Hi hi!
Squeezing in another scrappy challenge before the end of the month! This one is a sketch challenge for Lottie Loves Paper and I picked this one out because it was a great way of using up scraps.
I had a few die cuts and a very limited number of pieces left from the layout from earlier in the month using some Go Go kit leftovers which are Maggie Holmes Heritage mostly I think. I added in the background because I needed something with the off white base and it happened to be another Maggie Holmes collection, Carousel. The purple border is a Papermania patterned paper that’s around 12 years old.
I did stick fairly closely to the sketch – as is usual for me, overthinking it totally and trying to work out the sizes of the squares exactly… The paler pieces needed lifting from the busy background so I layered them up onto the darker blue.
I distressed all the edges to tie in with the previous layout as this one will sit opposite it in my album. I popped up all of the layered squares and just sat the journalling block and title flush with the page.
I fussy cut the rest of the flowers to tuck in and added a couple of remaining die cuts, placed judiciously so you can’t read the irrelevant sentiment or see the irrelevant swan! A sprinkle of coordinating enamel shapes and that’s another layout done; another challenge completed, and a bag of stash totally busted!
One bag down, eleventy billion to go…
Stay safe and keep smiling x
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Hi hi!
Happy Wednesday and happy What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday – our weekly trip around the desks of crafters near and far.
I’ve done pretty much zero crafting since last week’s desk shot, hence this week’s might be a little familiar. Last week was half term and Mr Pretty took the week off and boarded the eaves, which of course, meant that then the entire rest of the house managed to shift at least one piece of furniture in or out as a result. But we are getting there slowly. I am currently in the process of sorting and building 99 Lego sets (plus 12 advent calendars and 2 book sets) seeing which ones to sell, so that has taken up most of my time.
I am getting ready to have a crafty video call with a couple of lovelies and so I’m hoping to crack out most of the rolled flowers for my special project. You might get a hint as to what it is in the photo too. Of course if I try the flowers and for some reason they don’t work, (like the fact that I have the wrong sized glue sticks for my glue gun….) then I’ll be fussy cutting more butterflies from the wall paper roll instead! The pink notebook on the right has come out of retirement (made it nearly 10years ago) to be where I keep notes on the current crafty articles I’ve been commissioned to write.
And finally, here’s last week’s Throwback Thursday (which happened to actually be Froback Friday because we had a family screen free day… twitch…) It’s a cherished photo and layout about my recovery from post natal depression. I’m so glad that I document the hard stuff as well because it’s important to look back on all kinds of milestones, I think. Of course sometimes when I look back I cry “what the hell was I thinking??” too! I loved those Echo Park This & That collections.
Anyway, time for a cup of tea and a nosy around the desks. You can link up with this lovely community over at the Queen of the Desks, Julia’s blog.
Stay safe and keep smiling x
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Hi hi!
Goodness I miss this little rodent. I know rats aren’t everyone’s cup of tea (oh she did love tea!) but we loved having our girls around. Every day when Luigi came in from school he would get them both out for an hour of play. They’d scamper off to explore and then come back for a cuddle, or like Cookie is here, to help read a good book.
I dug into my Cocoa Vanilla Boys Rule collection for this layout and I haven’t lost my love for it at all. I will be so sad when it is… eventually… used up. I created the layout for the monthly challenge at Hey Little Magpie where the prompt was about learning and school. I got myself in quite a muddle and managed to use the sketch from the January challenge that I’d missed!
In a bid to use up some patterned paper, I actually avoided using white cardstock for the background, opting instead for the muted sunburst, which helps my favourite star paper to pop out. I loved the freshness of the lime green in this collection so used the sketch to help me place pops of colour in my clusters.
I inked all the edges for this one in Faded Jeans Distress Oxide, which is something I haven’t done for a while. I could have used black as there is very dark grey in a couple of areas but I thought it would be too harsh.
This is the most perfect die cut for this funny pair. I love it when a die-cut works as a title because it’s one less thing to think about! Of course I finished off with some Bramble Fox perspextives. The colours go so well and the dark grey in particular is a perfect match for this collection.
Stay safe and keep smiling x
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Hi hi
Some layouts just come together don’t they? This page was definitely one of those. The photograph is of the back of my car leading up to Halloween a couple of years ago. I bought this witch transfer (who I called her Winnie, and yes I did chat to her), and she used to wave her besom (the proper name for a witches’ broom) when I turned on the windscreen wipers. I loved seeing people smiling and pointing when we went past – it’s lovely to bring a bit of joy and surprise to people isn’t it?!
I didn’t actually use a sketch or a scrap lift for this one. I know right?! I’m fanning myself in shock. The cut file was another Go Go weekend freebie from Pear Tree cut files and coupled with the photo didn’t leave room for much else. The challenge was to use the quote so I wanted to keep it quite large but needed something else on the page.
I’d seen a few of these rolled paper strips on layouts around that time and it was a good way to use the bold striped paper in the candy cane colours. The only problem was that I was using a Crate Paper pad so the designs are one sided and I had to fix another contrasting piece to the roll!
I backed the cut file with the glorious Shimelle vellum because I wanted just to lift it slightly from the background but without too much colour. I added a few stickers, a Bramble Fox star, some of the negative stars from the cut file, and even added a very old My Mind’s Eye brad. Finally I popped a clear cobweb sticker in the top corner to finish off.
I miss the ole gal…
Stay safe and keeping smiling x
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Hi hi!
Don’t fall of your seat but this layout was actually a story from last December. Yes, 2020. I confess it was because I had printed the photos twice by accident when I was doing my Christmas Journal.
Luigi is 14 and as any mum-of-a-teen can attest, letting them grow up is hard, especially in times of great change or chaos like a pandemic… or an exponential rise in gaming and social media… Twitch. We’ve had a difficult few months, understandably. But he’s generally a good guy and he loved his Spicery advent calendar that he’s opening here. He also made this Christmas decoration, which I love, that ended up on our tree. The trees were supposed to be sold to raise money for his charity trip to Eswatini in July. Yes, Eswatini, where the South African variant of Covid was discovered. Obviously we can’t see that happening now and it’s such a shame that they can’t postpone.
I happened to have these 2 photos on my desk when thinking about the Go Go challenges during the December cyber crop and the sizes of the pics leant themselves well to the sketch prompt. Unusually for me, I didn’t use the same papers as my Christmas Journal (as I didn’t think I’d have enough to complete my album otherwise) (of course I was wrong) but I actually busted some old stash instead – I think it is Echo Park This & That Christmas from 2012. Ahem…
I even used my Cuttlebug to cut some stars – yay me! I’m doing really well at using up lots of older stash but of course I did use a couple of Bramble Fox Perspextives too. I love the Christmas present even though the hole on the tag part was so tiny that I said several bad words trying to thread something through! So unbecoming of a young lady…
Stay safe and keep smiling x
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Hi Hi!
Yes I know. This is the third Eeek related page from my current pile but it covers such a great range of circumstances! This one is my neice pulling a very odd face opening presents at her Halloween themed birthday party. I have no idea what she thought might be in the bag, but yes, trick or treat seemed very appropriate!
This layout was for a mood board challenge in last October’s Go Go cyber crop where there was a definite Halloween theme but with some pink and sparkly vibes thrown in – it must have been the lovely Sarah Packer that designed that one!
With the pink in the prompt I took the opportunity to scrap my niece in her pink witches dress. I added a sheet of magenta paper into my Crate Paper Hey Pumpkin supplies and added some pink twine and a few sprinkles from my tiny embellishment box. I love how the pops of the strong pink really change up the normal Halloween colours but without looking out of place.
The placement for this layout was another Scrap Squad scrap lift and I’ve kept it in my pile of inspiration because it’s such a versatile and easy to use design. It’s great to have a jumping off point for my layouts, whether that be a challenge or sketch or scrap lift from any of the great Facebook groups, or, as I seemed to be doing a lot of in the past year, combining several of the above!
Stay safe and keep smiling x
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Hi hi!
Today’s layout is another Christmas story for you. Our children were lucky enough to visit Beaulieu in the evening every Christmas eve and they would see Father Christmas go past outside after they had sung songs and seen a magic show and received a present from the previous Lord Montagu. In 2015 however, he passed away, and the current Lord and Lady decided to make a surprise change.
They created the most beautiful grotto to make it more Christmassy, with a roaring fire and Santa in a huge chair giving out the presents. I loved how none of the children questioned the logistics of this even on Christmas Eve, and even though some of them had been tracking Santa’s movements on the NORAD app!
This layout was actually for a Go Go cyber crop back in July! We’d run off to Wales for a few days and I had taken only Christmas supplies with me, totally forgetting there was a cyber crop on. Somehow I managed to complete all the challenges even though they were quite summery in their vibe. This one was an easy one – a challenge to use a flag shape. I scrap-lifted Lorraine’s original example.
I added the last of my foldies on this one with the little train along the bottom, and I added a few big sequins for smoke. You can’t tell but the red banner is actually 2 pieces of 6×6 joined together. I tend to try and use the smaller pieces if I can because the bigger pieces can be cut down – it’s the opposite of cooking where you can add but you can’t take away!
Stay safe and keep smiling x
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It’s hard to know where to start today. I’m sure we’re all feeling the same as part of the WOYWW community – desperately wanting to hold hands across the country, and indeed the world, to say goodbye to Shaz Silverwolf. I’m sure that her soul is shouting at us all to get on with it, lets have at ya, show us your stuff, etc. She wasn’t your “conventional” crafter… I’ll come back to that, but here is my desk today. You can find more info with the lovely Julia.
I’m working on something super exciting, which involves, as these things often do, a bit of tediousness first. I’ve been die-cutting rolled flowers from scraps in colours that match my craft room and I’ll be fussy cutting those birds and butterflies to go with them. My glass candy dish is by far the best “sorting tray” type thing I have, no matter how many matchy matchy ones I have tried. Some are too holey, too shallow, too deep, too small, too big, etc. But this dish, like Goldilocks porridge, is just right.
You can also see the discarded wrist brace in the middle. Fybromyalgia has it’s own wardrobe, dontcha know…
So after my post the other week about trollies, a friend told me that she keeps her mixed media on hers. I thought what a good idea, I’m going to do that too. Sounds easy right? But it never is, is it? This was mid way through moving other things to make space to bring the trolley upstairs.
Teeter tottering piles and yet more foam shapes… I think I have enough for about 3 more years and then I might have to buy some proper stuff…
And then, ta da! This is them finished!
On the left is my project trolley which in all honesty will probably stay as my One Little Word trolley – the stadium style tidy at the top with all the papers, sticker sheets and album, sorting trays of scraps and loose stickers underneath, and then on the bottom, a box of Project Life cards with page protectors in the tray underneath.
On the right is my mixed media trolley. It’s far from all of it because I couldn’t use paints in my craft room when I had the die-cutting shop – too much white cardstock and a person with a lack of hand eye coordination! It’s a work in progress.
And here’s last week’s Throwback Thursday. Goodness I’m missing the beach in Wales so very much.
Of course we will be all be missing Shaz on our Wednesday trip around the desks now too. I met her a couple of times (and her absolute soul mate and husband, Doug) at the Burbage crops for What’s on Your Workdesk Wednesday. I have one of her ATCs on my wall from the November 2015 crop just after she’d had one of her earliest surgeries. She couldn’t sit for long and would take gentle walks around the building, but she created quite the shadow! With her long skirts and long hair she appeared to float past as if she was flying, especially as she was wearing a witches hat at the time! Rest in peace is too sedate for this fan of wolves, black clothes, coloured hair and heavy metal, so I’ll say ‘howl loud Shaz lovely lady, howl loud’.
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