Playing with patterned papers

Oh, how I love patterned papers! I love them in the shops and I have a startling collection of them now, but when it comes to actually using them on a scrapbook page, I get a bit nervous and go for a plain background (again!). So today I have been feeling brave and inspired by Shimelle's sketches for her class (and her brilliant use of patterned papers).

This was my first one today and although the class sample was beautifully simple, I couldn't resist all the bits and bobs - but I think it goes with the theme of the page .

This was my second page today, which was about revisiting favourites, so I have included bunting, which I love, but before I have made patterned paper bunting on a plain background so today I switched it around. I also managed to use some chipboard letters from Chatterbox which I've had for years and I finally found a word I could spell with the leftovers!

Last weekend's photography tutorial was about creating vintage photos. I had a go and I think it worked out alright, although I'm not entirely sure about the colours as the instructions were for Photoshop and we have PaintShop Pro, so I had to make it up as I went along.

Ir-resist-able

I've been having a play with Maya Resist and if you'd like to see how I got on then click here as it's my Saturday post for Bubbly Scrumptious! But here' s a sneak peek...

Rainbows and smoothies

I've been playing around with photos again, using my photos from Shimelle's class as starting points. I took the idea of taking a series of photos to tell a story and took some pictures when I went out for a smoothie with the blonde one. I didn't find the photos very exciting, but then I added a texture and altered the colour and I think they look far more interesting now. I'm going to print them out on canvas paper to continue the texture.

The texture I used on the photos can be found here on Flickr

We had the most amazing rainbow over the top of the house a couple of nights ago and I went out a took a whole series of photos which my other half very cleverly stitched together for me. Well, actually he had help as we have this great software called Autopano Pro 2 which does all the work for you! I didn't even see the double rainbow until we had created the finished image. The trick with Autopano is to remember to take all the photos around the edge of your picture - we've frequently tried this and found we've missed just one section in a corner.

Cutting and sticking

As it's Saturday again, it's my turn on Bubbly Scrumptious and I've been card making this week. Here's a sneak peek, but if you want to see more click here.

I've been really inspired by the great sketches from Shimelle's class and we've been asked to look at scrapping more than one photo this week. Here's a two photo page...

Oh, how I love charms!...

Rainy Day

I wanted to get the girls outside today to take some pictures in the rain and it started raining really heavily during teatime. Sure enough by the time they had finished and we'd got coats and wellies on the rain had almost gone. Still, I had a go at taking some pictures with the prompts from Shimelle's photography class from this week in mind.

One of the prompts this week challenged us to take photos outside our comfort zone. I usually take pictures of people, so I looked for some non-people subjects. I'm so pleased with this raindrop photo as the out of focus background can be seen upside down inside the raindrop.

The step-by-step technique from last weekend encouraged us to try adding textures to our photos. I've never even thought of this before and I really like the effect. I found a droplet texture on Flickr ( found here) and had a go at applying it to the photo.

Before...

After...

Sweetly handmade

I'm part of the design team for the Vanilla Sugar blog which is a sister blog to Bubbly Scrumptious, but instead of daily posts there is a monthly challenge which we will take part in with the overall theme of handmade decor and gifts.

This month's challenge has been to decorate a box, jar or tin.

I have been thinking about getting out my Fimo for a while as it's been at least a year since I've made anything with it (which is a very long time for me!) and so I've created this sewing tin...

Here's a close up of the millefiori cane I created and then sliced to cover the tin. Confession number 1 - I didn't have enough white so I used transparent white instead which wasn't my intended effect, but I'm pleased with the end result. Confession number 2 - I didn't make my cane quite large enough (don't ask to see the back!)

I created another millefiori cane using a log cabin patchwork design which I sliced and pieced together to make the Fimo quilt. Can you see my "quilted" hearts on the black cushion?

Here's a closer look at the other cushion too...

Come over to the blog and have a look at the other projects by the rest of the design team. There's a great range of projects to see.

Skies - Part 2

I have ended up with lots of lovely sky photos because I enjoy taking them so much ( and have a great "sunset" button on my point-and-shoot!). I wanted to put them into a mini book, but didn't want to take anything away from the photos. I've put together a chipboard binder with acetate pages, so the quotes I added can be lifted off to see the original photos as you leaf through the book. I filled the book with quotes, songs and bible verses about skies, using rub-ons and stamping with Staz-On Ink on the acetate.

One more thing, if you are browsing through the current issue of The Scrapbook Magazine then you may recognise the person who's done the budget challenge - me! I completed three pages for £10. It was a great challenge and I'm really pleased with the results.

Skies - Part 1

One of the photography assignments from Shimelle's class this week has been to point your camera at the sky. I love taking photos of skies/clouds/sunrises/sunsets. The top photo was taken our back garden and the photos below have been taken around our town.

I think the photo below looks a bit like a mermaid. If you like finding shapes in the clouds, check out the book "A Pig with Six Legs and other clouds" by Gavin Pretor-Pinney

Shimelle posted a similar photography challenge on Two Peas in a Bucket back in February and I ended up taking the photo below, which turned into this scrapbook page...

Come back later for more skies!

Dinosaurs and candy floss

Saturday is here again and so it's my turn to post a project on the Bubbly Scrumptious blog. Today I've been looking at creating characters using the Maya Road keychain sets on a dinosaur scrapbook page. You can see the post here, but here's a sneaky peek. Don't you just love my new dinosaur border punch - I know I do!

I've also been working on assignments for Shimelle's photography / scrapbook course. One of the challenges this week was to use the ground as your tripod. I'd love to take outdoor shots using this technique, but our grass is brown, not green at the moment and not very picturesque. The blonde one was drawing this morning, so I grabbed the opportunity to try the technique and I'm really pleased with the result.

We also had some scrapbook inspiration to work from and so I came up with this page...

I'm particularly pleased with another new purchase, my new cowboy alphabet stamps by Hampton Art.

A walk in the park

My new challenge every month is to design an inspirational project for the Modscraps blog as I am the newest member of their design team. It's a blog from Modscraps, the online shop, and has a monthly challenge running with a chance to win a gift voucher.

Here's a sneak peek at my project this month using Fun Flock.

For a proper look at the project, click here

Depth of field

One of the prompts this week from Shimelle's photography course is about experimenting with depth of field in your photos and this is what I've been playing around with today. I tried it out with one of my stained glass pieces, but I'm not sure if it's really worked. The best results were the photos of weeds in the garden! This isn't something I really wanted to scrapbook and I'm not going to make a page about how we don't cut our lawn very often, but it was a useful exercise to learn the technique.

I couldn't resist trying a photo of the ginger one's hair as she loves clips, ribbons, hairbands etc. American Crafts ribbons aren't just for scrapbooking!

One last one of some daisies in our garden which worked out quite well.

Horsing around

The girls were playing with their hobby horses today and I was trying to remember when we made them. They are looking pretty good considering we made them over a year ago (one of the many projects from the very wet summer). There is a bit more sticky tape on them now and one of them has a new cardboard tube but they are still going. You may notice that one of the horses is actually a unicorn!

We cut out two cardboard shapes for each horses head, decorated the horses with pens and stuck on wool for the mane. We used double sided tape to stick the two pieces together, but left the bottom edge open and stuck the tube in the middle. I used gift ribbon to make the reigns.

Caterpillar quilts

My friends have been having lots of babies over the past 18 months and so I've been making lots of cot quilts. I've made most of them with the gorgeous Hungry Caterpillar fabric by Makower . It has a panel fabric with pictures of the caterpillar and butterfly, a border fabric with pictures of the caterpillar eating his way through the food and a lovely spotty fabric too.

Here's one of my quilts...

Saturday projects

For the next few months, every Saturday it's my turn to post on the Bubbly Scrumptious blog. The blog is run by Caroline from Bubbly Funk and there are some amazing projects showcased on it. Here's a sneak peek of my page today.

I've also been continuing to work on my pages for Shimelle's class. Here's today's effort. I love this photo - it's so funny. I also managed to quote "Zoolander" in my journalling!