The Albatross Project

So, I mentioned my giant scrapping project last post.

Let me elaborate...

We went on holidays last year to Tuscany and had a fabulous time. There were tears from the eldest child he was so sad to be leaving. I was nearly bawling too. It was that good. So, when I came home and reviewed the 700 pictures I had taken, there was no way practically (or emotionally!) I could reduce this down to the ten or so as I would normally scrap for our annual holiday.

What to do?

I decided to make a whole album to cover the holiday. I managed, with great difficulty to reduce the numbers of pictures I wanted to work with down to 60. Mammoth task! I normally do about 60 layouts for the year! And just to make matters for challenging, I decided to give myself just three weeks to complete it all.

That's the introduction to 'The Albatross Project'! So-called as the campsite we stayed at was called Park Albatross and because it was such a big task I hoped it wouldn't become an albatross around my neck!

I'll explain how I went about undertaking this massive project in my next post.

In the meantime, here are a couple of layouts I finished just before the Tuscan hills took over my scrappy life...

"Are We Having Fun Yet???" - freezing 'fun' watching Leinster play Montpellier.

Ru and her sports day. Probably the last medal she'll win. She maintains the fine family tradition of being useless at sport!

Till next time!

Happy New Year!! Er...

 
Isn't it dreadful. This is my first post of the year. And it's April!!

So, multiple choice quiz!

Question - What will Tríona's excuse be today for why she hasn't been blogging?

a) She'd been too busy crafting?

b) The weather's been so awful that the light has been so dreadful so no good pictures could be taken?

c) She's a busy mammy of four who is also, when she's not crafting, writing two books simultaneously and has an ulcer to nurse?

d) The dog ate her homework?

e) All of the above?


And yes, indeed, it is answer e!

Well, except we don't have a dog.

But I have managed to find one solution to the problems outlined above, I've fallen madly in love with Instagram. Take a picture, and sure, if the light isn't quite good enough for it to be a great photo, just apply a filter. Hey presto, a rubbish picture is suddenly interesting and arty. So you may notice that a lot of the pictures I'm going to upload today are of a quirky, square Instagram kind.



Canvases. I've become obsessed with creating multimedia canvases. I don't really have anywhere to put them, so perhaps I'll have to give my Etsy shop a proper go and see if anyone else would like them!

More multimedia fun! Dylusions sprays, modelling paste, stencils, pearlescent medium, bleach, acrylic paints. At least this one has a home with me (even if it is in the downstairs loo!)

More original artwork for the downstairs toilet! A poem by a friend of mine about how men don't change the loo roll. Well, it's a bit more sophisticated than that :) I've had a lot of fun creating the stamped and inked frame around the poem. It got the rare husband seal of approval too.

And no prize for quessing what colour the downstairs loo is painted...

Okie dokie. Well, that wasn't too hard - I've finally kicked off my 2013 blogging. I hope I'll be back soon to tell you all about a giant scrapping project I've been undertaking.

Talk soon!

It's the craftiest time of the year :)

(Update: Welcome visitors from soapHousemama's LLL! This post shows pictures of my Christmas Cards this year. I was just soooo happy with them I just had to link up :)

Well, I'm getting worse at the old blogging, but it means that I am doing some actual crafting, rather than sitting down at the pc, so I suppose that's good! I've been quiet also as I've been unwell, and so have the kids. Nothing stops normal life in it's tracks quite so effectively as a tummy bug in a house full of children. But everyone is mostly recovered, so things are beginning to get back to normal. Except of course that Christmas has gone and crept up on us...

So, I've been frantically trying to finish up my Christmas cards. I had made up a batch of cards a few weeks ago, but I gave them to my Dad to sell in his shop (I'm not going to retire on the proceeds!) They were of a more traditional style. But I've been looking around Etsy a lot lately and it really inspired me to try something a little different. And so, with the help of a funky online app called 'scribbler' (you can google that and it'll bring you there) I created these cards below. I don't know if anyone who receives them will like them at all, but I do, so hopefully that counts for something!

(And apologies for the preview to those of you who read my blog and who will be receiving one of these cards in the post really soon.)

 

 Reindeer!

 Elf!

 

(Less embarrassed) Elf!

 Virgin and Child

Angels

There we go, they'll be put in the post in the next day or so (hopefully!) And I'm hoping I'll have some time over the holidays to update the blog with all that I've been doing.

Happy Christmas!

The Latest

I've been too busy crafting to blog which is a good complaint I think :) Well, crafting and running around after the kids, turning 40 (!), workshops, kids birthday parties, day trips to the HobbyCraft show in Birmingham (more about that later :) and a million other things. Maybe this is one of the reasons I love scrapbooking so much - it's about the only time I get to sit down and really appreciate those wonderful moments in life.

First up - a Crafty Queens mini-book. Part of the Great Big Craft Extravaganza held each year in Athlone. I wasn't going to go, but I can never resist Eve's classes. And, this class in particular was one for mammys and daughters - so, I brought my mammy and my daughter! We had a blast :) And below is my completed mini-book and I am currently finishing the second one which mum (half) made with Ru.

 The mini book was made using Prima's Fairy Belle collection. I actually had a pad of this paper which I had won and didn't like that much. But once I saw what Eve had done with it, my eyes were opened and now I thinks it's one of the nicest I've seen in ages. I just lack any imagination!

 
 So, I reckon I'll use the book for Lil's christening pictures. It's far too girlie a paper for anything else.









 Next!

A notebook. I stitched the binding for this notebook - sadly all my hard work is hidden! This method of binding is one of the many cool things I've discovered on Pinterest.

I used my leftover Fairy Belle paper to do it. I have no idea what I'll use it for, but I like the look of it and will definitely be using the technique again.







And finally a lot of layouts - it's the usual mishmash of styles...patterned paper here, mists'n'masks there.. a touch of modelling paste, some acrylic paints, stamping... etc, etc - I long for the day that I develop a distinctive style. At the moment my style seems to be that I have no style...

So, there you have it. I'll be back in a while with my tales from the Hobbycraft show at the NEC. Fun and games!

Layout Love Linky

Kids are settled back into school (finally), all extra-curricular activities are up and running. And I've just about re-adjusted. The blog has been quiet, but I have been grabbing some scrapping time here and there. There just hasn't been enough time to post it!

So, to show off everything I've been up to I've decided to link up SoapHousemama's Layout Love Linky. What is SoapHousemama's Layout Love Linky? The idea is that you write a post featuring layouts that you might have done over the month, but not posted on your blog. (Or, you can also linky up with a project you are particularly proud off.)

In my case, seeing as I haven't blogged in over a month I've a lot to show! But there is a slight caveat - I haven't journaled on all of the layouts I'm going to put up. And a layout really isn't finished, holistically, if you will, without it's journaling as far as I'm concerned. But, the way I scrapbook - I do buckets of layouts, and then journal for a few weeks - means if I waited till I journaled, you'd be waiting a while for anything!

And lastly, some of these layouts are from 'Project Scrap!!' What is 'Project Scrap!!'? It is my own invention. I discovered I'd printed out about 500 million photos. Squillions. So, I decided if I was ever going to get even faintly close to being up to date, then I needed clear this backlog. This means I set myself a target of doing four layouts at a time. As a consequence some of them are a lot simpler than I would normally go for. But maybe that isn't a bad thing...

But enough chat, here are the layouts!

 

 

 

 

 

Keep Calm and Scrapbook

Title : 'This is the feelings part'

And now for more Art Journaling... the experiment continues! It dawned on me that the art journaling could be a good way to use up scraps and embellishments I wasn't using, but liked too much to get rid of. (I probably should have realised this before now??) Below are my latest effort...

page 1

page 2

And last, but very much not least, my lovely eldest child sat down with me last night to do a bit of crafting. He's far more talented than me artistically and very sure about what he's doing. So much so that we ended up having a little row over where he should be placing his various elements. Fair play to him, he stood his ground and (begrudgingly) I have to admit he was right! So, here is the result of his efforts. All thought up and designed and produced by him completely. I've been instructed to pin it to Pinterest :)

Alright. I'm off to cook the dinner now - sadly the hungry hordes won't feed themselves...

Canvas

It was crop time a week ago in Donnycarney. I look forward to these days so much and I'm only sorry that the time flys by and it feels like we're there for about 6 minutes, not 6 hours. Lately some members of the group have started to do a little demo at each meeting. People take part if the demo takes their fancy. No pressure to get involved if it doesn't appeal.

This month Jackie offered to walk us through creating an altered canvas. She's a dab hand at them, so above average numbers arrived up on the day, plain canvas in one hand, paint brushes in the other. Well, let's just say it was a huge success. In fact one late arrival was worried she had the wrong day as she could hear no murmer of chat as she approached the room - when she walked through the door she found us all quiet, rendered silent with concentration!

Everyone's canvas was different, but each one was gorgeous. It was a total success. And we were all like excited children, delighted with our works of art. I just couldn't get over how much I liked my own. And high praise indeed, when hubby saw it when I came home, he said we should put it up on the wall!

So, here it is -

And a close up!

Thanks for stopping by :)