Gotta Craft Kit

I saw this kit on Gotta Craft and as I hadn't had a kit for a while and it looked rather scrummy I decided to treat myself! I wasn't disappointed and it arrived the day after I had ordered it which was wonderful!

I added just a few flowers I had in my stash to it and some more Authentique words and came up with this layout, based on one in the Pencillines Sketchbook.

I just love these papers, which aren't really paper at all, much more like card! I've got quite a bit left and so will definitely be making another layout with this kit.

 

This is definitely a kit I think I would like to subscribe to!

Family Photo

When I posted our family photo on 28th April, Sandie said it looked like a good photo to scrap sometime. I had thought exactly the same and was actually in the process of scrapping it when she posted her comment!

So, here is the layout based on Pencillines sketch 235.

And here are some close ups:

I used American Crafts papers (which Ben had bought me for Christmas) and for the flowers at the bottom I cut them out individually from a sheet of patterned paper - very therapeutic!

Pencillines Winner!

Just a quickie to say that I have found out that I am the February winner over on Pencillines! I am thrilled!

Looking forward to having a barbecue this evening and then a lovely four day weekend. Have fun everyone and I will be back soon :)

A Pencillines Layout

I am still working my way through all my photos that I want to scrap from last year! I have scrapped a huge number, but you should see the number of photos that haven't made it into the albums and are now in photo albums! I have told Ben that when he leaves home in September I will be putting shelves up in his bedroom to store photo albums and scrapbook albums!

Anyway, onto the layout. This is based on Sketch 227 on the Pencillines website. I enjoyed this one as it was nice and simple to do after my layering layout last week! I was able to use my Cricut to cut the music notes out and then I used foam tape to give them a little lift!

Some more layouts to share with you later in the week and also an update on how my photography course that I started yesterday went.

Pencillines sketch 226

I had great fun creating this layout based on the Pencillines sketch 226. I used my 'Sew Easy' and hand stitched all the papers on to make it look like a patchwork. It took some time, but I was pleased with the result. I used a Sarah's Cards kit which made co-ordinating colours and embellishments nice and easy.

The only thing not from the kit were the Thickers, but they were the perfect colour!

I had a busy weekend with scrapping and chores! You have to get those chores done! I will share a couple more layouts later in the week.

A Pencillines Layout

I haven't taken part in a Pencillines sketch for a while, but this week's, number 224, was just right for these two photos and I really enjoyed using it. The papers were some pieces I had lying about in my stash and I coupled them with some white American Crafts card and made some embellishments by cutting out hearts, etc from the paper and sticking them onto some chipboard pieces to make them co-ordinate.

The wedding was August Bank holiday and was Hugh's colleague. I first met his colleague, Mark, when they were both working for Keymed and Mark was a very young lad of about 19! 20 odd years later and Hugh and Mark are now both working for Storz and we were attending his wedding to Zoe. It was an extremely happy day, and although I knew no one else there, everyone was very friendly and we both had a great time - as did Mark and Zoe! They are now expecting their first baby, which is due in May, so I wish them all the very best.

A couple of layouts to share

Over the weekend I was fairly busy with Christmas shopping, but still managed to get in some scrapbooking and photographing a couple of layouts I did the week before.

This layout is based on the Pencillines Sketch 213. I am still working my way through our Portugal photos and thought that these papers from a Sarahs Cards Kit worked well with the photos. The large flower is a Prima that I was lucky enough to win at the Scrapping Angels Retreat this year.

Again, papers from a Sarahs Cards kit and based on the same sketch. Some days when I do layouts I think they are ok, put them in the album and that's it. Other days, I do a layout and I really like it and leave it out to share with people. These two layouts fall into the second category, I was really pleased with them! I did a double page spread over the weekend, but haven't had a chance to photograph it yet - will try and do that and share it at the weekend.

Just meant to say thank you to everyone for your kind comments about our Children in Need efforts. Our total raised came to £851, which was fantastic.

Pencillines Sketch 160

Here is my take on sketch 160 which was up on the Pencillines blog for their fourth birthday.

I had a complete block when it came to a title, but Penny came up with this one which I thought was great :)

By the time I had finished this layout it was too late to enter it for the birthday competition, but I am not too worried about that as the main reason for joining in was to get inspiration and to use up some of my stash! All the patterned paper on this layout was pieces that had been laying around in my RUB box waiting to be used, so I was pleased to use most of it up - however, there are still some bits of it left, so I think I may have to make some cards (out of my comfort zone that is!).

Pencillines sketch 209

At last I have managed to do the birthday sketch from Pencillines. I have had all the stash sitting on my desk all week, but been so tired every evening have just thought about doing it! But this afternoon I have spent in the conservatory at my desk, watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and doing this page.

I have used the papers from Sarah's Cards April kit - which are GCD Ava papers, plus some AC cardstock. I still have some of this kit left and this is about my fourth layout with it! I love that there are so many flowers and butterflies you can cut out of it - unfortunately it makes the kit spread to many, many layouts!

The journalling tells how Hugh and I took a very long, hot and steep walk up to see this castle in Portugal. We were the only ones on the path and at times we were not sure we were going the right way, as there was very little signage. We had the Rough Guide to the Algarve with us and that wasn't very informative, but we did manage to get there - only to find that the castle, although undergoing restoration, was closed! The outside however was magnificent and Hugh managed to find a large rock for us to stand on round the back which meant we could see over the wall into the castle, which was better than nothing. The views from the top were superb - we could see for miles. It was a very lonely and isolated spot and we couldn't imagine having to live there hundreds of years ago. It took us nearly an hour and a half to walk there from the road and the nearest village was about another thirty minutes walk away.

We went on from there - after a long walk back! - to see another castle, which I will do a layout and tell you about another day. I will also tell you about our walk back down and the goats!

3rd post today!

Well, I got another layout done really quickly and I am quite pleased with it. I've moved on from my birthday and have started on our Portugal photos. This layout shows the folk dancers we saw on our last evening and is based on Pencillines sketch 100. The evening was a lot of fun, although quite scary at the beginning! We were picked up the last of 4 couples in a jeep, driven by a very wild Portugese driver! We had a 40 minute journey to get to the tavern in the middle of the countryside and at one point thought we weren't going to get there as he was such a bad driver! On the way home everyone nominated Hugh to tell the driver to drive more carefully - he was a bit better and we did get back to the hotel in one piece! The folk dancers were fantastic. It was a really, really hot evening and they danced their hearts out and got sooo hot! They all looked as if they were really enjoying themselves too and not just dancing to earn themselves some money!

I again used the August Sarah's card kit - the colours are not too great on the photo as I had to take the photo in artificial light.

Second post today!

Yes, I have been a busy bee today :) Not only have a I got all my household chores done, cooked a roast dinner, done the previous post and prepared tomorrow's lunch for work, but I have also joined in with Pencillines fourth birthday celebrations. Since 8am this morning there has been a sketch posted every hour with the chance to win a prize. All you have to do to enter is to use the sketch to create a layout and then post a link. I have only managed to do one so far and here it is:

It is based on sketch 47 and I have used my Sarah's Cards kit from August, which has been sitting on my desk for a little while! The patterned papers are all Kaiser Kraft Peachey Keen and I just loved cutting out the flowers, the bird and the leaves from the papers.

As I love using sketches as the basis for my layouts I am now hopping back to the site to choose another one to have a go at. You have until 23rd October to upload layouts if you want to enter for prizes, otherwise you can just play along using the sketches at your leisure :)

Pencillines Sketchbook Layout

This layout is from a sketch in the Pencillines sketchbook. The photos were again taken at my cousin's wedding, but at the reception this time. The words around the circle are some of the words from the musical Hair. There is a tag hidden behind the picture of Hugh and Emily which tells the story. Basically, my sister was admiring my cousin Helen's long hair. She and my Mum were gossiping about it and saying that they expected that the extensions she had cost her a fortune. Pippa then went to chat to Helen and said how much she liked her extensions. At which point, Helen grabbed hold of them, pulled them out and said 'do you really, they came from the Ideal Home Show, go and try them on!'. Pippa promptly went to the loos and tried them on. As you can see from the other photos, her youngest daughter Emily was stunned and her husband and our uncle were amazed!

We all had such a laugh and said how lucky it was that at our age our hair was now all the same colour - is that genes or is it L'Oreal!?

Another Layout from a sketch!

Whilst I was away at the Retreat I also took part in the sketch challenge which Anna set. As the founder of Pencillines Anna came up with a great sketch and as regular readers of my blog will know, I love to base a layout on a sketch!

 I used loads of bits and pieces from my May Sarah's Cards kit and was really pleased with the layout I came up with. I hand stitched the top of the layout, which took ages! I finally finished it at 11pm on the Saturday - I was determined to do it before I went to bed! The photos were taken of my nieces a couple of years ago when we went to the park on Hugh's birthday. We had gone for a stroll to walk down the large dinner and when we arrived the icecream van was there - well, the children wanted one so what could we do!

Olivia, the big sister, is so neat and managed to eat hers getting no icecream on her face or clothes. OK, so Emily is younger, but she is such the opposite of Olivia. She was absolutely covered! They are still like it at 7 and (nearly) 4!

I am loving the Prima pearls and can't get enough of them. Nearly every layout I am doing at the moment has them on somewhere!

Happy Bank Holiday!

I hope you are all having a relaxing weekend. Mine started off at 6.45am yesterday as Ben and I got up and went down to the pool for our weekly swim. I have now been swimming every Saturday at this time for about 10 weeks - it doesn't get any easier getting up that early on a Saturday, but I do enjoy the swimming once I get there. I only managed 54 lengths this week - have been managing up to 60, but I felt really tired!

Once I had returned home, showered and dressed Hugh and I went to Brentwood shopping - nothing for me unfortunately this week! A couple of casual shirts for Penny from M&Co and a couple of pairs of trousers for Ben from Sports Direct. We then rushed home to be back by midday as Penny was coming home from lunch from her Saturday job. Once she had returned, and as it was raining, we decided that we would both spend the afternoon doing our hobbies. I managed to get a couple of layouts done -

this carries on from my layout of Ben last week. I also did this one, which was based on another sketch in the Pencillines book

I used a key which was in my package from Sian and some corrugated alphas which had been lurking in my stash for a while now.

In the evening I watched the video of our wedding, as it is our anniversary today - 23 years! It's a little ritual I have to watch the video every year on, or within a day or so, of our anniversary. The outfits all look so dated and 80's! I really enjoyed myself though and spent a lovely 30 minutes watching it. I did fast forward through our best man's speech though as he goes on for ever and it wasn't very funny at the time, let alone 23 years on!

So, to end this post I would like to wish my hubbie a very happy anniversary, and thank him for the past 23 years (and also thank you for the beautiful Lovelinks bead for my bracelet xx). We have had some troubles, but mostly happy times and I love him lots. Here's a photo from our extremely happy day:

Love you Hugh!

Pencillines Sketch 186

Spent Saturday afternoon sitting in my sunny conservatory doing this layout. Looks like it says rook queen, but actually says Rock Queen! I think I have shown you these photos before in the mini books I did for Mum and Pippa, but thought I would bore you all again with this layout - well, it is a bit different lol!

A layout about a boy

My Mum has been catching up on my blog and has two complaints - one, I don't check my spelling well enough and two, there are not enough posts with Ben on! So, here you are Mum, a layout about Ben and all the spelling here is correct lol!

This layout was done using a Pencillines Sketch and shows Ben and his friends when they went to the Ice Bar in London for one of their friend's birthday. They had great fun and took loads of photos which I managed to download off Facebook! As a Mum of a 20 year old, I don't get access to many photos of him with his friends! I have got another load, which I will be working on, from when he went snowboarding in March. I will share some of those layouts soon.

Little layout

I did manage to do three layouts at the weekend, plus two cards. Now making cards is very unusual for me as I am not really a card maker, but as I had some scraps left from doing two of the layouts I decided to use them up making cards. I have not photographed the cards or the two layouts yet that produced the cards, but here is a layout I made using some of the Prima Strawberry Kisses line. The photograhs are from *gulp* 19 years ago - nearly! It is Penny's birthday on Sunday and I had been thinking a lot about her birth and so decided to scan in a couple of photos and record the details about her labour - not the really gory bits though! I have done the journalling on a couple of tags, which are behind the main picture, so you don't have to read about it if you don't want to lol! I used another of the Pencillines book sketches as the starting point for this layout, rotating the sketch to use landscape photos. So, here it is:

Gosh, I look so young! So does Hugh too! I was pleased with this layout as I covered the frame with fabric and used some fabric under the white flower; I don't usually use fabric on my layouts so I was pleased with how it came out. Hugh managed to get me the MS large butterfly punch in New Orleans, so as you can see, I used it a bit here!

Busy Weekend ....

on the scrapping front! Even though I have had the most viscious headache all weekend, I have done more layouts over the weekend than I did over all of last month! I have managed to do the Pencillines layout for this week and two layouts with my Sarahs Cards kit plus another layout using the sketch from their blog. The sketch one I will have to  blog later in the week, as I haven't photographed it yet, but here are the others I have done this weekend.

Pencillines Sketch 185

First layout using Sarah's Cards April Kit and Design Leaflet

Second layout from Sarah's Cards April Kit

Hugh phoned this morning from New Orleans - the exhibition is going well, it is really humid there and they had a massive storm yesterday evening. He has Thursday free and may be able to go to Jo-Anns or Michaels for me - yippee! I did send him with a list in case he had some free time!

Mum and Dad came down this morning for a cup of coffee and spent a couple of hours which was really nice as I hadn't seen them for about a month as they had been on holiday to the South of France. They both looked really well and it was lovely to see them. They brought me down a book which I haven't read - a James Patterson, so once I have finished my current book I have a nice thriller to look forward to.

Back to work tomorrow, so probably no more scrapping until next weekend. Should hear from Anna this week to find out when the Retreat has been re-arranged for. Hopefully not when I am on holiday in Portugal!

My Pencillines Layout

Here is the layout I did for Sketch 177 over on Pencillines. Sketch 178 came out last night, but I will have to wait until the weekend to do that - actually I may make myself some time and do it one night in the week lol!

What a long week!

The week didn't start off well as I woke at 3.15am on Monday with a migraine. Took my pill and went back to bed to sleep it off. Ended up at work by 11.30am, but have felt really tired all week. Finally felt better by Friday and then on Saturday morning went swimming with Ben again and did 52 lengths! Actually felt really good when I had finished and nowhere near as tired as last week. In fact I managed to do a couple of layouts last night. My Pencillines Sketch 176

 

and another layout from my trip to Cologne using a sketch from the Pencillines Sketch Book

 

I must also show you the wonderful blog candy I received from Dee (Sprytebyrd), which she sent all the way from the States

 

I never dreamed that she would send me this much, so a HUGE thank you to Dee. I can't wait to start using it all :)

Off to Freeport at Braintree this afternoon. Ben visited there yesterday with his girlfriend and phoned me from there to ask me if I knew that there was a Paper Mill shop there. NO! I didn't! So that calls for a little trip this afternoon. Well, it is a beautful sunny day, but too cold to really go out for a walk - any excuse really lol. All the jobs are done, so the afternoon is my own. Hope you all have a good Sunday too.