Welcome to Hogwarts!

In May my friend Nicola & I gave each other an early birthday present, a ticket to the Harry Potter Studios! It was amazing and I would definetly go back in a heartbeat! Needless to say I took A LOT of photos, by the time we made it to the gift shop at te end of the tour I only had 2% battery left on my phone! Over the weekend I decided to scrap the first of many layouts to come from the day. 

I used papers from a 6x6 Simple Stories paper pad I had split with Gemma, the colours go great with these photos bringing out my cardigan and bag as well as the studio itself. I outlined the papers to make them pop a bit more. 

I used a couple of cut aparts to fill in the awkward gap between the two photos. I decided to use two ticket embellishments as two of us went! To ground the title slightly I cut a chevron from one of the papers. 

Easy like Sunday morning: Challenge YOUrself July challenge

This months challenge over on the Challenge YOUrself blog is a colour pallette challenge

I'm enjoying these kind of challenges at the moment as they get me looking through all my stash for anything which will match. This one though really had me looking hard as I struggled at first to find anything, in fact I chose my photo before my stash! I was near to giving up but perserveered and eventually made this layout 

The colours in the colour pallette matched the tones in this photo of me in my chilling clothes on a Sunday morning. The papers I used were Carta Bella for the background with Crate Paper, Amy Tangerine and American Crafts layered on top. I used some cut aparts from my die cut box, some stars, a doily and a brad to embellish. As I was scrapping the Faith  No More song Easy kept popping into my head so I used this as my title, using Pink Paislee letter stickers and Thickers to spell it out. 

Last of my July Birthdays

Birthdays in July are like buses for me, they come all at once and then nothing! Three good friends of mine have birthdays within a week so it's a busy time making cards for me. This is the last card I made

I used scraps of American Crafts and Bo Bunny from my scraps bag as the base, then layered different embellishments on top. I altered the sentiment slightly, there are only so many times you can write Happy Birthday before you get bored! 

Shine On

Every now and then Gemma & I set a scrappy challenge to help the mojo get moving. This month was my turn and I decided to set us a colour palette challenge 

I admit I found this harder than I thought at first mainly because I was so obsessed with getting the colours to be spot on. But then after looking through my stash for the third time I found if I loosened up I had plenty of things which were similar tones to the colours and used these. I then picked a photo from last summer as the colours screamed summer to me and made this 

The background paper is an old MME paper which I had two of thanks to grab boxes, so I decided to be brave and experiment with some paint (if I went wrong I had another sheet to fall back on)  I used Broken China distress paint and just scribbled onto the paper after deciding roughly where my photo would be. I had to mat this onto a sheet of Basic Grey paper as it did buckle once it had dried. I delved into my stash and used some paper from Amy Tan Sketchbook collection as these fitted with the scheme. 

Embellishment wise I used some old Dear Lizzy Polaroid cut aparts, some Lillybee Designs stickers and a Heidi Swapp flower from Gemma, Studio Calico tab stickers and a doily. For the title I used my favourite Poolside Thickers. The filter I used on the photo inspired the title. 

52 Cards Wk27: Pick a colour or two

For week 27 over on the 52 card challenge Nat gave us another colour scheme challenge

When this challenge went up I had just finished my Sketchy Scrappers layout using the Flea Market collection from Maggie Holmes and thought the colours from this collection went great with the colour palette. I had a couple of friends birthdays coming up so decided to use the palette to make them a card each, I made them the same card but ssh don't tell anyone! 

I used a couple of scraps from the collection, the floral paper had most of the colours in it. For the sentiment I used Elle's Studio letter stickers and a Flea Market project life card. 

Sketchy Scrappers: Never Fails to make me Smile

This months sketch on Sketchy Scrappers was set by the lovely Sheena who chose this sketch, with the optional extra to include flowers 

I dug my neglected flower stash out ready to use, but then as the layout progressed I needed up barely touching them and instead used flowered patterned paper. 

I mainly used Maggie Holmes Flea Market papers, project life cards and embellishments. There are flowers on the paper, project life card and a crochet flower which I had randomly on my desk. 

A few months back there was a photo a day prompt for never fails to make me smile and I had used this photo asy photo for that day, hence the title.