Far, Far Away

I've been away for a while... yup. Lost a lotta contact. Missed a lotta happenings. Feels like a lot longer than 3 weeks since I've blogged, but it's that. It's been a good month since I've been able to make anything, that's for sure. Something snapped, I guess. In the househunt time condensed and my craft room gathered dust. I'd like to say that in this time we've gotten ourselves a nice little property, but it's not the case. Not yet. A standard has been set, though.

I'm gonna get back on the blogging horse, and visit all of you and see what I've been missing. I hope you'll all come back and visit me, too. I've missed this contact.

Anyway... deep breath...limber up (stretch, stretch)... what have I actually managed to scrape together these last few weeks?

Well...

...a wedding invitation order took up a lot of my time:

But that's OK because I made someone very happy.

There is an unconventional colour challenge this month at XOXO:

For which I used pink and orange. All the time I was thinking 'yeuch' but then I remembered fruit salad penny sweets and embraced the challenge - and I was really happy, in the end. There's a bit of Washi tape in there, some fabric ribbon, lace and other fabric - all from Gauche Alchemy. There's a bit of Crate Paper's Random stuff in there too.

Oh, I got my hair cut:

Yeah, that made me feel goooooood.

I've also been playing around with my camera, trying to learn a thing or two about its manual settings...

OK, work in progress - but I'll get there.

And I went to a gig - another time, another story... but I took my camera:

That was one awesome night. I will come back with the story another time because I'm gonna scrap it. Like, ASAP.


All righty, I think that feels OK - I'm blogging again. I'll go warm down now. Hope to see you all on the rounds again! Thanks for stopping by to say hello again!

Roots

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!

A Recipe of All Sorts

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!

I'm in the Mood for Love

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!

Messing Things Up

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

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

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...

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

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!

Guest Creative Scrapper

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.

Scrapbook Challenges Blog Hop

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!

One and Only One

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!

Creatively Scrapping

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.

Punky Recipe - the Star of the Show

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.

It's All About The Journey

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

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!