Last few challenges for April

I recently visited Leigh on Sea in Essex and took several snaps using Instagram (I am loving playing with Instagram now that I have a new phone and my Project Life pages are full of small instagram photos!).

I saw this sketch on My Scraps and more sketches which I knew would work perfectly

  I made this page...

The letters are large spotty chipboard transformed into blue using promarkers,blue ink and clear embossing powder.  The addition of red twine reflecting the nautical theme.  I stamped and paper pieced the boat and also stamped the anchor (and embossed with silver) and the fish.  I added the silvery coloured twine to the anchor..... a different bunch of techniques using up lots of stash.

I was inspired by Relly's post over on Shimelle's blog to 'make the most of your title' so it is big and bold.

Scrap our stash #13 calls for Spring colours, a paperclip, a journal card and at least one 3 D embellishment, which worked rather brilliantly with this sketch from Sketch N Scrap...

Combining the two I came up with a Spring based Layout using pink, blue, mauve, yellow and blue.  My journal card is behind with the bird paperclip attached to help pull it out.  My 3D embellishments are punched birds  with 3D wings and a pearl eyes to give both movement and texture.

I am totally looking forward to (Inter)National Scrapbooking Day on Saturday.... I love all the challenges, inspiration and ideas....I am so excited!  Hope to see you joining in with some of the Challenges.

More challenges

Totally loving more challenges this month.....
I came across this mood board from Jot magazine 

at first glance it isn't a colour palette I would normally use, but as usual I am always up for trying something scrappy out at least once!  I grabbed some papers and set to work....

I used this sketch from sketchabilities, but didn't actually enter the challenge as per usual!

and this was my first page

then I used Miniowner's fabulous sketch (go and visit her blog as she runs a sketch challenge each month and I love joining in!)

so here is page two... totally loving this page.....

Sharing scrapbook pages on Sunday over a cup of tea

Good evening, slightly late I know but I am hoping you have time to stop for a cup of tea whilst I show you my latest scrapbook pages.  I do have some instant coffee but we have run out of the yummy filter type (poor hubby was not impressed) so sorry but I have a great choice of teas.....

See anything you fancy?  I think I will make myself an earl grey with vanilla, it tends to be my late evening drink.  Everyone else is in bed here now so it is peaceful and quiet so we can natter away, though I do have to go to work tomorrow.....

So what have you been up to?  Did you have a nice Easter, I can offer you a cream egg if you would like one!  I have had a quiet weekend, did you?  I made a couple of scrapbook pages earlier in the week.....

The first page is for the UKS weekly challenge, we were asked to use an advert as the main photo, shaped buttons or brads, 2 colours from the photo and either a short cryptic title or a long wordy one......phew what a challenge!  Initially I thought I wouldn't manage this one but I did in the end and actually quite like the page although the photo isn't brilliant!

This is inspired by Simple Recipes I used the colours, the sketch and tried reverse resist technique to create the camera embellishment.... will definitely try that again.

Well I guess it is getting late so you probably need to get going, I always love seeing you here and hope we can catch up again soon.

This post was brought to you as part of Abi's 'let's sit and have a cup of tea' pop over have a look and a cuppa with a few of my friends (some old and some new!)

More scrapping

For the monthly/house challenge over at UKS we had to use
1 word title
2 photos
3 patterned papers
4 blue elements
5 lines of journalling

I used this fab sketch from Stuck Sketches

and took inspiration from SJ Crafts mood board...using cork board paper as the back ground, using the colours,blocks and lines, the sprinkling affect using hearts that are like individual flower petals....

The end result was this page...

another one I really like of the family about them spelling out words stood on the sea wall... the first one is I heart U...I love you and then they came up with a 3 letter word....POO!

Just realised this is my 500th post.....I should have planned something special but it is too late now!

Scrapbooking challenges

Sometimes I manage to combine more than one challenge, or at least take inspiration from them (more often than not as you know I actually forget to enter into the challenges anyway...let's see how I do today!)

I am a huge sketch fan and I loved this one from Stuck Sketches

I also went with inspiration from this palette over at Colour Me Scrappy

Whilst Shimelle is on maternity leave (.... have you seen the picture of her baby boy.... totally cute and adorable....huge congrats to you all xxx) anyway, whilst she is off there are guest bloggers setting us weekly challenges.  This week Relly asked us to scrap about a place.

So combining these ideas I came up with this page....

I love this house in the country that a family member lives in and it is in a wonderfully rural position with it's own huge field....sighhhhh it really is idyllic and I am lucky enough to have visited on several occasions.  i am grateful to have had the opportunity to use these photos together as I wasn't quite sure what to do with then initially.

I love challenges!

Sharing scrapbook pages on Sunday

As usual I have joined in with the UKS weekly challenge.....
we were asked to 

1) Document a change you’ve had in your life 
2) Either leave lots of white space  or fill your page to bursting 
3) Use something at least 4 years old 

I used this sketch from Skissedilla 

and made this page

An awful photo taken with my phone in the gloomy light of this wet grey day.  The title is a play on words as the photo was taken whilst looking up at the blue skies on a warm day when DS and I were out for a walk, it sure made a change.....it was also great that DS was having a good day and things were definitely 'looking up' 

Can you guess what is more than 4 years old?  The spotty blue paper which I am pretty certain was from one of those huge 12 x 12 pads of Papermania paper that were just never used... though I actually quite like this blue sheet!  Also I have obviously gone for the 'white space' option.

Love scrapbooking......

UKS monthly challenge for March was to use this fabby sketch

and I made a page featuring these gorgeous children 

This palette from colour me scrappy

was used to create this page

Sharing scrapbook pages on Sunday

The weekly challenge was a bit challenging this week over on UKS.  I was fine using a photo of a pet/animal and I was happy with using circles (or cogs) but using the title of a song from a musical had me thinking!

I decided to use a page kit I had put together from the Counterfeit Kit Challenge CSI file

I used all the colours in the scheme, for evidence I used a patterned background, sheer pale blue netting cut into circles, wood buttons and a wood veneer, 3 blue flowers under the buttons. My testimony is in the form of the vellum envelope which holds my journalling on a tag.

In the end I came up with this page

I realised I had never scrapped about how my cat was going to be 'Tinkerbell' as chosen by my then 4 year old daughter.....but when the cat arrived it was a boy so his name was changed to Tinker and that has really suited him! So using the title 'the naming of the cats' was an easy choice for my page.

Another page I made at my crop yesterday was based on this sketch by my teamie Niki over at Being Scrappy

and this colour scheme from Kreative Concepts (though I think I may be too late to enter this challenge as usual!) a good challenge for me to use gold and pink on a LO but actually really liked this combo and will use it again

The colours were a perfect fit for another Harry Potter page this time featuring Dolores Umbridge

Sharing scrapbook pages on Sunday

The weekly challenge on UKS has been set by my talented team mate Niki....

use the sketch, use stars, use square photos and chevrons.

I always use stars on my HP pages so this just had to be another page from the HP studios....

One of my other teamies kindly cropped and resized it so I could add it to UKS and then upload it to my blog as I am still on the ancient lappy!

Scrapology challenge

Another page created at my retreat last weekend was using the Scrapology sketch for their March challenge, closing today...

Unfortunately I am on the old slow unhelpful laptop and I am unable to crop or resize photos with it (ys I have put in a request for a lappy of my own that works, works all the time and can actually do some simple things that I need lol!) so I have had to share a not so great photo of my page.....when/if I can access another pc at home I will improve the photo.  So for now this is my take on the sketch...

I have made the photo extra large so you can see the layout.... I love how this one turned out and it used lots of stash!  I stripped the sketch right back to being really simple and unusually for me haven't added any jounalling.....looking at it now I think I will add some along the bottom within the frame.

Thanks for a great challenge Scrapology!