Father/Dad

(Poor picture quality - sorry! Despite it being a sunny day I still got glare, and I took several photos before I gave my perfectionism away!)

I decided fairly last minute that I would enter the latest Get Picky sketch challenge. With Father’s Day coming up soon I decided it would be good to make a layout about Gary and chose these two photos of him and the children I thought were nice. As I’ve always loved the saying “Any man can be a father, but it takes someone special to be a Dad” I decided (unlike me) not to do any journaling and leave it with the quote. I did write the dates of the photos on the back of the page though *wink*.

The challenge was to use this sketch.

For the layout I used lots of things from my stash. I’m mostly trying to do that at the moment, but because I can’t help myself when I see nice things, I still do have some new things too. Here’s what I used:

· Cardstock: My Mind’s Eye (Penny Lane) (new from the Craft Show)
· Cream patterned paper: TLC (stash). I cut the word Dad from this paper too using Cuttlebug Curls and Swirls alphabet die.
· Brown ribbon and brown/white flowered paper (American Crafts) – left over from an LSS challenge. I cut the word SPECIAL, the small hearts, the arrow and the asterisk out of this paper with my Cuttlebug Typewriter alphabet die, and the two snowflakes with my (new from the Craft Show) Marianne Creatables die (LR0125).
· Brown chipboard tag and string – clothing label
· Brown stamped love heart – leftover from a Kaszazz workshop I hosted some time ago (stash)
· Dad acrylic word – Go West word chime coloured with pinecone Versamark ink (stash)
· Large round brads – from an Apron Strings kit (stash)
· Small metal button – Smart Kraft (new)
· Lace – unknown (stash)
· Butterfly – Porta Craft (stash)
· Brown jute string – left over from a bit Kylie gave me for this layout.
· Chipboard ribbon slide, pink heart, flourish (if that’s the right word for it!), and cream spotted ribbon – all TLC (stash)
· Small envelope – K&Company (stash)
· Metal letters (father) – unknown (stash)
· Dymo

Phew! That was a lot of stuff. I’ve been seeing lots of layouts on the net where people have clustered a number of small embellishments and wanted to try it, so this is my first attempt. Turned out pretty good I think. I want to try it again on my next layout. We’ll see how that goes again.

One last note about the Marianne Creatables snowflake die. I have been buying a few different cutting dies lately and absolutely love the Papertrey Ink and My Favorite Things (MFT) dies that I have. They cut very well and the die cut just falls right out. It is rare that paper gets caught in the die and if it does they have tiny holes that you can poke them out with a paper piercer. The two Marianne Creatable dies that I got at the Craft Show on the other hand, make the most beautiful die cuts (my other one is a butterfly - LR0115) but the paper sticks in the die. It takes about three times as long to remove the paper and all the little bits from the die as it does to actually cut it! It’s driving me crazy. So today I thought, what if I put a piece of wax paper between the die and the paper I’m cutting out. Well, that worked like a charm and the die cut just fell out. I have yet to try it on the butterfly die which is the worst one for keeping bits of paper in it after cutting, but I suspect it will work well too. So I guess I need to keep up my supply of wax paper now! Seeing as I have a nearly full roll of it from about 1990 though, I don’t think that will be a problem!!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Soccer Fun

Here is my latest layout for the Scrap the Boys August Challenge. The challenge was to make a layout inspired by the picture at right. 

I was inspired by the red and blue stripes, and the large circle. While I was going to use striped paper, it turned out that I didn’t have any, but I found these papers in my stash instead. They’re from an old TLC Runway Playhouse Collection kit. The circle, blue ribbon and the number stickers are too. I also found the star diecut in my stash. From memory it is one of the first scrapbooking set of diecuts I ever purchased. I don’t know who made them though as the packaging is long since gone. I added the dots around the edge with my Sakura stardust pen. The small letter stickers are cherry red mini alpha stickers by Kaisercraft.


While this is a simple layout, loosely based on sketch number 1 by Donna Coughlin that I found on Love of Sketches, I love how it turned out. I think that the simplicity goes well with the action shots and team photo.

Well that’s it for now. Till next time, happy days.

Francine

A Touch of Frost

I love how this layout turned out! I made it for the Southern Girls Challenge. This time it was a photo inspiration challenge with this photo of a tree on a frosty morning. Well, at the end of July we were having lots of frosty mornings, and one morning I ventured out to take a photo of the camellias which were covered in frost. So, I figured this was a good subject for the layout. The colours are nothing like the inspiration photo, but the idea was still there!
As anyone who has been reading my blog regularly will know, I love sketches. Well, I recently discovered a new site and it’s great! It’s called Sketch Support. Not only do they have sketches but you can download them for printing and they also include measurement and placement information as well as ideas for variations on the sketch. Go check it out! So, I was absolutely smitten by their last sketch and used this as the base for this layout.

I used a lot of things from my stash – leftover scraps of papers, Heidi Swapp ‘bordeaux’ ghost alphabet, Zva Creative bling (cutting off the flowers at the ends of the swirls), white Porta Craft pearls, white brads, an (originally black) CM snowflake die cut, and white sparkly string/thread.

After cutting the background papers, I covered one piece of pink cardstock with the white mulberry paper, and the other piece I embossed with the Cuttlebug ‘distressed snow’ folder. I then inked the raised areas with white Versamark ink and heat embossed it with some CM clear embossing powder mixed with dazzling diamonds.

After sticking the papers and photos down I remembered that I had some ‘pink taffy’ Glimmer Mist from a kit I’d bought and not yet made up and decided to mist the white (Bazzill) cardstock with that. I put down the ghost letters first as well as some punched snowflakes (using CM snowflake punch and Sullivan’s starburst punch) in the top corner and cut out some scrap paper to just cover the photos. I like how it turned out, even though I really should have misted before I attached the photos and paper!

I painted the black die cut with gesso and put some of the embossing powder/glitter mixture on before it dried to add some sparkle. I attached the ghost letters with the sparkly string/thread and cut the rest of the title out of the same paper as the middle rectangle with Cuttlebug ‘Baby Face’ dies (now discontinued), only I painted them with ‘moonlight’ Smooch. As I don’t like to waste anything, I embossed the centre of the acetate O with the distressed snow folder and cut out the resulting snowflake. It's right there under the R and the O - see?! (Aside: I have lots of those chipboard centre pieces from A’s, D’s, O’s, P’s, etc hanging around in my stash waiting to use on something one day, so I was pleased I came up with this idea for the acetate!)

After putting it all together I realised that I had nowhere left to journal so used more of the same papers to cut out the three pieces on the bottom left using my Papertrey Ink dies (fillable frames #10 and Limitless Layers: 1 3/4" Circle Collection). I covered one with the same white mulberry paper, dry and heat embossed the other, and wrote the journaling on the third piece.

Altogether I really like how this turned out, and I hope you do too.

Till next time, happy days!

Francine