London 2014 Layout

We try to get up to London at least once a year, sometimes for a show or concert, for shopping, a museum visit or to see the sights of the city. It's something we all enjoy and a great way to spend time together as a family. 

Last year, as soon as we learned of the Tower of London poppies exhibition we all agreed we wanted to go and see it.

So, during October half term we booked our train tickets and off we went!

This layout is the first of several layouts which will record our day in London.

I made this layout for a challenge on a Facebook group I'm in that required the year to be a prominent feature of the page.

Taking inspiration from this layout on Pinterest, I layered up some strips of My Minds Eye paper (inked with blue distress ink), grey dotted washi tape and a doily and added my photograph which I had matted on white cardstock. Then I added a few stickers (tucking 1 under the photo), chipboard and some gorgeous green, glitter alphas for the title. A few ink drops, wood stars and a camera and enamel dots and I was done.

I clustered most of the embellishments in this area under the photo, placing the chipboard arrow to draw the eye towards the journal spot and the title.

A little geotag and "We are here" sticker at the top balances the heavier embellishment cluster.

Thanks for popping in to visit today!

Derry Walls Layout - Amanda's Scraplift Challenge

Very quick post from me today as time is fast running out to play along with Amanda's Scraplift challenge and I wanted to get my layout entered before I have to go to work this afternoon!

Amanada challenged us to "scraplift" her layout.

Here's my layout, which kept fairly close to the original design but I moved my title to the opposite side of the page.

The photos are from a few years ago taken on a day trip to the city of Derry.

A few close ups:

I used some gorgeous papers from the new Simple Stories "Life Documented" collection and added various stickers from my stash, cork thickers for my title and the little green arrows are from a pack of  Heidi Swapp Puffy stickers.

Thanks for a great challenge, Amanda - look forward to the next one!

"Granda's Tree" layout

Another of the layouts I made on the November Scrapbooking Retreat!

During one of our trips over to stay with my hubby's family last year we visited his Granny and as it was a beautiful Spring day we were all out in her garden when I snapped this photo of my daughter stood by this beautiful tree. Sadly his Granda had passed a few months before but he loved this tree and tended it carefully for many, many years. We all said how the tree had never looked so good and was in full bloom in his memory! My daughter loved "Great Granda's tree" saying how pretty it was.

Some close ups:

The gorgeous floral paper and the puffy heart stickers are both from Heidi Swapp's Favorite Things Collection. The "Life is Good" card is from Jennifer's "How Refreshing" collection from her "Happy Scatter" Etsy Shop. If you haven't yet had a look in her shop, do pop over as she has some lovely items.

I also added a Basic grey tag, resin flower and stamped some arrows and phrases mixed in with a few phrase stickers!

How is your 2015 crafting going?

I was at my first crop of the year last Saturday and managed to get a couple of layouts finished!!

Thanks for stopping by today.

River Photos Layout

I hope you all had a wonderful and peaceful Christmas time!

I am keen to get my 2015 scrapping off to a great start so in preparation I've been having a bit of a sort out of my craft space recently and earlier today I found myself putting away some of my recent layouts. But before I put them in my albums I took a few photos as there was a fair few I've not yet shown you.

First up is this "River Photos" layout, made at the recent scrapbook weekend!

I'm lucky enough to live near both the beach and the River Stour and so tend to have a never ending supply of both beach and river photos to scrap. 

This particular day was just another weekend stroll by the river ...  with my daughter in the mood for posing for a few photos!! She only took a little bit of persuasion!

I took inspiration from this "Explore" layout which I had pinned onto my Pinterest board quite a while ago. 

I changed the original layout to include my 3 photos rather than 2 photos + a journal card and also moved the embellishment cluster to the bottom left corner. 

I used some Echo Park papers from their "This & That" Collection which I received in my "Secret Santa" gift on the retreat. Thanks to Paula for the loan of the gorgeous border punch and to Lisa-Jane for the pink Cosmo Cricket "Tiny Text" stickers. The camera stamp is by Stampin Up and is coloured with pro marker pens. 

Here's some close ups of the details ...

Thanks so much for stopping by today .... I'll be back soon with another layout to show you!

Are you ready to kick start your 2015 crafting?