Sketchbook365 - July Challenge

Horrah, I have managed to complete the Scrap365 July Challenge page in June!!! Their sketch this month is by Melenia Agapides and I just loved the torn and distressed upper patterned paper technique that she used. Had a bit of a job finding a double sided paper in my stash but fortunately this Kaisercraft paper called Guinevere from their Devonshire Collection did the job.

The Easter Bunny in the photo was the trinket included in my Easter Bouquet from Asda which just hopped into my trolly. I did post a photo of him back in April, but am only now getting round to scrapping him. I have enjoyed putting this page together roughly following the challenge sketch and even managed to slip in a second photo!

WOYWW #159

 Morning ladies and gents and Happy WOYWW to everyone. Thanks to everyone who commented on my desk last week, I hope I managed to return the favour to all. And a HUGE thanks to Julia for continuing to host this global weekly party snoop!!

I digress, to the batcave (uumm  - craft desk). Thought I'd go for the ariel shot this week - no climbing honest - just outstretched arms! Had the good fortune to find some trousers to fit yesterday, so bought 3 pairs (wearing one), just need to remove the other tags (saved for crafting of course!). I got a t-shirt too and the ribbons have been removed and they are also destined for the crafting box! Sewing box takes centre stage as a result.

And there - in a neat row - are my new Tim Holtz Summer inkpads. YIPPEE. I have made a butterfly ATC to try them out and the colours are quite vibrant and indeed very Summery. I am just missing the "Fall" set now - I hope they release that one again in the Autumn. If you look very carefully you'll spot my Week 3 Summer of Colour Entry, but I am saving that for next week as it uses a new altered book technique too.

Gosh looking at the photo, my desk sure looks busy or is that messy? BJ

The "Scrapbooking Your Faith" pass the book draw was won by Valerie in Texas and will be winging its way there shortly.

My Dad

Today is the anniversary of my Dad's passing some 14yrs ago. I did this page of him a while back but thought it nice to share today. Dad passed away some 3 months after I was married, he was only 68yrs. The last time I saw him was on our honeymoon as we popped in to say "hello" on our way past, I never thought it was really to say "goodbye"! Loosing him so suddenly still smarts with me and tears well up, especially if I hear "Amazing Grace" played. I'm off to light him a candle at our local church.
All My Love Dad.

Summer of Colour #2 - Mint Choc Chip

It is Mint Choc Chip week over at the Summer of Colour Event so I made up another ATC using lime green and browns. I'm going to do a butterfly ATC each week and then make up an art journal page with them all at the end of the event, using the lyrics of my favourite butterfly song... I had a piece of boarder left over after doing my ATC so I decorated a jar to use as a prayer jar. Then I did some of my day to day scrapping and would you know I unconsciously picked brown and green papers so more even Mint Choc Chip! Yep definitely liking these colours.

Sketchbook365 - June Challenge

Cutting it a bit fine, as the deadline is today at 11pm, but have been itching to do the June Challenge at Scrap365 for some time as I am definitely a multi-photo scrapper. Some may remember my raindrop photo entry for the Finding Fun Event, well here it is with its fellow photos on a scrapbook page at last! The arch in the sketch made me think of rainbows, so I made a rainbow with raindrops. I have also been studying colour in my Altered Book Lessons and this LO is definitely an example of the Primary Colours in action. A bright and cheery page for a wet day!

Stamp Man Challenge - Make it for a Man

In search of my mojo I decided to have a "play" with my new Tim Holtz stampset. You can't really escape masculinity with the Warehouse District set so the result is just the ticket for the current Stamp Man Challenge.
I used 2 of the new Tim Holtz Spring Distress Inks mixed with some Festive Berries, I seem to like this colour combination at the moment. Then a bit of stamping in Snowcap Dabber and Jet Black Archival. I added a metal fob watch brad and some coloured string plus parts of a mini cog diecut. Don't ask me why I added the date, but I have one of those little date stamps where you rotate the numbers and it just hopped out of the drawer!
Yep definately, made for a man.

WOYWW #158

Well here we are again, happy to be a WOYWWer showing off my desk. Not a great deal happening. I have joined in with the Summer of Colour event over at Twinkle Twinkle. I am going to make a buttterfly ATC each week using the colours depicted in that week's icecream! Not too late to join in if you want to. I have selected 3 cards for my Hubby for Father's Day/Birthday and added the appropriate sentiments/ages. And there, in the foreground, is my "Pass it On" book. If you would like to be the next recipient, please leave me a comment saying you are interested and I will pick a name next Wednesday.

I have just popped my latest tags in my Art Journal, still can't believe I won the Tim Holtz May Tag. They sent me the District Warehouse set of stamps, which I got to use in my June Tag.

Also here are the ATC's I received in the megaswapathon we had a fortnight ago. I think I still have one yet to arrive though. I typed out the sender's names, I hope you can see them after clicking on the photo. I guess that is about it for me this week. Thanks to Julia for running such a great show and to all who stop by and leave me a comment. Hugs BJ

Altered Book Lesson 9

Lesson 9 on Elizabeth's Altered Book Course is all about backgrounds. I was inspired by her "homework" so a stripy page it was for me. Still in patriotic mode, more red, white and blue. I started out with a layer of gesso and stuck some torn pieces of kitchen towel down whilst I was at it, to help obliterate the words! They also added texture to the pages. I made various shades of the reds and blues mixing them with gesso too. The horizontal stripes are the margins from the Radio Times magazine and depict the 3 days of Jubilee Celebrations here in the UK. The Union Flags are from various sources even one from a bag of potatoes!

Typically, with me and paint, I managed to get it on my previous page!! As a result I had to change one photo and the words, but fortunately had a duplicate bigger picture (top right) to replace the two smaller ones. And I guess "Queen's Diamond Jubilee" is better than "Britannia" after all. Lucky accident.

Summer of Colour #1 - Rainbow Sherbet

Decided to join in the fun at Summer of Colour this year. I don't often get the chance to use such vibrant colours so really enjoyed making this ATC.

TH#6 - June Tag

I received my Tim Holtz prize for last months tag today. Thank you so much Tim et al. I got the Warehouse District set of stamps, 2 of which I have used on this month's tag; Photographs and Curiosity (on the photo). I also received today the 2 distress stains I had ordered to enable me to do the backing. I had no more excuses so got to work! The photo is of my Aunty Jean (sadly departed) when she got married in the second world war. Part of her wedding dress petticoat was even made from a parachute.  I used metal tape on card and a typewriter to make the sentiment strip, even had my husband fooled! I hope everything else speaks for itself but do ask if you need to. Curious that the last tag I made myself was about family too and I made that back in May! Must have sensed this was coming.

WOYWW #157 - ATC City

Hi everyone, happy WOYWW. Have had a great week making ATC's for lots more SWAPping. There are 4 more on my desk at the moment, pending... I made the dolphin one for my main SWAP and then had to make a few more. Then I got all PATRIOTIC - I wonder why?

The 2 on the easel are ones I have received so far in the SWAPathon, from MAY and Redanne.

We did get to see the Queen as she drove to the races last Saturday. Can't believe we have lived so near for nearly 14yrs and hadn't tried to see her before. You know where I'll be each Derby Day from now on - LOL.

Managed to get hold of some Foil Tape at B&Q today, my friend Julia, mentioned this to me a while back. She's made some great stuff with it.

The other thing on my desk is my trusty Fiskars paper trimmer, love it.

I guess that is me for the week. Still haven't caught my breath from last week. Thanks everyone for making it a fab week, especially Julia.

I've Seen The QUEEN

We waitied by the roadside for ages and finally about 5 minutes to one the motorcade came by. The Queen's car at the front and 6 other cars behind. My husband had his big camera and kept the shutter button down and this is his best photo. The Duke was looking straight at us too and the Queen waved. My eyes welled up and I nearly burst into tears!

Here's the scrappage I did of her Majesty a while back displayed in the hall together with my new bunting from LLJ. I have just watched the Derby on TV and Camelot won coming in from the back - more tears!

WOYWW #156 - 3rd Anniversary *

OK, it is anniversary week on WOYWW and I seem to have become even more Partiotic MAD. Patriotic Biscuit Tin, Patriotic Mug, where will it ever end? Hoping to see the Queen on Saturday making her way to Epsom Derby, I am SO excited!!

Anyway I have added a few bits and bobs to my Patriotic card and entered into the Stamp Man Challenge. I made a Jubilee page in my AB and found enough pictures of the Queen to put on all my tags in my kitchen roll book (see below). One of my badminton friends is 50yrs today so I made her a card too. I also finally used my tag with the bark embossing and made the tag shown top right aswell. Then the two parcels I got yesterday, 1) my photos from Photobox and I only ordered the day before! 2) some pattern pieces from Sherry - thanks a million. Bundle so nicely tied up, I don't even want to open it - LOL.

Stamp Man - Card for a Queen

I couldn't pass by my Patriotic card so added the "Westminster" title and some glitter and have linked to the Stamp Man Blog for their "Card for a Queen" Challenge. I think my card encompasses all things British with the softness of the lace accents. I do believe our Kings and Queens actually lived at Westminster way back when.

Finding Fun - Hands

Here's my Finding Fun for this week. My 13yrs old son's hand and my friend's 5 day old baby girl's hand with beautiful long fingers. Aw - need I say more?

Altered Book - Jubilee Page

Currently in our AB lessons we are looking at colour. I made the colour wheel last week and just needed to do a page using a colour classification. I have sort of gone for the Primary selection here, using Red, Blue and White. OK, so I am still in patriotic mode and was dying to use the pictures of our Queen which I have been collecting.

I have to admit I'm not that "into" using paint for my pages. I have tried it a bit on previous spreads but for the time factor, waiting for it to dry, having to add numerous coats and then the pages tending to stick together, it is all rather laborious for me. So I decided to cover my pages with Mullberry paper instead. I didn't have enough white so added a random patchwork of red and blue to fill in the spaces. I added silver and red glitter to the red patches, for Diamond Jubliee  "sparkle".

Without really thinking I grouped the "then" type pictures of our Queen on the left and the "now" ones on the right. The big pink one is of her at the Epsom Derby last year and we are planning to cycle over there this year and try to get a glimpse of her as she drives past on her way there. I'd just love to see our Queen in real life not just on the TV - how exciting.

WOYWW #155

Yay WOYWW and I've actually done some crafting!! Shock Horror! Opened my Altered book and found some of my labels had stuck together, so got out my typewriter to make some more. That done I set to actually using some of the new products I have bought recently. First the Artemio London stamps (you might have spotted them lurking last week). I have been wanting one of those Union Flag stamps in 2 parts, so you can stamp the 2 colours separately, for a while now - cool (must try it with different colours!). Used my new Nestie Moroccon Accents dies to set off the stamps on the card. I got the nesties at the Sincerely Yours Show in Biggin Hill last Sunday. I wore my WOYWW badge but didn't meet any other WOYWW badge holder - shame. I have also made a tag using the gears embossing folder I bought a few weeks ago. Thought it made a good backdrop to the Tower Bridge stamp. I guess that is me for this week, makes a change from all the Timmy Dress Formness which ensued from doing his May tag last week!

Finding Fun - Dressing Up

Horrah - I found some FUN. This week is all about Dressing Up and as I seem to be having a Timmy Dress Form "moment", I thought I'd dress one up! I reinforced the back of the diecut and made a little strut so it could stand up on its own. I inked the diecut and stand with various brown distress inks and speckled with water. I used the netting from my friend's wedding, the rose from mine. Aww.

Even More Timmyness

Just couldn't help myself, Julia had kindly cut me some of Tim's Sewing Room Dies so I just HAD to put one on my last sewing LO, together with the cotton reel wound with embroidery thread and finished off with a brass safety pin.



















Also had to make another "flatter" version of Tim's tag so I can put it in my Art Journal for May. Got my old typewriter out again for the words, love using it.

Altered Book - Colour Wheel

Lesson 8 on Elizabeth's Altered Book Course asked us to create a colour wheel from old magazines and definitely NOT scrapbook papers - LOL. I had already made the latter, and some may have spotted it on a former WOYWW post (Elizabeth certainly did). Have to laugh now as I can see I did my original one back to front!! Anyway here's my interpretation with the magazine pieces I had handy. I used my typewriter to make labels for the segments and further neutral magazine pictures as backing with a bit of glitter dotted here and there.

Thanks for all the suggestions with respect to my Maypole pages. I have since picked out some of the patchwork with faux stitching. I framed the postage stamps with dots of glitter and framed the other pictures with glossy accents. I have also darkened the Mulberry paper pole as it didn't stand out well enough. Think that page might be finished now - LOL. Thanks again.

WOYWW #154 - Timmy MAD!

So here we are yet again for the wonderous WOYWW and not much has happened on my desk save I have gone Timmy Tag MAD! Yep Tim Holtz published his May Tag a few days ago and I made up my version over the weekend. And it snowballed from there....ending up with a couple of cards and an ATC too. Did make a couple of Baby Girl cards for my friend who is expecting next week too. You can just see my new patriotic stamp set in the background too.

TH#5 - May Tag

Yay, Tim's May Tag at last - YIPPEE. Always quite challenged by these due to stash requirements, but love to try my best to emulate as far as possible with my limited supplies but limitless imagination!

So what did I have this time? Ummmm well I did have a manilla tag, although having the die now I could easily have cut my own! No appropriate stamps so didn't bother with the tissue BUT did remember a printed vellum pack I bought some time ago and as luck would have it, pattern pieces and dress forms - excellent!

Just bought some printed measure twill tape - that will do nicely and I even got the sewing machine out to sew it on! Old white plastic cotton reel duly cut in half in husband's workshop with BIG saw!!! Now that was FUN! Tried to cover the plastic with ink and embossing powder but fortunately the string does most of the job nicely.

Used some flowers left over from my wedding (all those years ago!) inked with the Spring colours and just dunked in ordinary embossing  powder as neither have UTEE nor melting pot!

Made the coat hanger out of a brass paper clip and the dangly from a fragment and more of the vellum. The round stamp is all I had round and again had to stamp and emboss as I only have black archival. 

Think the lady who appears behind the flowers is quite cool, complete fluke though, who'd have guessed?

Finding Fun - Kitchen

Finding Fun this week is looking at the KITCHEN! Yikes, I hate cooking! Anyway the Muppets playing the drums made me think of my son playing his drums! He started on "kitchen" saucepans at 3yrs and progressed to play in the school concert just before he left Primary school when he was 11yrs. I scrapped this a couple of years ago.

As for me, the best thing about my kitchen is its double aspect. So for "fun" I cleaned the windows today and repositioned all my stained glass objects. And for the more hawk-eyed you'll spot my son's birdhouse from last weeks "fun" down the garden on the fence.

Pirate Card

Here's the Pirate Card I made for a SWAP last week. I guess it also counts for Finding Fun last week too. Better late than never.

WOYWW #153

.Morning everyone, thanks to those who visited my desk last week, on the wonderful journey of WOYWW. Here's a treat this week, an actual messy desk! Have to admit I am itching to tidy it up and pick the glue off my fingers but managed a photo first. Typically after, applying 2 coats of gesso to my latest Altered Book pages but not deciding what colour to paint the background, I had a eureka moment and decided to make it a patchwork with green papers! Had already planned the ribbons to represent a Maypole and the various magazine pictures and old stamps of May nature. Think it still needs something, but I'm not sure what, any suggestions? 

I have just finished my latest scrapbook page too of my photos of Mothering Sunday where I got a cake as they had forgotten to get me one for my birthday the previous month! It is hanging on my hanger. The little easel holds my ATCs made for various SWAPs so can't divulge those yet I'm afraid.

Here's a couple of close-ups. Can you spot Roudolph wearing my WOYWW badge? And you get a good view of my special Distress Ink Shelf too.