Winter in the Woods

Well with only 9 days to go til Christmas I was actually surprised I managed to scrapbook. This is most certainly the last I'll be able to this side of the big day as Wednesday will be my last day off before Christmas and I've already been booked in by mum to take her to get the last of the food then go over and drop the presents off at Kelly's. But anyway back to the point... this weeks challenge on UKS was set by the Dizzy Dots. We were asked to choose one of three sketches, to use either warm or cool colours & to use something new. I chose sketch number three which is this one

I also decided to use cool colours which meant I could crack open my brand new Quirky Kits and came up with this layout using photos taken in Wakerley Woods by Ian at the beginning of the year after some snow

I knew straight away I wanted to use the Teresa Collins white wood grain paper as my base as well as the snowflake ILS paper as they went perfectly with the theme. I'm doily mad at the moment so I was thrilled when I saw all the ones which came in the kit. I covered a shipping tag with pale green chevron Washi Tape to help it blend in more with the layout. Everything used is from the kit except for two strips of scraps (my scraps bag is not get any smaller!), Washi Tape, label & pearls.

Cutie Pie

In between the chaos of Christmas and half through and 10 day stretch at work I managed to find an hour to do the the weekly challenge on UKS. First we had to use the following sketch

Then we could use either a pink and brown colour scheme or purple and green, and we had to use a flower and a brad. I took a really cute photo of Buster last week snug on the sofa with a blanket and his cuddly toy while it was wet and windy outside, I would have loved to stay with him but had to go to work! Anyway I printed it off and made this layout

I used the reverse side of a piece of MME paper from the last Quirky Kit which has a wood grain effect on it as my base card, then picked out some scraps from my scrap bag. The title and journalling spot came from the MME Nostalgia diecut sheet, I keep all diecuts in a box now as I find I actually use them this way! I then had to go hunting for my flowers and brads as I havnt used them for sssssooooo long!

Ready for Night Patrol

Can you believe its only 23 days until Christmas? How did that happen! It is also time for another Sketchy Scrappers reveal. This months sketch was set by the lovely Lorna who chose this sketch

A few weeks before the sketch went up my Quirky Kit arrived, inside which was a piece of Studio Calico paper with circles on which I thought would be ideal for the circles on the sketch. I pulled out a photo of Buster I printed ready for the cyber crop but never used and made this layout

Every night Buster takes himself upstairs to the spare room and looks out for any cats who dare to step onto his territory! One night I managed to sneak up and snap this pic of him. One of the layouts featured on the Crafty Templates blog showed using the sequin waste which came in the kit as a mask for misting so I thought I would give this a go. I'm not too sure if I like how it turned out or not, especially as you can see my finger to the left where I held it down, I did try to hide it lol!

Getting up close to nature

What is going on with the weather at the moment? I hope everybody is keeping save and have not faced too much disruption :-(  As the weather was a bit pants here yesterday, although nothing compared to what has been going on else where, I sat down and did some scrapping. I was reading the current issue of Scrapbook Magazine the night before and saw a layout by Romy Veul which jumped out at me so I decided to scraplift it. This is the layout I made

During a walk through the town meadows in the summer there were loads of Dragonflies by the river. So after a few minutes of Ian standing very still, creeping up on them he managed to snap this picture. I again used the reverse of a piece of American Crafts paper which came in a grab box which I knew I wouldnt use as my base card, the A side is brown which words such as buddy, amigo, friend, etc all over it. The other papers are American Crafts, Prima, K & Company & MME. I used a Stampin Up punch to punch the flowers from book paper. The tag behind the photo with the journalling is an old K & Company tag which I added string from a clothes label to. The alphas are American Crafts thickers and Kesi Art, the badge is from Buttons & Badges on Etsy.

My Kind of Bug

This weeks challenge on UKS is set by my lovely scrappy friend Ali and I produced a sample layout for her to use. The criteria for the challenge is to use scraps, to use a colour scheme we normally wouldn't use & to be artistic (interpreted however we like). When I saw the list of criteria I thought I would struggle with the artistic element but after looking through my photos and searching the web I soon came up with an idea...ZENTANGLE! With this in mind I came up with this layout

These photos we taken at a local car show over the summer. I love VW Beetles and this one was lush with its stars on the dash and around the lights, if it was pink I would have had to have it! I decided to replicate the stars from the car and diecut some using my Sizzix primative star die, keeping with the scraps element I used the reverse of a scrap of paper I could never see myself using! I then sat down and doodled away lol! I struggled to think of a colour combo I dont normally use but then I realised that I love colour on my layouts so decided to opt for a monochrome/grey combo but me being me I had to have a little bit of colour as it didnt feel right so I added a touch of red. All the papers are from my scraps, the heart badge is from Buttons & Badges & the letters are Echo Park ( they reminded me of tyre tread lol!)

After the Shower

Last week saw the start of UKS Now We Are 10 cyber crop, I signed up and printed photos ready for the upcoming classes & challenges all excited as this would be my first big cyber crop but nothing inspired me at all :-( But then on Tuesday Leo from Crafty Templates, home of the Quirky Kits I sub to, set a challenge to go for a walk or just find something in our home, take a photo and tell the story behind it. This appealed to me as I had printed two photos taken during walks with Buster, photos which looked random but had a story behind them, so yesterday I plonked myself on the floor picked a photo and scrapped this

This photo was taken a couple of weeks ago on my phone. We were walking around the local quarry, we on the homeward stretch when out of nowhere it started to rain. All around us was blue sky apart from one, small, grey cloud which decided to soak the right side of me for 2 minutes then stop! But this did have a perk as we then had a cute rainbow. I altered the photo on Picmonkey to darken the edges and make it look older. I mainly used bits from the last Quirky Kit apart from the bag with star confetti which is from the current kit & a cabochon from my own stash.

Snapshots of our Summer

Well the clocks have gone back and we are in November which means I need to start thinking about Christmas eek! But before that its time to share another Sketchy Scrappers layout. This months sketch was set by the lovely Fi and is from Page Maps

I have used this sketch before and LOVE it so I thought this would be an easy layout to produce. I chose my photos but somehow I couldnt get it to flow straight away, but once the creative juices got their act together I came up with this

These are just two random photos I snapped over the summer. The top one is of my flowery sunglasses on the beach at Wells, the bottom is of mine and SIL's feet in the swimming pool. Instead of one large flag banner I decided to include three smaller banners of different lengths, this meant I could use more scraps from my scraps bag.

I will admit that when I finished this layout I wasnt happy with it and as I was uploading the photo earlier I realised why, the title was wrong! Spot the mistake below

Thats what happens when you spell a title backwards lol! I also wasnt happy with the thickers so I probably did myself a favour lol! In the end I kept the thickers for the last word, then used some old K & Company letter stickers I've had for ages and Authentique letters which came with a kit ages ago but have been really good value they go on and on!