Wednesday 28 September 2011

LSNED 20th - 24th

Hello! Sorry my blog is becoming all about Learn Something New Everyday at the moment, but it won't be for much longer. I can't believe September is nearly over. Here's my pages for the 20th to the 24th (the 24th has a few page photos - it was a big day!):















































I'm pleased I've managed to keep up with LSNED, but I'm also quite looking forward to next month when I can get some other craft projects done - it's kind of taken over September! I know I'll be really pleased to look back on this book in the future though.

Hope everyone is having a good week! x



Thursday 22 September 2011

LSNED 15th - 19th

Hello! A few more pages to share from my Learn Something New Everyday book:






Can you tell I like Downton Abbey?! For anyone who hasn't seen this program, it is a brilliant period drama just starting it's second series here in England. I'm loving it so far. I like that it has twists in the tale which aren't  always expected (unlike the usual period drama twists!). And Dame Maggie Smith gets some fantastic lines! Anyone else love this program?

Also (just to let you know) Sarah is having a special offer at the SJ Crafts online store at the moment, to celebrate the launch of the Design Team. If you enter the code TEAM5 at the checkout, before 11pm Friday 23rd Sept (tomorrow!), you get 15% discount on your order. That's as well as free delivery if you spend over £15. So go take a look!

Night Night! x

Wednesday 21 September 2011

LSNED 9th - 14th

Sorry I've got a bit behind on showing you my Learn Something New Everyday pages. I'll do the catch up in two parts (and hold myself back from chattering!) so I'm not bombarding you with too much at once! Here's the 9th to the 14th:



























I'll be back tomorrow with more! x

Tuesday 20 September 2011

Exciting News!

Hello everyone,

Just wanted to share some great news I had over the weekend - I'm on the new Design Team for the SJ Crafts online scrapbooking and cardmaking store. Sarah has a great shop, and she's getting in lots of new items like this:


How much do I want these chipboard accents from Crate Paper? A lot! I've also just spied the Martha Stewart Classic Butterfly punch in the shop so I'll be buying that from there soon, since you all agreed with me that a butterfly punch is an essential crafting tool!

If you have a chance, pop over to the shop and check it out. Postage is currently free on orders of £15 or more.

You can also see the shop blog, where you'll find news on shop updates, and soon you'll be able to see the DT projects there too. In the meantime you can see who the other DT members are on their blogs:


Or you can check out the Shop Facebook Page here.

Okay, I'm sure that's enough links for you for one evening! I'm going to eagerly anticipate my first DT package of goodies to play with. Hope you're all having a happy Tuesday. (Or whatever day you read this on!) x

Sunday 18 September 2011

Explore ~ a challenge layout

Happy Sunday to you. It's been a rotten old day weather wise here, so it's been a bit boring being stuck in with the kids while hubby is at work. At least I've managed to finish a layout in among playing shopkeeper, animals, and other fun toddler activities!:

Supplies = American Crafts Ash Cardstock; Pink Paislee Nantucket 6x6 Paper Pack, Wood Shapes, and Ephemera; Pink Paislee Mistables Scallop Ribbon; Pink and Turquoise Acrylic Paints; Pumice Texture Gel; Uniball White Gel Pen; PMA Adhesive Stones 'Red Hot'; Yellow Thread.































.
I combined a couple of challenges for this one - the weekly challenge on the UKScrappers forum, to use a beach theme, the colour turquoise, and two photos - and the Sarah's Cards Ltd Blog September Challenge sketch:


I've used a fair amount of the new Pink Paislee Nantucket collection on this layout - I love it! Gorgeous colours and patterns, and the beach theme is great for me as we live near the sea and have a lot of beach photos.

I used four sheets from the 6x6 paper pack to make the circle in the background. To make sure my circle quarters were all even in size I drew around a plate onto a spare piece of paper, then folded it into quarters, and used this as a template on the Nantucket papers:


I placed them on my cardstock (which I'd machine stitched a border around with pale yellow thread) with a 2cm gap in between the circle quarters, and began layering everything else on top.

I knew I was going to like the Nantucket items, but when they arrived I was also pleasantly surprised to see how much you get for your money in the Ephemera:


So many pretty bits and pieces to choose from! I used them all around the page, including under and next to my title, for which I used a Nantucket wood shape. I painted it with pink acrylic paint with a bit of pumice texture gel mixed in to make it look sandy (you could mix in actual sand instead if you have some!):


The scalloped turquoise strip below my photos is some Pink Paislee Mistables Scallop Muslin Ribbon. I coloured it by watering down acrylic paint in an old plastic food pot, and then dunking my ribbon in until it was coated: 


I squeezed the excess out, and hung it to dry overnight, with some newspaper underneath to catch any drips. Once dry, I used my Crop-A-Dile Big Bite to punch holes along the scallops, and a white opaque gel pen to add a wavy white edge (the acrylic paint had stiffened the muslin so it was easier to do these two steps - they might not work if you'd coloured the ribbon by misting it. I don't know - I haven't tried!):


The final touch was punching some little suns from the left over 6x6 pieces, and adding them to the layout with 3D dots. I also added the word 'sand' (which was originally 'sand castle' in the ephemera pack) to the top left corner over a tiny tag from the ephemera and a flag which I'd cut from a scrap of the 6x6 paper:


So there we go. What do you think? I warn you, there may be some more projects using Nantucket coming up - I have lots of ideas for how to use it!

Do you have any favourite collections at the moment? x

Saturday 17 September 2011

A curious blog hop

Kirsty over at Curiouser and Curiouser had the fantastic idea to mail out little embellishments that she'd made, so that we could each do a project with one, and then hop along to see what each other created with them. If you've hopped your way here then it's great to see you, if you've begun here then why not check out the rest of the blog hop chain to see a lovely variety of projects?!

I used my little embellishment to make this birthday card:

Supplies = A6 Papermania Kraft card blank, Pink Paislee Old School 6x6 paper, Anita's Sentiment Stamp,  scraps of cream card and kraft paper, DCWV adhesive ribbon, Bo Bunnny rub on, Brown journaling pen, 3 buttons, embellishment courtesy of Kirsty!






















I love the little polka dot butterfly and the stripy paperclip. I really, really want a butterfly punch! I see so many projects with these lovely punched butterflies. I'm going to have to get hold of one soon, and then butterflies will probably appear on everything of mine for a while!


























September is a big birthday month for our families, we've had 8 over the last few weeks! So I've been making an awful lot of cards. I actually quite like it when I have a lot to make in a row as then I get into a groove and find them quicker and easier to make. And this one was easy as I got to start with such a cute embellie - thanks Kirsty!

Your next stop on the blog hop is Sian at From High in the Sky. I can't wait to see what she's created - see you there! (If you get lost anywhere on the hop then go back to Kirsty's blog for a list of participants.) x

Thursday 15 September 2011

from Starting Points to Stop Motion

Hello all!

I know I said I'd be back with more LSNED pages, but I changed my mind (though my lesson from yesterday is at the end of this post, so there's some LSNED here...). I have a different Shimelle inspired project for you today, a page created from her latest 'Starting Points' challenge. You have to start a 12x12 page with four 5.5"x5.5" squares of paper, and a narrow strip of paper across the middle. Here's my take on it:

Supplies = Bazill Basics Cardstock, Pink Paisley 'Old School' 6x6 Paper Pack, Basic Grey 'Clay Motif' Paper, Making Memories Shimmer Alphas (Black), PaperMania Curly Font Green, Selection of Embellishments. 



I found the starting point a really great way to bring the page together quickly, especially as I had this pack of Pink Paisley 'Old School' papers which I'd been waiting to use on a page, and the colours matched this photo so well:

And I was able to root around in my 'odd embellishments' to add a fun mix of items to the page, including a butterfly which used to be a pendant:

Are you wondering what my lesson from yesterday was? Did you guess from the post title? I learnt to make a Stop Motion movie using this App for my Ipod! I was inspired by movies like this one by Mollie Makes, and this one by Papermash, I think these movies are so cute, and when I found I could get an App for 69p to make one myself I just had to try it!

My movie isn't perfect, as I didn't have a way of propping the Ipod up, and hey, it was my first try. But it's less than 20 seconds long, so if you want to take a peek it won't take much of your time, and you can see my scrapbook page above coming together as if by magic! The embedded video is a bit small, you can view it on YouTube here to get the full effect.




What do you think? I had tons of fun making it. I added the title and music using the 'Splice' App after saving the Stop Motion movie. It took a while to do, so I certainly won't be doing it for every scrapbook page, but I do want to try it again once I've worked out a way to prop up my Ipod.

Would you like to see more movies like this? Do you know of any cute Stop Motion movies you can tell me about?

That's all for now, see you soon, x

Sunday 11 September 2011

Twirling Friends

I took this photo of our close friends Rosie and David, when Rosie was twirling my daughter, and David was rocking my son. Because of this movement the photo is a bit blurry, but I love the picture - it warms my heart. We're so lucky to have them as our friends, and I love it that they feel as close as family - I know my kids will grow up loving them as much as I do!

Supplies =
WRMK Stitched Cardstock, 72&Sunny Chipboard Stickers, and Citrus Chipboard Stickers
Cosmo Cricket Togetherness 'Birds of a Feather' Paper (A and B side)
PaperMill Shop Chipboard Alphabet (painted with blue and white acrylic paint)
Unknown Chipboard Brackets and Buttons




































I used the September Challenge at Scrapbookers Anonymous to prompt the page - the challenge is to use chipboard (could you have guessed? I've used a fair amount!).

The alphas in the title were blank chipboard. I wanted to give them a distressed denim look (to match my friend's clothes in the photo), so I painted them first with blue acrylic paint, let it dry, and then rubbed white acrylic paint on with my fingertip - wiping it with a baby wipe if it got too thick:















It was good to use some of the chipboard from my stash - and I enjoyed keeping the page quite simple so that the chipboard stands out. If you're hoarding some chipboard in your stash then go and make a page and enter the challenge!

Back soon with more LSNED... x

Friday 9 September 2011

LSNED 3rd - 8th

Oops, I meant to post my LSNED pages more often than this, sorry! I'll keep it short and sweet and just share the photos (rather than babbling on!) because there's so many pages...



























I'm glad I'm keeping up so far, sorry it means I'm not blogging quite so much though. I should be back at some point over the weekend with a layout, if all goes to plan!

Anyone else have a million ideas for crafting in their heads and no time to do them all? Hands up - you know you're out there! x

Sunday 4 September 2011

LSNED 1st and 2nd Sept

A brief post to show you the first couple of entries in my Learn Something New Every Day book (if you don't know what I'm talking about see previous post here).

1st Sept:

2nd Sept:


I'm having fun using my Ipod Touch for all the photos. The photo booth ones were taken using the PocketBooth App, and the others were all taken with the standard camera, and then effects were applied in the BeFunky App. The quality of them isn't perfect, but they work well as little prints for this kind of 'smash' book.

Hope you don't mind me doing an Ebay mention - I'm currently selling some scrapbooking and cardmaking bits, including papers, a scrapbook calendar kit, stamps, and more. If you'e a uk girl and you fancy grabbing a bargain then check them out here (scroll down - there's a few items of maternity clothing at the top!).

Now Mollie Makes issue 5 is calling me to read it! Bye for now x

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