Project 12 - May Layout

I really liked the sketch for the May layout for Project 12. It had space for 2 regular sized 4"x6" photos which I like. I don't always like cutting down photos so this was great. Here's the sketch we had to work from.

Isn't it great?!
So I used the same papers as I have used for this project so far. My pictures had a lot of red, green and blue in them, but the papers I had to work with weren't necessarily those colours so I had a bit of trouble deciding which ones to use. I think it worked out ok in the end though. What do you think?

I added two Porta Craft chipboard embellishments on the right hand page. I painted them with Twinkling H2Os. These have been around for a while now, but I have only just discovered them. They're great for painting chipboard, and I love the sparkle they add. The embellishment I used on the left hand page is from the paper kit. I mounted it with foam tape, just like I did with the title letters. I also used some purple grosgrain ribbon from my stash. I would have liked to use some ric rac as in the sketch but I didn't have any. :(

Here are some pictures of the individual pages of the layout.








and some closeups too:









Till next time then, happy days!

Single sheets challenge

I completed a layout and card challenge for the CRII member's site that I belong to. The challenge was actually lifted from the Apron Strings Blog.

It was a double challenge to make 1 layout and 1 card from
1x sheet cardstock
1x sheet patterned paper
1x any chipboard accent
1x a couple of blossoms
1x length of ribbon
The creator Lori from Apron Strings blog says ..."Remember, besides a title and journaling no extra items can be used. If you need more cardstock to create your card, that is the exception."

Initially I thought this might be difficult, but it turned out to be relatively simple, considering that I'm a pretty simple scrapbooker anyway. I didn't use any ribbon, and didn't need the extra piece of cardstock and even have a bit of cardstock and patterned paper over! Want to see what I actually created? Here it is:



I really did only use one sheet of patterned paper - it was just that it was double sided so I got two different patterns from the same sheet. The paper is from the Urban Garden series from Stampin Up! For the layout I cut off part of the cardstock and the patterned paper. I then stuck them together to make one 12"x12" sheet as you can see from this photo of the back of the layout. I added the photos, and wrote some journalling onto strips of the reverse side of the patterned paper that I used my Stampin Up! word window punch to round the corners on.

The title "Hamilton" was made from some foam alphabet stickers that I painted with moonlight Smooch. The flower embellishment was made from the Roof Garden Accents & Elements kit of stickers/die cuts from Stampin Up! I painted the centre of the flower with Smooch too.


I used a raw chipboard flourish from Porta Craft. I painted it with gesso, then painted it again with the Smooch. Altogether I really like how this one turned out.

In case you're wondering, the photos were taken along the river front in Hamilton, New Zealand, during our trip there in January this year.

For the card, I cut a piece off the remaining cardstock and folded it in half so that it would fit into a DL sized envelope. I simply cut some narrow strips from the patterned paper, added a flower embellishment, and then a TLC rub on from my stash for the sentiment and the card was finished! That's the quickest I have ever made a card, but I think it is quite effective.


All in all this was a fun challenge - why don't you give it a try too and show me what you come up with!

Till next time - happy days!

Project 12 - April layout

Well, here we are again, another Project 12 layout completed, this time for April 2010.

Here's the Page Maps sketch that I was working to.

Instead of using two photos on the left hand page though, I used a single 5"x7" one.

Here's my take on the sketch with photos from April.



Once again I used the same papers that I have been using all along for this project. I mounted a large glittery embellishment from the kit on foam tape for the right hand page, although I added some TLC swirl rubons coming out from under it, as well as a small flower rubon on the centre of it. I also used a Beutron button from my stash, and some Purls of Yarn, (Angel tones) feathery fibre.

On the left hand page, as well as the fibre, I also used another button, and an epoxy sticker that has been in my stash for way too long! I mounted the stickers for the month on foam tape, in exactly the same way as I have done for the other months so far. The paper I used to print the journalling on was from one of those inexpensive packs of patterned paper I bought from a department store early on when I first starting scrapbooking. Finally to finish the page off, I used a TLC Happy Birthday rubon over the title, and drew fake stitching around the title and the journalling paper.

Here are the pages singly. You can click on them to see them bigger.


The month wasn't all that busy, Gary's birthday, a weekend Guide camp for Kyaa and school holidays. The kids and I made a couple of bike trips around the lake and completed some geocaches at the same time. We got caught in the one thunderstorm during April and got absolutely soaked! We went out to dinner for Gary's birthday, and Kyaa enjoyed her camp in Sydney. For the rest it was pretty quiet, and relaxing, and we just enjoyed the beautiful autumn weather.

Till next time, happy days!

Spring Hello Card

I don't often make cards, usually just for challenges, and this was no exception. On the Page Maps blog there was a challenge to create a spring card using this sketch:
I actually really like this sketch and making the card wasn't hard at all! Here it is.


As you can see, I rotated the sketch so that the card was in a portrait orientation. I made all the papers myself from the photo I used on the card. {I took this photo at Floriade, Canberra's annual spring flower festival, last spring. I was trying to take a photograph of the wasp on the blossom, but the light through the tree branches and the blossoms, along with the blossom buds and the insect ended up making an unexpectedly wonderful photo in my opinion. I've used it for a scrapbook page before.}

First I made the kaleidoscope. {You can see more of my kaleidoscopes on my MemoriesInKaleidoscope.com website.}


Then, using this tutorial, I made the plaid paper. Lastly I printed some lilac coloured paper, with the lilac colour sourced from the photo and darkened a bit. I used a Stampin Up! scalloped edge punch for the edges of the papers. Then I wrapped some black fibres around the photo and mounted it onto the card using foam tape. Voila - a spring card!!!



Till next time, happy days!

Same layout 2 ways

Every month I complete a challenge for my private scrapbooking group CRII. It consists of a layout sketch challenge and a card challenge. This month's layout sketch featured several small photos and a large one.

I was inspired to make a layout about camellias. Why you may ask? Well, one of the group members, Sue, sent me an ATC because I had picked the camellia in our online Bingo game. She told me that it was the state flower of her home state, Alabama. This was all new to me, but I like picking up interesting facts, and the idea for this layout just came to me since we have a garden FULL of camellias and I have LOTS of photos. So, in order to quickly finish the layout, I made a digital one. Actually this gave me a way to see what it might look like too! So, here is the result:

But then I decided that I wanted to make a traditional paper layout too. Well actually I guess it's really a hybrid layout, part digital and part paper. I printed the A4 portion of the left hand side of the layout with the photos onto canvas. I then reprinted the A4 portion of the left hand page, and the A4 portion of the right hand page with the journalling and kaleidoscope onto paper. I found some matching DCWV cardstock and stuck the A4 portions I just printed onto the cardstock. I cut out the pictures from the canvas and mounted them onto squares of chipboard, then used foam mounting tape to put them in their proper spots on the printed paper.

I stamped the title onto some waste canvas with Stazon ink and coloured them in with coloured pencils. I also added a few Kaisercraft rhinestones and a pearl. Since the whole layout was inspired by Sue's ATC, and since its colours matched my layout as well (that was never planned!) I added it to the layout. I also made a pocket on the right hand page by cutting a slit on the edge of the kaleidoscope picture. I made a tab by folding a punched shape in half lengthwise and attaching it to the envelope with Sue's note in it. The punch I used was the Stampin Up! designer label punch. I then slipped the envelope into the pocket behind the kaleidoscope picture. The layout is virtually the same as the digital one, but different! Here it is so you can compare for yourself.
And here are the left and right hand sides individually.




So, what do you think?







As I said above, there is also a card challenge each month. It was also a sketch challenge. Here's the sketch.

And here's my card:

It was made completely from scraps and bits and pieces from my stash. The stars on the left hand side of the card were made from kaleidoscope stars that I made for my Sunflower layout here. I still had some printed so was able to make these. I cut out two of the pointy stars, cut them each in half - one through the points, and the other through the troughs in between. I layered one on top of the other and then stuck them down. For the border on the right I put an acrylic/sequin flower behind every second eyelet. The stamp I used in the middle section was made by Autumn Leaves - Stampology, On the Edge (although interestingly on the packet they're called Block Stamps 2!). The sentiment is from the Stampin Up! Great Friend set.

Till next time, happy days!

March Layout - Project 12

I've been slow at getting layouts done this month. I have lots of ideas, but don't seem to be getting that far with the actual work! Anyway, I finally finished my March layout for Project 12. Here it is:

Here's the inspiration sketch. Once again it was designed by Becky Fleck of PageMaps.

I used the same papers as for the last two layouts and only added a few "extras" - the blue fibre across the top, the purple/blue ribbon and the purple border just below the photos, as well as the blue glitter letters that I used on the January layout as well. The ribbon/fibre/border all came from my stash so I don't know what brand they are.

Here's a closeup of the embellishment on the right hand page. It's mostly made from layered die cuts from the kit that the papers come from and some punches from the paper from the kit. The green swirl punches were my downfall, literally. I do my scrapbooking in the spare room. I built myself a pull down desk in the closet. The desk is attached to the wall with chain. The punch I was using was so stiff though that I pushed too hard and the whole table came down - the chain came apart on one side, and came off the screw somehow on the other! Consequently I've been scrapping on the dining room table again. I hope I'll get around to fixing my desk sometime soon.

If you want to see the pages separately and closer, just click on the photos below.


As far as what we did, March was mostly about Logan. He celebrated his birthday and had a mountain biking party with 8 of his friends. It was easy for us. The boys went off biking for half and hour or so, then came back for a snack and drink then were off again. As long as we had food and drink ready they were happy, and thankfully no one was hurt, although one boy did apparently run into a tree, but he was almost stopped anyway, so didn't get hurt. Logan also finished his last games of rebound soccer. His team finished the season in fourth spot.

Kyaa went on a school excursion to Sydney for photography class. She took lots of photos, but I didn't have any available for the layout. For the rest, the month was pretty much business as usual.

Since the month was mostly about Logan he was initially somewhat dismayed to see purple paper with flowers on it. But by the time it was finished I don't think that it was as girly as he expected. I like it. I hope you do too.

Till next time, happy days.

Francine

Sunflower

I've had this layout ready for a bit now, but haven't yet blogged about it. So, here it is!


I made this layout for my CRII monthly challenge. The challenge was to make a layout based on this sketch.

I used hardly any papers for this layout, just some Kraft and yellow cardstock and some TLC green patterned paper from a 6"x6" paper pad that I had in my stash. I also used three little dragon fly brads, and some Tim Holtz plain grungeboard alphas for the title. I coloured the alphas using bronze Versamark ink. I also inked around the sides of all the papers.

I made the flower embellishments myself. They were made from three different kaleidoscopes I made from the subject picture. I printed them off on 4"x6" (10cmx15cm) photo paper, cut them out, and then layered them on top of each other. I put them in the palm of my hand and rubbed in a circular fashion in the centre of them to make them pop up a bit. after making sure that the points were all offset, I used a small yellow brad to attach them to the page. I actually couldn't decide whether I liked the three layers or not, so one of them is just two photo kaleidoscopes on top of a yellow cardstock scalloped circle that I made with my Stampin Up! scallop circle punch. Do you know which one?

The only problem with using the scallop circle is that there are more points on my kaleidoscope than there are on the scallop circle so they don't quite line up right.

The photograph was taken on our trip to New Zealand in January. On touring around the north island we saw quite a lot of fields bounded by a row of sunflowers. The bright yellow of the flowers against the green crop, in this case corn, was just too good a photograph to turn up, so we stopped at the side of the road and I took my picture. This one was to the north of Waitomo Caves, on our way to Hamilton.

I thought I'd post a freebie for you too! If you want to make your own layered kaleidoscope embellishment, just right click on the photo and click on "Save Picture as" to save it. You can then print it at your regular print shop, or on your home printer and cut out the pieces and make this too. It's scaled to fit a 4"x6" (10x15cm) print. I'd love to see what you use it on, and how you use it so please leave me comment and/or link. If you want to see more of my kaleidoscopes you can see them on my website: www.MemoriesInKaleidoscope.com

If you've seen my previous posts about my CRII monthly challenges, you'll know that as well as the layout challenge, there is also a card challenge. This month's card sketch was this one. I went through my stamp collection and found one (from Stampin Up! 'A little Bit of Happiness' set) that was the right shape and then designed the card around that. I stamped the design with Stayzon, then coloured it in with watercolour pencils. I masked the rest of the stamp so that I could stamp just the part that said hello onto the tag, and coloured that in with the watercolour pencils as well. I added a strip of yellow cardstock and a floss bow and voila, a finished card! It was really quick and easy, and I like how it turned out.

I've just discovered that an online friend, Ingeborg, has her own competition blog! Ingeborg and I were both in the same group of consultants who used to sell TLC scrapbooking products. The group had it's own online MSN group where we would all share ideas and inspiration and help each other when someone had a question. Ingeborg also started her own online store selling scrapbooking supplies, but then she moved from Australia back to her native country, the Netherlands so stopped her business. It was a sad time as there were a large number of people who regularly "met" on her forum. But now, I've rediscovered her beautiful work on her blog. You really should have a look as she does the most wonderful layouts.

I digress however. The point was that Ingeborg also runs a monthly layout competition from her second blog, and she even has prizes! She picks the winner using a random number generator so everyone has an equal chance of winning - much fairer all around I think. So anyway, being one who likes to "kill two birds with one stone" so to speak, I entered my sunflower layout in her competition as well. Mostly it was because I only had 2 days before the end of the month and no time to make another layout. I intend to do better this month!

Well folks - I think that's it for today, other than to tell you that the kaleidoscope with the yellow scallop circle is the one at the bottom of the layout in case you were wondering. Till next time, happy days!