You & Me

Oh my, it sure has been a while since I posted. I have been terribly busy with life in general but have managed to get my monthly LSS challenges completed, just not blogged! Anyway, today I wanted to show you my latest entry for the Ruby Rock-It sketch challenge at Page Maps.

 I do love purple and green together, so it was great that Kyaa and I were wearing purple and green and I could use the colours for this layout! I think deep purple with lime green is a divine combination. 

The sketch by Becky Fleck was so easy to follow. As it turns out I had quite a few die cuts and flowers in my stash too that were suitable so this layout came together quite quickly. The majority of items for this layout have been in my stash for quite a long time and I don't know where everything comes from. I do know this:

   

• chipboard bird is from Words or Whatever, 
• the plaid paper is from TLC,
• the green journalling tag is from Kaisercraft,
• I used the Martha Stewart butterfly punch with green paper from TLC for the mini butterflies,
• the chipboard heart at the top is from Collections Elements and coloured with a purple Sakura gel pen
• ribbon is from Costco
• green jute was just purchased the other day but I don't know the maker.

Flowers, brads, purple tag, buttons, cardstock, mauve paper, letter stickers, and purple and green heart die cuts - makers unknown.

I'm happy with the way this layout turned out, let's just hope whichever of Becky's friends judges the competition thinks so too!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine 

Grand Canyon

This month's challenge at Kraft It Up was a colour challenge to use kraft, white, black and green:

I love this combination and knew I had to scrap the photos of the Grand Canyon from our trip in July. I grabbed a double page sketch from Sketch Support (number 12) as my base. If you don't know about this website, it's fantastic, especially because they give you a printable format that includes dimensions, placement information and ideas for altering the sketch. All you need to do is click on the appropriate link on the right hand side under Printable Sketches. 

Left hand page

Right hand page

Background made with template and Distress ink

I selected some cardstock (kraft from Stampin Up!, black Bazzill and green Core'dinations), as well as some Graphic 45 scraps that I had from a workshop I'd done at my LSS. For the white I used a piece of lace from my stash and the top note die cut that I'd received from the die cut swap I participated in some months back. I used the Crafter's Workshop Tile Texture template and some Distress Ink to add the "squares" on the green cardstock, then sanded the edges back a little. I inked around the edges of the Kraft cardstock and top note die too. Since I'm a perfectionist it then took a while to measure up all the pieces and make sure that they were lined up equally on both pages. I'm sure someone else would have had it done in half the time!

I decided to print the journalling on the computer, something that I don't often do, but it meant that I could write more in the space. I do plan on doing another layout of the California Condors that we saw, and maybe the fossils too, but thought I should get the main information onto this page.

I had just recently purchased the flowers (Tyed-dyed gypsiesby Petaloo) at the Craft Show with nothing particular in mind. They were perfect for this layout. I found some other green button flowers in my embellishment stash, as well as some brads. The laser cut chipboard is from a2z scraplets. The branch die cut was made with a Memory Box die, and the little kraft cards are from Collections Elements. It was then just a matter of moving them around till I liked the design.  

I love how this layout turned out! Tell me what you think...

Till next time, happy days! 

Francine

Z @ four

These adorable photos are of my youngest niece. She lives on the other side of the world and we talk to her via Skype but had only met her in real life once before. That was when her family came to Australia when she was two. So, it was great to catch up with her again when we went to North America for my parents' 55th wedding anniversary and family reunion last month.

When she is happy to have her photo taken she's a real poser, but she can be just as stubborn about not posing when she doesn't want to either. Thankfully I got these gorgeous shots of her having fun in the water one day. I thought these photos were just perfect for the latest Page Maps FancyPants sketch contest too.

I loved the simplicity of this sketch by Becky Fleck, and it really suits my style. The hardest thing was finding an embellishment to use instead of the jar. 

Once again, I'm using things from my stash. This is an old TLC Runway kit. The only things not TLC were the cutting dies that I used to make the branches (Memory Box - Woodland Branch 98187), the circular medallion (Nellie's Multi Frame MFD041), and the buckle in the top right hand corner (Memory Box - Locina buckle 98184).

With the circular medallion I love how when it's used with double sided paper that you fold the cut parts over and you get another colour or pattern showing through. It's probably not as obvious when both sides of the paper are patterned (like here), but if the back is a completely different colour, it can be quite stunning. I'm sure you'll see me use this one again.

Anyway, I'm very happy with how this layout turned out. I'd love to hear what you think!

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Grandchildren - Youngest and Oldest

 

Here is my layout for this month's Scrap the Girls challenge. I used the monthly paper kit from my LSS, Wrapped in Paper, which just happened to have blue bling stars in it. I had some more pain ones I could add as well and so this layout was born.

Initially I was going to fussy cut the centre out of the paper as there was a frame of swirls and butterflies surrounding the paper, but in the end I decided against that when I found this sketch by Nadia Canizzo.

The girls in the photo are my nieces. This photo was taken at my family reunion in North America last month, and it just happens that the little one is the youngest grandchild, and the older one is the oldest grandchild. I think it's a beautiful picture of them both (not that you can tell with the pixellated faces, LOL!).

Fussy cut butterflies

As usual, I used my Big Shot and cut out the large doilies, and the smaller doilies, as well as the fanciful flourish from both the patterned paper and the blue cardstock. I also cut a few butterflies with my dies, as well as a couple of fussy cut ones from the paper. There is a partial label in the top let corner as well.

clothes peg body

The lace and flowers were in the kit, as was a small clothes peg. I took it apart, sprayed it with glimmer mist, tied some floss around it, and used it for the butterfly body. I also cut some large butterflies with my favourite butterfly die from Marianne Creations (LR0115), and used them as masks on the white cardstock background which I sprayed with blue and pink glimmer mist.  

For the title I used some Basic Grey ice blue letters. They weren't  really the right colour so I sprayed them with the same blue glimmer mist as I used on the background. The blue didn't come out the same, but at least it was closer than any of the other many alphabet letter stickers I own! 

Misted background

Please leave me a comment - it makes me feel that someone out there really is reading this, and anyway, I'd love to hear what you think of my layout.

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

55 years

It's been a while since I posted, but I have an excuse! We've been in North America for a month for a family reunion, and I've come back feeling very crafty, so this challenge from Scrappin' Patch to use your stash was right up my alley. I have so much in the way of paper and embellishments that I think I could continue scrapping for years without buying a thing!

The Challenge was to use this sketch by Annelie Maddock. I don't always use one photo sketches, but this one was perfect for the family shot from our recent family reunion. I used some cardstock and patterned paper from an old TLC kit, as well as some beige coloured mulberry (or handmade?) paper I found amongst my scraps. I had lots of fun going through my embellishment containers looking for brads, buttons and pearls too. I bought the Family cloth badge last year from one of those $2 shops, and the little lace flower came from a bag of similar lace bits that I bought at the Craft show last year.

 

Of course I couldn't make a layout without using my Big Shot and some dies, and used these:

Memory Box Chloe Stem (98321)

MFT Die-namics Clearly Sentimental Label

MFT Die-namics By the Numbers

Cuttlebug Baby Face alphabet (now discontinued)

and the lotus from Papertrey Ink Limitless Layers Circles (both small and large set). 

I like how it turned out, and hope you do too!

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Let them eat cake (or not!)

A little while ago, two of my work colleagues were celebrating their birthdays within days of each other, and another was moving on to another job so we had a joint morning tea celebration. As some of our team have food intolerances we joked about needing a fake cake so we could at least blow out the candles. Lo and behold, when I got home that afternoon I found this link on Pinterest. Wow, what a great idea, but I didn’t have a battery operated tea light, let alone two! Never mind, I worked out a different way to make the cake and made each of them one.

Here is the result. I put their initials on them and made little matching cards as well. They were really cute.

I didn't think to take pictures of the steps or even note exactly what I did to make the cakes, but this is basically it.

• Gathered my supplies:
• scalloped circle punch
• circle punch (that fits within the scalloped circle so that the scallops could be folded over the circle)
• scalloped circle die (larger than the scallop circle punch) to make the base
• four matching patterned papers and cardstock (all scraps)
• a scrap piece from a cardboard box
• some jute.
• I punched the scalloped circle for the cake top first.
• With a matching piece of patterned paper I cut a strip as wide as I wanted the cake tall.
• I then took a scrap piece from a cardboard box and punched several circles with my circle punch. I think I punched seven in all for each cake. I basically punched as many as I needed so that when they were stacked on top of each other they were as tall as the paper I just cut.
• I eyeballed the centre of the circles and marked that spot. I then used my crop-a-dile to punch a hole (the largest one) in the centre of all the cardboard circles and the scalloped top. I did it in two piles for each cake since more than that wouldn't fit through the crop-a-dile. Then I stuck all the circles together.
• I wrapped the strip of paper around the cardboard cake base, cutting off the excess paper and sticking it down. My pile was slightly shorter than the paper was high, so I added a few pieces of foam mounting tape under the bottom cardboard circles.
• I then added the scalloped circle on top of the cake and folded the scallops down over the edge.
• I took another piece of paper about twice as high as the cake. I stuck down a slightly longer piece of jute onto the end of the paper and then rolled it until I had a "candle". I pushed the candle into the hole through all layers of the cake.  It was a bit fiddly as the holes weren't in exactly the same place J.
• I die cut the cardstock base using the larger scallop, then stuck the cake down. To finish, I cut each of their initials using the Cuttlebug Curlz and Swirlz die and added it to the top of their respective cakes.

If I were to do this again, I think I would cut fewer cardboard circles. That way I could punch the centre hole in one go with the crop-a-dile. I would then put foam squares in between each layer to make it tall enough. Hopefully that would mean that the candle would be less fiddly to get all the way through the cake, although it might make no difference at all.

In the end, my cakes were very well received and we had a lovely celebratory morning tea.

Have you ever made a paper cake? If you have, or if you attempt to make his one, I'd love to see what you do. 

Till next time, happy days!

Francine

Going Up

I finished this layout a while ago but never posted it, so I thought it was about time.

I used an old TLC kit. Virtually everything on this page is from that kit - the cardstock, papers, sticker letters (for UP), ribbon, and circle embellishments. The only things not from the kit are the sticker letters (GOING) which are by Basic Grey, the chipboard arrow (?maker), the chipboard letters (although they are TLC), the red clip and the blue brad. I also used a Kaisercraft stamp for the hot air balloons.

I cut the red circle from the kit with my Papertrey Ink - Limitless Layers: 2 1/2" Circle Die Collection and then used it as a frame over some of the patterned paper. I also cut the green grid paper with my MFT Die-namics wonky scallop border, and the blue "flower" medallion is a Sullivan's die for which I can't find a link.

Unfortunately I no longer remember where the sketch I used is from, so if anybody knows, please let me know so that I can properly credit the designer.

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Sydney at Dusk

I had a friend come stay this month which required me to clean my scrapbooking room, aka spare room. There was no room to even sit on the bed, let alone sleep in it. So, during my clean up I came across some photographs and a page sketch for a challenge from 18 months ago that I never made. The pictures were perfect for this month's White With 1 challenge, so I set about finding papers, etc (after my friend went home that is) and created this.

The challenge to use white + pale blue + flags was perfect, and I was able to use up some more of my large stash of old TLC papers. It turned out much better than using the cream and dark blue papers I had initially set aside.

I die cut and/or embossed all my embellishments. I used these dies and embossing folders:

Papertrey Ink: Limitless Layers: 1 3/4" Circle DieCollection and 2 1/2" collection

MFT Die-namics: Banner Day die

MFT Die-namics: Mini pennant die

Spellbinders: ironwork accents dies

Cuttlebug: Curls & Swirls alphabet die

Cuttlebug: Baby Face alphabet die

Cuttlebug Jamara embossing folder

I die cut one of my kaleidoscopes as well.

I made the flags with some die cut triangular banners mixed with the mini pennants. I glued an ironwork die cut on top and wrapped the ends around some blue/white baker's twine. A couple of extra large brads at the end completed the banner of flags.

I added some blue diamante and clear star bling to finish the whole layout.

The sketch I used is one from Page Maps.

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Stonework

This is my latest layout, made with the Wrapped in Paper monthly scrapbook kit. It had two sheets of Bazzill cardstock, and several sheets or part sheets of various beige/brown patterned papers. There was a length of brown ribbon, some blue/brown ribbon and the white string as well as two turquoise/silver brads.

Now to enter the competition each month you need to use at least a little bit of everything in the kit. There's usually something in there that I find difficult to use, and this month it was two things: the brown cardstock with the houses heat embossed on it, and the Graphic 45 kraft range paper with the cards on it. While I love both these papers, I didn’t feel that the brown one matched the other colours in the kit, and I didn’t know how I was going to incorporate cards into my layout either. I thought on this layout for days (well, probably more like weeks!) and finally came up with the photos to use. Then I checked all my sketch sites and Pinterest to come up with a layout idea. Finally I had a few sketches and layouts printed out that I was going to follow, and in the end I went with something completely different!

I ended up using a sketch (no 274) from Scrapbooks Etc page sketches. Of course I kind of followed the sketch, but made several changes to it as well. The fancy die cuts were made using my Spellbinders Ironwork accents die, while the small blue die cut in top right hand corner was made with long die from the Die-namics layered labels die set. I also added a few Kaisercraftpearls, and a button, sewed on with some floss. The letters for the title are old Delish Designs (can't find a link, sorry) that I had left over, with not quite the right letters left, but you know, p's and q's make good o's when you cut off their legs *wink*.

I used the brown ribbon to make a rolled ribbon flower using this tutorial, although I used double sided tape rather than hot glue to put the ribbon on to the circle. I also put some red liner tape onto the circle of the corner die cut (on the ribbon, towards the top, far left side of layout) and then simply wound the string around and added the pearl. I had a bit of the brown paper with the embossed houses on it left from the strip behind the photos (can't waste it by covering it up!) and just cut the sun and house out to add to the top embellishment cluster. Same with the King card, I cut it in half, so still have half a card to use on something else.

Anyway, enough of an explanation, do you think I might win? I doubt it because my style is quite simple and someone else who enters each month has a shabby chic style with lots of embellishments, so, to the average person coming in to the shop, theirs always stands out. Still, I like my layouts and in the end, that's all that matters  :-)

My son commented that he thought it was a strange thing to make a layout about, but if you follow my blog at all, you'll know that I do that from time to time and scrap about different things like plants and insects as well as my family and our trips! I loved this stonework on the Parliament Buildings in Ottawa, Canada, and took all these photos when we were living there in 2006/07. Since I had never scrapped them, I thought it was about time.

Till next time, happy days!

Francine