Hello Mr Frog: A NSD Challenge

As I said in my last post I didn't get many layouts done for National Scrapbooking Day but I'm happy with the ones I did. The first challenge I did was for Challenge over on For The Love of Pretty Paper Facebook page. 

The challenge was to use flowers on our layout. Now I'm not much of a flower person, I brought a ton of Prima Flowers when I started scrapping (I'm sure I wasn't alone) but since gave these away as I just didn't use them. Thinking out the box I started looking for some floral paper to use as a paper layer but then I decided instead to fussy cut some flowers out instead. I'm not the best at fussy cutting, I keep my scissors still and move the paper like you're supposed to but I still end up with sharpe square edges instead of lovely flowing curves following the pattern! I found a gorgeous floral paper in Dear Lizzy's Serendipity collection and went from there. 

I chose a random photo of a frog I used to pass on my way to work when I worked in town. The title is Hey There Mr Frog as this is what I used to say to him as I passed him. I pulled more papers and the Thickers from the same collection to make sure everything tied in. I thought the white background was a bit plain so went made and stamped some brush strokes from a Stampin Up set in Picked Raspberry and Mermaid Lagoon, I probably went a tad OTT but never mind. 

Sunny weekend

 I'm going to start this post by sounding very British but what is going on with the weather?!? Seriously, the weekend before last we had snow but the weekend just gone we enjoyed beautiful warm, sunny weather! 

Even though it was National Scrapbooking Day and I had planned to sit at my desk and scrap, we decided instead to go out and make the most of the weather and went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park not too far away from us. 

I had seen a couple of posts on Instagram from friends who had gone and when I looked on google maps found it was only about half an hour away from us. It was well worth the trip as it is huge! It's free to get it, you just pay for your parking which you can do when you get home as they have number plate  recognition cameras, ideal if you have no money on you and you don't want to be clock watching to make sure you don't run out of time! Top tip: take a picnic we wish we had as once you get exploring it's a long walk to the cafe which is expensive! 

Some of the sculptures were a bit random but the ones I enjoyed the most were the Karws exhibition which is there until June. It reminded me of an Alternative Disney! 

I did manage a bit of scrapping when I got home so I'll share those with you soon. 

Hello Adventure Card: Daring Cardmakers challenge

One blog I have recently started following is the Daring Cardmakers  blog where each week there is a different challenge to give you some card inspiration. This week I decided to take the plunge and join in. I'm not the best cardmaker so I'm hoping by joining in with these I'll improve while using up my stash and getting some cards stocked up for any occasion.

This weeks challenge was an elemental challenge, make a card using three elements from this picture. 

I was immediately drawn to the bike in the picture and knew I had a Papermania bicycle stamp which also had a basket on it so I used this as my second element. For my third I pulled some wood grain paper and made this card. 

I stamped the image using Stampin Up Mint Macaron and fussy cut it out, again I'm not the best at this but practise makes perfect! I used papers from American Crafts Autumn Crisp as I did think about using a leaf paper but decided against it. I rummaged through my tin of cut apart embellishments and pulled an old Amy Tangerine piece as my sentiment. 

Alfresco Dining: Sketchy Scrappers April Sketch

Ooh I've scrapped again, get me! This time I'm back with my take on the April Sketchy Scrappers sketch which was created and set by Sue. 

When I saw the rectangles next to the photo I immediately thought of project life cards so I decided to delve into my stash of cards and scrapped this layout. 

I pulled some project life cards from Maggie Holmes and some papers from her Flea Market collection and scrapped this photo of Boo having her lunch in the card last year. For the circle elements I cut some plates from a paper from the collection, face it when else am I going to use this paper? 

I am never gonna look back: Challenge YOUrself #29

Hi everyone welcome to another month and another Challenge YOUrself  challenge. First of all I must apologise for being AWOL for last months challenge, I did complete a layout for challenge 28 but as we had no wifi I couldn't do a blog post to go along with it but I will share it with another time if you want to see it.

Anyway onto this months challenge, and this month is a little different to normal as we've teamed up the guys over on the Scrap it With a Song blog so you have two challenges com into into one to play with this month. For those who don't know the Scrap it with a song blog, each month they give you a choice of two songs to inspire you whether it be the title or one of the lyrics. This month the songs are Best Day Of My Life by American Authors and So Am I by Kensington. To go along with this our challenge is to use this mood board. 

I was inspired by a line from Best Day of My Life, the colours of the mood board and incorporated a sunburst and feathers into my layout. 

This photo was taken the summer before I joined Slimming World and the line "I am never gonna look back" struck a chord with me as I wanted this to be a reminder of how far I've come and how I don't want to be that weight again. 

I used papers from Studio Calico Wanderlust collection as the colours matched the mood board while the patterns complimented my dress. For my background I used some mists from Mister Huey, Heidi Swapp and Tim Holtz and tried the packaging technique. When I saw the sun bursts I knew I had a Shimelle Stamp Gemma gifted to me so used this. 

I finished by using stickers from Simple Stories

Make sure you pop over to both blogs to check out both Design Teams work and to join in

Last of the Dukes Farm layouts (finally!!)

Here are the last two layouts I made at Dukes Farm wwwaaaayyyy back in March! After this I'll finally be up to date yay! 

While we were away the For the love of pretty paper Facebook group posted their monthly challenges. One challenge was to use labels, twine or arrows on a layout. I looked through the stash I took with me and managed to use all three on my page. 

This photo I snapped of me and my mum on the train when I took her down to London last year. I used papers from Amy Tangerine, Dear Lizzy, Crate Paper and Teresa Collins. Most of the embellishments are from Simple Stories apart from the word stickers which are Crate Paper.  

My final layout is for a sketch challenge Sue on my Sketchy Scrappers group set over on her blog. I was too late to enter with everything that was going on but never mind. 

I scrapped a nice summery layout, just what we need to cheer us up when the weather is crazy and going backwards at the moment. 

Notice that the wafer on Ian's ice cream is broken. This is because he started eating it before I told him off as I wanted to Instagram our ice creams first! I used papers from Amy Tangerine, Cosmo Cricket and Simple Stories. I used some die cuts from Dear Lizzy Fine & Dandy as this was the perfect (and probably only) layout where they fitted the theme. 

So I'm finally up to date with sharing my layouts! Hopefully I'll have something new to share with you soon x

I'm back!!!!

Sorry for the huge gap between posts, I hope I've not kept people on tenter hooks waiting to see ore layouts from my weekend away to Dukes Farm which was AGES ago now! 

The reason for my hiatus? I've transferred my job and relocated up north to Bradford. Everything happened a bit quick and then when we got here it was two weeks until our wifi went live! But we're settled now and adjusting to our new life, so far so good I'm pleased to say. 

So, back to the layouts. These are the last of the ones I scrapped for Shimelle's online crop, hopefully I can remember what the challenges were!

This layout is for the circles challenge. I punched some circles out in different sizes and went from there.

In case you can't tell the photos are from the Harry Potter studio! To be honest I'm not sure what I was thinking with the colours but it's done now!

I think this layout was for a scrap something old or from the past. I decided to scrap a photo of my grandparents old post office which I've had printed for ages but done nothing with

This was the last layout I scrapped that weekend. This was for a colour and travel challenge. We needed to use Kraft, red, yellow and blue. I decided to scrap a photo of Barmouth harbour taken last year when we went camping. 

I'll be back soon with the last of the Dukes Farm layouts, I promise I'm not planning to move in the meantime so it won't be so long this time!