Prize Time

Thankyou all for the lovely comments on my Stamp Storage post and for taking part in Suzy's Blog hop.






and the winner of the little prize from me is the lovely Suzy herself

Stamp Storage

Welcome to my blog.  If you are taking part in my friend Suzy's blog hop then you will have arrived here from THE CRAFTY ALCHEMIST

Although scrapbooking is my thing I want to get a bit more inky and painty on my LO's and eventually try some art journalling.

I already have quite a few stamps - all thrown in in box and never to see the light of day again. I have recently bought some of the new ones from Bo Bunny and Kaiserkraft and decided to try and find a better way to store them,  easily see what I  had and be able to take them to crops with me.

Searching on pinterest I found the Tim Holtz folder, (way too expensive and not what I really needed) and one made from presentation folders and card and then stored in an A4 file. Great idea but what did I have that I could adapt without spending anything - an old 8 x 8 album that has been in my cupboard for a number of years ( QVC I believe)

So here goes

Take the card out of the page protectors in your album or cut some cardstock to fit your page protectors.  Place your stamps on the card and mark pencil lines to separate all your stamps ( these will become the pockets to hold your stamps

Next put the cardstock back into the page protector and carefully machine stitch along the pencil lines sewing through both the page protector and the cardstock.  I would suggest that you use a backstitch at the beginning and end of each row so that you don't have any ends to tie off. You will end up with pockets on either side of the page protector for your stamps

Next step you will need to very carefully cut the top of each pocket with a craft knife taking care not to cut through the cardstock

 You will be able to create pockets of any size on your page protectors

I left the acetate backing on my stamps as it makes it easier to get the stamps in and out of the pockets and also makes it all a lot sturdier

and finally the finished album ready to take to the next crop and do some stamping

I will be offering a small prize randomly chosen from followers of this blog who have commented on this post please pop back on friday 24th may to see if you have won

Thank you so much for popping by my blog.  I hope you find this little tutorial useful and give me shout if the instructions don't make sense. I would love to hear from you if you decide to give this a go

Your next stop is YORKSHIRE TEA JENNY

Lesley
XX

Team Circle Journal

I'm currently running a circle journal for my team mates on UKS. We have each chosen a theme and each month one of our team mates creates a page and posts to us.
I have received these so far and will make covers when I have some more time.

These pages were created by Liz I love the combination of colours she has chosen.

The verse is just so special and meaningful to me

Child of my child, heart of my heart, your smile bridges the years between us,

I am young again, discovering the world through your eyes.

You have the time to listen and I have the time to spend,

Delighted to gaze at familiar, loved features made new in you again.

Through you I see the future, through me you'll see the past,

In the present we will love one another as long as these moments last

These are from Suzy and I  had asked her to do them in an art journally style as she is so good at it. She has even managed to do them a bit more vintagey as she knows how I love this. There is so much detail.

The quote is " Some people come into our lives and quickly go, others stay for a while and leave footprints on our hearts and we are never the same "

So true

Catch Up

Last month I had a lovely long weekend away with some fellow like minded scrappers. We stayed at Lochhouse Farm near Beattock where they feed us well and we  have the use of a lovely meeting room for our crafting.
So along with lots of laughter and chat I managed these LO's

I've been wanting to scrap this photo taken by my friend Dee for a while - used Kaisercraft Papers

This one uses the Bo Bunny Mamarazzi 2 Papers and was lifted from the Bo bunny Blog. I loved doing all the stamping and layering. The photo is taken outside Honnister Slate mine in Lake District. I can see my self having lots more fun with these papers

This is my granddaughters dog Tana and Love to see the relationship they have together. I used a mask and texture paste to create the brickwork effect

This one is me many years ago with my 2 oldest children. Used MME Collectables

My favourite I think. I just love this photo of my granddaughter with her great nana made even more special as her nana died a couple of weeks after the photo was taken. This was done with a prima kit from Jen at Wear Crafts that just cried out to be cut up

Another one with MME Collectables papers the colours are so great in them. This is my granddaughter in her Dads size 14 boots

April Scrapology Challenge

Well I did this LO not long after the challenge went live knowing it would be just perfect for this photo.  I then totally forgot to blog and upload it and now its near the deadline.

There are a few days left if anyone wants to enter its a fab technique and I loved doing it.  Here if you fancy a go

Scrapology Challenge - peaking

This months challenge was to have peaking elements on your page somewhere. I  loved the examples on the blog   here

I used one of my favourite photos I have taken of my granddaughter and Bo Bunny Papers

I coloured a doily for the peaking flowers at the side and then added flowers and leaves at the top.
The photo mat is also small strips of folded ribbon peaking from behind the photo

... and this is the sketch

Thanks for looking

View From February

I'm a little late with my view for February  but wanted to try and photograph the moon as the view from my little craft room this month.  I've seen so many stunning shots of the moon.  It was far more difficult than I thought trying to get some of the trees and the moon in focus and I really need to practice this more.

But this is what I managed for February

and finally just catching a bit of the sunrise - I doubt I'll be awake in time for this for a while

Ravers Team Circle Journal

As part of a team the Rik Rak Ravers on UKs we all take our turn to run a challenge. Whilst the idea of a team Circle Journal wasn't mine I did volunteer to run it.

We have all chosen different themes and will complete a double page LO for each persons journal although die to ever increasing postage cost we will only be posting the pages to each person rather than the whole journal.

My theme is quotes or poems that I can use on scrapbook pages.

I have decided not to do my covers until I have got a few more pages back then I can decide better how best to do them

So here are my pages for my journal. I kept it quite vintagey as that's really the style I am most comfortable with. I have every intention of being more art journally as the CJ progresses and would love to see lots of different styles in my journal

 The above quote is  'home is where you treat your friends like family and your family like friends'

The quotes below are 'Families are like fudge, mostly sweet with lots of nuts'

and

'Family - like branches on a tree we all grow in different directions yet our roots remain as one'

I wanted the journal to be quite interactive so have pockets, tags and opening pages

Wedding invitations

My daughters invitations are finally finished - well the daytime main ones are. I still have the evening invites to do.

... and a labour of love they were. She changed her mind about card, colours style - but then its her day.

The printing was a nightmare as I only have an ink jet printer and it wouldn't print on the pearlised paper that she wanted. So hubby was roped in to do the printing at work. Needless to say that was not without its problems, even though they printed out here ok from his machine everything had changed.

Any way with the help of my good friend Dee and lots of hard work and laughs, we got half of them done. We had problems with the embossing folder creasing the card and even had it in the fridge at one point ( dont ask why) - but in our reasoning it could have worked.

 Its a pocket fold card with 3 separate cards in the pocket with the accommodation, contact and gift details. The ribbon detail is all hand stitched to ensure it lay nice and flat
The front and the pocket are all  hand embossed

Jen even carefully put all the jewels on them.

.... and I'm pretty pleased with the way they have turned out

A big thanks to Dee for her help and encouragement doing these - she kept me sane when they were going wrong

UKS Challenge and One Little Word

Although I haven't signed up for this class I've heard so much about the one little word - so have decided that I would choose one for me and its CHANGE.

There a few things that I would like to change and continue to change throughout the year. I have already started to loose weight (well that was a year ago) and for the first time I am keeping it off. Although its a slow hard journey I am a 1 and 1/2 stones lighter than I was this time last year. I will continue with the healthier eating and so much more exercise.

Another thing I would like to change is my scrapping style - I tend to do a lot of girly, frilly LO's.
My friend and teamies first solo challenge on UKS was an ideal opportunity to do this and use paint.

I love the sketch she chose and will use this again

I painted the background with gesso first and then stamped with bubble wrap. All the edges are inked. The sewing was done with twine. Photo is my MIL on the beach at Douglas in the Isle of Man. The title is a line from a poem Happiness by Raymond Carver

What a difference a day makes

I don't often take part in year long challenges or shall I say continue with them for very long but when I saw a link for this one on Suzy's blog Sea Glass and Sand I decided I really liked the idea of it.

The challenge is HERE  at Lucky Snapping in 2013 and is the View Challenge.  I'm a little late in starting as it should have been taken last week.

I chose the view out of my little craft room looking over the garden towards the farmers fields and the woods. I took my photo yesterday

I had to take the same view again as it looked so different with all the snow we had today.  What a difference  a day makes.

I'm so looking forward to seeing the changes over the seasons and can see all the photos making it to a lovely mini book

A Few LO's to Share

Just popping on to share a few LO's.

Christmas has been busy and fun but its so nice to get back to normality

I love scrapping Christmas photos and using lots of lovely Christmas papers. This is Abby opening her lap top on Christmas morning. Even though she is 12 now I still love going to see her open her presents on Christmas morning. Although it doesn't show up very well I have used lots of glitter on this LO

This is the Christmas crop and Holystone and what a great time we all had. I used Authentique's Christmas range - just love those papers

My daughter her partner and my granddaughter in their lovely Christmas jumpers

More for the album I am doing for my x Sister in Law - these are her parents

and her brothers and sister

thanks for looking

12 Days 2012

I've been taking part in Cheryl Johnson Christmas photography workshop again this year and have thoroughly enjoyed all the assignments and again learned so much. When I did this last year I did not have my DSLR and have actually found it much easier this time than when I only had my bridge camera

The final assignment was to make a a collage or slide show of some of your photos.  After looking at some of the slide show programmes I decided to do mine in photos hop. Not sure if this has been a mistake as I have had loads of trouble trying to upload to the forum. I uploaded it into flickr but seemed to loose loads of quality. Not sure what the quality is like here

Scrapology Card Design

I'm guest designer over on the Scrapoolgy blog for this month

The card challenge was to recycle something - use packaging or twigs or leaves. I decided to do something a little Christmassy with twigs collected from the garden.

I dried them out in the oven and then painted them with gesso. Then I used some old pizza box and removed the top to reveal the corrugated bit and then painted this lightly with gesso.

I layered lots of papers and then arranged the twigs and finished off with a bow.

Its finished off with a stamp from SU and a bow. Quite a simple and easy card

Lesley
X

December Scrapology Challenge - Monochromatic ( Guest Designer LO )

I was so pleased to be asked to be a guest designer for this month for the Scrapology challenge blog. I knew whatever the technique or theme was going to be I would have to do something wintery or Christmassy as I just love this time of year.

The theme this month is monochromatic and we had to lift this gorgeous LO from Pam - have a look at her blog HERE and this is her LO

To do my LO I gathered together lots of white bit and bobs and then cut some trees, snowflakes, branches and frames with my spellbinders and other dies. I did a little embossing on the frames to add some definition. I carefully painted all the embellies with perfect pearls to make them stand out a little more. I punched around the edge of the page with a Martha Stewart punch around the page and then placed this on another piece of cardstock on foam pads. I've used more perfect pearls on the trees, snowflakes and all around the edge of the page.

The photo is of my granddaughter a couple of years ago

Thanks for looking and please have a go at the challenge. There is a fab prize from Jill at Cardinal Colours

Lesley
XX

Some LO's to share

This is using Authentique Papers and was from a class at the Creative Heart and Soul Retreat by Tracie Hudson. Love the colours of these papers

This one is my granddaughter on her 11th birthday having a girly makeover with her friends.

This was another of the cybercrop classes on UKS and again is my granddaughter when we on holiday in the Lakes this summer

And another Cybercrop class - loved this way of using up your scraps. Its a rare photograph of me and my husband taken again by my granddaughter

Well its back to my mini book orders now 2 down and 4 to go

XX

Fancy Pants Class

This was a class at the recent Creative Heart and Soul Retreat at Antsy Hall.
We all had a fabulous time and roll on the next one in Feb

Papers were all the fancy pants hopscotch range and I loved the paper pleating technique - its so much easier to make paper do what you want when its wet

Photos are of me and my husband on holiday with my daughter, her fiance, Abby and Oliver. My granddaughter took the photos of me and Mike. A budding little photographer I think