Scrapbook Retreat - Beach Layouts!

A few weekends ago I was away on a Scrapbook Retreat with some lovely ladies including my good friends Lisa-Jane and Jennifer, staying in a beautiful barn deep in the Dorset countryside. 

We spent our days chatting, eating yummy, home baked cakes, drinking tea/coffee/wine, enjoying leisurely strolls around the farm land and some of the ladies went in the swimming pool/hot tub/gym although I decided that wasn't really my "thing". There was much laughter and of course lots of playing with pretty papers!!

I managed 8 layouts in total over the weekend - fairly productive for me!

Today I'm sharing two of the layouts, both feature photos taken from the same day out at the beach last Summer. 

Beach Day Layout

Regular readers will know I live near the south coast and scrap rather a lot of beach photos. It's getting tricky coming up with different titles - hence the somewhat uninteresting and predictable title of "Beach day" for this page!

I'm afraid I didn't take note of the papers I used as most of them were out of my "Scraps" Box. 

I've been waiting for just the right layout to use this lovely Happy Scatter Sandcastle wood piece on and I think it fits perfectly with these photos.

I added a couple of stickers, a splatter of gold Heidi Swapp Colour Shine and a few enamel dots and it was another fabulous "Beach Day" recorded and in the album.

Little Surfer Girl

For this page I  used a photo of my daughter taken on the same beach trip as the first layout.

She loves to use her body board in the sea and will quite happily spend a whole afternoon splashing about and trying to "catch a wave"! This particular day she was using a brand new board purchased on the way to the beach as her old one had broken. It's a bigger board than her previous one and so she felt like a proper "Little Surfer Girl"

Papers and stickers are from Simple Stories "Good Day Sunshine" collection and I used my favourite Stampin Up Chevron punch to punch out the coloured chevrons from small scraps.

I'll be back soon with more layouts from the retreat.

Thanks for popping in today - please do leave me a comment to let me know you stopped by!

"Hello Santa" Layout

A few months ago I was asked to create a layout for Scrapbook Magazine on the theme "Hello Santa" .... it's in the current issue No: 85 on sale now so I'm now able to show you at last.

The lovely Jen at Wear Crafts sent me the Simple Stories Cozy Christmas collection kit to work with and it was just perfect for this theme. I knew I had to use the "Hey Santa" 3" X 4" journal card as soon as I saw it in the pack!

I started with a sheet of red cardstock onto which I layered white cardstock and then began to layer up some patterned papers and journal cards.

See the little red and white striped pieces just peeping out each side - I cut one of the 3" x 4" cards in half so I could tuck a piece in each side of the photo. This is something I often do with journal cards!

I added a little bit of sparkle with some American Crafts glitter tape and some My minds Eye gold stars.

The title is a mix of red chipboard alphas and white foam thickers.

The Simple Stories sticker sheet in the Collection pack has some lovely word stickers on it - I added "Wonder & Magic", "Ho Ho Ho" and "he's making a list" in 3 different areas of my page, adding a star and red gem to each making a visual triangle.

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The photo is one of my favourites of the many that I have of my daughter meeting Santa over the years. Even though it doesn't show her face, I love the twinkling lights and stacks of presents in Santa's grotto and I remember how she listened in earnest to him telling her to "make sure she goes straight to sleep on Christmas Eve!"

So, that's two layouts made with this kit (if you missed the other it's here!) and I'm already half way through a third page so I'll be back to show you that soon.

How are your Christmas preparations going?

Anyone got their tree up yet?

"Our Lovely Girl" Layout

Hello

Sorry for the lack of blog posts lately!

I have been scrapping and have several finished layouts to show you - it's just finding the time to photograph them in decent daylight and upload to the blog that I'm struggling with.

Anyway, here's one that I made a couple of weeks ago at the Artful Angels Crop. I always enjoy going to this crop but it was even better this month as my lovely crafty friend Jennifer Grace came along with me. It was her first visit to the crop and I think she had a fun and productive day and we had a great time scrapping, chatting and catching up. 

I used Crate Boys Rule papers for this layout. I love using collections for different themes other than the one intended by the manufacturer. For example, this collection consists of lots of  traditional "boy" colours and images but it was perfect for this photo of my daughter. Most of the time she is definitely a "Girlie Girl" but at the time this photo was taken she was going through a bit of a "Tom Boy" phase favouring denim shorts or jeans and pumps all the time and even this pose with her hands in her pockets suits the feel of the layout.

The wood arrow is also from the Boys Rule collection and I added the date using some Tim Holtz mini alphas and a sticker and the chipboard heart is by Studio Calico.

I created the title with Black Thickers and a "lovely" sticker. The "You Rock" sticker is matted onto some grey card to match the photo mat and raised up on foam pads.

A few splatters of Heidi Swapp ink to finish and to balance with the title in the opposite corner.

Another finished layout about my girl for her album and not a bit of pink in sight!!

Do you use "Boyish" papers on girl pages or "Girl" papers on boy layouts or do you tend to stick to the theme the papers were intended for?

Thanks for stopping by today!

Changes and Christmas Scrapping

Hello! How are you?

September has been a busy month in our house.  

A month that has seen a lot of changes.

I was quite sad to finally close the S J Crafts online shop although I know it is the right thing for me and my family. My daughter started the next phase of her life as she moved up to her new secondary school and has quickly settled into her new routine and enjoying the opportunities school now offers her! And Me?! I have started a new part time job! I can't believe how lucky I have been to land myself this little job which gives me all the school holidays off!! I'm very thankful for this next phase of life for me and my little family!

Recently I was lucky enough to work with the brand new Simple Stories "Cozy Christmas" collection pack from the lovely Wear Crafts for a magazine commission. Unfortunately I can't yet show you the layout for the magazine but I can show you this layout which I created with some of the left over papers.

I started off with a row of three photographs across the middle of the page. The word "Joy" and the stars in the bottom right corner were already on the paper as was the little gold strip on the top edge so I simply used these two areas as my start point to build up the design, adding the red striped border sticker (cut into small pieces), little stars, the gold "25 Dec" and word stickers (all from the sticker sheet which is included in the collection pack). I also die cut the larger red stars and the small woodgrain stars. The "Oh what fun it is" card is cut from one of the patterned papers in the kit and I added the heart sticker to match the red heart printed on the paper next to the word "joy". 

I finished off with some metallic MME arrows, date stamp and a scattering of gems.

Here's a few close ups of the details:

And here's a look at what you get in the collection pack:

A gorgeous selection of double sided papers and journal cards in traditional reds, greens,  mixed with some woodgrain and more neutral creams and golds. The two sticker sheets have lots of really useful words and festive icons which I know I will use up on more layouts very soon.

Have you started your Christmas Crafting yet?