Layouts Galore

Isn't that awful, a whole month since I last posted!

But I have wonderful excuses.

1) I've been too busy crafting to have time to put anything up on the blog

and

2) I've been away on my holidays.

I have about ten layouts to upload and two mini-books. (I told you I'd been busy.) But don't panic, I won't burn your retinas with a vast array of patterned papers - I'll just upload a few pages today and leave the mini-books for separate posts on their own.

And as for the holiday? Well, you can start thinking up your excuses now for why you don't want to look at 700 layouts from Tuscany...

So, to the layouts. First up are two completed layouts from The Scrapbook Store monthly workshop. This months class was taught by the phenomenally talented Maria Jordan-Lloyd (even her name sounds like she should have a scrapbooking range named after her :) I had to wait until I got home from Italy to finish them, the only downer about the holiday, but I am absolutely thrilled with them. The paper is Websters Pages - I really should know more of the details, but they escape me now.)

And the second two layouts are two I did today, at the CropTarts crop. As usual a brilliant day with brilliant ladies - and some sinful brownies and other assorted cake - scrapping fuel I calls it...

 Am trying to get to grips with mists with this layout, amn't sure I've totally got the hang of it, but getting there!

And this page. I've had that picture for years and never known quite how to scrap it. I was inspired to do the paint effect on the page from an article in Scrap365 magazine. A designer had gotten out her paints and let loose. I thought, why not!

So, that's all for today, I'm hoping for some good light to photograph those mini books, and if I finally get my grubby little hands on the My Mind's Eye Be Amazing paper, well, brace yourself for a whole lot of Tuscany.

Boys!

So last week, amazingly baby was in bed during the day, and I said to myself, 'Feck the house work! I'm going to sit down and finish some layouts'.

It does rather undermine my 'oh, I've had such a tiring day' when hubby gets home from work when he sees three finished layouts on display - but hey, I'm willing to loose the high moral ground once in a while... especially if it means I get some scrapping done :)

So, below are the product of my illicit afternoon crafting. I started all three layouts at the last Crop Tarts meeting, but I just wasn't happy with any of them. But, by the time the little menace woke up and ruined all my fun, I was a much happier scrapper.

With this layout I got out the felt I had bought recently, and gave making a few of my own embellishments a go - Don't you love my font and candles ;) I am an artiste!

So, I reckon this layout isn't quite finished, I'd love to add some journaling. (Journaling along the lines of 'this was the only good photo I got of this christening, even though I was godmother, because my darling daughter had managed to have a wee wee accident at the back of the church' and other jolly japes!) And I reckon the place for the journaling is in white ink down the left side. But I worry I will ruin the whole thing. And once you do it, you can't go back. That the worse thing about scrapbooking, I have so many layouts that were great, then I added one more thing, and bah, destroyed the whole bloody page :(

So, if anyone thinks I should just go for it, let me know!



And speaking of pages that were ruined, here is one of the rare few that I was able to rescue. Like the others, this was started at the crop, but when I took it out to finished it, I just didn't like it. It just didn't work. So, I took a  radical step and I ripped the picture and a teensy bit of paper off the page I'd done and pretty much started again. And I love the page now. I was home-made embellishment crazy, and made the little camp fire for the layout. I was deeply impressed with myself :) So, this page also needs a bit of journaling to be totally finished, but I'm not quite as worried about it here. I'll probably either add it next to the picture or underneath it. Whichever maintains my visual triangle better.

And finally, a page I have no complaints about - it's practically perfect (in my eyes!) in every way. I don't use too much orange for some reason in my scrapping - nothing against it, I'm quite partial to orange in normal life - so this layout made a nice change. I 've got my hidden journaling, so no angst there, and I think this one will go straight into the album without too much extra thought.

An unusual collection of pages in so far as they're all boy pages. Seeing as I have two girls as well as the boys, it can get quite tempting to just do pretty pink flowery butterfly-y ribbony pages all the time. It's good to redress the balance.

I did come home with some cupcake and bunting ribbon last week though.

Prepare for pink.

Crafty Queens Album Finished!

It's finished!

It took me a week. Three or four hours each evening. Glue, ink, gesso, stamps, flowers, photos, photoshop, charms, paper. I was a woman obsessed. But here it is, last weeks Crafty Queens Prima album, completely finished!

I decided to do a collective baby book album. So, there are pics of all four of the kids as babies.

Cutie-pies :)

 First and last pages.

 This 'Charlie' page opens up so you see the below pages...

More opening up pages.

 And, for the pockets in the openy up pages, I made four little notebooks, one for each of the kids, so that I could record the ups and downs of their arrivals in this world (and there were plenty!)

Thanks Eve for the work shop. I had never gotten around to doing a baby book for any of my little monsters and now I have this record of all of them and I am totally delight with myself :)

I'm Back!

That was quite a break from blogging!

I know the scrappers of the world have been crying into their acid free paper stacks, wondering where on earth I'd gone!

It was just life. Getting in the way. And no crafting was happening at all :( So, I had nothing to post. I could have bored you rigid with my boring mammy problems, but that's why I have a momblog and bore other people with that. For you, it's all glitter and bling!

So, after a month of not crafting, I have had a mad week or so - three layouts nearly done from the CropTarts crop. A mini-book for my parents anniversary and a Crafty Queens album. That's a lots of double sided fun.

But I haven't quite finished the layouts.

The mini book pictures need a bit of editing.

I'm finishing the Crafty Queens book tonight.

So, basically what I'm saying is, I have a lot of work in progress and I'm not going to show any of it to you.

Well, at least not tonight. But, hopefully, from tomorrow, I'll get posting on all the project I'm working on.

Lucky you :)


In the meantime, here is a picture of all the crafting mags I have at the moment. Cause, if I can't be scrapping, I want to be reading about it :)

I get Scrapbooking Magazine and the new Scrap 365 on subscription and I'm always like a child on Christmas morning when they drop through the letter box. The kids know to bring them right to me (and they're only slightly condescending as they inform me that my mag has arrived!)

I'm loving Scrap 365, it really has a lot of really different and interesting scrap ideas. That's not to say I don't still appreciate Scrapbooking magazine, it's good and solid and always a good read. But they really are the Vogue and Woman's Way of the scrap mag world...

I only bought Papercraft and Cardmaking Inspirations cause I wanted the free gifts. Sad. How easily I am persuaded!

And that Creativity magazine they gave to me free in the Arts and Hobby shop. I was delighted until I realised I had it already. Bah.

Anyway, I'm off to finish a Crafty Queen album!

Awards Season :)

I discovered about an hour ago that I had a peach coloured, glittery Thicker question mark attached to the bottom of my cardigan. While they looked great together - my cardigan is turquoise, so a very 'now' colour combination :) - I have been out and about all morning. What must people have thought? That I was some sort of cut price Riddler character from the new Batman movie? Or perhaps an avant garde fashionista? (Not likely.) If only more of the general public were into scrapbooking here (or had even heard of it!) my question mark would have been a lot less confusing.

It does perplex me as to why scrapbooking is so very niche in this country. It's such a wonderful hobby. There is the preserving of the memories. The wonderful social aspect of it if you find yourself a good crop to attend. The buying of the pretty paper. And the holding of the pretty paper. And the looking again at the pretty paper.


But, one great aspect to this lovely hobby is the blogging. And the wonderful Svjetlana has very kindly passed onto me, the 'Liebster blog' award :) (Liebster means 'dearest' in German for all those of you out there who are as rubbish as me at languages :)

The idea of this one is promote small blogs of less then 200 follower and pass it to 5 other small blogs. These are the rules :

To accept the award, you must:

1. Link back to the person who gave it and to thank them for thinking of you.
2. Post the award to your blog.
3. Give the award to 5 bloggers (with less than 200 followers) that you appreciate and value.
4. Leave a comment on the blogs of the five people you have chosen to let them know.

 
So, I've had a good think about this and here are are my picks... Great crafters each one, make sure you visit their blogs and have a look at their wonderful creations.

1) Maria 
2) Orlaith
3) Helen

I'm still having a little think about my forth and fifth choice... I read a number of wonderful writers blogs and I am tempted to send this award further afield to them... but then again, I'm thinking maybe I'll keep it crafty... when I decided I will add to the list.

While making my mind up, here are a couple of layouts I made at the crop on Saturday with the lovely Crop Tarts in Donnycarney :)

Not the most flattering picture of my darling girl, but full of character :)

Messers, the pair of them :)

A Few Layouts

I've been a bit quiet lately as I've been sick with a cough that wouldn't shift :(  Not much energy for scrapping. But here are two layouts I did before I was unwell. And there should be more soon as I have a mad scrappy weekend coming up - crop on Saturday and then Crafty Queens workshop on Sunday. My family won't recognise me, but it will be fun :)

I did this layout for a Scrap365 challange, but forgot to submit it! But I'm happy with it anyway, so that's ok then :)

My scrapping room is inching towards completion. Any day now I'll have the big reveal!

Love is in the Air!

Well, with the day that's in it, I've been feeling all mushy and romantic. So I thought I'd post a few pics of the more romantic layouts I've done lately. I have a habit of generally exclusively scrapping the kids, so I've been trying to make an effort to do more of himself and the pair of us together. I tend to scrap us in more muted tones (pretending we're proper grown ups!) and I generally can't get the camera to take a good pic when it's not all bright primary colours. But you get the idea I hope :)

So here we go. They are all a mix of either Basic Grey and My Mind's Eye and few random scraps from who knows where... I am a bad scrapper and can't really tell you much else about my supplies...

 You can tell I like teal :)

And here is his Valentine's Day card. I'm not really a card maker. I don't know what it is, but when faced with a card I can't do anything more complicated than stick a few bits of pretty paper together. Hope he likes it. Yes, he isn't home and hasn't gotten it yet. So you see it first - that seems wrong somehow, but hey, he doesn't read this blog, so I should be fine!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone :)