Smiler

This is a photo from last year, I did this LO a while, back but hadn't posted it (I was saving up LOs for my bottom 2 in scrapfactor so I have a few stashed away :)).  It is my DS sat by the beach on our holiday  in France, we went out in the evenings to go and eat chi chi and beignes in the town square in the evenings and watch the entertainment.  I used My Little Shoe Box Green papers for this.  I hand drew and stitched the wiggley circle around the outside of the photo, and cut and layered up different papers (and added boggley eyes to the snails as they needed some).  I hand drew the other stitching on this LO and made my journalling spot with a coil of pink ribbon.  The alphabet is from a Brenda Pinnick kit.    Thank you for all your lovely comments on my blog :)  Hope you are getting the chance to enjoy the summery weather.

3 LOs from a very HAPPY girl

I am soooooo HAPPY to say that I won the Scrapfactor competition over on Ukscrappers....never thought I would ever get this far and I am still wearing a very large smile :)  Thank you to everyone for all you encouraging comments and support on my blog - it has meant a lot to me and inspired me too :)  So here are my final 3 LOs - there is lots of detail over in the ukscrappers gallery and so I don't make this post toooo long I will spare you too many.  I made this mostly with crate paper papers, and behind the photo is another photo and some journalling.  It is all based around the fact that my DS loves to bring rocks home from the beach, and his first rock was too big to carry all the way back over the dunes, so we managed to persuade him with a photo of the large rock (as seen below) and a collection of crystal and fossilised rocks.  The stamps are a lovely crafty individual set - I made the fishing net out of string (still finding more uses for string in my LOs), the alphabet is Tim Holtz vintage market.

 My next LO is for my sister - I will frame it for her as this is my niece and it is a beautiful shot that she took of her.  I love butterflies so thought I could get away with lots on a girly LO, the flowers are the tim holtz rose ones - there are lots of tutorials and one on my sidebar which links you to Linda Elbourne.  The title is giggles and curls because we had recently been camping with her...and she has a mass of curly hair that I had been instructed to tame by my sister and every morning all you could hear was her and my DS giggling....still not sure what it was all about but they enjoyed themselves a lot.

 My 3rd LO is a very boy LO - I dry brushed white acrylic paint and did lots of bubble wrap printing.  I crinkled papers and stitched around them and added a subtitle - which is the bit that makes me smile about boys walking...the minute they see a small ditch or stream they have to go and jump over it several times...even if it is slightly out of their way :)

Below is a peak at a flower that I have made - it is a mixture of lots of bits and pieces I have picked up in my flower making and the LO and a tutorial that shows you how to make the flowers is over on the scraprat blog.

Out of the Box - baby suitcase

The challenge last week on scrapfactor was a bit out of the box - you had to capture the essence of scrapping by preserving precious memories and telling a story, but it didn't have to be a LO.  I have a suitcase with baby treasures for both my boys, all their tags, the newspaper from the day they were born, balloons, cds..and I decided to preserve them in prettier and more documented way.  I made the suitcase from pizza boxes and I coated it with book paper and watered PVA, then painted the outside brown and spritzed it a bit. I decorated the inside and made a pocket to hold some photo tags of '1sts', and used Woodhaven papers, some sassafrass and prima bling - and I used the folded flowers too.

For the tags I used lots of printable vellum and some Memory Stor papers - and these all include 1st - 1st swim, 1st pictures, 1st Christmas and 1st steps and then a card detailing lots of information noted when he was born.

I decorated the outside and added the hospital tag from his cot.

I wrapped up each item in string and made tags detailing what they were...so the items in the box include, 1st shoes, 1st hair cut, baby tags, outfit home from the hospital, newspaper for the day they were born and cd that was number 1, the balloons my Mum loves to get and baby scans .

This week is a 3 LO challenge...so I have 3 peaks.  Do go over to the gallery and have a look at what has been created.

Scrap Rat July Kit

Here are the rest of the bits that I've made with the July kit so far - above is a Thank you card which I used my Martha Stewart butterfly punches on the vintage book pages you get in the kit - I used the doily lace punch on some of the paper bags you get to add a frill to the rest of the card.

This is a LO with some more of the bubble photos we got whilst we were away, I also made one of the firework flowers (see the side list of tutorials) from the october afternoon blog.  I love the shape of the studio calico tags (yes I have made templates :)) and all the phrases you get on the cosmo cricket paper that you can cut and stick on.

For this LO I started with a wash of blue watercolour paint, and then started layering up my papers.  I used an oragami flower tutorial to make the bluebells - quite fiddely but I was pleased with the result - I used 1" square of paper to make them.  I made a gathered ribbon with the fabrips and added a few of the cabachon flowers.  For more inspiration hop over to the gallery and have a look at what everyone else has been making.

Next months kit looks great...and here is one of the sneak peaks there are a few more on facebook.

Capture the Moment

Here is one of the LOs I did with the July scrap rat kit - it is an old one of my Grandad and me :)  I love all the extra vintage embellishments that you get with the kits - like the old printed pages and playing cards and the wooden bingo chip in the corner.  For this LO I added quite a few acrylic paint prints - using various lids and jars.  The tag behind the photo is one of the huge pack of studio calico tags you get in the kit and another great product is the fabrips - which are tearable sticky bits of fabric - this one has the houndstooth pattern on it.  I stitched and ruffled all my bits of papers and made some swirl paper roses and leaves, adding in a few of the cabachon roses in the kit too.  I stitched some of the title using the MB_Peony font as my guide and finished off with the little alpha letters.  To see lots more inspiration hop over to the gallery and see what everyone has been creating.  I'll post some more tomorrow.

Home Grown

This was the 3-2-1 challenge for Scrapfactor - 3 different papers, 2 photos and 1 piece of black cardstock.  The photo I choose was from our haul of raspberries and strawberries...which my kids help me pick (well actually mostly help me eat as not many make it to the fridge!).  I worked on a strawberry flower (and already  had a request for a little tutorial....which I will do :)) - I made them curling some circles and then threading them together.  The leaves are made out of spritzed paper - I mix all my distress inks in the spritizer til I get the colour I want, I cut them out with pinking shears to give the edge and then dry embossed the veins on.  The strawberries are embossed (swiss dots) and sanded and then glossy accented in the sepia on, I also did some little paper swirls too.  I cut out the red (die-cut looking) shape - it's crate paper's portrait line) and then I stitched and added a scalloped edge border which I also inked with tea dye distress ink.  I added a few more bits of papers behind the photos and some stickers (crate paper, portrait and echo park, for the record stickers).  I made a journalling spot and added a pearl bead swirl and some jenni bowlin chipboard buttons.  A few spots of paint and a glossy accented martha stewart butterfly and a touch of lace.

This week the challenge was to be out of the box, and my peak doesn't quite show the full extent of how out of a box it is.  We had to treasure some special memories - didn't have to be a LO but it had to capture the essence of scrapbooking and preserving memories.  There is some lovely work in the gallery on ukscrappers so go have a look.  You can also play along with the challenges and win prizes if you go have a look in the scrapfactor forum.