside their house to be taken. By me, it seems. It's made out of a few short planks (hehe), joined together by a frame at the back, and on it was painted a bottle of wine, and possibly a plate of cheese and some grapes. All very rustic.

But with the power of will, the grease of elbow and a big pot each of white and black paint, I removed all evidence that that wine bottle had ever been there.

Many trees came and went: realistic ones (or attempts at), Tim Burton-esque ones (or attempts at), abstract ones (or attempts at... see where I'm going with this?), but none were quite the tree. So I thought more about what was going on - a wedding, namely - and realised that there needed to be two trees, not just one. A la Louis de Bernieres in Captain Corelli's Mandolin, it was the roots that needed to be joined together.

The idea is for people to stick their thumb in an ink pad and make a print near the branches to represent a leaf. And then they sign their name on their leaf. It'll be a nice 'togethery' reminder of who was there on the day.

One Love

2011-07-24T08:30:00.003+02:00

Yesterday I had a hair and make up test run for the wedding. I felt pretty special. A tiny part of me felt a bit silly, going to such showy lengths, but mostly I am just so excited now - it's drawing closer, everything seems to be under control, and we are gonna have such a great party!

I know I'll have a thousand photos to scrap after the wedding, but that doesn't mean I'm holding off on wedding layouts until then.

There was a sketch released earlier this month on the Creative Scrappers site - number 164 - that spoke directly to me. It looks like this:

I needed to scrap it. But I needed a good reason to scrap it. It had to be special.

Then the challenge over at Punky Scraps this week was given to us on the DT, and I knew exactly what to do. If you want to join in, you need to use the following ingredients list to create a layout:

Photos of items, not people
3 circles
Turquoise
Stitching
Red
2 or more staples

That first one on the list is what sparked off this whole page.

I'd been working on my photography and took a photo of our rings that I was just so happy with, I had to scrap it. I know people shouldn't really be seeing them yet, but I couldn't resist. In trying to keep things fairly simple I didn't used as many layers as I'd have liked, but I did get to use the beloved Heidi Swapp Ghost Alphas again:

Love that red stitching! Thank you, Creative Scrappers, for such a great sketch; and thank you, Punky Scraps, for a great ingredients list.

Stars in Their Eyes

2011-07-21T08:30:00.007+02:00

I can't resist quickly celebrating the fact that I've been selected again for publication in the Scrapbook News and Review magazine - out now - with the page I made about my brother a while ago.

Things are moving very quickly for me at the moment and it's hard not to get dizzy with it all. It's an exciting time!

Some celebratory stars:

I made these by printing a template directly onto the card, cutting them out and ensuring there were flaps on the outside edges, and scoring them so they bend outwards. I cut out the accent parts and stuck them on. Then I proceeded to remove my fingerprints by gluegun, sticking two 'halves' of a star together back-to-back, and pressing down on the points so they bent at the scored lines and the stars became 3D. They'll hang by fishing wire, from the ceiling of the dance hall at our wedding venue.

It Must be Alchemy

2011-07-19T08:30:00.003+02:00

I have some great, great news to share!

I'm getting married!

....oh, wait, we already knew that. For, like, three years.

So what is it then?

***

We-ell... a little while ago I made a video tutorial as a job application:

and I got the job!

From September, I'm going to be one of Gauche Alchemy's two video tutorial masters! You can read all about their new DT here. I am so excited to be an Alchemist, to work with all those talented artists, and to be able to display this badge on my blog:

Here is a still of the layout that was the product of the video:

From September, look out for more awesome video tutorials from me which will feature lots of yummy products from the Gauche Alchemy store!

Don't Miss the Punky Scraps Challenge!

2011-07-17T08:30:00.001+02:00

Lately I've been gorging myself on sketches, and can't immediately recall the last time I made a layout without some sketch or other I found online.

That's not to say, though, that all design problems are solved and quite often a layout seems to run away with itself and go further beyond the sketch than I'd originally intended. Sometimes this works out, but sometimes it doesn't and I find myself unconvinced of the result.

This is kind of what happened with this layout:

At the end of the parents' visit, I shoved the camera into my fiance's hands, so that we didn't suffer yet another missed photo opportunity.

I wanted more space on the page, and somehow ended up with less. It came from this sketch:

Anyway, that is what this week's Punky Scraps challenge is - to respond to this sketch. Go check out the inspiration, and why not join in? You could win this lovely kit:

Flowers coming out of my ears

2011-07-14T09:20:00.000+02:00

quite.

Wedding flowers, beautiful wedding flowers. Beautiful handmade wedding flowers. I've just made the bouquets for the bridesmaids, and I can't wait any longer (I can't wait at all, it seems) to share them with you.

I was so unsure for so long how I wanted the bouquets to turn out... I had one idea, then another, then went back to the first, then had a third, a fourth, and so on. Then we changed our minds about the bridesmaids' dresses, and that totally threw all bouquet plans up in the air.

But a late April visit to bluebell-carpeted woods convinced me that uniformity would be most visually impressive. And so I got to work. The result is a simple, understated and elegant little bouquet which should hold up pretty nicely against the bridesmaids' dresses.

Now just to solve the problem of my own bouquet...