"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.

Our Sweet Girl Layout

Hello and Happy (if a little too rainy!) Bank Holiday Monday to you! 

I recently got my hands on some of the lovely Highline collection by Basic Grey, the colours and embellishments are just perfect for scrapping photos of my daughter!

Sometimes I find it tricky to find collections suitable for older children (past the cute/princess/disney stage but not yet a teenager!) but the bright, funky pinks and oranges mixed with the black were spot on!

I used a Heidi Swapp stencil and mist to create the "Love This" in the right hand corner.

A few Heidi Swapp Puffy stickers, Basic Grey Highline chipboard pieces and black gems were all I needed to embellish my page. 

The chevrons are made with the Stampin Up Chevron punch.

A few ink droplets to finish off!

The finished layout!

 Thanks so much for popping in today!! 

Which collections do you use for scrapping photos of older children?!!

Holiday Layouts

The weather down here on the south coast has been glorious the last few weeks (although a bit cloudy today!) and the sunshine and warmth reminds me of holidays we've been on and this makes me want scrap my holiday pics!

This photo was from a holiday in Ibiza a few years ago and of course we took a whole load of photos of the scenery and each other but we had none of all 3 of us .... until the very last morning when we stopped for a drink in a little beachside cafe and realising the lack of "Us" photos asked the waitress to take a photo! Selfies weren't so popular then!

I used a sheet of Heidi Swapp Dreams Come True 12 x 12 paper for the background as it has a design similar to sun rays on it which fitted the theme perfectly. I began by layering up a few strips of patterned papers. The red "Life is Beautiful" paper, the little Adventure sticker and the doily sticker behind the journal card are all from Echo Park's Capture Life Collection. 

The title stickers are some old Jenni Bowlin alphas which were just the right red to remind me of the hot sun and matched my t-shirt. I kept the embellishment quite simple with a few more stickers, a resin flower and a "Summer" Flair badge from my stash (sorry I can't remember the brand/collection of some of the embellishments), cork arrows and a cork camera (with a red enamel dot on top), a handful of enamel dots and some drops of Colour Shine gold mist.

Down in the bottom left corner I stamped the little aeroplane and added the date. 

When I'm making a layout, I try to include a whole variety of different textures. So, apart from paper I'll aim to use at least 3 other textures. On this page I have cork, metal (the flair badge), the resin flower, enamel (dots), chipboard (the "live in the sun" embellie is a chip piece!) ink and mist so I think I've acheived (and exceeded) the three textured elements on this page. You could try including lace, ribbon, twine, thread, felt, acetate, vellum, buttons ....

I've also just seen that my daughter's cuddly bunny named Flopsy also sneaked into the photo and as she was her constant companion on the holiday I think I will add another line or two of journalling about Flopsy being in the photo too!!

Do you scrap holiday photos from years gone by when the weather reminds you of that holiday?

Have you ever added extra journalling to a layout after you thought it was all done?!

If you've made a holiday layout recently or included lots of different textures on a recent project or this post inspires you to do so, please do leave a link in the comments so we can stop by and see your work or why not post your layout to our facebook page - we'd love to see it!!