Oh I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside!

Hi everyone!
Went to Whitby with my parents yesterday - a lovely sunny day.
Got some great pictures - thanks to my polarising filter and the 'expressive' mode on my camera. I'm using that mode for everything now, particularly craft projects - it makes the colours really 'pop', whereas on automatic mode it all seems a little washed out.

Today I've been making a mixed media layout. It's a double page spread. So I had to get messy twice. Here's the background of the first page.

Thankfully I got less messy on the second background, which I have recorded and is in a video at the bottom of this post. 

I'm always stuck for titles and don't always want to fall into the trap of Thickers Every Time. So I used lengths of jute ribbon instead.

 I just mounted my photos onto jute squares (from Poundland! Haha). I left 3 squares without photos, and instead used the Wind & Waves Hot Off The Press embossing folder on some textured card.
In Whitby there's a little market and from there I bought a little bag of tiny shells and I painted some and stuck them onto my layout.

Aaaaand here's the timelapse video - I hope you like! 

Until next time..!

A Father's Day Card

Hi everyone!

Since Father's Day is coming up I thought I'd better get cracking with a card for my dad.

I picked up a Papermania Mr Mister decoupage pack for this. In The Range they were selling half a pack for half the price - good as I only wanted one sheet of each decoupage design. I also used the XCut Vintage Icons die set. 

I tried following a tutorial in Creativity! magazine for this, but I got fed up after two failed attempts so just made the folds up as I went along..

A New Layout!

Hi everyone!

Last week I had major scrapper's block...

But after a visit to two (TWO!) branches of Hobbycraft on Monday I've been back in full swing.

(Went on a drive from Hull to York with my parents, stopping at places on the way - a fun day!)

Yesterday I made some things for docrafts, but today I made a scrapbook page for myself.

I used paper and sequins from the new Dovecraft Bohemian collection and stuck to a purple and turquoise theme.

The photo is from when Nathan and I went for a walk around the lake a couple of weeks ago. A lovely day!

Products used:

Dovecraft Bohemian 8x8 paper pack, sequin pack

Papermania: Accordion flowers, Owl Folk charm, Folk Floral paper & stamp set, Simply Floral paper

Spiral flower die (free with Simply Cards & Papercraft this month

My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste paper, postcard

XCut Ornate frames, heart border punch, polka dot embossing folder

Webster's Pages sticker

Santoro Mirabelle brad

The Works resin flowers

Docrafts Dandelion download, printed onto vellum.

American Crafts Dear Lizzy date stamp

While I'm here...

I picked this toolbox up in Hobbycraft for £5. From first sight I thought the tray inside lifted out....

But no, it opens up with 3 trays to store my supplies in!

Using it to store my most recent supplies, plus the products Docrafts send me so when I make something for them, everything is to hand.

I've got a completely free weekend so I should get some more layouts made. :)

A baa-rilliant page! (Geddit?)

In London there were several Shaun The Sheeps dotted around.

I love it when I go to places and they have things like this, like Liverpool with the Lamb-bananas, and the Easter Eggs that were on display at Covent Garden back in 2012. I'm always intrigued by the different designs, so of course I took lots of sheep photos!

Products used:

Papermania: Capsule Green paper and blitter flowers

Simply Floral paper and journal card

Folk Floral tag and bow

Botanicals lace paper

Neon green ink and gems

American Crafts plain thickers

Dyelusions chopped pesto ink spray (sprayed on the page and used to colour in the Thickers too)

Scrapberrys hexagon stencil

K&Co frame

Sizzix Tim Holtz chevron die - was cut out of purple paper but once cut out I noticed on the back I'd used it to do some inking, so that side looked better on my layout!

I've been waiting for the postman to bring me new supplies but I was disappointed today. Hopefully they'll arrive tomorrow. Until then, I guess I'll plan some layouts...

More docrafts makes, plus I wrote a poem...

Hi everyone!

I've a lot of unfinished projects at the moment - 

So instead of getting on with them, I wrote a poem...

Some of my makes for docrafts are live on their site now,

The first are some adorable little pillow gift boxes using this download with the Papermania Little Meow Collection.

The second thing is a piece I'm really proud of - a scrapbook page I made for my trial for the Design Team. I was sent basic supplies, coloured paper and a paperclip die set. All my ideas for this brief focused on colour and I'd always wanted to use this ferris wheel photo in a layout. 

This 8x8" page is made using the Feeling Fruity? download, a lovely summery collection. 

                                       
The last is a card using the Thread Effect  download, blue and brown patterns that work great with the Craft Collection Pastels products.

Find out more about my makes in my docrafts gallery

Today I am going into town and to the Range with my fella. Hopefully I can find that neon cardstock I mentioned in the video! Haha

Oh, and an update on the Chilli situation from last weekend.

I can happily report that it was the best chilli I'd ever made and my family loved it! 

Made some cards!

Been busy this week, sent my first docrafts magazine commission off yesterday (eeeee!), but I spent this morning making some family cards.

This first one is for my grandparents' wedding anniversary.

Using the Papermania Botanicals collection.

This second one is for my dad's cousin who has just had a baby boy.

Using the Papermania Pastel Craft collection.

This afternoon I am making chilli for eight people.

Need to find the number for emergency takeout.... Haha!

Coral Reefs

When in London we visited the Natural History Museum (My favourite place on Earth!) and went to the Coral Reefs exhibition. I expected there to be more fish than just the one tank, but I did enjoy learning more about coral habitats, and I find dead stuff in jars fascinating...

I'm really happy with this layout. I tried to give it lots of texture, and I'm glad I finally got to use the gorgeous backing paper.

The backing paper has glitter already on it, so I added to this by putting glitter glue onto the raised parts of the embossed green card.

I made my own texture paste again but used blue and green acrylic paint instead of white. I also added some glitter for a subtle sparkle.

Products used:

My Mind's Eye Speciality cardstock

Scrapberry stencil

Hot Off The Press Wind & Waves embossing folder

Crate Paper frame

K&Co film strip sticker

DCWV Hey Sailor! topper

Carnaby Street scrapbook page

Finally got started on scrapping my London photos!

The first page uses Instagram shots of Carnaby Street.
I've found it's easier to just whip my phone out of my pocket when in a busy city rather than messing around with my big camera - my camera phone isn't great, but it's good enough for quick shots like these that are printed out small.

I included a shaker element on this layout. Just get some clear packaging that supplies come in, stitch up 3 sides, fill with sequins, then stitch up the remaining side.

Products used -

My Mind's Eye Cut & Paste paper and postcards.

Papermania Neon pink ink and gems.

Sizzix Moroccan die & stamp set

Paperchase 'geek' stamps

Dovecraft Sweet Paris sequins

Xcut corner die, scalloped circle die.

Various washi tapes.

A trip to London!

Went to London over the weekend so all my crafty efforts have been supply-gathering and photo-taking!

It's been a lot of fun but it's all gone by so quickly *sniff*

Went to the big Paperchase on Tottenham Court Road and picked up some stamps and embellishments and tape and most of all, finally... a border punch! YAY! 

We called at Cambridge on the way home and TKMaxx have My Mind's Eye scrapbook kits in for £8 so I chose the pink and blue one....

As well as 16 sheets of cardstock there are several embellishments with it, stickers and these neat little postcards... 

This one's my favourite! May have to base a layout around my 4'11"-ness!

Around London we spotted lots of Shaun the Sheeps. All decorated differently. This one was in St James Park. 

And a nice lady took this photo of Nathan and I with our ice cream. 

Why did I not have the decency to keep my eyes open...?! 

Also came home to a Papermania Botanicals die cut & paper pack as a subscription gift for Creativity magazine. I wanted that a year ago and never found it. Now I have it, and it's gorgeous.

Scrapbook Magazine also sent me some goodies. I mentioned to them that the paper in the latest issue was all pixelated, plus I was supposed to get something for having my letter published in the last issue. So nice of them to send me such lovely things and I can't wait to use them. Been after some stencils for a while, too! As they say, if you don't ask, you don't get.. 

(I wrote this blog on Monday but thought a vlog would work better... It didn't, so I'm posting the written version instead.)