A shameless "Paige-Lift"

I printed this photo from the John Lewis Partnership website. This is my sister Natalie, proudly modelling some posh Waitrose cheese on the Deli where she works. We've been teasing her about being the face of Waitrose as her photo appeared on the front page of the site. (We tease her, but we are all actually incredibly proud of how well she is getting on at work ;0). 

This LO is an shameless scrap lift of a LO Paige completed for the WCC Challenge. I was looking for a bit of inspiration for what to do with my photo. I had picked my Waitrose colour inspired cardstock and papers but didnt quite know what to do with them. This has turned out perfectly. I embellished with a crown from the On Board Mix and Match set from Stampin' Up!. The colour scheme is Old Olive and Night of Navy. Note sure where the papers are from. They were just tucked away in my paper stash. And I finally got to use my Colour Spritzer Tool on the background of the LO (I do so love splodging ink everywhere!)

This is my creation for the Week 41 Wight Craft Circle challenge- Space. I do have difficulty leaving large areas unembellished on my LOs. And I did still have to splodge a fair bit of Night of Navy around on the Old Olive. But I'm really pleased with how it has turned out ;0) Thank you for the inspiration P.

-XXX-

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

I know I said this before. But I am loving following these sketches. For someone who had been suffering with serious scrapbookers block I now have 3 new pages in my album that I love ;0) And to top it all off, my last weeks LO was included in Shimelle's round up of peoples sketch interpretations, see here. That made me smile all day when I saw it as it gave me a bit of a confidence boost.

I've kept this weeks LO quite simple. I thought the sketch lent itself quite nicely to letting the papers and photos tell the story. I've had a stack of photos in my photo folder from my year in New York and I've not really known what to do with them. But when I saw the sketch was for two 4x6 pictures I instantly knew which two pictures to use. I just love all old style street lamps like those in the photos. I have so many pictures that I have taken around New York and Central Park of just the street lights. So now I can finally document this love. I had such a fun day the day I took the photo of my NY friends Francesca and Lizzo swinging round a lamp post. It used to be one of our favourite Sunday post-brunch activities (not quite as exciting as the Toys R Us Ferris Wheel though)- walking round Central Park come rain, snow or shine ;0)

-XXX-

Mum's Birthday Cards

It was my Mum's birthday yesterday so I thought I would share a couple of hybrid Cricut/Stampin' Up! Birthday cards my sister and I made.

For the first card I used my favourite Sweet & Sour Papers to layer up the Hibiscus image. I also used Rose Red and Pumpkin Pie cardstock for the letters and main card base. I accessorised with Basic Rhinestones and Crystal Effects.

 The second card was made by my sister using Pear Pizzazz, Tempting Turquoise, Garden Green & Wild Wasabi (although you can hardly tell the difference between the last two greens in this photo!). We covered the Wild Wasabi turtle shell with Crystal Effects (I seem to be using this a lot at the mo). The flowers are from a US Stampin' Up! DSP stack. I've got my fingers crossed we might see these in our catalogue soon.

Thanks for stopping by. Just wanted to share how I've been using my Christmas pressie and putting my SU stash to very good use.

If you have any questions, or if you would like to take advantage of my Free P & P offer (above), please do not hesitate to get in touch: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 07830 343830.

Happy crafting ;0)

Sale-A-Bration Good Luck

Been working on a few cards and LOs this evening. I made this card for two colleagues who are leaving the office next week. Wanted to make something from the office to wish them well with their new venture.

For this I used Wild Wasabi, Concord Crush and Pear Pizzazz (including the In Colour DSP stack). I also used the Punch Bunch and So Happy For You Sale-A-Bration stamp sets for the owls and sentiment. (The red is my table cloth and not part of the card!)

If you'd like any further info about Stampin Up or Sale-A-Bration, please do not hesitate to get in touch: poulton_sarah@yahoo.co.uk or 01983 609249.

Happy Crafting ;0)

-XXX-

Sale-A-Bration Blog Hop

Well here is my first contribution towards a blog hop. I've seen so many and been inspired by projects I've seen on others that when the post went up on In Love With Stamping about a Sale-a-Bration themed hop, I couldn't resist joining in. So hello to everyone joining in and to everyone that has arrived here from Julie's blog, Julie's Japes. For regular readers of my blog, you will probably understand my excitement at being next in the hop from Julie as I have linked to her blog many times previously. She was a huge inspiration to me when I was starting out as a Demonstrator and she is incredibly creative (if you're reading this Julie, a big thank you to you!).

So here are my Sale-A-Bration creations:

A 6x6" mini scrapbook page using the 'Bliss' SAB set. My colour combo is Not Quite Navy, Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzazz and Poppy Parade (with a touch of Peach Parfait thrown in for good measure). I used paper from the In Colour DSP stack and accessorised with flower brads from the Brights collection. To finish off I added texture/dimension by covering my letters (cut on my Cricut) with Crystal Effects. For this page I tried to pick up on the colours of the watermelon and use this as the colour theme. And 'Bliss' just about sums up how my dog looks when she is eating a treat like this ;0)

 A mini desk calender using 'Bliss' and the In Colours. I used the stamp off/stamp on technique to give the faded image effect on the pages of the calender. This colour combo is one of my favourites: Peach Parfait and Pear Pizzazz. DSP from the In Colour stack. Accessorised with Regals brads, self adhesive Pearls and Gems.

Thank you all for stopping by. Now click on over to Hayley's blog for the next step in the hop.

Happy crafting ;0)
-XXX-

Shimelle's Sketch of the Week

Over on Shimelle.com the latest Scrapbook Sketch of the Week has been posted and I had the luxury of a night all to myself. So I decided to sit down with my Christmas photos and have a go at the sketch. Once again having the sketch as a prompt really helped to get me into a scrapbooking frame of mind.

I loved this sketch as it allowed me to use this gorgeous paper. I've had this for a while and not known what to do with it as I didnt want to cover the bird. So this was perfect. Having recently packed up all my Christmas accessories and embellishments and put them away for next years Journal Your Christmas, it was quite a treat to get them out again so soon and craft with them again ;0)

This also fits beautifully with the Wight Craft Circle's Week 44 Challenge to create a Christmas LO. I've got so many copies of these photos that I'll probably be scrapping them in some variation all year. But they are so joyful that I cannot resist keep using them.

Thank you for stopping by and happy crafting.

-XXXX-

My new weekly project

My Mum gave me this lovely Paperchase Kraft 10x10 album a few months ago. I decided to save it to start a weekly 2011 journal. I loved Journal Your Christmas so much and knew I'd miss the routine of regular journalling. Plus when it came to journalling about 2010 I found my memory failed me so I wanted to keep a regular picture and word journal of this year. And the bonus of it will be that it'll remind me to take more photos. I am going to keep my embellishments simple and try to create more one layer pages so as to not overload the binding (and hopefully it'll sit nicely on my bookcase).

So here it is. I inserted an acetate page in first for my title page. I used the Stampin' Up! Sweet & Sour Papers for my title pages (I so love this colour combo! I would never have put Rose Red and Pumpkin Pie together). I punched a circle from the lower right of the acetate and created a window for the '2011' of the title. You can also see I'm getting to grips with my new Cricut ;0)

 I backed the title page acetate with another layer of Sweet & Sour DSP and inserted a recent photo (Christmas Day) of me. I dont usually like to scrapbook photos of just me. But I wanted to use a recent image of myself just so I have a point of comparison for when I look back at the end of the year. This is me playing with my Christmas Cricut on Christmas Day. Please note how I tried to colour match my top with the scrapbook page *lol*. 

 This is my intro page and my plans for the journal.

And here is my first photo page (using the retired Night and Day SU DSP). This reflects how my family and I welcomed in the New Year sending our 2011 wishes into the sky on Chinese Lanterns. I used this sketch on Shimelle's website as the inspiration for this LO. Using the sketch really got me into a scrapbooking frame of mind again. I did use quite a few layers of paper for this LO (and i would have LOVED to have used some of my new chipboard shapes but could not layer it up too much! I definitely learned that lesson with my JYC! I have 50 more weeks to scrapbook so I cannot afford to overfill the album). I wanted splashes of colour to reflect the flames of the lanterns. I didnt use all the elements of the sketch. But enough to make me happy with my LO.

I did create another page which was solely journalling (I spiralled my journalling out from the centre of the page). However, it was all a bit personal for photographing. Its so therapeutic writing it all down and putting it out there. Fingers crossed for 50 more pages of excitement and a great year ahead......

Happy crafting all

-XX-