An Amy Tan Kinda Mini Book...

Sometimes it's fun to make something different. And I'm sure a lot of us have seen the mini books that Amy Tan does. Quick, easy and fun! :)

So I decided to give it a go...

This is what I started off with. Lots of pretty papers in different sizes. I decided to set myself the challenge that I was ONLY allowed to use scraps and I could not use a single full sheet of patterned paper or cardstock. This makes me happy :) I love working with scraps :)

Once I had created my book, got all the papers chosen, scored, folded and in the order I wanted, I used bulldog clips to hold them in place while...

...I used some pretty baker's twine to hand stitch the spine. What you can see is the cover (the book is lying flat open for stitching the spine)... kraft cardstock covered with a very old (Fancy Pants?) piece of transparency.

Fun project :)

Doughnut Love...

[Supplies: Maths Class Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Tiny Marker Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Over The Rainbow - Kate Hadfield, Studio Flergs, Flat & Frayed - Gina Miller, Basic Kraft - Gina Miller,
Primavera - Gina Miller, Summer Seeds - Gina Miller, Sun Splash - Gina Miller, Grow With Love Letters Edition Jan - Sara Gleason (all from The Lilypad)]

And the journaling goes...
"I’ve never been a doughnut fan. All my life I have never considered a doughnut to be anything I’d choose over something else. There would always be a better, nicer alternative. Maybe a bun, maybe a cookie, maybe something non-baked. But never a doughnut. And as far as supermarket bought doughnuts go, this is still the case. They really are not that nice. They really are not worth it at all.
But then... bring in Kripsy Kreme and we’re talking something totally different. Doughnuts yes. But not just any doughnuts. Kripsy Kreme doughnuts. And they are really in a league of their own! Here it’s definitely a case of “why WOULD you chose something else?” Seriously, can anything beat them? Filled doughnuts, original ring doughnuts... they are all amazing and I can’t get enough of them! Which is kind of a totally different problem..."

*** I'm intolerant to wheat & gluten so this is something that I really shouldn't eat, something that makes me ill, yet sometimes (why?!?) I still can't resist...

BBQ Time...

That's something there has been an extreme lack of this "summer". And I say "summer" because... well, really there hasn't been any summer weather, has there? June, July... it's hard to believe it's supposed to be summer here. The most common temperature we have had is 14 degrees... yes only 14 - crazy! And lots of rain, and clouds... and did I mention rain?

Anyway "BBQ Time" is all about a layout I made as part of my Creative Team work for the Lilypad and Kate Hadfield...

[Supplies: Maths Class Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Star Spangled - Kate Hadfield, Tiny Marker Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Sun Splash - Gina Miller, Primavera - Gina Miller, Basic Kraft - Gina Miller, Grow With Love Letters July - Sara Gleason (all from the Lilypad)]

We did manage one BBQ so far. The first week in July gave us a very nice Saturday so we grabbed the chance to have a BBQ while the weather was good. And that was really a good job because after the weekend it was back to miserable weather again! Surprise, surprise!

An Amazing Tropical Paradise...

I knew what photos I wanted to use as soon as I saw Kay Miller's "Mermaidia" kit. The colours instantly appealed to me but I also spotted the palmtrees in the kit straight away. So there had to be palmtree photos in my layout :)

You can get the kit here at After 5 Designs. She's also got some really cool page templates. One which I have used for this layout:

A Little Dino...

Last week of Summer Card Camp. It's such a shame that it's not a longer class as I have so enjoyed this! And I feel really, really lucky to have won a place in this class (though I would have signed up for this anyway and had my eye on it even before I won). This week's colour combo is so "me". Greens - yay! :)

I love Penny Black's transparent stamp sets and I had my eye on this cute dinosaur stamp set for a long time (we're talking like 2 years ago or more I think). But I couldn't justify it as what would I use them for? About a year ago they suddenly turned up mega cheap in a sale so I grabbed them. Now? I have a little nephew who will be 1 in the autumn and they are perfect for little boys cards :)

I used my new Hero Arts stamp (masked off a square in the middle) for the background.

The card is actually a "scraplift" of a plane card that Kristina Werner did last week for Summer Card Camp. I loved her cloud stamps but I don't have any cloud stamps... so I kinda looked at her stamps and free drew the clouds. The dino is coloured with Copics :)

More Rainbow Scrapping...

I mentioned last week when I scrapped with this pretty rainbow kit that I felt I was going to use this particular kit for many crafty items...

With a rainbow kit I of course had to scrap... a rainbow! I had some photos from the other year of the most strong and bright (and full/complete!) rainbow I have ever seen in my life. As we all know, taking photos of rainbows is tricky. They tend to turn out a lot paler on the photo than in real life. Same with these photos. But because it was SO bright in reality, the photos turned out pretty ok anyway (though nothing in comparison with reality)...

[Supplies: Over The Rainbow - Kate Hadfield, Studio Flergs, Grow With Love Letters June - Sara Gleason (both from the Lilypad)]

Playing With New Stamp...

The other day I got a great new background stamp. Straight away I knew I wanted to have lots of fun colouring it in with my Copics. :)

Above is this week's colour combo for Summer Card Camp. So I got my Copics out (plus my Copic colour chart) and started trying to match the colours to my markers. It's always hard as monitors display shades differently... but these are the colours I came up with:

YR30 Macadamia Nut, E04 Lipstick Natural, E25 Caribe Cocoa, R29 Lipstick Red and E47 Dark Brown.

I coloured in selected parts of the image (I already knew I wanted to leave some parts white) and then I used some Ranger white enamel accents on a few shapes too. In reality these enamel parts looks really white, slightly raised and glossy but that doesn't really show up so well in a photo.

A greeting stamped on a homemade banner, some flowers, a button and some embroidery floss later and the card was complete. :)

Fun With Beads...

I've done some more playing with the cute Over The Rainbow kit that I mentioned earlier in the week...

My little niece loves beads... making necklaces and bracelets. Who doesn't? :) But all kids bead kits are so limited. Yes they might have pretty boxes with lots of compartments & beads sorted into colour groups. But when you stop and look at how many beads you actually get (not so much!) for what you pay it's not so good. And of course I want her to get LOTS of beads! So instead we bought some big packs of pretty beads plus some elasticated cord and an empty pink box...

As we got home I came up with the idea of personalising it with her name and some pretty flowers. This is what I started off with:

And here's the finished box:

[Digital Supplies: Maths Class Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Over The Rainbow - Kate Hadfield, Studio Flergs (both from the Lilypad)]

I'm pretty sure she's going to love it and I can't wait to give it to her when we see her next :)

Beautiful Blooms...

Thanks for all the nice comments that have been left about the cards I made for the Summer Card camp class - they have made me very happy :) So, really, thanks for taking the time to comment :)

I've been working with the most amazing colourful happy kit by Kate Hadfield this week. It literally is a rainbow full of colours and it makes me smile so much :)

Nice and colourful, eh?! :) It's called "Over The Rainbow" (it's available right now here at the Lilypad) and it's a collab with Studio Flergs.

[Supplies: Maths Class Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Tiny Marker Alpha - Kate Hadfield, Over The Rainbow - Kate Hadfield, Studio Flergs, Sun Splash - Gina Miller, Basic Kraft - Gina Miller
Grow With Love Letters June - Sara Gleason (all from The Lilypad)]

The first page I made with this I teamed with some beautiful kraft cardstock. The next one I make will be a lot more colourful...

A Little Bird...

I was tired and in pain... but still wanted to work on a card for the day, and take advantage of the class and the great inspiration. So I decided to follow a video for the class by Kristina Werner, rather than doing my own thing...

So this is kinda a "scraplift"... of a card... whatever that can be called LOL! Her card was different in the way of different patterned papers, ribbon and a different stamp. Otherwise the idea is the same.

So, simple card making without having to think, but still that happy feeling of being crafty :)