Cheap foam stamps

I realise that foam stamps aren't as expensive as rubber or vinyl, but they can still be a fair amount!

I always keep an eye out for scrapbooking alternatives.

I found this pack of foam letters in the "childrens craft section" of a shop. There must be between 100-150 pieces in there, including the alphabet and numbers. And it cost all of £1.29. The manufacturer is "Craft Work" which does a range of scrapbooking items.

So these have a dual use... to stick straight onto my pages (recoloured or not) or to use with paint as stamps.

Using up your stash leftovers

This is a picture of a little tag book I made - very quickly.

The tags are actually die cut tags from K&Co "Scrap Pad to Go".

Often, when you buy a kit or pack like this you end up with items that you just wouldn't use, mainly because they are not your style.

That was so with all the die cut items that came in the scrap pad.

On each tag there is an affirmation... personal to me, of course (and to do with "The Secret" about which I have mentioned in previous posts).

So to quickly make a little booklet of my affirmations, (rather than just wrtite them on a piece of paper) I decided to "use up" some of the tags in the pack, along with some of the bits and pieces, such as the tabs that say things like happiness and joy (but were in the sorts of colour combinations I wouldn't think to use on a layout.

Anyway, of course you could just add a photo to these tags, or just inspirational quotes... put a book ring through their holes and add a couple of bits of ribbon and hey presto you're done! Use for your self or give it as a gift.

If you make a couple up with quotes (ie nothing specific to one particular person) you could have some of these little tag books "on standby" ready for use as emergency pressies!!

Scrapbooking page - Just Sittin'

This is the latest scrapbooking page I was telling you about!

As mentioned in a post earlier this week, I wanted to keep to the soft colours of the photograph, and not include strong contrast.

The chipboard swirls from, Maya Road, have been dry brushed with some white acrylic paint. Their original grey colour actually blended nicely with the stone walls and steps in the picture, but I thought I should "dress" them just a little!

The title was cut by my Craft Robo -again in a soft colour so as not to overpower the photograph.

And the ribbons are attached to a journaling tag, which I shall complete at a later date.

Scrapbooking, a greener hobby!

Scrapbookers are magpies! We naturally, reuse and recycle all sorts of items, don't we?!

This is a picture of the cellophane sheet I found upon opening a box of Lindt chocolates that my husband bought me for Easter!

As it was unmarked and nice and flat, I kept it back to use on a layout. I actually think it's suitable for a number of layouts, not just chocolatey ones!

Of course, I do have drawers fulls of "stuff" (as opposed to stash!) and have yet to use it... but it can be like Christmas out of season when I have a good rummage through them!

Time to start throwing caution to the wind and using up some of my "stuff" with a little experimentation... I should just "have a go" at things more and stop fussing about making perfect layouts every time...(oh hark at her!).

Anyway... sound familiar... do you fuss about making every layout perfect and so they end up taking ages to complete!

Come on... throw caution to the wind and go for it. I will doing a few layouts shortly that will "speed scrapping" and I will post them for you to see... the good the bad and the ugly ones... so you can have a good laugh, and possibly learn from my mistakes! LOL

Easter Basket

This is a little Easter Basket which my daughter made last weekend.

I, of course, cut it out for her, but it was an effective little project.

The template, printable onto A4 paper, was a free download from Prima Hybrid and I printed it out onto an ordinary piece of paper for my daughter to colour in.

However, the download is a jpg file and a photoshop file and therefore layered and so you can add patterned paper to this before printing to make a lovely basket... just print, cut and stick...et voila!

So thanks Prima Hybrid... was a cute basket and daughter was most proud of her achievement... especially as she is only 4!

Displaying your Scrapbooking Pages

This is a photograph of my notice board in my office/craft room.

I'm showing you this because I do hang up my latest layouts when I have finished them!

And the way I do this is by using bulldog clips.

I make sure they are smooth on the inside and therefore won't leave marks on my pages, but I place a map pin through the holes of the handles of the clips and pin them ot the board that way.

I also use a piece of string/thread with clips tied at intervals (12" intervals) and hang my 12" layouts one underneath the other.

The other items on this board are plastic folders with a collection of items and/or photos waiting to be scrapped. A notice board used in this way makes good use of the vertical space of my wall and makes it a very flexible space.

Try making use of your walls to display your lovely work, rather than just storing them away in an album!!!

Snow's gone!

Well we had snow here at the top end of Suffolk (UK), but it didn't stay for long.

Still my daughter can now stop complaining that she hasn't been able to make a snowman! She had a great time with Daddy, playing in the snow with some neighbours in the playground behind the houses here.

My husband commented that it was all dads with the kids apart from one mum that was out with her son, but that was only because his daddy was at work!

Well I said, that's because us women as daft enough to go outside and get totally wet and freezing cold! (there are exceptions I realise, but on the whole us women know when to stay indoors in the warm!) LOL.

Anyway, I didn't manage to get any decent photos of the snow this time round! tut!

The bottom photo here is of the view out of my office/craft room window and the very black sky. trouble is... with the camera on "auto" it tries to compensate for the stark contrast and so the resulting picture isn't quite a striking as it was in real life!

Blue Birthday Card

This is my latest card creation. All blue for a sister that likes blue.

I used the masking technique for the feathered colouring around the centre and then stamped and embossed white powder using the swirls from the Basic Grey Two Scoops collection.

The 'Happy Birthday' was die cut using a cuttlebug kindly brought in by Karelyn at the last ScrapBuddies crop (March). A very easy little machine to use the Cuttlebug! The dies are quite expensive though I understand, and of course, it's all a bit bulky with the machine, and dies.

So thank you to Karelyn for lugging it in for us all to use!

I have been using my Craft Robo... on my latest layout which I spoke about on Saturday.. which I have actually finished and will show you all the finished item shortly.

A slimline Easter

Well how is your chocolate consumption doing?

I have been steering clear of goodies in general of late in an attempt to lose some weight, and it is actually working. If it's not in the house I can't pick at it!

So obviously with this in mind, when my husband went to buy Easter gifts for various people, he gave me an envelope!

Inside was a voucher from a local lingerie (including sexy stuff) shop! It states the date at which I will be able to collect an item from the shop (ordered off catalogue).

This means of course, that my husband went in and had a jolly good look through the new catalogues in the shop, and ordered something for me!

Very nice of him and obviously non-fattening, which is excellent, but this begs the question...

"Whose Easter gift was this...?!"

A Page in Progress

This is my current page in progress...

I have decided to use subtle coloured blooms (and possibly some buttons) to convey a gentle mood.

This picture was taken on me, by my husband when we were at a French Chateau last June. It was a lovely sunny afternoon, but had been cold, hence the long trousers and jumper.

It means more to me as a picture because at that moment in time I remember I was just lost in thought, sitting in the sunshine, my gaze wandering the scenery before me.

Just one of those brief moments of stillness.

This is what I am trying to convey with the subtle shades on the layout.

I think my title will be "Just Sittin' " and I plan to fire up the Craft Robo for that one!

Gift for teacher!

This is a picture of a little gift that one of my ladies at the ScrapBuddies crop brought in to me last Saturday.

It was made by a little girl (I believe she is 5) called Aimee and she is the granddaughter of Sheila.

It is a little tissue paper flower, and Aimee told her grandmother that she had made it for her scrapbooking teacher. Not only that but I understand that Aimee then went on to explain how she had made the flower so that all the information could be passed on to me!

Isn't that sweet!

Thank you Aimee, it's the first gift I have ever been given as a Scrapbooking Teacher!

A Sketch challenge

I was browsing around recently and found this great DLO (double layout). It is from the everything-about-scrapbooking.com site.

I've posted it here because I am all for managing to squeeze on lots of pictures onto a layout. More is better in this case, if you're trying to archive your mountain of photos!

Here is the text that goes with it...
Scrapbook Sketch #19
This scrapbook sketch has room for 16 photos. With three standard-size photos, there's still room for 13 smaller square photos. It's great for doing an occasion/event layout where you want to squeeze in more photos. If you like the design but don't have that many photos, remember that you can always substitute the square photos with embellishments or journaling text.

So I think I may use this sketch shortly myself. If you do make a layout, it would be lovely to see your work, do drop me a line and I'm happy to post a picture of it on here.

Dogs!

Just a quick post this evening!

This is Toffee, my 10 year old Jack Russell! Last Christmas time/New Year, she was 'in season' again!

So now, (after a normal gestation period of 9 weeks, although I think it's a bit longer) she THINKS she has puppies!

Well actually one puppy, and it's strangely ball-shaped with a bell inside! LOL

She will hardly leave her bed, doesn't want to go for walks and if she does come, she runs home by herself, through the side gate, round the back of the house and in through the dog flap and back to bed - and her ball-shaped puppy!!

Thankfully, there are no roads to cross between the fields where we walk and our house.

So, poor old thing spends her life at the moment with this ball in her mouth! Her jaw must ache somewhat by now, daft dog. Hormones eh!

Oh well, she doesn't know it... but I booked her in to the vet to get her spayed in early April, then hopefully, no more seasons and no more phantom pregnancies! Bless.

All this reminds me that I must do more scrapbooking layouts about my dogs.

15 Minute Scrapbooking Layout

So this is the final post regarding the use of paint... in this case acrylics... on your layouts.

The page pictured here is of a 15 minute page! Literally... I took 15 minutes to make this layout. I have to admit it is nothing special, but the idea was to make a quick page ready for a "Daddy and Daughter" picture - of which there will be many!

The circles have been stencilled through the cardboard set of holes (pictured below). This was the "left-overs" from a new children's board game... it is from where the round counters for the game were pressed out.

The title was created by stippling paint through a normal plastic lettering stencil (also pictured below) and the ruler edge of the letter stencil was used to create the two stippled lines .

The rest is ripped paper and a couple of lines of ribbon.

The white space of course, is just to show where the photograph will go eventually.

Just Paint!

Well this layout was another of those prepared for the demonstration yesterday regarding making and using paint on layouts.

This was also a challenge to myself to create a scrapbooking layout using only paint.

Yes there is a little bit of ribbon on there, but the rest consists only of a piece of black background card and the photograph itself!

I have used acrylic on the background by using the "dry brush technique" first.

Then I have used a foam stamp for the flowers, stamping up to three times from one "inking" to obtain the different depths of opacity of the flowers, and overlapping them slightly over each other and off the edge of the page to get a more "natural" irregularity to the pattern.

I used foam letters, (and this was a bit fiddly because they weren't stamps, so didn't have handles to hold!) for the title.

Finally I painted a rectangle to use as a mat for the photo, simply by offering up the photo and making the rectangle big enough to show around he edges.

Journaling and the line around the title letters were both created with a white gel pen which I have found to be quite good (opacity-wise) it's from Pentel and is called a "Hybrid-Gel Grip".

I recently bought a pen from my local papercraft shop and it's useless. It's from ZIG Memory System. It's double ended and is supposed to give you the "chalk" look... I bought a white one, but so far it's not good!

Anyway... that's my layout for paint only!

Finished it! (Masking technique)

Well I promised a picture of the finished article... so here it is...!

Plus some close ups.

The paper is from Basic Grey, but of course most of it has been covered in ink... apart from the masked area under the title and under the photograph.

The cardboard (chipboard) swirls are from Maya Road and I have recoloured them using a metalic craft paint of my daughter's from Tescos (!) and the other was painted with acrylic and then with inks.

The chipboard letters are from K&Co. "Hannah" range, but I have recoloured them using the inks too!

The page and technique originally inspired by Scrapperlicious as mentioned in a previous post.

Using paint on Layouts

Well I have finished the "No Taste" page. Just haven't got around to taking a photo yet for you all because I have been carrying on with prep for the crop tomorrow!

However, I will upload it asap!

Just finished a page which is just a piece of bazzill cardstock with acrylic stamped, dry brushed and painted onto to it! The only other thing on it is some ribbon and the photo!

Yep... will upload that asap too!

A Work in Progress!

This is my current work in progress. Just need to finish the journalling and add some ribbon!

The route to inspiration

I am currently creating a layout using a masking technique. That is the subject of my next demonstration at Scrapbuddies.

The theme was inspired by a scrapbooker known as Scrapperlicious! And here is a link to the item about the masking technique.
My page is a vague scraplift of the one shown. The finished page is in her "baby gallery" entitled "Inside".

The route to all this was via a team member on UKS who posted a link to Scrapperlicious' site because she admired all the lovely scrapbooking layouts. I believe she was just browsing around at the time. Funny how we end up in places or with things that are useful to us eh?!

What is my layout about..? it's about the tasteful decoration with which I adorned my car (during the 90s). And the words you can't quite make out on the boot of the car (also on the bonnet!) ...

"Why Not!" Something for all your Barry Norman fans out there! (That joke will probably only work in the UK!) LOL!

So tasteful! You could see me coming for miles! Best theft deterrent there is too! I never needed to lock my car in those days... who was going to steal that!!!!!!

Time for the sewing machine!

I bought some material today for the purposes of a background for some photography. Whilst I was at the material shop I noticed some small packs of meterial collections.

They were colour co-ordinated into blues or pinks or reds, etc and the pieces were about 12" square.

They reminded me of complimentery patterned scrapbooking paper! I asked what people usually buy the packs for and the answer was that a lot of children buy the packs! Some make dolls clothes and some people start patchwork in a small way by making say, a cushion cover! I think it was news to the shopkeeper that I was planning to use the material for scrapbooking!

Anyway, I bought two packs! So I will now have to get out the sewing machine to make some scrapbooking layouts!

A Garden of Quotes

Now we all need to use quotes every so often on our layouts. Most of us just use the ones we have stickers already for.

But of course the collections of quotes you have bought from shops limits you somewhat. And who is to say that you have to use pre-printed quotes... you can even hand write quotes onto your layouts.

So... there are websites out there that cater for your every need! And best of all they are often free resources.

The Quote Garden for instance has all it's collection of quotes in a nice neat order under subject headings, just click on a heading and choose away!

The following quote I have copied and pasted from the site under the section entitled "Art"...

Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.

~Scott Adams

So if you have a computer and printer you can copy and paste and print out your quote onto paper or maybe acetate... the world is your oyster!

A Scraplift Challenge

Here is the scrapbooking layout I was talking about yesterday.

It is a Scraplift from a one of my team member's (Siobhan's) layouts (pictured underneath).

The papers are from Daisy Bucket Designs and were part of the stash swap from another teammate Katy - here is a link to her blog.

So thanks Katy for the stash! And Thanks Siobhan for the Layout to lift!

I thought I would lift this one now because I my next demo at ScrapBuddies is about using paint on layouts, so I killed two birds with one stone there, with that and completing a challenge!

There are 9 other people in my team... I thought actually that I might lift a layout from each of them!

But then I am supposed to be organising a CJ... (circle journal) for the team too!

My theme is "Touch". I'll leave the possibilities to your imagination!

Scribble Pattern Card

It seems to be cards, cards, cards this week!
I have just completed a Speed Scrap - Scraplift Challenge (that was a mouth full!), but can't post it here till I know whether I can post it in my gallery at UKScrappers.

So in the meantime, I have made another card, the recipient hasn't seen it yet, but if she does come on here in the meantime, she won't know it's for her till she recieves it in the post... right!

Anyway, it's made from the Scribble colouring I created when doing some colouring with my daughter last Sunday... I wrote about it here.

I managed to make 2 A6 size cards from that one drawing! good eh?! So just added a few bits of ribbon and some buttons.

Colour Blocking Greetings Card

Here is a card I made during the demonstration I gave at ScrapBuddies regarding Colour Blocking.

Colour Blocking is merely the use of blocks, of coloured paper, photos, journaling, etc. You can purchase templates for this technique and it's a quick way to make pages. But also for cards. This is a very simple card with 6 blocks of patterned paper in a grid design with a larger centrepice carrying a peel off and some embellishments. Simple but effective.

Here is an article about Colour Blocking at Scrapbooking.com magazine.

Here is a link to Papermaze - it shows you some of the templates you can buy to help you create pages usin this technique. And... you can turn each template through 90 degrees to make 4 different layouts, and then of course you can flip the whole thing over and have another 4!

If you want more information on this technique, search under "colour blocking templates scrapbooking".

Personalising Cards

I spoke recently of using photographs on cards. This personalises the card specific to the person receiving it and can be nicer than just patterned paper and embellishments alone.

Well here is my 2008 Mother's Day card.

It's ok, I rang my mum today to make sure she had received it by now, to which she said she had and thank you!

I said that the reason I was asking was because I wanted to post a picture of it on my blog.

She gasped and said, "oh not you're not going to put in on there!"

For a moment I thought she meant that it wasn't good enough to be published, but then I realised that it wasn't about that at all, but was in fact about the fact that her photograph is on it!

She reckoned that my picture should have been the big one and her's smaller, but I explained that the card was about her... as my mum... so her picture was supposed to be biggest!

The didn't think it was a nice picture of herself. I disagree! I have fiddled with it in Photoshop Elements, as I did mine mostly to the drain the colour from mine.

The background paper by the way, is from Basic Grey, and so is the tag. And I did actually have to hand stitch all those buttons! But I did all that onto the background paper and when it was all done, I then adhered it to my card base.

My mum has always been an attractive lady and I believe remains so, if only she thought that too!

Second part of Valentine mini album

As promised here are pictures of the rest of the Valentine's album following on from yesterday's post.

As you can see there are separate photographs of myself and my husband but placing them in close proximity has the same effect as the pictures where we are actually photographed together.

I like mini albums because they have limited space and a "page" can be made so quickly, precisely because you can't put too much on them!

I have let the background papers do a lot of the talking in this album. The third photo here shows the insert tags found in the pockets. One is of journaling (a letter) - a private momento and therefore "tied up". It also means that within reason, you have a vast area to write as much as you want. The journaling on the tag is written on a piece of paper which has been folded. In other words you don't have to be restricted to the size of your album.

Why we should scrapbook ourselves part 5 - "From Me to You"

This is the next instalment of the "why we should scrapbook ourselves"(WWSSO) series of posts. Part 4 was about "Scrapbooking our Love". Creating layouts showing who, what or where we love most.

So this is about the Valentines mini album (as promised). I know I have recently posted my 2008 Valentine mini album, but this one is actually from last year.

I have included it in the WWSSO series because in these books I have also scrapbooked myself!

You see your husband/boyfriend/(girlfriend/wife for the men scrapbookers out there) want to "see you". Think about it... Isn't nice to have a good photograph of them? Don't you feel proud? Well it is the same for them?

We all have to "get over" this label - accusation if you will - of vanity. If you're caught looking in a mirror (other than when getting ready to go out, or similar situation) a flippant comment can be that you're vain? Quite often meant in jest, and often it starts from childhood. My daughter likes to look at herself in the mirror... family make little comments about it. All harmlessly meant, but it has an effect I think.

Society has made us feel self-conscious of our own bodies and faces and that it is bad to "look" at ourselves unless it's to get something out of our eye! LOL

So... if you want to give your other half something nice for valentines, or anniversary, or maybe just to say Thank you, make a little album with YOU in it for them, Put in some of you and them together, even if you have to use two smaller cut outs from different photos, it's still inferring togetherness if you place them on a page together, right?!

I think you'll find the recipient will be pleased, even if he/she pretends that they dislike all your "arty-farty paper stuff"! And even if you don't do a whole album, just a nice photo on a card says so much more than just pretty colours and patterns and embellishments.

And it doesn't have to be for spouses, my mum likes to get pictures of her daughters and granddaughters, so I include up-to-date ones on her cards.

Come on everyone... Stop hiding and start showing!

I'll post the rest of the album tomorrow.

Have I gone "International"?

This is a set of unmounted stamps available from Sunday International !!!

Have you gone global? .. you ask me. (For those new to this blog, my name is Sunday!) Well no, just stumbled across the site from another and another one before that... you know how it goes, right?

Anyway, it amazes me how photographic some stamps are nowadays. The production technology is so advanced now that there are just some simply stunning stamps out there.

I particularly like unmounted stamps, which these are, but I do actually prefer the clear acrylic ones because you can see through them for easy placement. And of course the unmounted ones are a lot cheaper than the mounted ones, and I think the ready mounted on maple wood-type stamps will be a thing of the past soon.

Anyway the reason for showing you this set particularly is that it is a collection of nudes! Naked women.

I have always said that I would much rather look at a woman's naked body than a man's, and the history of Art all over the world proves my point. We women (sorry any male readers!) are a pleasing form (there are some exceptions of course and in both directions if you get my meaning!).

But... where are the beautiful male nudes, eh? When will someone be brave enough to bring out a collection of stamps depicting tasteful male nudes, that's what I want to know?

Mother's Day Things

Well I had a fairly nice day... only fairly because I still had to sort the lunch and dinner, but it was good! My husband took my daughter to a play place for a few hours so that I could have some peace and quiet, which was nice of him.

I took the opportunity to make my own mother's card! I have taken a photograph, but I won't post it till she has received it. It would not be right for the whole of the world to have seen it before her! LOL Besides there is the remote chance she might pop on here!

So the picture is of something myself and my daughter did together this afternoon... painting and colouring. The painting was with ready filled brushes, kind of like a pigment filled water brush. You just give them a squeeze and the paint runs down the hairs!

I don't know what these drawings are called, but I call them Scribble Colourings! As you can see Honey went for the Gothic look! She took a shine to a "permanent" marker I was using, so of course I was sitting there worrying that she was going to get it all over her clothes, and when it says permenant, it means it! Phew no marks thankfully. Anyway her's started as a scribble similar to mine and then she decided to colour every area in black. Not quite got the idea... bless her! Of course all her masterpieces are signed, although usually much more neatly and legibly than that frankly!

Racing to finish a Card... Part 2

Well here it is then... Was it worth the wait?

I am definitely into "twisted ribbon" at the moment, I find myself putting it on everything!

But I think it works very well to bring "touchy feely" interest to scrapbooking layouts and cards. I attached the ribbon to the background paper before sticking that to the card base, so as to hide the backs of the staples.

Racing to finish a Card

No, I still haven't made my Mother's Day Card yet! I'm making a birthday card for someone!

I will finish this... just waiting for the glue to dry!