Welcome to week thirty three.

A couple of photographs of Gav and my sister when we celebrated their birthdays a couple of years ago for this week s layout.

I was thinking blue and pink you know, boys and girls so found a few papers I liked.

Then a few other supplies.

I set the photos out on the background and played about with the papers.

Somewhere along the way that narrow strip of blue got worked into the mix and I liked the way it made the page look – leaving that gap of pink.

I settled on the one I liked and started to adhere the elements together. The thought of loosing that whole background sheet under the rest of the papers was too much so I cut the middle out.

You know me I hate waste!

Once I was happy with the main pieces I thought about embellishments. I inked the edges of a big star die cut and put a ‘G’ on it.

Then I stamped a few words onto the pink card. The alphas are from a Hero Arts stamp set and I love that they are so teeny.

I did the same with a smaller star but used my sisters initial this time and added a few more stars and a word I had stamped and cut out. The strip of die cut border finished of the group of embellishments.

I added the title a few more star brads in that lovely pale blue and a couple of red bling stars and we were done.

I have just realised I forgot to add the journalling! I was checking the actual date of the party we had for them and then forgot to write the story on the page……

Hey ho.

I seem to be doing a lot of these triangle shapes – it’s a fail safe for design isn’t it? Anyway I like it and once I add the story it will be complete.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

Welcome to week thirty two.

This week was one of those rare occasions when I picked out a photo grabbed a couple of sheets of paper, plonked them down added a few scraps of matching paper and it worked!

Here is the photo. Not an earth shattering story to tell but a lovely memory of a few days at the seaside and going out for Italian.

And here is the layout as it was just put down on the background. Nothing was adhered at this stage just placed and this is pretty much the same as it ended up.

I picked the papers based on the amount of black in the photo and my nieces pink top and shoes. The rest of the papers were scraps.

I removed everything from its place and started building up the layers sticking them down this time. 

I wanted to add a touch more pink and also thought a border strip would look good on the top edge of the black card so I punched a strip.

I also tied some black and white bakers twine onto the little tag.

The flower was one I had made a few months ago and never used. It was a blank chipboard shape which I triple embossed with white opaque embossing powder then stamped a swirl stamp inked in pink onto the still melted powder you get the negative impression and the colour of the ink. I used a couple of American Crafts thickers for the title.

Sometimes it’s best when you don’t think too much but just do it.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

Welcome to week thirty one.

A couple of photos of my niece when they visited us at the Northumberland cottage this year. She is playing on the DS but that isn’t the story I want to tell today. I want to talk about hair!

Here are the photos.

When I printed them out a couple of months ago I think I had over edited the colours in Photoshop and they turned out a tad too green. But I am waste not want not so to help balance the green I went for colour opposite on the colour wheel. I picked several papers and tried them out. First some really warm tones.

Then more of a neutral.

And back to a warmer one with some white.

Then I found this die cut piece and liked the shape and the grid pattern. I also decided I liked white cardstock and tried the photos and the layers on that.

Then I changed my mind and went for pale pink background card to match the pale pink in the red white pink paper.

I also added a piece of the grid pattern to the other photo too and matched the shape of the die cut edge. I left enough room for the journalling.

A red vellum matt was also added under the flower card. I tore the edges for added dimension.

A die cut star, heart shaped paper clip and a couple of scraps of paper made the embellishment. I punched heart shapes from a paper piece.

Because of the strong shape in the very center of the page it needed balance top and bottom by adding the cluster of embellishments it created a diagonal – sorry no photo of that stage – but it was too strong a diagonal so I found a felt flower that I had made months ago and not used. The colours matched and it was bold but I think it would be okay.

Here it is on the layout with a few strips of paper added underneath to match the other cluster of papers.

I pulled out a few alphabets for the title.

And added them onto the page along with my journalling.

Finally I added gems into the centers of the punched hearts and some white rub on stitches to the very top and bottom edges.

Overall I like it but the second word of the title is a bit lost. Might change that at some point.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

Welcome to week thirty.

Here’s another layout of a story that had been waiting to be told for a few years now. The problem was that it’s one of those stories that is important to me. So the pressure to get the layout just right mounts and I ended up not getting it told at all. It is a flaw in my scrapbooking that I am fully aware of and sometimes I manage to just get on with a layout and other times I procrastinate. I hate to admit procrastination usually wins.

But at last I thought about the story and how I wanted to tell it and got it down on paper. Here is the photo.

Originally when I thought about this story I was going to use four pictures of the ‘something’s’ but when I looked at the photos I took of the four items I just wasn’t happy with them and that’s when I hit on the idea of finding a photograph of me wearing the four items. Luckily, I had a shot of me flashing my garter! Which also includes the other somethings too.

Once I went for this picture and had it open on the computer I wondered what it would look like with the words around the shot. I tried it out and loved the result so I printed it out.Being a sort of wedding layout I wanted pretty floral papers and picked a couple of those. 

When I saw the photo on that pattern I thought about cutting swirls out of the paper to overlap the photo.

A simple but effective embellishment to the layout.

The I decided to pull the black from my dress and mount the photograph onto black cardstock to help balance the stark black within the photograph with the rest of the layout. 

Because the background is so busy I didn’t add anything else apart from the title which I selected from wonderful American Crafts thickers in silver – again just a splash of contrast to the overall look – and my journalling.

I’m really happy with how it turned out. Simple but I think it fits the subject perfectly and I loved the type treatment on the photograph. (And amazed I managed to get it to run down the page!)

And there we have week thirty.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

Welcome to week twenty nine.

This week, in keeping with my efforts to get those stories I want to tell told, I have chosen a photograph of my Gav and my niece playing Jenga. The picture doesn’t relate to the story particularly – it was taken on the same day and does involve the two of them but that’s all. The story is about how Gav was teaching my niece a line from the Godfather and how it was funny because she couldn’t remember to mess the line up!

Anyway here’s the picture.

I found a piece of Basic Grey paper and pulled other supplies to match.

I messed about with the long strips and orientation of the larger piece untill I liked the look.

Using my lovely new stamps I made a journal box.

And found some older rub on letters that I thought I’d use for the title. I was going to journal in the white box but then decided to use it for the title.

Tried the block in a couple of places to see which looked better.

Went for the top position. Added the rub ons and adhered the papers and label.

The the embellishments. I used a white piece of card to balance the white of the title block and then cut a strip of the stamped image and a few stars. I cut the three ticket’s from a Do Crafts patterned paper. Liked the film reference.

I wrote the journalling and thought the page didn’t look balanced so I added a teeny group of papers at the top left.

Then I went round the paper with a brown dashed line and added the date and two initial stickers for their names.

Happy with the look and that I told another of those stories on my list. Yay.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

Welcome to week twenty eight of this weekly scrapbook series.

A photo of wonderful family this week. I thought it was a good time to use this great picture and tell one of those stories I was talking about, the ones I want to tell. The photo has nothing to do with the story, it’s just a good photo so I decided to use it here.

The colours in the picture are very vibrant so I couldn’t fight against those so went with them. I pulled a few patterned papers out. Turquoise, brown and white.

And a few embellishments.

The Dylusions ink seemed to make it onto the table again……

I had a great layout in mind that I saw here. Loved the days of the week on the left hand side. I played about in word trying to copy that idea but nothing looked right so I got on with placing the papers and photo. Went for a clean and graphic look this week.

I used a few pieces of brown cars to make file folders and added a tab to the top of it with the stickers.

Decided to jazz it up with a little ink.

I wanted to test the London Blue colour so I sprayed that on the center of the page where I knew it would get covered up if it wasn’t the right blue – which it wasn’t by the way.

Since my typed journal idea didn’t work I found some alphabets to use instead.

I put a few words directly onto the card and also filled in one of the file folders with my journalling using a white pen.

I drew a pencil line of the card so I could see where the card would be behind the paper but decided to keep writing and use it as a pull out tab. I edged the brown cards with dash lines in the white pen to add a little definition.

I added a title. Initially I left if off but felt that something was missing. You know me I’m a traditionalist. And finally a couple of gems, a strip of sequins and more stickers under the word element.

Really happy to have scrapped this story this week and love how it turned out.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

Welcome to week twenty seven and off we go into the latter part of the year.

I went back in time about 30 years for this weeks photo.

 

My dear old Dad on water ski’s for the first and last time! The photo is blurry and wonderfully imperfect. That imperfection captures both the fact that I took this from the back of a boat and that technology had come a long way. I love that and wouldn’t want to make the shot perfect.

The blue life jacket spoke to me so I picked out a paper to match.

But I tried another favourite paper just in case.

I liked both but went with the blue stripe.

I bought a new stencil last week. I love it,

Along with the stencil I bought some ink.

Everyone seems to be talking about Dylusions so I got three little bottles – direct from Dy herself. Art from the Heart, her shop is in Harrogate so I popped over there for a shopping trip. When I got them home I played about with the stencil and cardstock and I created this background on some kraft card.

Getting used tp the stencil and ink takes a while and makes for good messy fun. On the top left I sprayed the ink through the stencil and then turned it over and pressed the negative image onto the card again. Like I say fun.

I pulled out a few other supplies to coordinate.

And then placed the photo onto the stripey paper and selected a more solid paper to matt them on. I placed the paper to the left where there wasn’t much inky pattern.

Tried the photo off to the left.

But prefered it central.

Can’t get enough of that stencil so I went to work on a tag. I sprayed the ink directly onto the paper first and let it dry then placed the stencil over and sprayed water through then blotted the water off. It removes some ink giving a subtle effect. I have seen this done quite a bit with various inks.

I placed the tag onto the layout put three square brads on the bottom edge and adhered part of the title. I really like the idea of tags but never make them work. This time I had the idea to use the tag as a base for the title, like another piece of paper.

Those alpha tiles made me smile when I spotted them in my stash as my Dad liked a game of scrabble.

A few more embellishments and a sub-title – the name of the lake we were on.

Just the journalling and a couple more elements –  the Tim Holtz metal tag and the little addition to the tag that was a rub on and my hand writing. And I also added a drawn border to the tag edge. 

And that was it finished. As usual I really like the results. I scrapped an old but good story and used two new products. I think they’ll be making numerous appearances and the weeks go by.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

I began this weekly challenge half a year ago. Where has 2012 gone? I am both happy and surprised that I have managed to complete so many layouts because I set myself this goal. There is something about making a commitment even if its only to yourself. 

I was looking at all of the layouts and trying to establish a few things in my mind about my style? Or indeed do I have a style?

And do you know what conclusion I came to? I don’t. Or rather I do but it’s not one thing or another, it’s all things. I think that’s a cop out but really I cannot come up with what my style is from looking at these layouts.

• I like clean and simple but I like paint splatters too.
• I like photos straight but occasionally offset them.
• Less is most definitely more. 
• I like circles and anchoring border type strips across the page.
• I use one photo but just as many times I use multiple photos.

I don’t blaze a trail of innovation I’m a normal regular scrapbooker and I hope I tell good stories and scrap real life photos that sometimes are awkward to fit onto a page but it’s better to roll with it that way than to force something and miss the overall feel of the story.

I’m going out a limb here and stating that you don’t have to have a style. You can struggle with every page you make, you can chop and change styles and go with the flow. And at the end if you love the page you made its all okay and worth the struggle and pondering.   

Here’s to another twenty-six weeks of scrapping goodness.

Welcome to week twenty-six. Technically its week twenty-five because I missed last week I don’t know if it was the photos or the week that I stumbled on but I just couldn’t bring inspiration to the fore.

I plugged away with the same photos I had picked last week though as it was a story I wanted to tell.

The photos are a collection of shots from our 2010 USA trip. They are just regular shots of the places we visited but together they show how packed in we made this trip and that was the story. I wanted the layout to be busy and jumbled to convey the hectic two weeks.

After trimming down the photos as much as I could I had to go with a two page layout. My go to colours seem to be blue and green at the moment so I pulled out some of those coloured papers and letter stickers.   

There is a stamp set that I have which contains a couple of arrows and other travel icons and yesterday I bought a wonderful new stamp set from 7 Gypsies that also had arrows in.

I decided to stamp directly onto the background. I’d had this idea last week and went with it. Something about the arrows made the layout have that ‘what’s next – onto the next thing’ feel.

I matted some of the photos and off set them. Something I never do – in fact it gives me a twitch! But as the angle looks all off balance it felt right for the mood I was creating.

I also added a few odd bits of papers at the top and bottom of each page. Going along with my theme I drew lines for short bursts of journalling. I also added the title and a few other embellishments on four of the photos.

I think it almost gets over the feel I was going for. Not my usual style but I love the stamped arrows.

I decided to add the ‘end here’ and a few gems to complete the layout.

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.

 

Welcome to week twenty-four.

I have to admit that I put this page together in rush. I realised at 5pm yesterday that I was working today and would not be able to create the weekly layout so I headed up to the craft room and just did it. It was amazingly liberating.

I found these two photos of my niece a few years back standing next to just planted sunflowers in one shot and then later in the year when they had grown way above her head.

The colours in the photographs were all over the place red, green, pink, blue etc. SO I pulled my usual standby out. Blue.

Hmm… Not convinced but I carried on with that theme finding some scraps to use.

What got my attention out of the little bunch of papers and embellishments was that multi coloured banner – right at the top of the above photo. I thought it went well with the mood of the story and the mish mash of colour would work too.

So I left the blue background behind in favour of white.

Much better and I liked that green paper to matt the photos on too.

As they were odd sized photographs I cut a big matt and thought I’d use the space for journalling. Here is the matt on the white cardstock.

I then just tucked random pieces of paper under the matt till I liked what I saw. I kept the balance of weight on the right. I also found that yellow border sticker and added it in as I knew there was yellow in the banner and that was a colour not already in the design.

The banner was added and a few flower brads to the yellow border at the top right.

Keeping with he fun happy theme I added some bright flower stickers to balance the layout, pull in some extra colour.

The space for journalling was used up with my rather long title.

I added the little bit of journalling around the edge of the matt and then a dashed line here and there.

And that was week twenty-four.

I’m planning on gathering my thoughts at the half way stage of this weekly layout challenge which is in a couple of weeks. I want to focus my thoughts on what I am learning, if anything, about the way I scrap the process I go through and my style. 

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Weekly Layout is a series of blog posts that I am doing every week in 2012. I am walking through the process of putting the page together with a bit of background to why I picked the design and embellishments for the page. I hope to develop my style and push myself by taking on this challenge. You can see previous weeks here.