One Love

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

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

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!

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

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...