Vintage paper?!

It's that time of month where there's a new challenge going on over at Sarah's Cards....it's another sketch this month, this time by DT newbie Tracie, and it's a fab one open to lots of interpretation! Be sure to follow the link for all the details and be in with a chance to nab yourself a £20 e-voucher for the shop and plenty of inspiration from the other girls!

Here's my take on Tracies' sketch:

See the lovely woodgrain backing paper there......it's from a Cosmo Cricket's "Wanted" range - released in 2006! How's that for retro scrapping?! Positively vintage me thinks!

The square print is an Instagram shot from my mobile, and I'm finding them the perfect size for A4 layouts. For some tips on how to print them yourself at home, see my latest post on the Sarah's card blog here. I'm sure I'll blog the layouts themselves soon back here too though!

Thanks for the support re C25K!! I seem to be stuck on week 4 though!! I've been struggling with it for 2 weeks - although I completed it on the first run (must have been the novelty factor) I've struggled to do it all since, having to take a minute walk in the last five minute running section every time. We'd changed running location to this gorgeous lake:

however, in a bid to break this cycle I've got myself in we're going back to the old sports field where I last had "success" on our next run to see if that will hjelp make a change.

Have discovered that I absolutely LOVE running in the rain - to the point where if the sun is out of an afternoon (rare thing that though mind!!), I find myself willing it away in time for my run. Here is my secret weapon against the rain: my running hat! As long as the rain isn't in my eyes and wispy bits of fringe I'm fine, and the hat gives me that protection. I love you, running hat!

It was pretty bad on the last run though, despite the hat! Even the geese and ducks were a bit weary of taking a dip and were flocking on the grass at the side of the lake. Thank god, they didn't chase me!! Not that I'd give them much of a race at the snail-like speed I jog at mind!

Lot's of people are taking the C25k plunge - how's it going?!
xxxx

Vanilla Sunshine.........

Mmmmmmmmm how delicious does that sound......Vanilla Sunshine? It conjures up images of warm, freshly baked cakes.......nom nom! In fact it's the name of paper manufacturer SEI's latest release that I got to play with for the Sarah's Cards blog!

A large focus of my post was how to use a square punch to create some of the popular scrapbooking trends - namely banners, bunting and chevrons....see the full tutorial here.....

My first page focused on the banner technique, and is about how I love rainy days.....just as well really at the moment eh with our current weather?!

 My second page looked at creating bunting and chevron mosaics....

And my final page showed how I used the cute little SEI fabric scraps to create customised tags - the tutorial for this one can be found here....

Thank you for the comments and pm's about the crochet heart garlands in my last post - if you can crochet give them a go!!

Be back soon with some kit work....

Nat xxx

His N Hers Hats

This gorgeous early spring weather is fantastic isn't it?

We took full advantage of it last weekend and spent an afternoon at Worm's Head on the Gower, lapping up the clean air, sunshine and a spot of light lunch in the pub overlooking the breathtaking sweep of  Rhossili bay.

Just two quick photos from my mobile; we took the proper camera too buy I've yet to upload them. It's lovely there though. The bizarre peninsula of rock that you can see in the first photo looks like a giant dragon raising his head from the water (although not in the angle in this pic!)....hence the name Worm's head......"wurm" is thought to be Viking for dragon.

This warm weather (let's hope it lasts!), is a million miles from the cold snap we were experiencing just a few weeks ago. I even purchased a woolly hat it was so cold, despite the fact I always look like an idiot in them!

I was inspired to scrap our hats when I noticed them lying together on the hall sideboard one evening. Both hats were remarkably similar to each other, yet still quite unique and very representative of mine and Mr T's personalities......the hats were a similar style; grey wool, with coloured icons in repeated rows around and around. But mine had pretty, girly flowers, whilst Mr T's had geeky Space Invaders all over. So very us, each of them! And so my journalling was born....

I put together the page for the Sarah's Cards Blog showcasing some lovely Crate and October Afternoon papers.

I needed a good, clear space for my journaling where it would be in focus, but didn't want to completely cover up any of those gorgeous patterns. So I cut a heart shape mask from some scrap paper and misted through it with white Mr Huey, before stitching lines for my writing straight across the heart.

And hey presto.....

I am loving the colour grey at the moment in my scrapbooking, so much so I've just bought a grey (or as near as) Mr Huey mist, and can't wait to get spritzing it all over my pages!!
Thanks for visiting as always! xxx

Charming!!!!!

This month I got to play with the gorgeous new Charming papers from Echo Park's this & That line for Sarah's Cards. I really loved putting these two pages together. I think A4 scrapping and I are having a bit of a love affair at the moment! My good ole buddy Gems came over for a scrap-sesh too which helped - we haven't seen each other for ages (erm, like wayyyy before Christmas) let alone scrapped together so it was a good afternoon all round!

My first page documents about how Mr T and I love our little photographic adventures together.

As always, click for a larger view of any picture

I loved the 12x12 sheet of alpha stickers from the collection, which contain a mix of scrabble tiles and dymo label effect letters, and loads of other stickers, including some journalling spots, tabs and banners.

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I was super happy to discover that the gorgeous little ticket stamps in the new Dilly Dally "Adventures" stamps from My Minds Eye's Miss Caroline Range fitted nicely in my (pre-historic) original Sizzix ticket-shaped die cuts - can see these being used together a lot. I still love tickets on my pages.

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The second page  made used one of my favourite pics from our recent weekend away:

I thought I;d have a got at heat embossing directly onto my photo with some of my new stamps (MME Adventure stamps from the Dilly Dally range on the Miss Caroline collection. - I thought it  might make the surface bubble a but, but it bloody cracked it! I managed to cover most of it with a bit of twine.

White space in a photo = perfect place for a title!

really enjoyed handcutting hexagons from scraps of the papers in clusters to my page. Will be doing this again I think!

The heart pins in the embellie pack were bright pink, but I heat embossed it in copper to make it fit my page - happy days!

 

I know loads of people are getting all geared up for the Sarah's Cards retreat this weekend! I am absolutely gutted to not be able to go this time around and will be missing out on all the fun, but I hope if you are going you have an absolute ball. What am I talking about - of course you will, they are fab weekends!

Thanks for stopping by! xxx

Work it, baby!!

It's DT member Ifa's turn to host this months challenge over at the Sarah's Cards blog, and she set the brief to create a page around the theme of work.

I was super excited to get started on this challenge, because even though I've scrapped the fact that I am now a teacher a few times, I'd had a few different jobs before I started my teachers training at 25, but it wasn't until Ifa set this challenge I realised that these have gone unscrapped. The road that led me to make the decision to go into teaching was long and varied, made me the person I am today and taught me countless valuable skills, so the opportunity to document my career prior to teaching has been a welcome one.

Here's my take on her challenge:

 

I totally loved making this page - it was a challenge to trawl through old pics and find one that matched each time period, with the relevant people where possible. As for putting it together - I mixed up some really old October Afternoon die-cut sheets that I found at the bottom of a box along with scraps from new ranges (Crate's Paper Heart and October Afternoon's Farmhouse) that were quite literally lying on my desk from my last project, it was so fun to just pick up scraps and find a way to use them on the page. 

Just while we are on the topic - here's a page I scrapped previously about being a teacher, using last October's Sarahs Cards kit....

 

My title for the challenge page uses a mix of lovely Amy Tangerine AC Thickers and some October Afternoon Type key alphas:

The tab that says "My Journey" and is just visible on the bottom right of the page is a file card that pulls out to reveal details and memories of each of my jobs. Gotta love a bit of hidden journalling!

Lots of layering of scraps and stickers and tape and die cuts.

And I'm still loving banners/pennants!

So fancy a crack at the challenge for yourself?! You have until the end of the month to create a page and link it up to us on the blog to be in with a chance of bagging yourself a £20 e-voucher, check out all the details here :)

And as a compleeeeete side note, you might notice I've added tags to all my posts. The main reason for this was that we recently had a hard-drive meltdown which resulted in me loosing all my previous Sarah's Cards work (amongst other things), and I had to have a good trawl through the blogs to find copies. I realised that tagging posts would make it easier for me to find stuff in future. It may also be useful for you too; if you want to just look at a certain topic of posts, for example you want to check out a certain months kit, or are interested in my crochet etc check out the tag cloud on my side bar for the categories you fancy. Alternatively, just pop back regularly (or even subscribe - there's a button on the side for that, too!) to read ALL the drivel I post ;)

Happy scrapping xxx

Icy Blues....

Maybe it was the recent spate of icy weather we've had that inspired my colour choice for this page, or maybe it's just that I couldn't resist the pretty new lines From October Afternoon (Farmhouse) and Crate (Paperheart)......my money's on the latter if truth be told!

I finally got around to scrapping Mr T's 30th birthday, for the Sarah's Cards Blog (don't forget to click the pic if you want to see it a bit closer!)

I'm feeling the love for bow-topped paper clips right now - they made a bit of an appearance on my February kit work too - I can share that with you very soon as I think the kits are arriving with subscribers now...

And the all-important detail shot ;) This one actually covers up a massive rub-on cock up....grrrrrrr, I usually cut rubons away from the rest of the sheet on their backing paper before I offer them up to a layout to see if I want to use them. Did I this time? No. Did I regret it? Yes. Cue half a random typewriter across Mr T's birthday cake!

And just to note....there are no more birthdays around here soon.....certainly no big ones......like a 30th or anything.....absolutely not.....move along.....nothing to see here..........

Catch you all soon :) xxx

You're My Favourite Deputy!

Yes, you! ;)

This month's Sarah's Cards Challenge has been launched over on the blog.....as it's Oscars month we decided to go with a movie-themed challenge.

For my take on this, I was inspired by the Toy Story Movies, and in particular Woody's line "You're my Favourite Deputy".....how could I not use this to scrap a picture of my niece and I?!

With a view on saving storage space and money, I've started scrapping in A4 rather and 8.5x11, it means that they can be put in acid free polypockets in ordinary ring binders, which is of course much cheaper than ordinary albums and takes up a lot less space! I'm still getting to grips with the fiddly size though, especially as I always leave a 1/4 inch border all around my pages.

To make my title I used a variety of fonts, including this MME Funday pre-printed "favourite" chipboard tag,

and some graph alphas from Jilly Bean. The #1 and star chipboard embellies were also from the MME pack:

Big emphasis on stars on this page in reference to being sheriff. I used a cuttlebug embossing folder on a piece of woodgrain paper to make this cool textural star border - I picked it up on ebay agggges ago really cheaply and I'm glad I've finally put it to good use!

Another of the MME chipboard tags and a couple of punched stars add a little interest in the bottom left corner.

I really enjoyed making the page, it was nice to team up older patterned papers (the Sassafrass feather pattern) and alphas (the Jilly Bean ones) with newer items (the Studio Calico grid paper and the MME chipboard pieces), as well as making use of a bargain purchase I'd had a while but not yet cracked open. This really is my favourite type of scrapping - pulling all sorts of elements together on one page.

So if you fancy a crack at our Movie-themed challenge, hop on over to the Sarahs Cards blog to see what the rest of the DT created and to link us up to your own entry.....you could be in with the chance to win yourself a nice little £20 e-voucher for the shop, just in time for the arrival of all the new CHA goodies!! Go!

Thanks for stopping by as always,
Nat xx