The wheels on the bus ...

Just a quick post to share another layout from our Italy holiday last year.

The bottom corner of the page had the washi effect printed on it, but I added some more of my own to add some more layers.

I didn't have a bus, but I did have a car, so decided that would do for an embellishment!

Are you looking forward to a summer holiday?

Talking of holidays ...

I am off on my holidays soon with Hugh. We are spending a week in Crete and I am really looking forward to it. Penny will be house, cat and chicken sitting and trying to keep cool in the inevitable heat wave we will have in the UK whilst we are out of the country!

As I said the other day, I haven’t had much time for scrapbooking, but I did manage a couple of layouts when I went with Wendy to Sue’s the other evening. I made up a kit to take with me which makes scrapping so much easier when you are away from your stash!

I used a stencil here and some distress inks to make the spotty background paper. When I layered some of the spotty paper I had on top I realised that it was almost exactly the same colour!

 

This is also made from the same kit. I liked the 'us' circle which I cut from a scrap I had included in the kit.

I've also finished knitting a 'floppy cat' for my friend Wendy. She admired Penny's and I had some wool left over, so I made her one. She doesn't know yet - I shall give it to her later in the month when we get together!

Have you created anything recently?

The Ruins, part 2!

And so we visited our second set of ruins! Pompeii!

I grabbed out my stamps for this layout and used the two little camera ones I had to add as borders. I also cut out some flowers from some patterned paper. The clouds were also cut from patterned paper. The arrows were cut using my Big Shot and embossed through it too.

I love the orange and blue together - I seem to be using this quite a lot recently.

I was very pleased with the title. I cut the letters with my Cricut and then heat embossed them with a copper embossing powder. I did it twice to made it nice and thick.

I am slowly using up my Thickers and trying not to buy any more, but to create my own letters with my Cricut and/or Big Shot. How do you create titles? Do you prefer to buy letter stickers or make them yourself?

Fireplace Faces

Yet another layout from Herculaneum! This is based on a Glitter Girl sketch. It is a layout I find myself using a lot as it is good for one vertical and one horizontal photo.

The journalling in close up.

I enjoyed digging through my buttons to use on this layout.They are something I need to use more of - I have a huge collection!

What do you need to use more often? Do you have a huge collection of anything? (Sssh! I also have FAR too many rolls of washi tape!)

Keeping it clean and simple

Phew! This challenge from last weekend really took it out of me! I found it REALLY difficult to do clean and simple! It took me longer to do this layout than to do some of my other ones with lots of layers and loads of embellishments! You can see Jennifer's layout and challenge here.

And here is my layout for the challenge.

I am actually quite pleased with the result, but don't think I can always scrap like this!

I did add three little gems to the centres of the flowers - couldn't do nothing lol!

Jennifer's challenges all end tonight at 10.59pm. Have you entered any?

Second post for Saturday!

Have found some time to do a quick page this afternoon I decided to go with another challenge from last weekend's blog event over at Jennifer Grace's. This time I went for the challenge to use orange, teal and white on a layout.

I am never sure if I have chosen the right colour for teal, but I held the papers against my iPad and they looked as if they matched the sample colours Jennifer had put on her blog!

I used my Big Shot to cut out the journalling card and then found some stickers and washi tape which appeared to the right colour!

I cut the arrows out, again with my Big Shot and found some little shiny star 'things' on the Thickers sheet which I liked and so added. The enamel gems were three I had left from a kit and then I decided to add a load of little white pears.

So, I think I have completed this challenge! It was fun and I got to use orange again!

More from the blog event

As promised, here is the second layout I created today in response to another of Jennifer's posts. This one was inspired by her challenge 'Can you Resist it?!'

Oh my! I just LOVED doing this layout! I have never made a resist background before and I had such fun making this one! The paper is still a little curled in this photo as I wanted to get it photographed and blogged!

I used two different Amy Tangerine stamps, stamped with clear embossing powder, set it and then gave it a wash with some watercolour paints I bought years ago from 'The Works'. The paints are actually shimmery, so the effect in sunshine is lovely!

This is definitely a technique I will be using again. When I showed the paper to Hugh before sticking everything down he thought I had bought it!

I cut the title with my Cricut and I have to say that this is one of my favourite layouts this year! Do hop on over to Jennifer's blog to see how she created her layout and have a go yourself! It's great fun!

Creating with Jennifer Grace

I have had very little time to join in with Jennifer's blog event this weekend, but I have had the time to read all her posts and make notes on which ones I would like to develop and make my own over the next few weeks!

Although I have had very little time to myself this weekend (which was ok as it was very much time spent with family which I love), I did have a couple of hours this afternoon, where I managed to secrete myself in the conservatory (with the fan on as it was so hot!) and create two layouts inspired by Jennifer's event.

The first layout is inspired by this post to 'Create without Fuss'. Jennifer asked what we usually 'fuss' about on a layout and with me it is very much putting embellishments in groups of 3. The idea was to 'let go' of that and create without thinking about it.

Although there are three embellishments at the bottom of the page, they are not identical, which is what I usually go for and the jewels I dotted around the page are definitely not in groups!

Hugh doesn't want you to think he is a philistine! He was just having some fun and it stuck all holiday! I had to record it, after all, that is what scrapbooking is all about!

I will be back later this evening with my second layout. See you then!

Don't forget that the draw to win the prize from the blog hop ends tomorrow evening. If you would like to be in it to win it, then leave a comment on the blog hop post below. And Jennifer's prize draw also ends tomorrow at 9.59pm, so hop on over to her blog if you haven't entered there yet! 

A dream come true

I created this layout last weekend, over the Bank Holiday. I am slowly making my way through my Italy photos, and thoroughly enjoying reliving my holiday, whilst looking forward to going away this year!

I have found that I really enjoy making up a kit from my own stash and have now started doing this before I start a scrapbooking session. This is also allowing me to use up papers which I have had for literally years.

With this layout I also made use of a Sizzix die and stamp set which Hugh bought me for Christmas a couple of years ago and which I have hardly used. I used it to create the butterflies.

This weekend has been a bit of a washout. It was our 27th wedding anniversary on Friday, but I had to make an unexpected trip to Canterbury to collect Penny from her flat as she had experienced a trying week at uni and had completed her 2nd year but needed a bit of support. The trip down took twice as long as usual as did the trip back - and on the way back I developed a migraine. Not wanting to spoil our planned meal out I took pills and struggled on, and Hugh and I did have a nice meal together although I didn't want to eat much! Yesterday the migraine remained with me all day, so I didn't do anything and today I am feeling very washed out, but fortunately the head seems to be on the mend.

I hope that you have had a better weekend than me!

Don't forget that it is Jennifer's blog event next weekend, starting on Friday with the blog hop.

Look forward to seeing you then!

A quick layout from the weekend

I hope that you are all enjoying the Bank Holiday weekend (if you are in the UK) and that you have managed to keep out of the rain. We had a tremendous thunderstorm on Saturday afternoon and I could hardly hear myself think in the conservatory where I was scrapbooking!

I have made a few layouts over the weekend, but for now, here is one from our Italian holiday.

It is one of those layouts which took me ages to do and then I was a bit 'meh' about it. I think it is growing on me a bit now, but at least I have got the story recorded!

Revisiting Italy

I had great fun looking through my Italian holiday photos again over the Easter weekend and starting to scrap some of them.

I used some Alison Kreft papers to make this layout.

This layout was made using the kit I put together myself with some added cut apart cards which tied in with the colours.

A close up of the journalling.

I've still got quite a bit of my yellow/blue kit to use up, but I think it will work really well with some more of my Italy photos.

And finally the close up of the journalling on the last layout.

SJCrafts Challenge for May

Over on SJCrafts blog they are holding monthly challenges to get your creative juices flowing! This month it is a bingo challenge! You have to pick three elements in the grid, either horizontally, vertically or diagonally and use them in your layout. Here is the bingo 'board' from the blog.

For my first layout I went horizontally across the top, including ink (on the edges of the paper) and mist, a border punch and circles.

The mist is dotted on the top left and bottom right of the page.

For the second layout I went vertically down the left hand side - ink/mist, something transparent, mixed alphas title/journalling.With the mist I again dotted it on the top left, but I also used a stencil and sprayed the hexagons in the bottom right. For something transparent I went with the hexagon with 'choose happy' in it.

For the mixed alphas, well you can see them here! (Although I managed to cut off the last letters when I photographed it in close up -they are there, honest!)

For my third layout I went diagonally from top left to bottom right, choosing ink or mist, metal embellie and to include a bow or knot.

As you can see, I edged all the paper with ink, but also did my scatter of mist again on top right and did the reverse of the hexagon stencil above the title. The knot it in the ribbon tied around the photo.

The metal embellie is a word 'brad' which I have had for an age. I also used quite a few brads across the page and to hold the transparent ticket on the top left.

What was even better with these layouts is that apart from the metal embellies, the washi tape and the mist/ink, all the rest came in the SJ Crafts April kit! I had not had a chance to work with it before today and thoroughly enjoyed myself this afternoon.

I am linking this post up to the May blog challenge on SJ Crafts. Do hop on over to see what other people have done with this challenge.

Day 8 - Coming home

I am on the plane on my way back home. We have had a wonderful holiday. We ended our stay this morning with a big breakfast, packing, moving to our late check out room and then going to the pool. We had reserved loungers which was a good move as it was quite busy.

We swam, read and sunbathed until 12.30 when we went up to our much smaller late check out room to shower and dress. Once we had done that we went back down to the terrace and found a table to sit at to have lunch.

We both had a pizza and shared a bottle of fizzy water which was lovely.

We then got our cases from the room and checked out. It was then a case of waiting in the lounge area to be collected by the coach. We had to wait nearly an hour, but Hugh snoozed and I read a bit.

The return to Naples airport was uneventful and once we had checked in we bought a nutty bar each to eat on the flight and then waited to board.

So, no we are only about 20 minutes from landing. Can't wait to see Penny again.

Day 7 - Vesuvius

Phew it's hot!

Had breakfast at 7.30am and were the only ones in the dining room for the first 10 minutes or so, got the shuttle bus into town and then went to the station. The train was late coming in so we stood chatting to a couple from our hotel who are from Southampton. When the train finally left it was a relief as we needed the breeze that came in!

We arrived late at Pompeii but that didn't matter as it meant less waiting around for the bus to depart. We had bought tickets for the Busvia del Vesuvio.

A bus took us to the National Park and then we transferred onto a four wheel drive bus. That ride was a bit hairy to say the least!

We arrived about 600m from the summit and then had to walk the rest of the way. It was quite cloudy which was actually nice as it meant it was cool. It was punishing walking though - almost vertical and very slippery stones under foot. We arrived at the summit after about a 20 minute walk. Fortunately the cloud cleared quite a bit some got quite a good view of the Bay of Naples,

 but what was more important was that we had an excellent view of the crater

and even saw some steam coming out! Hugh was pleased!

After a slippery walk back down

we returned on the 4x4 and I felt really car sick! Fortunately I wasn't. After transferring back to the ordinary bus we arrived back at Pompeii just before 2pm and got the 7 minutes past train black to Sorrento.

As we had to wait 45 minutes for the hotel bus we did a little more souvenir shopping and had a 3 scoop gelato each!

We got back to the hotel just after 4.30pm and had a rest in the room before going for a swim and a read by the pool.