CATS

I am a bit of a mad cat lady - as well as two of my own I also foster for my local cat's protection.

I realised I hadn't captured my latest cats on a page and needed to rectify that.

I used a variety of papers for my page - the 12 x 12 is from BoBunny Love and Lace and some of the background papers are from Kaisercraft.  I chose to do a lot of the journalling by hand to explain my cats.  Can you see my little black one Jet is sticking his tongue out at me - cheeky little thing.  They are not the best of friends but they do tolerate each other - this is about as close as they get - they are sitting on our Hot Tub! 

I'm putting this page into two challenges - A Facebook Group challenge which asked for us to use Sequins - It's called For The Love of Pretty Paper and is a UK scrapbook group.

I'm also adding this into the Paper Players challenge which is asking for Animal Antics. 





     

LET'S SCRAP

Another couple of pages from me today - the time flies when you have layouts to do - a lot of the time is spent putting things on and off the base until I'm happy enough with it to add glue!

My first layout is for Sketches In Thyme and their challenge for June 1st.




My children, especially  my son, has an annoying habit of taking Selfies if you happen to leave your phone unattended. I say children - look at them they are 27 and 24!!  They are hilarious though and it certainly brightens up my phone feed - I never know what will be on there next.  I've used some retired Stampin Up papers here to co-ordinate with son's jumper as this was a Christmas jumper!  The washi tape is also retired SU.  The sentiments are from Kaisercraft.

My other layout is of hubby and I a few years ago on our first trip to Tuscany, Italy.  We love Italy and as I sing opera it is one of my favourite places to go to and we did get to see Puccini's house.  This was our first visit to Tuscany though rather than one of the main cities and it was out of season and very peaceful.  I've used Kaisercraft papers here - some of it from their Snap Picture Perfect set.

This one is for the Let's Get Sketchy challenge for June 1st.

DOOR HANGER

I'm using some old Cherry Pie Art Stamps here for my project today - I say project because it's neither a card nor a scrapbook layout.  Its a Door Hanger.  It's going to hang on my door so hubby knows if things are going well in the craft room or not lol!  It's reversible so I'm hoping the one showing the most is the one where I'm not stuck for ideas.

I'm adding this into the following challenges:

Try It On Tuesday - I was delighted to be chosen as one of their Top Five last week for my destination Tag 

And also Retro Rubber who asks us to use stamps older than one year and this week it is Anything Goes.  My stamp is a Cherry Pie Art stamp which I purchased in 2007!  Definitely older than a year!





 

HAND STAMPED SENTIMENTS #291 - SCRAPBOOK LAYOUT

Time for another challenge over at HSS this week - this is what we have for you to whet your appetite



I chose to do a Scrapbook Layout for this one as I really didn't have a lot in the way of stamps with a fish theme other than Jar of Love and the little fish.  For my page I've used some of Kaisercraft's papers called Beach Shack - I've used a total of four designs here all cut in various sizes to create the background.  The shell papers are also from the same design.  This actually took me longer than I thought it would lining up all those papers.  The letters are from a die cut set which I purchased in my local store.  

The picture is of my husband and son last year when we went to the Greek Island of Skopolos - also known as the Mammia Mia Island as it is where they filmed the movie!  

I hope you check out the rest of the Design Team to see what inspiration they have for you - we look forward to seeing all your great projects.





 

CSI - CASE FILE No 255

Another scrapbook page from me today for the CSI challenge - I'm getting to understand this challenge more now and not feel quite so daunted as I first did - realising I can take parts of it not all of it!




I've taken inspiration from the colours, hearts, dots, ribbon, topic of food (my daughter is on the beach having a bbq) and I've even stretched myself and written a Haiku.  Admittedly I had to Google that and see exactly what was involved and I think I've matched the brief pretty well.

Traditionally, haiku is written in three lines, with five syllables in the first line, seven syllables in the second line, and five syllables in the third line. 

• A focus on nature.
• A "season word" such as "snow" which tells the reader what time of year it is.
• A division somewhere in the poem, which focuses first on one thing, than on another. The relationship between these two parts is sometimes surprising.
• Instead of saying how a scene makes him or her feel, the poet shows the details that caused that emotion. If the sight of an empty winter sky made the poet feel lonely, describing that sky can give the same feeling to the reader.

My poem reads - Emma By the Sea, Winter Barby on the Beach, Emma's Happy Place

I've used some of the lovely Kaisercraft Beach Shack papers here - the background one was made wavy by an old tool I still have which waves the paper - I can't remember what it's called.  The dots are from Stampin Up Kinda Eclectic - the Welsh stamp is an old one as this was taken at Aberystwyth when Emma was there at University. Wales is our home country and very close to our hearts so the hearts were a natural addition.  


 

ALL ABOARD

I've been inspired by two challenges today for my scrapbook page - the first is Inspired By who gave us this great image :



The second is a sketch I found at Sketches In Thyme 

Inspired by the imagery of Inspired By I chose to make my photos black and white and they fit with the whole era of this page as we were actually on an old Steam Train - it runs evenings as a Real Ale train and my hubby loves both - real ale and steam trains so it was a perfect birthday present for him a few years ago.  He would much rather have been driving the train but I'm not sure that's allowed!

I've used papers from Kaisercraft here and laso some old BoBunny pieces I had in my stash.  The tickets were hand made and the rub on is an old one I had also in my stash.


 

CELEBRATION!

I don't know about you but a lot of the cards I make never really ever get sent - some go as RAK's on my Joy of Sets page - some are for family members, but today's card has a real purpose. My dearest neice has just had her first baby at age 39.  Not an easy birth sadly but mum and baby are now doing well - she is my sister's daughter and I lost my sister in 1999 so she is very precious and it's so lovely that she now has a daughter of her own.

I chose to use Stampin' Up's Bookcase Builder for my card - I'm always surprised that this little set didn't get the love I think it deserved.  I think it's retiring now also but I will keep hold of it as I think it is great for lots of occasions.

I followed the brief from Fab Friday for my colours for the card and have used Powder Pink, Melon Mambo and Flirty Flamingo. Flirty Flamingo was never one of my favourite colours and I only have it in marker pen but it works well for inking up the little stamps in this set.




I've used Powder Pink cardstock as my base and for the scallop circle around the stitched framelit circle.  This was first embossed with the retired hearts embossing folder.  The ribbon is Powder Pink shimmer ribbon.

 

MEMORIES

Searching back through old photos can give you a big jolt of nostalgia - how quickly the years ago.  I recently found this old photo of my daughter and her horse Figaro.  This picture was taken on a beach in Texas - we lived there for nearly three years and bought Figaro when we were there - Emma was aged 12.  She is now 27 and still has this horse - we brought him back to the UK with us when we returned -he has been her rock, her soulmate, her best friend.

I love this picture of the two of them on the beach - barefoot, bareback and just loving life.

I used the gorgeous papers from Kaisercraft Beach Shack for this layout.  Emma is a child of the sea, being a Pisces, and this all suits her down tot he ground.  It also ties in with The Studio Challenges Tic Tac Toe challenge and I used the middle line of Animal, Blue Brads for my inspiration for this layout.  



 

SIMPLE BUTTERFLIES

A card from me today for the colour Inkspiration challenge over on Facebook - #C134  which gave us this image as inspiration and the choice of colours.  Addicted to Stamps has a Clean and Simple challenge so I'm adding this into their challenge also.







I'm also adding this into the Allsorts Challenge who are asking for Insects, Bugs, Bees and Butterflies.  Bees and Butteflies are about the only insects/bugs I can do lol!  I was lucky enough to win one of the Allsorts Challenge a few weeks ago and my prize was a fabulous voucher for Stamp Addicts.  I received some lovely stamps which I've yet to ink up but they will be being shown soon.


My Pool Party ink is very dry - quite a few of the new colours I got last year went dry really quickly and yet I have SU inks over 10 years old that are still in good condition.  Sometimes different isn't better!  

I've used grey cardstock for my background and a piece of DSP from the Coffee Suite as the backing paper as it has that gorgeous pool party colour.  I've used Kinda Eclectic stamp set and the sentiment from Beautiful You.  The butterflies were simply inked in the three colours and punched out with a retired butterfly punch  A touch of the gorgeous pool party satin ribbon finishes off the card.

Thank you for stopping by.



 

MR & MRS - 1985

33 years ago in September hubby and I said I do - and we still do!  The challenge over at Inspired By is 




and it inspired me to do another scrapbook page.  I happened to be going through some old photos on the computer and this one popped up - I'd obviously scanned it in sometime earlier as, when we were married, there was no such thing as digital photography.

I've used some more Kaisercraft papers for this layout - I think I may need to go and search out some new papers - this was from a Kit from Charmed Crafts and Cards an online shop Ive found and this was their monthly kit back in January and luckily they still had some left.  I've added a couple of sentiment stamps from Stampin Up and the flowers and butterflies are SU thinlets and punches.


 

GONE FISHING

It's always a good idea when a partner has a hobby also -my hubby's is fly fishing and, probably in the grand scheme of things - it's probably more expensive than my crafting hobby.  So when he can go off for the day on a Bank Holiday weekend fishing I can order yummy crafting goodies to assuage his guilt lol!

In honour of his love of fishing I decided he needed a page of his own - I was inspired by Rochelle Spears and her layout and challenge 

I've used some of the lovely Kaisercraft papers again - this one is Memory Lane and some Stampin Up additions from Jar of Love stamp set and matching framelits.  There is also the little chair and drink from the SU Seasonal Thinlets set.  The little envelope in the top left hand corner hides my tag of journalling.  I do like my pages to tell a story rather than just be pictures.

And as hubby is off fishing again today - I'm on to my next layout !!! 



 

MOSAICS

I adore mosaics - I have a mosaic table in my garden and have often fancied actually doing my own with the tiles but I've never got round to it. My son is an archaeologist and I always nag him to see if he's discovered a roman mosaic on his travels - but sadly not yet.  I used to volunteer at our local Iron Age Museum and there is a fabulous mosaic that was discovered not far from where I live depicting Mars the Roman god of war - it was discovered on the floor of a house about 5 miles away from where I live - it is over 2,000 years old.  An amazing piece of art and can't you just imagine ancient peoples sitting there patiently putting each piece in place.



The challenge over at As You See It is Mosaics.  My mosaic card is no-where near as detailed or fiddly.  I've used SU's Birthday Blooms which has been coloured in with Watercolour Pencils layered onto a black and grey background.

BRACKEN BOY

Seven years ago we rescued a very scared little English Springer Spaniel - then aged 18 months. He was to be a companion dog for our Welsh Springer Tegan- she was only two but we had just lost our old girl and our pup did not like other pups so we thought an older rescue dog might be better.  And as a mixed English/Welsh household we knew the two countries could live happily side by side lol!  And so it proved to be - they have been the best of friends and never a cross word between them.  He is a gentle soul and although manic in true Springer style he has come on in leaps and bounds - quite literally.  When we first got him he hated water now we can't keep him out of rivers.  He loves to play and although he still has issues such as loud noises, bangs, anything that looks like a stick which make him run a mile he's a great dog.  That's the trouble with rescues - you don't know their history and they can't tell you why they are fearful.

So in recognition of Bracken I've done a page layout for him following the sketch at Stick It Down.

I've kept the colours monochrome as much as possible in keeping with his own colour of brown and white.  I've used some of the gorgeous papers from Kaisercraft from their Lake House collection.  The scrabble words are from an old set I found in my cupboard as are the chipboard words.  It's amazing what you can find back there!

The dots and the hearts have been inked in old SU Going Gray Ink and stamps from Painter's Palette and Jar of Love.



 

CARDS IN ENVY - FEELING SKETCHY

My card today is for the above challenge Cards In Envy who asked us to choose a favourite sketch -  I must admit I'm kind of new to the whole sketch idea - apart from the challenges that ask for them I rarely look at sketches to follow!  Seems I've been missing a trick as I've now found them for scrapbooking layouts also  All those hours scratching my head trying to think of something and all I needed to do was go on Pinterest - in the words of the immortal Homer Simpson - Doh!

I found this sketch which actually fitted the card I had just done - I think I've really done that the wrong way round but hey - it worked!

I've used a lovely new set for me from Penny Black with some really lovely flowers stamps on it - my stash was actually short of flowers and I just couldn't find exactly what I was looking for until I saw this set.  I think it was called Enjoy.  I used the little daisy stamp and used some SU marker pens to colour it in - the background was sponged in Pear Pizzazz and the outer layer of the oval sponged in Tangerine Tango - with its matching ribbon - this is the last of this bit of ribbon I have and I'm gong to miss it.  The flower was one I had in my stash and I inked it in the same Tangerine Tango and added a brad - #bringbradsback!

 

SNOW DAY

Just as we thought spring was on its way in the UK we got hit with winter and lots of snow.  I chose this theme and my photos of my son, hubby and the dogs as we enjoyed the snow.  As you can see the dogs had a fabulous time.

My layout was inspired by the Let's Get Sketchy challenge blog and their sketch 





My background paper was one that I had in my stash - I've added some DSP from Stampin Up and some stamps from Project Life Remember This.  The snowflakes have been cut out with the Seasonal Thinlets.

 

MEMORIES OF SKOPOLOS, GREECE - MAMMA MIA!

Those of you who know and love the film Mamma Mia will understand my reference in the title - for those who don't last year hubby son and I went to Skopolos the Greek Island where Mamma Mia no 1 was filmed.  I adore Greece - we've been going there on holiday since 1984 and no-where compares to it. 

Hubby and I always wanted to retire there but sadly I don't think that's ever going to happen - for one thing how could we choose just one beautiful Island over another though, if we were pressed, our favourite is Paxos.

Today though I have done a layout on Skopolos.  The beauty of not being with SU anymore means that a whole world of products has opened up and I've just found Kaisercraft.  I adore these papers and although at the moment I only have two packs to my name I'm loving them.  So I was delighted to find they actually have a challenge blog and this month's challenge is a sketch. Click Here to be taken to their blog.




Wow - just Wow - so much in here to challenge me.  And as they ask you to use at least 80% of their products I was a bit limited but I did my best.

I've used two Kaisercraft packs here - the first one is the absolutely gorgeous Memory Lane pack with those beautiful mint colours.  The second one is The Lake House collection.  I've added some of their Alphabet stickers too in Natural and a star stamp and some stars from my collection.  Safe to say I think I need more stuff!