There's Still Time...

For those of you who have not yet entered, there's still time. Kate Hadfield from the Lilypad has given me a $15 voucher (to spend in her Lilypad store) to giveaway to one lucky reader of my blog. For details on how to enter, please click here.

This is my latest layout using just some of Kate's goodies:

[Supplies: Painted Cardboard - Kate Hadfield, Woodland Whimsy - Kate Hadfield , Circle Ooohs! - Amber Clegg, Build Your Own Border #2 - Amy Wolff, Say What Word Art - Amy Wolff, Sticky Stacks - Amy Wolff (all from the Lilypad)]

G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y...

This weekend the Lilypad are celebrating big style - 30% off in store. To make this even better, Kate Hadfield have very generously given me a $15 coupon to give away to one lucky reader of my blog :) This is what you need to do:

Visit Kate's store at the Lilypad and then come back here & leave me a comment telling me which is your favourite kit :) It's as simple as that. You have until 09:00 (9 am) BST on Monday to leave a comment. One person will be drawn at random to win a coupon for $15 at Kate's store. Yay!

These are just a few of my personal favourites...

New On-Line Class...

My latest free on-line layout class is now up at A Trip Down Memory Lane. Please feel free to check it out and play along if you have some spare time. Thanks for looking :)

Sorting + photos...

Today I'm seriously rushed off my feet trying to prepare photos etc for two hybrid albums which I'm making for mum's birthday. I'd like to have them all edited and uploaded on-line for printing by tonight if I can. But it's really a question of ---> IF. We'll see how far I get. Photo editing takes so long. And it's not any easier with a headache.

[Supplies: "Purrfectly Doggone Cute" by Christy Lyle, Lauren Grier (SSD)]

Yesterday I spent ages sorting through old kits (mainly what I had left over from Scrap-Room etc) and splitting them up into parts. Scraps in one pile, full sheets of cardstock in another, full sheets of patterned papers in yet another. Once you come down to embellishment packs and lose buttons & ribbons...you really have an avalanche of piles. At one stage it looked like an impossible mission. But I'm pleased that by the end of the evening I had all the cardstock and patterned papers in binders and all small embellishments/ribbons in boxes. What I'm left to deal with now is packs of stickers, chipboard, rub-ons etc (and they are all awkward, different sizes aren't they?! LOL!). Any good ideas of storing these please? Do post in the comments section if you do - thank you!! :)

My Freedom...

[photo borrowed from shimelle.com]

In July I signed up for the "My Freedom" class by Shimelle. A 5 week class. I was very aware of that I only had the chance to do one week of the course before we left for Sweden. Kinda a bit of a recipe for disaster. Very easy to feel "too far behind" and give up.

And I have to say I have been very tempted. To give up. It's felt like too much to catch up on the last two weeks. Yet I don't give up. I don't want to give up!

So yesterday I sat down with a huge paper pad and the prompts. Read through them and made notes. Mainly on what photos would be good with what subjects etc. I have spent the whole morning today hunting for photos on my harddrive (where I had suitable ones) and taking photos (where I needed some). Then editing. *sigh* That takes some time. Not to mention uploading and cropping. But they are ordered as of 10 minutes ago and I feel great. A big step in not giving up. Let's hope I still feel as inspired when my photos turn up and I'm to make the pages. I really want to finish this class :)

Using The Kit Some More...

So I have been using the kit some more. Creating another one of these get-the-layout-done-before-you-choose-what-it's-about. A strange, but also I have to say, very fun concept. Not something I would do every day, but definitely fun and a concept I will try again. :)

Here is my little "before" photo:

And then I went off finding some photos, decided on a title and worked out my journaling :) My final layout turned out like this:

A Little Card...

Just a quick update today. Showing you one of the many birthday cards that I have been creating this week. This one was made with some goodies from Sweet Shoppe Designs (SSD).

[Supplies: "Toxic" Melissa Bennett & MGL Scraps (SSD)]

Tomorrow it's a so called Bank Holiday (=day off) here in the UK - can't wait!! :)

Storage... Part 3...

I've been continuing my little storage mission. This time not getting something new, but rather re-using something old...

I have had these IKEA drawers for...it must be a good 5 years or so now. When I originally got them I slapped a little bit of paint on the front of the drawers. I decided that I didn't like it. But, yes you guessed it, they stayed like that. For a long time LOL!

I know, I know - it looks like something that belongs in a child's room! Told you I didn't like it!

I've been playing with the thought of putting paper on the front of the drawers for a good year now. But it's just never happened. Until I saw this yummy Heather Bailey paper that I just knew would make me smile every day.


I spent a whole day painting the drawer unit white on Thursday (of course having to wait for it to dry before I could turn it onto another side and pint more etc) and then attached the papers onto the front. It turned out better than I dared hoping. And it's so nice to look at something and smile, rather than being "filled with dread" over some painted drawers that you never really liked in the first place LOL!

Paper Scrapping...

Yay - been doing some paper scrapping this morning! I have so missed that this week as I have been concentrating on my storage problem/solutions and also I have been making some birthday cards (got quite a few that need to be sent in the next month).

Anyway, back to my paper scrapping. I picked up this kit which I got from Shimelle a while back. I decided to follow the instructions and ...well, it was rather interesting as you created the layout BEFORE you added your photos/title/journaling.

Following the instructions, I got to this part yesterday evening:

And then today I sat down thinking about what photos to use, what title to use etc. I normally always start by picking my papers, then my photos and then I scrap. So to do the whole layout FIRST and THEN pick my photos - that was a new experience. But I have to say a really good one, that I enjoyed a lot :)

Oh a totally different note: I have now sent off my e-mail to stop my Scrap-Room subscription. I've had the kits for about 2 1/2 years and enjoyed them a lot, so it was not a decision I wanted to make but SO many of us here in the UK got big customs charges this month :(

Storage...Part 2...

Not a happy girl. Just got a £11.32 customs charge on my Scrap-Room kit. Need to have a think if I can continue with this as I know a few of us have been stung by customs this month. But it makes the stash very expensive. And I really love the kit. So not a decision I want to have to make...

Going back to my storage mission. And my very small scrap room. It suddenly dawned on me - I had a space I'd not thought about before. Behind the door! And after some purchases, the back of my door now looks like this:

Lots of clips to dangle embellishment packs etc from. I first saw the idea on a forum somewhere a while back and it kinda stuck in my mind ever since, only to come to me the other day again. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I have to admit I was a bit sceptical at first (thinking it might be very bulky, not as good as it first seemed etc) but I'm so pleased I went for it. Again it suits exactly the storage purpose that I need: neat, organised and easy access. I find that (for me at least) if things are not easily accessible, I tend to reach for something else instead. So I think this will be very cool indeed :)

Storage...Part 1...

Thanks to those of you who posted about your fave (and not so fave!) scrapping books yesterday. I *really* enjoyed reading it :) I'd love to hear more opinions if you have the time please.

I keep being troubled by the space in my craft room. I have a VERY small craft room. If I stretch out my arms I can touch the opposite walls at the same time. And that works it BOTH ways...so it's not even like it's a narrow and long room...it's just a VERY small, square room. With me being a ...I guess you could say, pretty organised and tidy person in general...it's very hard when you have such a small space (because we all know what space stash takes!)...I'm constantly running out of room and have piles in places I don't want to have them...

The last few days I have thought about organising a lot. In an ideal world I'd like a huge scraproom with lots of shelves, a looong desk and some great storage. But I don't have that. So it's about making use of what you have and use small storage solutions that work with the space you have.

One thing that's bothered me a lot lately is my stamps and Thickers storage (or rather lack of!). Especially my stamps...as you can see...

It doesn't really work, does it? My very ugly cardboard box of stamps was overflowing! Result: I "couldn't be bothered" to dig for the stamps that I sometimes wanted to use. And it's no good to have great stamps and not use them. Also when I did pull out my (ugly!) stampbox, it would normally send my packets of Thickers starting to fall off the shelf as they were tucked in next to the box. (And yes I do know I have a bit of a thing for Thickers!)

I of course found lots of pretty & prefect storage both for my stamps and Thickers...but none would fit in my room and the small shelf space that I had for them. So I had to be realistic. A trip to IKEA yesterday and it now looks like this:

Not my ideal storage, not the prettiest storage. But I'm really happy as I achieved the basics: it looks pretty neat, it's organised and most of all I can easily pull a box out and find what I need without causing an avalanche! Yay :)

Let's Talk Books...

Bleugh! I'm not feeling too great today. Thick-feeling and itchy nose and throat, headache and on top of that an achy back too (not sure what's caused that). Not exactly the best way to start a new week. But I *just* received something in the post that cheered me up, so ---> let's talk books. Scrapping books :)

This is what just arrived with the parcel guy:

[Cathy Zielske - Clean & Simple The Sequel]

I can't wait to have a read of it. I've been tempted to get it for a long, long time now. I have never bought anything by Cathy before...so it will be interesting to see what it's like :)

Anyway, scrapping books...I don't have too many. Maybe because I'm pretty good with knowing what I do and don't like when it comes to scrapping styles, so I don't really buy loads of books...instead I just get a few selected ones which I know I'm very likely to enjoy.

I'd love for you to take a little moment (if you have time - please) to post a comment and share with me: which are your favourite scrapping book(s)? Maybe one particular book surprised you? Or maybe you bought a book, expecting to like it, only to be disappointed? Which book can't you wait to get your hands on? Please share - I'd love to hear - thank you :)

I think I have two favourite books and they have been my favourites for a while now. In no particular order, I love:

[Ali Edwards - Life Artist]

[Elsie Flannigan - 52 Scrapbooking Challenges]

...they are both books that I come back to time and time again for inspiration and ideas.

And finally I'd like to share with you which book is on my "wants list" next, a brand new book that is out this month:

[Ali Edwards - Sharing Your Story]

Little Birdies...

I've got some hybrid assignments for SSD to catch up on. For our "required projects" (we can do more than this too if we like, by any designer) we get assigned certain designers each month (to make it fair and to give everyone the same publicity) but we are then free to pick whatever kits we want to work on by our assigned designers. As soon as I saw "Carly's Secret Crush" by Eva Kipler I knew I had to do something with it. I just looove those little birdies :)

[Supplies: "Carly's Secret Crush" - Eva Kipler (SSD), "V'Day Quote Bubbles" - Amy Martin (TLP)]

So Cute...

...another person's designs that I just totally L-O-V-E for hybrid card making is anything by Mindy Terasawa. She sells the cutest stuff over at Designer Digitals. Fantastic little cute animals and other things that are just perfect as a focal point on cards.

For this card I have been using the Sweet & Salty kit and also the very cute Icons kit that co-ordinates with the main kit. :)

Lots Of Cards...

Since being away in Sweden for 3 weeks I have lots of Design Team assignments to catch up on. I did lots in advance before we left, but new stuff has of course come up too. So I have got myself a little list (okay...who am I kidding??! A l-o-n-g list) and I'm trying to work through it the best I can. At the moment I'm in a hybrid card phase. That's first on my list. Lots of hybrid CT work to catch up on...

My first card is for The Lilypad. I love the Lilypad Friday releases - always a very exciting day! Lots of new stuff. :)

[Supplies: "Being A Princess Isn't All It's Cracked Up To Be" Karah Fredricks, "Scruffy & Stripey Alphabet" Kate Hadfield, "Doodle Arrows" Jenna Desai (The LilyPad), "Jungle Tales" Edeline Marta (The Digi Chick), "Bundle Of Boy" Melissa Bennett (Sweet Shoppe Designs)]

Mmmm...

We got this food magazine with a large section on making your own jam and cordial a few weeks ago. Something I've always wanted to do but never done...

Instead of just thinking "oh it would be so nice" and then forgetting about it, we actually decided to give it a go. We'd already picked up a juice strainer when we were in Sweden for this exact purpose, so out we went to the supermarket to buy the fruit. Strawberries and rhubarb...mmm!! A really nice rhubarb crumble has to be one of my favourite desserts ever...

We followed the recipe and waited and waited for the cordial to cool down. Time to taste... OMG!!! That was just sooo nice...first you got the strawberry taste, then the rhubarb and it just screamed "summer"! Yummy!!! Definitely something we'd do again :)

[Label Supplies: "Berry Patch" by Kristin Cronin-Barrow (SSD)]

Some News...

While we were away in Sweden, Robin at Sweet Shoppe Designs (SSD) arranged for some personal CT blinkies for us. I came back and found that this had been made for me (so cute!!)...

And while talking about Creative Teams... The other day I was approached by Edeline Marta Designs on a forum asking if I'd like to be on the CT. I felt very honoured to be asked out of the blue and spent some time thinking about it (mainly because I wanted to be sure that I had enough time to take on another assignment). Anyway, I'm really happy about it and decided to accept the position. I can't wait to work with Edeline's products at the Digi Chick.

“You & Me” Layout Class...

Please feel free to use these instructions to make your own layout. You are free to link to this page from any forum etc if you wish. Please do NOT copy this information and/or photos to use for your own classes/forums/webpages without permission.

Supplies needed:
Making Memories – Garden Party – Glitter Dots Aqua
Making Memories – Garden Party - Glitter Dots Pink
Making Memories – Garden Party – Glitter Die-Cuts
Fancy Pants – Glitter Cuts – Blue Frame
American Crafts – Thickers – Platforms, Black #42813
American Crafts – Thickers – Gift Box, Green #42762
Doodlebug – Sugar Coated brads)
Doodlebug – Paper Frills – Swimming Pool
Creative Café – journaling label

Also needed:
Glue (I use Herma removable)
Black journaling pen (Slick Writer)
Charcoal Chalk Inkpad (optional)
Stapler

Start by cutting your pink dotted paper to size. I scrap in true A4 size, so I cut mine to 29,7x21 centimetres (cm). Please feel free to adapt to another layout size if you prefer.

Pick your photo. I’m using one landscape photo. I have cut this to fit the frame so it’s about 14x9 cm.

Cut a 21x9 cm piece of the blue dotted paper, ink the edges and attach to the layout (2,5 cm from the right side). Attach the photo and the frame according to the photo below and use the stapler to keep the transparent frame in place.

Add a cluster of three flowers from the die-cut pack. Choose ones to go with your photo or simply the ones you like the best. Add a strip from the “paper Frills” pack along the right side of the layout.

Put the Doodlebug “Sugar Coated” brads through the centre of the flowers.

Make up your title using the two different American Crafts Thickers packs and put that in place.

Grab a bird die-cut from the Making Memories pack, ink the edges and tuck this near the top of your flower cluster.

Finally finish off with your journaling strip and don’t forget to put a date on your finished layout.

I hope you enjoyed my class! Wishing you lots of fun creating your own version!

...And The Remaining Four...

Following on from yesterday, I have now finished the remaining four pages for the assignment.

I have a feeling this is something we're continuing to do for the next three weeks. I won't be surprised to see another "8 mini pages" assignment, once a week, for the rest of the class. Whether it's quotes or not...who knows, I guess so. So I'm thinking it might be a nice idea to print all the pages at the end and bind them into a nice little minibook :) We'll see...

Mini Pages...

Catching up on the class...

I have now read the next assignment and we're doing 8 little 6x6 pages and can take no longer than 15 minutes per page...AND we're limited to using papers etc from a certain kit only! Aaaaaah!! That is some challenge LOL!

I've decided to split it up over two days so I do 4 pages each day. 8 in a day might just be a bit too much :) We're doing a quote book and Jessica has provided some quotes that we can use (or we can pick our own). I decided to go with the quotes provided as I thought I'd spend far too long time searching for some otherwise. *giggle*

It felt rather limiting just being able to use the kit provided and I felt a certain lack of embellishments in it. I would have liked my pages not to be quite that "plain"...but then again I guess I kinda like the finished look anyway...

Finished The Layout...

I hope my blog is back working like it should and displays like it should in all browsers now :) I had a bit of a nightmare yesterday before I figured out what was wrong as I had no idea what to try LOL!

Onto what I talked about on Wednesday and about me only now starting the digital scrapping course which is nearly two weeks into the schedule. I did indeed not finish the layout the same day - just like I thought. In fact, I only got it finished this morning. Each class is huge! This one was divided into 10 videos plus an intro one. Add watching all that, to actually stopping and making your own layout...well it takes some time. But I enjoyed it a LOT and learnt so much.

I did my layout totally following the class and using the digital stash provided etc. Of course the text and the photos are mine, but the rest is done following the class.

Since I'm trying to catch up (like that's going to happen!) I'm off to start on the next assignment. Apparently we're doing 8 (!!!) small pages...

Blog Problems - Sorry...

I've been battling with some blog problems today. I found out that people using Internet Explorer had lost the whole right side (links etc) of my blog and it also cut off everything below about 5 posts. Since I use Firefox (where it still worked fine) I had no idea about this until someone told me today. I believe it's been like this for about a week. Sorry about that!

It's taken me some time to get this sorted until I remembered I got a "meta tag" fault when I made a post last week which I chose to ignore it and published the post anyway. Deleting that specific post (my "you & me" layout class) seems to have solved the problem. So sorry that the layout class post is missing. I will get it posted again when I can work out how to get around the problem it caused.

In the meantime I hope the blog is working like it should again for everyone :)

Work In Progress...

So that picture looks a bit funny I guess? If I say it's a digital layout which is not finished I think it makes more sense LOL! Due to several things, I never got the chance to start the digital scrapping course by Jessica Sprague when it started last Monday. In fact I never had the possibility to do anything last week at all for the course (or indeed this week) and only got started about 1 hour ago. I'm watching the videos and doing the work as we go along. It works great. Each main weekly lesson is HUGE (plus we get additional tasks, bonuses etc each day so it never stops!) so I doubt I'll even catch up on last Monday's lesson today. We'll see...

So far I'm enjoying this lesson a lot :) See the blue circle shape with the little circles in the picture above? If someone had asked me to create that an hour ago I would have looked like a question mark. Really, no idea how to even start (apart from making the small circles of course). And now *I* have made that following the video - it's soooo cool and makes you feel so excited learning new techniques :)

Tuesday...

Just a quick update for me today (busy day) and a little card to show you.

A "happy" party card using some adorable cupcakes by Christy Lyle. I seem to be unable to resist anything to do with cupcakes now for a long time LOL!

[Supplies: "It's My Party" by Christy Lyle (SSD)]

If You Dream It...

Got a layout of my little niece to share with you today. Love getting photos of her. It's amazing how quickly you grow when you're little. I've been playing with some goodies from SSD and tried to use some techniques that I have learnt from the digital scrapping courses that I have taken.

I enjoyed making this layout a lot and love the "kraft" look of it. First time I have made a "kraft"-looking digital layout :)

[Supplies: "She's Krafty" by Robin Carlton, "Bead Factory" by Micheline Martin ...both from SSD]

The Beach...

We've spent a lot of the time the last two weeks on the beach. The weather has been great and the temperature perfect. Hardly a cloud in the sky. Heaven. :)

This layout features a few photos of the beach that we have been at...only these photos were not taken this year (still need to download the current ones from the camera LOL!) I loved making this layout as I was using a really fun template by Bree Clarkson. I thought the fun layout design complimented the fun you have at the beach very well. :)

[Supplies: "Inspired By Holly" Bree Clarkson, "Here Fishy Fishy" Melissa Bennett, "Just Add Water" and "Sand In My Shorts" Julie Billingsley, "Extra Large Painted Chippy Alphas" Libby Weifenbach (all from Sweet Shoppe Designs)]

Waaaaah...Wasp!

Spent yesterday at the beach (perfect day - blue sky, sun and warm water). We had a great afternoon until it was time to go home and a wasp decided to attack me - got stung on my back. Ouch! I can only remember this happening once before. I was about 15 and walked barefoot on a path, stood on a wasp and got stung on my big toe. Oh it hurts. It hurts a lot! Someone didn't get much sleep last night. But at least it seems a bit better now in the morning :)

[Supplies: "Puddles Of Sunshine" by Eva Kipler, "Patchwork Alpha" by Fee Jardine ...both from SSD]