Fond Farewell

Well, a few weeks ago I played with my last ever Sarah's Cards kit :( There is one more left for subscribers to get creative with (the July kit), but the half of the DT that I'm on had our last kit assignment for June. It will be strange having no kit to play with anymore after three years of working on them! However, there are lots of exciting things ahead for the shop and I'm looking forward to continuing being part of the team bringing inspiration over on the shop blog. Fun times!!

The June kit is full of fab things to play with, and seemed jam-packed with embellishments, including some Dear Lizzy chipboard, a Hambly overlay, Bella Blvd flag pins and some SEI scalloped borders, and more. Here's the first page that I created with mine, my final Sarah's Card kit!

It features a pic of Mr T and his dad both snoozing in the sun in an identical pose! We were at our City's Olympic Torch celebration in a beautiful park, but obviously the excitement of awaiting the torch's monumental arrival was too much for this pair!

It's hard to make out in the picture above, but I stamped some "zzzzzzzzz's" gently rising from the cloud in a soft grey to reinforce the sleep theme.

 LOVE that music note chipboard banner!

I had a rare evening to myself last night whilst Mr T had a night out with the boys. My plan had consisted of this:

as well as allowing for a spot of catch-up tv and internet time. I ended up spotting some inspiring crochet and now have a hankering to get on with some of my (many) unfinished bits, but I have another creative project on the go too. Roll on the Summer, when I'm really hoping to get my teeth in to it and get going....... I also came across loads of things about vintage caravans.....a little piece of my heart feels like I really need one to do up and show some love to!

The white chocolate you can see was destined for these White Chocolate Lemon Truffles, but I got so caught up in reading (both blogs, and that book *snigger*) that I ran out of time. Fast forward to this morning, and the mixture is currently setting in the fridge and man it looks good! I found the recipe on Pinterest, and after well over a year of being a member I have finally succumbed to cooking a recipe I have seen on there. Having a feeling it wouldn't be good for my already crappy waistline, I have tried to ignore all delicious things pinned on there and keep my boards for creative/household/school inspiration, but I have a feeling that I'm now on the slippery slope!!!!

I'll let you know how the truffles turn out, I worried that the mixture had split last minute but I'm hoping I rescued it!! Pop back soon for the other two pages I made with the June kit xxx

June already?!

I honestly and truly can't believe that it's June already!!! I feel like we've only just got over Christmas and here we are in the middle of the year.

It's kit time again this month for me on the Sarah's Cards DT, and as I was sat at my desk playing with all the pretty paper and bits (as many of you will know, after many years of being one of the UK's most loved scrapbooking kits, they are ending next month whilst the shop continues to go from strength to strength, so this is the last one for me to play with. And, I can promise it's a bloomin' good one!), I realised that I hadn't shared what I did with the April one yet! Doh. The April kit was lush too - the greys and turquoises of the Lilybee papers were so me right now.

Here are my three pages and the stories behind them:

Destination Unknown
For my 30th birthday, Mr T organised a surprise few days away together with one catch – I had to drive us there! I had no idea where the satnav was programmed for and our mysterious road trip was the perfect start to a lovely weekend.

I wanted to utilise lots of the gorgeous patterns in the kit without it becoming overwhelming, so decided to create a mosaic of hexagons floating from top to bottom. To do this, I simply printed a hexagon from the shapes menu in Word onto a piece of scrap card, cut it out and used it as a template to draw (and later cut out) hexagons from the papers.

Once I’d stuck my hexagons on to my background paper I gave the base page a unified feel by sprinkling it with turquoise mist. As I’d used lots of patterned papers and a montage of 4 photos on an A4 page, I went easy with embellishments so avoid the page becoming overcrowded. I simply handwrote my journaling, added the title with the alphas, used a sticker from each of the embellishment sheets and dotted a couple of the giant gem stones here and there.

When You Went Down To The Woods
I was rally lucky to have grown up in the former estate and woodland of an old mansion house, and the lakes and waterfalls that were within the site. It was a magical experience growing up having a forest, complete with foxes, badgers, owls and squirrels as your back garden. It's changed loads since then, but still holds a special place in the hearts of me and my sister, and we were very excited to take my five year old niece to “The Woods” for the first time over the Easter holidays. And she got it - the magic of the place; the adventure that could be had there. The fun, laughter and exploring that could be done in that valley. She felt it. Breathed it in. It was heart warming, and overwhelming and we had a fantastic afternoon together. When we came home, my niece burst into tears. We were worried she was hurt in some way, but her given reason was “I was just wishing that I could live down the woods like you did when you were little”. Priceless all around – had to be scrapped!!

As you can see, in the middle of all the excitement Little Miss Elle found plenty of time to be her usual poser self!

Family We took some pretty pictures during our woodland adventure, and this one one the three of us together was one I really wanted to scrap!

To create my page I began by cutting the music paper to size and spritzing it with some white and grey mists. I cut long banner pieces from strips of the pattern papers, and to strengthen the family theme punched a heart shape from near the tail of each.

I finished my page by creating a small embellishment cluster in the bottom, which consisted of one of the die-cut shapes form the kit, and some various punched hearts using the papers.

Lush kit, loved playing with it!
Thanks as always 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

I'm up to something....

...or at least that's what must go through Mr T's mind when ever he see's me grinning from ear to ear and clutching yet another paper bag filled with new crafty-stash goodness. In fairness, he's very supportive of my creative hobbies, even if it does mean he has to learn to ignore the piles of various crafting paraphernalia that amounts in various corners of the house....this week the lounge is full of huge balls of wool as I've cast on another crochet project - just a quick one this time I hope!! I wanted to do some rippling, and was inspired by a lovely crochet pattern book my sister got for my birthday so I thought I'd make a cushion cover. The wool has been here for ages, I'd intended to make a ripple throw for the sofa but it was such a large project that I soon lost motivation!

Mr T often wanders (read "clambers over the boxes of paper stash, stamps, inks, paint, sewing machine, bags of wool, die cutting machine etc until a small space big enough to settle just one foot while the other hovers in mid air, conveniently next to the chair which will aid your balance - see, I'm helpful with my "set up" like that!) into the spare bedroom (aka Craft Zone Central chez nous) and stares wistfully into space and mutters various almost inaudible phrases under his breath such as "this would make a lovely music/guitar room"......"we could have fitted a pool table in here"......"this could have been a perfect man den"....."a home brewery would be perfect in here", before looking around at the scene with a forlorn look on his face, shaking his head, and wandering off whispering about needing a bigger garden with a shed. Bless.

I guess the sight of my ikea-dining-table-come-desk does look a bit chaotic to the untrained eye.....

...but those of us in the know will recognise that this is obviously a hub of creativity in full flow! *ahem - please not I decided not to show you the surrounding floors and shelving unit!!*
Any true creative genius will know that no matter how big your work surface, you always end up with just a12x12 working area, clearly marked out by a cutting mat!!! However, this doesn't mean we don't need the rest of the surrounding space (or room) to fill up with stash! Oh no!! Being surrounded by stash soooooothes and inspires the creative brain. Oh yes!!

So anyway, imagine Mr T's sheer delight when I come home and announce that I have a new hobby in mind and have acquired this little load of chintzy booty to help me achieve it:

Let me hear you say
oooooh

laaaaaa

laaaaaaaaa!!

Oui oui?!!

Check out the bounty of embroidery thread! It was actually my grans, I took some when we cleared things from her house, but only about half of all the thread she had!! She was the queen of cross stitch, and lots of craft in general to be honest. My love of making things really must be genetic! I sorted them into colour families last night (to cries of "OCD" from Mr T), with a view to storing them in take-away plastic containers....but there's no way they will fit so i guess a new storage purchase of some kind is on the cards ;)

I felt the photos needed a little scale to show you just how many threads were there, so I popped my mobile phone into the shots:

So pretty :) Can't wait to get cracking with my ideas for that lot! I shall keep you posted :)

I began the post talking about crochet and wool, so I'll share my last layout with the February Sarah's Cards Kit, as it is about my Sunburst Granny. I created a sort of "notebook page" to document my strategy to get it done in manageable chunks that I talked about here. A bit different in style for me to have so much journalling on a page, but I wanted it to serve a purpose.

As always, click for larger images!

Thanks for stopping by as always, will be back soon xxx

Another decade older!

A significant birthday came and went around here....

And it was celebrated in true style with a surprise weekend away, a surprise meal with family and best friends, fantastic presents and cake. Lots of cake! I was truly spoiled - which made reaching the "milestone" a little less painful! ;)

A certain little someone had fun in my giant gift sack.....

She's such a nut!

Mr T and I had a lovely few days away in West Wales, such a beautiful place. We did lots of exploring - the misty weather couldn't put us off getting out with our cameras. Lot's of wrapping up warm, and walking along beaches and hillsides and little harbours. Perfect time together, just me and he.

On the first evening, we stumbled across a little slice of heaven, a place called Cwm Eglwys, which means Church Valley. Amazing. After a long and windy, narrow single track drive down a winding hill, we came to a tiny bay. Three houses stood right on the shore - major jealousy ensued as we would love to live in one of them. One even had a tiny little waterfall running right at the side of it.

Apart from the three houses, the tiny cove was home to this amazing sight:

....the belfry and entrance to what once was a church (hence the name of the bay). It was hit by a savage storm in 1859 and the rest fell into the sea. I added the two pictures as together they show just how tiny the little cove is. The misty weather disappeared with perfect timing when we arrived meaning we could walk along the tiny beach and sit and look at the view for a while in the absolute stillness, aside from the odd bird song and the sound of the tide. Lush.

I'll share some more pics of our weekend again, there are so just so many to go through to decide which ones!

On to some scrapbooking, and my second page form the last Sarah's Cards kit, complete with close-ups for those of you keen to see more details ;)

The Studio Calico "Fabrip" is used in several way on this page:
Firstly pleated under my photo,

 

Then I used it as a bow on a paperclip - like making bow-topped clips at the moment:

And lastly cut into a banner shape in the bottom left corner:

The white doily was a bit stark on the page, so I spritzed it with a bit of mist to make it pink.

Thanks for popping by :)
Nat xxx

Peekaboo!

The latest monthly kit from Sarah's Cards was a gorgeous one to play with, featuring gorgeous papers from Authentique. I've previously enthused about the gorgeous quality of the papers from this manufacturer before, I think they are quickly becoming one of my new favourites!

As the kits are now with the subscribers I can share what I did with mine....here's my first page, nice and busy with lots of pattern, paint and ink going on!

A bit of machine stitching strung together some cute punched heart, showcasing some of the lovely patterned paper:

 

I used my good old sizzix to cut a mini envelope form some of the paper, and "filled" it with sentiments from the sticker sheet in the kit.

 

I loved  the little doilies, they make great mats for titles and embellishments:

 

Will be back soon to share the other pages I made with this kit xxx

Fizzle fizzle...

Well my New Year resolution has so far got off with a fizzle rather than a bang...all thanks to a rather spectacular bout of the flu....I started feeling unwell on New Years day but it gradually got worse until I spent Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in bed. I am up today (well, on the couch under a blanket, rather than in bed sleeping!), my temperature is a bit more stable, and I'm not in so much pain (I swear somebody had filled my bones with a mixture of lead and firecrackers that exploded whenever I tried to move!), and I hope the chest and head cold symptoms will bugger off pretty soon too.

Cos as soon as they do, I can crack on with getting fit. Here's my new little friend who will help keep an eye on me, my Mii, Tubbs!!

Ain't she purrrdy, if a lil bit more than lardy round the middle?! ;)

Which reminds me of one of the pages I created with the December Sarah's Cards kit. I decided to use a photo that I like of a time when I had achieved success before as a source for motivation and inspiration for my new quest - I think I'd lost just over three stone at this point and felt really good. I also have some right humdingers of me at my absolute heaviest too- but it's all about positive mental attitude and moving forward isn't it?! Plus....if I scrapped those I'd have to share them with you lol, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone ;)

 

Mr T has been a little angel looking after me this week bless him....I am lucky to have him you know :) Here's a page I made documenting "our story" with the same kit:

He turned 30 last week too, proper ole boy he is now! If he wasn't so good to me I'd have to consider trading him in for a younger model ;)

Catch you all soon xxx