Mum and dad

Happy Mother's Day to those celebrating here in the UK I hope you have had an enjoyable day. I was woken with breakfast in bed and then handmade cards and chocolates from my boys. The boys then went to rugby for the day and I spent a lovely day with my mum.

I have a page to share with you today that I took over Christmas. I am 33 years old and I have never seen my mum and dad cuddle up on the sofa together. It has always been dad in his chair and mum her end of the sofa with the light on so she can knit or read.

I'm going through a pink and gold phase at the moment and I adore the papers. I'm sure they came from my like for ever kit. It's a basic sketch but I think the embellishments really add to it.



Mum and dad have been together over 45 years and I hope that when Jason and I have been together that long we are still cuddled up :-)

Thanks for looking

Laura

A quick birthday card

Good evening I hope you've had an enjoyable Saturday.

I went to my local crop and managed to get 7 pages completed. Whilst at crop my son Jake called me asking where the card for his friends party he was attending this afternoon. I had completely forgot so I told him to come down to me and will have one ready. I had some echo park papers on my desk that I was using for a page so I threw this together. Luckily Nancy who attends our crop had bought her cricut machine so I cut out the star and numbers. I think it looks okay for a 5 minute card.






I was slightly concerned that the card might be a bit childish, but I'm sure 14 years old boys don't really look at the card and are more interested in what's inside ;)

Thank you for looking and I will be back tomorrow.

Laura

Last day of school

Hello there I hope you are looking forward to a nice weekend. I have crop so I have been busy today getting things ready. I am also taking part in Calvinball over Here
It runs for a month and there are lots of challenges and the rules change throughout the month. My goal is to get 31 pages scrapped this month. I will be blogging daily throughout March so please keep popping back.

Here is a page I completed a few weeks ago. It was for Stuck?!sketches but I was too late to link it up. I have used some old papers from stampin' up and the die cutting is done with my silhouette cameo.

The photo is Joseph's last day at primary school. They all seem to have grown so much since July!







Thank you so much for visiting

Laura x

Kelly and I

Good afternoon I hope you are enjoying your weekend. I am currently sat in laser quest waiting for my son to finish a party. I am taking the uninterrupted time to write a blog post.

I have a page to show you that I finished a while a go. The picture is of Kelly and I at our last sergeants mess do together. The photo is a phone photo before we had the fancy iPhones so we were really pleased with how it came out. I have had the papers in my stash for ages and I was waiting for the perfect picture as I adore them. They are from a My Minds Eye collection. They look on an angle here but I promise in real life they are. I used some embellishments from the stash too.







Thanks so much for looking

Laura x

WOYWDW

Good morning how are you? It's been a long time since I have taken part in what's in your work desk Wednesday. If you don't know what I am in about please pop over to stamping ground (in my side bar) where it will explain everything.


Here is my desk. It looks quite cluttered but it has everything where I need it and because it's on show I am using my stash more. The bag is my new Citrus Twist kit that arrived yesterday. I can't wait to play with it tonight. The pot of photos are some I want to get scrapped this week. If you have any questions please shout.



Thanks for looking

Laura x

Scrap Like You Mean It week 4

Hello there how are you? I have been so busy in my craft room the last few weeks scrapping away. I will have to do a blog post each day to show you what I have been doing and to enter the challenges I have taken part in.

Yesterday the new prompt for Scrap Like You Mean It week 4 came out over on UKscrappers. The challenge was to scrap a funny face. Well my youngest son Jack is forever posing for the camera with a funny face so I had to choose one of him to scrap.

I used my February Quirky Kit which I adore. This is the first page I have done for the kit and I can see me doing many more. I used a sketch that came with the kit and it came together quite quickly. I'm on a spritzing phase at the moment so obviously some splatters of ink had to be included.




I hope you like it and thank you for visiting.

Laura x


Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Scrap Like You Mean It

Good evening I have had a busy weekend with my boys but I managed to spend a little bit of time in my craft room.

Over on UKScrappers they are having a reboot of a 2009 challenge called Scrap Like You Mean It. There will be a weekly challenge which I am very much looking forward too.

The challenge this week is to scrap in your favourite colour. My favourite colour is pink. Now as I have 3 boys I don't get to break the pink stash out much, so when my sister in law asked me to make an album for my niece I jumped at the chance. I previously made one for my nephew and my niece is obsessed with it. She loves to look at photos of herself so I am very much enjoying this album.

I dug through some stash and I found a few pads of Tilda that I bought on a whim a few years a go.






It's a simple page but it's perfect for the first page of Ava's album.

Thank you for looking and please pop on over to UKScrappers to join in the challenge.

Laura x

Scrap challenge

Good evening I hope you are well. This last few days I have been off work. I covered someone else's hours so I got some time off. It has been wonderful. I was quite selfish with my time whilst the boys were at school and after the basic chores were done I spent my time crocheting, baking or scrapping.

I am a member of a group on Facebook called For the love of pretty paper. They regularly have challenges and this week I took part.

For the first challenge it was to use a song lyric for the title. My mind went blank and I turned to Pinterest. Well all I could find was love/ heartbreak lyrics and I knew I didn't want to go down that route at all. Well I was making my lunch and had the radio on, they played Queen We will rock you and as soon as I heard the lyric 'you have mud on your face' I knew I had the perfect title and picture. My son is a rugby player and comes home a few times a week looking like this...



The papers are from a 6x6 pad and that I picked up in TK MAXX for £2. I think they are Crate Paper. I cut the title with my Silhouette Cameo. I didn't add many embellishments as I felt the page worked without them.

I hope you liked it.

Thanks for looking

Laura x


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Catch up

Hello anyone there? I have had major computer issues so I haven't blogged in a long while. I have still been crafting away and have had lots of fun with my makes.

I thought I would share to pages I found on my photo stream that I don't think I have shared here before.

This first one was completed in the summer and was for a challenge in a Facebook group I am part of. The challenge was a summer picture so I chose this one of Boscome beach in Dorset which is one of my favourite places ever. I used all scraps and I cut the camera and letters on my sillohuette cameo.




This next one is very basic and not really my style. I'm not sure if I like it or not. I used a counterfeit kit I made up and the photo is of my son Joseph.





I have lots and lots to show you so please pop back as I will be showing more of what I have been making. I have also started project life so I am keeping myself very busy.

Take care

Laura
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Counterfeit Kit Challenge members blog hop

Good morning and welcome to the CKCB Members Blog Hop.  You should have come here from Susan who is sharing a beautiful project.  

This month for the blog hop there was 3 challenges 

1 - Picture this - use at least 4 photos on your project 

2 - Old tool Challenge - Dust off an old tool and get creative 

3 - Project altering experience - include an altered embellishment

I chose number 2.  I dusted off my old dymo machine.  I can remember buying it years a go because lots of people used them for journalling on their pages.  I think I have used mine once or twice! 

I saw the inspiration for this page in a magazine.  I'm going to say Scrap365 but I can't be sure as I had ripped the page out of the magazine when I was having a clear out.  I liked the way the tags were going across the page. The inspiration page had a lot more going on but I decided to keep it a bit more clean and simple.  I have started to scrap about myself a bit more in the last year or so and I don't feel so nervous doing it anymore.  

The photography isn't great I apologise.  My camera is not working too well at the moment.  

 All stash is from the kit apart from the wooden numbers.  I was at my crop and a fellow scrapper was having a clear out and selling some stash she no longer wanted.  The numbers were perfect for the page and I was obviously doing a good deed by helping out a fellow scrapper get rid of her stash ;-) 

Thanks for stopping by and please do follow the link to the next person on the blog hop Leslie

If you do get lost on the blog hop or just want to check the Counterfeit Challenge blog out pop on over HERE where there is lots of inspiration and the full blog hop list will be published.  

Please leave a comment to let me know you were here. 

Thank you for visiting 

Laura x

Counterfeit Challenge Kit LO 1

Good morning from cold and grey Wiltshire.   The children have finally broke up from school and we have 6 weeks 3 days off!   I have been meaning to post before now but the last few weeks of school has been manic.  Joseph has now finished Junior school and we have had so much to do with new school visits, leavers assemblies, leavers play, leavers awards and so on.  Add that to all of the usual end of school year stuff and it has just been crazy!   

 

 I have managed to scrapbook though and not just at crop.   I have been sitting up in my craft area a few nights a week and I have been rather productive. I have managed to complete quite a few pages and cards with my Counterfeit Kit.   I should have posted throughout the month so I apologise now for the amount of posts that will be appearing in the next few days. 

 

The Counterfeit Kit has really helped me produce more pages this month.  The fact that it's all ready to go is one less thing to worry about and with the limited time I have had this month I haven't had to worry about papers matching, etc. 

 

Anyway here is my first page.  It is of my son Joseph and his new hair cut a few years a go.  I adore the colour of the papers.  

 

 

 

A little close up



 

Another close up of the embellishments

 

Another slightly better photo of the page. 

 

Apologies for the poor picture quality, my camera is not focusing very well at the moment and I think it's time to get a new one but I need to save the pennies first.

 

Thank you so much for visiting

 

Laura x

Counterfeit Challenge Kit

Good evening, it's a bit hot isn't it?  I am being typically British to anyone who will listen that it's far to hot and I wish it would cool down a bit :-)  I hope wherever you are you aren't struggling with the weather.

 

I have been scrapbooking quite a bit recently but I still haven't made a dent in my stash.  I have far far to much but I am enjoying using it all up.   I am on a bit of a mission at the moment to use up the scraps.  I have a expedit cube full of them.   I have also realised I work far better from a kit when I go to crops.   It's easier to get ready and everything is co ordinated.   As you will probably know I am a huge fan of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog Here.  Well this month they are counterfeiting a gorgeous kit so I thought I would play along.   Be warned my kit is HUGE.

 

Here is my first selection of papers.  I have included lots of papers but they are all scraps.  They range in sizes but there is not one full sheet.

 

 

Paper selection 2.  I have lots of different ranges from My Minds Eye, American Crafts, Basic Grey, Stampin Up and so much more.  I just went through the scrap bin and pulled out colours that I thought would work together. 

Here is a selection of Project Life cards.  I don't know who they are by as I have mixed all of my cards up.

These are my alphabets.   They are Thickers and some Papermania ones.  I will also use my Bigshot and Cricut if I need to.

 

Here is a selection of embellishments.  I am missing twine as it is somewhere on my desk and I just can not put my hands on it, anyone else have this problem?  I want to make some embellishments too and I am going to have a go at making some of the frames that is included in the original kit. 

Here are the sticker sheets I have included.  There is quite a range there......

 



So here is my kit.  I haven't included stamps, dies and cardstock as I will grab them as I need them.  I have been very organised and have even got some photos ready to use.  I am hoping to spend sometime over the weekend making some pages.  I also have a few cards to make so I am going to use the kit to make them too.

 





 

 

If you have got this far thank you so much for looking and I will be back in the next few days to show you some pages.

 

Laura x

Pages from the kit

Good evening, I hope you are enjoying the lovely weather we are experiencing here in the UK. Hopefully it will stay around for the summer holidays this year.....

A few weeks ago I showed you a kit I made up to take to crop. I had a great time and really enjoyed scrapping with limited supplies. Does anyone else get a bit overwhelmed with their stash?

Here are the four pages I made. I apologise for the pants photos and the mess behind them, I really need to sort my craft room out!

This is my boys, my nephew and I taken a few years back.




I don't get much chance to scrap with pink as I have 3 boys so I thoroughly enjoyed this one. It was taken 10 years ago at my brothers 30th he is 40 in a month!



This is the butterfly paper I made. It's of my girl Bella. Bella sadly passed away in November so I have been scrapping a lot of her photos recently. I kept the page very simple and you can't see it on the photo but I made some of the butterflies 3d.




Again this one is very simple and is of my middle boy Joseph.





I actually managed to spend some time in my craft room today. I finished off a few pages that need journaling. I will show you them next time.

Thanks for looking

Laura x

Tomorrow is the Artful Angels crop in Winchester. It's a brilliant crop and very well organised and run. I am a very organised cropper, I pack page kits with the right embellishments, papers and photos. This month I decided to forge a kit.

I worked from this Cocoa Daisy kit from last year. Excuse the screen shot.




I added more male papers as most of the photos I scrap are of my 3 boys. I am also on a mission to use up scraps as they are getting out of control. Apart from the butterfly paper these are from the scrap box.




This is the butterfly paper that I have made. I used a Martha Stewart punch and just used random scraps. I love it!




These are my embellishments some I have made myself and some are shop bought. I also have a bag of journaling stickers and alphabets.





I have packed this kit with some punches, extra stamps, dies and plain cardstock. I have also added some card blanks to try and use the whole kit up.

Does anyone else make their own kits? It was great to my through my stash and actually pull some of it out.

I will be back next week to show you what I made.

Laura x

Counterfeit Kit challenge

Firstly be warned this a very photo heavy post.

It's been a while since I have taken part in the COUNTERFEIT KIT CHALLENGE I have been meaning to but time just got the better of me. I have rearranged the craft room so uneasy feeling all inspired by my stash and I thought I would have a play.

The kit this month is from A Piece Of Cake Designs which I had never heard of but do fantastic kits. Please excuse the photo it's a screen shot on my phone.



The kit to me looked very much travel and seaside so I went with those papers and colours. I have a huge kit.

These are the first set of papers a mixture of Teresa Collins, Stampin Up, and maybe Pink paislee?




This is the back of them


The second set of papers


the back of them. As you can see I have a quite a few different colours I can work with.



The alphabet in the kit is a wood grain one. I have chosen these ones - the Thickers are cork which I think will look really well with the papers. I am also going to use my Cricut and wood grain stamp to make my own letters.



Here is my embellishments - Studio Calico, My Minds Eye, Simple Stories and much more. I tried to add to the theme and colours.




Here are the stamps I am going to use. In the kit there is some Studio Calico wood grain spiky circles. I have some dies of the same shape so I will make my own with the wood grain stamp.





I am calling my kit summer fun as I have quite a few summer photos that I will be using with this kit.

Thank you for visiting

Laura xx

Cropping

Last month Julia and I attended a different crop. It was run by Artful Angels and was fabulous. Our usual crop - run by Julia is very different. We are a group of 8 who are great friends. The crop is about eating and chatting - if we get any pages done it's a bonus.

Now the Artful Angels crop was very different. It was very professionally run, tables where you could borrow stash, a small shop and a cafe/bar. I had prepped for crop in my usual way, matching papers to photos, choosing titles, embellishments to take with me. I usually work from a sketch. I found a few sketches I liked and had pinned them on Pinterest. Well when I got to the crop I had no signal on my phone so I couldn't use Pinterest.

There is an inspiration box at the crop which was pages cut from magazines which I used for this LO. I can't tell you where the original is from all I know is that it was in a magazine. The photo is of my son and his friends on cub camp.



I can't recall the make of the papers but I do know they were a bargain price of £2.99 for the pack in TK max.

Thank you so much for visiting the blog

Laura x

Stuck?!

Sometimes I am in the mood to scrapbook but u have no inspiration. I am a HUGE fan of sketches/challenges as you have probably noticed. Whilst blog hopping I came across THIS blog and loved the sketch straight away.

I only took one picture on Christmas Day and it was this one- my mum took loads but for once I am in the photos not behind the camera.

I used a mixture of papers that I got from the Hey Little Magpie Christmas papers grab bag.



I really enjoyed the sketch and if you would like to play along please pop on over to their blog.

Laura x

A challenge and some stash busting

Evening all, I have had a very productive day in my little craft area today. I am on a bit of a stash busting mission this year. My scrap box ( a 12x12 cube that fits in a expedit unit) is full. I am trying to not add to it and to actually use up the scraps.

Over on UKScrappers there is a weekly challenge and this is for February Week 2. The challenge was to use ABC

1- alter something - I covered the chipboard in paper

2- Brads, buttons, bingo card - I used a brad and a bingo card

3- Cream, claret or cool colours - I used cream

Here is my LO using some October Afternoon papers and documenting getting fresh eggs from my chickens.



Well I said I wanted to stash bust so I then went on to make a few cards to add to the card box. I went on to Pinterest and chose a few sketches to work from. I then just chose a stamp set and went from there. Please excuse the mess on the desk.




Well I still had scraps left over so I used a few punches and made these embellishments that I can use on future pages/cards or project life.




I still have these left over!! There is still 3/4 of the blue sheet left but there is cards on the back that I can use in project life so that doesn't count :-) since this picture has been taken I have used the blue and most of the yellow spot paper up on another page.




So there you have it, do you use up all of your papers? Do you have any scrap busting ideas?

Thank you for reading

Laura xx

Ukscrappers stash busting challenge

Over on Ukscrappers there is a sub forum called inspiration and challenges. It is somewhere I frequent often, even if I don't have the time to actually scrap. In the sub forum there is a section called stash busting. I like many others am on a bit of a stash diet this year, I have a huge addiction to paper pads. I have the willpower to not go online and order, it's the TkMaxx and home sense that I struggle with. Anyway Nikki has set a challenge each month and it consists of 4 separate challenges each designed to make us use up that stash.

Challenge 1 (January - I am a bit late to the party) was to make a background using scraps. Well I was at crop last weekend and made a LO with these Pink Pasilee papers. As I was clearing my desk I came across them and thought they would be perfect for the challenge.





I have made a LO of my dog Bentley. He is a bit of a silly dog and wraps himself around my neck whenever I sit down. It was the perfect photo op. Excuse the very poor picture. I am not 100% on the LO I think I will leave it in my desk to see if I need to add anything - I am thinking some ink spots maybe?






Thank you so much for looking

Laura x

Long time no see

Well it's certainly been a while.  I don't even have a good excuse to be honest, life just got in the way. I have been busy scrapping though and I have a few albums worth to share on here.


 I have decided that I am going to use this blog to show all of my crafty makes, whatever they may be.  I am making a conscious effort to do more scrapbooking too.  I am also dipping my toes in to the project life world.   Another thing I will be showing is my pen pal makes.  Last year I joined the pen pal community and it is very creative and I am having so much fun putting packages together.



I will be back this weekend with some makes.



Laura x